Learner’s License

My 15-year old is learning to drive. Even as we walked into the DMV to get his learner’s license, I couldn’t imagine sitting in the passenger seat while he piloted my vehicle; my new vehicle, my favorite-car-in-the-whole-wide-world that, even after nine months, boasts bonafide “new car smell”. Just the thought of it made me all jumpy inside. So, I didn’t think of it.

I supplied Shane with a Georgia Driver’s Manual a couple of months before his 15^th birthday. He rifled the pages with his thumb, barely concealing his humor at the thought that he might actually READ the book. However, after pulling an all-nighter with his best friend who had tested several months before and therefore “knew what he was talking about”, Shane scored a 95 on the exam; a fact of which he apprised me even before flashing his paper license.

Though I hadn’t paid attention as we drove in, driving out I realized this particular branch of the DMV was situated at one end of an otherwise abandoned strip mall, meaning the only cars parked were the ones directly in front of the office. In the kind of fit of spontaneity I’m known for, I parked the car and motioned for Shane to change places with me. To his credit, and possibly because it’s not the first time his mother has had some kind of hare-brained notion that required his participation, he jumped out, ran around and slid underneath the wheel as though it were home.

I took the liberty of installing a few virtual stop signs along our route, just to give him practice, as we took several turns around the parking lot. Twice, a car piloted by a “real” driver took advantage of the landlord’s misfortune, by cutting across the painted lines on its way in or out. We both froze. Fortunately, Shane froze on the brake. I took this as a good sign.

We’ve been out several times since then. He’s still a little heavy on the gas when first starting out and corners are a bit tricky, but we did manage to traverse a rather scary intersection without incident on the way to the grocery and back. We took a drive with purpose. I think that’s a big step.

The guilt didn’t start until Monday.

It was a nagging thing. It kind of pulled at me, demanding attention. At stray times, throughout the day, Trey’s face swam into view along with an incident; a time when I felt inadequate, a situation I felt I’d mishandled. I managed to quash them usually. I ran the tape inside my head; the one that says “This is normal. Everyone does this. Don’t let it get you down.”. If I had a dime for every time I’ve heard THAT song…

But he kept coming. I remembered the time his father called him a “sissy”, the way he clutched at my leg through my skirt, and the feeling of desperation in knowing what a pitiful shield I made using only my hands. There were rides to school…rides necessitated by Trey’s bad behavior at the bus stop…that seemingly provided fertilizer for arguments he saved for just this opportunity. Eventually, I remembered he couldn’t argue if I didn’t participate. Sometimes, then, we talked.

There were visits with counselors, arguments with his step-dad, and a notebook filled with completed homework he’d never turned in.

These reels played alternately, randomly, for two days before I recognized the catalyst.

I didn’t teach Trey to drive.

The realization startled me at first. How could that be? Who could have taught him? How does such an important phase in a child’s life go unnoticed, unaccompanied by a parent…especially when there’s only one?

That afternoon, I received an email from a friend who always seems to know “when”. She reminded me she’d always listen, and I began writing. About halfway through, the missing pieces fell into place until the whole messy picture became clear and a new mantra began to play inside my head. “You were not a bad Mom. You were not a bad Mom. You were not a bad Mom.”

This afternoon, I received a note from Trey’s boss’s wife, Amy. Over the years, she’d grown very fond of him.

“The guys are here today working on Bo’s in ground trampoline. While they were eating lunch, Bo walked up to Mike and so sweetly asked, “Where’s Trey?” Out of the mouths of babes… YOU are NOT forgotten, our precious friend!!”

And, I’m reminded it’s not just me. This isn’t the first time that I’ve discovered, when I’m missing Trey more than usual, I’m not the only one. That knowledge doesn’t make me miss him any less. As a matter of fact, reading Amy’s note took me to a place I haven’t been in weeks. What it does do, though, is remind me he is loved, as am I.

Today, I am thankful for blessings who give you room to grow.

2011 – A Retrospective

As years go, there have been better and there have been worse.

1999, for example, was a wonderful year. 1999 was the year I remembered my worth and reclaimed my strength. After years of living a “less than” life, I gave the rudder a mighty jerk and set sail in a completely different direction. And I never looked back.

