Oh, those crazy kids….

So, on this gorgeous August day, bright sunshine, low humidity, the first in a very long time, what do my kids decide they want to do?  Stay INSIDE and make a castle out of packing boxes they know I’ve squirreled away in the basement.  They are determined, probably because….

on Saturday, moments before we were expecting a bunch of friends and their children to arrive for a long-overdue barbecue, someone stabbed our blow-up pool to death.  Poor thing, never saw it coming.  Investigation continues, but it’s likely to be ruled an accidental aquaticslaughter.  Evidence:  calls for help revealed suspect with hands pressed over hole, desperately trying to prevent the life-giving air from leaking.  Bandages were applied, to no avail.  Slowly the pool succumbed to its injuries, leaving countless bathing-suit clad children to clutch their towels and wail.  Fortunately, the mourners rebounded and amused themselves in the sprinkler, as well as with the hose,  sand, and a jug of bubble soap.

The suspect confessed, weeping.  A beach umbrella was the weapon.  No motive.

The pool was buried at the local transfer station in a solemn ceremony.  In lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the New Blowup Pool Scholarship Fund, which hopes to raise enough money to erect a new pool in the deceased’s memory.

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Rock on.

Whatever happened to Poetry Wednesday?

Alas.  I have let this one go.  Must be summer, with the kids either surrounding me nonstop or being outside once the June rains finally stopped.  Whatever it was, here’s a late entry, one of my own pieces:

 

mt. lakes, my 16th year

 

light rainfall last night –

the pine railings and planks of the deck

dry sweetly under the july sunrise,

the scent of earthy moss and heavy

humus from the surrounding woods.

the fragrances humble each other

into compromise.

through waking eyes i see

the still lake beyond evergreens and

wandering branches of birch trees.

my beach towel, hung inside yesterday,

still carries the memory of chlorine and

suntan oil.  ten minutes before i must

bike to work, rake the short strip of sand,

skim the nearby pool,

ready the life buoys and rings, preparation

for the summer folk

with their coolers of sandwiches, sodas

and martinis: their daily baggage.

my house is still asleep,

but elsewhere children’s laughter echoes

from the distant shore,

early fishermen, perhaps, too eager

to care about scaring the trout to the

water’s murky depths.

i savor this brief solitude

in this moment of dawn.

i listen for my siblings, my parents,

and let the wind caress my face.

summer vacation is almost over.

Not pity, but thanks

It started with a small lump.  Okay, not so small, but not huge.  Behind Cooper’s right ear, last week.  Could be from a bug bite.  Who knows?

Five days later it’s still there, bigger, maybe, with two more smallish ones new to join the first.  That’s when I call the doctor.

Doctor is thorough, encouraging.  Probably nothing, he asserts.  Watch them for a month, and we’ll see.

On a skinny kid like my six-year-old, anything looks bigger than it is.  So we wait, we watch.

We do not borrow trouble.

But I am Mom.  I worry silently.  I watch with narrowed eyes.  Is it bigger?  Red? Painful?  Different in any way?

I am sure it is nothing. And why worry now?  Four weeks is a long time in the happenings of a lymph node.  

But the visit makes me grateful, all over again, for the flawed perfection I find in my four children.  I breathe the muggy air, fat with rain, and rub my son’s fuzzy head, newly shaved with a summer buzz-cut.  

Another day we are given a gift, a reprieve, another day to be worry-free and joyful.

If it were different, I hope I would feel the same.

This past weekend I watched a program on Discovery Health that profiled a 13-year-old born with primordial dwarfism,  She towered at 3 feet and had undergone extensive and painful surgery to insert steel rods into her spine so she would not suffer the typical curvature common in people with her genetic difference.  Her story was painful to watch, and I wept throughout, as she approached her daily life with so much burden, yet so much hope, wanting only to find the perfect outfit to wear to a birthday party or dance (but none to be found in the toddler section of the store, the size she was forced to choose from).

What made my heart overflow was when she declared, in my paraphrase, “I would not want to change who I am.  I like to be small.”

Often we hear stories of children who have struggled or continue to struggle with a disability, or the stories told by their parents of their own struggle to help their children navigate a world not prepared for that unique child.   Too often we listen with pity, sorrow.

And maybe that’s okay.  We all want our children to be happy and healthy, but we hope that they suffer as little as possible in this journey that is life.   I can’t imagine how it must be for parents of children with differences to adjust to a new perspective.  We are saddened that any child suffer, be it medical, emotional, or whatever.  We are equally heartbroken for the families who suffer alongside them.

At the same time, I know my pity is not what they want or need.  What they need is my applause, my admiration, for knowing that the differences make the journey that much sweeter, that much more unique.

I don’t know if all parents would say that they would do it differently if they could.  But the parents I know would probably say that they would not trade a single second of the road they’ve traveled so far.

