Dear Q,

How is it possible that this picture, at the best 21st birthday party ever (sunflowers + live music + beer + magic light = heaven) was taken sixteen years ago? No, no, no. Impossible. Also impossible: that bleached jeans and huge nubby sweaters ever seemed like good sartorial choices to me!

I wrote to and about you last year and I’m not sure I can say it better than I did there:

Birthday girl, fellow proud redhead, a godmother to my first child, short-short wearer, Doctor Pepper drinker, occasional roommate at the Regency Hotel when traveling for our first jobs, tour-guide in Assissi, fellow secret country music fan, counselor, entertainer, reminder of what it’s all about: thank you.

Yes … there are so many memories from the past that rise up like clouds when I pat our college years even gently – the fact that your thesis ended with Kate Chopin’s The Awakening and mine began with it … driving through the night singing “good friends we’ve had, good friends we’ve lost along the way” … artichokes and mermaids … In anticipation … walking in the P-Rade, tear-streaked and tipsy, arms flung around the necks of each other and a long line of friends, traversing the line both virtual and literal between students to alumni, between children and adults. To call this the tip of the iceberg is a massive understatement.

I look forward to celebrating soon, with white wine (I’ve joined your ranks of white-only) and children crawling all over us. It seems like a lifetime ago and also yesterday that we met, and it still stuns me that we both have children, husbands, houses, MBAs. The data suggests we are adults – and yet somehow with you I am perpetually eighteen, in the best possible way.

This photograph hangs at eye level (right next to one of my wedding day where you are laughing with me in the momentary break from downpour) on the board in front of my desk. I look at you many times every single day. I think of what a lifetime friend is, and of the deep comfort it is to trust that even in times of less contact our bond endures. There are so many years behind us, filled to bursting with memories, and I look forward to all the ones that lie ahead.

I love you, Q. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Bone

1.

Understand, I am always trying to figure out
what the soul is,
and where hidden,
and what shape -

and so, last week,
when I found on the beach
the ear bone
of a pilot whale that may have died

hundreds of years ago, I thought
maybe I was close
to discovering something -
for the ear bone

2.

is the portion that lasts longest
in any of us, man or whale; shaped
like a squat spoon
with a pink scoop where

once, in a lively swimmer’s head,
it joined its two sisters
in the house of hearing,
it was only

two inches long -
and I thought: the soul
might be like this -
so hard, so necessary -

3.

yet almost nothing.
Beside me
the gray sea
was opening and shutting its wave-doors,

unfolding over and over
its time-ridiculing roar;
I looked but I couldn’t see anything
through its dark-knit glare;

yet don’t we all know, the golden sand
is there at the bottom,
though our eyes have never seen it,
nor can our hands ever catch it

4.

lest we would sift it down
into fractions, and facts -
certainties -
and what the soul is, also

I believe I will never quite know.
Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,

but looking, and touching, and loving,
which is the way I walked on,
softly,
through the pale-pink morning light.

- Mary Oliver

image: Georgia O’Keeffe, Pelvis With the Distance, 1943

The universe has a way of timing things just right. Just days ago I was sad about summer ending, about the closing of this magical time with my children, these three months dotted with highlights and plenty of tiny moments in between.

And then they became monsters. Oh, wow, is it time for school. Something just flipped this past weekend and they are cranky and exhausted and thoroughly sick of each other’s – and my – company. Suddenly the return to school, routines, and some time when they are not around sounds just lovely.

So, in short, it’s been a long couple of days. And yet all of that fell away instantly tonight when I tiptoed into their bedrooms to kiss them goodnight. Whit in sleep till has the scent of baby-toddler wafting off of him, that freshly-bathed smell, something from the past drifting up to tug me back to those long-ago days when I rocked babies in that very same room.

I whispered to them both tonight, into the curled, flushed-ivory shells of their ears, about how sorry I am about my short temper these days, about how I regret the times I’ve snapped, about how I understand that they too sense change hanging around the edges of these days and that that makes them anxious. I thanked them for all of their energy and enthusiasm this summer, for their patience and their adventurous spirits that took us so many places, near and far, together. I pressed my lips to their cheeks, feeling the peachfuzz of their skin, closing my eyes to try, once again, to freeze time.

And then I murmured, to each of my children in turn, of how I loved them, always, always, no matter what. Of how I know them and I honor them and I witness them and I love them. I tried, as I do often, to pour my love into their sleeping selves, to fill them with it so there’s less room for doubt and fear. I want to erect armor around their hearts so that they will always know that someone – maybe just this small person, but someone – loves them. I wish I could infuse their very bloodstreams with my love, so that they will never, for a single second, doubt that they are worthy, known, seen, loved.

And yes, I realize, this is what I want for myself too.

