Breathe…

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Man I just lost it. It’s past 9:30. I’ve allowed my son to talk with his father far later than I should have, although it once again puts him way past a healthy bedtime. I ask Elihu – as I have so many, many times – please not to play with the ceiling light, as he will break it if he continues. Please, do not jump from the couch and try to grab the cord. Please don’t. Please. So tonite was that night. The night when, talking to his father on the phone, he absentmindedly jumped and grabbed. The night when the cord to the light snapped, when it became one more thing on my list of things to fix, to attend to, to spend money on. I lost it. I grabbed the phone from him, hung up on his father – who had made the topic of their conversation what Elihu should give his toddler half-brother for his second birthday – and I begin my descent into my ‘I’ve-had-it-rage’.

I try to stop myself from doing something I’ll regret. I walk Elihu into his bedroom, assemble his nightwear on the bed, tell him one final time to please brush his teeth, get changed and into bed. Good Lord, sometimes I cannot fathom how a kid who can share a philosophical conversation with me over dinner can become so thick-headed and disconnected from his world just minutes later. He sobs, of course, and I’m sorry that what was almost a perfect night has turned so sour, and mostly because of my reaction. It’s just that he knows better, I’ve cautioned him many times… My ego has taken over and for the moment I’m feeling every bit the single mother. Maybe also because I have some important dental work to be done tomorrow, and without my still-husband’s updated insurance info it’s no go. I hate relying on him still, and I’m so afraid of the life that awaits post-divorce: no more trips to the doctor or the dentist. It simply won’t be an option. I will join the leagues of good people for whom a pap smear or a tooth cleaning – let alone a root canal – will be simply unaffordable. Maybe that’s also contributing to my dark mood right now.

Elihu told me that the energy in the gym was way too much at indoor recess today, so he did what I told him, he took three deep breaths. Only instead of three, he made it six. And he made the exhalations as long as he could. “It made it much better” he told me. At the supper table we breathed six times in, and six times out before we ate. A very good thing to do. Maybe that’s what I need to do right now.

I can hear that Elihu is singing to himself now. Maybe Fareed has emailed the insurance info by now as he said he would. I sure hope so. Breathe. If the worst of it all is a broken ceiling fan, then I guess all is ok. It’s not so bad, and right now, I’m fine. I have my son, my health, my house, and the electricity is still on.

First I need to take a few good, deep breaths, then I’ll set things right with Elihu. He did something stupid, and so did I. Ok. Here I go. In… out….

Eve of Third Grade

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Elihu has not gone to bed before 11 pm since, oh, hmm, let’s just say – since school was out last June. ! So tomorrow is his first day of school – his teacher is Mrs. Huggins (he can’t help giggling and referencing Mrs. Huh-wiggins of the Carol Burnett show, a favorite retro You Tube treat.) Ideally he should be up by 8. That sounds civilized, I know, yet consider the context. One a.m. bedtimes (some precluded by performing at the Greenmill in Chicago with dad) and 11 a.m. mornings… more like a teenager than a third grader. I’m sure I’m not alone. I know there are other kids out there who have lived the entire summer in a different time zone. I just wonder if they’re somehow a  bit more emotionally prepared for the reality of an early morning than my son is. I know I’m not.

I think back on third grade. It was the first year I was aware of romantic longing. It was the year Trixie wrote four letter words on the bathroom wall and I was publicly blamed for it. Until Mrs. Field had written the offending words on the blackboard for the class, hoping the guilty party would admit to the crime, I had never even been aware of having heard them. (As a striking contrast to that, my son uses the same words sparingly and colorfully, and with my permission.) It was the year that social orders became a painful reality of my world. A strange mixture of things happened that year; in some ways I can say it was the end of my true childhood. My son still believes in Santa, in the Easter bunny. He knows enough to put social discrimination at school into context, forgiving his trespassers on account of their own lack – and not his. He is both trusting and childlike as well as savvy and discerning. He has an awareness of his world that I didn’t have until I’d graduated from High School. What will third grade be for him? His first real crush? Or simply his times tables? The end of Santa? The start of true peer pressure??

