electric mist

strange connections

I mostly remember the cold, some twenty-two years ago, living in a drafty house that we never should have bought, but with stars in our eyes and assumptions that we could repair the drab fixer-upper, we'd bought it anyway. And suddenly there had been a baby, all too fast, not enough time to get the thousand and one things done that we thought we'd get done before he arrived, and there was the cold. That winter seemed especially chilled, moreso I think because it always felt damp, rain and dreary gray overcasting the day until I wanted to weep for sunshine. I remember thinking that I would never get to sleep again, never get to feel that lush luxury of sheets and comforters and wallowing into oblivion because I was always half-listening for the baby's cries, the cries that always came, the cries that never stopped, and I wondered, sometimes, if I hadn't already gone quietly mad and was too deaf from the crying to hear anyone say so. I remember not knowing what to do for all of the crying, trying a thousand different things, everything anyone reasonably rational suggested and even a few of the odd ones, too, just wanting to know that I wasn't going to destroy this kid, this amazing pink and screaming child who somehow had shown up in this world with me as his mom. The gray of the days crushed in on me, moved into the house, took up all of the room, squeezed me into a corner until I couldn't breathe without breathing in the gray and I felt the color leeching out of my world, felt myself going blank for hours at a time, just trying to muddle through, just trying to breathe in and out without soaking up the gray, and whole eons seemed to pass without my moving. And I remember this moment, this clear moment when the gray felt a little less severe, and I looked out the window and felt the air shimmer, sunshine filtered through the clouds, but that's not what took my breath away. What did was an amazing sight of a dozen Japanese Magnolia trees that had been planted some thirty years earlier on the border of our property, and they had all burst forth with bloom, seemingly overnight. Vibrant pinks that crimsoned into lush wines on one side of the velvety petals, creamy white skimming the other, and thousands of blooms, filling the sky. We hadn't known what kind of tree that was when we'd moved in; no one had guessed Japanese Magnolias because traditionally, those trees aren't that large, but these were at least forty to fifty feet in height and there was a wall of flowers reaching toward the shimmering air. The color leeched back into my world and that image anchored me, reminded me of beauty, reminded me that there were going to be days of colors, of riots of greens and blue skies and sunshine. And for the first time, I felt less afraid of the screaming child and what I was going to do and how I might handle the tasks we had before us.

In this house where we've lived for six years, I made sure that the one tree I planted as soon as I had the chance was a Japanese Magnolia. It's just outside the kitchen window, and the buds are thick and burgeoning and promise to be stunning, and as I'm smiling at the memory, the phone rings, and it's that same child, letting me know that French sucks (he's out of practice and has one more class of French before being done -- the French teacher chastised him for bringing a French dictionary to class and told him to simply ask if he didn't understand what she was saying... but since even the instructions are in French, he's lost. He told her that would be a lot of "asking" because he was barely getting every fifth word. I think he's dropping French.) and grousing about falling down stairs (spilled coffee) and generally, cracking me up the entire time we talked.

Sometimes, we don't get to know the end of the stories we see around us; life is like that, it's fast and chaotic and very rarely do things tie off neatly or parallel nicely. But I remember how Granny (Carl's grandmother) who lived across from us would look at certain flowers or trees and there would be this wave of nostalgia, and I'd think she was a little daft, because a tree was a tree was a tree. Except, now, when it's not. Sometimes there are strange connections which mark for us a moment, that moment of breathing again, that moment where the color floods back into the world and we realize we just might be okay. And seeing that same tree, twenty-two years later, and knowing that it came true, that we were okay, that we made it, that there has been much color and laughter and smiles and living. I understand now.

And as I listen to my son and all that he's saying, making me laugh, there is this little part of me that suddenly realizes that one day, he'll have those associations, too, and maybe with his own child, and then so on and so on. He knows I've planted the tree, but I'm not sure I've ever told him why, and how looking at it reminds me of that moment I looked down at him and just knew, understood, what a gift he was, and that it was going to be okay.

I think I will call him back and tell him.

yadda

Me (turning off faucet, hearing him mumbling something): What was that?
Him: What was what?
Me: You. Just then.
Him: Just then what?
Me: Talking. You were saying something.
Him: I don't think so.
Me: Yes. Just now. Were you talking to me, or just mumbling?
Him: I'm not sure. I wasn't listening.
Me: !!!

I've been gone, mostly due to being in some pain. Cluster headaches. But I'm back. Really really grumpy, but back.

recycling

Luke glanced into the pantry and noticed that the recycling bin was nearly overflowing with diet coke cans.

"Mom! You could build a small airplane from those cans."

"And your point is?"

"You've really got to quit drinking so many diet cokes. They're not good for you."

"Kid, step away from my diet coke habit. It's my blankie, because right now I am eating low carbs, which deprives me of all the things I love: pasta, cheetos, fritos, brownies, cake, cookies, chocolate, m&ms, pizza, and pie. "

"Wait a minute. You don't like pie."

