These aren’t my words, but I’ll be citing them for a long time to come. The mother of a piano student and I were marveling over the way in which time seems to speed up once your children hit a certain age, and without pause she offered this lovely, succinct sentiment. To hear it put so correctly, so simply, it gave my heart a bit of relief. It felt good to identify the phenomenon so easily. Because it is absolutely so true. You hear phrases like these in your younger years and think, ‘yeah, I suppose that makes sense’, but until you’re there, you just can’t fully get it. Now that I’m arriving here myself, man do I get it.
Those days and nights of sippy cups and car seats, naptimes and baths – the stuff that seems to go on and on without respite – all of that comes to an end before you’re fully aware that it has… And then, in what seems like only a few more minutes, you wake up to the reality one day that your child simply doesn’t need you as they once did. But that’s just the beginning. Then the landscape continues to change in new and unfamiliar ways… Your child is almost directly at eye level with you now, and it won’t be long… That mysterious change takes place at some point in adolescence when the child takes on a different look; the very essence of the young child has somehow disappeared, magically morphing into a young adult.
What exactly tells us this change has happened? What tiny contours have appeared that weren’t there before? How can such subtle shifts represent such a big change? I see my students as they grow during that mysterious passage from ten to fourteen and I am continually amazed by the process. Elihu and I attended the local high school graduation ceremony in late June and my mind was blown as I watched nearly a dozen kids who I’d known for the past eight years cross the stage in cap and gown, now indisputably young adults. I know this is happening now with Elihu, and I find myself daily readying my heart for the next couple of years. In perusing this blog I see a nearly endless childhood, a mother and young son moving through the world as a unit, discovering things together. But I know that our future story will soon become very different in its nature. That’s good, that’s fine, it’s all as it should be. I know. But still…
For the past month, the world has been doing what it does so well…. Offering up daily distractions, projects, serendipitous events, the shifting of gears and moving on to the new. At this point my son’s been with his father in Chicago for over a week, and I am settling into my annual basement organizing effort. I pour through piles of paper memorabilia, and as always – perhaps even more so because of my distilling sentimentality for Elihu’s quickly passing youth – I am beset with more crap than I have room for. I find letters to me in a child’s hand, sketches of birds and airplanes, tiny shells and rocks once stuffed into pockets in order that we might remember…. I am bound by these worldly anchors, and I am bogged down. Making decisions is more than difficult. I wonder: This can’t be how everyone else lives, can it?
I see photos on my hard drive of the field next to our property, the one in which we’ve chased woodcocks and flown kites for the eight years in which we’ve lived here. There is a physical ache when I open them now, as I know that within months a house will stand in that space, and a family of seven will spill over onto the open acres that we once thought of as belonging to the birds and the two of us alone… We always told ourselves that this was coming one day, it’s just that we never really seemed to believe it. It’s not the worst thing that could happen – we know this – but still, it hurts our hearts with a slow, deep burn.
It’s not my intention to sound whiny, it’s not that I mean to complain, because I have it good. I know I do. It’s just that nostalgia tugs at me and keeps me from moving forward. It prevents me from throwing out hand-written letters and ancient concert programs. This summer, as with so many summers before, I find myself struggling to let go of my past in order to move into my future. It feels as if I am holding onto the line that tethers me to the shore because the vast expanse of water ahead is just too frightening to comprehend.
I’ve hired an organizer to come and help me make the hard decisions. She’s come before and has been a great help to me. For me, she is a lifeline. This has to stop, and I need outside help. I cannot keep saving, accruing, collecting – and looking back. My brother is a hoarder of the highest order, my mother likes to make passive-aggressive stabs at me for “throwing everything out” and yet my father’s office is still piled high with paper two years after his death. I cannot go down this path like the rest of my family. Jesus wasn’t kidding when he warned us not to put so much emotional such stock into the physical crap here on earth, which he reminded us will ultimately become moth food or rust…
Today I will try to be bold, I will remind myself that these artifacts are not the memories themselves. In casting off the keepsakes I remind myself that I am not losing the experiences, nor am I losing the love of those with whom I shared those memories. All of those experiences are still inside of me. And no matter what the future brings, no one can ever take away the memory of a small boy running joyfully across a bright, sunny field…
Life is chugging away for us here, full of projects and deadlines and the usual related stress, but our life has also been filled with the many seasonal and traditional delights which we look forward to all year; those which help to lighten our load at a time when the world begins to press in on us. Finally it is Lily of the Valley time. Finally, the beautiful apple tree outside our door is at its fragrant and colorful peak. And finally, Elihu and I may walk the side of the road and harvest fiddleheads for our supper. With our birthdays both just past, this is the magical week of the year in which life seems to take a breath in, and everything hangs, suspended, in a rare, timeless window as we enjoy the forgotten corners of our property, noticing the tiny miracles around us with new eyes.
So many wonderful things have happened since the last post, and also, many challenges have popped up in their midst. I suppose we’re lucky to have had our precious, private moments alone here at the Hillhouse, and I’m very aware that any problems with which we are beset are most certainly first-world concerns, so at the end of the day, my complaints are not dire. And yet, being for the moment without water as we are, it is tempting to want to pout and wonder why us? Why now? Mech. A couple five gallon buckets will flush just fine, and for now we’ll just have to buy a bottle or two of Saratoga water at our local Stewart’s Shop so we can brush our teeth and make tea. Things are not so bad. I should like to say at this time that I have never taken our toilsome pump for granted. It’s done what it could, and now we have come to the point we just hoped would never arrive. But so we continue, just one more inconvenience added to the list of life that never ends…*
Where to start? Personally, I’m still feeling as if it’s just me toting the barge where the Studio is concerned, but that’s not entirely true. Artist and friend miChelle has stepped up, offering her art for our summer open house in June. Along with her modern sculpture and paintings we’ll be featuring a local jazz pianist – as well as the middle school jazz ensemble which he coaches, and in which Elihu plays string bass. It’s the promotion that’s hanging me up – that’s never been my strong suit, but there’s no avoiding it. Thankfully another board member has also made her design help available to me this week, and that lifts a huge weight off of me. This will be a week of posters and email campaigns. One hurdle at a time. One crisis, one jam session, one flock of chicks in the living room, one tuba lesson at a time, somehow, I’ve made it this far. I’m beginning to think that things might just be ok.
A few months ago, Elihu’s teacher put an envelope in my hand which contained an application to a residential summer science program at a prestigious local technical college. It had looked interesting, and I thought if Elihu didn’t get in, the process of getting transcripts together, soliciting letters of reference and writing essays might be a good learning experience on its own. At the very least, it would be good preparation for the college process which lay head. Why not give it a try? Although it had seemed pretty straightforward, the application did become a brief source of stress and teenage drama in the household, and when I personally delivered the completed package to the Dean’s office, it was a great relief to us both. But afterward, life quickly moved on, and the whole thing fell to the back of our minds. Until the other day, when I found a large envelope in the mailbox…
I was good, I waited til the kid came home. I poured myself a glass of wine – on the ready to take the edge off of our loss, or… Elihu opened the envelope, and the first word we both saw was “Congratulations!” I had no idea how this sort of thing felt. I had gone to a college which had no entrance requirements save a high school diploma; the world of academic success was completely foreign to me. Furthermore, my son goes to a school which is itself structured in a way unlike all other schools; no tests or grades are given to mark and measure progress. That my son is doing well in math or science still seems rather subjective to me. But here was at the very least a measure of his potential… I couldn’t help but wonder if it wasn’t simply his teacher’s glowing letter – or even Elihu’s own words, which ended with “I dearly hope you’ll choose me to participate…” No matter – success was his! Or maybe – dare I say ours? I do not wish to claim that which I did not earn – but surely, I will accept a nomination for Supermom, Spring of 2016. Tears came to my eyes immediately – but to my chagrin there was no moment of close bonding to follow… “I have to call Daddy!” he said with urgency, and without a second of hesitation – he didn’t even stay long enough for his eyes to even meet mine – he dashed off to his room. So instead, I enjoyed a glass of wine by myself at the kitchen table, basking in this new and wonderful feeling of accomplishment and success.
Sundays are a day of lugging and loading. Mornings start with a tuba lesson (on the second floor!) and end with a jazz ensemble rehearsal which requires a string bass. It goes without saying that both must first be unloaded and returned to their proper resting place before the other can be loaded up. That and the lugging of 5 gallon buckets of water, plus the lugging of a dead porcupine (whose roadside death we mourned, but whose body will hopefully entice the local turkey vultures to pay us a visit) have me feeling that I am earning my keep and more (not to mention the upkeep of an increasingly stinky flock of young chicks residing in our living room). None of it is lost on my dear child, who does what he’s able and works to make sure all that lugging is for good reason. I have this kid’s back, yes – but in all honesty, he has mine too. We hosted our first jam session at The Studio last week, and thanks to his great ear and true love of playing music, we were able to pull it off. I enjoyed my secret dream of playing drums (oh so rudimentary but rock solid are my beats) and got to see how it all might work. And it did. But without Elihu, it wouldn’t have. He knows how important he is. I thank him. (I also remind him that if he likes to eat – then he’s gotta play. !)
Last night we took ourselves out to dinner with the last of my tax return. It certainly wasn’t a justifiable expense – but each year we have a tradition of Elihu having frogs’ legs for his birthday dinner. Although mom had taken us out the weekend before for steak – a great treat to be sure – Elihu was still jonsein for his all-time favorite. I had told him that we probably wouldn’t go this year, and he’d accepted it ok, so when I suggested we go to the Wishing Well he yelped with delight. This kid had earned it. And truly, we both had such a great time. As usual, tables around us arrived, ate and left several times over by the time we’d finished our dinner. Elihu and I like to linger. We enjoy talking, we enjoy savoring and taking our time. We don’t like plates cleared until the very last moment. I don’t know how I got so lucky. Until this kid no longer cares for my company – or heads off to college – who needs a date? I know of no one whose company I enjoy more…
After supper we joined our friend Rob at the piano. He ran to his car to get a pair of brushes – which he told Elihu would sound really good on the resident bongos – and I played a couple of tunes while he was gone. When Elihu got the brushes in hand he and I did a couple of blues tunes. He sounded great – the brushes allowed him to swing in a new way, and I gave him a couple of breaks in which to stretch out. That was a memorable night for me; I can’t forget the way he looked at me – he was smiling ear-to-ear in the most delighted way I’d ever seen. It’s an experience that musicians sometimes have when they’re playing together and when things just sound and feel so good… And to share this kind of moment with my own kid? Man, that was a gift. I’m pretty sure he felt the same way too. We had even laughed out loud as we played. Later, when we finally said our goodbyes to our friends at the restaurant and headed out into the dark, spring night, we were both in such a happy mood. We walked to the car in the cool, softly scented air, coasting in the afterglow of a wonderful night out. Friends, music – and frogs’ legs too? Wow. Perfection had been achieved.
On the way home from the Wishing Well it began to rain, and I obliged Elihu’s plea to search out some frogs who would certainly be hopping across the roads by now. We popped in his very favorite polka CD and made a detour down winding Braim road. Our search turned up only one frog, who he deposited into our tiny garden pond when we got home. Our moods remained cheery and spirited by the fresh rainfall and the wonderful night out… Elihu retired to his room to read, and something prompted me to pick up my accordion – after years of having let it languish in the corner – and I soon found myself standing on the kitchen steps, under the awning, playing a polka out into the velvet-black night (by some small miracle our neighbors were all gone, and the lights were out in all directions – a very rare thing these days – an absolute gift from the Gods, I was convinced!). Somehow, I found those left hand buttons as I hadn’t since before my son was born. My accordion was the only other sound besides the rain; the melodies punched through the darkness and echoed out through the hilly woods. And oh, what a sound. What a feeling. What a night.
