Senses

We are in the car driving to Dr. Sorkin’s office. Again. This time he is 15 and he is 6 feet and 2 inches and towers over me, his mother. We talk about the 7th grader at his school that died and we wondered about why young people could die and then we listened to Mac Miller and Jonah told me again a story about one of the rappers that he loves to follow on social media. We got to the appointment on time, I’m famous with my children for always being early, and the regular drill is happening now, temperature taking, Covid screening and sitting many feet from each other. The optometric technician takes us back to the most familiar hallway. We have been here a million times before. He has done this drill over and over again and still we both hold our breathe. The tech is new to us, so kind with funny jokes for mom and son. He gives Jonah drops and goes about with the letters. First the right eye and it’s hard to see once the letters get a little smaller. I can see them clearly and I am reminded of the disability that my son has. We can pretend this is not happening on most days. Life goes on and although he wears extremely thick glasses and is clearly having trouble seeing when confronted with a distance, this is our normal, so we are  good at forgetting, moving forward. The tech waves in front of his left eye, holds his fingers up. Nothing. He sees nothing in his left eye. The tech does the pressure and we go back to the last room on the right. I am back in time immediately. I am 33 years old with  two daughters, ages 5 and  3 and this 9 month old baby on my hip. I am wearing an old pair of overalls, my hair in a tangle on top of my head, eyes zipping from one running child to the next, so full of joy, these kids, my luck in this life. I was meeting Dr Sorkin for the first time. I was struck by his height, his soft voice and how kind he was when he turned to me and told me that Jonah’s vision was poor, really poor.  He wanted me to see a genetics counselor, he wanted me to see a retinal specialist, he wanted me to get him glasses, and he wanted me to do all of these things very soon.  

He called me that night at home. It was a Friday night and it was after 8pm and I remember thinking two thoughts at once; how thoughtful it was that this doctor worried for me and how serious that meant that this was for Jonah.  

Since that time we have been here a million times. Jonah has had multiple surgeries and did end up losing the vision in his left eye completely at age 3 to a retinal detachment. For 10 years Jonah has been fairly stable. He wears very thick glasses and we regularly see several different specialists and every 6 months we come here, to home base, to see Dr. Sorkin. 

Today in the office we are holding our breathe again. It’s harder now because we are all wearing masks. Dr. Sorkin and I talk about the kids, life in general as he does his exam. There’s a heaviness in the room and I am praying per usual, striking deals with a God I so want to believe in. Jonah’s pressure is high and he wants to see us in 6 weeks.  

We are the last to leave the office. This is not the first time we are the last to leave. There is a silence in the air and Jonah says that the esthetic of the air makes him feel nostalgic and asks me if he has used the word esthetic right and we talk about this word’s meaning. He feels quiet and is bummed to have his eyes dilated and turns on his bluetooth. He picks Billy Joel and plays “The Longest Time”. I can’t help but sing along realizing quickly that I know every word to this song and just like that, first quietly and then with more strength Jonah is singing in harmony next to me. I hear it in my ears and feel it in my heart and make sure not to make a big deal about it for fear that he will stop or remember that he is 15 and he is here, singing with his mom. It is a gift, a small prize for my efforts today and I don’t want the song to end. 

Tuesday

In the dark
I see
you wanting another thought from me
I walked in circles
and bought the wrong thing
again.


Twenty nine boxes of soup
and a carrot
I thought I'd make something
like the things I always make
but I couldn't remember the recipe.


The pet store opens early
but not early enough
To walk the bird aisle
Talk to some quality
people
get some words.


Tomorrow is a Tuesday
I dreamt it was a Sunday
I was prepared for something like church
And delivered rain.

