Sick

Nora is sick. She started to complain about feeling tired on Monday late afternoon after spending the night with her friend, Sophie. Nora is my child who always knows how to take care of her body. When she is tired, she sleeps. When she is hungry, she eats. When she has had enough TV, she turns off the TV.
Monday she told Gary she was tired at 5pm and was in her PJs, in her bed sleeping within ten minutes. At 10 she woke up, complaining of feeling hot and wanting to sleep in our bed. I took her temp and it was up to 103.
I am so grateful that Gary and I welcome our children in bed with us. Our bed is such a comfort to not only Gary and I at the end of the day, but also to Nora when she is ill, Jonah when he wakes up in the middle of the night and Sadie when she has nightmares.
And sometimes people just end up there, just because.
That is ok with Gary and I.
I remember when I had Molly as a young child and wasn't as cued in to our own family needs and used to worry so much that she would be sleeping with us forever. Now I am free to let these worries go and recognize that this is very temporary and that my children are learning their safe places and how to go out and explore the world with the safety of unconditional regard at the end of the day.
Having a sick child or being sick myself is not one of my favorite experiences but Nora has made this experience so interesting for me. She lets people take care of her so beautifully and knows what to ask for when her body needs it. She spent the entire day in bed yesterday with a fever of up to 104 and when I asked her what she needed, her responses were always something like, "sleep," "a cuddle" or "a Popsicle." I downloaded two books for her to listen to from the library. She listened to "The Linden Tree" which she loved. I wasn't able to listen to the whole thing with her because Gary was playing in Vermont and Jonah and Sadie required a lot of me too but when I asked her about it at the end of the day she told me it was about a family who had lost their mother. She told me that a lot of times I picked out books that were older or about older girls and when I asked her if she would rather listen to something like Junie B Jones, she emphatically responded No!
Now this is interesting to me because at the same time Sadie loves to watch Curious George and read very low level books alongside her Harry Potters and Little Women. My children oscillate in age range and this is nice.
Nora told me that she liked this story and it was nice to listen to.
She told me that one thing that bothered her was the they never told the reader how the mother died. She guessed aloud that maybe it was just old age and then thought about this for a moment and said that that was probably not the reason, "right, mom?"
I told her probably not and then somehow we got on to the discussion of Grampa and I asked her if she ever thought about her Grampa who died 9 months ago and she told me she did......... "all the time."
Today Nora woke up with a fever down to 102 and wanting to watch some tv. I am not feeling well today and so we made plans to shut ourselves up in this room and watch tv and read books and maybe if we feel up to it after everyone else has left for a bit we can paint her dollhouse.
But only if we are up to it.
Nora will tell me if she is up to it and I know she will know.

sisters and little Mozart

Eleanor

Yesterday the kids and Gary and I took a hike at High Rock in Needham. Gary used to spend a lot of time here as a teenager drinking or hanging out with friends, skipping school. He told us some of his best times were times when he skipped school. Sadie and Jonah and Gary wanted to climb the big rock but Nora and I didn't and so we walked ahead along the path. I like to be alone with Nora because she is so content with where she is at any given moment. Sometimes we don't talk or we talk about things that really make no difference in the end, just talking, passing the time. She is a fairy living among trolls in our world. Her innocence pours out of her at all times. She can't help it. She is the only child who I know I could absolutely never send to school unless it was Waldorf where she could be among other fairies much like her. She picked up a stick that was bigger than her and proceeded to crush ice below her and tell me about the little people that live below the ice throughout the winter and even though it was really cold and sometimes there magic didn't work so well they could still survive and they thrived on laughter and parties.
Fairy parties, we had one the other day when Nora turned 7. All of her girlfriends came dressed as fairies or just beautiful beings. Quinny came too and he was dressed as a caped knight defending dear Nora. He came bearing the gift of a hand made candle and Nora accepted this with thrill and love.
For her birthday she wanted a hand made cake from Gramma and a song from her father and her father learned all the words to Eleanor by the Turtles included at the end of this post. Nora sang with her Dad and her Dad cried and Nora smiled. She has won him over again.
Nora and I went to her violin lesson today. Usually Daddy brings her as he does with all of the musically activities in our house but today I was blessed with the gift of alone time with Nora. She came flying in to this teacher's home immediately on the floor with the cat, kicking her shoes off and laughing boldly at the food the teacher was cooking in the kitchen. It hit me like a wave how different she is from other 7 year olds tonight at violin, how naive and precious she is, how innocent and gentle. She told me and her teacher all about the cats and violins and her dad and the fairies and as we walked out the door and I told her how beautiful she sounded she told me of course she did.
Of course she does.
I love the idea that she has not yet figured out the idea that failure is possible, the accomplishment can only be had by other people, that of course she can.
I love that I never have to drag her anywhere and make her do things.
Nora's favorite word this week is crest fallen.
I told her that was a beautiful word and asked her where she heard it and she told me she didn't know, somewhere and that in fact it was not a beautiful word but a tragic and sad word.

Eleanor
The Turtles
You got a thing about you

I just can't live without you

I really want you, Elenore, near me

Your looks intoxicate me

Even though your folks hate me

There's no one like you, Elenore, really

Chorus:


Elenore, gee I think you're swell

And you really do me well

You're my pride and joy, et cetera

Elenore, can I take the time

To ask you to speak your mind

Tell me that you love me better



I really think you're groovy
Let's go out to a movie
What do you say, now, Elenore, can we?
They'll turn the lights way down low
Maybe we won't watch the show
I think I love you, Elenore, love me

Stratus Clouds Stratus Clouds

Stratus clouds are when the moisture rises.
They fly like a soft bird in the sky.
They look like summer's smoke when a fire is lighting.
They feel like a bed of soft fluff.
The beauty of it all makes me want to
jump for joy.
Stratus clouds Stratus clouds
How you make me want to fly right up to you.