Given what I now know, I might have chosen to skip 2003, altogether. I had emergency surgery in March. Four weeks into my six-week recovery period my mother died. And while she’d been ill for most of the previous four years, her death came suddenly as the result of a blood clot. I learned she had died while shopping at Target in what was my first foray into the outside world since my surgery. My daughter and grandson had left me in the house wares department. He needed t-shirts.

I remember a voice inside my head shouting at me to breathe and finding it difficult to follow directions. That same voice reminded me my family was counting on me, if for nothing other than a ride home. And then there was the question of when to tell them. Did everyone need to carry that knowledge around Target? Or would waiting be more appropriate?

The words flowed from me as soon as I saw my daughter’s face and everything after merged into a days-long blur, with a few exceptions. I remember sitting, powerless, around a polished, wooden table meant for a high-powered board room, wondering why my sister hadn’t removed her sunglasses. I remember my dress. It was vintage, late 60’s I think, and gray. Embroidered flowers trailed down the right side of the skirt. And, I remember standing under a large, green tent, alongside my sisters, next to the casket holding my mother. The four of us sang “Amazing Grace”. It was her favorite.

2011 was significant in its own way. This year, for the first time ever, I drove several hundred miles across several states alone. And, before I did that, I drove several hundred miles across several states in the company of a friend who, up to that point, I’d only known online. The two of us were on our way to meet many more friends with whom we’d had years-long online friendships. The experience was wonderful and proved what I’d always felt; online relationships are real and can be every bit as meaningful as those we experience 3D.

Here are a few other things I learned this year:

– I do not have to react. In fact, in many cases its better I don’t. Action, in almost every case, is preferable to reaction.
– I can be most childish with those I care most about. Not behaving in a childish manner is a decision that benefits everyone. And it’s easier to do than you might think.
– There is a place in my life for religion, and participation in a group of spiritually like-minded people feeds something in me, making me more whole.
– You can’t fully appreciate the angst of desire until you’ve wanted something for your child that you are powerless to provide.
– Acceptance, in all its forms, is a major component of happiness.
– I’ve spent a considerable amount of time looking for something I already had but wouldn’t see.
– Despite disagreements, disappointment, and geography some people will always have a place in my heart…because they live there.

Finally Determined: TBD, Facebook, and Girls Gone Mild

I’m not the most social animal you’ll ever meet.

Just ask…

Okay, there are a couple of people you could ask.

My oldest/dearest would regale you with stories of sardonic avoidance. While she’s talking though, remember she’s not exactly the life of the party herself. We met at work. I believe the ice-breaker was a question about fellatio. That kind of thing will bond a girl…

My “Spirit Mother”, a Native-American woman who tackled the job of growing me up within months of my thirtieth birthday, will tell you it’s a ruse. She’ll dub me magnanimous and explain, in great detail, the ways in which I’ve proven the depth of my caring, my intelligence, and the innate generosity of my nature.

And, they’d both be right…depending on the day, my level of self-confidence, and the number of days since I’ve been alone.

Really alone.

Because, I have to be.

Not all the time. Everyone knows doing anything all the time is unhealthy.

But I need it some of the time.

Strange as it may sound, being alone actually takes me outside myself. When forced to associate for days on end, my emotions become jumbled. Thinking becomes hard, and sleep, evasive.

Alone time, whether spent writing, reading, or inside the cocoon provided by nose-cancelling earbuds, allows my mind to rest, to find space for the tornadic detritus produced by the effort of showing up.

And, speaking of showing up…

Almost five years ago, I joined a social website on a whim. I’d been surfing the internet, for what I don’t remember. But, I came across an advertisement for a social website built for Boomers.

I’m a Boomer…barely. It gives me a modicum of comfort to be able to say that I qualify by just a few months.

I joined. I conjured a catchy screen-name and used, as an avatar, a photograph taken by my daughter.

Photogenic, I am not. My daughter caught me on an upswing…literally. The photograph was taken while I shared the porch swing with my eldest son. He always makes me smile. She clicked at just the right time.

