Month: February 2013

Of Mountains and Mud

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There is little snow on Minister Hill this winter, and part of me has been mourning the absence of sledding and snowshoeing.  The road down our hill is mostly mud now.  

Navigating the deep oozing ruts adds another five minutes to every little venture.  Today, though, even the sight of the nearly naked mountains rising up over the muck as I drove down the hill was enough to slow our trip to the ice rink even further.  If the road had been better, I would have worked harder to pilot and gawk at the same time, but the mud nearly forced me to a stop several times.  I snapped off a couple photos, figuring I would do a sketch while I watched the kids during school skate.  

We returned a few hours later to a road even more scarred from a wintry mix and other vehicles.  I was a few sketches richer.  Thing1, my twelve-year-old, increasingly pensive as he approaches adolescence, was cheerful after racing around a rink for two hours.  Thing2, my six-year-old whose normal state is chatter and dance, was nearly asleep from his exertions.  

The mud up our mountain, earlier the guardian of my mindfulness of the mountains, was now just another obstacle between us and home.  Thing1 began pointing out the least treacherous parts, and the car’s rumble seat imitation began to rouse my younger passenger in the back seat.  As we passed the horse farm that lies just below our driveway, the ruts in the muck became deep slick channels, and my only option was to keep accelerating and let the edges of the chasms help me find the least resistance.  

Ten feet later, as the swells in the silt became more navigable, I was glad I hadn’t had much for lunch.  I glanced at Thing1 who was now grinning and looking very twelve.  In the rear view mirror, I could see Thing2 continuing to bounce, even though the car had stopped.

“Can we go again?” he asked, knowing full well that we will be ‘going again’ tomorrow.  But tomorrow morning, when we head out on our slimy roller coaster ride, I’ll remember that, while the coasting has it’s appeal, the climb can be pretty fun too.

A Good Egg

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It was a little after 6 when my shift ended and I turned off the computer and emerged from my office into the family room. Thing2 was hanging out with the Big Guy on the couch while Thing1 listened to music on his iPod. Without thinking, I launched into my litany of reminders.

“Is your homework done?” I asked both boys.

“Yes.”

“Yes”

“Firewood in?” I asked Thing1, getting ready to remind him that if he wanted to earn money for this necessary chore he had to be completely responsible for the bin staying full.

“Yes, Mom.”

“Dishwasher emptied?”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Did you take Katy out?”

“Yes, Mom,” He didn’t bother to look up from his iPod at the last query, knowing he had stopped me in my tracks. He had but not for the reason he thought.

As I stirred the leftover stew on the wood stove, it hit me that my once slightly serious but still impish boy is evolving into a responsible young man. And, while I want to keep the real world from denting that bliss that exists in all of us when we’re ignorant of the world, I am also realizing that I may need to find a new nick name for my first born.

It’s been sightly less than a year since I introduced my kids to this blog with their nicknames – Thing1 and Thing2. At the time, I was searching for stories close to home, and my 12 and 6 year old’s antics provided much of my fodder as well as their blog names (I didn’t want to use their real names on a blog). Thing2 is still very much an imp, but he has acquired a second nickname over the year – SuperDude – as the joyful theatrics that characterize his age became more colorful and creative. Little impishness is obvious in Thing1 anymore, however, as he gets closer to the edge of his childhood.

He’ll be thirteen in August, and he’s been towering over me since before his last birthday, but the changes in him over the last year are more than just physical. Thing1 went through his joyful, leaping stage when he was six, and, when he’s hanging out with his brother, he is reminded that the joy and leaping still lurk beneath the surface. But Thing1 has always been a more deliberative child, and he seems to be continuing on that path, accepting new responsibilities with little complaint. In short, he’s a good egg.

We’re seeing some of the expected displays of independence and boundary testing, but, remembering how I put my own parents through the ringer as a teenager, I was – and still am – ready for much worse. For now, though, we seem to be enjoying calm. It will probably storm at some point, but rather than fear what I can’t foretell, I’m realizing I need to begin marking this next phase in my oldest son’s life. I know that, like the last twelve years, it will fly by, and how and what I write about the person he is now will play a huge part in keeping that time in my memory. It makes his new nickname all the more important.