That was only a week ago at this writing, and yet it seems many months have gone by since then. So very much has filled our weeks – another week of students, school, tuba and bass, chickens, friends, errands, pets, excursions and all the mortar of life which fills in every available space in between. My friend Beth has more than solved my design quandary – she’s lifted The Studio to a whole new level with her graphic gifts… Her infusion of time, energy and enthusiasm has reinvigorated my own, and right now, I’m beginning to feel like I’m not all alone in this (save good old mom, who at the end of the day is always filling in the monetary gaps. I cannot wait til I can relieve her of this burden for good. Guilt is all I feel these days on that front. !)
Things will be changing here soon. I realize that the magical country life we’ve enjoyed til now will change a bit. Nothing’s changing overnight, and we will always be who we are, we will always live where we do – but our routines change, the landscape will change, the scope of our world will enlarge – most of this is good and welcomed. But I’m a sentimental gal, and I’ll always remember our simple, early days here with fondness. Maybe we’ll be able to preserve some of that as we move into our future. Yeah, I think we will. But inevitably, some things won’t be the same. That’s the nature of life. Things change. Things evolve. Kids grow up. And thirty-somethings become fifty-somethings. ! But thankfully with all the change come those surprises that make us forget the tiny heartbreaks. It’s exciting to think of what’s yet to come. And it’s that sense of anticipation that takes the edge off of the loss of what is no longer.
As I write this I think of Crow Field… I haven’t even mentioned the field yet… The huge field that lies just outside our window – the one in which we search out Woodcocks, fly planes and kites, and in general love and enjoy every day of our life here – it will become someone’s suburban backyard by summer’s end. A large house is going up in the field which we have come to think of as our very own. Of course the field is not ours, and we’ve known for years now that every year we have had the field there for us to enjoy was a very precious thing. Elihu broke out sobbing – and even began to shout and swear – when he learned that it had been sold. When I told him I’d found the ribbon marking off the house’s footprint, he told me he felt sick.
We’re acclimating slowly to this new idea of a big house in the big field. Slowly. It still seems as if it will never happen, but that’s how we felt about the ‘new’ house at the end of our driveway; and it did finally arrive. And as kind as the neighbors are, their windows are without curtains and their lights and sports bar-sized tv can easily be seen in our house. I so wish they’d consider window treatments. Hell, I wish they’d think of us – and realize that their light interferes with our space… But they don’t, and that has me worried the new neighbors won’t either… I suppose we’re damned lucky to have the space we do, so I try to keep it all in perspective and just keep going. After all, we live on a generous lot, we have room to run, room for a flock of chickens and a pretty nice view out the window. And we have a hell of a lot to look forward to with The Studio too; we are embarking on a new era, and things will only get more exciting in the coming years. Of this, finally, I have no doubt. Elihu and I will try our best to accept the loss of our field, as we welcome in the new friends we’re about to meet on our path. “Things”, as Martha Carver would say, “always work out”. Ok, Martha. Gonna to have to trust you on this one.
May has but one week left – and Lordy what a lot we’re planning on packing into it. This post itself is also rather jam-packed and I apologize if it’s too much. Skip stuff as you need (maybe I shoulda said that at the beginning!). Not having had the time to make weekly posts, this is something of a catch-up effort. Next time shouldn’t be such a novel. The photos that follow are also voluminous. Skip it all if you like. Those, like me, who enjoy voyeuristic windows into other people’s lives will enjoy; those who meant only to pass a few idle moments on their phones will either be long gone by now, mildly annoyed or checking out at this point. ! A tidier post to follow next time, I promise…
*(At the end of this writing we learned it was merely a broken switch – and not the whole water pump – which needed replacing. The greatest relief I’ve known in a long time, all thanks to our angel/neighbor – Zac? Nope. This time it was his father! We had help from absolute royalty, I tell ya. I do not know where we’d be without the timely help that family has given us through the years. !!!)
We started the month by launching Elihu into his teen years…
Elihu’s Hess biplane takes off from the cake’s runway, aglow with candles for runway lights…
The entertainment at Elihu’s birthday parties has always been the hatching of chicks.
This year, one hatched in my hand.
Here they are at different rates of drying off… Fuzzier ones are about 3 hours old, wet ones a mere 3 minutes old, and sometimes still trailing their shells and egg sacs behind.
Chicks are cute, but the trampoline is always the #1 hit here at the Hillhouse. (Eternal thanks to Karen H!!)
A quick smooching of Athena before heading to school the next morning.
On May 2nd, this is what Spring looks like here.
Driving to school in the morning, we savor that vast, beautiful field while we still can. We’ve passed so many hours in that field together, with much hilarity involved. Elihu invented his Monty Python-inspired athletic events ‘Tussock Jumping’ and ‘Bramble Dodging’ in our crazy cavorts across the uneven terrain en route to visit neighbors on the other side of the field.
When I return home from driving Elihu to school, I am always welcomed by my beloved flock.
Each night, Elihu takes time to bond with the chicks, who will stay in our living room for a few weeks.
Weekends mean tuba lessons.
How lucky is this kid? He loves his teacher, and his teacher has chickens. ?!!? (Plus Mike lives only 10 minutes from us. That is more than amazing. !)
First, Mike plays along with Elihu on his warm ups.
And now, Elihu’s first-ever tuba duets with one of Mike’s six children. Afterward he remarked on how well she played. I added “yeah, and she’s really pretty, too.” Replied my low-vision (but not blind!) son, “Yeah, I noticed that.” !! She’s the same age too. Crazy. Two tuba-playing, chicken-owning kids just a couple of miles down the road from each other. Wow.
Later on that same day…
A bunch of middle school kids who are playing jazz. Ok, now this happens only 5 minutes from our house. Again, how lucky are we? The word “very” comes to mind over and over. And thank you John Nazarenko, for making this happen. Elihu is enjoying this beyond any musical experience he’s had thus far. (I know 13 year-olds don’t like to be called ‘cute’, but hearing these kids doing tunes like “Song for my Father” and “All Blues” is just that. Sorry. Next year they might be hip. But not yet. Today, they remain cute.)
These two kids really seem to play well together – and Elihu tells me W has a peculiar sense of humor too. This may be the start of a great friendship…
Post-rehearsal, Elihu’s in front of Zankel Hall, checking his phone for all those jobs that will surely be coming in by now….
Dad’s office, with the Steinway in the background. During his lifetime, this room was mainly taken up with harpsichords. Now that the piano is moving to the Studio, only my old suitcase Rhodes remains.
May 7th. Birthday of Brahms, Tchaikovsky and…. Elizabeth Conant! And what a birthday gift is this!
The Studio before…
…and The Studio after.
A Steinway at The Studio! Woo-hoo! This changes everything.
Ah, but the birthday girl herself has some schlepping to do… First jam session tonight… gotta get the room set up and ready… Aren’t I getting a bit too old for this?!?
Hillbilly load-in begins.
Sketchiest move I’ve ever made. Man, I guess I am getting tired. Or old. Or both.
Thanks to the assistance of kind and always-smiling Alex at the guitar store, the room is now set up! Now that was a most appreciated birthday present. Thanks for the help!!
In early May, the trees are still rather bare.
It arrived in a big envelope. I admit, that alone had my heart racing just a bit…
Wow! What a surprise was this!! Personally, I can’t remember ever receiving an acceptance letter. And so I live vicariously through my child. ! RPI will be a chapter unto itself, no doubt…
The chicks are still cute and fuzzy, and things are feeling very happy around the house.
On Mother’s Day, Elihu plays a little music for grandma…
…and then proceeds to ‘intentionally not smile’ in a posed picture – something which bugs mom to no end. (He says he merely wants to ‘be taken seriously’ when having his picture ‘formally’ taken.) Btw – can you believe my mom is 81? I don’t think she looks it. Do you?
Mother’s Day ended with an E and E selfie with chick. This, we hope, will be the rooster to take up Baldy’s post one day.
In early May, the chicks still live in a box in the living room. See how one is now perching on the edge? This tells us they’ll be moving to the garage soon. When they can fly – it’s all over. (That’s Elihu’s bass recorder on the left. People always ask us what it is.)
Friend and chord/melody style guitarist, Dan comes over for a bit of rehearsing. Hope we’ll be playing together this summer – if I can ever find the time to learn some new tunes. ! He’s been patient with my crazy schedule. More than grateful to finally have a guitar player to work with.
This is what happens when siblings take lessons together. One must always provoke the other. Little Coco is ready to strike with a subtle, but annoying tap on the shoulder of her big sister. !!
Oscarina, the large and lighter-colored fish at the bottom is a Koi, and is growing rapidly. Thankfully, she will now be residing in the prestigious local arts colony, Yaddo. The move went off without a hitch and we can visit her anytime we like. Yay!
We’re off to the Wishing Well for a fancy schmancy dinner. If we had our druthers, we’d eat like this once a week!
The heavenly scent of Frogs’ Legs. Unique to this establishment.
A dark selfie. So few pics of we two.
Rob plays piano here – a lot! I got to take up his post for a few minutes and enjoyed playing with my son on drums. A wonderful night all the way ’round.
Finally the weather’s right for painting The Studio!
Keith Sr. is doing some much-needed restoration too. It’s been decades since the exterior’s had any attention. Phew!
Keithie Jr. paints on the crew along with dad. Elihu and Keithie went to Kindergarten through 3rd grade together. No matter how different their life paths, that kind of bond made so early in life will always last.
Keith is maturing just a wee bit faster than my own child. Ya think? All in due time…
Another week’s passing and the green is really starting to show now…
Which means the apple tree is reaching its finest hour!
My cherished Lily of the Valley is finally here too!
As is the flowering quince (which appears more of a salmon or coral shade than in this pic).
In future Springs, this view will include a large house in the background. We are both still in a deep state of disbelief as our hearts ache with the loss.
Thankfully, other delights distract us. Elihu and I stood among the branches of the apple tree and enjoyed the constant hum of bees, flying hither and yon, as they visited every possible blossom. It was crazy the sound they made. Quite loud, and a resonant, almost single pitch.
Crazy cowbird, goofy guinea fowl.
Outside our kitchen window the red bellied woodpecker visits the platform feeder when the suet is gone.
Elihu takes a peek, but the woodpecker gets the feeling he’s being watched.
Outside, our two resident males hang out in the morning sunshine. Rooster, Bald Mountain is caught here mid-crow. Austin, to his left, is our crazy-ass Guinea Fowl. Never let it be said that birds do not have distinct personalities. !!
And chickens do have favorite foods too – pink apple blossoms are one of em.
Feeding frenzy.
Comic relief. And some serious attitude, too. !
We hope this will be the new resident roo one day…
…Cuz this old boy’s not gonna last forever. Poor Baldy, he limps when he walks, he sits whenever possible, and he only fertilized two of sixteen eggs this year. Yeah, he’s pretty much lost his mojo. But we love him still.
We saw this wonderful creature – the turkey vulture – just down the road. Having just passed a dead porcupine, we got an idea…
Out with the tuba, in with the poor dead creature.
Wow, sixteen pounds. Impressive!
We were sad to see she had been nursing a litter. We laid her to rest in our yard so that we might entice the turkey vulture and then watch it do its thing from our kitchen window.
Elihu picks up Christie, the stand-in for Thumbs Up, as she is the only truly friendly hen remaining.
A mutt of a hen (Araucana, Barred Rock and more), she lays olive green eggs.
Elihu carries Christie back to the house…
… and Pumpkin follows him back. (“Our” field is behind the row of trees.)
This is what the end of a weekend looks like. Sometimes I want desperately to run far, far away….
…until we settle back into our groove at home. Then everything is once again right with the world.
Lilacs uplift us too.