I’ve written almost incessantly about my particular struggle to live in the present, about the way my near-constant preoccupation with both yesterday and tomorrow quite often entirely obscures today. On Saturday morning I felt a simultaneous impatience for fall to arrive and a desperate sorrow that summer was ending, and the moment perfectly captured all of this agita: push-pull, hurry-slow, there-here.

There are lots of reasons that I’m this way. I’m just wired that way, sure. I’m sensitive and I cling and I fear farewells and abandonment and things cut me deeply even when they are not about me.

I recently decided, too, a connection might exist between when I was born and my difficulty with living now: I think my late-summer birthday may contribute to my sense of myself as liminal, to the automatic way that I lean forward or back, turn the page sooner than I need to, generally feel frantically unable to just be here now.

I think my childhood of hopscotching across the Atlantic may also be part of this: I was always in constant motion, always either anticipating a goodbye or getting over one.

But something hit me hard this morning. This is true Captain Obvious territory, I realize that even as I write it, but it was insight to me. I was at my parents’ house in Marion, which represents summer to me, sitting still for a moment, windows open. I listened to the cicadas outside (which always remind me of summer nights spent at my father’s parents’ house in Long Island, lying in a narrow twin bed at 90 degrees to Hilary’s, summer wafting in through the screens). I watched the light flicker on the trees and thought of Lacy, whose hair is like mine and of whom the turning-to-fall light always reminds me, and suddenly it occurred to me why it is that I’m so impatient, so forward-focused, so quick to dwell in the past.

It is often simply too painful for me look this moment in the eye. Doing so requires me to accept the loss inherent in every minute of my life. To recognize the red leaf in the green grass is to really live with the fact that summer turns to fall, that life cranks forward and I walk closer and closer to the end of it every day.

Suddenly, this morning, I understood. I’m hurrying into the future and hiding in the past to avoid staring into the sun of my life. To escape the reality that every minute is gone as I live it. To pretend that it’s not true that I can never have any of those moments back, ever. My life’s single most painful truth is the slow turning forward of my time on earth and the inherent loss that that represents.

It hurts to stare into the sun. I blink and my eyes water and sting. But that’s not a reason to hide. I know that in my head, and even in my heart. Making it so is harder, though. The impermanence of this life is truly heartbreaking to me. Every single day contains goodbyes and I find fact the of that nothing less than brutal.

But what is my option? I will be a lucky woman if I have another 36 years ahead of me. May I not squander them in the same fear that so eroded many of the first 36.

I have a few areas of definitive, even spectacular, parenting Fail.

Food.  Both of my kids are terrible eaters, Whit far worse than Grace.  I never make them finish their food, and generally believe that no child will charge in the presence of food.

Shoes.  There will come a day this fall when inevitably the only shoes that fit my kids will be crocs and rainboots.  Probably a day when we need to do something like go to soccer practice or church or a birthday party – that is to say, somewhere that crocs and rainboots are at best inappropriate and at worst totally insufficient.

Tooth brushing.  Um … casual.  At best.  I’m just not sure I feel the urgency here.  Every time we go to the dentist my childrens’ beautiful teeth are remarked on.  See?

Googles.  Oh.  My.  God.  I hate the goggles.  I continuously forget them and then deal with screaming kids who won’t go in the water.  I’m sure this is some kind of Freudian attempt by me to subvert their goggle habit, but it’s not working.  I forget them, they lose them, they don’t work, they can’t be tightened or …

They break.

Is there a parenting nadir lower than the broken goggles?  If so, I don’t know it.  Well, specifically, overtired + broken goggles. And, + my 5 year old boy.

Today, with half an hour on the clock at Basin Harbor, I was trying to pacify a hair-trigger, exhausted Whit by letting him jump off the diving board a few more times.  He came over to me and asked me to tighten his goggles.  I did so … and wound up with one of the ends in my hand.  Uh-oh.  The goggles were still on his face.  Aware that I was surrounded by land mines, I suggested, gingerly: why don’t you just go in with those?  Mentally, I was already trying to figure out where we could  stop en route to my in-laws’ to get a new pair.

Whit barrelled off of the diving board, came up smiling, and swam to the side.  I sighed.  Crisis averted.

Just as my pulse was beginning to slow, Whit was standing in front of me, goggles in hand, face awash in both pool water and tears.  “They broke!  Mummy, you broke my goggles!  You are the Worst Mummy Ever!” he shrieked.

He handed me the goggles and the orphan piece of rubber.  “I can fix them, Whit, I can,” I said urgently and began the panicky effort to thread the broken end through the (incredibly difficult, still, always, why?) fastening at one side.  I tried to poke the rubber end through the small opening.  Tried it in both directions.  Used my teeth.  Futile.  Frustrated.  Frantic.