Shiny Things

Forgetting for five minutes that my daylight hours are pretty well filled from dawn till dusk with blogging, parenting and work (cleaning is more of an annual event), I clicked on the bright pretty button and signed up for the workshop.  It’s an iPhonography workshop, and for five bucks, I figured even if I wash out, it was a good deal.

Once upon a time I was a fair photographer. I even shot a few weddings and children’s portraits.  But when Thing2 (now six) started toddling, I found that focusing a big, heavy SLR while keeping an adventurous two-year-old in check were not compatible activities.   My big, heavy SLR spent a lot of time in its bag, until, finally  I decided to trade it in for a point-and-shoot, which now sits mostly in a bag.  I do take my iPhone everywhere, however, and its primary advantage – aside from being always with me – is that neither kid has a clue when Mom is about to snap off a picture.

I don’t really have time for another class or hobby or any other activity, but I was feeling a little down when the shiny thing caught my eye and my imagination.  It may lead nowhere, but hopefully I’ll get better pictures of the kids out of the deal.  That’s definitely worth five bucks and a little more hectic schedule

Focus and Fog

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A few weeks ago I came out of the cave. Struggling to stay productive as my elaborate and expansive fantasy world beckoned, desperate for inspiration, I began to write about my writer’s ‘block’. It’s more of a cave sealed by a great iron door than a block. When I’m teetering on the edge of a serious depression as I do almost annually, I retreat behind the door. The world behind it is richer and provides a sustaining refuge when anxiety and despair grow, inflaming one another and consuming me. But, the escape is never without a cost, as my sister recently reminded me.

Fantasy is my mentally-induced coma. When I’m diving into it, I still function, holding up my end of the household. For most of my fantasy visit, the only lifeline out of that very deep and seductive pit is the knowledge that several someone else’s completely depend on my not letting go. But, even though I’ve never completely lost my grip on that line, I know that living at the back of my mind means I’m not fully living with the people I love.

There are pharmaceutical ‘cures’ and therapies for depression, but they, too, come with costs. Some – physical side effects, sluggishness, even increased risk of suicide – are printed on the label. But others are not so apparent.

The back of my cave is dark, but sometimes I think it also provides me with tremendous depth of field when I do look back out at the ‘real world’. It doesn’t allow for any filter all the events of the day and their implications intrude on my consciousness as soon as I venture outside my fantasy realm, and they are in sharp focus at every distance. Where my mania lets the popular media burn out disturbing details through overexposure, my depression cancels out the glare.

With tack-sharp clarity and all at once I can see a life that is finally unfolding as I always wanted – people to love, work to sustain us, and a physical refuge from the rest of the world – and the things that can undo it. I pass a rusting upturned oil drum on the banks of the Battenkill and wonder how much ooze still covers the rocks at the bottom of that river. How many parts per million now float in that water where my children cavort in the summer? How much of it seeps into our ground water? Our well must be safe. How much of our cleaning products get into our well? Are they really going to start fracking across the state line? Can we protect our own water? Do we have any say in it? How do people find the courage to take these on? I should be trying to write the next Silent Spring, and all I can come up with is posts about laundry. And that’s before I even turn on the news.

There have been times when my worries have taken me to a dangerous precipice, and after many years of walking to the edge and staring into the delicious dark, I learned from an observant aunt that there were alternatives to this routine. I began to explore Prozac, which was popular at the time, and for a short time, it worked. And then it didn’t. I tried others. And, while sometimes they could contain the chain reactions of my worries, they created a new nagging fear.

The new worry had nothing to do with the chest palpitations they produced but with the foggy filter they fit over my lens on the world. I began to sense the problems of the world less, but in the back of my mind, I knew they were still there. The fog didn’t help to resolve them anymore than the fear did, and I often wondered if its true function was to obscure my own cowardice when considering how to help solve those problems.

