Picking up the pieces
strown items on the floor
from a basket hurled in solitary anger
where did this come from?
pent up frustration about this stage of life
everyone’s therapist
where’s mine?
he was a baby cooing
gazing into my eyes
a boy playing trains and Legos
look mom!
a teenager on the cusp of manhood
finding his way
now I am the baby
mewing for attention.
Filed under Sunday Night Sonnet
The teenagers are here.
Our house was always the one the kids came to. How many breakfasts of waffles did I make? How many trips to the park did we take? How many Nerf wars battled in these rooms and outside the pale, wooden perimeter? Years and years later, I still find those blue, spongy bullets tucked in corners and hiding among domestic tumbleweeds.
The sleepovers and and get-togethers are less frequent in these late teenage years, but they do happen. Last night my son had friends over. They whooped over video games and a backyard fire pit. This morning they drove themselves to get donuts and we shared laughs in my small, crowded kitchen. I love being a part of their conversations, which normally include musical interests and the mundaneness of high school. I also know to slink away to give them space, as much as is possible in a modest, one-level condo.
But I love the closeness. I wouldn’t have it any other way. There are too many distractions for us to not enjoy the closeness. Everyday I go out on my lanai to watch birds. He doesn’t join me in this. It’s not his thing. But he invites me to walk dogs with him on occasion. We snicker about interesting neighbors. Sometimes we don’t say anything at all.
It’s not easy to catch time with him. If I have just five minutes I am grateful. But there’s never really enough time. I love his company so damn much.
Filed under Observations
Yesterday was one of the best days of my life. And most of what occurred had not been planned.
It was a gorgeous Florida winter day– one of those days that feel like heaven. Not a drop of humidity, or searing sun rays, or biting cold. The gently warm sun mixed with cobalt blue skies and fresh cool breezes kept the skin wanting more and the eyes closing in pleasure. A long bike ride was the only thing I’d planned because I knew the weather was going to be heavenly and I had no work or appointments scheduled. Just me and my bike and the trail. But right before I left I had a strong instinct to message a former coworker to meet along my trail ride for a coffee at my favorite local coffee shop. He immediately responded that he was excited to meet up with me. This coworker was an integral part of my sanity during our Covid-related lay off and unemployment benefit fiasco.
I pumped the bicycle peddles hard so I could make my route before meeting my friend. There were other bikers on the path, sometimes in my way (I wanted to soar instead of putz). Even the bugs had no time to fly away from my racing speed (there were some caught in my hair, some on my sunscreen-covered lips). I breathed deep and let my frustration flow away with the breezes. As soon as I entered my favorite park, with its many windy trails underneath the hammocks of oaks and cypress, I felt the emanating presence of god. I have never been a religious person. But I let god, as I’ve come to know this feeling of love and light and peace and gratitude, wash over me and flow outward.
I couldn’t stop looking at the tops of the trees, or inhaling the scent of orange-blossom. I even turned my headphone volume lower to hear the birds singing and chirping in the late morning.
My meet-up went well. It was so nice to see my friend after so many weeks. We sat under a pagoda, sipping our coffee concoctions and swapping stories of our latest accomplishments, work drama (his, not mine), and relished that we were both free from our old job that although had its many teachable and fun moments, a sheer relief to be unbridled by the stress and consumption of it all.
On the ride back I went through the park again, and stopped at the butterfly garden. There were yellow and orange butterflies flitting about, big bumblebees visiting each blossom that hadn’t been there just two weeks ago.
When I arrived back to my neighborhood I stopped at a neighbor’s house, as my son was doing some light yard work there as a side job. We talked about school and friends and the future week’s plans as he gathered pine needles and dusty mulch and I draped my arms over the chest-high fence. We made a date to run errands later and get dinner out.
Teenagers can be a moody, emotional mess at times. And you might not know which you’re gonna get. Today he was in a wonderfully light and playful mood, devoid of the usual school stress and pulsating exhaustion. He drove us to Home Depot, where I’d planned on purchasing a screen for our back slider, so I can let the breezes in without the critters and insects. He rolled the large platform cart along the aisles and I playfully asked if I could ride it as he pushed. I felt playful, too. We finally found the particular screen door (it was the last one left) and he questioned why we needed a cart so large for this light door and that he could just carry it, no problem. I was grateful he was there with me as these types of errands always seem to stress me.
We had dinner out together in between our errands. The conversation never lulled, there was no iPhone in sight, and he opened up to me without prodding or hesitation. We sat there fully present, chatting and laughing and eating like so many parents of teenagers don’t always get to do. Fully present. That’s what I’ll tell him to do next time there is a lull in conversation with his girlfriend. Sometimes you don’t have much to say. And that’s ok. Just being present is what is needed. In that moment, at that table, there were no distractions. I felt heard and appreciated and not an embarrassment as us moms can sometimes be to our teenagers. Just living and breathing we are dorks.