When Elihu awoke this morning he said “I wish I were in school already!” Whatever he’s in for, he almost there…

Good Morning, Irene

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So far, so good. No longer just a rainy day; the wind bends the trees on the horizon and I begin to think I won’t have to pay anyone to take down that huge white pine that blocks my view of the mountains… Several trees on my property have fallen and snapped in less wind. As I stand in my screen porch and take in the action outside I begin to entertain thoughts of my powerlessness against nature. I realize the value of a roof. While my certainty that all will be just fine begins to erode I am calmed a bit by the sight of tiny songbirds who continue to swoop between the apple tree and the kitchen window feeder. Really? How are they able? Guess it’s not much worse than your run of the mill summer storm for now. Ok. It’s not that bad. Or is it? Will it be? As I write the lights dim and flicker. Power outages in Greenfield happen routinely, even through fairly uneventful thunderstorms. Hmm. Another flicker. I’m ok. I consider the things I might want to do now that require power. Flush? Make coffee? Ok. I’ll make some coffee. Another flicker. I won’t have wi fi. But my mac is charged, I can still write. Hell, there’s a lot I could do, a lot I really should do, but I’m mesmerized. I sit and listen. I almost wish the power would go out – then I’d be motivated to sort through the crap that sits in the living room awaiting replacement in Elihu’s bedroom. But I can’t move. I sit in my chair, computer on my lap, waiting. So much for a cozy day just reading on the couch, my focus is on the action outside.

Ok. The clocks are flashing 12:04. Must’ve lost it for a second. But the power’s still holding. Let’s see, what else? The chickens are in and safe. The rooster isn’t even crowing. Thankful I have a real coop now. Hmm. How about downstairs? I make a quick check of my basement. The usual puddles for a rainshower. I lift the floats in the sump pump wells and force the standing water out to make room for more. My vintage suitcase Rhodes sits on the floor. I consider moving it, as I’ve seen it in water before, but it’s just so big. I pass. I check the heavy outdoor metal doors to the cellar and a scene from the Wizard of Oz passes through my head. The doors are secure. What else? Upstairs, looking out of the kitchen window I notice that the pond form – a huge, 10 foot long thing that I got for free through Craigslist – has been upturned and threatens to sail away. How is that possible? My heart sinks – I’ve spent upwards of ten hours hand digging and getting it just so – it had been perfectly level with the ground and I’d already filled in around it. Now it has been hoisted up and out of its hole and sits, half filled with water like a small boat ready to drift off down the creek and over the hillside. Damn. That was a huge, heavy and difficult job. It’s all for naught now. Before I descend into a gloomy episode of self pity I consider how much worse others no doubt have it. I’ll fix it. Just won’t happen for a while. I decide to throw on my parka and go out to see about making sure it doesn’t fly away.  The rain isn’t so bad, but the wind is loud and once again it reminds me of my human vulnerability. I lean over and try moving the pond. It’s heavy. Probably ok. Then I place a large rock inside it to keep it there. I laugh at myself. Yeah, right. That aint gonna keep it down if a huge gust comes along. I give it up and go in. Not a thing to do but wait, watch and listen.

The lights continue to flicker. I charge up my cell phone. Oops. The lights dim, go off and come on again. That one lasted longer. I hear the pumps in the cellar rumbling on and off. My coffee’s probably brewed by now, glad I did that. I’m going to pour a cup and sit on the couch. Don’t think I can tear myself away from the show. The wind is loud now. I think I hear a truck straining up the steep hill road, but realize that was the wind. Ok. I’m getting my money’s worth now. I’m glad that my son is safe in Chicago.

Hello Irene, nice to meet you, but I hope you don’t stay long.

