IslandRoar

Keeping My Head Held High

It's been almost three weeks since I had surgery on my sinuses, and I'm not quite up to speed. Which is annoying the hell out of me.

Thus, I've been posting a bit less and have not been as present with my comments on all of your wonderful blogs. Hopefully, you'll indulge me for a couple more weeks as I attempt to recover my misplaced mojo.

During my surgery, the ENT actually inserted little balloons deep in my sinuses, pumping them up to enlarge the openings. If things go as planned, this should result in better drainage and fewer sinus infections.

He also determined my septum was severely out of whack and needed straightening.

Not my nose itself however, which was too bad. It isn't that I don't like my nose, but hey, if he had to crack open my face, the least he could've done while he was in there was lift my eyes, give me better cheek bones, or maybe some new, cute-as-a-button nose.

At my age, I would have taken whatever I could get.

But no, same old me. Same old nose. Let's just pray this improved one works better.

When they discharged me from the hospital, the nurses cautioned me not to sleep flat while I was healing, but to attempt to keep my head more upright.

Ha! They needn't have bothered. Due to years of sinus trouble and migraines, I've been sleeping nearly sitting  up since college.

Pillows are my friends. Lots of them.

My poor Ex. When we got married, he confessed he'd always envisioned his wife falling asleep with her head nestled snugly atop his chest. Not too much to ask, right?

But it was not to be. Alas, most nights he would look up at me, high above him on my mound of pillows, and holler, Good night up there!

Small wonder it didn't last, huh?

 

Spin Cycle: Valentine's Day

Senior year of high school my BFF and I planned a romantic Valentine's dinner for our boyfriends.

We held the event at BFF's house because her mother would be out with her own boyfriend. And frankly, my parents were hovering pains-in-the-neck who hated when I used the kitchen, and would rather die than do anything that might encourage my (in their opinion) out-of-control relationship with my boyfriend.

BFF and I didn't want to waste lots of time cooking, if you know what I mean. No, seriously, we were coming straight from play rehearsal and elected to use any spare moments in preparing ourselves rather than the food. We were, after all, 17.

The main course was pizza. We cut the dough in the shape of a huge heart. Adorable, I know. Homemade apple pie for dessert. A lot harder to make that crust heart-shaped, but we tried. 

When the pie was ready we displayed it on a heart-shaped platter with a very carefully chosen assortment of candy hearts arranged around it, their tiny, endearing words intended  as one long, suggestive love note. Which of course we read out loud to them in tandem when the time came to serve dessert.

We were nothing if not age-appropriately sentimental.

The lights were low, candles lit, and a fire in the fireplace. There was no alcohol, since we had no idea when BFF's mother was due home.

I know my boyfriend and I exchanged gifts, and I'd love to say I remember what they were, but I don't. What I do remember is the knot in my stomach when he asked why wasn't I wearing his class ring, a ring I'd had in my possession for a year and half, and one that, only days before, I'd discovered I'd misplaced.

I managed to bluff my way out that night, and avoid confessing that I had no idea where the damned ring was.

I believe I may have been saved by BFF's mom returning home and commencing immediately to blow out candles and turn on lights, glaring at the four of us like we were frolicking naked in a hot tub rather than reading sappy love notes written with candy hearts.

The odd addendum to all this is that BFF had no memory of this night whatsoever when I tried to remind her of it recently. How Twilight Zone is that?

Now she's got to come up with some equally spectacular thing we once did that I have no memory of.

Hear that, BFF? The clock is ticking...

 

For more Valentine's Spins, go visit Sprite's Keeper. And give her my love.

 

 

Some Enchanted Evening

Daughter #1 is hooked on Broadway.

An expensive habit to feed. Musicals mostly. She buys tickets at student discounts, waits for the lotteries held before shows. But still...

One of the shows she wants to see now is South Pacific.

This is my father's favorite musical. He saw Mary Martin in the original Broadway cast. We had the record album when I was a kid, and it was played often enough for me to know all the words by heart.

The score contains so many Broadway classics: You've Got To Be Carefully Taught; I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair; There Is Nothin' Like A Dame.

My parents met at a dance in Manhattan. Winter, 1954. They were each there with friends. The band started to play Some Enchanted Evening.

In case you don't know the words:
  Some enchanted evening
  You may see a stranger.
  You may see a stranger
  Across a crowded room.

My father spotted my mother from across the dance hall. It was probably her hair he noticed first. He had a thing for redheads. He made his way over and asked her to dance.

  And somehow you know.
  You know even then.

They danced that dance. And the next. My father leaned down close and hummed in her ear, trying valiantly to be romantic.

He says he knew.

My mother claims she went home and told her mother she had met a boy. And that he was tall, dark, and handsome.

"But I think there's something wrong with him," she reportedly told my grandmother. "He made this really weird buzzing noise in my ear."

My father is tone-deaf. He cannot sing a note.

It almost lost him the girl of his dreams.

Fortunately, for me and Daughter #1, she gave him another chance.

I told Daughter #1, if she goes to see South Pacific, to remember this story when she hears the song.

Her own family history in the making.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve celebrations were tailor made for night owls like me. And some of mine have been rather memorable.