And look! It’s my long-lost accordion. I’ve left it out now to show my students (and to try to relearn all I’ve forgotten!) If an accordion doesn’t make things better, I don’t know what will!
It’s heavy, but it’s sparkly and loud, so who cares?
Usually a very trim, streamlined bird, this male brown-headed cowbird is showing signs of puffing…
…he’s mid-puff now… hoping to wow a mate he will rise to his full height and size while emitting an ultra-sonic high chirping which sounds like a video game….
bingo!
Inspired by the constant presence of birds in his life, Elihu, thankfully, occasionally finds time to draw birds. His love of drawing birds preceded all of his other, equally obsessive loves.
After supper we headed out to Caffe Lena for open mic. I knew Lena as a child, and so it makes me happy that Elihu continues to know this place as I did. (Bill Cole’s Woodwinds shop is just behind him – that’s where Bill kindly tweaked Elihu’s ‘beater B flat’ tuba and brought it up to speed. Great guy – kind, fair, and expert at what he does.)
“Good Folk Since 1960” is the slogan here. I can recognize a half-dozen artists at a glance whose shows I attended when I was Elihu’s age or younger.
Elihu has the ‘big kids’ laughing as he folds the performer’s entry cards into tiny origami cranes.
Before he plays, I want to make a pilgrimage to the men’s bathroom wall, upon which Elihu wrote at age 6 on the occasion of his first open mic. (It’s in red, and to the right and below the tree drawing.)
And here it is. Can ya read it? So sweet!
Tuning up.
These guys were fun. They gave the night the perfect bit of energy and humor.
But for me, this was the highlight of the evening…
I cut off the first line, as I was switching from camera to video… His first line was “I bought some instant water, I just don’t know what to add to it”. Steven Wright and Mitch Hedberg are obvious favorites of this kid.
An old house in Saratoga that for some strange reason always stuck in my mind as a child. I liked the crazy roof over the stairs on the front porch. When I was little, it appeared cozy to me. Now, it strikes me as sketchy. Just as well – it’s history now!
Ah, the impermanence of it all. There goes the cozy roof.
This little guy is next, I was told by the developer. Thankfully, the new structures will be aesthetically similar, or at least in keeping with the vibe of the neighborhood.
Modern Saratoga looms in the background.
This is the sort of thing that will replace the old houses. Not too bad. Could be much worse.
I’m something of a demo groupie. I can’t take horror movies, but rather I am drawn to the violent and animated quality of a back hoe claw. It seems almost sentient…
On the way home I pass a picturesque cottage just down the hill from me, and I see it with new eyes. How charming it is at this time of year when all the white apple blossoms are in bloom.
Look how much things have grown in just a week’s time! This is the “lightning tree” which Elihu and I visit each Easter, and around which he has made a small stone structure with rocks from the stone wall at the field’s edge.
Saturday in the park. Congress Park, that is. In the foreground at the right is the baby willow tree that I had planted in memory of Jamaican-born banjo player Cecil Myrie, who died in October of 2014. He invited Elihu to busk with him when Elihu was just 6, and Cecil gave him his first two dollar tip. Our lives changed that day. (Can you imagine how truly grand this tree will look at the water’s edge in a few decades? I’m thrilled that I was able to contribute to the landscape of this handsome and historic park.)
Not exactly a brass plaque, but it works.
The willow tree with war memorial in the background. Wait – who’s that guy in the yellow shirt?
Shoulda known. It’s my kid – and he’s carrying a duck. !
Elihu loves to share ‘his’ birds.
We are such scofflaws!
Sometimes it really is hard to believe this kid is legally blind.
Since Elihu can no longer rely upon the ‘cute’ factor when busking, he’s trying out some new material. It seems to be working.
This is how we recycle our paper (and wood scraps) in Greenfield. Afterward, the ashes get tossed into the woods, where, as we say in this family, they “Go back to God”.
It’s been said that the fastest way to take off ten pounds and a couple of years is a selfie taken from above. !
Under the moonlight, we discover hundreds of tiny, white violets that we’d never seen before, growing all across our lawn. How is this possible??
A flash reveals them.
We lay on our backs in the moonlight and pick the tiny flowers until the hour gets so very late… Sunday night, back to school hours, we can’t stay out forever…
After Elihu went to bed, I took a long, mournful look at the silhouette of the field which will most certainly be transformed by this time next year.
At the end of the evening, I had the field and the full moon all to myself. I savored the moment, as I try to do with as many moments in time as I can be present for, because you almost never fully realize what you’ve got – until it’s no longer there anymore. For now, all is well. And hopefully, no matter what happens down the line, we’ll find a way to embrace the changes as they happen, and find a way to savor all those future moments too.
Elihu became a teenager last week. We are roughly forty years apart in age – until I catch up with him tomorrow, on the seventh of May. Although there may be nothing particularly notable about turning 53, I can say that it does feel different to me. It feels as if 52 has been the year in which I transitioned into my 50s in earnest, and in some way, turning 53 feels kinda like I’m sealing the deal.
This has been the year in which I absolutely needed reading glasses, the year in which my knuckles doubled in size, the year in which my knee required a cortisone shot. This is also the year in which my neck officially ‘dropped’ – and, if you’ll please just believe me on this – my left earlobe acquired an actual wrinkle (earlobes actually wrinkle? Who knew?). Seriously, this is the kind of stuff that happens to other people, right? And teenagers – isn’t it just older people who are parents to those strange-looking, over-sized children?? I still feel as if I’m mother to a tender young child, and not mother of a young man who needs me – and cares about what I think – less and less each passing day. Middle school – let alone High School – has until now seemed a foreign, far-off world that I would likely never see again. And now, look. Here we are.
It’s not that I’m not excited by my son’s growing up. Honestly, I’m looking forward to all that lies ahead – but something deep and unnamed has been gnawing at me the over past few weeks, and I’ve been trying to clearly identify it. Yesterday, as I entered a meditative state brought on by folding an unending pile of clothes – it hit me. I finally put my finger on it. And somehow, although Elihu had agreed – and even enthusiastically so – to have me read to him from the Burgess Bird Book for Children last night (our Springtime tradition), I could tell that somehow it wasn’t as it had always been. Something unnameable was different. And now I was able to put words to it: My child was no longer spellbound by me. Yes, that was it. Until now, I’d offered him wisdom, understanding, perspective, even a sense of magic about the world…. But now, although he might still desire those things from me, everything I had to offer now was somehow more practical, less magical than it once was… It might have something to do with the fact that this year I bought him a rather substantial birthday present with which we needed some serious technical support. No longer could we dance around the ‘hows’ of his birthday gifts (in his tiny years it was “the Birthday Angel” who delivered them – in later years we simply never talked about it), but now we had to offer order numbers, purchase costs and other magic-squashing data. And in the process, an era had quietly come to a close.
A phrase that has danced about my consciousness for the past few years is “the bloom is off the rose”. The very saddest words in the whole world, to my ears, are “gone by”. Each Spring I await the magical, short-lived window in which the Lily of the Valley (my very favorite flower) come to bloom and full fragrance. When the mysterious small white bells begin to turn brown, my heart breaks in a tiny – but very real way. And then, I remember the annual mantra of the all-too-brief growing season: “the flowers have gone by“. And so I have come to observe a similar phenomenon of my fellow humans. With increasing concern I begin to understand the outward physical manifestations of the change of season of my peers – and those just ahead of me in the great mortal line. We ourselves are slowly ‘going by’.
There was a time when I wasn’t quite sure how to distinguish between decades – for a great portion of my life anyone over 40 was just plain in another world. They were fundamentally different from me. But now, existing on the other side of that subtle line, I find that I know what it is to be both them and me, and it is a slightly frustrating place in which to live. Personally, I have never truly “grown up” – and children seem to recognize this. I find that I may enjoy a bit more street cred with people decades younger than me than my own peers because of this, but still…. It is ultimately no consolation. I have reached the age at which kids will see a photograph of me from years ago and remark “No way… Is that really you?”. I can remember reacting the very same way when older friends had shown me pictures of their younger selves. I never gave a thought to their personal, inner reactions. Honestly, me, I don’t mind. But maybe, as I think or it, in some tiny way, maybe I actually do…
A lot of things are changing now. And many for the good. I cannot ever say that I will entirely make peace with crepey thigh skin or a sagging neckline, but I suppose I’ve had my time. And I certainly enjoyed it. And the time which I am entering into now would simply never have been possible all those years ago. So I suppose it really is true that things happen as they’re able; everything in its time and place.
Tomorrow morning, on my 53rd birthday, my father’s Steinway baby grand piano will be moved from mom’s house to The Studio. This is the biggest birthday gift of all. I’m sure that my dad is smiling on our progress, and very happy to know that the piano will live again. Tomorrow night we host our first community jam session, too. Elihu is employed as house bass player, I will fill in as needed on piano or drums. The piano won’t be in tune, and it is still a bit of a mystery as to how things will all turn out at the end of it all, but no matter what, we are underway. And this, in its own way, is a good way to mark the passage of time. My father’s era may have ended, and it still breaks my heart to even say so; but thankfully we have a whole new adventure to look forward to.
We’ve had a lot of fun mini adventures here lately. However, tempering the moments of fun and light come the inevitable moments of drudgery, the tasks fundamental to the maintenance of physical life here on this planet. There are very few idle moments around here, and while generally I’m thankful for the brisk pace and new experiences that we’re fortunate to enjoy, it’s the other crap that often puts me in a crabby mood. Taxes must be filed, applications for summer programs must be filled out, applications for tuition assistance, for heating assistance, for food stamps, for teaching proposals, for class descriptions, email addresses must be entered into the database, old ones culled, websites must be maintained, chickens, frogs and fish must be fed and cleaned up after. And a twelve-year-old boy always seems to be hungry. And don’t get me started about dust bunnies or laundry or leaf-filled gutters. Yeah, there is never an end to it all. And yeah, I’m grateful for all we have, but still…
It was my Uncle Paul’s birthday on March 31st, and in that my mother doesn’t keep up with her only sibling and family, I thought it might be a good idea to check in. My Uncle Paul had a stroke a few years back, and so his speech is slow – combine that with Aunt Sandy’s proclivity for endless small-talk and chatter, and poor Paul is relegated to a virtually speech-free existence. Thankfully, it being his birthday, Sandy passed the phone over to him and I had a brief exchange with my only living uncle. I heard him speak long enough to understand a certain gentle humor, as well as a fatigued sense of surrender. This was understandable, as I’d learned (this is a good example of how little my family members communicate with each other) that his daughter, my cousin Janice, had finally lost her battle with colon cancer last summer.
Summer before last I’d insisted that mom, Elihu and I visit the Jackson family, and now I was especially glad that we did. In spite of having virtually nothing in common with my newly re-met cousin, I’d liked her. She’d battled cancer for six years, ever-smiling, ever sweet of demeanor. I’d admired her for that alone. She’d even demonstrated her kindness to me in a thoughtful, hand-written letter at Christmastime. To learn she’d died was, although distantly sad, no deep heartbreak for me. Instead I felt relief for her – because she’d been through the wringer over the past few years, with six-hour commutes once a week for chemo treatments to the daily indignity of living with a permanent colostomy bag. But more than all of this, her death left me wondering once again at the deep level of chronic heartbreak with which so many of my fellow humans must live out their time here on earth. It should just notbe that a man should lose his physical faculties, live until old age, and then witness the slow death of his only daughter. Fuck that. No matter whether one believes in destiny, the wisdom of God’s choices or the necessity of working out karmic debt, seriously, how in hell does one make sense of this?