Today Cooper is healthy.  I hope he continues to be. But if that changes, I have other parents as my inspiration to not survive, but rather thrive in the midst of whatever circumstances the wheel sets for us.

Those parents do not need my pity, but they should know, they have my thanks.

This One’s for Pop

After a couple of weeks away, I’ve forced myself to sit my butt in this chair and blog. We were at Mom & Dad’s last week for our annual July trip.  Had a great time, though Mom was under the weather and I did some things alone with the kids that she would normally have done with us.  She was a good sport, though — I mean, four kids under seven isn’t exactly a restful crew when you are convalescing, is it?  She was also trying to have her first full week of retirement.  I assume this week is going much better for her!

But Dad kept asking me when I was going to blog.  Since he is my steadfast reader, I am doing this one for him!  

I don’t have much to say today, or lately.  Have been busy writing, editing manuscripts, submitting here and there, or just wasting time on the SCBWI and blue boards.  I also joined the CBI Clubhouse because I need some more information, inspiration, and intentional time-suckers, since Facebook isn’t doing enough for me lately in the time-sucking category.

Back to vacation.  A wonderful week of busy fun, with enough cousin time to satisfy me, although the kids were disappointed not to have a sleepover this time around.  Gee, too bad!  (Say the weary chaperones)  My favorite part was going with all 9 (poor Aaron couldn’t come, too fidgety) to see the Bridgeport Bluefish play some other team.  We had fun seats on the first base line, the first three rows, and had plenty of room for the gang to be a little wild without bothering anyone.  The 3rd annual Cousin Olympics went well, what with the 400 water balloons I filled and with the addition of new events (3-legged race and water carry).

It is absolutely exhausting, frustrating, annoying, and wonderful getting those 10 kids together.  As they age it becomes both easier and more difficult, but when I step back and forget the stupid stuff, I remember how lucky we are to have 10 healthy, happy, joyful kids to invigorate our lives.  Every day.  

Sometimes, with my writing, I hold these kids out as my inspiration.  I hope that what I write and leave behind, what I put out into the world, can inspire kids to joy or creativity or adventure or wonder, just as these 10 do for me, without me even noticing it.

Pop, that’s for you.  You did a good job with all of us, and continue to do, with the next generation.

Tell that to the man in the mirror.

Poetry Wednesday

It must be the three weeks of rain that have me in this dark mood, or perhaps it’s just my personality.  What do you think?  Discuss.

Today I’m posting poems by Jane Kenyon.   Kenyon, a resident of New Hampshire, was a brilliant poet who at times was overshadowed by her more famous husband Donald Hall.  She died of cancer in the ’90s, leaving behind a small but powerful body of work.  (And I personally prefer her writing to her husband’s, though his work is quite amazing as well.)

What I love about Kenyon’s poems are her rich images of nature, and the way she intertwines a personal mysticism with her surroundings.  As a New Englander who spent her fair share of summers in New Hampshire, I adore the familiar world Kenyon moves in.    Both of these poems come from her collection, Let Evening Come (Graywolf Press, 1990).

 

 

In the Grove:  The Poet at Ten

 

She lay on her back in the timothy

and gazed past the doddering

auburn heads of sumac.

 

A cloud — huge, calm,

and dignified — covered the sun

but did not, could not, put it out.

 

The light surged back again.

 

Nothing could rouse her then

from that joy so violent

it was hard to distinguish from pain.

 

 

Let Evening Come

 

Let the light of late afternoon

shine through chinks in the barn, moving

up the bales as the sun moves down.

 

Let the cricket take up chafing

as a woman takes up her needles

and her yarn.  Let evening come.

 

Let dew collect on the hoe abandoned

in long grass.  Let the stars appear

and the moon disclose her silver horn.

 

Let the fox go back to its sandy den.

Let the wind die down.  Let the shed

go black inside.  Let evening come.

 

To the bottle in the ditch, to the scoop

in the oats, to the air in the lung

let evening come.

 

Let it come, as it will, and don’t

be afraid.  God does not leave us

comfortless, so let evening come.

After 3 weeks of rain….

What to do when fatigue drowns the day?

What to do when rain chokes inspiration?

What to do when the mundane becomes a hangman’s noose?

What to do when sleep is the pacifist?

What to do when television is the sublime soporific?

What’s left?

To rise, to begin,

again?

The plea, the hope.

That this time.  Yes.

This time.  Yes.

