Spring Fever
May 17, 2014
I got it bad.
Not the spring fever that means I really, really want to go see a baseball game. Or the variation that sends people to the drugstore to stock up on Clariten and the Kleenex with the vaseline in the tissue for a soft, comfortable blow. Or even the milder version that involves staying out in the garden until past dark, pulling up weeds and planting petunias or whatever it is people plant around here. I don’t garden. Or like baseball that much. And I’m lucky that so far I’ve avoided this seasons allergies.
I’m as restless as a cat with no claws in a house full of mice.
I live a quiet life, mostly. Two kids. Lots of long walks in the woods with the dogs. Work I love that is just part of a life that I also love, most of the time. I dance, I see friends, I go to church, I cook dinner. I even like trips to the grocery store, can happily spend a half an hour engrossed in an aisle with 17 kinds of mustard. And walk away without buying any, if they don’t have the cranberry spice mixture I like. Until the past week, contented was a word that would apply to me and the world I have made for my family.
Now, I’m inside an itch I can’t scratch.
I want to go out. I want a manicure and pedicure. I want a new dress and to wear it inside a circle of well dressed people sipping cocktails muddied with herbs and infused with fruit, like I read about in the Boston Globe every week.
I want to be able to wear high heels without staggering. I want to go on vacation, stay up after jon stewart, meander somewhere without worrying about stepping in dog shit.
I want to be thirty two, and be mulling over a variety of book deals and suitors.
And right now I’m mulling over if it makes me a bad mom that I really don’t want to see what Ben Stiller did to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It’s no secret that the reviews were horrible, and I’m not in the mood.
I guess I’m not in the mood for much right now, except for things that I a. can’t afford or b. probably wouldn’t do much to make me feel a whole lot better.
Fever is a transient thing.
So I’m going to take out my flute, close my eyes, lose myself in a melody and let the night fall around me.
I’ll have a cup of tea.
I’ll let Katy braid my hair and I’ll tell her about fireflies.
And if nothing works, maybe tomorrow I will visit Home Depot. I’ll by a twelve pack of perennials, some gloves and some extra high quality organic darker than dirt dirt. I’ll see why everybody outside holding a spade looks so damn content.
It couldn’t hurt.
Sentimental Journey On the Way to Buy Cat Food
May 4, 2014
I was driving to the grocery store this evening and went right by a playground. It was just after 7, dusk here in New England, windy and cloudy and warm. It was crowded; spring has been a long time coming and some of us are not quite convinced it’s here to stay.
And a thought came to me- My kids don’t go the playground with me anymore. Colin is 13, Katy is 10. They go to the park these days, all by themselves or in packs with other kids from the neighborhood.
I hadn’t even noticed the passing of playground days, and they are gone, along with mornings of helping them pick out their clothes for school and the Thursday night phone calls in search of a sitter.
I remembered our trips to Andrews Park. Katy would clutch my hand, which would then smell like peanut butter until I got home. Colin would race ahead, clutching a frisbee or a football or a backpack with snacks. I would juggle my phone and my iced coffee and a book, all while one of my hands was clenched inside Katy’s warm, smudgy grip.
When we got there, I swear, it took us twenty minutes at least, and Andrews is three blocks away, I’d find a bench and settle down with the book and the drink and the phone. I’d make nervous conversations with other mothers, who all seemed to know each other, while eyeing my kids to make sure they didn’t hijack the swings. I’d wish I’d brought wipes, or bottled water. I’d look at my phone and calculate how much longer we’d have to stay until I could safely give them the five minute warning. I’d wonder what was underneath all the sand in the sandbox, if that was even sand in the sandbox. I’d call someone, anyone at all who might pick up the phone, and wouldn’t mind helping me kill some time until I could safely check the time again. Finally, Katy would make me push her on the swing. Then Colin would make me throw him a ball, or shoot baskets, or teach him how to make a frisbee sail thru the air. And I’d wish I was just a little bit better at doing any of those things while looking around to make sure no one was watching. And they weren’t. Until whatever I was throwing hit someone in the head.
Today, I took Katy to SOWA, an open air market with food trucks and art galleries and one stand that had an entire display of 19 different kinds of cheese. Colin went with me last week to the Y, and we worked on the new Keiser equipment. I can’t get a basket, well I can, but it’s not that often, but I can work with him on strength training to help his jump shot. Next month, I’m going to take them to see Lion King, The Musical, which is a helluva lot more fun than watching the Disney video four times in the same afternoon, (not that we ever spent that much time in front of the tv.)