I’m working to barricade the door to my fantasy realm now. It stands in the way of my present and future. But it is only just behind me, and now as I wait for my mania to shine its white hot, distorting light on the world, its problems are still in sharp focus.  I know I don’t have the wherewithal or courage to be an agent of change, but as much as that clarity can be a curse, I’m still not sure the filter is a blessing either.

Sanity Sunday… or Not

Organization is not a hallmark of our family life, but over the years we have managed to stumble on a few rituals.  Lately, it’s been Taco Friday –  neither kid objects to it because they make it themselves.   When Mom is dieting it’s Meatless Monday (the diet almost always begins and ends on Monday).  Six-year-old Thing2’s addiction to Shake ‘n’ Bake means at least one night of the week is dedicated to pork chops.  Saturdays are dedicated to morning sports and breakfast at Bob’s Diner in Manchester, Vermont in the winter and dragging the kids to the latest free art exhibit in the summer.  Sundays have been a bit nebulous, however.

We’re not religious, so our Sunday mornings tend to be wide open.  Some weeks we head to back to the diner, other days the kids will ‘inspire’ the Big Guy to make corn cakes.  Yesterday, however, we thought we might have found on a new candidate for our Sunday routine.

Our boys, twelve and six and affectionately nicknamed Thing1 and Thing2 after the imps in Cat in the Hat, still share a room whose hamper not long ago acquired magical properties that prevent dirty clothes from entering.  A recent ruling by the Big Guy made indoor Dodge Ball with the smaller, ‘softer’ red ball in their toy box permissible, and now a carpet of clothes and dodgeball casualties litter the room.  Still, until Friday night, I had put the mess at a mere Defcon 4.  Level 4 usually causes a double-take when I walk by the room but doesn’t inspire me to intervene.  Friday, however getting from the door to the bunk bed for a goodnight kiss had become an act of death defiance, and I raised the alert to Defcon 2.   After a snuggle with Thing2 and an almost-deflected kiss for Thing1, I let them know it was time to engage in cleaning maneuvers before I had to go nuclear and clean everything OUT.

Hoping to encourage them to manage their own time a little and recognize that mother and maid are not interchangeable terms, I gave them the weekend to get the room presentable.  It didn’t have to be Grandma-and-Grandpa-are-coming clean, but the mess couldn’t just move under the bed either.  And I set a deadline – high noon on Sunday or there would be consequences.  There would also be no access to electronic media Sunday morning until the work was done.

Saturday morning we had basketball practice and went to breakfast.  The boys decided that was an iron-clad excuse not to clean in the morning.  They had a few hours in the afternoon, but decided to use it dawdling until we went out for a brief visit to friends.  By the time dinner rolled around, they had rationalized the entire day away.

By seven A.M. Sunday, the procrastination began to acquire heroic proportions.  Zero hour was approaching so they woke early and immediately began arguing about how to divvy up the work.  Between settling rounds, the Big Guy and I began quietly debating what the consequences should be.  Then, shortly after a breakfast of thoroughly-chewed cereal, the room at the end of the hall became eerily quiet.  I wondered if victory might be in our grasp as griping morphed into the sounds of things being picked up.

Then it stopped.  I got up to lay down some law but was stopped by the opening riff of ‘Ticket to Ride’.  The Big Guy is usually the source of homemade music, but his guitar was still in the utility room.  The radio was off, and as I got closer to the minefield, I realized that Thing1 must have rediscovered his guitar under a pile of clothes or toys.  I knew this was just another diversion on his part, but this was the first one that was remotely constructive.  Suddenly Thing2 bolted out of the room and into the utility room.  He emerged with his guitar and bounced over to the Big Guy.

“Daddy,” he breathed, “can you show me how to play that Beatles song?”  The Big Guy is always happy to pass on his love of all things Beatle to the boys, and obliged.  Thing2 disappeared into his room, and I sat down on the couch with my co-parent, marveling at how, deprived of all privileges and electronic entertainment these two had finally found something creative to do.