Recently, a local man went out for his nightly walk, suffered a fall, and subsequently died, alone, on the trail in the woods behind his house. His wife had gone to bed just as he had gone out for this routine stroll, and he had likely laid there on the ground, in the cold of night, long before he finally succumbed to his fate. A former president of local Skidmore College, mom told me that he once played harpsichord as part of an event at dad’s Baroque Festival in which five harpsichordists all performed… This morning, as I awoke fresh to a new day of possibility, my greatest challenges being tidying my home and feeding a growing boy, I remembered the news of this man’s death, and thought immediately of his wife. How must she be feeling on this very morning? She had laid sleeping in her bed as her husband, mere yards away, laid on the cold ground, dying. Man. It’s stuff like this that tempers my frustration with the toil of the everyday and helps to quiet my bitchy outbursts as I get back to this precious business of everyday life.
The other morning, on the way to school and in the absence of the usual polka soundtrack, Elihu began some intense existential rumination. He’d recently noted that every physical thing – outside the natural world, that is – had first existed in a person’s mind before it came to take form in physical reality. While I’d offered this concept to him in the past, apparently the corresponding light bulb moment had only just arrived. “So literally, we are living in other people’s minds. We live in the creations of other people’s thoughts!” He laughed, he shook his head in amazement. He had a half-dozen other threads of thought beginning to germinate too and he struggled to identify them. He’d begun to express his new ideas just recently on the long drive to Schenectady for a flying meet, and clearly in the five minutes of commute that remained there was little time to make headway with any of them. “Yeah, it’s true.” I summed up. “Every structure you see out the window existed first in someone’s imagination.” I paused for a moment, wondering how to bring the conversation to a tidy close. “It does take a while to get things physically manifested here on this physical plane, but in time, and with tenacity,” I said, as much to remind myself as to inspire my child, “just about anything can be realized.” He sat there, quiet, looking out of the window. He was clearly deep in thought, because he didn’t ask for me to turn on any polka music before we arrived at school.
The past few weeks have been a tangled flurry of life, death, simple pleasures and challenging tasks. So far, real heartbreak and tragedy are not ours personally, and for this we’re both appreciative. Elihu has recently met a gentleman that we readily refer to as his new flying mentor, and in the short time we’ve known him he’s already opened up a whole new world to us. So this particular adventure has begun, if you’ll pardon the pun, to take flight. ! From the lowest notes on Elihu’s C tuba to the ceiling of the Schenectady Armory, we’ve had some truly exhilarating experiences lately. And since one never knows when the whole affair may come crashing to a close, we’re savoring the whole shebang – we’re flying along on the current of our life, learning from the highs, the lows and all that stuff that fits somewhere in between.
Our weeks end on Sunday, which is tuba lesson day. Can you imagine that Elihu’s tuba teacher not only lives in our town, but he has chickens? (And goats and horses, and he built his own house, and he has six children – including a set of quadruplets – and he’s one of the best low brass players and teachers in the region. And he’s a super nice guy. Say what??)
Imagine a tuba lesson that starts like this. !!
Yup, Elihu is a lucky, happy boy.
Finally Elihu’s reading has gotten to the point where it’s not the focus of the lesson – but technique and sound are.
We went to the high school’s performance of Bye Bye Birdie, where, as our usual serendipitous good luck would have it, we enjoyed front row seats, in spite of our having arrived late. ! Elihu’s tuba teacher’s eldest daughter played trombone in the pit orchestra, as did an old friend. The fellow conducting and playing keyboards is the music teacher here; I use his classroom to teach my adult ed class entitled “Not Your Mother’s Piano Teacher”. Oh – and one of my piano students did the lighting. An extremely impressive production, as always. Truly, more than top-notch all the way around.
Later on we Skyped with some dear friends in France. Regular readers may remember young Lilas and her mother, Mary. Mary’s the daughter of old family friends from Greenfield – Mary’s mother was an actor and performed at my father’s Baroque Fest ages ago – so it’s nice to keep this connection. Mary also teaches at the Waldorf School there – so we’ve got that in common too.
I have new friends who’ve moved here from Sicily – and they kindly gave us this Easter treat. There’s a boiled egg baked inside! Apparently this is traditional in many European cultures, but for us it was a first.
It seems the Easter Bunny is still visiting the Hillhouse…
Which made one big kid very happy.
Since Elihu sees no color whatsoever, eggs need high-contrast decorations to stand out. Why the blue? you ask. To add some depth, I suppose. Also cuz I thought it was pretty.
A tradition for many years now (and which we skipped last year as he was with his father), we visited what we call “the lightning tree”. Every year Elihu adds a bit to the primitive stone structure at the base of the charred-out tree. I was happy to see the ‘mom and son’ cairns from three years ago had survived the wind and weather. We passed two hours there as if it were ten minutes. So much fun.
A closer look at the rocks… A winding hillside road is off to the left, the woods directly ahead and to the South, our house a bit off to Southwest, and the big field is just out of the frame to the right.
This tree hangs precipitously over the edge of a good fifteen foot drop to the road; you can see the pavement through the roots where the tree has been burned away.
During our fort-making we found several surprises…
Remainders of a time when this was all cow pasture and farm. We also found a garden rake and remnants of a small shack.
Heading home. There’s a break in the stone wall (which divides our property from the field) where the birch tree leans out. Just out of frame (sigh) and to the right is the new construction house, the sight of which still depresses us both.
Elihu regaled mom and me with some pretty funny new jokes during Easter supper.
While out and about I saw this license plate. !!
Got myself my biannual hair cut. Old friends have chided me for maintaining something of an ’80s’ hairstyle, but I argue that it’s best to work with what one has. Me, I’ve got curl. This is my perennial, scrunch-n-go favorite. Think what you will. It works.
Ah, the endless battle against the hardest water known to man. This stain was created in less than two weeks’ time. Yup. Many times it’s been posited that we should bottle the stuff and sell it. Saratoga Water – meh! How about some Greenfield Gold?
My favorite visitor to the platform feeder, our beloved guinea fowl, Austin. He is a real goofburger.
Elihu has a loaner C concert tuba at home (Ed, we can never, ever thank you enough!) and what we affectionately call a “B flat beater” tuba, which we own, and which is kept at school in order to prolong mom’s back health. !! My kid must play in two different tunings – me, I’m immensely impressed by that. Btw – musician joke digest: Guy hears the breaking of glass… Runs to his car…. Finds TWO tubas in the back seat…
We’re at the Schenectady Armory – the huge and gorgeous room where local model aircraft enthusiasts meet weekly to enjoy windless, indoor flying.
And this is Jesse. It’s safe to say that this man has forever changed Elihu’s life.
Jesse’s old school; he’s got a rubber band winder with a 1:15 ratio. That loads a lot of power onto the band. His crafts in flight are something rare to witness; as one circled gently around the room high over our heads on a nearly one minute-long flight, there was simply not a work spoken by anyone present. It is a thing of such magic and beauty that no comment can accurately express the delight one feels to watch as it soars…
Jesse even let Elihu fly some of his RC planes. A gentleman and a wonderful teacher, the trust he put in Elihu was a real gift. It enabled my son to finally get the feel of flying a plane.
Ok, this almost made my head explode. Elihu loves, loves, loves the German language, and of all things – there’s a German restaurant on the way home… So we stop in for a bite of bratwurst…
…and wait, you’re kidding me, right? There’s a friggin tuba player arriving just at the same time as us!!
This is what lil man has to look forward to… (Let me tell you – a soft case is a walk in the park compared to the hard case I move every Sunday!)
OMG – the charts are even in German. !!
An afternoon of flying followed by live polka music with a tuba player in a German restaurant?!?! WHAT? (Oh – and we learned later that Elihu and Jeremy the tuba player both study with Mike Meidenbauer!)
Recently The Studio was host to an event. A success I suppose, in spite of the fact that the host’s car got stuck in the mud and she needed a tow truck to get her out and now I gotta figure out how to fix the lawn. Sigh. Two steps forward, one step back… Overhead’s still killing me at the moment, but all in due time, I suppose…
Elihu donned his Grandpa Robert’s madras bow tie for his school Spring Assembly for the Waldorf School.
How I wish I had a better picture, but from way in the back this was the best I could do. Elihu and pal Drake performed a tongue-twister sketch which they wrote, the last line of which was “Fancy froggy fanciers feed my farmed, frivolous, furry, frightened, fluttering, flightless fruit flies to phyllobates frogs from Florida forests.” !
A bow-tied man is a man of good character, no matter the age. (The fellow on the left even plays tuba. !) A fine performance, and a fine conclusion to a fun and full couple of weeks.
Lately many things have been coming together for us here at the Hillhouse. My kid has finally found his people – he’s met the local RC flying club, and ever since he’s been happier and more hopeful than I have ever known him to be. Last week The Studio had its first-ever board meeting, and as regular readers will understand, this is a very big deal for me. So yeah, things are going well here. You might say that for the first time in a long, long while, the things that Elihu and I have been after finally feel like they’re within our grasp.
This is not to say that life is not without its hiccups and unforeseen challenges. Because they’re keeping pace with us as we move into our future. The arthritis in my hands has gotten dramatically worse over the past couple of months, so much so that I noticed the other morning that I can no longer make a fist with either hand. Also, my hands ache almost all the time. Last week I remember noticing that I felt ‘better’ in some way, but I wasn’t sure just how I felt better. I did a little scan of my body and came to realize that my hands did not hurt. For a few hours I soaked up how good it felt to be absent of discomfort. But the last couple of days my fingers have started hurting again, and in new places too.
This bums me out, of course, but I’m grateful for the technique I was taught all those years ago, because it’s what’s saving my ability to play at this point. I accepted the job of playing piano for the traveling Missoula Children’s Theatre again this year, but I admit that I hesitated. I knew I could play, but it wasn’t comfortable. But hell, I may as well play until I can’t. I still love playing music, and for now the reward outweighs the discomfort. Who knows – maybe my hands will plateau here for a while – maybe forever – and I can simply adjust to the new normal and put the concern aside. I wish I were able to forget the issue altogether, but every morning when my fingers hurt, and every time I drop something because I can no longer grip well, I admit that I worry. If things are like this at the age of 52, how will they be 20 years from now? I try to let it go, but still…
Elihu’s doing very well in everything except the odd math test, which continues to be something we need to keep an eye on. Although tutoring has sometimes seemed to me a last-ditch effort made by those doomed to academic failure, (maybe my own personal experience with high school algebra has had something to do with this idea!) we’ve decided to get him into an after-school program a couple days a week. The main reason for this is not so much to keep him up to speed – for he very much understands the subject – but rather he needs help showing his process on the page. Having low vision means that the kid tends to do a lot of stuff in his head – he reads a passage of music once and memorizes it, he sees a problem done once and memorizes the path to the answer, he hears a poem read once and can recite it back. He doesn’t see well, so his brain makes up for it in other ways. Which, in the case of math, isn’t always a good thing.
We wouldn’t even care quite so much if it weren’t for his interest in a two-week residential summer camp on nano sciences held at a local technical college which will require finely-honed math skills. The 250 word essay that Elihu must write to demonstrate his desire to learn will be a piece of cake. The rest will take a little brushing up. If Elihu is accepted, this will prove to be a life-changing summer for him. Me, I hope he gets in because it will finally give him an opportunity to negotiate his way through the world without an adult helping him at every turn. Vision problems? Trouble navigating across campus? You’re a smart kid, figure it out. It’ll teach him to realize when he needs help (which he hates to admit) and it’ll give him the opportunity to learn how to ask for help. As a mother who is there at every turn for her child and who goes to bat for him more than anyone else in the world, I can assure you that this kind of surrender is a real challenge for me. But I can see the lasting value it will have, and if the kid decides he’d like to go to college there, it’ll be less of an unknown. Plus, this campus is only a forty-five minute drive, and if he ever did truly need me, I could be there for him.
