“Your coffee’s always better than mine.”
“That’s cuz you had someone else make it for you. Here… have a little more.” She fills both mugs and reaches for the half and half.
“Thanks, Ann. Look, she’s up on the roof. Is she cleaning her chimney?”
“Yep. This morning she was up there cleaning her gutters and trimming tree branches.”
“Why doesn’t she hire that stuff done?” Continue reading →
She dusted the potting soil off of the rim of the clay pot. “Mom, I potted the Hoya clipping. They’re supposed to be in a north-facing window. Where should I put it?”
“Well, we have two options. Let’s see if we can make room for it.”
“Did you have more plants at dad’s house?”
“Yeah, we had lots of houseplants at dad’s house.”
“How come?” Continue reading →
“Whoa cowboy! Slow down a bit. You’re getting the green on the ceiling.”
“Oh, sorry about that. This rolling is fun. Look how much you can get on the roller before you put it on the wall.” Will dunks the roller and I wince as he takes the roller from the tray to the wall.
“Yeah, it’s cool. If you go too fast, tho’, it’ll splatter all over the kitchen.” I stand at the ready with paper towels.
“K. But maybe if I do it thick enough, it’ll only take one* coat. Sorry about the ceiling.”
“That’s okay. It’s fixable, but we don’t wanna have to repaint the whole ceiling. Maybe you paint like an extrovert.”
“I know, right?”
Jenny walks over and asks for a little more paint. She takes the stir stick, dips it in the sage green and lets it run onto the lid of the paint can. “That should be enough.” She heads back to the corner of the kitchen where she creates a mermaid with steady, deliberate watercolor paintbrush strokes.
“I’m not gonna want to paint over her, Jen. She’s gorgeous.”
“That’s okay, mom. I’ll paint her again in my bedroom.”
“Maybe you paint like an introvert.”
“I know, right?”
*One coat of the sage green was enough to cover. :)
“Jon, dear, please remove your fingers from your ears. How will you break your fall if you should crash that board you insist on riding?”
He streaks by with an annoyed look on his face. He doesn’t hear Margaret. He’s trying not to hear anything. Tuning them out is not possible. That’s all they do. They talk and blather on and they never stop to listen. He makes another pass and stops in front of Gladys, “If I hadn’t lost my ear buds, I wouldn’t have to plug my ears. Have you seen my buds anywhere?”
Gladys exhales a long puff of cigarette smoke, looks at Jon and says, “What are buds?”
“Speakers. Ear buds are little speakers that fit in your ears. I plug ’em into my iPod and listen to music. You know, music? I lost my buds.”
“You mean that white cording draped over that marker back there? Are those the ear buds you speak of?” Continue reading →
If they didn’t tell you that you can’t make a tiny mermaid out of fabric, what would you create?
If they didn’t tell you that skies are always blue and trees are always green, how would you draw them?
If you hadn’t been force-fed their rules, how would you play the game?
He’s running across the yard with a huge grin on his face. “Mom! It’s 20 yards from the road. I made it that far! Pretty soon I’ll be hitting the road.”
“Bud, that’s awesome! Ah…. you might have to find a new place to hit from. That could get ugly if you hit a car.”
“I know, but can we pace it off? Can we see how far I’m hitting ’em?”
I grab my coffee and he’s still holding on to his driver when we start counting our paces across the park. We walk over irrigation sprinklers that create patchworks of green on an otherwise brown landscape. We side-step thistle and the party favors left by the neighborhood dogs. I’m counting out loud as we go.
We get to his ball when I reach 238 paces. Continue reading →
We were walking to the park. The day’s heat was turning into the moist cool of night. “So… that was probably the longest phone call you’ve had with your dad in as long as I can remember?”
“Yeah. Whew! A lot… of questions.”
“Well… what do you think?”
“What I am supposed to think?”
“I said that wrong. How do you feel?” Continue reading →
I whisper as I nudge his shoulder, “It’s 6:30, honey, time to get up.”
He rolls over to pull the covers over one shoulder, “Okay. I’ll get up in a second.”
I walk out to the kitchen and put some water on to boil. It’s hard for me to be up this early on a Saturday. I don’t know how an almost 15 year old does it.
This is his fourth day in a row.
As I sprinkle coffee into the filter, I can hear rustling coming from his bedroom. I marvel at the fact that most days, I don’t have to nudge him more than once.
He’s got it down to a system. He gets his clubs ready the night before. He lays his clothes out, gathers his wallet, phone and golf journal. In the morning, he needs enough time to shower and get dressed. I can be seen following him around nagging him to take another bite of bagel or drink more water.
We get in the car and we are off.
Depending on whether he golfs 9 or 18 or 27, I won’t hear from him again until he calls to tell me he’s on the tee box of his last hole. This from the boy whose hip has been connected to mine for 15 years. This from the boy who likes to know where I am at all times.
Golfing is his passion. When he’s golfing, he is in his zone. (When he’s not on a course, he’s practicing his swing, Googling other golfers’ swings, learning about new equipment or making a tee time.)
When he’s in his element, he isn’t worrying about what I’m doing, what’s for dinner, whether he has disappointed his dad, or what his sister might be getting that he isn’t getting.