“I think we should make them do this every Sunday,” I said.  The Big Guy nodded, and we both listened to the chirping (Thing2) and picking (Thing1) in the other room.  For a few brief moments sanity reigned. We both agreed the noon deadline should still stand, and, for the moment, I thought we had found a new ritual.

Two minutes later the chirping stopped, and it wasn’t long before the picking ceased and cries of “You started it” resumed.  The Big Guy and I closed our eyes.  I think he was the first one to speak after an exasperated minute.

“So, how about the art museum next Sunday?” He said.

Jekylls and Hydes



There are very few things in my life that I look at and feel my chest fill with pride as I mentally point to them and say, “I had a hand in that.” Two of those things – twelve-year-old Thing1 and six-year-old Thing2 – keep me pretty busy as chauffeur, cook, tutor, and maid, and I do love it when I get the chance to stop and admire the fruit of my and my husband’s labors. Today was one of those days.

We’re trying to design a fence to keep our dog in the yard and our too-friendly neighborhood porcupine out and decided to go over the state line to visit a farm owned by friends in Cambridge to check out their fence design. The couple is very kid tolerant, but Thing1 and Thing2 were still in the throes of a series of preteen-flavored jokes that had begun the night before on the way home from a party, and we spent the short trip letting them know the shenanigans would stop as soon as we shut off the car engine.

As luck would have it, threats of military school or lifetime groundings were unnecessary.

The farm owners showed us their fences and the livestock they protect – a small flock of sheep. They and their very friendly border collie treated us and the boys to a sheep herding demonstration.

Thing2 is always enchanted by animals, especially farm animals (I think he senses there’s a snowball’s chance we could be talked into getting sheep or horses at some point), and he was uncharacteristically quiet as he petted the sheep and donkeys. Score one for the parents, I thought, and I glanced at Thing1 for a behavior check.

Thing1, who is currently trying to earn money to build his own computer, was engrossed in a discussion with the husband. He’s already a few inches taller than I, and he looked strangely adult to me as he carried on an adult conversation without any antics.

The six of us chatted about fences and Hubbard Hall and farms until the first flakes and drops of an impending late winter storm pulled us in our different directions. As we walked back to our car, I could  hear Thing2 beginning to formulate a new song-and-dance routine, but it was more happy than hysteria. Thing1 was as dignified as a twelve-year-old could be, and I treated myself to a mental pat on the back as we got in the car.

Then I put the car in reverse, and, before I had backed out of our spot, dignity and mental pats were mere memories. Sensing a lapse in our vigilance, Thing1 and Thing2 launched into their favorite game – Sound Effects Theatre, Seventh Grade Edition. Trying to ignore the snorts and burps coming from the back seat, I pulled out into traffic wondering whose kids were back there.

Roots

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True confession: I am a huge Star Trek fan. I have been since high school when I stumbled on it on a Saturday afternoon trying to find something other than college football to watch. By the time I found Star Trek, the cardboard sets and blinking light computers had been made quaint by more extravagant sci-fi shows, but for a chronically depressed teenager (redundant, I know) there was something appealing about a vision of a future in which at least humanity had learned to cooperate enough to mount an interplanetary expedition.

The travel junkie in me loved the idea of going to other planets and seeing other creatures and people. But the thing I loved most about Star Trek (and its offspring) was the philosophy enshrined in the Prime Directive. As every respectable Trekker knows, the Prime Directive forbade Star Fleet explorers from interfering in the course of development in the places they visited. In other words, they were there to observe and learn, not to teach.

Thanks to my parents’ influence, my own wanderlust was already pretty healthy by the time I was a teenager. And, while our parents made sure that any trip included a visit to the obligatory museums and monuments, they had their own Prime Directive. It was actually pretty similar to Star Fleet’s: be a good guest when you travel by learning and respecting the local customs and culture. In other words, observe and learn.

