The New Cavernous Ravine

The trees are turning on their vacant signs. Things are falling to the ground all around me. My children's teeth included. We're talking in lisps here so we can understand each other- that or the boys sign to me. A quick decisive cutting with the fingers to imply that they would like me to cut their apples up because they can't bite into them. It's all new. Last year they were doing this at soccer:



This year:



We're making great strides.



In completely other news I am now her:


It's been hard for me to get my head around this new title. I've never transitioned into the nanny role for a doula family before. I think I like it but mostly I'm just missing being home. Missing being with Bee. Missing being with me. But mostly, mostly missing being with Paul.

Because when you peel back the banana peel it looks a little something like this:

Monday I'm there and Monday he's here and Monday night he's going to go there starting tomorrow and Tuesdays I'm there and he's sometimes here but every other Tuesday he's here. Wednesday I'm there and he's here but Wednesday night I go here. Thursdays I'm there and then he goes here. Fridays I go here in the morning and he's here except every other Friday when he's here. He's here every other Saturday and Sunday too, but I'm here every other Sunday night when he's here.

So it's every other Tuesday evening, every other Friday afternoon , and every other Saturday and Sunday we get to look at each other. That's it. And when you break it down like that it seems less than it already seems. Like a cookie split into quarters when one cookie wasn't nearly enough to begin with. And that cookie was a perfectly warm ooey gooey chocolate chip, right out of the oven. Definitely not something you want to nibble.

And our relationship has become a dialogue in notes scribbled on scrap paper left on the counter. "Going here then, picking this up there, don't forget to get that there." I mumble something when he rolls into bed at 2 about please checking on chickens. I knew I would forget to write it on paper in the scramble we call getting everyone out the door in the morning.

And at lunch dates every other Friday, between bites and reconfiguring orthodontic appointments and hip hop classes, we talk about how we might work together in the woods someday, or breed hairy pigs, or possibly grow potatoes to distill into vodka. How can we see each other's faces more than a handful of hours every week? How can we be more than notes scribbled on paper? More than "I miss you" at 2 a.m.?

Not too many couples can work together day to day. And I'm not sure we could. But I know this. I know that when he goes that way and I go this way the ravine in the middle seems really cavernous. And I also know that it's only when we work side by side that I feel like there is no ravine. And that even if perchance it feels like there is one, it's really easy to cross because Paul Bunyan has built this really cool zip-line from one side to the other.

I miss you Paul.



I know we'll meet again,
Babe

Mostly Because I'm in Love with Him....

Yeah, because also I'm in LOVE with Him:

A Wedding in a Roundabout Way.

This is Hole. She was number 14. Our sweeper. At Iowa. She played with her heart. And it was big. Now she is head coach...as in, the one in charge. For the Dartmouth Field Hockey team. She's been doing it for 12 years. Yes, I know. I haven't done anything for twelve straight years- except breath. And even that I sometimes suck at.

I saw her yesterday. Her team lost to the University of Vermont with 54 seconds left. I saw her pacing, not wanting to watch that last corner shot. I saw her down on one knee for ten minutes after the game talking to her team, debriefing. I saw her being someone....to them.

As I was walking out with Auggie, who luckily still holds my hand (even at school) I said, "I used to be one of them. I was good. I was better, actually." He smiled up at me...like I was joking.

And that's what it's been for me lately. "I used to be this." "I used to do this." "I was once that." I've lived in these phrases like a batch of old t-shirts. They say: division 1 athlete, teacher, scholar. And every time I say it I think to myself, "what is wrong with who you are today that you have to rely on telling everyone who you were then?"

******


Steve and Kate got married. Hitched. Tied the Knot. The Mothership is in disbelief that a) Dirty got married and b) that he married a woman as good as Kate. Dirty is vastly under-appreciated. What I love most about weddings, besides the free food and drinks, is that sometimes (to strangers) I get to pretend that I am someone I'm not.

When I was up to my ears in baby shit (seriously, washing it from their tiny bums, spraying it off cloth diapers into the toilet, and every other day washing dirty diapers in the washing machine with boiling hot water that I had to add to the mix) I always wanted to tell people (if they EVER asked me what I did for a living) that I was in the shit business. And then I pictured myself walking away and letting them come up with their own conclusions as to what my "shit business" entailed.

