After two weeks of living on a sandy peninsula void of much online access to anything however surrounded by national seashore, some combination of visiting family, far too many fried seafood joints, and my very content although browned, mosquito bitten, bathing suited children - I am finally packing up.
Vacation time is just about over.
In a few days, I will be depositing my summer boys with their dad and so many hugs and kisses before they all head back to Tampa. But I’m not heading back to Tampa with them. Not quite yet at least.
Where could I be headed you ask?
After a blogless, wifi-less, nature filled, sandy footed two weeks far from the hustle and bustle of anything much at all, I am leaping head first into the very antithesis of this wonderfully unplugged time out.
I’m headed to BlogHer in NYC.
Hundreds and hundreds of bloggers and dear friends and so so many people I want to see but may not get to or will possibly in passing with humming laptops all logged in with endless tabs open and twitter convos underscoring every panel discussion alongside meet ups in lobbies and coffee spots and karaoke bars and parties and this and that and who knows whatever the hell else all while camping out with two blogging besties in the Hilton in New York City which already has enough hustle and bustle thank you very much to make my over-sunned mind totally and utterly stim out.
But I’m not complaining. Surrounding myself with smart, interesting people in NYC is exactly what I need before I leap into the usual routine of school days, car pick up lines, baseball practice, homework, and mac n cheese dinners.
Will you be there? Post here so I know to look out for you.
My mother died a year ago last Monday. When someone so close to you passes away it seems the world should shudder to a stop. Or come crashing down with loud, harsh fanfare that rattles you to your core. It seems the world should sense this enormous loss, recognize it, quiet down and wait. But it did not. The cars passed by and the birds chirped outside my mother’s home the day I stepped into her bedroom. She had been taken out of that very room only 24 hours before. But the sun shone in. The breeze blew by. Her recently planted bulbs fully bloomed swayed in the yard below.
****
I inherited my mother’s camera after she passed. And I still have not deleted the last pictures she took. They were of branches strewn across her yard. They were also of a tree. An enormous tree in front of our house had been the object of her recent frustration. This tree, one that towered over and awed me as a child, was not well. The root structure was compromised and the city had been pruning it on the street side only. She knew it was not viable. And so in her usual determined way, she pressed the city, wrote the mayor and rose as much of a ruckus as she could about that damn tree. They never responded.
****
This past Monday I was on Cape Cod, with family all around. My aunt called me. “How are you today?” she asked. I was ok. I figured this was the best place to be to honor her that day. I just wished I could get some sign from her, you know? Just so that I knew she was still around. She understood. She told me she loved me and we hung up.
****
An hour later I stood in front of my mother’s parents’ grave. And my fathers’ parent’s grave. Both are buried in the same cemetery here on Cape Cod. I dropped a hydrangea bloom on each stone and packed the kids back into the car. We were on our way to collect my father from the airport.
****
I stood in the wind at Race Point on Cape Cod, the northern-most tip of this peninsula. There was a small airport and we expected my father’s Cape Air flight at any moment. And at the top of the visitor center I finally found cell phone reception. “What do you mean the tree is down????” My brother had just called. There had been a terrible storm a half hour earlier and the tree – my mom’s tree, the one I still had pictures of on my camera in my bag – had fallen into my parent’s home. An entire telephone pole had snapped in half too. Wires were down and alive in the yard. The entire root structure exposed. No one could even see my home. No one knew the extent of the damage. There had been a great deal of fanfare this July 25th. Thundering crashes, traffic blocked, the everyday was stopped for the time being, total chaos.
****
My father was on the phone. We were all gathered in the living room of my family’s Cape cottage listening to him on the phone with my brother. “Who is there? Channel 7???… The Mayor????” We stared at each other. With live wires still sparking in my parent’s front lawn and the downed tree blocking the entire view of the house, the Mayor had arrived and had just held a press conference. Right there. At our home. He promised the city would be taken care of and that power would be restored.
****
The tree is off the house now. The power lines are being restored. The damage doesn’t seem to be anything desperate. I think it’s going to be ok.