Here She Comes…

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The rain has just begun. What a wonderful sound. Living so close to the edge of the woods and so far from the road, the rain seems to feel more alive here, more exciting, more real. At midnight I opened my window to listen for the coming storm, and shortly thereafter the first drops began to fall. It’s starting slowly. With all the talk on the media I admit I’m listening with peaked interest. How does a really big storm evolve? How long will it take to reach its fury? Will the winds really be 65 mph here? It still sounds innocent enough. In fact now the drops are slowing.

I’m slowing too – it’s time to crawl into bed with a book and just listen…

Storm Before the Calm

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Folks are gettin ready for the big storm that’s coming. I almost wonder if all the preparation will eclipse the event itself. I met a friend today who worked for an insurance company; she’d just spent a long day at work getting ready for it and faced an even longer day on Monday, the morning after the weather is due to hit. Really? I find myself thinking, is this really going to be such a big deal? It was advised on the radio to stash all outdoor furniture. To batten down the hatches and hunker down. Yesterday Walmart was sold out of batteries and camp lanterns. Really? Wow. Lots of activity, yet outside the crickets sing as usual, the air is still, the weather quite nice.

This week has been a busy one for me. I’ve been sanding furniture, painting walls, drilling holes and hanging shelves. My son’s bedroom has been evacuated of all its contents. Artifacts from the last three years of his life, much of it having been forgotten under the bed and in the closet, now sit in piles around my living room. It looks like my own house has been visited by a hurricane. I have secured my outdoor chairs, fed and watered my chickens and closed them safely in, filled my larder, set aside extra water, located the candles and matches. For the moment my storm is over.

The wind and rain may come, I’m ready. I have a few books to read, a piano to play and a couch to cozy up on. Come tomorrow I’ll be in the peaceful eye of the storm…

There’ll Be Some Changes Made

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There was a time when change of any kind would throw me into a fog of sentimentality. Now, not so much. On my recent trip to Chicago, a place I’d lived most of my life but had not visited for several years, I was quite surprised to see so many places so radically transformed. I understood the growth around Wrigley field; I had already witnessed the change beginning years before, yet nonetheless it was rather shocking to see the giant shadow of brick that blocked my view from the el as our train passed the ballpark. Neighborhoods that had been run-down and forgotten for years upon years had been rediscovered and revitalized so much so that I didn’t even recognize them until I passed them a second time at street level in a car. This would have sent the old me into a tearful episode. The old me would have taken all this very personally. I would have lamented the lost, original character of the place. But now it’s just not as tragic to me as it once would have seemed. Maybe my changed perspective comes in part from living in a part of the country with a longer history of such man-made changes, or maybe it’s because of my age and the way in which one’s middle years temper the self-righteous character of youth, probably both and more, but for whatever reason I find myself observing the changes in my once familiar world in a thoughtful, measured and slightly detached way. I guess it’s because my personal world was so rocked and transformed over the past few years that it’s made me realize that in the long run it hurts more to resist the change than to accept it. And what ultimately allows me to accept change is the knowing that no amount of physical or experiential transformation can remove the truth of the places and experiences that once existed. They exist for we humans as long as there is a memory, a story.

“In the end, you still have your story”. One day it came to me just like that. I had had an exhausting day of trying, but not succeeding, to better understand how my partner could have changed so. How could he have been that same person to have shared all those years with me? Here he was, now, a different person from the one I had once known. In the end it was fruitless to speculate on how or why he had changed; I needed some way in which to regard our years together such that they were not the loss they seemed to be. The only way I could begin to make peace with my situation was to know that in the end I still had the story – and in it all the good things that it had added to my life. I might not have my husband with me any more, but I do have my memories, my story. And really, after all, just about your whole life is the story. Even what happened five minutes ago is now the story. And whatever it is that no longer exists for you in your present does still exist in the story, and it’s a story you get to keep forever. And in having that memory, that story, you still possess the essence of what it was that pleased you about that person, place or event. For me, knowing that an experience still lives within me is comforting. It’s like I’ve backed up all my files. My house can burn down, but I still have it all inside me. (I sure hope the universe doesn’t put me to the test on that – I do have a friend whose house burned down not once but twice! And he is a musician who lost a lot of precious instruments, writings, music, recordings and mementos from a lifetime of travel. If I were him I’m not so sure my thinking would offer a lot of comfort, yet perhaps he too has reached a state of acceptance. He’s still active and upbeat – I’m guessing the lesson was integrated pretty well.) It’s scary to let things hold such power over you as to render you heartbroken and sick at their loss. It’s a lot healthier to consider yourself lucky to have had the experiences, lucky to have enjoyed the objects while they were yours and feel the gratitude for these things having added to the fullness of your life.