"I MIGHT have LOVED pie, and now I'll never know, because I can't eat it and I can't eat any of those other things and I'm living on that ragged edge of insanity and the diet coke is the only thing keeping me from crossing the line into the machete-killing-spree zone."

"Mom?"

"What?"

"Did you know that your head sort of spun around and your eyes got really bulgey there for a minute."

"You threatened the diet coke."

"Here's a glass of ice. Should I pop the top for you?"

"Survival instincts?"

"You betcha."

"Don't say I never taught you anything."

on cheesy food...

Me to oldest son, Luke: So I hear you called your grandmother, your aunt and your dad to find out how to cook the roast in your new crockpot.

Luke: Yeah. They were a big help.

Me: But you never called me!

Luke: So?

Me: So, I cook!

Luke: Yeah, and if I ever want to cook something with cheese on it, I'll call you.

(I would have smacked him, but he had a point.)

Carl took a pan of excellent baked potato casserole he'd made out of the refrigerator; he and Luke were going to eat the left-overs. I was sitting in my office, which has a door open to the kitchen so I can see what they're doing.

Luke pulled off the lid and they both looked at it with a little shock.

Carl: I see your mom has been eating the potatoes. She ate all the tops where the cheese was.

Luke sees me giving Carl the death-glare.

Luke, to me: What? Why are you annoyed he said that?

Me: Well it's not like I did it on purpose.

(Luke cracks up. I realized what I've said and I'm not sure if I can come up with a rational justification for why the cheesy tops are gone since I have been the only one home, so I opt for shutting up.)

Carl: That's okay. We'll just put more cheese on them.

Me: Um, we're out of cheese.

Luke: Imagine that.

best title for a TV show, ever

No, not the title of the blog or the entry, but the one she ought to use as described in the actual entry.

Very funny blog -- y'all check it out.

apparently, English isn't spoken here

Every once-in-a-while, I'll get questions from my kids that makes me wonder if they ever actually heard anything while growing up here. They know I was an English major, and they'll call out-of-the-blue with the weirdest word questions. Now, I was always a bookworm and routinely, I'll know what a word means (sensing it out in a sentence), but not necessarily how to pronounce it, and since I don't talk to that many other bookworms on a regular basis, I'm perfectly capable of mangling the pronunciation of the less-than-prosaic words. So if my kids were asking me how to pronounce something, I wouldn't worry. But no, they call me to see what a word means. (Ah, the use of cell phones while driving and without access to a dictionary. Finally, I have a use in life.)

Luke called during finals last semester. Luke is 22 and has a very good GPA in political science. The kid is gifted. And yet, he called me and said, "Mom? What does 'exasperating' mean?" I'm wondering if he found his photo in the dictionary or something. So I ask "why?" first. "Because ____ (his major professor) told me today that I was exasperating. It didn't sound like a good thing." I'm nodding, thinking, yes, intuitive professor. Not a good thing to say, though, so I ask him, "Um, just how did the professor use the word?" "Oh," Luke said, "he said that the whole time he read my paper, he thought I was on the verge of something brilliant and instead, I just ended up exasperating."

Does a mother proud.

To give him credit (and I'm stretching for it here), I think he was so surprised by the comment and the way in which is was delivered, it sounded like a compliment, which was so at odds with the topic they were discussing, that Luke wondered if he was confused. Like Inigo Montoya... "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

Then the youngest son (18) called tonight and said, "Mom? What does it mean when someone is 'implicated' in something?" And yes, I did get very quiet in that moment and listened intently to see if there were sirens or cops in the background of his phone call. I was almost afraid of answering that one, and more afraid to ask why he wanted to know. Turned out, someone had used it incorrectly and he was trying to settle a bet. (And no dictionary present, of course. That would just be wrong.)

You'll have to excuse me while I go write out things like my own obituary. I'm not leaving anything to chance or I might end up being "exasperating." However, I have decided that any important, top secret documents I might ever need to hide are going in the dictionary. The kids will never look there.

'tater launch

They kept forecasting for rain, and probably somewhere around fifty people after all was said and done. Because I was busy visiting with everyone, I nearly forgot to take photos, but managed to get a couple of the tater launching:

That's Luke (left) and Jake (right) prepping to shoot. Luke made that 'tater gun just a couple of hours prior to the party.

Here's a close-up of Luke spraying in the propellant:

And of course, our fancy schmancy target:

There were kids running around, hence the spacewalk:

Tons of food, lots of fun and great company. We only had one minor injury. My neice (16) saw her cousins about to launch taters and decided to go stand near the target. I don't know why. A 'tater part riccocheted off and smacked her on the thigh, but no bruising.

(Someone asked last post about the emergency trip. That would be for Luke, a couple of years ago. The first year, Luke singed his hair on one side when looking into the barrel (from the side, near the flint). Next year, he singed his eyebrows. The emergency room year, he got a piece of flint in his eye. All of this while trying to make it safe for the other people to handle it. I pointed out to him that perhaps "safe" didn't mean what he thought it meant, since he was the only one getting injured, and that if he got injured again, we would be cancelling the 'tater launch. He's managed to be injury-free for two years.)