Over several years, for several hours, several days a week, I forged relationships with people in exotic places like Goshen, New York, Lincoln, Nebraska, and Sydney, Australia.

And we shared. We learned about families, argued about politics, supported artistic effort, and congratulated achievement.

And we laughed. We told jokes, poked fun, and honed our already razor-sharp, sarcastic wits into instruments of cohesive amusement.

And we played…really played…like children play…with abandon, and the certainty that tomorrow, after the responsibilities of “real” life were met, the gang would be there, and we would play again.

And, speaking of real life…

Websites cost money, and ours wasn’t making any. Despite our founder’s best efforts, our playground closed. Seeing the handwriting on the “wall”, several of us joined Facebook in an effort to maintain contact. And then, a few more joined.

“And they told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on…”

It’s not the same, but its okay. And, when I think about it, I’m amazed. We come from very different backgrounds, different demographics, and various socio-economic strata. We are African-American. We are Asian. We are Christian. We are Agnostic. We are musicians. We are Stay-At-Home-Moms. We are self-employed. We are grandfathers. We are disabled. We are yoga instructors. We love music, sports, and high-heels.

Well, not all of us love sports, but high-heels suffer no such prejudice.

We do all the things we did before, only now we do it under the watchful eye of “3D” family and friends, who read our walls in amazement at the bonds we’ve forged with people far-flung in so many ways.

A couple of years ago, one of our group suggested a meet-up. Meeting at the beach, combined with the aforementioned wit, suggested the title “Girls Gone Mild”. This year, regardless of social ineptitude, I’m one of the girls.

I’d tell you I’m excited, but the word isn’t big enough. I’d say I’m nervous, but that word suggests anxiety…

Okay, I’m anxious.

There are the pounds put on as a result of dying glands and overworked ovaries. And, there’s my hair. It’s long now. He likes it that way. But the color’s all wrong and, in this heat, it hangs.

And there are the shoes. We’re going to the beach. No one wears heels at the beach…but I’ve got this reputation.

For days now, sleep has been elusive. Last night, after what seemed like hours, I finally turned the clock around to see “4:15”, large, blue, and LCD. I’d been awake for a while. The alarm was set to go off in forty-five minutes. I gave up.

A double-click opened my home page. It had been hours since any of my friends posted. I scrolled and read, and didn’t think I’d given myself away, but a red “1” lurking over the message box said different.

“What’re you doing up?”

That’s when I realized that since joining “TBD”, I’ve never, really, been alone.

And, they’ve made all the difference.

>Net-Overworked

When it came to market, I was among the first in line for the IPOD. I had one of the early models, the one that looked like a space-age tic-tac dispenser. I later traded up to the Nano, which I rarely mentioned without thinking of Robin Williams, prompting the duplication pronunciation as in, Nano-Nano. My I-touch came soon after my son received one. Two years later, I’ve yet to meet a cooler gadget. Mine goes with me everywhere.

In all the time I’ve “podded”, I’d never downloaded a podcast, but that was before I ran out of treadmill diversions. Music doesn’t do it for me. Music provides a soundtrack. Rather than taking me to another place, it helps me focus on the task at hand. I don’t want to focus on the treadmill.

Television was an option for a while. Several years ago, I watched an entire season of American Idol on the treadmill. Since then though, I’ve moved it. I’ve taken over the Living Room, turning it into a Game/Workout room. It’s not carpeted, inviting every little noise to travel through a stoned foyer, down a similarly bare hallway, to the door of my son’s bedroom, and that’s a problem. Sometimes I use the treadmill before work. Waking my son at 4:30 AM would only mean trouble for us both.

After hearing someone on television discuss their favorite, a podcast seemed a viable solution; not to mention a reason to spend another hour or so poking around in I-tunes, which is for me, similar to shoe shopping in that I could do it until I run out of money or someone I’m related to shouts “Mom!”.

It took a few minutes to get acclimated, but after perusing “Staff Picks”, and “New and Noteworthy”, I chose a handful of podcasts to audition. I clicked on each icon, downloaded the latest entry, and it wasn’t long before I began to notice a pattern. Many podcasts are supported by websites, and those websites encourage participation in a social network of like-minded listeners.