Yesterday my computer was hacked, my backup laptop was pronounced dead by the guy at Geek Squad, and I got two scary but bogus calls informing me that I was being investigated for tax fraud. The bizarre confluence of these events – all within an hour or two – was disarming. It also cost me the cushion of $100 I’d managed to pull together from a few recent lessons to have a tech team fix the problem and get me up and running again. It was a bit deflating, even in the face of all the recent good news. When shit hits the fan, even though I shouldn’t take it personally, I often do. Seriously, I am so fucking broke. Why me? I was just about to sink into a deep funk when perusing Facebook for some distraction, I heard the news that an old friend in Chicago had lost her home to a fire. She, her daughter and mother had made it out ok, and so did the many animals they have (they rescue and foster lots of critters), but they’re now living in a hotel, and lack all the basics one needs. I quickly gave the dregs of what was left in my combined accounts to the Gofundme page someone had set up for her. I stopped pouting and counted my blessings.
The whole afternoon I was trying to understand how something so tragic could happen to so good a person. And then I got a call from another friend – here in Greenfield – and learned that a twelve-year-old boy we knew had just died in an accident on his ATV. This kid was very close to Elihu’s childhood pal Keithie, and immediately I worried for our friend. Apparently, Keith was with the boy when he died. Man. His parents had gone through a very bitter divorce just a couple of years ago; his mother moved out, his dad’s young girlfriend moved in, and shortly thereafter a new baby arrived. And now this. Shit. After considering whether or not to share the news with Elihu or wait, I gave in and told him. We sat at the island in the kitchen for a moment and wondered at the unreality of the news. We sat and we sat, unable to comprehend it. Then, for a moment, we cried. How and why shit like this happens is impossible to justify or understand. All the ‘manifest your reality’ crap, and ‘it was meant to be’ sort of thinking just doesn’t come close to cutting it in situations like this. Whenever I feel as if I’ve had an unfair go of things, I step back for a moment and I can see how lucky and blessed I am. I know I’m not the only parent who tortures herself with visions of their child dying or tragedy befalling them in some ghastly way, but it’s things like this that breathe life into those fears all over again. You try to dismiss the concerns, you tell yourself those things happen to other people, but you know that however miniscule, the chances for catastrophe do exist. You can hold on as tight as you wish, but that’s still no guarantee that you won’t lose your grip on what you hold dear.
Today Elihu and I are enjoying a nothing day. It’s after five and neither one of us has gotten out of our pajamas, and likely we won’t be changing before bedtime either. Tomorrow morning he has his tuba lesson, so the day has been spent practicing, taking breaks to fly helicopters and visit with our rooster. A laid-back day in which the two of us have spent a lot of time on the couch, laughing, being silly and doing a whole lot of nothing. I drank it in. His still-high, young boy voice, his smooth, baby-perfect skin, his skinny boy legs, his undying love for me, all of it so very precious. Oneday, I tell myself, one day this will be a distant memory…. I savor every moment, I push away thoughts of Billy, his mother and father and all those who loved him so, and how acute their pain is at the very same moment that I am here enjoying the company of my own cherished son. I look at my sore, distorted knuckles, and I sigh. How closely intertwined are the good and the bad.
It seems this life is like a very challenging game in which the stakes are high, the potential for suffering great, and yet there is at the same time opportunity for great moments of love, happiness and joy. And when those precious times do come to us, we must hold on tightly while we’re able.
Drilling for gold – the maple sap variety, that is.
Hammering in the spile (a fancy word for tap).
The sap runs when the sun shines, it freezes up at night.
While I tapped the trees, Elihu flew paper airplanes from the trampoline. He is in absolute heaven when flying crafts of his own creation. (One is stuck in the top branches of the apple tree.)
A sure sign of Spring. How on earth do they do it? A hope-restoring sight.
Ah, a male Cowbird has returned. (I’ll be sure to share some of their crazy courting dances over the next couple of weeks.)
The boiling operation on the porch. Sadly, my weather-worn grill wasn’t hot enough so the job moved indoors, leaving my walls and stove coated in a sticky film.
The product of our labors! It’s a good feeling to eat pancakes made with your own eggs and topped with syrup from the trees right outside your window.
The Missoula Children’s Theatre’s ‘little red truck’ and The Studio’s ‘vintage CRV’.
The Missoula directors are amazing. They take 60 kids on Monday and have a fully produced, choreographed show with songs, dialogue, makeup, costumes, props and scenery up and running by Friday night.
Little Miss Coco, one of my piano students, has her turn at the makeup station.
Next-door-neighbor Ava listens to pre-show instructions.
The pit orchestra is ready…
Here they are! Samantha, center, in yellow, will soon be living in Martha Carver’s old farmhouse. Abby, on the left and looking over her shoulder, is another neighbor and piano student. Her house is a straight shot down the hill and through the woods from our place.
A fine production of Peter and Wendy (copyright issues prevent them from using “Peter Pan” as the title). I don’t know as many kids in the Greenfield Elementary School these days as I once did. Already many of my young friends whom I first met here are in high school now. The progress of time is hard to comprehend.
Elihu’s arsenal is assembled and ready for his first “Fly Jam”.
Finally, Elihu meets his brethren.
The Flying Tigers are directly in our flight path. Time to grab the controls and take to the air…
Elihu catches me dozing off with Bald Mountain on my lap.
Elihu works on his entrance essay for RPI while I give Baldie some attention.
Just look at that spur on Baldie’s left foot! He’s missing the other one, and we so wish he could tell us the story of how it happened. He’s defended the flock and been injured so many times. He’s a good rooster. He’s with us because one year at culling time Elihu decided he was too pretty to butcher, so he picked him up and hid him until we returned from the Amish farmer. I remember him busting up with laughter at how well he had fooled me. Glad he grabbed this handsome fella to be our homestead roo, because the Hillhouse wouldn’t be the same without him.
O degrees. True North. Everything starts from here.
This has been quite a week. Although on the exterior our life doesn’t appear to have changed much, beneath the visible surface of our everyday comings and goings the tiny eddies of life are swirling about us, tugging us along to join up with new currents on unknown trajectories. Serendipitous events fall into our path, questions and open-ended quandaries seem to solve themselves, and in spite of the tiny disappointments that tempt us to mope and wonder ‘why me?’, there seems to be a general lightening of our load; a new pathway through the woods is gradually emerging; our direction is becoming clearer.
(At this point let me warn readers that this may be an unusually lengthy post. Those who haven’t the time can check off a paragraph at a time or return later…)
Only this morning did it really dawn on me that I am, in a way I have not been since the birth of my child, free. Elihu and I have had several candid and long conversations about this changing time in his life, and it’s fast becoming clear to me that he is fairly capable of taking care of himself.
Yesterday, however, we experienced a small bump in the road when he came home near tears after having done poorly on two tests. He prides himself on always doing well, on always understanding the material. But, like me, he is a bit of a spazz and sometimes easily distracted. He misses assignments, he loses papers, he bites of more than he can chew and then freaks out over his heavy load and then must rush to catch up. And yesterday, he was not only heartbroken over his poor performance at school, but he was simply exhausted. He didn’t need to tell me either; he had dark purple crescents under his eyes, and his pupils shook visibly (with Achromatopsia comes the partner disorder Nystagmus – or the slight quivering of pupils – something which becomes more pronounced when a person is tired. Poor kid, he’ll never be able to lie about that. I can always tell when his body’s had enough.) His performance was so uncharacteristic that his teacher had even called me shortly before Elihu arrived home from school. I had been ready. It was time to check in.
When Elihu is this tired, his eyes cannot tolerate light. I know this well, of course, and every window in our tiny home is covered with a film of tinted plastic, including the huge picture window in our living room. But even that is not enough to filter out the light to a tolerable level when the kid’s as wiped as this. I pulled the curtains shut, then invited him to join me on the big couch. He sat next to me, and I scooped in the pillows and draped our bodies with a comforter. He snuggled into me, tears still pouring as he relived the math test and how he’d balked at material he’d thought he understood. He was deeply disappointed to have ‘ruined his record’, of having done poorly on both math and language arts (for a kids who’s doing Ghost from Hamlet and who simply milks the language for all it’s worth, this was a surprise). He’d completely missed an assignment to study vocabulary words – how did he miss it? he wanted to know. I put my arms around him as he calmed down, and I waited for the moment to turn things around.
I assured him I knew exactly how he felt. And I did. I also reminded him that when things are mysterious and seem too much to comprehend – breakthingsdown. This was something I’d had to remind myself of over and over this past week as I drafted the final bylaws for the Studio. Break it down. We reviewed his days, his class schedules and the means by which he learned his assignments. We found a few holes in his systems (or lack thereof) and discussed a few ways we could both be proactive in improving them. Good. Progress. As we chatted – for more than a half hour – we also talked about the near future, and the way in which he would soon be changing. He’d had deep aches and pains this week, and my guess was that it was due to his growing. We both had seen the massive volume of food he’d eaten – when just a few weeks ago he had been eating like a bird. And certainly the girls in his class were changing. This seemed to be the window in which life as we’d known it thus far would turn into something quite different.
“Please don’t take this the wrong way,” he said from his cozy nook inside the nest of pillows, “but I do want to move out as soon as it’s possible.” I knew what he meant. “I want to be on my own. I like being on my own.” I told him I understood. His grandma would understand, too. So would his uncle. All of us enjoyed our solitude. He went on with his thoughts, “I don’t always like all the extra help you give me. And you know the way you label everything so I can find it, and you’re always saying (he raised his voice in a silly mock-adult tone) ‘Oh, I’ve put everything where you can see it, and I’ve installed safetyhandrails in the refrigerator’?” We both laughed. “Is it that bad?” I asked. “I’m just trying to empower you to get stuff for yourself. You know that, right?” He agreed that he did, but assured me, colorblind or not, legally blind or not, he would one day have to figure out all this stuff for himself. I assured him that I just wanted to give him an easier entree into the real world. And I promised him not to worry – that before long, his life would be all his.
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A few days ago, I went to Albany, the state capital of New York, to pick up copies of my father’s incorporation papers from 1959. When I examined them to see that they were all in order, I was taken aback. There before me were the original articles of incorporation, mission statement and all. Every page, of course, hand typed. There was my father’s creation, there was his dream, first made legally manifest. There was the address from grand Passaic Avenue, the house where he had grown up. My goodness, he was young back then. This even pre-dated his first apartment on West 57th in Manhattan. It was hard for me to imagine this time in his life, and what his vision for the future might have looked like back then. There, beneath his name were the names of his dear friend and attorney, and also my godfather.
All three of these men were now dead. It was a strange moment to see their names listed on the paper – poignant to be sure; for all of these men still seemed real to me, still so present – as if one might simply pick up the phone and hear their voice on the other end – and yet to realize at the same time that they were all gone from this earth. These men were gone. I sat for a moment in that that strange, foreign feeling, a bit numb, a bit overwhelmed by the gravity of this new reality. For the moment, I was the person who needed to bear the work of these three gentlemen into the next era. If I hadn’t come to this place in my own journey, their vision might have ended when their own lives did. Hopefully, I would now convey this creation of theirs forward into the future, and just maybe, beyond my own lifetime, too…
I was lost in nostalgia and sentimental thoughts when I snapped to, realizing that this was a busy place, and while all these thoughts and feelings were filling my head, there were folks in line behind me who had their own stories that needed an audience with the Department of State. I tucked the documents into a folder, and as I turned to leave, I smiled at the Indian gentleman who’d announced me earlier, when I’d arrived, as ‘a younglady needing some assistance.’
Having this document finally in my hands somehow seemed a piece that had, until now, been missing. It felt like a confirmation, telling me unquestionably what my job was now. What my father had started, I would continue. Seeing the text before me, the mission, the declaration that ‘no person shall enure benefit from said corporation’ … I knew there was no turning back now – and my spirits were greatly lifted to see this all in black and white, to hold these papers in my very hands… I left the office building (how exciting to be in an actual city once again, and to ride a, gasp, elevator!!) and hit the rainy streets to head back to my car, deeply invigorated to see this thing through to a successful conclusion.