But this year I spent it completely alone. It was kind of weird.

It's not that there's always been a party. But if I was stuck without plans, at least one or two of my three kids were sure to be home, celebrating with or without their friends, running in at midnight to embrace and steal a sip of my champagne.

Not this year. First-Born Son and Daughter #1 were gone for the night with friends, Daughter #2 off at a New Year's sleepover.

And me? Well, no champagne this year. Instead I had a hot date with Netflix and a chocolate mousse brownie. Then I lay in bed and watched the ball drop in Times Square.

I wondered, did my parents feel this way when, one year, my New Year's Eve plans exceeded their own? Perhaps.

Yet it's different when there's two of you. You laugh at or with one another, and settle in for another boring night at home. Together.

It's not that I don't have friends. But they were off-island or with family. Or spending that boring night at home with their spouses.

I hesitate to even write all this down. I don't want anybody feeling sorry for me. Even though I might possibly feel just a wee bit sorry for myself.

Maybe not sorry, actually. Maybe just disappointed. I expect more. I want more. Dick Clark  himself would be hard-pressed to call this New year's Eve "Rockin'."

I'm not really worried about this becoming a habit, however. I like my late nights and social gathrings too much to settle for that.

And seriously, a New Year's Eve like this one is pretty much guaranteed to come along only once in a blue moon, right?

 

Winter Solstice

 
  

It's 12 years this month that The Ex and I split.

Yes, I asked him to leave in December. Nice timing, huh? But really, there's never a good time for these things, so December it was.

I hadn't thought about the darkness. How it descends the first three weeks of December and hovers like a mo' fo'.

My kids were 3, 6, and 10. Dinnertime was the hardest. For some reason, planning what to make, getting it ready and on the table, then sliding into the cleanup, homework, bath and bedtime ritual, seemed, for a long while, hopelessly overwhelming.

I had to find ways to let in the light.

I began collecting recipes, planning menus. Playing music at dinner. The kids took turns picking the CD's. One night might be West Side Story, the next, Britney Spears.

We'd raise the volume while everyone helped clear the table, even three year-old Daughter #2. Most nights we wound up dancing. I'd grab a kid and jitterbug. Or tango. Daughter #1 would tap. It was amazingly therapeutic.

Still, the darkness hovered.

I stole an idea from some woman's magazine on celebrating the winter solstice, the shortest, darkest day of the year. I planned carefully.

Each older child was allowed to invite one friend. We lit a fire and ate dinner (homemade pizzas they topped themselves) by candlelight.

Everyone had to pick a poem from one of our many books of children's poetry. Preferably one about winter or the dark or the light. But any one would do. Each child read their poem at the table by the light of the candle flames. I read Daughter #2's. Then one I wrote myself.

I'm not sure if they got it. But they listened to me, to each other, respectfully. Suddenly kids were begging to read "one more" poem. Then another.

"We celebrate because today we've made it through the darkest day of the year," I told them. "Every day after this, the sun will move a little bit closer, and there will be a little more light. The days will grow longer and longer. Right up until the first day of summer."

It became a tradition. Each year: a friend, candles, poetry. I worried there might be some grumbling in high school. Instead, 16 year-old boys shrugged, decided to stay for dinner, and pored through books, looking for a poem.

Some of those other traditions that pulled me through survive to this day. Whenever all three kids are home, they still take turns picking our dinner music. And we frequently find ourselves dancing during cleanup.

And yes, it's still amazingly therapeutic.

 

The Middle Place

 

My parents, like a lot of people, have had a tough year.

My father, 78, has had one health problem after another. The last couple of months they've dealt with the removal of a rather deep melanoma (the most serious type of skin cancer) below his eye, then a complicated skin graft at this site.

It required three surgeries, drains, packing, multiple dressing changes for the large amounts of bleeding and drainage, and many different medications. My mother, never much of a nurse herself, has been the one to perform all these required tasks.

In addition, the hospital where the doctor practices and the surgeries were performed is over an hours drive from their Florida home. My mother hates to drive. My father has always done the driving for both of them. He even took her to the grocery store or the mall, and ran errands with her. Until now.

In reality, the past couple of years he'd also been there to offer her physical support. She suffered from polio as a teen, and these last years her muscles, never strong to begin with, have grown increasingly weak and, at times, downright unreliable.

I think my mother is upset that my dad, usually the strong one, has now put her in the unenviable position of caretaker. I don't blame her, but I also don't know if there's a solution.

It's been many years since they moved from New Jersey, where my sister and I still lived at the time. They hated the ice and snow. But originally New Yorkers, they were genuinely appalled when I moved my family to this "God-forsaken island."

My job and my younger daughter, as well as my finances, prevent me from hopping on a plane to buzz down there and help her out as I wish I could. Don't misunderstand; if my parents were very ill, or even required an extended hospital stay, I would find a way to be there.

But it's these smaller, ongoing, chronic if you will, episodes, so common as our parents grow older, that are the hardest to handle without family nearby.

I hope not to be in the same boat one day. But who knows?

"I should have had more children," my mother complained over the phone recently.