Sadie Backstrom age 9

RAIN FALLING DOWN SOFTLY
I was walking in the woods one day
I saw a big rain cloud
It started to get puffier
then it started to rain.

I brought my back pack
and it had my stuff in it when it rains
I ran home
and it got sunny again.

I thought I could go
back to the woods
I went back to the woods
on a rainy at first
and a sunny after.

Eleanor Grace Backstrom age 7

reflection

Reflection

She is quiet

as a cowering child

hiccupping waves

creeping in to her eyes.

A new dawn and the sky opens up for her

but she is blind.

She cannot see.

She is beauty

like a Montana mountain

strong and steady

cold on the top

burning inside.

And she can’t see it.

She is walking in the snow

and she cannot remember

were it is she left her boots

crest fallen seagull swoons along side

of her

speaking to her

remembering July

during brighter skies

when her eyes

could see.

Kelli Backstrom 12/11/09

Right now I am sitting half on my cat and half on the chair. It sounds kind of cruel but I think the cat likes it. The kids are downstairs and they are watching some mundane Disney channel crap that my mother in law told them was on the TV. I will be down for the Charlie Brown special. I love the Charlie Brown special. Last night we finally had to break down and do some shopping at the mall and every year it gets weirder. We wander around the aisles and we think that maybe we have bought everything in the store at least once but the pieces have gone missing and the game was forgotten and then I start to believe that it does not matter what I am buying for this holiday.
Right now Jonah has marched in to the bedroom and turned on the bathroom light and demonstrated his new trick of unzipping his fly and peeing just like his dad and I have to admit it is the cutest thing ever. How amazing and convenient the male body is.
And now he is laying next to me humming a song he heard on the radio today and I am wondering if there is anything more I should be doing to foster his musical interest and then he is up again. He had grabbed his train flashlight and he is telling me that he thinks we should do something, that maybe we should brush our teeth.
I have my phone near me because I am on call and there has not been a Tuesday night in months where I have not worked but here I sit, not working.
My house is full of lights and Christmas ornaments and Gary has left nothing undone and I am wandering around trying to find things to do but he is Mr. Christmas and I am Mrs. Scrooge.
Next month will be our 10 year wedding anniversary. We will take a long weekend and go away alone and sleep and cuddle and read.
Now Jonah is singing Holly Jolly Christmas in his beautiful soprano voice and he has taken all of my earrings out of my jewelry box and spread them over my bed and he is talking to my toothbrush and I am wondering about what an interesting predictable, very unpredictable world I live in.

6th picture

From Sandra Dodd's blog:

Choose the sixth picture from the sixth picture folder on your computer and post it.

Well there it is, a thumbprint of Gary and a banjo.

Pros and Cons

"Of course, a child may not know what he may need to know in ten years (who does?), but he knows, and much better than anyone else, what he wants and needs to know right now, what his mind is ready and hungry for. If we help him, or just allow him, to learn that, he will remember it, use it, build on it. If we try to make him learn something else, that we think is more important, the chances are that he won't learn it, or will learn very little of it, that he will soon forget most of what he learned, and what is worst of all, will before long lose most of his appetite for learning anything."

~John Holt~ Teach Your Own

What I have been thinking about a lot lately is this pros and cons thing. Like on Monday Gary and I started to talk about some of the things that we could be doing if we weren't homeschooling. Like that career I went and did all of that schooling for, like that guitar and recording equipment that gather dust more than not. I think about the conversations that I wish that I could start and linger through and come to completion with. I think about the quiet that I long for like an long lost friend and the noise, the incessant tantrum of drums and growls and chatter that replace this silence.
And then I jump to school.
School may not be great but it could act as some sort of childcare.

And then Gary tells me to come to the Boulevard and drop the bills and the phone and jump in the car with the bikes and scooters and helmets and children and escape to the ocean that we are so blessed to live minutes from.
And so I went and the children rode off and there we were with our conversation that started and lingered and ended.
Our children are like wildflowers growing without abandon all over our messy house. They take over a green patch and then they move on to another part of the house and yard and they have things in their hair and food trailing behind them and muddy feet.
They are planted in my yard and free to roam.
Right now they are all outside, almost dark, helmets on running or riding through our dead end street with the neighborhood kids.
My child is missing his jacket and Nora is not wearing socks and the plate from last week's apples is growing mold on it in the far end of the backyard.
Nora is kicking the soccer ball to Zack and I can hear Sadie practicing the piano. She has chosen to stay in.
I think about the contagious smile that my nine year old daughter held on her face throughout her dance recital last week and the entire Folk Chorale concert on Sunday. She is so beaming with light and love and hope.
The trade off is clear and so I need to remember that this is about my family and in my family we make concessions for each other. Gary tells me to get in the car and I go and the kids want me to come play a game with them and I want to write here and now and they move on and we all give to each other.
Sometimes parenting can be so black and white. Put kids away and meet our needs or put our dreams away and meet their needs.
There is a happy middle ground here in our home.
In a discussion I had with some moms recently I remember that there was much talk about sacrifice and I felt bad because I felt like there are times it is a tremendous sacrifice that I make daily for these children.
I feel like there are times when I worry that my daughter's will feel that they have to do these same things and I want them to feel free to chose. I want them to feel free.
And in the clarity that comes with time I realize that for me it is a sacrifice but it is one that I am entirely ready to make.
And one that becomes second nature to all of us.