Dusty, creaky, familiar sounds from decades before. Comfy couches, National Geographics, the TV stand next to the brick fireplace. Slamming screen door, daddy long legs, pails and shovels left on the front stoop. Family pictures hung on the wall, chipped dishes from my grandfather’s cupboard, knotty wood beam, pink tiled bathroom floors. Musty, quiet, flashes from the lighthouse cross the night sky. Leaves shifting, squirrels leaping through undergrowth, towels hung on laundry lines, moss and lichen climb the trees, weeds wisp past my calf. Sand on the floor boards, sand on the rugs, sand in my bed. Same old bed frames, same old sheets, same rusty faucet, same clinking latches on the doors. Same certain sense that my family is here, just over my shoulder but out of sight, whispering welcomes and bids to stay awhile.
I haven’t been back to Cape Cod in two years. It has been almost one year since my mother passed and about seven since my maternal grandparents passed. It has been over twenty years since my paternal grandfather passed and I never met my paternal grandmother, who I was named after. And the small Cape cottage we are staying in right now was hers.
I was brought up on Cape Cod, during summers and occasional winters. Both sets of grandparents adored it here – one set retired here for over 25 years. Both sets are buried in the plot right up the road from here. I spent part of 4th grade here. I got my driving licence here and when we traveled abroad, we came “home” to Cape Cod.
I used to row my grandparents boat over to this library – the library which is currently closed and where I am stealing wi-fi to post this. I used to check out Nancy Drew books. I used to pet the library cat and maybe skip up the road for some M&Ms at the town Superette.
This is my home.
I have been here less than 24 hours, but memories previously adrift now swell, break and crash at my feet. Ghosts of those here before surround my soul and startle my heart. Familiarity washes over me and moves back, leaving me left to shake out what is current and what is past.
This is my home.
(And my home also has very little internet access. So bear with me. I have so much to say but just not all that much wi-fi to say it. )
(Oh and I should specify that this is not a pic of my family’s cape cottage. It is a pic of the Coast Guard Station on the beach just a couple miles from the cottage. But it is such a familiar image from my childhood, it may as well be “home”…)
I wonder, with my 37th birthday looming, if it is a little late to learn this lesson. I am thinking it is.
As a child there are constants in your life. People. Places. Things even. There are traditions and cycles and schedules we depend on. This is where we always go for groceries. This is the bowl I always eat from. This is how my grandfather’s garden smells. This is where we go on summer vacation. This is what my mother always says. This is how it is.
I think as children, we fixate on these constants. In the first years after we arrive into our world, we experience extraordinary change. There is so much to learn and realize and grow up into. As our world moves and shudders under our feet, we steady ourselves with what is always there. What we know. If I walk into my home, my room will be up the stairs and straight ahead. The Cheerios are always kept in the cupboard over the stove. The house key is kept on a string inside the hall closet door. Always. And, as children, if we find our constants change even slightly, we panic.
My boys depend on routine. It is their religion. They move in their cycles, they are comforted by them. I joke about their OCD tendencies but completely understand them. What do you mean a fat man named Santa comes into my home once a year to deliver stuff? Are you sure thunder is perfectly ok even though it sounds like the world is exploding above my head? Wait, we’re floating on a planet in the middle of a wide unknown called space? *breathe* Mommy will have my favorite yogurt ready for lunch, we always drive this way to school and I get to stay up until 8:30pm on weekends. All is well.
But then there are life changing moments. You move. Your school changes. Your friends are far away. What was constant is no longer. A new normal is established. I understood these changes well as a child. And, because children do learn new things quickly while clutching onto remaining constants, I assimilated when needed.
Because there is always some familiarity somewhere. My grandfather’s garden still smelled the same, no matter how many years had passed before I stood in it again. My mother always said those same kinds of far too annoying but strangely comforting things. And decades later, that very same grocery store I shopped at as a child still exists – with the same graying employees smiling down at me in line.
Death does a fairly good job at ripping most constants (the constants that were always always there no matter how far or how often I moved) apart.
Voices that soothed and moved you through a new world are gone. The world’s they created, the homes they kept, the things they bought to fill them, the foods they made, the gardens they grew, the traditions they kept, the sayings they always said over and over again… that is immediately gone.
You can’t return.
