Corona Day Five Milton, Massachusetts
March 21, 2020
6:45 am Wake up
6:46 am Realize there is absolutely no point in waking up. Discuss the situation with Sophie, who advises the best response is to go back to sleep.
6:48 Nap
10:22 am Wake up, again. Struggle with guilt for sleeping so late. Struggle with knowledge that I might as well sleep late, the first thing on my schedule is morning meditation with Katy, and she is probably quite happy upstairs sleeping herself. She is quite good at sleeping in, I think, or maybe she just likes to avoid mom/daughter conversations about her feelings, and uses blankets and pillows as tools in avoidance.
10:40 am Morning meditation. This was not my favorite. It was all about healing, which of course made me think about the virus, which of course led to me spending my morning meditation laying in the middle of my living room floor trying to figure out where I might be able to find baby wipes and tonic water.
10:40 am Not a very good breakfast. Don’t try to put yesterday’s roasted sweet potatoes in today’s scrambled eggs. No amount of sriracha and Swiss will help the situation, sweet potatoes and eggs are not friends.
11 am Scrolled thru Facebook and Instagram. Trevor Noah seems depressed. I would like to cheer him up but I got nothing.
12 pm Nagged Katy about homework. Asked Katy if I could help.
12:15 pm Laundry. I put some away. Yay me.
1 until 3 pm Waited on Katy to go for a walk. Scrolled some more. Called friends. Went on Facebook to volunteer to walk dogs or run errands for anyone that needs help.
Stared at the phone waiting for the avalanche of people that need assistance with their dogs and their errands. So far everyone’s all set.
Will post again tomorrow. Katy is tired of me asking her if she has any questions about her homework, and I don’t want to rearrange the kitchen cupboards. Or deal with the closet.
Resolve to deal with the closet tomorrow.
Checked email. Would appreciate more spam. Deleted emails going back as far as 2016.
3:30 Met Alison at World’s End. We walked along the cliffs, watched the dogs roll in the grass, listened to Katy and Juiliana chat, talked to Kharson about his art and agreed that the world has a lot of assholes; it was like three years ago, and we needed that.
5 pm Dinner. We are trying to be mindful of the rationing thing- I don’t want to run out of food and be forced to eat the ramen noodles from 2017 that fell behind the refrigerator last week, the raisins Sheldon bought two years ago when he forgot that I do not ever eat cooked fruit, or the generic peanut butter that came with the house.
This has not been the best of days, but one thing I have learned is not to declare that it can’t get any worse. It can, and we are all learning together what worse looks like.
I am learning how much I rely on my family and friends.
I am learning how to get up in the morning, even when I’m not sure how to move forward, or where to go.
It’s coffee first, and things follow. Beautiful things will follow, I just need to take note.
Even for those of us who prefer tea, or don’t need a beverage first thing in the morning at all.
Day Four is almost done, though Katy has promised me an hour in front of the tv, and I think I’ll walk Sophie around the block. At the end of the day, it’s nice to take a moment to look at the beautiful moon.
Letter to my boy
August 6, 2019
Don’t forget about the dog poop-
(I warned you
If things got bad
And they got bad
There would be repercussions.)
Scoop it, bag it,
Drop it into the
Starbucks dumpster.
And the dog,
Walk the dog-
not around the block-
The pavement burns her paws,
Take her to the park.
It’s not soccer season yet,
Bring a bag
Use it
Even if no one’s watching.
Check the website for your summer work,
Do it.
Email your coach,
Tell him what he wants to hear
and do that too.
Brush your teeth,
Floss,
Don’t only eat food flavored
Buffalo
Or from a bag
Or glowing orange.
Respond to all the girls that sent you Snapchats.
Be kind to everyone that asks to
Follow you.
(I haven’t asked but I know
Better.)
I remind you
to empty dishes,
walk the dog,
sweep a floor.
I don’t ask you
To follow or accept or friend me.