When he is in his zone, he is free to be who he is without the influences of his life.
Who wouldn’t get out of bed at 6:30 on a Saturday to get to a place where you can feel like that?
I’d only seen her a handful of times since college. She would come into town from the ranch and once in awhile our paths would cross. My kids were younger than hers. Her kids were stretching out in that teenage growth spurt phase. I never seemed to recognize them.
We’d compare notes on kids and life. Her life was foreign to me – ranch wife raising two kids while teaching in a one-room school and helping her husband as much as time would allow.
She had that outdoors look – lots of sun and wind and the way the elements make creases in places she didn’t like, but ways I envied.
One of the last times I saw her, the creases appeared deeper. Her eyes had lost their sparkle. She was beyond tired. I assumed she was exhausted from keeping up with teenagers, school work, ranch life and marriage.
She didn’t have time to chat. I didn’t ask any questions. Continue reading →
“Here, let me turn down the radio. I didn’t hear that one.” We are driving down the main thoroughfare in town, heading to pick up Will at the golf course. It’s sunny and warm. We are in full-on summer mode – looking forward to running through the sprinkler and barbecue that evening. The smell of sunscreen wafts out the window as we make the next turn.
We haven’t had a dad visit in a few weeks.
Life is good.
Somebody stop the clock.
Please.
“What did you say?”
She flicks her long blonde braid off of one shoulder, lowers the window and sticks her arm out of the car. “Don’t you think there are EMBBs?”
“What are EMBBs?”
“Well, you know how you are an INFJ, I am an ITP* and Will is an ENFJ?”
“Yeah. Go on.”
We turn into the parking lot of the course and I am trying to figure out the letters. E has to be extrovert. I assume it’ll be something about her extroverted brother that is driving her nuts.
“EMBB is for Extroverted Meanie Bo Beanie.”
“Ha! That’s perfect! Do you think there might also be some IMBBs then?”
“Sure. They’re just a little quieter about their meanness.”
She was flitting from one to the other. She didn’t have time to look for worms. Many times they may have been given a bit of sand instead of a grub or a Chokecherry berry.
She was doing her best, and her best produced plump, tweeting, happy teenage Robins.
Between three squawking teenage kids, the momma Robin was moving fast. She’d barely get something in one beak, and a second beak was in her face. In their birdy language, they were saying, “Over hear!” “What about me?” “Can I have more?”
She obliged with tenderness and efficiency.
I spied them from a window. I watched as she flitted as if she’d never tire. I was so proud of her. She was focused on her most important job. I said, “Hey, you guys. I know what my next post will be about… ” Continue reading →
“”Honey, the mediation spa that you made out of popsicle sticks didn’t do so well in the storm last night. I love that thing. Would you mind getting the hot glue gun out and putting it back together?”
“I could, but I’ve got other projects going on.”
“Okay. I was thinking the spa was too wonderful to give up on, but if you are cool with it, I am.”
“Mom, it’s about the journey, not the goal.”
That’s when you know they listen.
It might have helped if I’d known more before finding myself teetering on the railing of a bridge, clutching a Black Box of cabernet.
Had I known, I wouldn’t have felt the need to write about how worthless I feel.
If I’d been told, I wouldn’t have frantically searched the yellow pages looking for a therapist to tell me that I wasn’t having a nervous breakdown.
It would have helped to know before I found myself wrangling with either wanting to jump my manfriend’s bones or figure out why he was trying to ruin my life with his very existence.
If I had known, I’d have understood why none of the usual words weren’t helping. Continue reading →
Put the shovel down and appreciate the progress made.
The endless lists – not just the ones posted on the kitchen cupboard, but the ones cataloged in her mind – had helped to get her here. Those words had changed her. She’d certainly improved. When comparing herself to where she’d been even six years ago, she’d come a long way.
Breathing was easier. Sleep was deeper. Certainly her kids were happier. But why was she still dealing with an ever-present dark shadow? Why would she wake enthusiastic and light-footed only to run headlong into the shadow by day’s end?
She’d stop long enough to sit with an iced tea and settle her mind – to the extent that she could. She’d approach her thoughts like an efficient, eager-to-please administrative assistant organizing piles on her desk into Handle Now, Needs More Info, Suspends, and Circular File.
Which of the thoughts were coalescing into the dark shadow? Which thoughts continued to haunt her? Continue reading →
She winds the strands of her beaded necklace through delicate fingers. Tilting her head back, she exhales, and points the ember in the direction of the couple yelling at their dog.
“What is it with people and their dogs? I mean, dogs are swell, but why bring your dog to the cemetery and then yell at it for running through the grass and sniffing at other folks? For God’s sake! Get that dog to a park, let it run and stop yelling at it.”
“Gladys, you’re dropping ashes on your dress. Shouldn’t you be more careful, dear?”
“Thanks, Margaret, but you know I’ve got more dresses where this one came from. It’s just a dress. What kind of pie are you making today? Lemon chiffon? Banana cream? Or blueberry? I love hot blueberry pie dripping with real cream – not that stuff they call cream now-a-days.”
“Hey, Gladys. You sure they can’t hear us? You sure I can skate off of these grave markers? Nobody’ll care, right?” Continue reading →