Really?

Later that day, a friend sent me a link to a site dealing with Kabbalah. I know two things about Kabbalah. I know followers wear a cool, little, red, string bracelet, and I know Madonna is one.

You might say I’m a student of religion. I’ve studied and/or read the text of many religions, from Daoism, to Mormonism, to good old Southern Baptist theology. I even read “Dianetics” and, afterward, sent an email requesting information on becoming a Christian Scientist. I got no response. I never decided if that was a good thing or a bad thing…

I visited the site my friend suggested, and submitted the information required for a fourteen-day, free trial. Almost immediately came the email suggesting I join their social network for those new to Kabbalah.

Really?

Open Salon, too, has become something of a social network. The fact is, you can post all you want, but if you don’t take the time to read other’s posts, add them to your friend’s list, and message them when you add another post, your post probably won’t get read.

I joined Facebook. We all did, didn’t we? I mean, even if you didn’t join to catch up with old friends, or to cheat with old friends, or even just to lurk on old friends’ walls to live vicariously much as you did in high school, you joined to monitor your kid’s activity, right?

Facebook is THE social network of all social networks. All my “friends” are there. I put “friends” in parentheses because I have “friended” people I have never met or even conversed with, in any media, at any time, anywhere. These are people my “real” friends have suggested I “friend”. So, I did.

The fact is, I feel pressured. When a “friend” suggests a “friend”, I feel pressure to friend. When I post on Open Salon, I feel pressured to read. I am 4 days into my free, fourteen-day trial of Kabbalah Online and I feel pressured to rush through the videos so I’ll have something to offer the “group”.

Enough.

Are we this lonely? Where are our friends? Don’t we have anyone to talk to, to share air with?

Or, are we talking everything to death?

>Collateral Damage

I’ve never given much thought to birthdays. They come, they go, I mark them in the usual way. I pay little attention to the numbers that go with them. One year in fact, after expressing surprised delight at all the celebratory gestures that shouldn’t, after this many birthdays have been much of a surprise at all, I realized with genuine amazement that I was a year younger than I had thought for the entire preceding year.

This past August though, as my birthday drew near, I felt something nag at me. I studied myself in a mirror. I searched every tiny crevice time has stamped upon my face, but the answer wasn’t there. Long ago I realized there are good days and there are bad days. On good days, the lines are there, I just don’t notice them.

Was I worried about being attractive to men? After all, as a late bloomer, I had a short window. I tried to remember the last time I stopped a car, or just caused one to slow down. It seemed it had been a while. There was a time in my late thirties and early forties when I could still attract a man eligible for coverage under his parent’s insurance policy. Those are generally the ones who stop. After all, it’s easier to hang your head out the window and/or yell “Baby” over the din of Atlanta traffic if you stop the car first.

Then I remembered a day not so long ago when it rained, as per usual, during rush hour. About half my drive is bumper-to-bumper, and on this particular day the two men in the front seat of the car to my left seemed determined to get my attention. There’s a certain look in a man’s eyes when he’s hoping to catch yours. These guys had probably switched insurance companies a number of times. They may have even added dependents. That’s okay. They still had eyes. It felt good. Some days, I’ve still got it.

I am bothered by a sudden sense of the finite, the certainty that you’re over halfway through, the knowledge that there’s less left than you’ve already lived. It’s as though one day you think, as you have for the preceding decades, “I’ll get to it.”, and the next you wistfully wish you had.

And then it hit me. It wasn’t about me. It’s about them, the people who pepper my life; the ones who listen, the ones who’ve been there, the ones who know me and love me anyway. Because, I’m not the only one getting older.

One of my closest friends is eighty-six. She still works three days a week and puts dinner on the table for her husband every night at seven PM; not six, not seven-thirty, always seven PM. Four times a year, she drives her 1996 Toyota Corolla over 200 miles, alone, to see her daughter in Tennessee. She is blessed with a sharp mind, a keen wit, and a nose for good perfume. But…realistically..for how long?

