9.25.14 The solution to dog hair in the new car

Driveby Holyoke, early this morning. Colors and Shapes Sung Like a Hopper Painting.

9.25.14 Forever Changing; Our Favorite Places

Forever changing; our favorite places.

 Keeping us connected to the seasons,

 to the cycles 

and changes of our own lives.

9.25.14 Parenting: Ours and Ours Alone

     Someone I know and love got in touch with me the other day. They asked me to connect up w. their kid, a young adult .like my two younger ones.
     They said they loved them, but they couldn't be of help.
   
     Parenting. Our own or others. It involves complications. Consequences. Of theirs, and of our own. It involves loving.  Tackling problems and researching and making plans and connecting and getting help.
      Now, years ago, I see that this was one more choice I made that eventually contributed to where I am now, unable to work. Hindsight, eh? Loving and caring, but urging and pushing and showing others how to take care of their own lives and kids.
     So I said to this person I know and love, the other day, that when we have kids, it is hard.
     We often need to find a way to provide that which we were never given, and at the moment, have no idea how to find or grow or provide.
     We need to be there for them waaayyy into young adulthood,and sometimes, later.
      We need to find our own way to do this, or there will often be a bigger mess. Tragedy. All kinds of crap.
     I told them working hard to be as good a parent as you can be is often not altruism, either. It has a bit of not wanting to suffer..MORE. Which is what you circumvent, if you work hard as a parent and love truly and step right up.A whole lot of times, if you don't, you will end up suffering more...with the tragic mess that may come on down the road. And move into your neighborhood.
      Once I was in a lawyer's office, for someone I love, for a serious crime.
      That first day in the attorney's office, he said " We never see parents. They never show up. They're always so angry. There is always - always - a better future for the kid, if the parents show up."
      Because younger people need help and love and support. Limits too, and listening, and then consequences. Encouragement. Your own faith, covering them like a blanket, until the time they manage to slowly grow their own.
     Yeah, lots of us managed on our own, with our friends and partners, and no help from parents with any sanity whatsoever. Sure.
     But normally? Its a dangerous swamp out there, coming up. And today? Has it's own newbie unique horrible complications. A shade different than the past.
     Plus wages? You used to be able to work 20 hours a week at any old crappy job, and go to college. On a Pell Grant. That PAID for the tuition and your book. And then some. Noone had nice cars, or cell phones or nice clothes. But you all were starving students, having a good time, studying hard, going to work, sleeping late, burning out at midterms and finals.
     Or you found a trade. In the family. Or some neighbor. Or lucked into something. That wasn't the best or easiest or best  paying, but was fine. Fine.
     Now? Hard to survive on two people sharing rent or mortgage or food or gasoline or a car. Never mind trying to have kids or go anywhere. At all.
     So I told this person I know and love that  I had retired from overreaching what I could pull off. I was done. I said they had to find their own way, no matter their pain or distress, to show up. Step up. And be there with that kid. Love that kid. Problem solve with the kid.  I said it really had no bearing, whether the kid had 'found themselves' or not.
      What is life, anyway? We find and lose and find and lose and find ourselves again and again and again. And truly, we all need a whole lot of help.
     Then, there's the big secret. Right? The more well meaning and generous (but, try wise and judicious) and thoughtful you learn to be, the more well meaning and generous and thoughtful others will eventually be to you. Even when you need it most of all.
     I said it wouldn't be fun. They wouldn't get any old thank you notes later.
     But it is important to follow through..on the commitment we make when we have a kid.
     In all sorts of ways. We can situate them with someone else, and know them peripherally, an important, loving and brave  thing to do.  
      We can work as hard as we can on our own messed up crap before and during and after raising them, so we can show up as healthy and self-accepting and present as possible.
      But we need to take the responsibility to do it. Because it's ours. And ours alone.

9.24.14 A disconsolate morning, unerringly spent upon Kestrel Lane, watching what becomes of silence.

9.24.14 At Sixteen - Memoir

     Yeah, I used to. Wait and wait til all were asleep, eyes out for the night watchman, laggard, who wandered by a few times a night, for what I'm not certain, really. I requested a dorm room on the earth side of the hill, window flush with the lawn, on the back of the building, in the shade of the street lights. And after he'd wandered by, while it seemed everyone was sleep, I'd pull on my coat and boots, remove the screen, smile at my wakened roommate, who glanced at me, then fell back asleep, and crawled out the narrow window, reaching in to crank it back closed as much as I could; or she'd jump up and do it for me, waving me on.

