Wordless Wednesday: New Neighbors

   

Happy Spring! Welcome to the neighborhood!

RemembeRED: Sand

Here is a little piece of memoir written for The Red Dress Club’s RemembeRED meme. This week’s prompt was to write about sand. That’s it. That’s the whole prompt. This is what I came up with…

Dear Owen,

This morning, when I sat down at my computer, I accidentally open up IPhoto. I ended up spending almost an hour flipping through the thousands of pictures we’ve taken since you were born. I was supposed to be paying bills and renewing my library books. Instead I watched you go from being a huge, healthy perfect baby to a quick and inquisitive toddler to the thoughtful and articulate elementary school student you are today. It’s hard to remember when you were this guy:

            When this picture was taken, I was seven months pregnant with your little brother. Our house was being renovated to make room for him. We expanded the second floor to create two new bedrooms. Part of the bedroom you now use was once my walk-in closet. Your bunk bed sits in the exact location where I kept an array of suits and silk blouses. I gave up that closet and those fancy clothes when you came along—it was one of the best choices I ever made.

            We couldn’t live in our house while the work was being done so we stayed in little red cottage that my grandparents had built many years ago. There wasn’t a lot of room to play inside the cottage, but it was very close to the beach. We were there for most of March and April, which isn’t ideal beach weather in New England. So we had the beach to ourselves most days. You didn’t mind the cold. To you, that beach was a giant sandbox. All you needed was a pail, shovel and a plastic truck or two and you would stay busy for hours. When your lips turned blue I would bribe you with a cup of hot cocoa to entice you to go back to the cottage.

            You didn’t have a lot to say back then (times have really changed) but you asked a lot of questions. Or rather you asked the same question many times. “What zat do?” You would ask at the hardware store. “What zat do?” you would ask at the car repair shop. Once a week, we would visit our house so I could see how the work was going and drop off a check. “What zat do?” you would ask about the reciprocating saw. “What zat do?” you would ask about a nail gun. Keeping you out of harm’s way amid all those fascinating tools was no easy task for your very pregnant mother.

            It’s not only strange to think of you back then because you are so much more grown up. It’s also strange to think of you as an only child. Maybe it’s just a bad case of mommy brain, but I can hardly remember a time when you weren’t a brother. I never really thought about how you and James would get along before he came into our lives. I never weighed the pros and cons of having more than one child. It just seemed natural that after we had one child, we would have another. I never could have imagined how close you would become.

I hope you realize what a blessing you have in each other. Every night I pray that you always have that. I am so proud of how you’re willing share your allowance with each other. I love seeing your huge goodnight hugs. And I’m always touched at your concern when the other one is sick or hurt. You compliment each other so well. One of you is extroverted and one introverted. One of you is emotional and the other logical. One of you jumps into life with both feet and the other considers his path carefully. One of you likes to build sandcastles and the other likes to knock them down.

            Love, Mom

I tried desperately to NOT write about the beach. The beach just seemed so obvious. I even came up with this great memory about the time I narrowly avoided stepping on a rattlesnake while hiking with my family in the desert. But then I realized that it wasn’t desert so much as plains and therefore grassy rather than sandy J. I’ll have to jot that one down for another time.

Date Night

            Our fifteenth anniversary was last week. We celebrated by wolfing down Chinese take-out, going to a tee-ball practice and then a Cub Scout meeting. That my friends, is the difference between your fifteenth anniversary and your first anniversary. Fortunately, we had a chance at a “do-over” last night (which was a double celebration since it was also my husband’s fortieth birthday). My cousin, her husband, and their four kids invited our little guys for a sleep over so we could go away for the evening.

            It was a lovely change to sit through a dinner without saying, “Please chew with your mouth closed” and “There is no toilet talk at the dinner table.” We didn’t need to bring crayons amuse ourselves and neither one of us ordered chicken fingers or mac and cheese. We were able to savor our dinner and sip our cocktails—which was not easy since the food was fantastic! We dined at a place in Falmouth called Añejo, which bills itself as a Mexican bistro and tequila bar. If you find yourself vacationing on Cape Cod, I highly recommend it. Try the pomegranate margarita—as delicious as it is intoxicating.