So tonight I was sad for a bit that the playground days are gone until I thought about it. Now, I’m mostly relieved. Though I’m thinking that for Mother’s Day, I might request a sentimental journey over to the swing set on Castle Island. And I will let Colin and Katy take turns pushing me.
Just a little bewildered.
May 2, 2014
I am in the middle of a mess of change right now. My son is hurtling forward towards adulthood. My minister is moving on from our beloved church to take on a bigger world. And my boss at the Y has rearranged our fitness equipment and left our members wondering where the Kaiser Stretching Station went.
Colin’s voice changed a couple of weeks ago. Overnight. It’s low and strange and doesn’t sound like me anymore. He’s sprouted the beginnings of a mustache. He plays basketball in the driveway for hours. He smiles at me all the time, indulgent- I love my mom even though she is a little nuts but I’m going to put up with her for a while longer because I still need a ride to the dance. And then he speaks. And I’m so busy listening for some trace of the boy I knew last month that sometimes I don’t even hear what he said. I think he wanted me to give him a check tomorrow for his school lunches but he might have been asking when I was going to drive him to get his hair cut.
Parisa has been our minister ever since I found my way to First Parish seven years ago. I had the privilege of working with her when I held a summer job in the office one summer. She is a bit of an introvert, I think. I have the sense that getting up in front of a roomful of people isn’t something that comes naturally to her and she chose to become a minister because she had, and has, something to say. Every time I hear her from my pew, I applaud her courage and I walk away aware she has lifted the bar for me a bit. To be a better member. A better mom. A better person. To take on challenges that may not come naturally to me just because I have something amazing to share. I will miss her, her wisdom, and the knowledge that this magical, fierce, wonderful woman was my minister. And I will always count her as one of my friends.
And if you belong to a gym, I want you to know something. If the management changes around the furniture, so to speak, it’s not to mess with your heads. It’s not because the trainers are bored and discovered an article in Fitness Today on how a little feng shui makes a better workout. It’s because it’s important to take a step back from time to time and evaluate. To pay attention, even if the information is coming from a source that recently sprouted a few more hairs and can no longer audition for the Viennese Boys Choir. To move on, to greener pastures, if that’s what is calling, or to places where there are no pastures, if that’s where you’re needed.
Let me know if you need any help. I’m not always good with change, and it makes it a little easier for me to handle if I’m helping somebody even more bewildered than I am.
Not quite yet
April 7, 2014
It’s so hard
to love a teenager.
They don’t smell good,
either they stink of cheap deodorant
Or sweat
Or the urgent desire to fit in.
They snap at any little thing-
“how are you?”
“Where are you going?”
Don’t ask unless you know
They will not answer.
Or if they do,
It will cost a large slurpee.or ten dollars or
Both.
His voice will not
Belong to the one you love.
It will be lower
Or delivered in a funny accent
Or it will reek with disdain, or impatience,
Or misinformation
Designed to distract you
From whatever it is they don’t want you
To know.
It is hard, and humbling, and
Impossible to love this
Big Footed, Deep Voiced, Mysterious, and Weird
Soul that lives with you..
It is Amazing when you see signs
They still love you.
They smile.
You swoon.
They laugh.
You swoon.
They listen.
You stop and try to remember what it was you said.
You stop everything,
You turn off the phone, you step outside, you close your eyes.
You try to remember what you said.
While they discover the rest of the world outside of you.
I think that’s how it goes.
I think that’s how it goes,
I’m not there yet.
Tonight, sitting in Ayeesha’s kitchen for the first time, it occurred to me. I’d made a new friend. She and her husband had books, good books, familiar books. They had board games and a cat. Her cat is not allowed on the kitchen counter, and her cat doesn’t go on the kitchen counter. They have big conversations about the world and not about car pools or the finale of How I Met Your Mother. Though she did make me want to watch The Walking Dead.
She got me cookies, made me coffee, and gave me the sweet spot on the sofa. It was a magical moment, when I glanced at her face and realized, I hope I see more of that face. And it wasn’t because of the cookies, though I am a sucker for cookies.
As I get older, the moments are fewer and farther between when I look at a face that isn’t related to me, and want to see it on a regular basis. There is so much stuff to do. Recitals, basketball games, work, more work, working out so I don’t look like an idiot at work. (I work at a gym.) I’m glad I met her, and I’m glad I was smart enough to get to know her. Oh, gosh, I hope she likes me too. When she comes to my house, I will bake her a pie and try to talk about something political, or at least current, or at least not about my kids.