I keep our conversations about
The dishes in the sink.
I update you
About what
The world expects.
I text instead of call.
You talk to friends on FaceTime.
You laugh,
And swear, and listen.
I read books,
Ask for prayers from strangers,
And send you bullet points
so what I need from you
Is clear
And listed by
By priority.
-Call me.
-Do your homework.
-Clean the yard.
I check my phone
For your response
All night.
I’ll leave your bags by the dumpster. Don’t forget to brush.
February 15, 2019
Tonight, I packed my eighteen year old son’s stuff in two trash bags and a shopping bag and left them all in by a dumpster. I walked away and didn’t look back until just before I got in. He was standing in the middle of the driveway, looking around for the bags as if they weren’t right next to him. It was ten degrees, he was wearing a tee shirt, and somebody else’s sneakers. I don’t think he believed I’d actually drop off his clothes and leave. He looked up at me, and I don’t know what his face said. Fuck you, maybe. Why? Did you remember my toothbrush? What is going to happen to me now?
My son’s smile is warmer than the sun after winter. He is funny, and he can dance. He used to play basketball for hours, and if he wasn’t on the court, he always wanted to be connected to some kind of ball. If we went for a walk on the beach, we had to throw a football. If we took the dogs for a walk, he was in charge of the tennis ball. He’d dribble in his room. He’d play basketball in the driveway and eat dinner in between shots. My son stopped smiling about two years ago.
He still lived with me until today. In sophomore year of high school, sports and school were just hobbies. Drugs took over. Doing drugs. Posting pictures of doing drugs, or lip syncing to songs about drugs. Going to the woods, to the quarries, to whoever’s house was unoccupied by parents or belonged to parents that had their own stash and shared.
I’m not going to tell the tale of then to now. I don’t know how we got from early morning cereal before the game, to begging him to wake up to go to class at a community college because a judge made it a condition of his release.
I just know my son is not here tonight because I told him not to be. He is staying at a house with a dumpster in the driveway, that reeks like weed from ten feet away. He is staying there because last night on the phone he refused to come home. His words were slurred, and sloppy, his voice didn’t belong to him. And he’s been doing drugs for a while, so there’s something new on the menu.
He promised last night he’d wake up in the morning, and go to school. I was supposed to pick him up on my way to drop his little sister off at school. “Mom, I’ll be ready.” He’d straightened up a bit by the time our last conversation.
I woke up early, packed his toothbrush, and a change o Read the rest of this entry »
This might be helpful because I’ve been there, and there too.
September 4, 2018
I drove up to Milford, NH, yesterday to get a last taste of summer with my daughter. And her friend, (Because offering to let her bring a friend just makes everything easier. And she’s got really cool friends.)
The balloons were beautiful. The food was great. There were henna tattoos, bouncy houses, beer tents, tethered rides into colorful baskets, lines as long as the dmv at lunchtime, but much friendlier, handmade jewelry, live music, a summertime sunset, and a sense of summertime bliss.
No work in the morning. No bedtime. Fried oreos.
Here’s the thing.
Summertime is going to be over. in late September, I think. Last night is a million hours ago, and Friday at 4, when the weekend began, is a century away.
Kids will attend their first day of school, be sent away to their first sleep away camp, leave for college, if we are lucky.
One day, I realized I hadn’t pushed them on the swing in three years.
One day, you’ll realize their room doesn’t smell like their room.
The seasons don’t matter. The first day, the last day, they are milestones for facebook and family and reminders that time is passing, even if your sixteen year old has only eaten macaroni and cheese since he was three.
Not everyone has children.
There is still the first grey hair, the first ma’am or sir, the serious conversation about final plans. Menopause. Midlife. Mortality.
The weather is just a backdrop.
Don’t only live summer between June and August.
Fresh starts don’t only happen in September. Or a new beginning in spring.
All that matters is the people we choose, the people that choose us, and how we choose to spend the time that we have.
