Category Archive

Mr. Bunny is going to be disappointed… or more likely, my kids are going to be sad not to see Mr. Bunny hopping around our backyard jungle. Why?

The jungle is gone. Anticipating today’s heat wave and the mosquitoes that normally come with it, I woke up early to pull the lawn mower out of the garage for the first time this year.

I realize it’s a little late, but if you saw my yard, you would understand how I have gotten away with not cutting the grass all spring. There is practically no grass. The yard itself is small, but not tiny, and it should have grass. Instead, it is a mixture of sand, rocks, mulched leaves, pine needles, and weeds. Oh…. and legos. Lately, though, the weeds have gotten a little high, providing nourishment for the rabbits, but a big, buggy mess for me. The time to cut had come.

Over the past several years, I have developed a thing for power tools. They come in handy for projects, and there is something almost cathartic about cutting things down, or blowing them away, making holes in them, sanding them smooth. I am a year older and wiser now, and I have started buying my own peonies again, and have more or less given up on the idea of finding true love. So, in the spirit of do-it-yourselfness, I find myself enjoying these little moments of accomplishment more than I resent them, much to the disbelief of my mom and brother. It is true that they were the ones watching This Old House while I headed out the door on whatever night that show was on, but I did absorb a few things. Or at least, I have Google.

I didn’t need Google or This Old House just to mow the lawn. For one thing, I never recall a discussion of lawn mowing, or the importance of removing legos from the yard before mowing. Amazing how big a bruise those little plastic bricks can make! I finished, and swept up (could not justify getting out the leaf blower). I scraped more paint off the front porch (which is almost ready for the new coat). A shovel (or the leaf blower) may have been a more appropriate tool than a broom in my daughters’ room. Nonetheless, the past-due book (Roald Dahl’s The Twits, if you are curious) has been recovered, and no one will be hiding in the school bathroom during library this week.

It is after 10:00 on a warm Saturday night, and I find myself self-sufficient, happy to have a fresh-cut yard, a few loads of laundry folded, a shoveled-out room, groceries in the kitchen. I am happy, but also a little… Well, words escape me. I love my house, love my kids, love life.

But really, is this all there is? I do cherish the bunnies that hop into my yard, the delicious feeling of heat that overwhelms me, makes me feel lazy, and then invigorated when the cool shower water hits my face. I love the haze after rain lets loose unexpectedly, and the evening that becomes balmy.

Yes, I do love all these things, but somehow today I find myself noticing the absence of a smile returned, or a gesture offered. I miss kisses, words, laughter. I miss breaths, heartbeats, steps. I miss things I have never had, and maybe I miss things that do not exist. In all the busy days that run together with no time left for anything at all outside of the bare necessities of life, I find it hard to stop—there is always more to do—and I wonder again, is this really all there is?

I love this life, this beautiful, imperfect life.. if only to know it, to wallow in it… but yes, I need more than power tools and a never-ending list of things to do. Passion, trust, fun… I want these things, too. I need them. And resignation never got me more than … resigned. Well, I am not quite ready to give in to cynicism.

Tomorrow is a new week.

I love walking in the woods. I hesitate to call it hiking, because I’m rarely in search of a summit, or conquering some trail. I hesitate to call it birding, because I feel none of the obsession or competitive spirit that I associate with that particular pastime. My fascination is neither botanical in nature, even if I like trees and other plants, know some of their names. I just like the woods, and I always have. It started before I even remember, way back in the wilds near Route 66 as it winds through St. Louis.

Route 66 was a wondrous thing when I was younger, but its true appeal was not a Target, or a strip mall, or a subdivision—which is apparently what people (or a market survey group) wanted, or at least did not argue. It is largely that whole thought process—the apathy for special things—that made me leave St. Louis when I did. Not that it is really different in other places, but it felt so personal twenty years ago. The drive-in movie theater—the first movie I saw was there—gone to build a huge grocery store. Shopping galore, chain restaurants, anything unique obliterated by the brightly colored coziness of a ubiquitous logo—could we really need more? I hear things about my hometown, and they sound nice. Could it have changed now? Would I like it better now, or would I cringe at the thought of I sometimes wonder, but it is no longer my city.