The volume of Whit’s whining rose and rose.  “Whit!” I hissed.  “Shhhh!”

I HATE GOGGLES.  Have I mentioned that?

A kind-looking woman walked over to me, holding out a pair of blue goggles.  “Do you want to borrow these?” she addressed Whit directly, who set his lips and vigorously shook his head.

“No.” He said, surly, adolescent, rude.

“Let’s try them, Whit,” I smiled gratefully at her.

“Believe me, I’ve been here.” What a nice woman.  The goggles didn’t work for Whit (the pickiness, also, with goggles?  because they are unnecessary, children … get your face wet already).  But they interrupted his rising tantrum in a way that was incredibly helpful, and the offer touched me.

Just be kind, people.  We are all trying.  Stranger woman, fellow mom at the pool?  Thank you.

When I’m at home I almost always run the same loop.  A creature of habit through and through, I am.  The route takes me past the used bookstore that I used to go to as a kid with my sister and father, past a kid-friendly restaurant where I ate when both of my children were small, and past a front porch festooned with prayer flags.

It’s those prayer flags that are on my mind today.  They are tattered from from being whipped around by the wind, bleached out from the sun and rain.  Yet every day they recommit to the same task, snapping around according to the wind’s whimsy.  Even with their faded, worn-out fabric they continue to transmit their hopes, their prayers, to the world.

I feel similarly buffeted by the wind, likewise faded from the elements.  It’s been, as I’ve written, a summer full of wind and sunshine, memories and joyful moments, but also one that has bruised my heart and made me feel tired in a bone-deep way.  The reasons are personal and I’m aware of and sorry for being a broken record.

Still, the prayer flags snap away as their edges fray and their colors fade.  I’m not sure I have the same conviction about my prayers and hopes as do those small squares of colorful fabric, though I wish I did.   I picture them in my mind’s eye, take a deep breath, try to inflate my exhausted heart, and steel myself for more winds ahead.  May I keep waving.

We are at the Basin Harbor Club in Vermont. This is a marvelous place for families, totally oriented towards kids. Tonight was a barbecue with all kinds of activities for the children – bouncy castle, face painting, games, prizes, hayrides, etc. Towards the end of the evening, Grace came running across the field towards me, eyes streaming, visibly crying. I was talking to a friend who coincidentally is here too, standing with her 2 year old.

“What’s wrong, Gracie?” I asked.

“Whit threw the sticker I gave him on the ground!” she sobbed, hiccuping between words. The story, as I gathered it from her broken and interrupted telling, was that she had selected a sticker for Whit for her prize and he’d rejected it. She bawled that she would have chosen something else if she knew he was going to throw it on the ground.

“Hey, Grace, what if you gave the sticker to Bodhi?” I nodded towards the 2 year old, who was watching Grace, transfixed.

She immediately stilled. Considered the idea. She shrugged and proffered the Star Wars sticker to the little guy, who took it from her hand with a huge smile. He leaned in towards her shoulder and kissed it. “Fank you, Gwace,” he murmured.

I thanked my friend, grateful for the kindness of her son. Grace tugged at my hand, face paint streaked with tears, dragging me towards the ice cream line. My friend and her son came with us, and introduced us to her father, standing behind us. They then drifted away. As Grace and I stood in line, her tears came again. She reiterated that Whit had hurt her feelings.

“Grace, there are going to be a lot of hurt feelings in your life.” she looked at me, chin trembling. “I can only promise you this: most people don’t mean to hurt your feelings. Remember that,” I wiped a tear away from her cheek, coming away with black and orange paint on my finger.

“And there will be lots and lots of wonderful feelings too,” chimed in my friend’s dad with a rueful smile. “Lots.”

Yes, there will, Gracie girl. Lots of hurt and tons more joy.

And lighten up, Lindsey!

Right now my head and heart are running dry. I feel exhausted in a bone-deep way. The words are eluding me.

But this kid? Well, he’s priceless. He can be serious, but usually, he’s not. The material keeps on coming.

****

He didn’t fall asleep last night until 9:30, and for about half an hour before that lay in bed singing California Gurls to himself. Grace somehow can tune him out, which is a skill that I’m pretty sure she’s had to develop to survive. Then he got up at 5:30 and started talking. At 7:20, as we walked into breakfast, I think it’s possible that my normally impenetrably calm, Zen, mother-of-the-year facade cracked slightly. Responding to this, he stopped in his tracks.  He sighed, resignedly, and said, “OK, Mummy, how about I give you a break from questions for a while?”

Sounds good, Whit.

****

The other day Whit was short-circuiting from being tired and overwrought and generally falling apart. He was half-whining, half-crying, dragging his feet as we walked home from the camp bus. He finally burst out, “Mummy! I’m hungry! I’m tired! I am thirsty!” He sobbed.  “I don’t know what I am, but I’m something!”

