12.29.15 Weaving ourselves back

     In May 1980, we were at Deerfield Academy, at my youngest brother's graduation, as he carefully squeaked through. My firstborn was seven months, and this always looked to be a nativity painting, just the way Kevin was holding his hands about his kid. The day was steaming hot for May in New England. I had this dress my great aunt had given me, that had these polka dots all over, but in the end, was a dress up dress after all.
     To nurse the baby, you had to take the thing off, hide in a bathroom, and then crouch in a stall while holding the kid and figuring out how to put the damn thing back on, over your shoulders. But it was a good day. My next to last younger sibling about to enter the world, and need me less.
     During the year, there had been a problem with smoking and stuff, so I'd bring him to our little barn house every Wednesday, he'd come on in with his brownie mix in hand, reach into the downstairs closet where some plant that had been thriving when we moved in...was hung and dry. He'd break off leaves and leaves, and go about in that most adolescent way grinding them up, then incorporating them into his brownies, my idea, so he would sail through and ... graduate. We'd have spaghetti every time, with sauce made from the garden, because we had no money, and he ate so much, that spaghetti dinner made just lots of sense.
     Sometimes he'd hold the baby, while I desperately escaped out, anywhere at all, only to return to him grimacing at me, while holding the small round person, screaming away to be fed. But he'd forgive me, every time. We always laughed and thought each other funny, and had a great time.

     Whenever it was a vacation time, he'd call me and we'd go around after everyone had left, because most students were rather ridiculously wealthy. So they left the most unbelievable things behind. We'd be laughing and joking and wandering around the halls and picking up sleeping bags and lamps and bikes and just being amazed that they had so much they could ditch so easily.
     Later,  he was at Umass, with this humungo black Camaro that he'd Batman around in, driving just as fast as the rest of us siblings had been raised to do.  He  had a great circle of friends who were really addicted to some soap opera. One day they convinced him to skip a final exam to watch a particularly thrilling episode.

     After that, he freaked out, and came to live with us in Montague, choosing an unfinished back attic room to have some privacy. It was pretty fun to have him there, what with help with feeding the wood stove and playing with the kid and the dog and all. When Kevin came home, my brother and I would go for long walks and talk about everything under the sun.
     When our kid was three, Kevin saved up for a year to pay all our bills and still go away to Italy. He was having parent/adult fever big time. So we had a huge "Oh, alright, go away" party for him ,and all his old friends and buddies from Pelham Auto, the collective where he worked, came.

     I made an enormous mountain cake with snow all over the top, and pain-in-the-butt Jimmy Singiser beat the cream and held up the beater, laughing , while the whipped cream flew all over the kitchen. Later, I got him back, but good.

     Everyone gave Kevin money toward his cause, which was amazing because noone really had much at all.
     But maybe the idea of some working class kid with parents who worked in factories going right ahead and going back to his father's homeland, was enough to fuel the dreams of us all.
     While he was gone, someone in our family offered to bring my brother and my kid and myself to Florida, which sounded great. I got pneumonia just before we left, and the morning we left, at about 5 am, as we sat in the kitchen, there was an earthquake. I have a photo somewhere.
     Florida was cold, and I was really sick. The person who brought us got bored and left early, after babysitting for a bit one evening while my brother and i 'went out' and got all riled up.

     The day before we had to fly back, I brought my kid to the zoo there, because it's all open and not great but better than most horrible zoos, with a cool train thing that brought you all round for fun. He was three then, I was completely wasted from the pneumonia, but hey, we saw lions and tigers and bears and all.
     Before we knew it, my beloved was coming on home. He was homesick. It had been about a month. On the way to JFK, my kid told me he thought his dad was never coming back, so why was he coming back? This was after my long carefully crafted 'Daddy is going away but will be back ' campaign. I was shocked.

     But I got us to JFK, somehow, and when we walked into the stadium of an entrance, up far overhead of course was the most stunning thing of all, which I showed to my child in arms. An enormous fantastic moving changing brilliance- a Calder.

     Country bumpkin that I was, I almost forgot to go find my lover, but I recovered and went looking for the guy.

     When we came upon him, why ,there was all kinds of jumping and laughing and yelling and hugging and kissing.

     And then, just crumpling down in a big old pile. so that we could begin to weave ourselves all back together again.