You can’t hear the door creak the way it used to and slam behind you. You won’t find the Cheerios kept where they always were. You won’t hear the sounds of your mother – her certain clicking, scuffing pace down the hall. And, when you wake up far too late on a Saturday morning, you certainly won’t hear your grandmother singsong from the kitchen: “Good morning Merry sunshine, how did you wake so soon? You chased the little stars away and shined away the moon!”
It’s gone.
And that is how the world is.
Things fall apart.
Things change.
Nothing is constant.
And as adults, we regroup and reshape and recreate our families. We make new constants. We surround ourselves with new everydayness. The Cheerios find a new home in your pantry. And maybe you redo what they did. You recreate it subtly with every hope that the constant in some quiet, private comforting way remains.
I miss those people. I miss those places. I miss those things.
With a nostalgic, regretful, desperate ache rooted and wound into my gut – I. Miss. It.
Still. I have new people and new places and new things.
Apparently this is how life goes.
Things fall apart. Things change. But they renew again. And move forward.
Breathing and hoping.
But missing.
And eating Cheerios for breakfast every single morning.
I’m in the middle of a very busy few days. I am parenting not just two but three wonderfully wild boys. They are on the go and constant and playing and pushing and “it’s MY turn now” and hungry and scattering and jumping and moving and trailing shoes and toys and wrappers and the rest.
So forgive the quiet here while I do my best to maintain the wild in my home.
But I should warn you. It’s summer time after all. The kids aren’t in school. Camps are here and there. “I’m bored” threatens regularly. We’re at the pool. We’re meeting friends. We’re on the go. We’re readying ourselves for our family vacation.
Contrary to some popular assumption, summers are not a time when families relax. Moms don’t find any much alone time at all. Summer means “game on”. It’s fun and I love being with my boys for sure but let’s just say I lower my personal expectations down many many notches.
(Not that they were very high to start with. So now we’re hovering at around no expectations. But I can’t throw in the towel entirely. That would be giving up. And we moms just don’t give UP on ourselves, right? Yeah. So. Anyway.)
So this is a pic I took on the go this morning at the zoo. We ran from splash ground to splash ground keeping cool and burning off another day of summertime energy.
If you haven’t seen me post in awhile, just jump back to this post and you’ll remember why. But I suspect that if you’re a parent right now you aren’t even checking in that much anyway. Because you’re probably doing about the same thing.
(And by the way, this “quick” post took the better part of an afternoon to write. For all of the reasons I’ve listed above.)
If you live in the Tampa Bay area, tell me you have already saved the date, right? Yep, Saturday, June 26th is coming up and The Motherhood, Hebrew National and all of the blogger co-hosts have a very fun picnic planned for that day. And we really reeeeally want you and your family to come.
And why should you? Well, here are my top five reasons WHY you MUST come.
1) Get your grub on. Who wants to think up lunch for the whole family when it’s already there waiting for you? With fun and games too. It’s a lunch no brainer.
2) Be one with nature.E. G. Simmons Park is located in Ruskin on Tampa Bay. You’ll enjoy all that is beautiful about our local environs. Our coastline is so damn beautiful it will make you weepy – and you know it. Don’t forget the camera!
3) Watch me wrangle three boys. They aren’t all mine but I will be parenting them that day. And they like to fight. You might want to grab food from reason #1, park yourself on a bench and watch them have at it. I promise to try and keep my scolding G rated. It’s a family event after all.
4) The Mechanical bull. Ride ‘em cowboy. And you think I’m kidding? Check out the video taken by Mommy Words at her local Hebrew National picnic!
5) The Oil Spill. That’s right, here’s your chance to DO SOMETHING. A representative from the National Wildlife Federation will be there to answer questions. And we will be hosting a service activity aimed at giving children a chance to assist with the oil spill. We will also be collecting donated items which can help oil spill relief. The organizations we are supporting have donation lists here:
I don’t claim to be much of a gardener. But by no means should that imply that I don’t love to garden. I’m not sure how it happened actually. I fought it for years, but it’s joy lay deep below, patient and waiting.
As a child, my mother had a garden plot a few blocks from our home. She piled my brother, myself and her garden tools into her station wagon and hauled us all over there. We didn’t particularly like going. We were bored. I would wander down the mulched paths in between stringed off gardens boasting lovely heads of lettuce, squash and snap peas lost in whichever fantasy I had currently replaying in my mind. My mother would call me back, and could I bring the wheel barrow over while I’m at it.