Another friend is sixty-five. We joked, for years, that she was old enough to be my mother. She loves to eat, she loves to read, and she loves her grandchildren. Despite medication, her blood pressure often peaks to stroke level, and a valve in her heart isn’t working. She should have surgery but she already owes the cardiologist money she’ll never be able to pay. Sometimes she doesn’t hear the ring on her new smartphone which she describes as “good for everything but making telephone calls”. When she doesn’t answer, my first instinct is to joke with her about it. But what if it isn’t a joke? What if she doesn’t answer because she can’t and never will? I don’t leave a message. I call back later.

I resent having to think about these things. It’s one thing to face my eventual demise. I can put that away. When it pops to the surface I can push it down with a sense of purpose. After all, I’m healthy. I’m active. I’m doing the things I can to prevent the outcomes I dread.

But, I can’t do that with the others. The folds around my friend’s seawater-green eyes remind me. The sound of exertion as she painfully plods towards the entrance to the grocery store worries me. The certainty that one day they won’t be there saddens me.

So I do the only thing I can do.

I love them.

Now.

>Robert D. Rogers and Me

I don’t remember meeting Robert D. Rogers; I just remember his being there. Always. From the age of eight or nine until we moved when I was twelve, Robert D. Rogers was always there.

I never called him anything else. He was never Bob or Bobby, Rob or Robbie. Sometimes his mother called him “Dee”. He didn’t like it much.

Everyone knew a Robert D. Rogers. Mine was blonde, the kind of blonde that renders one’s skin allergic to sunlight, the kind of skin that blooms bright red with the slightest physical exertion. Ever-moist cheeks the color of maraschino cherries only served to accentuate his otherwise pasty pallor. And, his nose was more than crusty. It was dirty. We never touched. I never forgot.

Robert D. Rogers was a bit of a story teller. For those of you not raised in a southern state during a time in which all public facilities featured shadows of the words “White” and “Colored” under a fresh coat of institutional paint, story teller meant liar. He told tall tales, grandiose tales of his family, or his abilities, or his adventures. His cheeks would often cherry as he told, and I knew that he knew that we knew that he was lying. But he didn’t stop. He went on until another boy, an athletic boy, a boy the other boys followed, made him stop.

Sometimes they stopped him with words; it always started with name calling. But, Robert D. Rogers was tenacious. Sometimes the words didn’t stop him. Sometimes the only sign he’d heard the words was the tears that collected in the inside corners of his pale blue eyes. And, he kept talking.

When words didn’t work, they used their hands. They pushed. Each push deepened the scarlet of Robert D. Roger’s cheeks, and he kept talking. They pushed harder. Falling to the ground knocked the tears from his eyes; they streamed down his face as he sat there, and I screamed.

Silent, but loud enough to crowd out any noise other than his occasional sob, I screamed, “Don’t get up! Please, don’t get up!” He didn’t, until they left. Sometimes I stayed behind to help gather his books, or his lunch.

We didn’t talk. Perpetually dirty hands left brown tracks on either side of Robert D. Roger’s milk-white face as he swiped at his tears as though punishing them for falling. I looked away.

His weakness provoked young and old, alike. The first and only time I every heard my father use the word “Queer” was in reference to Robert D. Rogers, as in, “Why do you hang around with that Queer?”

I didn’t know how to answer. I hadn’t actually heard a person call another person “Queer” in person. I didn’t expect that person to be my father. I answered with all the eloquent defensiveness an eleven-year-old could muster.

My father and I debated frequently, usually about race. I remember proudly hurling the word “underdog” into his blustering face. To this day, I hear the word and an image of Robert D. Rogers flashes through the View-Master inside my head.

And, all the while, I knew he brought it on himself.

“If you would just be quiet!”, I should have said.

If he had minded his own business.

If he had allowed the life he led to be enough, they would have left him alone.

But he couldn’t, and I knew, so I didn’t.

Living True

Somehow I’d forgotten the particular shade of blue that is sky. That blue that defies duplication. The blue that speaks the word “yonder”, by inviting eyes to see further.

Today, I saw it, and knew the wonder.

I’ve missed the caress of wind in my hair. The feeling of freedom. A space in time whose only accompaniment is the dull roar of the engine in front of me, competing with wind whipping through an open window.