I’ve tried to carry these directives with me through most of my life, and Star Trek and my parents have served me well in my travels. Each adventure is a chance to embrace something completely new. I love absorbing the languages and flavors and being absorbed – however briefly – into the local cultures.

And yet, as much as I love immersion, even when our travels have kept us in one place for months or years, there is always a part of me that feels like a visitor.

We’ve lived in Vermont for over ten years, and, even though it’s a longer stay than just about any other place in my life, I do sometimes fret over the grass that’s growing around my feet. A phrase in a recent post prompted a reader to ask me if I was a native Vermonter, and I realized that, despite having birthed a Vermonter and married a man with Vermont roots predating European settlers, I am still very much an explorer at heart. The realization got me thinking, not about my status as a Vermonter but about how I think of home in general.

I love the town we’ve settled in, and I have made some of the closest friends in my life here, but I have also always been willing to pull up stakes when adventure beckons. The Big Guy I married is equally adventurous, but his roots here and in New England in general are deep, and they are strong. Those roots, and the two smaller branches we’ve been nurturing for the last twelve and six years are often the only things keeping my feet on the ground when my heart is getting ready to leapfrog past my head into a new venture.

I don’t know if I’m capable of growing real roots of my own. If I were still single or half of a DINK (double-income no kids), I would be doing my job from a different locale every few months. But I do know that the graft I’ve formed with the Big Guy has helped me figure out where my home is, and it’s anywhere he and our two offshoots have planted their roots.

On the Street Where I Live

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It’s been four or five days now since a fertilizer bomb was detonated somewhere on the mountain across from ours.  While the local paper (two towns away) hasn’t picked up the story yet, it was a hot topic for many people at our local country store on Sunday.  Curiosity and concern were still high on Monday, but by Tuesday it was clear that fear was already losing its grip on many of us .

I’m still worried, of course.  Vermont isn’t at war as far as any of us know, so a bomb is not what we’re expecting to hear at eight o’ clock at night.  I am still waiting for some scrap of comforting information.  Even in the absence of information, however, I’m managing to find signs that this town (whose motto is ‘Whatever happens here stays here… But nothing ever happens here’) has managed to put a serious dent in my once Olympic-caliber capacity for agonizing over every potential problem.  There were two of those signs yesterday.

The first one had me trying to remember to breathe.  Mother Nature had been in her paintbox the night before.  After wiping her canvas clean with an inch of rain, she cooled things down.  Then, under cover of night, she brought out her fattest paint brush and daubed just enough white powdery paint over the mountains to cover but not completely obscure the trees and rocks.   I only noticed her work after I’d finished scraping the car and getting six-year-old Thing2 on the road to winter camp.  We scaled the long icy slope of our driveway, and then turned onto the road heading towards the horse farm at the bottom of our road.

The road makes a beautiful S-curve as we get closer.  A few isolated trees frame the rolling hills and the buildings of the farm perfectly, and a day doesn’t go by when I think what a perfect painting it would make.   Yesterday we hit the S-curve just as low purple and white clouds were skimming the powered mountains that rise up behind the farm.  It was breathtaking.  I forgot, for a moment, that we were late, that my foot was still on the gas, and even that a bomb had ever gone off on the mountain across from ours.

When I recovered my breath and remembered to slow down before we hit the more adventurous part of the mud pit we call a road, I drew Thing2’s attention to the scene ahead of us.  We slowly descended the hill, and the painting seemed to envelope us.  Thing2 spoke first after we had passed the farm.

“Can you believe we get to live here all the time?”  He asked.  I couldn’t, and all my recent mutterings that we should move somewhere safer to the middle of nowhere (redundant really) shattered like dust falling with the snow.

The second sign was more subtle, but when I finally saw it, was just as powerful.

The Big Guy went in the afternoon to Hubbard Hall, our local community theatre and art center in Cambridge, NY to pick up Thing2 at his winter break workshop.  Caught up in the excitement of viewing Thing2’s art projects, the nearly empty gas tank in the car slipped his mind, and they headed home. They were almost home when the gas ran out.  Fortunately, a neighbor spotted them quickly and brought them the rest of the way home.  The Big Guy borrowed my car to go get a can of gas for the vehicle still on the side of the road.