I remember the year she had grown so many tomatoes. Heaps and heaps of them. She was given a book about “Too Many Tomatoes” and set to canning. I remember the smell of vine ripened tomatoes and then stewing tomatoes. I didn’t even like tomatoes. There were just so many of them which she found very amusing and clucked on about daily. *Shrug* I was six. What did all of those tomatoes really matter.
When I finally moved into my first apartment with a little bit of land, I never expected to consider gardening. But as the cold months finally passed and green buds piqued the trees, something unfurled within. As if some gene which I had no control over had finally matured itself and pushed through. Maybe I should go pick up a few bulbs? Maybe a trowel. Maybe some better soil.
But I am missing the skill portion of this gardening gene. And so my first garden was a catastrophe. Bulbs had been placed too close together, enormous plants grew on too small a plot of land and then one flower took over like a weed and spread everywhere. Things were leaning, nothing matched, hopeful flowers were strangled and started dying. I forgot to water. What’s the difference between and annual and a perennial, I had no idea.
Years have passed and I have my own home now. Usually I tend to my small garden of children so I spend less time heeding my temptation to grow much outside. But I try every few months to make an effort with my garden. It is a Florida garden however with extreme heat and humidity and then occasional damaging freezes. We have horrid sandy topsoil which is regularly overturned and dug through by a local armadillo. And then there are hoards of fire ants ready to strike any flip-flopped foot that happens to misstep. I don’t know the names of what grows here so growing any of it is some version of garden Russian roulette. But I dig a hole, plant one in there and certainly try. Sure, only about 50% of what I have put in has had lived on with much success, but I try.
Today I put in sod. Last year our backyard was bulldozed suffered at the hand of a wild boar and five of her babies. The weeds whooped and hollered as they crowded in and took over. But today my husband and I trucked in slab after slab of sod and threw together a patch work of grass which we hope will make its mark and regain the upper hand. As we stood there coated in dirt and sweat, watering and stomping at the ground, I felt good. The dirt felt good. The soil and water and all of it combined in a muddy green grassy mass smelled divine. I am growing something.
A few weeks ago, I tentatively planted a tomato plant in a pot on my back porch. Because, you guessed it, I like tomatoes now. I adore them. I wish I could ask my mother how she did it but I would bet the care and the organic mulch and the specific zone she lived in had everything to do with it. Nevertheless, I am trying it. And so now I go out onto my porch everyday and stare at my plant. Would you believe one of those lovely papery tomato flowers bestowed a small gift the other day? Yes, a small green tomato has shown itself. I hardly have too many tomatoes – but I have one. One and maybe another as I tentatively water it’s soil and will the next papery flower to produce a friend.
There is a magic in growing. A small, dry seed can become something real and green, stalked and hardy. Soil and all of it’s rich substance anchors the potential of food and beauty and shade. Water. Have you ever seen what a good soaking rain will do to a garden? It all stretches to the sky and reaches and reaches. It greens and buds and flowers and creates fruit and color and hope.
Clearly, there is also therapy in gardening and growing. We lose ourselves, find our thoughts and enjoy this quiet peace while tending and tending and tending until it exhausts us. We place our attention on something which doesn’t take anything away. We find creativity in growth and life while reigning in and respecting all the possibilities of the natural world.
It is certainly no coincidence. I have snuck back into my garden because it offers a careful promise of life and hope. A promise I tend to, hoping my love of gardening which was passed on to me might actually heal me.
Its a phenomenon to be sure.
And again, it’s not one I claim to have much of a handle on. Don’t expect bright swaying trellises of bougainvillea and enormous bushels of Birds of Paradise or hearty fruit trees weighed down with orange treasures or even a lawn that grows one type of grass (as much as I lust for all of this). But you might expect a small tray of sunflowers poking their way up on the sunny side of the house. Or one clump of Bird of Paradise make a respectable run for it in the front yard. And a fairly successful patch of petunias keeping my mailbox company.