Today, I felt it, and appreciated the gift.

It’s been a while since I’ve really looked into a loved one’s eyes as she spoke, or shared air, or a fork. I’ve missed the abandon of shucking my shoes under the table before resting my heels on the booth beside her. “That’s a lovely shade of blue on your toenails, honey. It looks just like you.”

Today I took the time.

Today I saw sky, and felt wind. I memorized the eyes of a friend, and held my daughter close for no reason. I stretched out, barefooted, in a booth at a restaurant and laughed loudly, with abandon.

Today, I knew the gifts of those who truly live.

A Numbers Game

I spent the better part of my thirty-fourth year dreading my thirty-fifth. It wasn’t that I expected anything to change. I didn’t see thirty-five as some kind of horrific milestone, though now looking back on it, I think subconsciously I knew I’d reached a realistic half-way point.

What I couldn’t get past was the ugliness of the number itself, the overt roundness of it, the slovenly way it sits on its protuberant bellies as though fully sated and content in its rotundity. For twelve months I avoided, at every opportunity, speaking my age. The image invoked by the words disgusted me.

What makes this behavior remarkable is the fact that I assign no importance to age. I couldn’t tell you the age of my siblings, and it takes an appreciable amount of ciphering to determine my father’s. I know the age of my children, but only because I am expected to recite it with some frequency. If you admit to having children, you are expected to know when you had them. I suppose that’s fair…

For a full twelve months, while in my early forties, I aged myself by one year. As my birthday neared, a friend laughingly pointed this out to me, proving her point by counting backwards from my birth-date. She jokingly held forth my lapse as proof of some kind of mental instability, and her jeering bothered me at first, until I realized that my behavior only proved what I already knew; it really didn’t matter. For years, the question “How old are you?” forced me to think. It just wasn’t a number I carried around in my head.

Until now…

I still hesitate when asked my age, but not because I don’t know the answer. I hesitate because being forty-nine means I’ll soon be fifty, and I don’t want to be.

As my birthday nears, I find myself surrounded by two types of people; those who know, and those who don’t. And, it is those who know who have made it difficult to share with the others. For the first time in my life, people seem to feel it acceptable to pronounce me “old”. And, they do so, loudly, and often.

My father was the first to raise the baton. Months ago, as we chatted on the telephone, he mentioned my upcoming birthday, casually asking “How old will you be?”. He’s in his late seventies; the question didn’t surprise me. This was before I’d learned to hedge, and my answer came quickly.

“Fifty.”

“Fifty?” His voice was loud. “You’re going to be fifty?” This time his volume was accented by an accusatory tone. “Do you know how old that makes me feel…to have a daughter who’s going to be fifty?” He laughed as though he’d told a joke. I struggled to see the levity, while chuckling softly so as not to hurt his feelings.

Since that time, my birthday is never mentioned by anyone who doesn’t feel it perfectly appropriate to point out my longevity. Some appear awestruck; as though living fifty years is an accomplishment worth considerable thought and recognition. Some seem to feel as though my age poses a ticklish predicament. They giggle and point as though I’ve caught my heel in a sidewalk grate. And, of course, there are those whose faces fall in sympathy. I prefer not to know what they are thinking.

A dear friend mentioned my birthday the other day, and immediately asked how old I would be. As we’ve known each other only two years, he had no reason to know. Because he is a man, and younger, I really didn’t want him to.

I vacillated between simply ignoring the question and employing my finest southern accent, reminding him how improper it is to ask a lady her age, sure that in his usual manner he would soon turn the conversation in a different direction. While I hesitated he began to throw out numbers, “Fifty-five? Seventy-six? Fifty-two?”, until I could take no more.

“Fifty.” I said it, again.

“Well, why didn’t you just say so?” His response resounded with authenticity, imbuing me with the courage to explain. He listened quietly until I finished.

“I have to admit that while you were talking I imagined myself fifty…and my heart did a little flip.” That one didn’t even hurt.