Returning

It has been one year since I decided to throw away many ideas about myself. It didn't happen intentionally. I started last summer, pretty much like every summer since age 12, with a big plan for my transformation. This one was going to be big. Bigger than last year, and the year before that, and, you know, the year before that. Some summers have gone "better" than others. There was the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college when my boyfriend had broken up with me and I travelled to Long Island to spend time with my college roommate, to get away, the reinvent myself. My father had pushed $150 in my hand and a train ticket home and in my life in 1991, that was a lot. I had gone running everyday while on Long Island. I didn't eat and I listened to these strange Long Island women talk in a funny accent about making themselves smaller. I wondered what was small enough.
I made it home that August a little person, tanned, hair topsy turvy all around my smiling face. I was smiling to hide the tired. I was so tired all the time. I got the boyfriend back, found my friend alcohol again and moved onto the next time.
There was the summer in 2009 when my 57 year old step father went on oxygen full time and we watched him wither away to an old man before our eyes. I took up road racing and stopped eating. I spent that summer turning into something while people celebrated the new me. I knew there was something wrong with me to begin with and this reaffirmed those thoughts. You thought I looked more healthy, happier, better, thinner. I must have been pretty bad off to generate such a strong social reaction.
He died anyways.
And I spent years trying to get something back. I'm still not sure what.
There was the last big time in 2015 when I went through my divorce and fell in love with Jeremiah and literally changed everything, my life all topsy turvy all around my smiling face. I was high on the challenges, pushing all hard things away. I signed up for a triathlon. I spent the summer running and biking and swimming. I shrunk myself into a new normal. My heart rate got down to 38bpm when I rested. I went to the emergency room because my heart was all jumpy and the doctors laughed at me. I was a worrier, maybe it was anxiety. I was a triathlete. I was in great health. I hadn't had a period in months. I was living on carrots, pickles and coffee. Maybe I was wrong.
Last summer I emailed a friend. I asked him to be my runner in a half Ironman triathlon. I figured this would be really good for me. I would spend another summer reinventing myself. I was going to get healthy after all. But I wanted to go camping and to have cook outs, and there was the beach, and we had friends over. I spent the summer biking, probably, definitely obsessively, but I ate. I ate things like ice cream and birthday cake (I turned 47) and hamburgers. I tried meals that friends prepared for me and I tried on different types of clothes. I continued to hide my legs and I watched as my 47 year old body took up more space.
The real change came in October. I got invited to a weekend away with some relatively new girlfriends. I wanted to go. I didn't want to go with my own packed food, my measured out and planned salads, my gum, my yogurt and apples. I wanted to eat our shared meals and to share snacks while we watched movies and to drink coffee with cream AND sugar and to think about other things aside from what I put in and what I put out.
And I did.
The pandemic has made for an interesting time to stop dieting,  to try to reinvent myself. It seems the PERFECT time to do this! I could come out of hiding a whole new me, metamorphosis.
Maybe I will.
Maybe I'll try eating all the different kinds of food with as many or as few people as I feel like on a given day. Maybe I'll eat ice cream every single night and then maybe I'll get sick of ice cream and move on to a scoop of pudding or maybe I'll feel full from dinner and go to bed.
Maybe I'll bike too many miles, injure myself a little and do yoga until I can't stop my anxious thoughts. Or maybe I'll decide to read an entire book in two days and sit by my garden.
Maybe I was ok all along anyways.
Maybe when I was six years old with Good Humor ice cream melting down my chin, at the park, in July, and I felt so much happiness, it was like a glittering explosion and I didn't notice my thighs or my belly and I laughed loud. Maybe I'm returning to this.

Air hits my face
like traffic stopping suddenly
to let a baby
and a fast dog cross.
You are standing on the other side
Rain falls up
running away from us people
down here
small people
most people are sick today.


The ground underneath my feet
startles me.
I thought I was in air
I was looking up
glasses on
For you.
Parakeets and cockatoos
fly past and I think
you are in danger
you need a cage.
Eagles hold onto the bars.


I have my moon boots on.
I am a little girl.
1978.
The snow is in my way.
Christmas has come and gone.
The reindeer stands frozen
in my garden
eating carrots
from my hand.