Sadie's Swim meet

Scrabble seems like a good idea laying on my bedroom floor on a sunny Sunday or a cloudy Tuesday. Making cupcakes seems like a good idea today, two days before the ghosts come out to gather treats and tricks. Listening to music or watching a movie seemed like a good idea to some of us last night but Nora was tired and she said so and so I downloaded a witchy tale for her from our library and she dozed on and off in a feverish haze all through the night.
When I was a child I had many hours of someone telling me what to do and the places that I needed to be but then I had many hours of no one directing me. It was in this confusion that I was lost. That is why I am here
suggesting that maybe it would be fun to make cupcakes of play music together or maybe it is really a good idea to go up in to your room and build on your own.
Nora has made me a scary tie dye ghost out of an old colorful table cloth and an apple and she has come whizzing through my bedroom now with it in hand in all ghostly earnest.
She wants to know how to tie it up and I tell her my idea and off she goes,
half ghost half fairy, six for only a few more days.
Molly runs in half out of breath, having had her last driving test, no longer fairy but now wanting to fly off on her own.
There are things for me to sign and more for me to do and I am happy to do it.
Jonah is not at my heel and so he must be either in the basement playing music or breaking something somewhere and I am thinking about his squishy baby hands
and even breathing feels alright.

Content on Halloween

Taking care of myself has never come easy. And yet not taking care of myself has never been an option either. Some of the beautiful mothers that I know do such an amazing job being self less and devoted in constant measure to their cubs. Some mothers that I know take it all in stride with such grace.
I've asked for such grace.
I've bargained for this blessing late at night as I question some parenting decision that I made or some parenting decision I did not make, could not face.
Other moms I know make this beautiful transition back to their careers and they get on the train and they go, and they don't look back and they are content in their decisions to embark on this mission.
I am looking for content.
I looked for it yesterday in Salem. I looked for it on the train ride in and I looked for it as we all climbed off the train in to the craziness that is Halloween Salem. I know it wasn't the best place to find content but it seems plausible
or it did at the time.
And so let's face it. What was intended to be a fun day trip turned quickly in to a miserable grouchy should have hid under the covers kind of day and now looking back on it all in my pajamas at 6pm the day after, somewhere in going through my pictures, listening to my music, there is was
not really hidden
just kind of lurking underneath age
layers of skin
and some gray hair.
Content.
And I realize as I reflect on arguing with Gary in the cemetery in Salem with people all around us, I realize as I told all of them we are now leaving Salem if you cannot stop blowing raspberries on strange passerbyers and looked on to their scowls and crankiness that that is all part of the equation.
Later Sadie and I trailed behind and talked among the grown adults who stank of alcohol and had face paint dripping from their faces, and Sadie told me that she thought maybe I was still sick and I thought she may be right.
As it turns out she was. I am sick with the flu
and I was a jerk yesterday
because sometimes I am a jerk.
Sadie told me sometimes she is one too and I aplogized for being one and then we laughed, all of us, the whole train ride home.
Content is noticing a thought float through my head such as "maybe I should go back to work full time" or "I want to go to work full time" or "I am never going to be able to cook anything more than a hot dog" or "there is something inherently wrong with me" and watching it float away into the space of humanity.
Noticing all of the crazy ghouls in Salem and all of the desperate people in the Emergency room at night and my small vunerable children and recognizing the lessons that there are in all of these events and that this is how life evolves and moves so beautifully and so brutally real.

Awe

I'm having one of those weeks where I am watching my children become the people that they are supposed to be right before my eyes and I am completely in awe.

Molly's birthday

Today was Molly's birthday. She turned 17 today. A few days ago I took Jonah to a park that Molly and I used to frequent when she was between the ages of 2 and 4 and there I was with my youngest child running wildly through the slides and swings thinking, "Is this Molly..... or is this Jonah?"
Time is such a funny thing. Just when I think I am ready for it to fly by I am taken aback, punched in the stomach and losing my breath thinking about her and how quickly it all went by.
She wanted us to take her out to eat and so we did. She wanted us to take her out along and I understand what she is trying to say to us and so we did. Having all these little siblings cant always be easy and so we were together, the three of us, just like it had been for many years prior to baby #2 as we called Sadie.
Of course things being the way they are around our house currently we couldn't just take Molly in to the city and have our way. First we had to stop for our first appointment at Dana Farber. We all joked and played on the way up and looked around at bald heads and weak bodies and thought about how silly it was that we were there because after all Gary has a curable kind of cancer and there will not be any bald heads in our house any time soon. In the lobby I sat feeling sad for all of these other people that have to go through Cancer while we are all done with that now, thank you, just a precaution.
The nurses and the clinicians and just about everyone was so kind to us at DF that it almost brought tears to my eyes. They were not worried about time, they were not doubtful of us and our intentions and wisdom as carriers of our own bodies. It felt loving and wonderful and spiritual.
The doctor was a tall handsome man with a kind face and a broad and welcoming smile who sat with us for two hours and would have stayed with us all afternoon if we kept asking questions.
He told us that Gary has a 25% chance of chemotherapy and a 75 % of monitoring heavily and waiting and seeing. We will find this out next week after the CAT Scan comes back and I know that whatever happens I trust this doctor and I know that he cares about me and my husband. I haven't felt that about a doctor for a really long time.
We went out to a nice little Irish restaurant and took funny pictures of each other and laughed and ate. It's fun to be with Molly because she is like an adult now and we have fun conversations and I am almost ready to launch her.
Maybe she will want to go back to that park with me.
Maybe I will blink my eyes and find myself there in years to come with her little child wishing for a return to something as sweet as the first flowers in spring and the longest day of the year.