Last Saturday, my children and several friends celebrated my birthday by coming to my house for a cook-out. My oldest son manned the grill, and everyone else brought plates and plates of my favorite foods. The broccoli casserole my daughter-in-law made was the best I’d ever tasted, and by the time I discovered the potato casserole my daughter had cooked, I had to scrape the sides of the dish just to get a taste. My delight in their cooking skills was enhanced by the feeling that they belonged to me. I hugged them both, telling them how much I appreciated them. They did me proud…

100_0446

Despite my warnings, my daughter insisted I have my favorite cake. The raspberry-filled, white-chocolate cake she produced was perfect. As we admired her creativity, in scattering wine-colored cherry blossoms around the perimeter of the plate, she produced the obligatory package of black and white candles; the kind that usually come with a set of gray, plastic headstones.

“Do you like the Emo candles?”, she asked demurely.

“Where are the matching headstones?”, I countered.

“I said they were Emo, Mama.”, she answered with quiet forcefulness. “I’m being sweet.”

I meant to mark this day. Had all gone according to plan, I’d be wearing a jacket against an early chill as I clicked down a neon-lit sidewalk in Times Square. We’d be on our way to dinner, fashionably late of course, in a restaurant requiring reservations be made months in advance. Tomorrow would have been our final day in New York City. Our visit to the fashion district would be a wonderful memory as I laced my sneakers for one last run through Central Park.

As it is, I accept the blessing of over-time with a company hedging its bets against a fragile economy. I’m schlepping my son to football practice, and I’m writing. My gift to myself is my writing. I will document my half-century in words, and feelings, and words, and epiphanies, and words.

Happy Birthday to me…

Traditions in Transition

My family’s Easter traditions became lost in the cry of gulls over pristine white sand. My sister travels to Destin to spend the holiday with my father who, understandably, welcomes the opportunity to visit without travel. Often, as finances allow, one or more of us join them. More often, we do not.

For years, my older children traveled the seventy-five miles between my house and theirs to participate in smaller scale celebrations. This year, my daughter is grateful to have the extra hours at work, and after putting in eighteen hour days for two consecutive weeks, my son is looking forward to an afternoon spent resting on a riverbank, watching the water ripple around his fishing line.

I assembled my final Easter basket last night and felt the finality. The look of wonder left Shane’s eyes years ago, but I’ve continued the ruse, for both our sakes. I admit to feeling just a little ridiculous as I fluffed plastic grass and poured jelly beans into plastic, egg-shaped baseballs. Next year I’ll limit myself to a nice card, and maybe a bag of chocolate-peanut butter eggs.

We’re not a particularly religious family. While my father could be called a religious scholar, given the hours he has spent reading various religious doctrines, only one of his four daughters attends church regularly. I’ve decided that this lack of structured piety is partly to blame for our lack of celebration.

As a child, Easter meant a new dress and a fine white purse to match my shiny, new, white shoes which I would wear only to church. It meant traveling across town to share dinner with a family of friends from Chicago, who marked the occasion by molding butter into the shapes of lambs and crosses. Our Easter baskets were always grandiose things; large and round they were stuffed with chocolate, before being wrapped in pastel-colored cellophane, cinched with matching ribbon. Easter morning found four of them, arranged in a grand display upon the kitchen table. The trick was to slide your hand into the flap created by the cellophane in order to pilfer a peep before Mom and Dad woke up.

By the time my children were born, Easter dinner had become a strictly family affair. Easter egg hunts were added to the celebration, meaning my children usually had at least two opportunities to load their baskets. The hunt at my parent’s house was always conducted outside, while I occasionally chose to nestle my children’s loot against window sills, behind curtains, under a lamp, or between two books on a bookshelf. The children seemed to prefer the indoor hunts. I like to think they enjoyed the intimacy.

“What are we going to do today, Mom?” Shane’s question left me wanting. We settled on a trip to the park. He and his Dad will play pitch and catch, while I walk the dog around the track. It should be a good day for it. The weather is beautiful. Later, we’ll cook out.

But I can’t help wishing there was something more…

Same As It Ever Was

“I’m a table sitter, just like my Mother.”

Knowing she wouldn’t be joining me allowed me the freedom to stretch out on her well-worn sofa.