Yesterday I saw a spark
on my walk
in the dark
by the trees.
Today I smell smoke
and I hear the small cry
of a coyote
a fox
a deer.
Mothers cover their sleeping babes
And sleep, child
And sleep
And sleep.

Pandemic
March 2020 has turned out to be the weirdest month of my life. I wouldn't describe it as terrible, although for people who are sick or destitute it certainly has become terrible. For me, this Coronavirus pandemic has forced me (and lots and lots of other people) to take a look inside, under the hood of a person and poke around a bit. I find myself, now that I have literally nowhere to go, waking up at 330 or 4am every morning, wandering around my house like I am looking for someone. My children are now at their dad's for the weekend and so when I awoke this morning it was especially quiet. There was no need to creep in to Jonah's room to make sure he had put his cell phone away. There were no girls, ages 17 and 19 now, to check on as well.
These last few days have been filled with children again. These children come in another form than the children I knew many years ago. The pitter patter of their feet down my stairs is replaced by my 6 foot 1 son screaming across the house for Alexa to play that stupid SpongeBob song again while his sisters yell, "Alexa STOP!"
Its homeschooling over here because all of the schools are closed now. Sadie's back home for good for her semester and in five days it is like she never left. She is like an extension of us, a part of the machine that doesn't necessarily make the thing work but when it is in place that machine is so so much better. Nora has so much school work to do and she has turned in to such a good student, a good person. Standing in line at Richardson's two days ago she's worrying that a brownie sundae is seven dollars. She is her grandmother, frugal and worried.
And I have decided to teach Jonah how to cook but in reality what I am actually trying to do is keep him off his phone for at least an hour a day.
I felt instantly back in my element. I revisited days gone by so quickly. These weren't little children anymore but they had all the flavor of their little children selves.
The real truth is I was my best when my children were young. The little person in me that was such a lonely little thing for so many years, she got to come out and play. She helped me be the mother that climbed up the slide at the park and made sand castles at the beach. She went in to the water to swim and was just as excited to see Finding Nemo and countless other movies when they came out in the theater. She enjoyed all the Harry Potter books and playing cards and drew pictures.
Yesterday we went for a hike with my friend and the three teenagers were way behind us. We were chatting away and I kept looking back to see these three laughing or chatting in rhythm with each other. A large group of teenagers approached and walked past us. I watched as my teenagers kept with each other, protected in the umbrella of a family. I used to envy them this, I was such a lonely teenager, didn't they know how lucky they were? But now I know, they know, even if they don't admit it. They know.
Today I am alone, 4am, coffee in hand next to the laziest dog on the planet. It's so quiet in this house and I have very little to do today.
All of the movies that we watched growing up didn't prepare me for this kind of quiet. It's a wondering quiet. The dog isn't phased by the silence at all.

When I think about Sadie learning to drive, I think about Sadie helping me deliver papers up and down Centennial Ave when she was five years old. It was Molly's paper route officially but she was 13 years old with huge hoop earrings and a bad attitude and we were broke so delivering the paper was my third job most days. Sadie would help. She was the oldest five year old I've ever known. Molly could pay her a quarter to clean her bedroom but she would have done it for free.

When Sadie was 7 years old she went through a sleep walking phase. Two AM would roll around and there would come Sadie, looking like Chewbacca, strolling past our doorway, undecided and forceful in her footsteps, as if she had a place to go. Always moving, Sadie. When it came time for swim meets Sadie would lose hours of sleep. She'd spend days asking questions like, "If I sink to the bottom and I'm in the middle of the race, will someone save me?" and "What if I come in last?" Always the planner, ready for the next firestorm, big brave eyes, Sadie. The day I asked her if she wanted to try an overnight camp in the woods in Maine, she was pretty sure that would be ok. She nonchalantly said yes and then asked for a ride to Annie's. I enrolled her in 10 days in nature without any ability to reach us and nothing was mentioned until the night beforehand when she cried so hysterically in the driveway that I thought maybe someone could die of fear. But she got in the car the next day, travelled with me to the Campsite and waved as I left her behind, with strangers, to come back to Gloucester and move away to begin divorcing her father.
Sadie came home from camp and did a lot of wilderness time after that. Sometimes I would not be able to find her and her cell phone would be left behind and she would be on a journey somewhere in the woods, in her head, working something out.
It took  Sadie a long time to figure high school out and then all of the sudden she did. I found myself no longer the consoler. No longer the advisor. She was navigating life like she put together 1000 piece puzzles, with care and determination and self sufficiency.
Now she's learning to drive and we find ourselves on car rides where I feel free to listen to music and I imagine her less and less the little paper carrier, the little side kick who always accompanied me around town. Sadie has become