The Backstroms do Neil Young

festivals

This is our second weekend of festivals. This weekend Gary will be on a stool.

Codman Farm on Thursdays

On Thursdays Sadie and Nora work on a beautiful farm in Lincoln. They are having so much fun on Thursdays!

Cancer

Cancer.
It's an ugly word.
My friend Jane says I shouldn't think of it that way. She says that we all have cells in our body at any given time that are cancerous. I wish I had that kind of faith in my body. I envy those that can always see their body as powerful.
Instead I see the body as powerless.
Not all the time.
Today we went in for Gary's surgery. It was an outpatient procedure and we were told recovery would be minimum and he would be back in the saddle, no pun, in a few days.
I wanted to be in the surgery. I wanted to see all the things I don't know.
Can you see Cancer?
Can you feel Cancer?
What is Cancer?
I want to know.
I want the doctor to tell me definitively that this will work and to stop talking to us about his U2 tickets.
I want him to wipe that rock and roll smirk off of his face and tell me things that are important and of meaning.
Instead I listen.
and things go in and out of my brain
and I agree.
Sure, whatever you think is best.
I waited for him and then helped him to get dressed and I am making him a lentil soup and I am watching the Simpsons with him and I cleaned my house because that is what I can do.
The kids are at Folk Chorale rehearsal and the phone is ringing and life is moving on all around me.
John came in and he has a cough and his body is turning on him too.
Our bodies,
This can't be all there is, these shells that house so much more.
I walked by a homeless man in Cambridge last night and I watched him, his body and his spirit and I was instantly aware
and then just like that it was gone.
I wish I knew why.

Home

Home is where I want to be
Pick me up and turn me round
I feel numb, born with a weak heart
I guess I must be having fun
The less we say about it the better
Make it up as we go along
Feet on the ground, head in the sky
It's okay, I know nothing's wrong, nothing

Hey, I got plenty of time
Hey, you got light in your eyes
And you're standing here beside me
Out of the passing of time
Never for money, always for love
Cover up and say goodnight, say goodnight

Home is where I want to be
But I guess I'm already there
I come home, she lifted up her wings
I guess that this must be the place
I can't tell one from another
Did I find you, or you find me?
There was a time before we were born
If someone asks, this is where I'll be, where I'll be

Hey, we drift in and out
Hey, sing into my mouth
Out of all those kinds of people
You got a face with a view
I'm just an animal looking for a home
Share the same space for a minute or two
And you'll love me 'til my heart stops
Love me 'til I'm dead
Eyes that light up, eyes look through you
Cover up the blank spots
Hit me on the head

David Byrne

When I met Gary I literally fell in to the space and home of what is him. I had never felt so at home. I knew where his key was and I let myself in and the couch was small but it fit all of my body on it. I read all of his books and listened to all of his CDs and looked at all of his pictures and waited for him. We were friends for a long time and we still are very good friends. But mostly it was that once he got home I could curl my entire body up in to him and lay there for a very long time. Sometimes there were things to talk about and sometimes there was nothing and either way it was perfect.
Going through the challenges of the last few months I have come to know what it is that marriage is really all about and it is as beautiful as the forest in the fall and as bittersweet as goodbye and hello all mixed together. People are always splitting up and moving on and I feel so much sadness for them and although I have had my moments of wondering about all the different lives I could have had with different choices I may have made I could not imagine having those lives without this man with me. He comes with me everywhere. He is there when I am in a really bad mood and am a total bitch to be around and he holds me when I cry and laughs at my jokes and believes that I can do pretty much anything. He is the one who taught me how to love my children unconditionally because he loves me this way.
There is no one I would rather spend the day with and no one who knows me like him and when he has sickness and when he is in pain I will pray that it ends and I will watch him sleep.
There is nothing I wish more for my children than to have the kind of love that I have with Gary.

Hitting a Tree

I'm reading over some posts on Facebook and it is all Labor Day mayhem, bbqueing and drinking and sunning and I think about doing that and then I can't think about doing that but I remember what that feels like just going on, laughing and living.
Bumps in the road come along and you have to diverge in your driving or maybe you hit it head on and then you curse out yourself or the driver next to you. A few miles down the road it is over and then you are on to the next thing, the hair appt, the car payment, the rainy forecast, the things you don't have, the things you do have, your hopes and your dreams.
And then you hit a tree
and you can't move
You know you are alive
and you hear other people driving by
Some sound out alarms
and others don't even look.

On Friday we went in for a fairly routine visit to check on a lump Gary had discovered over the week. We laughed on the way in.
I told Nora who was screaming out of our living room window that no, in fact we did not have chocolate chips but we did have raisins and Gary told me that was the saddest thing you could tell a child.
Jonah came with us and Jonah and I watched Sesame Street and they were talking about the letter Q and drums, two of Jonah's favorite things.
Gary came out
we drove home
for a long Labor Day weekend.
Two hours later his doctor called, an hour later we were in a urologist's office and all of my children had been shipped off to Patricia's house.
She kept them for the next 24 hours.
I cried in the bathroom.

The type of cancer he has is treatable, they think. It is a "good type of cancer to get, if you are to get cancer."
But I can't help think about how quiet my house would be without Gary.
My friend Gwendolyn called me this morning to talk and she told me she had thought about me and Gary a lot lately, about what a great love we had for each other and I know she is right and so I told her and then I cried.