"But then they'd just be far away as well," I said (my sister now lives in Arizona).

"Maybe not," she argued. "Maybe they'd live close by and be here all the time."

"Yes," I agreed. "Our unborn children are always the most loyal, aren't they?"

Even she had to laugh.

Do you all live near enough to help out your folks if they need it? Or are you, like me, impossibly far away? I'm pretty sure both can be a blessing and a curse. But it'd be nice to know how other people are handling it...

 

Family Time: Mandatory

Are you, like me, your family's Cruise Director?

I used to think this job description only applied when they were younger. But I've realized recently how much more important the job is now that my kids have one foot out the door. If I didn't plan ahead and inform them that participation is mandatory it would never happen.

My own parents pretty much gave up on the concept of Family Time when my sister and I became teenagers. I can understand why.

My kids grumble and complain. They recite a hundred reasons why it won't work for them. "I can't get off work for a whole weekend." "I have too much homework." "I have my own life too, you know." I've heard it all.

But as I saw us scattering in several different directions a few years ago, I realized that the days we have left for Family Time are numbered. I decided then not to listen to their objections. For any and all excuses they throw my way, I counter with only this: Make it Work.

My goal is not to make them miserable. It's to make memories. Maybe if I was still married it wouldn't be so important to me; maybe I'd be relishing the couple-alone time after all that parenting.

But I've found that by enforcing Mandatory Family Time, my jaded older kids wind up having a blast. Whisked away from their outside lives and personas, old sibling alliances are rekindled, and new ones have a chance to ignite.

Well worn family jokes resurface, although we  inevitably wind up with new zingers for the memory book. Like the time Daughter #2 innocently read aloud a sign on a Florida highway as we drove by: Hooters, where everyone gets their own cheerleader. She was about 12 and had no idea what Hooters was. But her 16 and 19 year-old siblings did, and that line is now a family classic.

The idea is simple: Keep it brief. A long weekend may work better than a week for a mini family vacation.

Don't overschedule: I'm planning a mandatory hike up-island for the day after Thanksgiving this year. If the weather tanks, I have a DVD as backup. But I would never try both for the same day when they're only here a couple of days.

Don't ban technology: You can't fight City Hall but do use your discretion. I allow computers and cell phones. But only during down-time or at the end of the day, not in the middle of a car ride through the rain forrest in Puerto Rico.

It's important to remember that they will complain about being forced to spend time with the family. It's pretty much their job. Check your sensitivity at the door. Last summer, my kids kvetched right up until we left for our long weekend in New Jersey. Yet they're still talking about how much fun they had.

In fact, since realizing these family "adventures" aren't going away, they've taken to emailing me links for possible things to do and places to go. We booked the hotel for our mini ski vacation this year based on a suggestion from Daughter #1.

One day maybe not too far off I'm looking forward to handing off the mantle of Cruise Director to them. Then all I'll need to do is go along for the ride.

Do you think, when that day comes, they'll get the joke if I show up with my arms folded, cell phone in hand, eyes rolling belligerently? Nah, I wouldn't really do that. Someone's got to at least pretend to be the mature one, right?

"Hello? Here I Am..."

Last June when my parents were here, we were driving home from Daughter #1's high school graduation.

"God," my father commented, "what some of those kids accomplish is unbelievable." He shook his head. "The talent some people have."

Excuse me, I wanted to say. Some people? You mean, like your own granddaughter, the one sitting here right next to you, by the way, who graduated in the top five percent of her class? Who got accepted into some pretty amazing colleges? Who sang in Austria, won national awards, and will be dancing in her recital next week?

But I knew it would do no good. In that moment it all came flooding back. Growing up, my sister and I were subject to a continuous litany of how pretty/talented/smart our friends were. Meanwhile there we were, standing right in front of them.

My sister struggled a little in school, but she ran the Booster Club, was on the yearbook staff, and donned the bear costume of our school mascot for football games. She worked her butt off at her after-school job, and never got into trouble.

Success starts with a mindset. I believe, without a doubt, that we can be as spectacular as we decide we are. I've always felt this.

I remember wanting to jump up and down in front of my parents, waving my arms to get their attention.

Hello? It's me, your daughter who's starring in the school play? The one who's graduating at the top of her class and working 20 hours a week in a nursing home? Can you see me?

Did you ever feel this way?

For a long time their remarks made me jealous. I'd want to snap back: Yeah, you think so-and-so is that great? You should see what a bitch she can be. Or defend myself to them: Hey, I can do that too. Just give me a chance. But I never did.

As I got older I realized they had no idea they were creating this resentment. They'd be shocked to know our feelings had ever been hurt by their remarks. Yet still I struggle, hearing them go on about other people's grandchildren, how beautiful and talented they are, what colleges they got into. Why is it so hard for them to believe they have shining stars right in their own family?

"Do you really think Daughter #1 can be a doctor?" my mother asked not long ago.

"Why couldn't she?" I asked, my grip tightening on the phone.

"It takes so long. And you have to work so hard," she went on. Meanwhile, her brother and three of my cousins are physicians. Does she think they possess some spectacular gene that is absent in her own offspring?