            I love my children beyond words, but a night without them was a treasure. There is a stereotype that married couples go away and spend all their time talking about their kids. Of course, we talked about them. They are the center of our world. But we also talked about a million other things that we just don’t ordinarily have time and opportunity to say. More importantly, we were able to share a few quiet moments. In a house with two energetic little boys, there is very little silence. We enjoyed this rare treat immensely.

            The next morning over breakfast (Nope. I’m not sharing any details about the night in the hotel room with the hot tub and the king size bed. My mom reads this blog you know—wink, wink, nudge, nudge.) the waiter asked us if we were in town for anything special. When we told him we were there for our 15^th anniversary, he said, “Shut up! You look so young!” Maybe he was fishing for a big tip, but I’m inclined to think a little time away from the kids took a few years off our faces.

Will and Kate have nothing on us (except, wealth, fame & youth)!

RDC: Turning the Tables

            This week’s assignment from The Red Dress Club is: “Aaah...jealousy. We all have it. We all feel it. And now we'd like you to write about it. We'll leave it open: you can write about something or someone you envy, or a time when your jealousy got you in trouble, or maybe how it makes you feel to be envious. Whatever you want.”

Turning the Tables

            I played with the ice cubes in my gin and tonic, trying to keep myself from gulping it down. I didn’t want my brain to be fuzzy when I saw Sheila. Our twenty-year high school reunion was coming and like a lot of people I haven’t thought about in years, Sheila “friended” me on Facebook.

Sheila and I were classmates, but not friends. Back then her shiny black hair was styled into a perfect Aqua-netted poof while my brown frizzy curls were always in my face. Tall and slim but curvy, Sheila looked fantastic in a huge array of Jordache jeans and Benetton sweaters. My homemade and hand-me-down clothes did little to hide my short and boyish body. She was never one of those “mean girls” who pick on other girls, but I always felt eclipsed by her. As bookish as I was, I’d have given anything to get the kind of attention she got from boys back then. When Sheila suggested we meet for a drink, I was too curious to say no.

I looked at myself in the mirror behind the bar. I have a few lines around my eyes, but my hair is still brown thanks to L’Oreal and I’ve managed to keep my weight in check. My wardrobe has improved significantly. My clothes are flattering and classic. I still look bookish, but that’s who I am and I’m comfortable with that.

            “Stephie?” Sheila squeals. “I’d know you anywhere!” She wraps me in a hug that seems natural for her and awkward for me.

            “Sheila, it’s so good to see you.” I tell her. “You look great.”

            She’s heavier than she was in high school, but she’s gained weight in all the right places. A number of men in the bar are checking her out (some things never change). She’s wearing a purple silk blouse that reveals a little of her lacy bra when she leans forward and a black skirt cut to make the most of her curves. We sit and she orders a cosmopolitan and then turns to face me, “Tell me everything. Are you married? What do you do for a living? Have any kids?”

            Wow, in thirty-seconds, she’s shown more interest in me than she did in four years of high school. I tell her about my husband and my work as a researcher and writer. It’s a life that I love, but I don’t want to bore her so I turn the tables before she loses interest.

            “How about you Sheila?” I ask. “What’s keeping you busy these days.”

            She tosses back the rest of her Cosmo and signals the bartender for another one. “I sell real estate and I’m doing pretty well,” she tells me. “I had a few rough years after high school, with Dad in the slammer.”

            “Slammer? You mean, like jail?” I ask stupidly. I can picture her father and his extravagant gifts—a diamond tennis bracelet when she turned sixteen and a red Dodge Daytona when she turned seventeen.

            “You didn’t know about that? It made the papers in the early nineties. You were probably away at school. You name a white collar crime, he got nailed for it—tax evasion, embezzlement, fraud.”

            “Sheila, I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”

            “I’m surprised your folks never told you.”

            “Well, they don’t like to gossip.”

            “True. Very good people your parents.”