Blanket Days

Today I woke up with the day spread before me like a warm blanket. Nora had told me last night that she wanted to go swimming at the Y and I had told her that we could do that but upon waking the humidity had finally broke and the air was cool and crisp. No way could we be inside on a day like today and Nora agreed too. I went to my spinning class early, up at 6 and gone and then as I was walking out sweating and smiling there were my three children running towards me as if from a dream screaming "Mommy!" It was like I was a star in my own tv series and these were my greatest fans.
And then there was Gary smiling with books in hand taking our eager children to the library where the librarians all know our children by first name and have suggestions waiting for them and smiles to share with them.
When I got home to my silent house I sat a bit and played some piano and it was peaceful and quiet for some time and then just like that it was full of laughing children, fighting children, apologizing children and reading silently children sprawled out all over my furniture and my body.
We ate a beautiful meal Gary had cooked and Gary and I lingered at the table talking about NYC next week and the future.
We decided last minute to hike at Goose Cove with bikes and skate boards and scooters and feet and Sparky and we talked about different plants and the clouds and the water supply that we were walking around and we played pooh sticks. Jonah won at pooh sticks and the girls clapped and Sadie swore she saw a snake and we talked about what kind of snake it could have been and we talked about looking it up when we got home but we didn't.
I found out today that Nora has no problem counting to 100 when we played 52 pick up with two decks of cards and that she can add pretty well too. I learned that during a game of war. I didn't have to give Sadie a test today about vocabulary words or spelling because I listened to her use words such as indignantly and surpassing appropriately in a sentence and Jonah spent three hours playing piano this morning much to Gary and my amazement.
Sadie wants to read Harry Potter 7 again because she feels like reading it at age 9 will be different than at age 8 and I think she is right so we will.
Sadie asked if all the other kids are starting school next week and I told her they were. She asked if we would start school then too and I told her that all through the summer we never stop because we learn all the time.
We will work on some math stuff and Nora loves the Explode the Code thing. We will do our ecology class and we will take a CSI course at the community college. Swim team starts and Folk Chorale starts and life moves us around much more.Mostly it is like today though, days spread out before us with choices to make about how to spend them.
Right now if all Sadie did all day long was build with legos and play the piano and listen to me read Harry Potter 7 she would be happy and so she can and because she knows this, she knows I have faith in her.
Molly is off to bigger and better things lately. She just cut her hair short and it is adorable. She talks about important things now and she is excited about her future. She spends a lot more time away from home now and I trust that she is making good decisions and that she will come to me when she needs my help or my love.
Right now Jonah and Nora have been soaking in a bath for the last hour and they are relatively quiet. I think they are tired. Jonah continuously asked us to wait for Nora on our walk today and I realize that under all that testosterone and energy simply enough he is just this guy who adores all of us.
I will read to them and we will fight over who lays where and one of us will storm out of the room and return with more covers. We will laugh at the Bearenstein Bears and Jonah will fall asleep and when he starts to snore we will look at him and want to cry at how sweet and chubby he is and one of us may talk about eating his hands and another one of us will surely bring up something that he broke today.

Th e Wishing Well

For a lifetime now it seems we have been running around like chickens with our heads cut off, always trying to find something, catch up and be at ease. When this recession hit our town and our country Gary and I did not really feel it because, well, we had always struggled financially, so it was no different now. We have always bought second hand, cut coupons and gone without. One of the things that I have always loved best about our jobs is this possibility in both of them. For example, right now I am on call and I will be until midnight. Possibly I could make some extra money tonight. Then again, I could possibly only make a tiny little bit but being the ever optimistic person that I am I always can see it for what it may turn out to be like and usually it does work that I go out and we make some money. In Gary's job and world it has always been this way. He could drum up some extra lessons any old time and we could get those new curtians or pay the credit card bill or whatever. The difference between his possibilities and mine is the slight, ever so small possibility that he could hit some huge possibility. A possibility that could change our whole world and turn us upside down.
A few years ago Gary made a friend, a fan friend. A lot of Gary's friends are "fan friends". They come to a show, see how great Gary is and then because Gary is who he is, when they come up to introduce themselves they are immediate friends. Gary is an amazingly warm and tender person and people are instinctlively warm back to him.
This new friend had all sorts of connections and over the course of the last few years we have rode a roller coaster of possibilities. In a couple of days Gary will travel to NYC for the second time this year to play his guitar with some other musicians in what looks like could be a very interesting turn of events.
So how do I feel?
Part of me is elated. It would be nice to feel freed up from my job for awhile. I would love the chance to travel with the kids and show them our world. I would love to feel more free.
Part of me is terrified. When my dad started to make a lot of money, that was the end of my dad, spiritually and emotionally.
When I went to Target today to buy some gifts for Gary who will turn 42 in a few days it was easy. The kids picked him out little things and I got him some needed stuff like a new bag and a bike helmet. We spent more time hemming and hawing over the cards. The kids wanted to get him just the right one. Jonah picked him out the card with the charging elephants and Nora chose a really sweet one with flowers and Sadie picked him out a card that played "Somewhere over the Rainbow" when you open it. She said it would make him cry and we all agreed it would.
At times like this I wonder if I wished too hard for this break for Gary and what it will mean to us all. He is already being asked to sacrifice some of our vacation time to travel to NYC and to practice.
It makes me feel possessive of him, wanting his overall attention.
Although I am a person that does not ever regret things I would like to be able to look in a crystal ball once in awhile, maybe know what I am getting myself in to before I go around throwing coins in to the well.