Our last errand before home was yet another home-improvement store, this time to buy an anti-squirrel bird feeder and seed, so I can invite more birdsong onto my lanai and into my life. Once again it was playful and helpful and not at all the chore I thought it would be.
When we arrived home he brought in the screen and promised to help me install it tomorrow. I don’t know how I’ll cope when he one day flies the nest. It’s too daunting to imagine. How pointless. We have today, whether planned or spontaneous.
Filed under Observations
Written from the screened porch at the old Earle cabin near Ichetucknee Springs, Florida
June 13, 2018
I don’t even know where to begin, it’s been so long since I’ve written anything (besides a short thank-you note). I’m going all old-school long hand as I’ve no working computer at the moment. How did I manage to journal all those years on paper? It was all I really knew. And I preferred it. Now my mind is faster than my hand. And my posture is terrible.
Yesterday I caught a scent which reminded me of grandpa Pa. It must have been a combination of raw tobacco and the rain right before it falls. I was driving my son and I along one of the many country roads, lined with farmland– corn, cows, horses, watermelon. Power lines neatly parallel to the ever-stretching two-lane highway. Pa used his handkerchief (which he kept in his back pocket) to blow his nose. His vice was chewing tobacco. His very own garden full of the best tomatoes I’ve ever eaten to this day.
As a teen I couldn’t imagine his existence anything short of mundane, perhaps dull. But now I see the allure. The very peacefulness of it all. Days spent tinkering in the garage, tending to the vegetables, gathering fallen tree limbs, wiping the sweat of the brow with a worn handkerchief.
I go to these trips to the springs, to the ranch, to get away from it all. To be away from noise and chatter and chores and errands and work. Here the birds sing day and night. The rooster crows. The donkey bellows. There’s no WiFi. I woke up this morning and walked in dewy grass to pet a pygmy horse.
I miss my Pa. And my Granny. It’s hard sometimes to grasp the brevity of it all– that I shall never again spend time in their presence. Their memories float along with the momentum of the highway, the rows of melon, and the fields of corn.
Filed under A Writer's Mind
The kid is on a hamburger kick recently. My teenager wants to try all the decent restaurant and fast food hamburgers to see which one is the tastiest. Already Glory Days, a nearby sports-themed bar and grille, is winning with its bacon and egg layers among the juicy char-grilled patty of meat. He has never been a big fast food kid, so I have to coach him on some burgers he might like to try, some I liked as a kid before I turned all pollo-pescetarian.
I told him of Burger King last week, and how they actually put their burgers on a real flame searing grill. “Notice the smoke wafting from the roof? That’s a real flame-grilled burger!” He tries one and is craving another the next day.
Now we never go into these fast food restaurants, only through the drive-thru. Today on a day trip with his grandparents, we stop inside one, by his incessant request for a Burger King burger. There happened to be one on the outskirts of the town we were visiting. And by outskirts I mean there were people in the parking lot who I think had just escaped jail.
We walk inside and immediately I begin to think of a prison cafeteria, or a high school cafeteria, as they basically look the same. The lighting is bright and glaring and the furniture is nailed to the floor. There’s a couple sitting side by side munching joylessly in unison, staring straight ahead into nowhere. Of course there’s a long line to order and there is nothing fast going on at all here. I notice a strange looking man with blonde, curly hair that could have been a wig on a mannequin in the early 80’s. He’s fumbling with his paper cup and receipt and mumbling to himself.
After we order (finally!) we grab our paper cups to fill them at the soda trough. I’m scanning the dining area to see where we could sit without brushing shoulders with someone who might stab us with a plastic knife. I notice 80’s hair, sitting by himself. In fact he is the only person on the whole left side of the dining room. I avert his stare and we glide over to the more bustling side with the lesser of the people who could possibly drag me into their white van.
As soon as we sit down I notice that my teenager looks as if he’s about to have a panic attack and I tell him Hey you wanted a BK burger! He doesn’t like going anywhere remotely sketchy, not even to the grocery store with me. My dad gets up to go get our tray of food-like items and immediately 80’s mannequin hair walks over to our table.
“I was cleared of those charges,” he says defensively.
He repeats himself.
Again, repeats. “I’m telling you I was cleared of those charges!”
My son and I stare at each other in non-disbelief. My mom stammers through, “Uh we don’t know what you’re talking about?”