When I got home, probably inspired by Ayeesha’s kitchen, I went on a bit of a bender. A cleaning bender. Did you know dirt gets under the knobs on the stove? When I lifted up the stove top, there were drips of indeterminate animal fat, and candle wax, (I think,) and matches, and hair elastics. I swept under the stove and found 4 milk caps, one broken glass that someone didn’t feel like picking up, 97 broken crayons, primarily in pastel shades, and an earring. It’s like mining, deep cleaning my house. There are layers and layers of stuff, and they all tell a story. We really like milk, eat too much meat, sometimes are a little lazy, do most our sketches in primary shades and are constantly looking for hair elastics.
We are a messy family, and I am a work in progress. Tomorrow I will tackle the dining room and next week, I will invite my new friend and her man over for dinner. After I teach my cats not to spend most of their time napping on the kitchen counter.
Maybe I will wait until it’s a little warmer and they spend most of their time outside.
TMI
March 31, 2014
I remember as a teenager living with the constant-well not constant, more like when I took a break from fussing about my hair, or my boyfriend, or how to get a ride to the ticket scalper- concern that my mom would embarrass me. I knew she would, she was my mom. She had an accent. She knew things about me, which is not surprising, she’d given birth to me. She had seen me in diapers and been the one that walked me thru tampons.
My mother’s nature did not make her the Gary Cooper of moms. But nor did she over share, actually in my teenage years we had as little to do with each other as possible. And even now, we have a mutually agreed upon pact of silence. I wasn’t easy, she wasn’t easy. As a matter of fact, we were both mean as hell. I will leave it at that.
Now, things are a lot more complicated. My kids and I have a pretty healthy relationship, right now anyway. But the potential for me to cross the line, stick the foot in, piss them off- any minute I’m going to reveal something horrible. There is facebook, wordpress, instagram, text messages, emails, and actual conversations.
And they are alert and waiting to catch me. While I scan the history for porn, or any evidence that Katy really does like One Direction, they are checking up on me. “Mom, I didn’t say you could post that.” “Mom, why did you pick that picture”” “Mom, don’t tell Gramma I’m sick.” “Mom, don’t tell Jen I feel better. I don’t feel better.” “You can tell Maggie I feel better, but that it might be temporary.”
It’s a matter of seconds before I’m thrown in kid jail and they stop leaning in to kiss me good night. Actually that’s history. I have to find them, then I do the leaning. I brush my teeth first, I rehearse topics of conversation, I bite my tongue when I notice the pile of dirty clothes under the bed, or, more often the pile of clean clothes under the pile of dirty clothes. I brush and bite my tongue and land my kiss on a cheek that might still have a spot of egg from breakfast just above the lip. I bite my tongue. I say good night. And most nights, I head right to my own bed
To avoid just this, the overwhelming temptation to reveal that-
yes, I am a mom. I’m proud and I’m ecstatic and sometimes I’m disgusted and I truly don’t know how on earth I’m going to get thru the next twenty years.
Wanna dance?
In the beginning…
My life before- I’d gorge on Nutterbutter Sandwich cookies
across the street from the market. I’d stagger the terrifying path on sheet ice to the high school from behind Briarcliff. At my first dance, I listened to the girls in the next stall over brag about how many bowls they’d consumed. and thought they were talking about gobbling down too much brownie dough…
Everything changed the day my father walked out of the Mtn. Lakes Club after a business meeting with his bosses. He’d just gotten home from rehab (what did they call it then?) so we are all excited about life going back to normal. He came out of the Club, found me in the parking lot. I’m sure I was on my way in to charge cigarettes or make a call, and he shook his head. For the first time, in a long time, I approached my dad without an agenda. I wasn’t thinking about hitting him up for a new record, or some guilt cash, or a ride. I think it was the first time I’d ever seen him look defeated. I walked toward him even though I really wished I had somewhere else to go, or was anywhere else in the world. He said to me “Julie, it’s over, I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about.” I just stared at him. I think I was waiting for him to spin it, or change it, blame it on them, or tell me how over meant he had a new beginning lined up. “I don’t know, Julie, it’s done.”
I guided my dad to his car, a rented Cordova, black with red stripes, eight track, fully loaded, before he wept. I couldn’t see if there were actual tears, his head was bent over the steering wheel, his shoulders rose and and fell, and he didn’t make a sound. I don’t remember how we got home or told Mom or Jim or spent the rest of the summer.