Grae

Gary and I waited up until 11pm on Wednesday night. Grae was home visiting and he called and told us he was in the area. It was no imposition, it was a joy to wait around on the couch for him. I have often thought about writing a little story about Grae, such an interesting path he follows and it is worth telling about the days he comes home and tells us of his adventures. For some reason during his first few visits he reminded me of Dill from To Kill A Mockingbird. Scout would go about her life all through the year and almost forget about Dill and then the summer days would shine upon her and Dill would be at her door, ready to play again. That is how it is for us and Grae.
Grae used to be Greg and Gary has known him for many more years than I. From the stories I have listened in on throughout the years Grae somehow met Gary out in Western Mass or maybe at a show somewhere and they immediately made a connection. They have been friends ever since. The first time that I met Grae was driving to a Max Creek show in the middle of nowhere with Gary on New Years Eve, I think 1996, yeah that is it. I was going to give up smoking and he was trying to talk me out of it. I was not drinking and he was lecturing me on the necessities of living an independent free life away from the constraints of not drinking. To be honest, he was not my favorite friend of Gary's but we sat up until the wee hours in our shared hotel room talking and laughing, the three of us. And then he was gone.
For all of the time that I have known him he has lived in Northern California and he has come to visit his home of Massachusetts once every couple of years so this has amounted to about 8 or 9 visits in our life together from Grae.
It marks time for me.
All the visits occurring in our 20s were marked with drinking and partying and philosophizing and laughing.
When Gary and I started to have children our relationship with him took on a whole other flavor.
There is this thing that happens when friends have children and other friends don't but Grae was around so infrequently that really it was not a big deal. We always cleared time for him. Gary loved him and before I knew it so did I.
In our most recent visits all of the confusion and angst that I had in my eyes throughout my 2os and early 30s are in his eyes in his 40s and now this visit was all about changes and moving on. He has moved all of his belongings in to a storage facility and is going on a great adventure to live in South America on the Amazon River indefinitely. Cool.
We stayed up and waited for him. He looked older, much thinner and much kinder than he ever had. We picked up right where we had left it two or three years ago and then the next day he was gone.
Gary and I are two creatures of habit and constancy. We stay in our flow and we have become foundations for some of our most wandering friends. I love to hear their stories. I love it when they sleep on my couch. I hope that my children travel to wonderful places and have great adventures and find our home waiting for them just where they had left it, a light on and the two of us standing in the doorway....... waiting.

Happy Learn Nothing Day!

Crap! I forgot today was Learn Nothing Day! The kids have already gone off to Nature Camp, listened to the radio, opened books and talked with us about all sorts of various things. Learning Nothing is a very hard thing to do...........

In younger days I danced like this. This is how Gary met me. Looking and feeling like this. This was a festival before we got married. Gary had just come home from 6 weeks out on the road and we had driven the old tour bus two hours to this festival. I think Gary may have been playing while I was dancing here but maybe not.
We camped with our good friend LJ. Several years later LJ drove across the United States and left us a message staring at the clouds in Montana chanting about the surreal beauty in the skies. He overdosed two weeks after that call.
We were dancing during this photo. He and I loved to dance together.
I miss being that carefree. I know what they all say, all the old cliches about age and youth and all that but I know that when I go out now even if I may be swaying I will never dance like that again.
I danced in those days with the lightness of a floating petal, carefree and full of the promise of another day and one after that. I danced without the burden of bills and taxes and checklists. I danced in the eternal glow of youth.
I love this picture. I am glad it is here to remind me.

"He took her soul—though, being a secular-minded person, he didn’t think of it that way. He didn’t take the whole thing; that would not have been possible. But he got such a significant piece that it felt as if her entire soul were gone. As soon as he had it, he not only forgot that he’d taken it; he forgot he’d ever known about it. This was not the first time, either.

He was a musician, well regarded in his hometown and little known anywhere else. This fact sometimes gnawed at him and yet was sometimes a secret relief; he had seen musicians get sucked up by fame and it was like watching a frog get stuffed into a bottle, staring out with its face, its splayed legs, its private beating throat distorted and revealed against the glass. Fame, of course, was bigger and more fun than a bottle, but still, once you were behind the glass and blown up huge for all to see, there you were. It would suddenly be harder to sit and drink in the anonymous little haunts where songs were still alive and moving in the murky darkness, where a girl might still look at him and wonder who he was. And he might wonder about her."
Mary Gaitskill Mirrorball, at Pantheon Books

One of Molly's friends took this picture with her new Pentax that I am secretly seething in jealousy about. I don't know, there is something about this picture of Sadie that is amazing to me.

Jonah at age 4

Jonah will turn 4 on July 5th. To me these last four years have been a whirlwind of change, moving, and growing. Out of all of my children Jonah has blessed me with the most plentiful of moments to explore my own experience of parental anger and displeasure. I have had moments with Jonah that I thought only existed for "those parents". And yet, there they were for he and I to explore and learn together. We are closer as a result. I am grateful.
On the dawn of his fourth birthday I have many thoughts in my mind about him and about the thought that my baby days are over. I watch as other friends of ours begin their families and I wonder at that timeless moment and those sleepless elated days where it feels like there could never exist anyone else in the world aside from you and this new being and the man that helped you create this baby.
And then you blink
and it is gone
just like that, things to do, bills to pay and other children to attend to and then you notice that his baby fat is somehow changing and subsiding and that he will no longer let you call him baby anymore anyhow.
He still yearns for me though, needs me in a visceral kind of way, in a way that only he can. That's ok, I'll take it.
Last night we took the kids down to St. Peter's Fiesta which the first year that we lived here made me think that I should always live here and made it impossible to imagine life without the culture of Gloucester. Every year since it has made me wonder what the hell I am doing here and where I belong in this crowd I cannot place and do not know.
Last night we got tickets for Nora, Sadie and Molly to go on rides but it turned out that Nora was absolutely terrified of rides and that Jonah loved them so off he went on the "Crazy Bus" with his big sister without me.
I held back, close to Gary, looking around at the display, watching people walk around in circles in St. Peter's Square, not knowing this culture that I had chosen to live in.
Jonah got a new set of drums for his birthday and has been playing them for days in a row without avail and he actually makes a really good rhythm with the drums, he has a thing for it. He and Gary go off together and speak that language and I can't believe how lucky I am. I can't believe how blessed I am to have this all, the husband and these children and my life.
Now if I could just freeze Jonah at four...............
I sneak in to his room at night just to get a smell of his head.
It terrifies me that that smell may dissipate over time.