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Heading back to the highway (it’s surprisingly simple to go from my modest, rural home to the bustling state capital!) I stopped at a strip of third-world looking storefronts which boasted things like international calling cards, halal meat and wigs. Perfect. I needed a few Indian staples which certainly could not be found in my ultra-white part of the world. I entered a shop where I saw a short woman completely covered in a black hijab, and I was taken aback at the sight of her eyes peering out from the tiny, rectangular slit in the fabric. I scolded myself for wanting to stare longer at the foreign-looking figure and made my way between the narrow shelves piled high with sacks of dal and rice, searching out my favorite mango pickle and some candied fennel seeds for Elihu.
When I returned to the counter, I was again surprised by what I saw. A plump, middle aged white woman with graying hair stood at the register. She wore a leopard print head covering which was pinched together under her chin. I couldn’t help myself. “Excuse me”, I said, “You’re a white woman. What are you doing here?” Honestly, this was a story I just had to hear. “Well I’m Muslim!” she declared, without offense, but with a touch of surprise. I mean, didn’t her clothing alone tell me that? “Yes, I can see that. But come on, I mean – you’re here…” I waved my hand towards the shop, the halal butchering station in the back, the enormous sacks of wheat, piles of nested plastic lotas…. “I mean, you know….” And there we began what was to be an hour and a half conversation which covered every subject imaginable, from our ex husbands (whose names are remarkably similar, and so are the stories!) to a comic moment during her colonoscopy to where one finds the truly authentic cous cous around here…
We zipped, free-associatively from one topic to another, with me unintentionally playing the anthropological interviewer… I cannot help myself; when I get the opportunity to hear a person’s story, I want all that that person is willing to give, and all that my time will allow me to receive. I thoroughly enjoyed our visit, and I’m sure Hope did too. When I finally gathered my things to leave, I mentioned something about food – I had wondered where I might get some naan before left the neighborhood – and instantly she plunked a package down on the counter. “Here, take this.” It was a lump of tin foil inside a plastic bag. I knew exactly what it was. The package screamed DevonStreet from ‘back home’ in Chicago. It said ‘Pakistani food’ down to the generic smiley face on the bag. “It’s chicken kabob with naan. It’s from my ex’s restaurant.” I protested, and I asked if I took it, what would she eat? “Oh, honey, I can get more. Believe me, I can get more.” After the backstory she had just shared, I knew for sure that she could.
Giving food is a deeply personal gesture, and so too, I suppose, is receiving it. It struck me later, as I opened the fragrant package and served it for supper, that it is a supreme act of trust that one eats food from, well, a stranger. But it is also a living metaphor for the way in which we must simply trust each other in this life. How we must support each other, show kindness and give of ourselves when the opportunity arises. How we must learn to receive as well as give. Thus we are all interdependent upon each other, no matter how solitary our private lives may be. And in the giving and receiving of such gifts, one is made to understand that ultimately, the directions that our lives take are each so influenced and guided by those few and special friendships and associations which pop up along the way.
Elihu and I had the most flavorful dinner we’d had in a long while, made tastier still because it was altogether a surprise for both of us. We thanked Hope for our meal before we ate, and then we chatted into the night, pausing here and there to tear off small pieces of the naan, chewing thoughtfully, slowly, until there was finally nothing left on the plate but crumbs.
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For several years now, I have wished to own an altimeter. I find the topography in this part of the world mysterious and fascinating, and have always wanted to know precisely how much the ground is dropping or rising as I make my way over the countryside. The elevation of our house is a mere 300 feet higher than the city of Saratoga Springs, just five miles away, and yet the perspective is radically different; we can see far over the top of town to the Hudson Valley beyond, and the Green Mountains of Vermont are visible in the distance. I’m even amazed how the view improves simply by standing atop the porch roof – just eight feet of elevation makes a huge difference. And I can’t help but see the metaphor here too; a small change can make a big difference in how things look.
Not that I can ever truly justify buying things I don’t need (when heating oil, food and electricity are still so hard-won each month) but there was a short time a few weeks ago when I actually had a little room to buy something. The altimeter was still very much on my mind, so I bought it. Finally, after years of comparing and thinking and mulling and asking and reading reviews, I found myself this little gem of a tool – clock, barometer, thermometer, compass and altimeter, all in one. !! I didn’t hesitate to order it, and since the thing arrived I have not let it out of my sight. I check it second by second as I descend down the winding road into town, I check it as I walk the driveway or down the hill… The compass has become a new find, too. Having paid more close attention recently to the position of the rising sun on the horizon, it’s been very satisfying to learn at exactly what points on the compass things are happening. I always kinda knew North was a bit out the front door and to the left – ah, but now I know precisely how far to the left. And it gives me a great deal of satisfaction to know exactly where I stand.
Having the compass in hand reminded me of a time a good decade past, when I was at the helm of a boat, all by myself, in the middle of the Atlantic. It was nighttime, and I was taking my turn on watch, at the wheel. The weather was getting rough quickly, and the auto nav feature, which had been working only intermittently until then, finally gave out. The large wheel began spinning quickly (as it was no longer physically linked to the navigation system) and I had to grab it, stop it from spinning, and then restore our original course. Here was my dilemma: there was now no screen to tell me where we were, and it was raining – there were no stars to use, either. I righted the course as best I could, but intuition is of little use in the dark and in the middle of an ocean. One needs firm bearings. How could I do this? How could I make sure we didn’t end up 300 miles off course by the time the rest of the crew woke up? There was nothing at hand with which to tie the wheel in place so I could go and get help, and no one down below (all of them sleeping through the storm) would have heard me, even if I had screamed. What to do?? Man, how did they do this in the old days?
For a moment I sat with this, in the dark, puzzled, but strangely, not afraid. And I remember the moment when the answer came to me – because I laughed like a crazy person (while buckets of water landed on my head as if thrown in from off-camera in a movie scene). I needed to use the compass! I mean, duh!! The enormous glass dome that sat inside the wheel was an old-fashioned, magnetically-driven compass! I remembered our fix and turned the boat back to its correct course. I sat there for three more hours, holding onto the wheel and muscling it to keep firm as the ocean tried endlessly to tug it away from me. When my watch was over and my relief came, I released the wheel and my arms instantly became like rubber. Only after the whole affair did the gravity of it really sink in; I’d seen the toe rail dip several feet under the water as we listed at a frighteningly steep angle, the sails were under way too much power, and I was the least equipped of the crew to have been in charge under such circumstances. I suppose on the whole, looking back at it now, I was lucky. I had lost all my modern support system, and the stars, too. But that compass kept me on course. That trusty gadget told me exactly where it was that I needed to go. Seriously. Thank God for that blessed invention.
Unless I take off into the deep woods around here, I’m not sure my compass and altimeter will ever become much more than a novelty. But no matter, I’m thrilled to have it, because I enjoy the feeling of knowing where I stand, and just where everything else stands in relationship to me. Somehow, having that little gadget at the end of my keychain, always with me, it gives me a sense of comfort. It’s all there, telling me exactly how I relate to the world. And I love it.
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I certainly know where I stand with Martha’s niece these days; not long ago she sent me several very angry emails regarding her Aunt’s bracelet and barometer which she feels I stole from her. As I understand it, she was upset enough to have considered taking legal action. While I love Martha dearly, and hold the few trinkets I have of hers as my most prized possessions, this is territory I do not care to enter into. I boxed up the items, wrote a letter of apology and expressed my hope this would help make true the saying Martha was so fond of, that “Everything always works out.” I just don’t understand what inspired her anger; I have never been the target of such bitterness and accusations. It surprises and shocks me still, but I can no longer take it personally, for honestly, she doesn’t know me. And sadly, she doesn’t care to, either. Thus concludes the relationship between me and the Ward family. Ah well. (Martha and I are still good. This I know.)
It feels like I’m getting a clearer sense of where I stand in my life, too. Recently, the Town of Greenfield made an inquiry as to the status of the Studio, and when I called to follow up and check in, I got the feeling that my relationship with the town might be on shaky ground. I did my best to assure the town assessor that things were moving along, our future looked good – but that wasn’t what concerned her. She wanted to know just what exactly was going on there. She noted we’d had some recent renovations but had not communicated this to the town. Me, I don’t know the procedures, so if I should have let them know – or filed a permit, I surely didn’t. I realize being unaware of a rule doesn’t always get you off the hook for not abiding by them, but here I hoped she’d go easy on me once I’d presented all my paperwork. After all, the only thing I ever set out to do was repair the damage from the flood that happened just after dad died. I just wanted to fix it so we could use the place once again. I did, and here we are.
My attorney gave me a checklist last year to help keep me on track, (something which I’ve been dutifully avoiding until now), and the woman who’s helping me with my books has been another Godsend, as she too provides me with not only to-do lists, but a good deal of positive, maternal energy, reminding me to breathe, telling me it’s all ok, that I can in fact do this (my choice of words might be more like ‘pull this off’, as if it were a heist or something). Like my dear son, and like so many other human beings are wont to do, I have put off dealing with this whole affair until it was absolutely unavoidable. But the looming deadline given to me by the town has forced my hand, and over the past week I’ve rustled up some of the most dynamic people I know to help pilot this ship. I’d held secret hopes that these certain women might share the dream with me, but til my back was against the wall I hadn’t had the conviction to ask them. But I did, every last one – and I couldn’t be more thrilled that they all accepted.
So things look promising right now. At least on paper. Or so I think. I’m not much of a numbers or papers kinda gal, but I think I did a fair job of dotting my Is and crossing my Ts… At the very least, I aim to be as transparent as humanly possible. My only intention is to be given the platform and support with which to create and grow a small center of arts and human interaction. And while I may not know exactly how it is that I’ll get there, at the very least I have a better understanding of where it is that I stand in the world; my direction is becoming clearer every day.
“Oh, your job is done” my friend said, very matter-of-factly. I waited a moment to see if she planned on elaborating. I’d never heard it put so directly before. I knew exactly what she meant, but I paused, hoping she might soften her comment a bit. “He’s what, twelve? Almost thirteen?” She paused, but not long enough to reassure me. “Yeah” she nodded, “You’re definitely done.”
We’d been ruminating about the major life change that comes about when your kids don’t need you the way it seemed they always would. The time when mommy becomes mom, when the bedroom door shuts with a distinct click, when your kid tells you that you wouldn’t understand – and you can’t protest, cuz you know he’s right, you probably wouldn’t. I’d been emotionally preparing for this, so I can’t say it was unexpected. What was jarring was just how blunt my friend had been about it. She went on to explain, “When you’re pregnant, you could have the baby at six months. It would be premature, but it would survive. So the last three months are basically just incubating. And that’s kind of what’s going on now. He has everything on board, now it just has to integrate. So yeah, you’re done.” I knew she was right. But I still wanted to believe that Elihu would always need me. It wasn’t like I didn’t want him to learn how to live in the world without me – but I still couldn’t truly see it happening. His vision issues, his inherent clumsiness… How would he ever live on his own? Then on the other hand he was smart, savvy, full of good humor and common sense. And as we spoke, he was hundreds of miles away in another country.
In the Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs, each seventh grade class takes a trip to Quebec as part of their French studies. They take the train to the Canadian border, spend a night in Montreal and a day there sightseeing before heading further north the historic town of Quebec City. There they embark, in groups of three, on a day-long quest – a scavenger hunt of sorts – in which they must ask for directions only in French, in which they must budget their money, buy lunch and trinkets as the stash allows, and reconvene with the class when they’ve made it through the list of clues and directions – all given only in French. They sketch monuments during the day, they journal in French in the evening. They stay in hostels, schlep packs through the snowy streets, they take a bus into the country, they experience a dogsled ride, they visit an ice hotel. And all the while, the boys and girls flirt, make inside jokes, and test the waters with forbidden swear words and primitive sexual innuendos. Change has begun.