FYI, , if your kid asks for a push on the swing, give them a push. Take your time.
If you have to choose between Game of Thrones, and a conversation with your best friend, have the talk. Most shows are available on demand or can be found at at the local library. Even if you are feeling pressure from your well meaning, obsessed co-workers to watch a show, insist on meaningful dialogue. As a matter a fact, forget the best friend, call those television obsessed colleagues, and share every detail of your day. And your dreams. Then ask for their advice about redecorating your attic. Don’t let them off the phone until it’s dead.
Which brings me back-
The night sky, every day of the year, has something to tell you,
So does the sun first thing in the morning,
or whenever you wake.
I didn’t need to go to Balloon Festival with Chrs to appreciate summertime, or to connect with my daughter.
But I’m glad that l did.
Summer 2018- It Ain’t Over Until It’s Over
August 21, 2018
Mid to late August, it happens.
The back to school flyers weigh more than the news/travel/ and sports section combined.
My 14 year old daughter sighs and shakes her head-“I don’t know where the time went.”
Cunningham pool posts it’s last day. Sunblock goes on sale.
I look up from everything
To wonder how the hell that happened.
The pool might close,
assignments might be due,
but the sales are going to run until it’s time for Halloween.
Summertime is time out. Time off.
A day at the beach. An hour by the barbecue. An afternoon with a good book.
Some time at the park with your kids, grandkids,
or a bunch of dogs you’re babysitting,
spying on them on the swing in the playground,
wondering where the hell time went.
I don’t know where you’re at in the journey,
but I can pass this on.
The beach doesn’t close.
The barbecue doesn’t care if it’s Monday, November, or 4 am.
Cunningham pool shuts down,
but there’s ponds, kiddie pools,
the ocean, the bay,
and the bathtub,
all offering different water temperatures and dining options.
We can move thru life
At summertime slow,
Or fall frantic.
It’s still August, my friends.
No one is going to run out of pencils.
You don’t need to start wearing fall until January,
orange is not on the runway this year.
Revel in flip flops, sundresses, and shorts of all shapes,
until knees are blue.
Stay barefoot whenever you can, have something on hand
in case you want to enter a store, a restaurant,
or have an appointment with a court officer, or a prospective employer.
There are beaches, and the water is warm.
If the sharks bother you-
There are lakes, kayaks, italian ice, baseball, drive-ins, eating outside, eating takeout from the boxes in bed while watching Netflix, bike paths, hiking trails…
These are my summer time things.
I want to say- to myself- as much as you-
It doesn’t have to end because
the bus pass came in,
or a leaf turned,
or your son graduated high school, and all his friends are going to college,
and you want him to get ready for fall.
Summer is here.
It will not leave
until we mark
it in pen
Or email a colleague
Likely to note
it’s expected departure
On the calendar.
There is time
To call your family.
Text your friends.
Light a sparkler. Go dancing.
Sing along to the radio.
Roll down the top.
Roll down the window.
Laugh out loud.
Wish on a candle.
Look at the clouds.
Buy a beach towel that
means something.
Everything else goes by so fast, everything else-
This year,
Let summer last.
We don’t need to infringe
on the Fall season-
those that love the fall,
or make their living selling leafblowers, pumpkins, and autumn colored towels-
I respect their needs too,
I am just asking for a little room
to prepare for what needs to be done
in September.
There is work to be done in September.
This year,
I need a little extra time at the beach,
Before what comes
After Summer
2018.
What I Do Some Days, if I’m lucky.
April 13, 2018
Yesterday was the “progressive dinner” of high school college fairs in this area of Massachusetts. If you’re not familiar with the term, a progressive dinner is one where the participants move from one houses to enjoy different courses- the Jennings for cocktails, the Gorbenski’s for apps, Jenny and Rob always serve the roast beef, you get the idea.