I remember my own body pitching forward with pain, like I’d been punched in the gut. I grabbed for his arm and tried to say something right. And I remember, even though I had nothing to say, that somehow I spoke words outloud. I said- ” they are wrong, it takes time, it’s too soon”, he lifted his head He wiped his pale, pale blue eyes on the back of his hand. And while he listened to me ramble, my body still bent with the new weight of the world, he straightened up. He believed me. My words seemed to give him strength, and courage, and by the time he got to the car, he looked like the man I knew. And I wanted to believe that someone was back. “Fuck em all,” he said, “It was too soon!” he announced.
But I knew as I watched his eyes scan the parking lot, as I watched him try to figure out how to get home, it was done. Tennis matches. Fireworks. Egg catches. Trips to the market and slippery walks to the high school. Cocktail hour. And that magical sense that whatever came up, Daddy could fix it. That afternoon, I’d fixed Daddy. And I knew within an hour he’d forget where he worked, or lose his keys, or wonder why the rug was beige.
So when I remember Mtn. Lakes, it is mythical. Soon after he made his declaration, we had to move to Mt. Tabor. We were lucky someone in his office caught on early; his final days with early onset Alzheimers were covered with insurance.
There is a thread that runs through my memories, not all of them, and maybe I wouldn’t even be aware of it, except…
Our first cocktails, we mixed in large cups over the kitchen sink in my kitchen, decorated in swirls of yellow and brown, of all of the hard liquor in the cabinet. We didn’t actually have a liquor cabinet, though my parents were pretty devoted, we should have had a liquor locker. We would pour random amounts of vodka, gin, tequila,… I don’t remember (what a surprise) and have a contest to see who could drink their cocktail down the fastest. I remember being strangely proud that I always won, but I’d always beaten everyone in the milk chugging copetitions at lunch.
Next stop, quarts of Colt 45 in the bathroom at the Tourne, also guzzled, inside dank stalls because it was illegal to drink in public parks. Afterwards, my eyes would sting, lurching out into sunlight, brave and dazzled by the way the world looked so different from when we snuck in, bags in hand, looking over our shoulders for grownups, and/or grownups with badges.
I can’t forget my first party, I was a freshman. I made the discovery that, in spite of it’s reputation, Schlitz Beer tasted really good. I announced it again and again, while I tried to play ping pong with a senior who was fascinated with my review of the low rent malt beverage, and my thoughts on the upcoming election. Then a junior stepped in, took my paddle away, poured me into his car, and drove me home. I remember hearing the next day that my ping pong partner was not happy about the interruption. I wondered a day or two to wonder about the great romance that might have been, then wrote a poem about our tragic affair and moved on.
Soon after, a month, a year, I found myself behind the high school, I’d snuck out of some dance because it’s impossible to boogie to Stairway to Heaven, nope, I always managed, must of been I needed a cigarette. I came upon a group of three or four that introduced me to beer shots, no, that’s not right, the joys of shooting a beer. You puncture a hole in the bottom of the can and immediately press your mouth to that hole and guzzle the contents. That way, no air gets mixed in, maximum buzz for your buck. I remember now, I was a freshman, I’d come outside because while I was peeing I’d heard all these girls talking about how many bowls they’d consumed, I thought they were bragging about the amount of wine they’d had to drink, didn’t know why they couldn’t use glasses. So I was feeling left out. When these juniors and seniors shared the mysteries of shooting a beer, like I said in the beginning of this diatribe, I could guzzle. (Have you noticed how I am delicately trying to avoid the word swallow?) And my abilities in that arena had started in third grade in a competition to see who could finish their beverage first.
These are dramatic memories I have collected from when I was really young, way too young, my mom had just gone back to work, my dad was absent, literally, not the later version.
So let me go on and say… there were nights at Stanfields, and Eves, and Fireside, and assorted establishments whose names I don’t remember where I had beers, or schnapps, or wine. Nights where me and my friends drank, got silly, played or listened to music, threw up, held up the hair of someone who threw up, laughed, giggled, talked about how we were going to make a difference, talked about the size of our thighs, talked about the fact that nobody really had meaningful conversations at “these things”, made out, had sex, really wanted to have sex, and made connections. Dear, shining connections that exist on this page today that could not have lasted had they been borne simply out of booze, pot, or teenage stupidity.
I wasn’t and am not a Lifetime movie, but I was an idiot.* I don’t know why I share these memories today except to crow I survived… the drinking, and all the bad choices I made afterwards. It feels good to remember. I’m counting war wounds and I’m preparing myself for 2 years from now when my son turns 13.(He’s 13. We are having a lot of embarrassing conversations.)