Change has never been easy for me, yet I’m getting better with it. Today I painted a room in my house which held some sentiment for me. It was my son’s room. Shortly after we moved here I has chosen the colors for his room with great care. I’d wanted his room to be easy on his Achromat eyes; not too bright yet with some visual interest to make up for his not seeing color. I chose a green for the bottom third of the walls, blue for the top. Funny thing was, in the end Elihu could not even detect the change in colors for I’d matched the values so well. He would have to examine the wall up close to even begin to see the line. The colors of the walls represented to me the first thing I did here in this house to make it ours. They carried with them the story of his not being able to see the difference in the two colors. They carried with them the story of a mother’s love for her son. The walls carried with them the story of all the books we’ve read together at bedtime in this room. The blue and green walls reminded me of The Story. Today, when I had the walls painted over in dove white, although I knew that the story wasn’t in any way diminished or forgotten as a result, I was still surprised – and pleasantly so – that the change was so easy for me to make. Hmm. Interesting.

The blue and green still shows through a little bit so tomorrow I’ll give the walls another coat of paint. A fresh new color for a fresh new story.

Coming Home

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You know that feeling that lingers in your gut when a piece of correspondence sits far too long without a reply? That’s the feeling I’ve been living with since I arrived back home after my recent trip to Chicago. Elihu is again back in the Midwest with his father for two long weeks, and it seems I should have ample time to respond to friends, to return calls, to make at least a brief post on my blog. Yet somehow, life adds up, and the cracks and crevices fill with unforeseen events.  I apologize for my long absence, and hope to make up for it with something of an update.

The night before I’d left for Chicago we held the final concert of my father’s 52 year-old  Festival of Baroque Music. (The day before we’d just concluded our first run of kid’s art classes at the Studio.) That Sunday Dad had been honored by fans and friends for his esteemed career as a harpsichordist and supporter of early music. Some of the concert goers had even been in attendance for Dad’s very first concert back in 1959! It was the lovliest of evenings. The weather showed mercy and for the first time in many summers it wasn’t too hot. The musicians played so beautifully, and the room was simply filled with love. I couldn’t have hoped for a more wondrous way in which to conclude my parents’ half century of hosting musicians and holding concerts. And afterward at the house the food was fresh, delicious and abundant as usual, and dear friends stayed with us into the night enjoying it all.

The next day Elihu and I were off to visit Chicago. In just a few hours it seemed we were standing on the Howard el platform with our bags, marveling at the sights of a real city. While our visit was mostly relaxed and free-form, it did at times become rather hectic and jam packed. We made few structured plans in order to accommodate the serendipitous nature of life. Catching up after three years’ absence was a daunting task, yet I did see many old and dear friends. I even managed to sit in with a big band I sang with years ago as well as do a night with my beloved Prohibition Orchestra of Chicago. (With a mother’s great pride, I report that young master Elihu stood beside me and confidently belted out a couple of songs as well.) We enjoyed the beach as I introduced my son to what I will probably always regard as the most enjoyable bathing experience to be had anywhere on the globe. Smooth, sandy bottom, clear water with the awe-inspiring expanse of sea and sky before us, the skyline of downtown reminding us (or at least me, as Elihu could not see it for himself) exactly where we were.