Oh yes and one small green tomato, which smells exactly like my mother’s garden plot. You’ll find me next to it, staring it down and finding pride in it’s possibility. I’m here remembering my mother and hoping to find all the same amusement and joy she plucked out of her own garden. And also, like my mother from 30 years prior overwhelmed by her harvest, I am here clucking on about my one dear tomato daily. Because this first tomato does matter.
Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of Magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden – in all the places.
I’m a big fan of the ladies over at Aiming Low. So I am ripping a page out of their book today (imitation being the highest form of flattery, of course) and will attempt to explain just exactly how low I can aim. Specifically? When cleaning. I make a total shamockery of the whole concept of house cleaning. And here’s how I do it.
Wait, let me back up and tell you why.
While some of my childhood friends had things matched and just so and put away in their places, I did not. I could care less about order. Many memories of my mother include exasperated pleas to do something about my bedroom. But my kind of cleaning usually resulted in finding old stuff and playing with it in the very corner I started in until she came back in and saw me off in la-la land still surrounded by the shambles of my bedroom. Call me rebellious or just a particularly lazy kind of lazy or perhaps distracted by my own unique style of creativity (oh, I like that one), I kind of only barely did anything to make heads or tails of my own living space.
Then I became a grown up. And when dishes got left someplace or the rug pilled exotic animal hair balls, I heard my mother’s voice grumble from under my breath: “Who do you expect is going to clean this up?” Me. Damn. Do I have to? I guess.
So, yeah, I clean now. But only because I have to. And usually only when I invite someone over. Or I get mad. When I’m mad, I love to clean. So consider my home a happy place when it’s dirty (which is often, so yay for us). But maybe worry if it’s too clean. Really. Or else just expect company to ring our doorbell in the next 5 – 10 minutes because that’s about how clean it will remain with my boys at large, trailing dirt from shoes, dismantled toys and sandwich crusts.
But if I hate to clean so much, how do I do it exactly? You should not be surprised to hear that when I do clean, it isn’t the most thorough job ever. Shocked and appalled, I’m sure, but you need to understand that buffing the underside of the frig’s crisper drawers just doesn’t turn me on. It just doesn’t, I’m sorry.
Ok, time to discuss cleaning itself. I’ve procrastinated enough. I usually start with the dishes. Because there is NO way a home can be considered even remotely clean if there are dishes in the sink. So that means unloading the dishwasher, cramming everything haphazardly into whatever cabinet that fits it and slamming the doors shut to keep it all from falling out. Then cramming the dishwasher with whatever could possibly fit in there too. As long as the spinning water thingie on top clears, we’re good.
Then I wipe down the kitchen. No I don’t pick up the toaster and look for crumbs. No I don’t scrub every milk circle off the table. No I don’t scrub the scum off the stove burners. I have, but you have to be some big-wig kind of company for me to go that far.
Then I sweep. Where you can see. (Do NOT move my couches or you will be asked to leave my house.)
Vacuum? …Maybe. It depends. I take a step back and eyeball my carpets. Like a ripe melon, you just know when the accumulated grime is impossible to ignore.
If there is a splat of something on the floor, do I grab the mop and wet the whole place down? I’ve done it before. A few times ago, I did it. But usually? I grab an anti-bacterial wipe and spot treat. Perfection.
(Note: Those antibacterial wipes are fab. No sponges or extra spraying steps. Wipe everything down and you know bad germies are gone(ish). Yes, I know they’re wasteful. But one goes a long way, let me tell you. Or at least they do for me…)
Oh. Clutter. Yeah, there is always a place for that. Usually in the guest room. All things unwanted and undealt with go to die in my guest room. And then when you are looking for tax forms or insurance cards, you always know where they are. More or less.
(No, I file stuff. I have special piles. I know where everything is. Not to worry. …Don’t look at me like that.)
Toys? Oh I have a favorite spot for toys. If they don’t fit into the established toy baskets or if they are falling apart, they usually go in a bag to charity. Seriously. If they are cluttering everything up and aren’t being used, buh-bye. Easy.
Laundry might be my favorite. Well, at least the part where you can throw heaps of it into the washer and shut the top. Voila, gone! It’s just the part about taking it back out again and sorting and folding it. Lame. So my kids get their school clothes out of the “probably” clean hamper. Wrinkled? My husband’s remedy is to sprinkle them with water and throw them into the dryer for a couple minutes. And yes, this is a wasteful use of electricity. Duly noted.