It’s not as if the change hasn’t been taking place up until now – but there is a new awareness that comes of this landmark trip – there’s a certain new confidence in my child, and a certain kind of vision for the future, too. He’s been given a glimpse of what life might be like surrounded by his peers – instead of his parents. And he’s thrilled with the way it feels. Don’t get me wrong – I am positively thrilled for him too. I can’t remember a time when my son has ever been so happy, so exuberant, so proud, so joyful. Truly, no experience in his life has left such an immediate and dramatic impression on him. Even today, two days after his return, his first words upon opening his eyes were about the trip. In his head swirls a great collage of images. For all of this I am deeply grateful, and I’m incredibly excited to see the ways in which my son will grow into a fully independent individual and break away on his own path. I know it’s not around the immediate corner, but it certainly feels much closer than ever before.
His French journal of the trip – and his new coonskin cap from the dog sledding adventure.
The seventh grade got a train car to themselves.
Ever thinking of things aviation-related, Elihu drew a schematic of an RC helicopter en route.
The next day in Montreal, Elihu drew a detail of the interior of the Basilique de Notre Dame.
Off they go on their scavenger hunt.
Quebec City really has a European feel.
There’s topography which requires a funicular. Fun!
Ice skating at night. Elihu has never enjoyed this sport, but this time he stuck it out until he got his bearings. (Thanks to classmate and talented athlete Norah for encouraging him to try!)
The class went dog sledding on the last day.
An intimate, hands-on experience, with just two passengers; one drove, one sat. The dogs were raring to go and they sped over the narrow trail through the woods. Probably the highlight of the trip for Elihu.
They got to smooch a puppy too!
Last event on the itinerary was the ice hotel.
The seventh grade Canadian adventure was a life-changing trip, and a memory which Elihu and his classmates will treasure always.
If only we’d signed up at the library early on to have our checkout history saved – we’d have been able to re-create the impressive list of all the fantastic journeys that Elihu and I have shared. From the time he was five, when we moved here, til the time he decided that he’d rather read the stories for himself (just over a year ago – I milked it, believe me!) we have covered impressive territory – from stand-alone chapter books to six-book series, we have journeyed to so many far-away places that we can hardly recall them all. But thankfully, some details do remain – and today we found ourselves (it’s not just my flabby recall at play here!) struggling to piece together the scenarios we’d once lived in our own chapter book adventures here at the Hillhouse, as the memories now spread across so many years.
Today, after Elihu’s tuba lesson, we were both pooped. It was a mid-day lull in which we could summon no energy for anything that needed doing. No school writing assignment could be written, no chickens could be fed, no aquarium could be cleaned, no laundry could be put away, and there wan’t enough oomph to make lunch, either. And so we pulled the curtains in the living room closed, and retired to the generously-sized, L-shaped couch. We each found our spot, adjusted the pillows, split up the throw blankets and settled in.
Although we were both too pooped to actually do anything, we, as it turned out (will you really be all that surprised?), had plenty of energy to talk. And so we passed the next thirty minutes like two bunkmates at summer camp, stalling after lights out. We spent our lounging time exchanging long, thoughtful pauses between funny remembrances and tangential offerings.
We reflected on our seven and a half years here. Having just had a conversation the morning before about adolescence and all that would come with that new era, it seemed we two were in something of a reflective mood these days – taking inventory of the past, and sizing up the fast-coming future. “I’m just looking at this room in a new way” Elihu said. “You never really notice places when you’re there all the time. But look at those windows – they’re huge! People must really notice them when they come here for the first time, ya think? Look at the instruments here. Accordion, tabla, tuba, harpsichord. Wow. Imagine seeing all this when you walk in. To us, it’s just our house. But it is pretty amazing.” He paused for a bit. I was about to say something when he spoke again…”I like the way it looks through new eyes.” Yeah, I also liked this room a lot. It’s cozy, it’s tidy (mostly) and in spite of how many objects live inside it, the room does not feel the least bit cluttered or overwhelmed. In fact, it has the opposite feeling: the room feels welcoming and cozy. Peaceful. Perfect for two homebodies who are feeling pooped for no particular reason and need a generous couch on which to ruminate and stall a little longer.
“Think of all the birds we’ve had here that seemed normal.” Pause. “Like ‘no-big-deal’ normal” Elihu added after a few moments of silence. Yeah. Come to think of it, we had had a lot of different types of birds through the years. I thought back to the different phases of his bird life – of our bird life. I had always followed Elihu’s lead in his love of all birds – and thinking back on it, I wonder if I would have done so now. Did I jump on board so easily because I was still in shock at even being ‘out here’ to begin with? Or did I just feel I had nothing to lose? Cuz I really don’t think I had the slightest clue as to the adventures that were to ensue after bringing our new avian friends home… Really, from parakeets to parrots, homing pigeons to golden pheasants, button quail to barnyard geese and a hundred chickens in between, man, we’d seen a lot of feathered friends here. And the thing was – we remembered them far better than we remembered all of those fantastic books that we’d read. We remembered the unique qualities of every bird, we recalled every adventure, every mishap and every lesson learned. And we recalled how lucky we were even to have had those memories at all… I mean, how many people have been fortunate enough to call out to a homing pigeon named King Louis to come and join them for a stroll?
“When you’re in ’em, you don’t even realize it”, Elihu said. “It’s not like you actually realize you’re in the ‘duck’ chapter or the ‘goose’ chapter. It’s just what you’re doing. You don’t think of it like that.” I agreed with him, and told him that I’d written a post on this idea a few months back. And that I’d been thinking of addressing it again, because it seemed we were on the precipice of another new chapter. He was nearing the end of his true boyhood; this April he would be a teenager. And as we’d discussed the day before, lots of things were going to change. “You’re going to be a teenager!” I said, hoping for an emotional response from him. “How does that feel?” I asked, waiting for a revelation, but instead he answered, “I’m not really that worked up about it. “I guess I was, about four months ago or so, but now, now that I’ve had time to think about it and adjust, I guess I just kinda know it’s coming. I mean I can’t change that, so why should I freak out about it? It’s coming, so I should just look forward to it, I think”. Mentally I was scribbling notes as fast as I could – trying to capture this moment, hold it, remember it for always. After all, I’d been so careless about remembering so many things in the past. This moment I was bound and determined to remember…
Eventually we did get to our individual tasks of the day; he to his writing, me to my cooking and cleaning, muttering to myself all the while as I pulled out pots and pans and began to chop onions for the umpteenth time in a week… Grumbling all the while about how I didn’t understand how anyone could possibly need to eat again so soon – as we had only just finished eating a few hours ago… And then promptly scolding myself for even thinking such a thing, much less lamenting out loud… Round and round I went from complaint to apology, hearing Studs Terkel in my head all the while, and how he had spoken of the old Eastern European mamas in their babushkas, going about their household chores while audibly lamenting their plight in life… Sheesh. My current chapter would most likely reflect something in the domestic arena. Some days it certainly felt as if this was all that I ever did. !
In spite of my errant mutterings, lunch was as pleasant as our respite on the couch. As has been the remainder of the day. Now I sit in my chair, and it being a weekend (tomorrow is a holiday on account of Martin Luther King day), we are in our casual, unrushed mode – which can push bedtime back to a very late hour, which makes the start of the new school week a challenge. I shan’t let us stay up much later, but as Elihu is fully engrossed in another chapter of his book, and I am still musing over the recent chapters of our very own edition, it’ll be a while yet before either one of us is asleep. As I think back on our time here, it’s clear that I can’t recall it all – but I can recall moments and highlights, paragraphs here and there – just enough to demonstrate how very far we’ve come in our seven year journey.
“I guess I’d call this the ‘tuba chapter’ if I had to give it a name” Elihu’d said when I asked him how he thought of his current life. “And the early ones, maybe they were the bird chapters?” I asked. “Naw” he said, and paused. “They’ll all be bird chapters.” (I guess what I’d add to that is that the past years have been about flight and aviation as much as they’ve been about birds.) Although Elihu’s been wanting to play bass and tuba since he was tiny, it’s only been recently that he was even big enough to play either. So gradually, he’s moving from one love into another. I can begin to see the general direction in which our story will grow – no specifics, of course, because that’s at the very essence of life – the details, detours and adventures we can never anticipate! Good Lord, if we could know what was coming in the next chapter, I wonder if we’d jump out of bed or hide under the covers? Thankfully, we haven’t a clue as to what’s ahead, so there’s nothing to be done but turn the page and see how it all works out…
This is the image that comes to my mind when I think of our early days here at The Hillhouse. Just a boy chasing after a bird on a fine summer day.
The early years were also about Brody, our Senegal parrot (who chewed all the woodwork in the kitchen and needed as much attention as a toddler. He now lives with an elderly bachelor in Schenectady who actually relishes such a needy companion.)
Once upon a time, Elihu was as cute and tiny as was his button quail, King George.
Not long after we moved here Elihu began to draw the objects of his passion.
At nine, Elilhu drew this from a dead Cedar Waxwing we’d found. He embellished it bit and made it into its fancier cousin. (He drew this with a ball point pen!)
Shortly after that he got a falconer’s glove for his birthday, and got to use it, too!
This was also the chapter of grandpa; Elihu will only remember his grandfather as an elderly man. Thankfully, they had some nice moments together, like this one in the park, where Elihu shows off a duck he caught (one of literally dozens he’d caught over the years.)
This is our life now; the final few paragraphs of the first, chock-full chapter – or perhaps, more aptly, the first book in a series. (Note the indoor glasses; a perfect halfway darkness for seeing in bright interior light. This was the missing puzzle piece for reading music.)
Tuba-toting Mama. I’d hoped the days of lugging gear were over. This is a chapter I don’t mind closing!
Elihu’s playing tuba for Drake, his new friend from school. It’s likely that Drake will be prominently featured in future chapters.
Elihu still loves flying. Here he enjoys piloting his quadcopter from the cozy confines of a big bed.
This morning Elihu spent some quiet time with his all-time favorite bird, rooster Bald Mountain, father of the flock.
In real life chapters don’t always begin or end in one single event. But one can still feel the gradual ending of one era and the emergence of another. And these days, things are beginning to shift. A young boy still lives here, but a young man will be taking his place before long. Our book will have a new chapter very soon…
On our kitchen wall, just next to the front door hangs a glass weather barometer. It used to hang above a rusted drip tray on the kitchen wall at Martha’s. Elihu had mused over it once, as all children had through the years, and we’d explained how it worked. Mom recalls that Martha had said he could have it if he liked. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of yet another piece of stuff in our tiny house, but the idea grew on me… When the green-tinted water rises to the top of the spout – and sometimes drips over and stains the wall – we know that rain is coming. I wish there were such an indicator for incoming emotional storms… “When it rains….” as the expression goes…
An old family friend had kept the tradition through the years of calling Martha on every solstice. This year, on the occasion in December, the fellow called mom as a stand-in for Martha. His call was welcomed, as he too was an old family friend. But his news was not good; he had been diagnosed with lung cancer and didn’t have much time left. Sadly mom was out the first two times he called, and by the time she found him in, several days later, he was quite weak. Only two weeks later he died, and on Saturday we attended his funeral. All about her my mother sees her contemporaries leaving this world, and must be a strange and sad place in which to live. There comes a time in life when every time you turn around people seem to be getting married. Then life takes over for a stretch of time with an assortment of twists and turns, until… All the people around you now seem to be dying. Old friends take their place in line one by one, and then, all of a sudden, they’re gone. Just like that.