I've pictured myself lying about being a writer (one that got paid), a fiber artist (one that got paid), a forester (I own, okay well, lease-to-own a friggin' forest), a homesteader (like one that doesn't ever ever go to the grocery store), and a wall-tent bed and breakfast owner (someday). I've never lied about being any of these things, mostly because I don't think anyone has ever asked but even if they did, I'm sure I said "stay-at-home" mom. blah.





Well, these hoodlums, 5 of the 9 Mothership members, stood up next to Steve. Steve's brother is on the far left.




And these fine Harvard graduates stood up next to Kate.




And well, she's the gorgeous bride. And he's the Dirt.




And she's changing the world. And he's changing hers.



And he's on the stock exchange. And she's a dermatologist resident.



And I don't know who she is or what she does, but he's a super hero.




And she's a wedding planner in Manhattan. And besides being a grump, he's a 5th grade teacher.


And seriously, I don't know what he is. But he married someone who is someone.





And so did I.

At the reception, Paul Bunyan and I were talking to a couple from Vermont about their lives. He works (from what I could gather) out of the home and she, when we asked, didn't say anything. She couldn't come up with anything. Not even stay-at-home Mom, which she is. But how fun- seriously- could she have had if she said surgeon, gardener, garbage collector for that matter? How fun would it have been to have seen our faces? We gave her the perfect opportunity but I guess she didn't see the fun in lying, or more likely the need.

*****

My newest doula family is neat. How is that for trite? They're neat people. They do neat stuff. They have neat stuff. They wear neat stuff. C'mon you know what I mean. Well, their three year old was going to a super hero birthday party yesterday. So Mom gets out the bag of fabric in the basement and pulls out the good ol' sewing machine. She whips up this cool aqua cape with a yellow lightning bolt on the back. It was sweet. Zealand decides he is the kind of super hero that shoots lightning down to start fires to scare the villains away. She then decides to make the birthday boy a cape for his present. It was red with a big C on the back- "C" for Charlie. It was neat- seriously. Then she decides to make a cape for herself and for her husband and for the twin girls- they're all going to be super heroes for Halloween. Seriously.

*****



This was the last Mothership wedding. It's all over Rover. I'm sure they'll be some more weddings in our future- just not as crazy as they get when the Mothership gets together. And that's a good thing because Paul Bunyan and I could barely get out of bed Monday morning from all that dancing. On the way down to Newport on Thursday I finished knitting myself an alpaca capelet (as it's called) to go with this dress I designed. I'm not cool enough to sew, but the dress was a lot of fun- mostly because I made sure it had POCKETS! I'm excited to wear it again sometime, especially with my super hero cape. And now that I have the idea, I'm excited to see the expression on the person's face who asks me what I do for a living and I say, "I'm a super hero. I fly down and save the mother's who are about to go crazy from sleep deprivation and over exhaustion from having to feed the human beings they pushed out their vaginas or had ripped from their bellies." And then I fly away with my arms pointed to the sky, sparks coming out of the bottom of my dress, toes pointed to the ground. Mmm hhhmmm. That's right.

Remembering Summer...I think it's gone.

If only you have 3 minutes and 24 seconds with nothing else to do:

Lost and Found

In the whirlwind of Irene and the week before school I have lost track of myself. It's somewhere in this mess. I'll find it. Everything shows up at some point around here. And besides, I'm good at finding things.

We lost power for 31 hours. That's it. We didn't lose a roof, a road, or even a house. Not even a basement full of crap. We may have lost a few trees, but Paul Bunyan says that just saves him gas for his chain saw.


Bee lost in the house training game on the day of the storm.

But in the last couple of days Timmy lost his front toof. Paul Bunyan and I lost about $200 bucks at the fair last night (oh, wait, no. We didn't lose that. We spent that). Auggie lost the stuffed dog he won at the dart game. I lost my shit at the Demolition Derby, or more likely on the Storm ride. Claire lost her battle with lice. The lice are winning. I'm going to win in the end...but for now they're winning.

We tried to extend summer so long that I was taking off the boys' nail polish THIS morning. Yea yea, they got their nails painted at Claire's spa. You wanna make somethin' of it? You would have wanted to too. She can get pretty nasty if you turn down her free services. Of course, in hind sight, I'm now wishing the boys had turned down that shampoo and style.

We tried to extend summer so long that waking up and going to school this morning was something we hadn't really even talked about. I hadn't even gotten back packs out of the closet until this morning. Of course, procrastinating is my trademark. Someday I'll learn, but even waiting until yesterday (the last day) to pick blueberries didn't even teach me. They were definitely not as sweet.