He was gone not five minutes when we heard a truck in the driveway.  Positive he couldn’t have filled up the car that quickly, we wondered who it could be.  Before I could get up from the kitchen table (my home office – very glamorous), Thing2 had gone into the mudroom to answer the door.  I had forgotten to lock the outside door again, however, and I suddenly heard a deep voice talking to my son.  It was another neighbor who had seen the car by the road and popped down to see if we needed help.  I told him we were all set and thanked him for checking on us.  Thing2 threatened to entrap him with endless cheerful banter, but the neighbor just smiled at him good-naturedly and waved goodbye to all of us.

I was not yet at the end of my work day and, forgetting to lock the door again, sat back down at the table to finish my shift.  Then the phone rang.  It was another neighbor from across the valley checking to see if we needed any help with the car.  I gave him the same answer, thanked him and hung up.   Before the phone touched the table, however, it rang again.  This time it was our neighbor at the top of our driveway who had seen the car.  I hung up a few minutes later, smiling and thinking that however loud one misguided kook might be, he doesn’t outnumber the ‘good guys’ in this tiny little town.

I realize it’s the same every city.  The ones making the bombs – regardless of their form – are the loudest, but they aren’t the majority.  They can cause havoc with your sense of peace if you let them, however.  I’m still hoping for news about our incident, but by the time the Big Guy returned with my keys, I had seen the second sign.  It wasn’t in the calls from caring neighbors.  It was the fact that, thanks to this town, I’m slowly learning to live my life without locked doors.

 

Chuck

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He really is a pussycat in the morning.  When I go to my study at 5 AM, we usually play a game of ‘who gets the chair’ until he resigns himself to sitting on my desk, overseeing the writing.  Occasionally, he’ll put a gentle paw on my hand when he thinks a word or phrase is wrong.

The sun is up now, and he’s taking his place on the woodpile as the guardian of the house – Katy the wonder dog is better at announcing burglars than stopping them.  But, as I walk back from the car after my morning chauffeur duties, he fixes me with a stern gaze, warning me to keep his safe secret from the other critters that will pass through our yard today.

Flying

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This is the time when I start crawl out of the abyss.  I won’t crawl for long.  The door at the back of my mind will open, and my fantasies, once merely and barely sustaining, will soon have me rocketing into the firmament.  

Sunday, as I drove home from Manchester, cursing the flood of tourists that had made my favorite haunts temporarily unavailable, I had the first inkling that I was at this threshold.  Caution still wraps me in reason, but that bond was already beginning to fray on Sunday as I began exploring my options for a new haunt.  Unfounded and unfettered exhilaration awaits just beyond my cave, and soon I’ll be soaring on those limitless ideas and possibilities – no matter how remote.  

In five minutes, I went from restaurant refugee to searcher of new solutions to creator of them:  We need a good cafe in Arlington.  Something with sofas and wifi and pastries.  How about Cambridge?  Is there anything there?  There’s the old Beanheads.  I bet I could turn that into a hopping’ internet cafe.  I love to bake.  I could go there everyday.  There could have a guest DJ.  We could have music.  How hard would it be to get really good at the piano again?  I’d love to do another animation with music.  It would be so cool to make the music for my animations.  Can you be a writer and a film maker?  It be cool to have an independent movie theatre slash bookstore cafe.  In Cambridge or Arlington.  Wait… where am I going?

There is a small plateau between my deep dark cave and the dizzying heights I am about to scale.  I should tarry and even stay, but I have never been able to stop for long – regardless of the ways I’ve tried to bind myself here.  Propelled by possibility,  I’m already skipping over the plain –  anticipating and fearing the flight and the fall that I know will – and must – come.  Now, when my battles are beginning to brim with potential, danger is not always apparent and simply choosing one over the other is an important victory.