When I was younger, though, one of the great things about riding a bike down 66, or Laclede Station (which ran next to it) was that in the hot St. Louis summers, there were many areas of shade. Full stretches of land were undeveloped, still wooded. That was my backyard.

The old binoculars were kept on the shelf of the hall closet, often not handy enough to catch a clear view of whatever bird was pecking or perching on the oak tree down the hill. Still, we looked. Birds were important, it was clear from early on, and a sighting of something unusual would often result in an exchange of ringing telephones.

“Look outside! The flickers are back,” our neighbor Jean used to call.

“Did you see the great barred last night?” my mom answered.

“Mama mallard is down in the creek,” we all noticed while out in the backyard.

Our house was set on a hill, an ordinary ranch with a walk-out basement to a small backyard on a terrace, then down the rest of the hill to the creek. Beyond the creek was a large, level wooded area, which we were not supposed to explore—a rule we respected for quite some time—but the creek was open for exploration.

The creek was rarely full of water, though it could fill quickly in a downpour (we were caught a few times on the wrong side of one of those). There were still areas that were usually wet, some great for wading, which was our main pastime before we were allowed to wander farther. There were interesting rocks, sand, fallen branches. It was a great playground, one that grew as we grew older. It wound around forever, it seemed, went under Laclede Station Road at some point, and on to Watson Road, which is Route 66. I once tried to follow it to the River Des Peres, because someone told me that’s where it went.

The woods behind the creek were private property, but it was understood after some time that no one would stop us from being there. A ways down, the creek leveled off, anyway, and wandering was irresistible. A dead tree covered in vines, endless ground cover all around, no houses anywhere in sight: the area invited birds of all sorts. It was a wonderland. I had my favorites. Flickers, wrens, the owl, the occasional pileated woodpecker. I could walk for hours, often did, often found myself heading off instead of doing homework, exploring until late at times, until dinner was ready, or it was getting dark, or until I absolutely had to be back. For some time, my cat came along. She was sort of a wild thing, never warmed up much the way the Siamese kitties always had, but she followed me like a dog through the trails.

For all the time in those woods, I rarely saw another person. Occasionally someone was throwing grass clippings from one of the bordering yards, or a few kids wandered on their own creek adventures, but it was after the era when the high schoolers were avidly seeking that much privacy in wooded areas—maybe the thorns and bugs didn’t go with pink and green. The wildflowers sprouting up in spring, the leaves in fall, the barren cold brush where birds still hid, my own dreams—they were a private oasis.

The owner of the property lived in the area, but not on it. At one time, my dad entertained the thought of buying part of it, but never did. Instead, the owner eventually sold all of the land to a religious charitable organization—a move that sealed the land’s fate ultimately. It was developed, but despite (or maybe because of) the vehement opposition some residents expressed against the project, the cottages that were built were nowhere near as destructive to the woods as the budget castles and strip malls that popped up as land was clear cut on the other side of Laclede Station. I imagine, actually (and it astounds me to hear myself say this, as much as I disliked the idea of development at all), that those cottages are quite wonderful, surrounded as they still are by the trees and birds.

I am far, far from those days now, but woods still call me, birds do, trees do. I don’t have woods in my backyard now, but I find places, anyway—it is vital!—places to wander, explore, to remember and regenerate: places simply to rejoice the world and all its small and everyday wonders.

Larry the squirrel has taken up permanent residence around our dining room window. He has made himself notable by keeping up a corpulent physique, as you can see. He hangs out on our fence, and occasionally takes a daring leap, holding onto the outside of the window, peering in. I think he likes us. I don’t know why Larry was the first name that popped into my head for the creature, but my son thought it was funny, so it stuck.

You may wonder why I have had so much time on my hands to name squirrels, and why my son is home helping me name them. Well, I had fully expected to be back at my normal routine by Wednesday at 9am, but that was before Wednesday at 5am. It was at just that moment that my older daughter produced tangible proof that her tummy felt sick, as she assured me it did before she went to sleep the night before. She was staying home. Another hour later, her brother gave me evidence that he, too, could not be in school. That left one little first grader to return, all alone, on that big yellow bus, after ten days away. All alone, she reminded me. She started to make up a song about it. She does that kind of thing when she wants to make a point.