Yesterday I received another jolt in the form of an angry email from Martha’s niece. In the message she called me a thief, and told me that she knew I’d been in the house since Martha had died, and that the only possible reason for such a visit would have been to steal something. She wanted an end to it all here and now. She demanded the thin, sterling silver bangle that Martha had always worn be returned to her at once, as well as the rest of the things I’d stolen. Seriously? Ok, come to think of it, I do have Martha’s dusty copy of “Yankee Expressions”, yes, I did take that. I was reading it while sitting with Martha one afternoon, and threw it into my bag. It’s still on my bedside table. I peruse it from time to time, very likely in the same sort of way that Martha once did. Regular readers may even recall how puzzled and concerned I was when Martha’s niece announced that items had gone missing from the house after Martha’s death (the items had since been found; they had simply been moved). After posting some lovely interior tableaus from Martha’s house on the blog, her niece had asked me to please remove them to ensure the safety of the house and its contents. I promptly removed all the images, and apologized as best as I was able. There seems to be nothing I can do to ensure a positive outcome with this person. Ugh.
This morning, as Elihu ate his breakfast, I’m afraid the poor dear got an earful from me. I recounted to him the whole thing – after which a look of deep sadness passed over his face. “But I want to keep the barometer” he said quietly. “Sweetie, we’ll buy the barometer from her. She just wants the monetary value of it. Don’t worry, we’ll make a fair deal with her”. I stewed a bit more in silence, until my beautiful son looked up and quoted a saying that he heard Martha use often: “Everything always works out”. I smiled, and wondered it perhaps Martha herself hadn’t nudged that little piece of calming wisdom into my son’s head. Howsoever the little nugget came to him, it was nice to reminded again.
What a strange and heartbreaking week this has been, and it’s only Tuesday! Lest I waste any more precious work time battling folks who ultimately do not care what I have to say – or believe me – I will paste the response I penned to her last night below, and call it a day.
XXX, I have no idea where all this has come from. I could have easily taken things all the while over months, years even – objects that I’d known and loved since I was a child. And I did not. The bracelet is the ONLY thing I have to remember Martha by, and I shall not return that which was given to me!! We were all together as I asked you if I might have it, as it meant a lot to me. You were kind and assured me Martha would have liked me to have it. I have no recollection of anything else. I also recall it was a low-key, friendly meeting. I had no idea you were giving this trinket to me under duress. Plus this tiny bracelet is not even worth much! I wear it daily, keep it by my bedside nightly. It is my link to a woman I consider to be my second mother. It is a cherished keepsake.
As mom recalls, Martha told Elihu if he was interested in the barometer he could have it. I wasn’t particularly interested in it – but he was, so we left the rusty drip tray on the wall and took the glass home.
And yes, I did come back to the farm once or twice after Martha left. Just to sit and be in the space, to remember. To take in that certain way the kitchen smelled, the views from those windows… It was a living link to my oldest memories. I was savoring that which was soon to disappear forever.
So sorry you feel this way. It is a shock to my very core. Perhaps you and mom can remain friends – I don’t suppose we were friends to begin with, but that will certainly be a challenge going forward. I hope one day you feel differently about me. I’m not a thief, and Lord knows, there were many things – the red bench I mentioned several times – that I would have loved to have in my life as a reminder of the Farm, and for which I gladly would have paid. I would even have loved, bought and used the school bell at the Studio to ring in kids from lunch break at camp. But I dared not even ask – that’s how respectful I was about Martha’s/your stuff. There was also a Harry Belafonte LP I liked and would have paid for – and would actually have listened to – but I didn’t ask about that either, cuz I didn’t want to add stress.
The barometer is a lovely way to share Martha’s story with all the children who come to my home, but if you feel strongly that we came to it by unsavory means, I’ll box it up and leave it at the Farm asap. It would be disappointing to Elihu, and I know he’d like to buy it with his own money if you’d allow him that option. I really hope you’ll consider it.
It seems that distrust and hate are motivating you here. It’s hurtful to be the recipient of such anger – and especially after all this time has passed – not to mention bizarre, as you sound so unlike the person I’d thought you to be. Never, ever would I have seen anything like this coming. I am very sorry that you’re feeling so taken advantage of. I didn’t know you well, but I’ve always liked you. All of this truly breaks my heart.
Maybe a robust sale will help you to feel more secure about things. I hope it all goes well.
A rainbow appeared as Elihu and I took down the Christmas tree on Sunday. I didn’t even see this second rainbow until just now when I uploaded the photograph! One for me, one for lil man. Maybe Martha really was right when she said that everything always works out.
This came as a little shock to my system recently… And, ironically, in tending to its reply I wasted a good chunk of my “work time” this afternoon (use of quotes inspired by the sentiments of the commenter below). I found that I did not possess the self-discipline to apply myself elsewhere until I had responded directly to this reader’s criticisms. Sheesh. I can’t handle not being liked very well. ! I am a supreme wimp, and it’s hard for me to see what I look like to some. Oh well. I just gotta live in my integrity as best I can, keep making the to-do lists and attending yoga every Monday night. Just breathe….
Hello. I’ve been reading your blog for some time now and I just can’t figure for the life of me why you just won’t get a job and get your life together. You don’t seem to be disabled in any way and from what I gather, your mother foots the major bills. Your house is 100% free, minus utilities, food and cable (and heating oil is at the lowest price in more than a decade) and I remember you saying that you have a vehicle, but no car payment. A basic JOB would cover these leftover expenses without much difficulty. You should consider yourself very blessed to have a mommy to handle the tuff stuff. And personally, I feel a little miffed that you’re availing yourself of welfare benefits as an able-bodied adult. It feels like in a way you’re scamming the system. Your son is of an age where he can chill out by himself while you go out and earn your keep for a change.
The other thing that bothers me is that you simply will not let go of your ex and the shameful thing that you allowed him to do to you. And by mentioning it constantly – years later – it doesn’t give you the chance to heal and move beyond it and get on with your life. He doesn’t care. Next.
PLEASE stop smothering your son and living vicariously through him. He’s going to wind up a momma’s boy, constantly afraid to face the world, hiding behind his mother’s skirt everytime life get’s a little difficult for him. You’re doing him no favors.
2016 should be the year you put on your Big Girl Panties, get a job, lay off blogging, and get back to the real world and handle your responsibilities like the rest of us. Life IS hard. Yeah, we get that.
Hey Selene – Always wondered if I would one day get a comment along these lines… All good points. This is my first reminder that not everyone sees things the same way.
May I offer my take on your ideas?
Firstly, I do work. I have a dozen private students who each require individual lesson plans, as they have different goals (some want to compete, some just play in a band, some take just cuz “Miss Elizabeth is fun”) I spend a lot of time compiling material and creating arrangements and exercises designed individually for them. My regular accompanying jobs and the outside adult courses I teach also comprise what I would call “work”.
Teaching does cover the bills when the school year is in session, but when school is on break, I often have no students, and therefore, no income (aside from some support I do receive from the ex, which is a Godsend). Until now, I have chosen to teach private lessons, accompany performances and play piano at my son’s school because these were jobs that allowed me to be present after school; to assist with homework, get my son fed and keep him ‘on task’. The older he gets, the less this is necessary – we’re in complete agreement on that!
With this in mind, I have already begun to inquire about possible part time jobs I might take. Now that Elihu takes the bus home, it frees me up considerably (that being said, I’m learning that most entry-level retail part time jobs require weekend hours, which I don’t feel I can accept currently). Until recently, leaving Elihu alone ‘out here’ while I was miles away at a job was never a responsible option. The older he becomes, the less this is a concern.
Believe me, I don’t ever take for granted the safety net my mother – and sometimes my friends – have provided for me when the unexpected arrives. Root canals, car repairs and the like can be impossible to pay for on piano teacher’s wages.(Never mind tuba lessons!)
Regarding the governmental support we receive; having worked a multitude of small jobs since high school, I have contributed and paid into the system for over 30 years. The amount my son and I receive annually – for food and heat – is less than $3K. I’m pretty sure I personally put thousands more than that into the system over the years! Believe me, I never thought I’d be a single mother to a legally blind child living in the middle of the country! None of the extra support – whether governmental or gifts – goes without deep appreciation. We say prayers of gratitude at every meal, and I stretch our dollars as I have never stretched em before.The past six years were the hardest, and I don’t imagine they’ll be like this much longer.
Re the ex – a critical look back at the posts will see that I mention him very seldom. I can’t remember when I last checked the ‘divorce diary’ category… But when shit happens that involves him, I ‘report it’ as I experience it. Cuz that’s kind of the point here, right? I’m just expressing my inner world to the outer one. I certainly don’t spend my days thinking about him., there’s just too much to do with the Studio, with life and Elihu!
Maybe I should take the ‘backstory’ page down, yeah, I’ve thought of it. But hey – that’s how I got here, ya know? I actually enjoy my ex’s company (although my friends tell me I’m ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’) and have many times written that he’s a good, loving dad. While he has certainly angered me in the past, I have never said that he was a bad father, only that he’s made some short-sighted, self-serving choices along the way.
Most of the blog is about our current daily life. At least that’s how it feels to me….
I can totally understand how it looks like I’m living thru my son. Sure, I see that. But at the end of the day, it is just the two of us together, all the time. Think of it what you will, but we often feel more like a partnership than a mother-son relationship. These days my son is at an age when he needs responsibilities, he needs privacy and a sense of autonomy, and I encourage all of this.
Remember, Selene, you read only what’s presented here on the blog; this is but a tiny percentage of our life. There is just so much more that occurs, but I only record the events or thoughts that rise to the surface in moments of stillness. I’m more aware than anyone that I need a life apart from my son’s; and my vision for this next chapter is anchored in The Studio and its future. There’s been a plan afoot all these years. As unsure of myself as I may seem, I do have a vision of myself in a role other than mom! Understand, if you will, that the Studio was a bombed-out shell last year, but this year it is rehabbed, gorgeous – and being used. ! Guess who made that happen? That was more than a part-time job, I can assure you!
Bottom line is, you and others may not think I have a job, but I do. Putting on my ‘Big Girl Panties’ is really more about cultivating a dynamic board, writing my first grant proposal, designing a curriculum or running a summer music camp than it is about getting 40 hours on the clock at Target!
Thanks for sharing your perspective, it’s fascinating to see how our blog presents to different people. I have to disagree about your ‘lay off blogging’ bit, because I have discovered myself to be as much writer as a musician – or mother. When I write, I am following my joy. (And who knows, one of these days I just might find myself a publisher, or at the very least, a writing gig!)
Elihu has a question for you: Why do you keep reading if you’re so disappointed with me and my choices? (I sure hope you don’t respond that it’s ‘like watching a train wreck’! :) )
Yeah, life’s not easy, I agree. I think all humans kinda share that idea. You’re welcome to share the ways in which life challenges you, too. Yes, there are plenty of folks who have a much, much harder road than I do. But that doesn’t mean I can’t share my experiences. Thankfully, there are some folks who enjoy what I share. If my choices piss you off – then don’t read about em! :)
Seriously, thanks for your perspective, it was not easy to read and indeed, my feelings were hurt by it. But it was good grist for the mill, and I’d rather know what folks are thinking than not. Plus it’s been a wake up call for me; the more public I become, the thicker my skin needs to be.
I do wish you a happy and successful New Year –
Post Script: OK, folks, let me have it! Thoughts welcomed… The good, the bad or the ugly. Come on, I can take it…. (I think)…
At the end of the evening, I had the field and the full moon all to myself. I savored the moment, as I try to do with as many moments in time as I can be present for, because you almost never fully realize what you’ve got – until it’s no longer there anymore. For now, all is well. And hopefully, no matter what happens down the line, we’ll find a way to embrace the changes as they happen, and find a way to savor all those future moments too.
The Hillhouse 