The hulk in me

Sadie sits on the outside looking in. Nora runs to embrace the next moment while Jonah stays close to me. And Molly, self assured poised for her next moment, eternally hopeful for her next move. I'm looking in a fish bowl and watching the world go around, swimming in a sea of ins and outs where some days it feels like I connect and am in my habitat and others I am a visitor. Today I was a visitor and I was not like Nora who ran in to the playground, picked her next friend and started her game.
Today my game should be meaningful. All my moments are meaningful and what does that make the moments that are mundane and more of the same. I have no patience for it. Gary and I met and fell in love under the auspices that we would take over the world. There were people who were petty and did not understand, we called them "taco bell" people. They just talk and talk but nothing actually comes out of their mouths.
I have worked hard to develop patience in this and to foster love and compassion in my children. The mothers in Molly and Sadie's dance classes years ago were these people. They talked about Target like it was some sort of extension to heaven, to Buddha himself, as if you could find happiness in the dollar aisle at the market.
I knitted and by the end of the year the mothers didn't talk to me at all.
Sometimes that is a bummer. I feel like why can't I be more like that? Why can't I fit in with ease? Why is it that I relate to the homeless guy I chat with on Mondays in front of the library better than I do my own friends?
I love that homeless guy. He is slightly smelly and he is sometimes cold and I give him a bite of my muffin and hang on his every word. He understands something that I am trying to get. We only get here one time and I want to get it this time around.
Sadie goes in to a party like a lost deer, starry eyed and confused, finding an activity or some sort of tree to climb.
I look for Gary.
We went to see the movie Up on Monday and it was the love story that my inlaws lived and Sadie told me she would never get married. I agreed, getting married is a big risk to run. You will get hurt eventually. Someday one of you will be lonely for the other. You should plan. You should create networks of friends for yourself so that when you are left alone you will be ok. That is what my mother in law should have done.
But she didn't want to. She fit in with him and I fit in with Gary.
It's really the only place I do fit in.
Sometimes I fit in with the homeschoolers.
Sometimes I fit in with the social workers.
But most times I don't.
David Banner didn't fit in. He had to keep on moving every time he turned green and had an "episode". Too bad he didn't have a partner in crime. A little green lady would have been perfect for him. At least then he would have been able to laugh about all those episodes later and someone would tell him that they are all just "taco bell" people and they could be green forever together.
Sometimes I feel like if I just stopped trying to fit in so much maybe I would embrace my not fit in ness and relish the person I am.

The Incredible Hulk

I have to admit, it was one of my favorite shows as a kid. The Love Boat, Happy Days, The Electric Company and of course The Incredible Hulk. Lately they have been showing old 1970s Hulk episodes on one of our TV channels although I am not sure which one. We have all become hooked. Today when we were driving home from this Optics camp that we spent the last two days participating in Sadie started talking to me about the different kids that she had met and how she went about meeting them and working through some of their many differences. We talked about how important it is in life to learn to work with other people that you like or that you don't like or that you meet in the line at the grocery store or that pull you over for speeding in your car. She tried explaining the rules of four square to me, a child hood game that has always eluded me and I am sorry to say still does. She told me the basic rules to this game that she plays all the time during FFC rehearsal with all of the FFC kids who have become like family to her. In the end she said, "We do a little playing.......... but most of the time we just work through the rules and argue over different aspects of the game until we all agree and continue to play." To some this may seem like a waste of time. In gym class this would have been wasted time. Kids get 45 minutes a week or day if lucky to play gym games and they need to move and have constant fixed rules. At the FFC the kids rule and it is true, although I would not have believed it many years ago, that the kids find rules that are for the most part equitable, respectful and that work for that group at that time. This of course prompted a long discussion about rules and flexibility. More important than workbooks, more important than tests.

I found out today that there is a lot to be learned from that beloved Hulk and we talked about it during and after the show as Jonah stripped naked and practiced his Incredible Hulk moves with Grampa John. The Hulk is in a particular dilemma. Why doesnt he just go get help? What if people found him and tried to cage him up like a wild animal? Would he escape? Would he die? How should we treat people and who can we call on in times of need? Where was his family?

Where was his family anyway?? I think about this a lot, family. You would have thought that somewhere there was a Mrs. Banner missing her large green son. Lord knows I would miss mine, green crazy hair ripped up pants.

Nora told me the other day out of nowhere that she had noticed that there were a lot of mothers who didn't like having their children around them. I have noticed that too lately and it makes me sad. At the doctors today the four of us were sitting there reading a book when a very impatient woman came in scolding her child about homework and just treating him horribly, rolling her eyes at the other mothers and I felt like there was something that they all understood that I didn't.

One thing I have noticed lately is that my son, the Backstrom Hulk, has grown a lot. My baby will be four and all of the sudden I am starting to want to peice together time. I tried to pick him up today and he didn't want me to. He is running through the house in a cape flying past Nora and yelling "Rawrrrrrrrrrrr" all chubby legs and fingers and I want to hold this time in my mind forever, this sweet, surreal magic time of childhood fairies and mysteries and wonder.