     Up the snow covered hill I'd climb, through the sparse trees, up through the deep snow of the field to the small country road, waiting there, darkness all around. And I'd wait, like some Russian novel's protagonist, not caring. About the cold, or the night or the darkness or alone out there. Because after awhile, he would have made it home, grabbed his old VW, raced through New York to Connecticut, and sped round the curved wooded roads, approaching the top of the hill, where he'd kill the lights, drifting quietly down the hill.

     Maybe I'd have fallen sleep, in the deep snow; or maybe I'd be lying on my back, watching the stars and the trees bowing over me in the winter wind. Cold cutting into me, feet numb, face reddened. No matter. He'd call out, if I didn't stand right up, knowing I may be in dream land, somewhere in the field, near the road. And I'd hear him, if I'd fallen asleep, or see him, If I'd been awake, creeping his black car slowly down the snow crusted road.

     And I'd rise up, brushing myself off some,and make my way around the car, him opening the door, anticipating my numb young fingers, and in I'd jump, both of us smiling, hard.

     And we'd kiss. Long long. Like young ones do. LIke rapturous ones do. Til I'd been thoroughly warmed; and then, why we'd drive right round the boarding school; sometimes for a lark, up one side of the long drive leading to the main building, laughing so hard! As the night watchman peered out, or came stumbling out, wondering who goes there, as we descended to the other end of the drive, the four large locked up dorm's lights blinking in the deep night after us.

     Holding hands, sometimes I'd fall asleep once again, opening my coat to the warmth of the car's heat, and he'd make our way back to New York, to his parent's house, where all were fast asleep. He'd stand at the refrigerator, open, eating, offering me this and that, I who ate little, and I'd tug tug on his arm, thick coat, to come come upstairs, to bed.

      Up the small stairs from the kitchen, designed for the 'help' years before, to his back bedroom, where we'd curl into each other, and spend the night, our own bath, doors locked up.

      Until quite early, but late enough that his parents would be in the kitchen, in their pjs and nightgown. And his mother would make some sort of frightful surprise sound, then go on and on in English and Yiddish and Spanish and perhaps a bit of German, to us, to her husband, to me, about my age, about being here. No control; they had no control over those 5 sons. And he'd smile, kiss his mother, grab some food for us from the frig, I'd give her a quick embrace, a smile to the dad, and off we'd go, the sky still new in the day.

       Same path back, same small hill, same snowly day after, same killing the engine. Same long long kisses. Same his hand pulling me back to him, as I readied to depart the car. Same me laughing and pushing him rough, climbing up on him- pushing him hard into the seat, a dominant dog perhaps , or lion- I'm not sure. My knee on his lap, my hands holding back his shoulders, my mouth on his. One more. Then enough of this, I'd laugh to myself, and out of the car I'd be, slinking into the field, waving without looking back. Knowing he was watching.

      Then watching far up by the Music Building, scoping things out...waiting for my moment, as I carefully brushed snow off, readying myself for a casual entry. To the dining room. Or back to the dorm. Not meeting anyone's eyes. Appearing sidetracked and unavailable. Younger ones walking by, watching quietly, it was all in the feeling you projected, was what I'd slowly learned.

      I knew of one other who was a chronic, such as myself; could not be penned in, and we'd each only gotten caught once, each of us making up dramatic-upset-home-things to cover, sitting in front of the Assistant Headmaster, at her desk, she younger than I am today.

      I could cry on command, and tell the best story, with not too many details or feeling, replicating real experiences, til I began to wonder what would become of me, doing this pretending in the world, when all I wanted was more sanity and wisdom than those I'd come from.

     But the next second, I knew I'd only do this as long as necessary, to get what I wanted, and no more. So I let it drop, as I watched her, behind her desk, telling me that when I was her age, I would hold the very same opinions and values as she held that very day. And could I try to just take it in, the rules and the way of thinking and the best for the future and all that.

      Yet I knew in my wise young mind, as I still know today, that she was wrong. Wrong.  She held nothing for me, then. Her frustration and her hard job and her own life and all those long stairs to the Headmaster's office. Her tweed and pretense and aspirations for social standing and shame of her husband and bustling opinions. None  would  ever be mine.

       As out I'd go, slipped by once again, just one  of us: so young.  Determined, when all came down to it,  to make your own way, always.

9.23.14 Measureless Time

The day lingers as, across the globe, so lingers the night
Approachement; dusk and then dawn
Stars are born; then exist, strewn among it all, for always
Time woven loosely into measureless time