"I think," I said carefully, "that she can be whatever she decides she wants to be."

And I really really do.

Spin Cycle: Parental Confessions

 

I wasn't going to take part in this week's Spin because (choose one of the following):

    a) I am such a perfect parent that I have nothing to confess.
    b) My parenting confessions are so deep and dark that they cannot be 
        released into the blogosphere.

Then I realized I did have one confession I might be willing to share. And that is: I have every intention of one day being my grandchildren's favorite grandparent. And I don't care what I have to do to achieve this goal.

No, I am not yet a grandmother, and if things go as planned, I shouldn't be for at least several years too come. But when I do become one, any other grandparents the kid may have, whether real, step, or adopted, better watch out.

When my son was in high school, for a time he had a very serious girlfriend. He seemed to spend every waking moment with her and often her family. They treated him as extravagantly as they did their own kids. Presents were ridiculously expensive and always carried a designer label. Clearly they were bent on making a certain impression.

"He better not marry her," I complained to The Ex. "We'll be the schmo grandparents. I'll be baking cookies with our grandchild and they'll sweep in with tickets to Disney World. Or I'll plan a trip to Disney World and they'll take the kid to Hawaii. I can't compete with that."

"Who's getting married?" He stared at me blankly. "What are you talking about?"

Of course they eventually broke up, but not before I'd carefully thought it through, and bestowed on my imaginary future grandchildren the uncanny ability to spot any and all phony displays of affection (imaginary grandchildren are convenient that way).

I'll be the Fun Grandma, I decided. The one they stay up late with watching movies. The one who takes them sledding and chases them around the playground. The one who lets them make messes in the kitchen and splash water out of the bathtub.

I'll take them on special Grandma Vacations and spend one-on-one time with each of them. Then, when they're in high school or college, they can get a job out here summers and stay with me. What kid, after all, doesn't want to spend their summer on the Vineyard?

Let those other grandparents just try to compete with that.

Whew, simply writing all those plans exhausted the hell out of me. I may need to reconsider. Maybe it's easier to be the grandma who visits and sits regally in her chair, passing out 20's.

What do you think? What kind of grandparent do you plan on being?

Either way, I bet we'll all rock.

 

Now slink on over to Sprite's Keeper to read some more Parenting Confessions.

Virtual Parenting

My son called me from his cell phone the other day. He was walking on the Lower East Side in Manhattan, shopping for a Halloween costume. He wanted me to find him a certain costume store on-line and tell him how to get there.

So, from my couch in my house on Martha's Vineyard, I directed him to a couple of places within blocks from where he was. Next, I transferred the necessary funds right then and there on-line into his account so he could make the purchase.

I still find all this technology pretty trippy at times. It can bring people together in incredible ways.

I had to laugh a couple of weeks ago when Daughter #1 called from college to tell me she had just downloaded Skype onto her laptop. Skype, for those of you as technologically challenged as I, is pretty much a live video-chat via computer.

Since I have it on my laptop too, Daughter #1 wanted me to video-call her. But wait; not, as one might naturally assume, so she could see her much-longed-for and loving mother, but rather, so I could show her the dog and cats, significant beings she is apparently pining away for.

Then, the night before we went off to Parent's Weekend, she had me do the Skype thing again, this time carrying my laptop upstairs here on the Vineyard to her bedroom, and holding it in front of her closet so she could see and tell me what clothing she wanted me to bring to her at school.

"Show me the scarves behind my door," she ordered impatiently. "Hold that one up. No, not that one. Yeah, that one."

It was arduous work. I think I prefer the telephone.

"Why are you in your pajamas already," she demanded. "It's too early. You need a life."

It was enough to make me want to shut the laptop lid in, or literally on, her face.

Technology is an awesome thing. But I shudder to think what might be next.

Perhaps my kids won't come home for Thanksgiving dinner; we'll just put laptops on the table in the places they should be sitting, and we'll Skype our way through the turkey and cranberry sauce.

Maybe the pumpkin pie will be virtual? Less calories, yes, but I'm not so sure about the taste...

Sibling Sleepover

When we finally pulled into the parking lot of Daughter #1's dorm for Parents Weekend, Daughter #2 had jumped out of the car and was hugging her sister before I could even swing my car door open.

Daughter #1 returned her sister's embrace in her typical cautious manner, but the smile was spread wide across her face.

Who were these girls? They chattered away like two long lost friends all weekend, walking together far ahead of The Ex and me, who were strolling lazily and snapping photos as we made our way across campus Saturday.

Daughter #1 had to report to the Biology Lab to check on her paramecium, and we tagged along to watch our hard-earned collegiate dollars in action. She assigned D #2 the chores of cleaning her slides and putting her supplies away, and I watched in amused wonder as D #2 nodded and set to work.

If we'd been at home and Daughter #1 had bossed her around like this, she'd have told her in no uncertain terms to stick her slides where the sun don't shine.

Later, D #1 called us at the hotel before we picked her up for dinner, and reported that several kids in her dorm had decided to have a sibling sleepover. Daughter #2 was invited to spend the night. She was elated.