            “I didn’t realize you knew them that well.”

            “They let me stay with them when he got taken away. The government seized everything. I had to leave college. Your parents took me in for a couple of weeks until my aunt came and helped me out.”

            “I can’t believe they never told me.”

            “Me neither.  I stayed in your room. I think they even gave me some of your clothes. I’m surprised you never noticed they were missing.”

            “Clothes were never that important to me,” I said thinking how strange my castoffs must have looked on such a fashionable girl.

            “I know. You were so lucky, you know? My Dad thought that love meant buying me stuff. Your parents taught you that clothes weren’t that important. I can’t tell you how jealous I was of you.”

This is a work of fiction. The only bit of truth is my curly brown hair is still getting in my face and I do love a gin and tonic now and then.

Heavy Things

            Last fall, my eight-year-old son Owen came home from school with a lot of questions about September 11^th. We had never discussed it. I guess I never thought he was old enough to hear about it. They had been talking about it in school and he had a lot of questions. I did my best to answer them. I fought back tears and tried to explain what happened on that day. I did about as well as any parent would do considering how unprepared I was to discuss something so difficult—which is to say badly. I can only hope I handle the birds and the bees talk better than I handled the September 11^th talk.

When I was in eighth grade, we had an assignment to ask our parents if they could remember what they were doing when they heard the news of JFK’s assassination. On September 11, 2001, I thought to myself, someday my kids are going to ask me what I was doing today. I remember every detail of that day—the perfect clear blue of the sky, watching the second plane hit the World Trade Center live on television in the trading room of the investment firm where I worked, wondering if any of my former classmates were among the thousands running in terror from ground zero (there were several), watching one particular stock broker I had always thought of as heartless falling apart as he watched, seeing a woman in the same wine-colored suit I was wearing as I walked from Cambridge to South Station because I was afraid get on the subway, and trying to call my parents from my cell phone for the entire walk. Ten years later, I still cry when I think about it.

            Knowing that the death of Osama bin Laden was likely to be discussed at school on Monday, I thought we’d talk a little bit about it before hand. A few years back, Owen had seen a brief scene on the news of American forces in the mountains of Afghanistan. He couldn’t have been more than five or six years old at the time, “Mommy, what are the Army guys doing in the mountains?” he asked me.

            “There is a man who did a very bad thing before you were born,” I told him. “Those soldiers are looking for him.”

            “I want to help them find him,” he told me.

            “You have to be eighteen to join the army. They’ll probably find him before then.” I said.

            Since Owen never forgets anything (except things like homework and putting his dirty laundry in the hamper), I knew he’d recall that conversation. So on the walk to the bus stop this morning I asked, “Owen, do you remember asking me about the soldiers in the mountains?”

            “The ones looking for the bad guy?”

            “Yes. His name is Osama bin Laden. They found him and now he’s dead. I thought it might come up at school today and I thought we should talk about it. A lot of people are very happy he’s dead. But I don’t think it’s okay to celebrate someone’s death.” Of course, I started tearing up.

            “Are you crying because he’d dead or because of what he did?”

            “I’m crying about what he did. I wouldn’t celebrate his death, but it doesn’t make me sad either. He caused the death of thousands of Americans and we’ve been looking for him for a long time.”

            “What did he do?”

            “Do you remember learning about September 11^th? That was his idea.”

            He asked me a lot of questions—really good questions. Sadly, I didn’t have answers for all of them. I doubt anyone does. By the time we reached the bus stop, we were both a little teary. I said to him, “There is something I always want you to remember Owen. There are some bad people in the world. But for every single person who is willing to do something this awful, there are a hundred people who are willing to put themselves in danger to save someone’s life. That’s what we need to focus on and be grateful for.”

            I hope the end of the search for bin Laden brings closure and comfort to those who need it. I am relieved that the search for this embodiment of evil is over. I hope this means some of our troops can come home to a grateful nation. But I won’t celebrate this news. I’d like to share this quote a friend (who is a New Yorker to the core) posted on Facebook yesterday:

 “I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that” MLK Jr.