I had to be a Milton High School at 8 am, followed by Braintree at 9:30, Blue Hills Regional Technical School at 1, and Randolph at 220 pm. I had a lot of company, about fifty to sixty other colleges attended, some from as far away as Florida. We all wore comfortable shoes, lugged portable suitcases stuffed with tiny phone chargers, stress balls, little notebooks, flyers, viewbooks, pens, inquiry cards, invitations, business cards, pop up signs and polyester table runners in school colors.
We walked from the parking lot thru Milton High School’s front door like we’d been there before. (I have actually spent a lot of time walking in and out of Milton High School’s front door. My son was asked to leave three months before he was to graduate.) Yesterday morning, I was there to speak to his classmates about coming to school at Quincy College while Colin played NBA All Star Draft in his room.
Admissions representatives don’t speak to each other much, at least that I’ve noticed. Walking in and out of the high schools, we’re rushing, to get to our tables, hoping for coffee, trying to get our display set up and inviting before the first class descends into the cafeteria or the gym, trying to find our car to get to the next college fair, or home, or to a hotel. We are rushing from one place to another, phones in one hand, suitcases dragging behind us. We save our smiles and conversation for the prospective students, that want to us to tell them that Criminal Justice is a terrific major, there are careers for people that study Art, or that they’ll get into Nursing School. I try to be as honest as I can when I speak to the teenagers.
It’s easy for me. Quincy College, where I work, is affordable, so it’s a good fit for most seventeen year olds without a clue. And most seventeen year olds are without a clue. Even if they think they have a clue, they really don’t. Not about the future, anyway. But they do have a hell of a lot of time to figure things out. Not as much time as my son, but they’ve got time, especially if they spend a year at Quincy College, where tuition is affordable, and they can save on housing costs by living at home.
As an Admissions representative, I don’t say much to my colleagues because I’m saving all of my energy for the conversations with the seventeen year olds. I have tired conversations about how Monday’s suck with friends, how irritating work politics can be with people the next desk over, how much I hate the morning with my daughter every morning. The teenagers at the other side get to see Julie, the empathetic, interesting, and interested version. And I get to listen to them, and remember what it was like to be seventeen with the whole world, and a whole life, spread in front of me.
I imagine a few years ago, Admissions representatives might have spoken to each other on the way back to their cars, after the first fair, on their way to the second about the best way to get from point a to point b. But now, we all have phones, with apps like Waze, Google Maps, good ol’ Suri, to guide us to the next stop of the route. So we walk to our cars, separately, calculating if we have enough business cards, summer schedules, and pens for the next stop. In between, Suri does the talking.
During the events, we listen, ask the right questions, and thrust inquiry cards at the students, saying- just fill out your name, email address, high school, interest and date of graduation. The cards they give back are hard to read, and a lot of the time, the workstudy who enters the address gets it wrong. Soon, we’ll have tablets. Soon the inquiry cards will be as automated as our directions.
I’m grateful for Suri. I can’t find my way to the corner store some days. My work study will say a prayer of thanks when we start having prospective students type in their information on a tablet.
Hopefully, there isn’t a technology waiting in the wings to take over the conversations with juniors. They look me in the eye, they listen to my answers. They tell me their plans, they tell me their other plans, sometimes, they tell me they’ve got no plans. I could spend all day going from high school to high school, five days a week.
In Sophie’s Opinion
April 5, 2018
It’s my last semester of school, and one of the assignments is to write two to three times a week in a Communication Technology journal. The idea is for us to recognize the day to day impact technology has on our lives, and the way we relate to each other.
For the record, I’m pretty aware of technology, and the impact it’s had on human interactions. I own two teenagers, and work at a college, where I am surrounded by many, many teenagers, all looking for chargers, lost headphones, or the wifi password. I work at a place where colleagues and I will email each other information when sitting less than three feet from each other. I work at a place that has about twenty times more screens than books, and understand, that is the way things are now, so I don’t need to be reminded that technology is the almost the norm in most day to day conversations.