*If you work for Lifetime or an affiliate, and find me interesting at all, I was an Xtreme idiot, emphasis on the word so demographically popular, I might have forgotten a lot. And I would be happy to remember, and describe in detail, a fuzzy recollection I have of a night in paradise with ET, all grownup, and/or the relationship I had in my twenties with the brother of the sister of the woman that made Angelina Jolie so damn weird.
I’m tired of filter and crow.
March 30, 2014
So much of Facebook is filter and crow. Tonight I’ve had a few beers and I’m feeling a little dangerous so this was my most recent entry.You will notice there is some crowing but I left the filter off.
My Day.
Mango, Banana Carrot smoothie.
Church. A conversation about the devil and some amazing words from Parisa Parsa.
Friends at church and hugs and promises and amazing coffee. The faces there are family, chosen family. I know why I chose them and I am constantly in awe of the fact that chose me.
Home.
Yoga. With Nathalie Bellemare Elfer. Our downward dogs were so true to the canine spirit of the pose they are going to put us on a poster for the amazing benefits of yoga for middle aged women. Or on the cover of Love Your Pet, Be Your Pet, not sure which.
Home. Pork roast in going to be in the oven a looooonnnnng time.
It smells good, it’s making me hungry.
Time to visit the inlaws, drink beer and watch basketball.
The kids are sick, so I really should leave the house, drink beer and watch basketball. That way they’ll rest.
Basketball. Two beers. Phone call from Colin. Nice job, leaving us home alone while you party.
Made me careful way to the store, long conversation with the clerk about Keebler versus Pepperidge Farm.
Cab.
Home with cookies.
Roast for dinner tomorrow.
Tonight it’s cheese toast and chocolate chips and water. Lots and lots of water.
I could have just told you I went to the gym.
Here I am.
March 2, 2014
I have finally came to the conclusion that my body is a pretty nice place to live. This after a troubling bout with a never ending chest cold, the onset of my fifties, and a life long wish that I was just a little taller.
All my life I’ve been plagued, not only by height envy, (and look at all of the woman lurching around in high heels, I’m not the only one,) but by the vague idea that I would look so much better if my lips were just a little plumper, my belly a little less so, my hair straighter, my feet daintier… The list goes on and on and on.
And then, while I was on the phone with my mom, listening to her tell me about the latest cruise she’s booked, a thousand pounds of envy crashed down on me. Not only did I want to be taller, with a voluptuous smile, a taut tummy, a sleek mane, held up by a delicate instep, I wanted to be all of that and lounging on a deck chair in the sun. On a boat. With a cocktail, a cabana boy, a slew of really good books and a crowd of fascinating people waiting to hear my latest bon mots.
I pulled in my driveway and looked out the window at the dirty snow, the basketball hoop, slightly crooked, perched at the end of the driveway, and the dog poop in the front yard.
My short legs carried me out of the car and into the house. My face was greeted by the most wonderful of dogs, the smiling Sophie. My daughter gave me a hug. My son smiled and asked if I’d remembered to pick up milk.
I didn’t know what we were going to do about dinner. Pizza three nights a week is a little much. And if I was ever going to do anything about this waistline, it probably wasn’t the best option.
It turns out Katy had made macaroni and cheese, and she explained to me she didn’t even use butter, just low fat milk. And Colin offered that we could round the meal off with the grapes in the fridge I’d bought them to bring to school for snacks, (since they never, ever brought them to school for snacks- “see mom, sometimes it works out we don’t listen to you).
And I decided right then, right there, that this body of mine wasn’t such a bad place to live. With a little help from my husband, it had delivered me these two amazing, surly, sweet, funny people. It has carried me thru a life of heartbreak and bliss.
I have not always been kind to this body of mine. Mostly I’ve actually been pretty cruel. Too much sleep, or sulking on sofas. A long love affair with cigarettes, and some serious time indulging in too much wine or dangerous trips to the ladies room. Bacon. Macaroons. Not enough fiber. Not enough water, too much water.
These days, I’m all about Greek yogurt, time at the YMCA and long walks in the woods with the dogs. I love spinach, I don’t eat red meat much. But that’s only been for a little while.
So all things considered, this body of mine has been pretty generous and forgiving. So I think the nicest thing I can do is stop fretting about the lounge chair that doesn’t have my name on it, and the fact that there isn’t a lip stick that is going to make me look like Ms Jolie.
I can still wear high heels, and dream a little. But at the end of the day, this day any way, this body of mine is right where I want to be.
julierichmond 