But first we had tickets to a show at the college. My daughters sat side by side in the row in front of me, heads bent together, whispering and giggling.

At least that's how it started. But by the time the show ended, D #2 stood up and whirled around complaining, "She's so mean. She said people were staring at me because of the way I laugh."

"It's true." D #1 shrugged. "She's loud and people keep looking at her." To D #1, being noticed is the kiss of death. "Why does she draw attention to herself all the time?"

D #2 turned to her sister, furious. "I hate you," she said. And right then and there in the theater, she hauled off and slugged her in the arm. Hard. Okay, I thought. Now these are the girls I know and love. Well, most of the time.

The Ex, who had far surpassed his usual allotment of Family Time, sighed heavily in my general direction in a way that could only be interpreted as: Do Something. Now. Then he went on ahead to have a cigarette.

"Take it outside," I told my daughters. "There'll be more room for you to really hurt one another."

They glared at me condescendingly and rolled their eyes.

See what I have to put up with all on my own, now that you're gone, Daughter #2's expression clearly said.

I'm so sorry, Daughter #1's return glance concurred. I'd almost forgotten how embarrassing she can be.

Then, united in their daughterly disdain, they scurried ahead of me out of the theater, towards their Sibling Sleepover.

I followed in triumph. If only it could always be this easy...

A Life Well Lived

 

A friend of mine died last week. She was 87. At first I was really sad. But then I started to think about the celebration her life had been.

Meg was a poet. An only child, she'd married a gifted, eccentric artist and had five children. They lived in a huge mansion in Connecticut that they couldn't afford, because everything was sacrificed to her husband's whim and he wanted the house. The more frustrated he grew with his struggling career, the more mentally and emotionally abusive he became.

Her own work was buried by his, but when the children were grown she decided she'd had enough. Already in her 60's, she found the courage to leave him. She walked away with nothing and wound up taking a job as a house-mother at a women's college in Connecticut. There, she was able to take classes and save a little money. Most important, she was finally on her own.

Eventually she decided to place a call to her old friend and family pediatrician, Dr. B. His wife was dead, and he was at least 15 years her senior, but he was still practicing medicine in a rather dubious section of Brooklyn.

They dated for a while, and then Meg moved to Brooklyn and they married. Somewhere along the way, they bought a house on the Vineyard, and it was here that they came when Dr. B finally retired at age 90. They had 12 happy years together before he died.

Meg stayed on in the Vineyard house. She traveled and cooked and returned to her early love of writing poems. It was through poetry that she came into my life. She hosted fabulous parties with all her many friends: artists, writers, professors; she had an eclectic assortment of people that she collected and held dear.

A few years ago she moved to Boston to enjoy the conveniences of city life. When I went to stay on weekends, it was clear she'd already developed a network of friends. She was swimming and had season tickets to the theater. She'd started a Facebook page to keep in touch with her younger friends and family. I wasn't really that surprised the day I received her "friend request."

She had her own table at several neighborhood restaurants, and she'd published a book of her poetry. She even told me about her steamy affair with a man little more than half her age.

Two years ago she took her granddaughter to Europe. And, despite a broken hip, cardiac bypass surgery, and stomach cancer, all in the last year and a half, she was still living alone and planning a trip to Greece this winter. And she was gathering poems to publish a second collection.

She'd called me just a few weeks ago to invite me to her annual New Year's Day party, and we were making plans to get together on her next visit to the Vineyard over the Jewish holidays. But she never made it.

I'll miss Meg, but I was blessed to have her as my friend. She found joy in everything, and no matter how many years had gone by, she never gave up believing there was even more joy to come.

But she put it best herself:

            Our lives were always a little less and more than that which we had 
        bargained for.

And:

            Light is fading; we must go. Oh world, oh world, I love you so.

Spin Cycle: Arts & Crafts

 

 

I've always been an artsy person. When life is tough or I'm trying to make my way through something, I have a long history of flipping on a new creative switch.

I probably even did this as a child, but the first time I recall doing it purposefully is when I was 19, in college. My long time love had dumped me and life was especially bleak. I felt that if I did not find something to catch hold of, I was in very real danger of drowning.

So I tried out for a campus play and attempted to find myself in the creative energy at rehearsals. I decided to teach myself calligraphy, bought a set of pens, and borrowed several books from the library. I'm no professional, but I got good enough so that, a few years later, I calligraphied my own wedding invitation envelopes.

I also began to paint, something I'd done a little of in high school. Two of my favorites, a painting of a horse and one of my cat, actually still hang in my basement family room today.

Maybe doing all this is a way to replace pieces of myself that have been lost, build myself up so that I am bigger, better, stronger than before. A new bionic me.

Years later, I repeated this pattern as my marriage slowly unraveled, throwing myself into making elaborate scrap books for my children. I got a part in a local theater production of the Irish play, Dancing at Lughnasa. And, to escape the tension in my home when my husband and I were both there, I banished myself to the yard and became a gardener.

Stronger, better, smarter. Bionic.

And always, there's been the poetry, the writing. My life line.

How about you? Are there any creative outlets that have, on occasion, been known to save your soul?

 

To see how crafty some other bloggers might be, zip over to Sprite's Keeper for more Spins.