I sound grumpy about this, and I’m not. Technology has allowed me to share my essays and poems with an audience that doesn’t consist of Mom and my friend that just lost his job and will to listen to anything. It’s an easy way to remind someone to clean their room, without having to listen to the response or the lack of one. I enjoy crafting a well written email, I appreciate always having a camera, (I never had a camera, or if I did, I could never find it. Now, if I can’t find my camera, I can call it.)
My own issue with technology is once I’ve started, it’s hard to stop. Right now, I’m wrapping up this assignment so I can go downstairs and spend some time with my dog, Sophie, the Most Significant Child, because she will remain one. But I just noticed a text from a student on my phone, my laptop is already open. If I answer the text, I’m going to end up on the website. If I look on the website, I’ll spot an incorrect date, or remember I was supposed to email the woman from Madison Park about a tour. Once I email her, I’ll remember I haven’t called my mother yet today, because the woman from Madison Park is named Cindy, and Mom is Sheila, and I really do like talking to my mom. She’ll ask me how Sophie is, because she’s afraid to ask about the kids this late at night, she’s a worrier, and I’ll feel guilty because Sophie will be downstairs, waiting, and has been since I started this entry.
So, I’ll prove myself wrong, and just stop. It is hard to walk away from technology, but at the end of the day, I’d rather spend some time with Sophie, the Silent. She’s aware I’m spending too little time at the park, and too much time chattering, one way or another, on screens. Sophie is not a fan.
Bedtime story
March 19, 2018
Before bed, there used to be requests for water, stories, searching for tomorrow’s outfit, digging under the bed for dirty clothes, I would collapse in a chair at the end of it all, and just sit long enough to hear a voice from above call out “Mooooommmm”.
Tonight, I climbed the stairs, uninvited. I knocked on doors, and waited. i went in and leaned over for a kiss on the cheek, a kiss on the hair. I looked around their bedrooms, and thought about saying something about the dirty clothes, the half full cups of water, the nail polish smudge on the rug.
I told them both, in the same voice I used ten years ago- “tomorrow’s going to be a big day. Get some sleep.”
I did not tell them how much I loved them, or to clean up their rooms or else.
After all this time, they know dirty clothes go in the wash and that they own my heart always and forever.
But i still feel the need to remind them, and myself, of all of possibilities that will be waiting in the morning.
Deja Vu, February Evening
March 2, 2018
The smack of a basketball against the driveway just before dinner
The back door snapping shut as my son runs inside for a plate of spaghetti,
The sun falling down,
the smell of a dark, wet, sky,
Dishes, cat food, liquid detergent,
The sound of leaving, and staying,
The smack of the basketball just after dinner-
I lean on the sink, close my eyes.
All that has happened
Has not.
It is just before spring.
He is my boy.
I am the mother of two,
With lunches to pack,
Who needs to make plans for camp.
The basketball smacks against
the driveway, against his hand.
There is no noise
When he makes a basket.
Never was.
I don’t know what I’m waiting for,
So I turn the radio up,
While I wash the pot, wipe the plates.
He stays outside.
As long as the music plays,
He’s making
One basket
After another.
Watching them leave the nest sucks for the one left in the nest.
February 28, 2018
At the end of the day, after so many days, it is my job to let them go, and wait for them to fly on their own.
Whether they smash spectacularly into tree, soar into the sun, or crash into the waves of the coldest of oceans on the coldest day of the year, my job is done.
I am the audience. The one who still needs thoughts and prayers, because both of mine are still here. Soaring, crashing, and trying to find their way, even when they have no idea where it is they want to be. Or maybe they do know, but keep smashing into walls because they’re too busy staring at some stranger’s Finsta account.
Be kind. Be loving. Watch out for low flying wires, people that tell you something is too good to be true, and dark alleys that reek of, you know what they reek of.
Try to remember a little bit of what I told you. If you forget every damn thing, know that I’m a phone call or a heart breath away, waiting to hear your voice, asking to hear the sound of mine.