more of a peer, a friend. As she learns to take a left hand turn in on coming traffic and to make friends she really clicks with, and to feel disappointment, loss and betrayal and still get up in the morning and do it again, I hope she remembers me. I hope she hears me cheering for her like a recording of a soccer game from the 3rd grade, or maybe last year. I hope she gets the big tips and the cars slow down for her and the weather is always dry and 70 degrees.

The snow greeted us later than projected but we were ready. We are New Englanders, after all. A little snow never gets us down. Todays snow was called all sorts of names like Bomb Cyclone and the meteorologists  used words like thundersnow. I don't know what any of this means but I do know that it was deep, fluffy, windy and beautiful. It was annoying and frigid and relentless and then it was so quiet. Pebbles and I walked down our street at the very tail end when it is neighbors and awakenings all around. Lights were on, the next door neighbor was wasted from a day long of uninterrupted drinking and we were bleary eyed from too many episodes of Shameless, sleep and the types of conversations that you have on days like this.
Some years winter has bothered me. The darkness envelopes me calling me in to its long cold arms and telling me lies, in my own voice. Some years I have rallied around a few days of snow, the break, the cookies, the sleep and the snowball fights. But it has to be like just a perfect amount and with the immediate promise of some warmer weather soon.
The winter of 1994 was right around the time when drinks became more than social softening for me. That winter we had what felt like record levels of snow but I don't know if that's true or not and I was only 22 years old. I remember I had just walked out of the campus of Boston College and quit, just like that. And I remember that I had no job or maybe it was just a stupid little job I don't really remember and that didn't really mean anything to me at the time. And there was the relationship I was in at that time which centered on drinking and youth and missed opportunies. And that was the winter I kind of went crazy or maybe I got sane. Either way I got sober.
The winter of 2015 some probably say I lost my mind. It snowed so much that year that people used words like "Snowmagedden" and one day during maybe our fourth or fifth snow storm in a row the US Army dispatched the Nation Guard. It was the War on Snow in Gloucester. Every week, always on Mondays we had a major snow storm. There was so much snow up there people lost direction, gave up hope and just stopped shoveling.
I had given up hope a long time ago in a lot of things. Mostly my marriage. But I kept it locked away hidden in the house on the hill and somewhere beneath about 18 layers of snow gear. I had planned a trip to Costa Rica and that was going to be the solution to the snow problem and the marriage problem and my problem.
But it wasn't and it wasn't like the day I got back that I realized that. It was in the airport staring out the window at the airplane which was seated on a bed of ice and snow. People were celebrating their escape from New England and I couldn't breath.
Looking back on that year, three years later and on days like today I am reminded and I mind and then I remember that I can breath.  The weather is malleable like everything, so changing and evolving. The New England snow fall will make way for the longer days and the bulbs I planted in the fall will fill my yard in days to come. There is no place that I need to run to today because I am already here. Its hard to believe that that winter made way for the heat of the summer of 2015 where Jeremiah and I learned the back roads of Beverly on foot and bike and where I taught myself to cook in a tiny apartment the year I left everything in Gloucester and ran. With a clear slate and a clear mind I found piece by piece the life that I had wanted all along. It was right there under the layers of snow, just waiting for the sun and some water and time. Lots and lots of time.