The first sleepover

Mitzi is having her first sleepover tonight.  Until now, it’s been the occasional night with her cousin either with us at Muggy’s house, or with cousin Anna at Anna’s house.  Very safe, very predictable.  Tonight, though, Mitzi is at our neighbor’s house, with our neighbor’s daughter.  Many  weeks of anticipation have built up to this activity — Mitzi has had a bag packed and at the ready since the idea was first floated in December.  So off she went this afternoon — finally!  – for a chilly swim in the pool, and to have dinner and girly fun with Sofia and her mom.  Off we went, to Cooper’s last baseball game of the season, followed by dinner at Salsa’s, the restaurant who sponsored Coop’s team.

I was at ease.  I expected no trouble.

Alas.  Mitzi called once, during the game, to say hi, and to ask for her sleeping bag.  After we got home, I walked over with the sleeping bag and some wine for the moms.  Daniela and I chatted while the girls watched The Wizard of Oz, dressed up, bickered, made up, and asked for nineteen different things.  

It’s funny.  Mitzi kept wanting to walk home — to kiss Daddy, to kiss the little girls, to have a story with Cooper.  I had assumed my outgoing firstborn would be in her milieu at a big-kid sleepover, but in the end she was no different than anyone other child.  She kissed me 37 times and jumped into my arms every time (this is a kid who is nearing my height, ouch).  She was a little nervous about staying alone in a new place, no matter how many times she’d been over to play.

We kissed goodnight a last time and I walked home.  She waved me into the darkness, with shouting promises of an early-morning reunion.  I’ve left the back yard light on, just in case.

I shouldn’t be surprised.  She’s just a kid.  Being away is hard.  Remember your first night at college?  This first sleepover was a little like that, for this gregarious seven-year-old.  Things were different, and she needed reassurance.  The view was altered and she needed grounding.  The environment was not hers and she needed a compass.

No matter where you go, you always need your Mom.  I still talk to my mom once a day.  Less than that, I get a little antsy.

I get it.  

So tonight I will sleep fitfully, with the light on and a phone held loosely in my hand, should my child, my baby, sleeping just a few hundred feet away, need me.

I am prepared.  But I wonder:  Is it for her, or for me?

Poetry Wednesday, a day late

Yeah, well, it wouldn’t be me if it were on time, right?

This is a poem by Lucille Clifton.  It’s always inspired me, especially when I feel frozen or lost in my life.  

 

it was a dream

 

in which my greater self

rose up before me

accusing me of my life

with her extra finer

whirling in a gyre of rage

at what my days had come to.

what,

i pleaded with her, could i do,

oh what could i have done?

and she twisted her wild hair

and sparked her wild eyes

and screamed as long as

i could hear her.

This.  This.  This.

–from The Book of Light, 1993, Copper Canyon Press

Not real, but real sad

I really hate to jump on the gossip bandwagon, but I am just so sad about the crumbling of Jon and Kate.

I got into the reality show (“Jon and Kate Plus 8″) a few years ago.  How could I not?  At the time I had four kids under five years old, and was always on the lookout for someone to validate my insecurities, fears, failures, and faux pas.  I eagerly watched to see if Kate struggled much more than I did (perhaps she did, but I couldn’t tell), felt the guilt I did (she managed to feed her kids organic food and get them to church every Sunday, so I guess she did not).  It didn’t take me too long to grow cynical about this family  – I mean, if I had three nannies I could do just about anything, not to mention an extra $75K a week, plus free vacations and product-placement supplies.  The perks of a TLC celebrity.

But at what cost?  Any regular viewer has his or her opinion of the relationship, but no one can deny the obvious crumbling of the marriage.  I wonder, where were the friends?  The family?  The producer?  Heck, even the craft service rep might have suggested counseling of some kind long before this happened.

But I guess strife is good TV.  Repairing a marriage is not.  Certainly not good for the bottom line.

Does TLC have the license for the future “when they were child stars” profiles of the Gosselin 8?  I wouldn’t be surprised if they did.   Ante up, gossip mongers.

I’d say that I’m not one to judge someone else’s marriage, but I guess I am, particularly if you broadcast it around the world.  Jon, Kate, you failed.  Each other, yes, but those kids.   

Tonight, on the “special episode” in which the pair revealed that not only are they separating, but that divorce proceedings are underway, both Jon and Kate reiterated again and again that evreything they did was for the benefit of the kids.

What a load of hooey.  With that much help, money, and encouragement, much more should have been spent on the marriage, the relationship that created the kids in the first place.  Maybe Kate’s gym time could’ve been sacrificed?  Jon’s snowboarding?

I’m sure the kids would’ve understood about a regular Saturday night date instead of a shared custody.

Ray and I work at our relationship, sometimes more than at other times.  I can’t imagine the drain that 8 kids puts on a marriage — I know what 4 kids demand.  But I’ve learned, with no cameras or paychecks, that sometimes what’s best for the kids is that the parents put their relationship first.

I guess TLC’s most famous couple never figured that out.  Let that be a sad lesson for the rest of us who live in the real, not the reality, world.