Spin Cycle: Hate

 

The Spin topic this week is hate.

The omnipotent and mysterious "They," say hate is very close to love, but I don't know.

For me, hate is something that suddenly boils to the surface, overflowing in a short, horrific moment of rage. Seeing red.

It passes quickly and doesn't come often.

As I've grown so much older and wiser, I've learned to wrap  my arms around it tightly and run like the wind. Lock myself up somewhere alone to keep from acting on it. Roll up in a ball-like state until it slowly ebbs away, leaving me raw and spent.

Maybe that's why they say it's like love. Because it takes so much out of us.

I hate the feel of raw clams sliding down my throat, and I hate people that seethe silently and never tell you when they're angry at you.

But that's not really what we're talking about, is it?

When my marriage ended, there were moments I was sure I hated my ex. Once, I was so certain, that I threw the phone at him. But it went through the living room window instead.

"You ducked!" I yelled. "Now look what you did!"

That's much closer I guess, but still, I think real hatred is more than a ten second, or even a five minute, rage. It persists long enough to be destructive. I believe I've been fortunate, so far, not to have felt that.

So, I'll stick to hating businesses with poor customer service, and those flies at the beach sometimes, that bite the hell out of your legs.

And I'll consider myself lucky.

Want to see what other people hate? Go check out their Spins over at Sprite's Keeper .

The Drop-off

I turned to the Ex as we were getting into the car, ready to make the trip home after depositing Daughter #1 at college.

"We're just supposed to go back to New England and leave our kid in another part of the country?" I was precariously close to losing it. "What the fuck is that about?"

Not that the whole drop-off experience hadn't been completely positive. It had.

Upper class-students obviously trained in positivity and cheerfulness had met our overloaded car outside the stately, brick, pillared dorm. By the time we'd checked her in and gotten her room key, all her stuff was waiting in the hallway outside her door.

As D #1 was ordering me to the car to fetch her new beta fish (purchased in transit the night before in New Jersey), a smiling young woman in an orientation T-shirt magically appeared, bearing said fish. "He's so cute," she breathed, carefully handing him to me.

Twice I had accompanied First-Born Son to first days at two different colleges. Never had I witnessed such a well-oiled machine.

At the end of the day, before sending off the parents, there was a convocation ceremony,  to formally welcome the new students to the school, on the quad. The freshman class of 700 had been instructed to dress for the occasion, and they filed in by dormitories, a seemingly endless line of fresh-faced young women and men, all a little too eager and nervous, and all trying desperately to appear nonchalant.

Their class flag flapped in the breeze from its perch over the historic building in front of which we convened. It would not be raised to that spot of honor again until the day of their graduation in 2013.

Faculty, in their academic robes, filed in after the students. I was prepared to endure boring speeches, but instead stirring words floated over us, as more than once my eyes grew blurry, and I was grateful for the bright sunlight and the excuse to be wearing my shades.

So why then, did I feel so vulnerable, as though my body was one big bruise? What was my problem?

"She's mean to you, remember?" The Ex joked nervously on the ride back, trying to make me feel better. Attempting, as men do, to fix the problem. "She's 18. And you said yourself, she's been ready since she was five. She'll be fine.

Shut up already, I wanted to scream. The last thing I need right now is for you to make sense. 

But I didn't say that. I said nothing. See, I've already been to college. And life. And some days, it even seems I've learned a thing or two.

Gotta Have Faith

Car Trouble

My son's car died the other day.

My ex is in charge of cars. Changing the oil, patching tires, replacing worn brakes, and pretty much any repairs required. This skill alone makes it worth maintaining an amicable relationship with him.

He once removed the entire dashboard on my Expedition to fix the air conditioning, doing the whole job in one weekend with only two miscellaneous screws left over when he was finished.

But this time he couldn't figure out the problem. First he replaced the battery. Nope. Next, the alternator. Nuh-uh. Then he thinks it's the starter, but he's afraid it's way over his head.

The next thing I know, he returns from a nearby gas station with a strange man who is out in my driveway, poking his head under the hood of First-Born Son's Corolla.

I gesture furiously for my ex to come inside. "Who the hell is that?"

"That's 'Joe.' I met him at the gas station." He looks so proud of himself. "He's gonna fix the car for fifty bucks."

"Are you freaking kidding me?"

"Oh, I forgot." His face darkens. "You don't trust anything I do."

Well, duh...

Let me be more specific. I do trust him when it comes to car skills and, thankfully, his business skills at work. But his people skills? Not so much.

One time, when he was driving the very first car F-B Son ever had, and it died and he needed it towed, he wound up buying a huge, old black Lincoln  from the guy that towed him.

Which maybe wasn't so bad in itself, except that the car was a broken, gas-leaking clunker that only lasted a few months (not to mention that my son's friends labeled it his "pimp-mobile," and driving it was like flashing a neon sign, asking to be pulled over by every Vineyard cop).

AND the tow guy he bought it from, whom he had sitting in my kitchen, turned out to be a known heroin junkie on the island.

AND he gave this same junkie one-hundred dollars cash to tow the Lincoln off-island when it finally died for good. But of course the guy took the money and we never saw him again.