So them’s my tricks for clean living here at Chez Morningside. Feel free to steal a couple. Or take this post as permission to let yourself slide now and again. Because any parent of young children who takes the time to perform multiple exercises in futility clean regularly should expect it undone within the hour.
Granted, if you get mad about that, maybe you’ll want to clean again.
“Secure your oxygen mask before assisting others.”
I heard that phrase three times this weekend. Once on the flight up to Boston, once on the flight back down to Tampa and once over dinner with my best friend. I was in Boston to see her and her family. She just had a beautiful baby girl three months prior and I was finally able to get myself north to meet her.
But over dinner, away from our children, wearily clinking our glasses together – we talked about putting ourselves first.
“I like to think of what they say on airlines before you take off. You know, secure your own mask before helping anyone else.”
She was explaining that if we don’t make sure we have ourselves taken care of, we can’t care for anyone else. And these were wise words coming from the mother of a brilliant and busy two year old and fabulous but fussy three month old. It seemed an enormous gift when she could pass me her littlest one just so that she could shower, just so that she could finish her plate of food, just so that she could be quiet in her space for a moment.
Granted, her words of advice are ones I suppose know on some level already. After seven years as a mother, I thoroughly understand that parents need to have time for themselves before they can care for their families. I get that. I do. But do I apply that advice very often? Does my husband? Does any parent?
When my boys were born, I got used to back burnering so much of my own indulgence. But so much more back burnering followed. Even the most basic functions can get ignored – and you know what I’m talking about here. Raise your hand if you’ve peed and fed your baby at the same time. (Don’t look at me like that. I’m just keeping it real here, folks.)
While considering this whole concept of putting yourself first now and then this weekend, I also happened to get sick. It was certainly ironic. Away from my family and responsibilities, I managed to pack it up, lose my voice (NOT COOL while with my BFF) and spend more time on her couch than out and about in Boston.
And that was fine because I was able to spend plenty of time with her girls, which is why I was there in the first place. (Disregard the germs I probably spread all over their home however… guilt guilt guilt.)
But once I arrived here in Tampa and jumped back into my role as mom, I faltered a bit. My chest cold had settled in for the long haul and (…I could insert a story here about how I dozed off on my 3 year old who decided not to be potty trained while I snoozed but I’ll spare you those details…) I was not functioning so well. So my husband, who is running on a work treadmill at full speed right now, had to find a way to get back home and care for the boys for one more day.
Sure, I put myself first. But only because I had to. And let me tell you – lying in bed while my boys were fed and homeworked and put to bed was strangely surreal. (Or maybe the Nyquil had yet to wear off.) Regardless, there is always a trade off. My husband had to desert his full speed treadmill at work for the time being, let alone find any time to focus on his own needs.
(I wonder when he ever secures his own mask? While I may be putting my kids first most of the time, he is putting work AND our kids first all of the time. Does his commute to and from work count as his alone time, his time to breath and refuel his brain again? I’m not so sure.)
This balance is something we all need to work out better. It is very easy to set your own needs aside because you aren’t going to get whined at or voicemailed incessantly until you DO pay attention to yourself.
(Imagine if you did though. Imagine if your child threatened a temper tantrum if you didn’t go outside and sit in that lounge chair with a book RIGHT NOOOOOWWWW!!!! I bet we’d do it without any arguments.)
I’m not sure I have any recommendations here. Because while I know we all need our time to regroup and recharge – I don’t always. And I don’t know how to insist that we do this every time. Or if we realistically can do it every time. But we can try to do it some of the time at least. And remind ourselves how much better off everyone might be if we did.
Now, if I could only figure out how get the airplane’s exit door open too, and that fun bouncy slide to eject, and then hurl myself and my husband wheeeeeee off the plane and onto a beach in Tahiti.
After two weeks of living on a sandy peninsula void of much online access to anything however surrounded by national seashore, some combination of visiting family, far too many fried seafood joints, and my very content although browned, mosquito bitten, bathing suited children - I am finally packing up.
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