99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall

Monday we traveled down to Arlington to practice for our Family Folk Chorale Concert coming up at Faneuil Hall on July 3rd. I am pretty close with the other families who sing with the FFC and most of these families homeschool and so as usual when together with other homeschooling families in June there is much discussion about end of the year reports and plans for Sept. I have been talking with two of my favorite moms about getting together more often next year because our children like spending time together so much and because it would feel nice to be together and feel supportive to me. I need this type of thing.
So as is my way, in mid discussion I start feeling really overwhelmed. Am I not teaching my children enough, are they learning enough, will Nora ever read, will Sadie learn math skills that can get her ahead in life, will Jonah stop beating us up with sticks, am I doing the right thing, do I have enough money to homeschool, and on and on.
Am I ok?
Am I doing the best for my children?
I get lost in the content of the questions, of the concerns and so I have to bring it back to the moment, to the center and the core of what it is that we are doing here in this house. I need to reconnect with our initial vision.
My children happy.
Children learn everyday on their own naturally.
My children believing in themselves.
My children getting dirty and feeling freedom.
My marriage solid, foundation firm.
Loving respectful unions.
Trusting relationships.

We rehearsed and singing is so grounding for me, so back to the basics important for me now. On the ride home, we drove Sophie home. Sophie is a close friend of all of my children's. She lives down the road from us and spends a lot of time with us. In a nutshell we love her.
Sophie is going to school next year and we are all grappling with the changes that will follow this decision. When I have her now I wonder what Sadie thinks and if Sadie wonders about what school will be like for Sophie. I know I do.
We got moving on to our 45 minute drive and just like that one of the girls started singing "99 bottles of beer on the wall" and within seconds we were all singing it. Gary harmonized and the kids took turns singing in big and fanciful funny voices and laughing as Gary lost count over and over again.
When we hit 55 we had to stop, Sophie was hoarse and we were getting tired.
Life is so much more than one part of a whole. My children are getting to live a full life rather than being put in to a catagory or a segment of community. Reaching out in the world farther and farther and then coming home to touch base unconditionally, fervently continously, joyfully.

Jonah's many looks

Going to the beach house used to be a happy carefree event filled with too much food, too much booze and too much sun. This weekend was just too much sadness and a lot of not knowing what to do anyway. Gary's dad is dead and there is no trace of him anywhere and his mom can barely pull herself together to get up in the morning and I know I will be the same way. There is no way I can live without Gary.
We talked in to the late hours last night and we talked about the things we have to look forward to like Gary's mom getting older and sadder and John getting sicker and older and eventually dying and leaving my mom alone.
So depressing.
Nothing really makes it feel better.
I came home without the kids and Gary because I am on call today and I panicked because if I didn't get called out how would I fill my time?
So I cleaned all day and I am tired now, resting.
Life is really hard.
I found out my Aunt has breast cancer, another maternal relative with breast cancer, makes me think about me and my daughters, me and my daughters.
I think about Gary and my friends going through divorces and surgeries and some who have already left us.
I realize that these are the things that test faith and that even if I had all the faith in the world it would still suck.
I guess that is the biggest bummer.
I realize that I believe whole heartedly that those that have left us are somewhere else, happy somewhere but that doesn't make it easier for me. I want them here with me. I want to tell LJ to come back and stay here with us longer, maybe we could have helped more, and then maybe he would be alive.
I want to go back to Friendly's with my father in law and really listen to him ramble on about the democrats and Fox news and hold onto every word knowing that those would be the last words that I would hear from his mouth that didn't have to do with death or sickness or pain.
I want to go back to that night when he died and stay there holding on to his last few breaths and Gary's guitar talking in the background and just pitch a tent and wallow in my own sadness for as long as I damn well please.

Prom

Our pediatrician asked Molly two years ago when Molly left traditional schooling whether she would miss the important things, you know, like the prom. Molly and I had the closeness at this time to smile at the absurdity of this remark. Yesterday Molly went to a prom. We spent the day doing those things that moms do with their 16 year old daughters the day of the prom. We did nails and hair and got all ready.
I drove Molly to the boy's house. This is a friend of hers that she had a little relationship with at some point but that she had decided long ago was better as a friendship. I was not sure about the whole thing but I was sure that it was Molly's and this boy's decision to go to the prom together and that my job was to support her and help her along with anything she needed.
The day was really fun, she had a friend over who helped her do her make up and the kids got a real kick out of grown up Molly in her beautiful dress. She looked stunning.
We drove everyone over to the boy's home and he looked cute and his parents were excited and it was good.
Molly went off and the day seemed to go without a hitch.
I feel lucky that I understand that things like proms and weddings and graduations and performances are just time and space just like any other. They mark special occasions but they do not mark defining moments and they certainly are no more important than those laughing fits at the breakfast table or waking up on a Tues next to your best friend of 20 years.
Molly did not have the greatest time. In fact she was home early, she had gotten a ride home from a friend that was there.
I am not sure what exactly happened but I do know that there are two stories to every conflict and so I will not dwell on the content of what happened but more on what was important about this weekend for me personally.
When Molly got home she called me right away. I was out at work in the hospital and I stopped everything to talk to her. She is more important than my work.
We talked about the feelings around the night, the guilt she felt for leaving the boy and the remorse she felt at my having spent a lot of money on the event.
I told her that these were signs of growing up and that now all she could do was learn from the experience and move on.
I told her that it was worth every penny to see her dressed up, to spend the day with her getting ready and to have the opportunity to have this discussion.
I told her it was a pleasure to spend money on her and that I regretted nothing about the day and that I felt sorry that she was hurting but that I knew she would feel better in a few days.
This morning she felt better. She got up and took the train to Salem to meet up with a friend and that was that. There was no big tear fest because I think she had normal expectations around this event.
I am glad for this and proud of Molly.