That’s a feeling I know.

****

Apropos of absolutely nothing, on the long airplane ride home from Legoland, Whit elbowed me urgently.

“What?”

“Do you know what the problem with turtles is, Mummy?”

“What??”

“The problem is they have short legs so when they flip over onto their backs they can’t get back over.”

I tell you, spending an hour inside his head would be comedy.

****

Last week, after dinner, when I was trying to wrestle Whit into the submission of sleep, he began agitating that he was hungry.

I glimpsed a pretzel from a couple of hours earlier on the floor. I scooped it up without his noticing (I thought) and handed it to him. “Here, eat this.”

We walked upstairs towards the bath. Through his mouthful, Whit asked me, “Did you just give me food from the floor?”

“Yes, Whitty, I did,” I sighed. “That’s just the kind of mum I am.”

“That’s the kind of awesome you are!” he exclaimed.

Fynn tip toes through the hallway of his grandparents house. Textured white walls, cool for the Florida summers, snapshots of his and his sisters babyhoods hung in every room. Only starting to become familiar with the rooms and space, he ducks into a dark, windowless bathroom. He’s looking for shadows…. for Monsters. Armed with a blue flashlight as big as his arm, and a grin, he looks behind the door.

“Monsters!!!”

I ask if he’s scarred. He’s not.

“They’re just shadows, Mommy. Now lets find that cave!”

And off we go down the hall to my parents bedroom, facing shadows turned Monsters turned back to shadows with the glare of a beam of white light. My three and a half year old walking with a bobbing head and dance in his step, full of courage as he tames fears and darkness.

We’ve seen the episode of Curious George at least a hundred times. Monsters in the dark, George frightened and the Man with the Yellow Hat saving the night with a flip of a switch. Shadows from every day objects brought Monsters to life for George. The power goes out at the house in the country, lights unavailable, flashlights found and turned on, George is able to take care his Monsters by himself. Or maybe the scene happened in a cave, or was an entirely different episode. They all blend together in my mind, watched during the pre-dinner rush of dishes and pans waltzing from counter to stove to sink.

The dark hours are the times I struggle. The strength and courage I face the day with dwindles as fatigue sets in. Shadows of memories turn to Monsters. Finding a safe flashlight, one with a clear beam, is the biggest challenge of my recovery from alcoholism {or is it with? It’s never going to disappear… over three months into sobriety I still have trouble with the lingo}

The old source of light came in the form of a bottle, smelling sweet and acidic. It only smudged the Monsters, leaving them blurry enough so they blended into the walls and I could sleep. Not comfortably but I slept, though they were always there.

Now I don’t sleep. I’m learning, slowly, how to face them with a new light, a new source of power and clarity. Perhaps a lighthouse beacon instead of just any old flashlight… Facing them with this new illumination is difficult. It takes patience to steady my shaking hand, to quiet the mind and see and listen and turn them back into shadows inch by inch. But it takes time, and many nights staring at the walls and ceiling, in silent prayer and mediation. Hoping for a miracle within myself, or for The Man with the Yellow Hat to come walking in and calmly turn on the light.

We spend twenty minutes giggling and looking for Monsters. Searching cave after cave. Breathless, I ask him where he learned to be so brave, where he found his courage.

“George, Mommy. George goes into the cave with a flashlight and he’s not scared anymore.”

I’m arming myself with a flashlight, shining a beam of three and a half year old courage and bravery, hope and acceptance, onto the dark walls that house the Monsters. Created by years of numbing and shoving elsewhere, they’re on their way to becoming shadows again. It’s about time.

My father’s brother, Jonathan, died in the 80s at the age of 36. I don’t remember very much about his service (I was 8 or 9) but I do remember my father, brown-haired and glossy-eyed, wearing a dark suit, standing at the pulpit of the church and reading High Flight by John Magee. His voice was steady but full of emotion, and I recall like it was yesterday gazing up at my dad from the hard wooden pew next to Hilary. It was one of those moments that I felt like I was floating outside myself, watching, even as I experienced it. I had never heard High Flight before, but I’ve heard it many times since. And every single time, I’ve thought of Jonathan, who was a blue-eyed engineer, a passionate glider pilot who loved the skies and his two blond boys in equal measure.

Today, walking through the Shelburne Museum in the pouring rain, I was stopped dead in my tracks by a plaque bearing the names of soldiers lost in World War II and the words of High Flight. My voice caught in my throat as I paused and told Grace and Whit all that I remembered about Jonathan. In the most unexpected place (northern Vermont in the rain) I found myself thinking of my dad, and his brothers, and the ways that both the ocean and the sky can introduce us to divinity, and the way that tragedy can swoop down and alter our lives forever.

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

- John Magee, 1941