80’s mannequin hair continues. “I don’t know why everyone keeps talking about it!”
He walks off in a huff.
I look at the man sitting a couple booths over, who I’m certain is a serial killer, mouthing the word Oh-K and rolling his eyes after witnessing this altercation/creepy conversation.
My dad comes back with the tray of our food-like items and misses the whole thing. I grab the pepper shaker and immediately recoil as it’s coated in a stickiness I don’t even want to ponder. The four of us eat our meals in our little bubble, snickering about how weird it all is. They love their burgers and I’m kind of enjoying my salad, if only I had a plastic knife to cut the choke-able-sized chunks of chicken or defend myself in an all-out BK clientele skirmish.
Filed under Observations
It had been several weeks since we walked the beach, crossing side streets and passing intimately-lit cafes and restaurants along the way. The distant downtown lights dotted the southern horizon. Street performers echoed among the hum of engines and the quiet lap of gulf crest. This is our beach– or at least feels that way as we’ve been coming here for sunsets since 2001. Only everything about it is etched in change.
Our now teenage son, who obligingly strolled beside us, was once a tiny mewing thing carried in a pack at my breast. Then onto toddler years when he danced with abandon to steel drums and folk guitarists on the pavilion stage where now only a speaker pumping out rock favorites exists. There was the running-through-the-sand-dunes phase, the must-have-ice-cream phase, the I’m-terrified-of-the-water phase.
I’m trying hard to embrace these new teenage years. But everyone knows I’m mourning the past. My co-parent seems to be handling this new phase better than me. Perhaps it’s a motherhood thing, that we become emotionally consumed and overwhelmed by all the constant transitioning. The buzz of daily life shadows some of this agony but when nighttime unveils sometimes it is downright unbearable.
He was in a quiet but kind mood as we made a stop for drinks at the tiki hut which used to be nothing but the hut and a few picnic tables. Now a sprawl of neatly placed umbrella-covered tables and Adirondack chairs, some outdoor beach games, and a small stage where a talented solo guitarist happily strummed. The two of us sat and chatted as his dad went to get our drinks and the cool January wind whipped at our hair.
“Do you and Dad think there’s something off about me?” he asked.
“Off?” I replied. “Why do you ask that?”
“Because it seems you and Dad are always worried about me, or think I’m acting like something is wrong.” He looked at me with serious eyes, his phone retired to his lap.
“Well I think you’re just a normal teenage boy. And of course we worry. Do you think you’re ‘off’?”
“No.”
“Good.” Pause. “You aren’t depressed, are you?”
“No,” he answered assuredly.
“Well if you ever do become depressed I hope you know you can talk to me. And your dad. Please just don’t shut us out, ok? We need to be open with each other, ok? You know I’ve had my bouts with depression so I know how it feels so don’t ever be afraid to talk to me, ok?” I wasn’t so much trying to lecture him but just make sure, for the thousandth time, that he could always come to me.
“Yes, Mom.” He gave a nod and a reassuring closed-lip smile.
His dad came back with our drinks and we chatted about happy things, funny school incidents, music, talents we wish we had, until hunger started to invade and it was time to make our way to get dinner.
As we passed the old trampolines (which actually had been replaced by newer, smaller ones) a pang of sorrow shuddered through me. That had been another phase, a long one. We’d stand there with our heads bobbing up and down as we watched his little buoyant body jump higher and higher until his grin was as big as the ocean behind him.
I focused back to what was right in front of me. I have to live in the moment even more so now than ever. Here is my altering but beautiful son beside me. On the other side his dad. And although we are divorced (such an ugly word) we are still a united front when it comes to the most amazing thing we ever did or will ever do.
We commented on the new, wider sidewalks by the pavilion and the now sparseness of the vendors on the pier. Then up ahead we saw him. The odd fella with the rolling podium and the microphone, sending signals to perhaps outer-space, who has been strolling the pier since the days before our son was even a growing light in the depth of the womb.
“So many changes but some things never do,” I commented as we passed the alien.
We arrived at the restaurant, requested an outside table, and waited. I noticed a table of older women, all Golden-Girls style and laughing as they exchanged stories and clinked cocktails. I wondered how these ladies endured the sadness that surely came over them when their children had left their houses and the quiet inside the walls was too much to endure. I hope I’m as happy as they seem now, when I get to that point, I said to myself.
The early winter sky gave a dark but peaceful cast on the streets and dunes and gulf beyond.
“Your table is ready,” the hostess announced. The three of us walked in unison. More of a carefree evening just before us, casting off the fret of time, for a moment.
Filed under Yep I'm Becoming My Mother
Busted Flip Flops 