I had a personal revelation upon my return to upstate New York. When I got on the plane I felt relief to be going home. My heart looked to this place as its destination. And that was new to me. For the three years I’ve been here I’ve not quite felt I lived here. I’ve kept Chicago in my heart as my home. I’ve yearned for it, compared Saratoga unfairly to it, expressed my disdain at all my current location’s inadequacies. Yet after having revisited many familiar places, I had come to feel that my old life there had been played out. Satisfied, fully lived, completed. As I stood in these places that I knew so well, I could feel with certainty that my purpose there had been fully expressed and there was simply nothing left for me to do. My work there was done. Looking out of my window on the plane, down onto the very neighborhood in which I grew up – the Baha’i temple clearly visible, and my own childhood home just houses away from it – I didn’t feel the sorrow I’d expected. Instead I felt a warm sense of gratitude for all that it had meant to me in my life. I blew a kiss to my beloved old home, and then a new feeling began to well inside of me; the urgent desire to get home and get to work.

As with any wave of inspiration or revelation, its energy often diminishes with time. I suppose that lifting of my heart, that resolve to hit the New York soil with renewed purpose and vigor has waned a little in the days that have followed my homecoming. Once home, life hit with the force of a huge, breaking wave and I was carried away in the current of to-do lists and new situations to attend to. For the next week I’m working to complete all the unfinished projects on the farm and garden front so that come school time I can put my household concerns behind me and concentrate on creating this arts center. For now I’m tending to matters of the home.

And I’m happy to report I now know where that is.

Evanston Coffee Break

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Kid’s asleep and I’ve snuck out to check my email and get some coffee. Bad mom? I’ll be back before ten minutes have passed… Been without internet for a week. Like camping. Singing tonite with my beloved Prohibition Orchestra of Chicago. Feels like a dream – as if I’d never left, as if I’d been gone a hundred years. Like home, and yet not. I sit at the cafe window watching the good people of Evanston pass by. Shortly I’ll be back in the country, the hills of Vermont on the horizon, chickens at my feet. And I’m surprised to find myself relieved at the thought.

Evanston was a fine place to live, and it’s a fine place to visit, but I’m just about ready to go home.

Stinkin Hot

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Hookay. Despite my kitchen thermometer telling me my house is 87 inside (feels even hotter, I think) I have managed to get a fair amount done today.

Kid to clay class, check. Make program, check. Locate harpsichord tuning hammer, antique-style, check. Find washers for hose hook-up to supply water to studio, check. Make beds for musicians, check. Check papers to see if ads appeared as planned, check. Call that guy who wants to record the last concert, check. Borrow a weed wacker to clean up the driveway for the concert, check. More to do, but for now we can only hunker down inside to escape the Vietnam-like heat outside.

I am at the local mall, making use of its free wifi, installed alongside the bouncy-bounce while Elihu romps with new friends and works up the kind of sweat we came here to avoid working up. Kids. I can pick out his laughter, and it makes me happy to hear. Often he feels himself a loner, and truly he is in many ways, so it’s a relief for my mother’s heart to know he’s playing with others for a change and having such a good time.

It’s worth all that sweat that’s now pouring down his red-cheeked face on this stinkin hot day.

FBM 52nd Season

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The production of my father’s “Festival of Baroque Music” has taken most of my time of late, and this post will be little other than a quick hello…

In 1959 my father began his Foundation For Baroque Music as a means by which he might produce a series of early music concerts at a time in which little attention was given to the performance of Baroque music in authentic tuning and on authentic period instruments. A pioneer in such an endeavor, he has since been followed by many, and as a result it is no longer a rarity to hear such music performed. In fact, early music performance, from what I can understand, is usually performed in the lower tuning (concert A =  415 rather than A being 440 or higher) and frequently on authentic instruments. So my dad, I can gather, played an important role in the modern day re-discovery of Baroque music performance.

Can’t say much more right now, as I have a tired eight year old boy on my shoulder and must prepare for another busy day tomorrow. Awaiting my father’s 52nd and final concert this Sunday next. Much to do before then….