Even Larry was glaring at me by the end of it. I drove her to school.

I know that my little girl was especially concerned that her sister would spend the day learning the songs from High School Musical II, which they had just purchased themselves on Sunday. She was afraid that big sister would be the first to know “Humu humu nuku nuku apua’a” all the way through. I think my first grader really wants to play Sharpay herself.

No, I don’t think she wants to; I know she does. In fact, she told me that her new nickname is Ashley. She has taken to wearing sunglasses around the house, puts on leotards at night instead of pyjamas. When she reclines to go to bed, she breaks into “Fabulous,” and tells me, “I want MORE!” I’ll admit, she isn’t half bad. Between this and her sister’s Britney imitations, their brother has been groaning a lot. If I start in with the torch songs, he usually turns in early and puts on his earphones to Linkin Park… and he sings along (although he denies that).

This all started a long, long time ago, but really came to life last spring, when my little girl was a Munchkin in the Framingham High School production of the “Wizard of Oz.” It was there that she discovered that it is “not scary at all” to be on stage. In fact, she told me it was really fun, because you can hear people clapping, but when the lights are on, it is all about the “world up there,” as she called it. Her one regret–no, two: she didn’t get to be Dorothy, and she did not get to be in the Jitterbug scene.

Now, I mentioned a few nights ago some highly idealistic ideas I had long before I actually had kids about how they would be spending their free moments…. something about rehearsing Hamlet, I believe. Now, Shakespeare would be fine, not to mention impressive, but what I didn’t realize when I was twenty is that kids need to be kids. In other words, all those teachable moments I was envisioning really were more about who I thought my kids should be instead of who they really are. I just had no idea how special they really would be.

I may complain a lot about my kids’ not liking a lot of the music and musicals and movies and food and so many things that I think are just wonderful… But what I do love is watching them get really excited about anything that allows them to express themselves. (Um… except tattoos. And probably some other things they will ask me about in the next few years… I hope they ask me…) At this point, though, if it’s High School Musical and Hairspray, and they are also making up their own things about the little girl alone on the school bus, and the Pegasus and the unicorn, I am just going to enjoy the show. Larry the squirrel may enjoy it, too. I would not be surprised if there is a song about Larry soon.

And as for my little girl’s lost practice time, it turns out there were no “rehearsals” yesterday. My older daughter was pale, asleep, and feverish all day, and my son looked pretty pale most of the day, too. Larry was the only one up for theatrics, and even he wandered off for a rest at some point. Now, a day later, everyone seems well again, ready for rehearsals, ready for school, ready for life. And I am ready for bed.

“Did you see it?” my younger daughter pointed out the car window. “It’s there, there!”

The daily heron lumbered over the Farm Pond, toward the hospital, in search of better fishing, perhaps, or just part of the routine. Who knows?

I love herons. It amazes me that such a large, steady bird can just fly right over the neighborhood and downtown, largely unnoticed as people go on about their business. Seeing them, although not rare, is always an event for our family, perhaps just because I have made it one. I have always liked to watch them, pinning some hope for luck on them as if they were storks… although I don’t really need a stork’s brand of luck anywhere near my house. I love the way herons fold their necks into their bodies as they fly, but leave legs hanging, making their tallness graceful, but not graceful enough to lose charm. When they have found a nice, shallow river, they stand, silently, forever, it would seem, for the essential fish to swallow whole. They wait for what sustains them, and take it in a breathless and elegant moment.

The heron spotting for today happened in spite of rain that had started hitting the windshield lightly. Another rainy day, after all. In some ways, the rain seems a relief. We were all already wet, riding home from a swim, hungry, and a little cold, to be honest. The car doors open, and girls spilled out, running into the house. An hour remained before boys would return from camp. The girls ran a bath to warm up, dried off, put on pajamas (yes, pajamas) and took peanut butter sandwiches to the basement. They started drawing.

I made tea and watched them for a while. They were quiet, more likely exhausted after a very late bedtime last night. I was tired, too, working in morning, yes, the swim, too. I could have slept later this morning.