This is a man who handles million dollar deals at his job. Go figure.

So excuse me if I'm not gung-ho on him bringing home another stray to solve my latest car problem.

But who listens to me?

Anyway, now we have a new starter, installed by "Joe," and a car that appears to be working.

"See," the ex declared triumphantly. "You've gotta have a little faith in me."

A little faith in him? Been there, done that.

I'll take a rain-check on the faith for now. Talk to me in two weeks, if the car's still running.

The Way They Were

My Parents

My parents, who live in Florida, are in their mid to late 70's. We see them once a year, twice if we're lucky. That saddens me; I would be heartbroken if I only saw my children  or grandchildren once a year.

When they come to visit there's not a lot of interaction with my kids. They sit and watch TV. Lots of it. Which is ironic, because the television was seldom on in our house growing up, except for a couple of hours at night.

But a funny thing happened when we took our family trip back to NJ last month for my high school reunion. I insisted on taking a little drive-through tour around the town where I grew up. Imprisoned in the car, my kids were force-fed my nostalgic ruminations as we drove by the house I grew up in, the schools I went to, the swim club where I was on swim team.

"Why did you belong to a swim club?" Daughter #1 asked. "Didn't your town have a pool?"

"No," I explained. "My parents and several other families tried to get one built, but the town voted against it. So your grandfather and a few others, got together and created this swim club."

"Grandpa did that?" My kids seemed surprised.

When we drove past my old house, it was hard to miss how narrow the street was. I remembered that cars used to park on both sides, making it difficult for drivers to see kids and animals that might dart out into the road.

After a child got hit by a car, my mother joined with several parents and drew up a petition to change the parking laws on our block to one side. They went door to door and then presented their proposal to the town council, where the new parking rule was voted on and passed.

First-Born Son looked skeptical. "That doesn't sound like Grandma." They were having a hard time matching up the grandparents they knew to this vision of the ones I'd just described.

It startled me as well. I'd forgotten how involved and active my parents had been when they were younger. And while it helped explain some of my present-day frustration with them, it also allows me to back off a little and give them a break.

I don't have to like everything about the way they live their lives. And I'm free to make other choices with my own. But I need to remember: my mother is still the same woman who, when we were at the beach as kids, would take lost crying little children by the hand, and walk them around the crowded array of beach blankets until we found their parents.

And my father is the same guy who, after a long day at work in Manhattan, went to seminars at the high school, once so he could learn and then help us with the "new math," and another time to educate himself on the dangers of the drugs that his daughters might possibly be exposed to, as we headed into adolescence.

They've done their time. They deserve to live their retirement years in whatever way works for them. Whether I like it or not.

A Stitch In Time...

My Little Dividends

Last week Daughter #2 performed a surgical procedure on me. Well, not really a surgical procedure; she removed two stitches from my back where I'd had a skin biopsy done at the dermatologist's a couple of weeks ago.

Knowing I was an RN and would never schedule an office visit just to remove stitches, the nurse practitioner had given me a small sterile blade. I couldn't reach the sutures, but I planned on asking my friend, also an RN, to remove them for me.

She, however, has been busy working two jobs, and the stitches were doing what stitches do: growing tighter and itchier by the day. Finally I approached First-Born Son and asked him if he would try and cut them out.

"No way." Completely panicked, he held up his hands. "I'm too shaky. I'd hurt you, bad."

"No you wouldn't." I tried to be encouraging. Like when he was three years-old and afraid to go to sleep with the door closed. "I know you can do it."

"Please don't make me," he begged. And I was forced to relent.

Damn. One down.

I had better luck with Daughter #2. She approaches everything like a science project.

"Uh-oh," she giggled from her perch behind my back. "I think I cut your skin. But just a little."

I felt a tiny pinprick and the stitches were out. "You should be a surgeon," I told her. Stitches today, gallbladders tomorrow. Hey, a mom can dream, can't she?

It's extremely satisfying to witness the ever-increasing capabilities of one's children as they grow nearer and nearer to adulthood.

Daughter #1 is going to Manhattan for four days with friends in August. She has planned the whole trip in great detail, down to a line by line budget including how much they'll need for food, transportation, shows, and souvenirs.

It's especially gratifying when you are the recipient of some of these capabilities. When I am working and the internet goes down, First-Born Son messes with a few miscellaneous wires and ta-da! I'm back in business. I recently inherited Daughter #1's old iPod, but quite frankly, I'm at a loss on how to load the thing. I suppose I could learn if I had to, but for now why bother when Daughter #2 is here to load it with all my music?

It's sort of like finally receiving a dividend on a long term investment.

I'll admit it; I've wondered what it'll be like when I'm old and senile. Which kid will visit, and which one will succumb to sending lovely cards or letters on Mother's Day and my birthday (yeah, right, like cards and letters might even still exist then)?

Occasionally, when she thinks I'm a tad too sarcastic, Daughter #1 will remind me, "You really shouldn't talk that way to the person who may be picking out your nursing home one day."

Real wise ass, that one. I've no idea where she gets it, but if she's picking out my nursing home, boy, am I in trouble.