So not thinking about this:


was probably a good thing because when Timmy went to the left and Auggie went to the right, I almost lost it. It's the first time in seven years that they will be separated. Seven years!! Will they come back together at recess today? Will they say 'hi' at lunch? Will they want to spend all their time after school together? Will they still want to cuddle on the top bunk every now and again? Will they miss each other? Will they tell each other that they missed each other? I'm losing it right now (in a different way than I lost it at the Demolition Derby).

And so as I sit here in this quiet house with them gone and Paul gone and the Bee snoring and me wondering where to start searching again for my lost self and how to go about dealing with this loss of summer....


I'm reminded that sometimes finding things after they've been lost is a joyous joyous thing.

Filling the Hole.

When I was in ninth grade in my podunk little middle school (our high school was 10, 11, 12 back then) I had this sweet CB windbreaker. You might not have been familiar with the CB brand but I was wicked, wicked cool because my windbreaker had CB in big big letters on the back. It was red and navy blue and like I said I looked wicked, wicked cool. I looked so wicked, wicked cool that someone stole (STOLE, I tell ya) that awesome windbreaker out of my podunk little locker.

I cried for days. Days, I tell ya.

And because I am the way I am, I tried to replace that wicked, wicked cool jacket with the SAME exact one. I have a very hard time losing things and if I do, I have this tendency to want to replace them with the very same thing. I've done it with earrings, sheets, running sneakers....well, you get my drift. I don't like change.

So when I finally dusted my tears off and dried myself up I went right back to the store that I had bought that cool jacket at and tried to find another exact wicked cool jacket, with the big CB on the back. Nu-uh. No such luck. Not only was there NOT one there in navy blue (only royal blue), that royal blue jacket also did NOT have the big CB logo on the back. I remember struggling with the decision on whether to buy that second jacket, which was not, definitely NOT as cool, or do I go without a CB jacket, which was also definitely not cool, AT ALL.

I took the replacement.

If only I had the internet back then.

It was definitely NOT as cool. I distinctly remember feeling NOT as cool.

I was remembering this story on my way home from Arnold's Lake last Wednesday. I got to bypass the very fun (depending on your viewpoint) boy's birthday celebration at Splashwater Kingdom and drive right past the crowded cest pool of piss and shit because I had Sydney dog (who wouldn't be able to hang out in the parking lot for 8 hours). So, I drove straight up to Plattsburgh on 87 to pick up this wicked cool thing:




Something (the universe) stole my very favorite wicked cool dog on Mother's Day this year. And as I drove that northern NY thruway, I struggled with the thought that I was trying to exactly replace that wicked cool dog. Now, I'm not stupid, although some people might think that because, well, because I sometimes do stupid shit. But I'm not. And we definitely were NOT going to get another black lab. But there was this black hole that was not getting filled by Sydney dog who a) doesn't wag her tail when you walk into the room, b) doesn't come running when you drive up the driveway, c) doesn't really give a shit about where you are or what you're doing. AND because a) Paul Bunyan's colleague bred her beautiful beautiful chocolate lab with her beautiful beautiful yellow lab and they had 9 beautiful beautiful black lab puppies, 2) and 6 of those black lab puppies were females, 3) and 2 of those puppies had white patches on their chests (just like Liebe), 4) and 1 of those puppies had our name on its butt when it was born, it all seemed so just MEANT TO BE!

So there I was with a little dooper dog on my lap and an angry 12.5 year old bitch in the back of the van as I crossed the ferry into VT wondering if this was the right decision. I mean seriously, no one will ever be my Liebewitz again. What were we thinking?

When I pulled into my weedy weedy yard I let out the dooper to let her sniff around her new home and I went up the hill into the green barn where the mice have congregated to get away from Hunter's malicious murdering sprees and I lifted out Liebe's old kennel. The dooper watched me scrub the nine years worth of cobwebs out and then she climbed in and claimed it as hers.

I was waiting for both the birthday boys and Claire to return and also for my brother and his family to arrive and so I sat on the front porch steps to shuck some corn for dinner. The dooper dog came from inside the house and sat down right next to me. I looked down at her and she looked up at me and I realized at that moment that the hole was filled.



And it felt wicked, wicked cool.

Twofers

The two for ones are 7 today. I am in denial that some day I won't be able to pick them up.