So, now I can sneak upstairs for a few minutes before the late afternoon. I crave my attic. Like the balcony, it is accessible only from my bedroom, my own private spaces. My records are there. Let’s see.. what for today? Glen Campbell, Todd Rundgren, Charlie Rich. Charlie Rich? No, maybe not a good choice for mid-afternoon. I opt for the Lovin’ Spoonful. Hums. Yes, “Rain on the Roof” seems pretty obvious. But what I want, two songs actually, are on a greatest hits album. Where is it? Yes. I have to hear “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice” (I love the way it adds the layers) and then, one that always makes my heart beat faster, “Darling Be Home Soon.” Never mind what the song does to me, I am just still impressed with the “dawdled”/”toddled” rhyme.

So, I put on the album, and gather myself. A big, round, fuzzy white rug covers most of the floor, and it is there that I sit, looking through the quarter-circle windows that really do open. I look down at the rain puddling up in the neighbors’ yards, and I look through the steam of my tea at the gas station down the street, the umbrellas bobbing along the sidewalk. I love this quiet moment. In a few minutes, it will be busy again, for a while. And then, later, in a few hours, it will be wonderful in ways that nights are wonderful, wonderful wishes, wonderful, graceful, lumbering words.

—————-
Now playing: Lovin’ Spoonful, The - Darling Be Home Soon
via FoxyTunes

Yes, I did note that one of the private things in my life is that I am a one-time horse-owner. I do not recommend it, especially if you feel the least bit intimidated by animals that are bigger than you are.

Forgive me, horse lovers. I have surely hit the nerve of some of you out there. I assure you, I voice my caution with utmost respect and admiration for the equine enthusiast. Indeed, I imagine that it is you, oh horsey friend, who truly understand the care and loving that these animals need.

So how did this all begin?

I was pregnant, pre-doctoral-exam and, looking back, half mad. I had gone from my normal coursework, teaching and student life to pre-mom panic near the hub of the universe. We lived in Brookline. We had just moved from Colorado, and I loved the hustle of the city and the feel of being in the East. But, when prompted sufficiently, I did have to agree that it was sort of noisy, and really expensive. So I entertained the notion of at least looking at houses one day while we were on a little getaway in the Northeast Kingdom. There were some nice houses, much cheaper, of course. Some were on beautiful, quaint commons. Some were in the woods. There was one stunning house, on pavement (as opposed to the ubiquitous dirt roads found in those parts), that just went with the image of canning and berry picking, and drinking tea on the back porch after a satisfying day’s work on a novel I had not started, or even considered writing… I would be embarrassed to admit falling for the whole thing, had not so many others been similarly seduced by this image of bucolic utopia. A few months later, we packed up the new baby and headed for the hills. It was March, and they were snowy hills, I might add. There was a LOT of snow, and it did not melt until May. Late May. It was forty degrees below zero the night after we moved in. Nothing melts when it’s that cold.

Although I found many things to love there, I felt a tad isolated—oh, I can tell more stories about that, too—when I lived in Vermont, and the horses were no help. Mostly, they took a lot of time. Now, you all may assume by reading this that I don’t take well to critters. Not true. When I was little, we fed raccoons in our suburban backyard. I was a big birdwatcher. As for bigger farm animals, as a little girl, I rode horses, albeit cautiously, nearly every time my family went to the country to see my aunt and uncle, about once a month. I was never the horsey girl who was in the equestrian troop of the Girl Scouts or wanted riding boots or read Black Beauty over and over at the age of eight, but it was pretty fun seeing my cousins and riding Dixie. (I also shot at cans with a rifle and drove homemade go carts too fast through the hills, but those are yet more stories for another time.). Dixie was gentle, and fun to groom and feed, and I really liked the barn. And then I went home and didn’t think much about horses. That was my experience with them.

So the question is sure to have come up in your mind by now. Why horses?

Well, the answer is simple. They came with the house.

The house we moved into was beautiful. It had two staircases—a dream I had growing up, because of the house where I used to take piano lessons. Add to that the push-button lights, three huge clawfoot bathtubs, pocket doors, leaded glass, a full walk-in pantry. It was elegant, wonderful inside. And outside were seven acres of perennial gardens on a gentle slope. Around the back was the entrance to the updated stables in the lower level of a three-story barn attached to the house. And there, in the stables, were the horses.