Hallie eased herself into her usual spot next to a blinded window. A heavy sigh accompanied the release of her weight onto a vinyl captain’s chair, and the years washed away in my anticipation of her next move. Both hands went to her head, grasping at gossamer wisps which had rudely escaped the band she’d swept them into that morning. Another sigh and her hands went to the tabletop. Her lips pursed as her hands moved about the table, straightening a pencil against the edge of a writing tablet, carefully lining up book spines along their mitered corners, and touching each of three small stacks of paper.

As she took assurance in the precision of her surroundings I remembered rows of pencils, sorted by color and length, lying alongside a notebook in the laboratory where she worked. On quiet days, and sometimes just during a lull, I took particular delight in flicking one end of the pencil closest to me and watching the others careen like pick-up-sticks. She feigned disgust, but I understood the satisfaction she took in realigning her environment.

As she sighed, and sorted, and sorted, and sighed, I searched her face for change. Other than a slight gravitational pull around the corners of her mouth, there was none. Despite her claim of green, her eyes had always been of indeterminate color. They snapped just as they always had, behind eyeglasses whose shape demanded the word “spectacles”. The freckles that had always danced across her cream-colored skin were just where I’d left them, and her small, colorless mouth pursed between spurts of speech enriched with invectives.

“Remind me to give you a blow job later!”

It was the fall of 1992, the year the Braves won the pennant. Both of us had followed the Braves throughout the season. We knew stats. We referred to the players in such a way as to suggest we might have had them over to dinner the night before, and each of us had our favorites. John Smoltz was mine. We both agreed he bore an eerie resemblance to my wayward husband, who Hallie described as “poetic looking”. Hallie appreciated the talents of the wiry Otis Nixon and the second baseman, who she referred to as “Little Lemke”.

Sometime over the course of the Championship series, we had begun to watch the games together, by telephone; she ensconced inside her cozy duplex less than ten miles away from my little farmhouse, filled by the sounds of soundly sleeping children. The call usually came sometime after the seventh-inning-stretch.

It was the bottom of the ninth, and the Pirates were up two to zip. In an era free of steroid controversy, we thought nothing peculiar about the guns on Ron Gant, as he took the plate with the bases loaded. He sacrificed, making the score two to one. Brian Hunter popped up, leaving us with scant hope as a little-known pinch-hitter, named Francisco Cabrera, loped towards the plate. He singled, scoring David Justice, and an oft-traded, unlikely hero named Sid Bream. As Sid slid into home, securing the pennant, Hallie shouted her reminder into the receiver. I remember collapsing with laughter, and would recall little else about that game, or the ensuing World Series.

“I thought you were bringing Shane!”

Hallie stood on the steps leading to her front door.

“This can’t be Shane! Shane’s just a little guy! Who is this tall boy you brought with you?”

Color seeped into Shane’s cheeks as he shut the car door and walked, sheepishly, in the direction of my friend.

“Hi, Aunt Hallie.”, he said into his chest.

He walked, obligatorily, into her waiting arms and hugged her back. There was less than two inches difference in their height.

Gathering the few things I needed before leaving in search of a hotel room, I left the car and replaced Shane’s body with mine. My arms embraced her shoulders as hers encircled my waist. Time had carved precious inches from her already diminutive stature.

“Come in, honey.” She always calls me “honey”. “Be careful with that door. I need to fix the latch.”

Our love for each other spans twenty years, one birth, two marriages, two divorces, and the deaths of two children, both our mothers, and her beloved Aunt Flo. As I study her face for change, I realize mine is the one that is different. I am where she was when I left her to start over, again. Her changing was done. Mine had just begun. I shifted against the soft fabric of the sofa I rested upon, uncomfortable with the knowledge.

“I see you’ve changed your hair.” She made no effort to hide the disdain in her voice. “You’re wearing it like everyone else; like you haven’t combed it in days.” Ill health forced another sigh. “I don’t know why you want to do that. You have such nice hair. I liked it when you flipped it back.”

The fingers of her left hand weaved themselves into my hair.

“Oh, it’s very soft. It doesn’t look soft. It looks hard, but it’s very soft…just like it always was.”

And, it is…just like it always was.

“You’re my touchstone…”