Reunion: Part Two

Parting Thoughts

So do I have any overwhelming impressions or prophetic words of wisdom after going back for my 30th high school reunion?

I think not.

Daughter #1 had given me a hard time before the reunion. When I looked out that hotel room window at the women, all former cheerleaders from my class, lying by the pool, I'd made the mistake of uttering a few not-so-nice words about the one of them down there that I'd never much liked. I'm sure this was partly because she didn't like me, but she was also conceited and unkind, traits I cannot abide.

"Maybe she's changed," D#1 said. "You're not even giving her a chance."

"You're right," I admitted. "But I don't really think people change much. I think they just become more of who they really are."

The night would prove that to be true. The teenage flirts, both male and female, still had their skills in tact. The class clown still cracked me up. And, unfortunately, the bitches remained... well, you know what.

My childhood pal, Butch, was still a charming, clever, wise ass who could always make me smile. We wasted little time in analyzing the years of high school that had alienated us from one another.

"You were a goody-goody," he said accusingly.

"Well, you were always high," I shot back.

And then we moved on.

He couldn't believe I remembered his dog, Fuzzy. I was amazed that he recalled the "Little Room" off our garage that we'd used as a clubhouse, and how my father always tried to keep out the boys.

"I can't blame him," Butch said. "He had two daughters he was trying to protect." He could relate, now that he was married with a 10 year-old daughter of his own.

He wanted me to know he had his own business, that he was successful. He had, in his words, "made something of" himself. I told him I was not at all surprised.

I was saddened to hear his mother had died a few years before. And he wanted me to be sure to tell my parents he'd said hello.

"I never forgot," he said, "in high school, the day my father died, I came home and your mom was there. She was really good to my mother. She took care of her that day." His voice was thick. "I never forgot."

We can never be sure what people might leave us with as they pass into and out of our lives. Just as we may never know what pieces of ourselves we've left with the people whose lives we've touched along the way.

I had fun at my reunion. I got dressed up, I danced and laughed. It was a blast.

But the surprising gift was the unexpected opportunity to make new memories with people I'd already had some pretty great old memories with.

Reunion: Part One

Transcending

(Okay this is me trying to look sultry and seductive; not very convincing, am I?)

It's the first day of school. Third grade. We've just moved to this new town over the summer and, although I now have friends on my block, none of them are in this class. I am the new kid. Other children are laughing, joking, non-stop talking.

I try to keep a smile on my face as I find the desk with my name tag on it. I don't want these kids to know how nervous I am. Then suddenly, the girl sitting at the desk in front of me turns around. She has platinum blond hair in perfect ringlets and her eyes are the bluest blue I have ever seen.

"Hi, I'm Cathy." She smiles at me and my nervousness evaporates, just like that. Her smile doesn't just light up her face; it causes the whole room to glow. I am so relieved. And completely enchanted.

Fast forward almost 40 years. I walk into my 30th high school reunion. Alone. It's a blur of bald guys in suits and women huddled in small packs, laughing. I see people I know, but not in the way I am looking for.

I glance quickly around the room. What had I been thinking, coming here by myself? Then I see her. When she looks up and recognizes me, I can tell one thing hasn't changed: her smile is still an incredible gift, an open invitation.

Cathy and I became instantaneous best friends. From third grade through fifth we were inseparable. Then things tapered off. In high school she became a band kid. I was into theater. It might as well have been two different schools.

We said hello in the halls if our eyes met. We even signed each other's yearbooks. But the unspoken social rules did not allow for much more.

I think that was my favorite thing about this class reunion. So much of that high school crap had just melted away. Not that there weren't some remnants.

There were a couple of bitchy girls who had morphed into bitchy women. I smiled and said hello and kept on moving. I had nothing to say to them, but it was liberating to realize they could no longer intimidate me in any way (of course, it didn't hurt that my dress was way prettier than theirs, either).

Cathy and I talked on and off all night. It is oddly weird and unexpectedly comforting to have someone you have not seen in 30 years remember so many intimate and important details of your life. And you, of theirs.

"I'm so glad you're writing," she said. "It was always so important to you."

"I think of you every time I go past Harcourt Avenue," she confessed. And I wondered how she could remember the name of my street, even as I knew I could still point out her old house, her old street, and remember that she always put her open can of Coke in the fridge before she drank it, because she liked it better flat.

Some other "kids" who had been in that third grade class with us came by the table at one point. None of us knew what had happened to our teacher. She'd been one of those rare and important teachers for me, the one who helped me recognize, at eight, that I was a writer. A few years after that, her husband died in Vietnam. I don't think either of them had even turned 30.

Yet here we were, 40 years later, a disparate group of middle-aged men and women, living entirely separate and unknown lives, none-the-less connected to one another through this teacher and her class that we'd experienced together so long ago.

Everyone took plenty of photos. At the end of the night there was a group shot. Cathy's husband, her high school sweetheart, already has it up on Facebook, and I can't wait to print a copy.

It will remind me that, although I moved away from that town the day after high school graduation, and no longer even live in that state, I did manage, we always manage, to leave a little piece of ourselves behind.