The big Morgan mix was twenty-six years old. Her name was Amber, and she was cranky. I couldn’t say I blamed her. The people who owned the house seemed to love her, and she loved them, and now they were going back to merry old England. The younger one—who turned out not to be that much younger—was named Marc Antony, or Tony for short. Tony the pony. Oh yes, he was a pony, and he was hell on wheels.. ahem, hooves. If Amber did not get out, Tony did. And if Amber did, it was usually because she was worried about Tony, who had already loosened the gate and headed down the field, or possibly the street. Have you ever tried to catch a naughty pony? The normal techniques I tried with cats sometimes worked. Tony liked oats, and occasionally came running if I shook the bag. When that trick failed, though, it was not fun, especially because I was not used to hip-deep snow, ice, and otherwise nasty conditions. So that was it for me. The care and maintenance of beasts, as well as starting the fire in the woodstove, were now in the hands of my then-husband. After nights up nursing, I had a good excuse to sleep in until seven a.m., after all.

There were still many coincidental worries around the animals. We were constantly running out of hay and feed, and the bit about shoeing them was more trouble and expense than I ever could have imagined. We had to lock the oats away from Tony, or he would eat too much and somehow develop founder, which is a scary condition I had never encountered. I felt that we were probably not doing everything quite right, and at best, were not giving the horses the opportunities to pull carts and be otherwise useful and productive. I had the idea that Tony’s shenanigans were as much a statement of boredom as a simple part of his personality.

Still, we kept the horses. I would have given up much sooner. Once, I was on my own for a couple of weeks. I was six months pregnant, had another baby in a backpack, and was shoveling manure. It was not a graceful or comfortable thing to do. In context, though, it did not seem like a big deal. What made it somewhat easier was the fact that many of the people I had met up there were dairy farmers. They were in cold barns working from four in the morning, sometimes with a young child or two in tow, sometimes pregnant, usually tired, and taking care not of pets, but of the animals who were their livelihood. I have never seen anyone work harder. They were often out there for hours later than any normal bedtime, repairing machines, tending sick animals, haying in the summer. I saw their raw hands and red faces, day in and day out, and I couldn’t really find it in myself to complain about a couple of cranky, but somehow amusingly mischievous horses.

Still, it was during my then-husband’s first long motorcycle trip that I realized the horses needed to go. By that time, number three child had arrived, and I realized that my role as a mother was turning into something I had not expected. My second boy’s delays in development across the board were quite evidently not cured by the various therapies I had set up, and a Leo the Late Bloomer scenario was becoming less and less likely. In June, my son was diagnosed with autism.

A neighbor gave me the name of the previous owners of the horses, and I called them. A few days later, they came and took Amber and Tony back to the horse farm where they had lived years before.

Strangely enough, after a couple of years, horses were exactly the thing that gave my son more than any other therapy he has ever had. I have no statistical data to prove this, and it could very well be argued that all the other efforts we had made just came together right then. It did seem like a miracle, though. He learned to walk, then run, after just a few rides on the back of a horse, a very calm horse—well, actually, a pony. I never knew this, but according to the occupational therapist who ran the show, humans ride horses comfortably because our gaits are the same. Horses are therapeutic, she said, because they give the rhythm of walking to those who don’t have it themselves. It seemed to be exactly the case for my son. And the magic continued. He said words he had never said before or since when the rhythm was right on the back of those animals. He smiled when he was riding, and rode on trails for several weeks with his brother one glorious fall.

Now, it takes a special sort of horse to be able to be a therapy horse, and I can tell you right now that Amber and Tony were a little past their prime for that kind of training. One thing was certain, though. I was no longer afraid of big animals. I stayed away from their backsides, more to avoid being kicked or stepped on than anything else, but aside from that, they didn’t scare me anymore. Chasing an ornery pony around the yard in the dead of a cold Vermont winter was a great way to dispel any fear I had.

So, when the time came to put my four-year-old son, who could barely sit up, in the saddle, I handed him over, watched him, and waited. I trusted, watched, waited, much as I do today, and will no doubt continue to do, as his life moves on at a different pace from the lives all around him.