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It was a heron there, lumbering above the water—always auspicious, or so I had deemed these sightings years earlier. This was a new road, to another person, a home visit, the dispensing of some help, or hope, as the job requires. Sometimes a call comes from a nearby street, sometimes on a road miles away.
Hard to offer hope when life dispenses bad news. Incurable diseases, life-altering accidents, or something gone wrong from birth: this is the world I see day after day, home after home. I offer not hope, though, but options, or so my job says. I offer options for people to stay in their homes, or anywhere out of a nursing home or whatever other institution may beckon the likes of them. I offer options for lives gone wrong, for lives to be right.
What I offer more is time, and ears to hear the stories of these lives, often long, memories entangled among old thorns that grow sharper as the years go. I wish to tell these stories, but to do so would be betrayal. I absorb the stories instead, and hang them to the roads I see, the birds, the trees and paths that lead me to them and away.
These miles are oddly satisfying. Wandering has never been my forté, despite youthful dreams of faraway places. The town, the people: yes! That sort of adventure… But in my adult life, I have sought roots, community, company, laughter, support. For all the wishes for exotic locales, I found adventure, then grew up. I craved what I might have left behind. The lonesome road never held much appeal for me, at least, not as a way of life.
Some hitch a ride with the wayward wind and head off to never-ending adventure. Such is the cult of the cowboy, the loner, the rebel. It is a romantic notion, this wandering, this quest. It may offer refuge, in its way. The road may offer a way out.
And you? Wander on, go, if you like. If you do, your door remains shut, your home ever empty. Perhaps I’ll never find you.
The road may offer a way in. I had forgotten that. I had forgotten the road long and winding that leads not to wandering, but to a door, the door. I had forgotten the odyssey. I had forgotten you.
Perhaps I’ll find you.
The rainy weather this summer has dampened some things, but not my determination to drive less. Indeed, rising gas prices, despite the recent drop, remain at levels that I considered scandalous just a year ago. I am resolved to stay home more often, to shop nearby when I can, and to walk whenever possible.
As a kid in a nearly unwalkable city, I walked, or biked. In cities with better sidewalks, I walked, with a baby, even when it was inconvenient–everyone else did, too. Rural life was different. Ten miles down a hilly road with no shoulder was just a little too much adventure for me just to go to a general store, especially with four small children. And now, in typical suburban laziness, the hour-long round trips to the store seem extravagantly time consuming.. or maybe I have not always found it entirely feasible to drag everything home on foot–after all, the grocery cart fills faster as kids grow. But when I think reasonably, I do own a push-cart, and I often spend nearly as much time in traffic, badly timed stop lights, and parking, and then I spend time exercising on top of that. Walking to the store really is time efficient!
Of course, losing my job, a forty-five minute car drive away, has helped with this mode of thinking. My new career does not involve commuting except occasionally. This is not to say that walking is always practical. I really wish that I could sell my car, rely on public transportation for longer distances, and find more things more conveniently nearby, renting a car occasionally. But efficient public transportation just is not common in these parts. And while I can walk an hour for groceries, it really is shameful in a place with so many sidewalks that I cannot find most of what I need around the corner. I can buy Fritos, but no apples; doughnuts, but no eggs. There is a problem with that! If only for fresh produce, good coffee, books and a well-swept street, I would feel more connected to my neighborhood. Perhaps now is our time, a new beginning, an invitation to look into our neighbors’ faces, see their flowers in bloom as the seasons change, and breathe.
As I say this, though, I also notice real estate signs in many yards, evidence of empty houses, unsold property, abandoned dreams. Yesterday, Donald Trump–of all people–was on television advising people who have received foreclosure notices not to leave their houses as they have been told, and instead to stay until they can work something out with the bank. Let’s hope that we really can figure this all out, and that people do not vacate in panic. We need our hope. In a car-dependent existence, we are often quick to speed across town, or towns, in search of our desires, while maybe we can have what we need right here, where we live. We need our neighborhoods, now more than ever. We need to reconnect, to build our communities, and to rediscover our homes and our hearts. In times that seem unsure, especially, we need one another.
“That night we moved closer to the border, and clear across the prairie, at the very edge of the horizon. We could make out the gas fires of the refinery at Missoula, while to the south we could see the lights of Cheyenne, a city bigger and grander than I’d ever seen.
I felt all kind of things looking at the lights of Cheyenne, but most important, I made up my mind to never again tag around with a hell-bent type, no matter how in love with him I was” (Sissy Spacek as Holly, in the movie Badlands, 1973).
I recently had a moment of fond reminiscence of dangerous days, the thrill and passion of grasping tight while the wind and the world hit me head-on. Then I woke up.
There are all sorts of reasons that taking off in pursuit of adventure may seem like a fine thing to do, but in the end, most of them seem to involve running away from, rather than to something. The vague idea of adventure was a dream I inherited, a place I guarded in the back of my mind as an option whenever I was faced with too much unhappiness in too short a time.
Until I was in my late 20s, I never did much more than ponder that option. A few times, I felt myself drawn to the flame, flittering perilously close to entanglements that would break my heart, and did—but not irretrievably so. I jumped a few times, but felt that elastic pull back, bungeeing me back into a predictable existence to idle on the lookout for my own truth.
I wonder sometimes if it is a part of growing up, or if it is a part of growing up unhappy that leads a person find truth in sublimation. Sometimes I find that truth in words, my own words, a world on a page, or in a heartbeat, a smile, a carefully placed step and a song, a moment of pure grace. This is a sort of joy.
Try as I might, though, I never found joy on the back of a motorcycle, holding on tight while someone else drove through the unknown vistas and back roads. I did venture once, untethered at last, straddled the back seat of an adventure and never went home again. But where I ended up after that, I expected to stay.
I guess I should have known this was not a ride meant for settling, for bonding, or for discovering ourselves. The never-ending voyages tugged, threatening roots that grew ever deeper. “Why leave? Why not stay and see the flowers, the fruits, this life we created?” I wondered. Garden with me.
“Come alongside me,” he said, and I followed, while I still could. The urge to flee returned tirelessly, a malignant tumor, seeking still more—but what?—some indefinable thing that could ravage me in the process. One day, farther from joy that I ever imagined, I stayed behind; he left. But he could come home, to walk among it, to reclaim this life, this beautiful, imperfect life that had grown, with the weeds and thorns to disparage. He could come home, if only to pick the best fruits from among them, to look at love and believe it would always wait.
I wonder, what hidden parts of ourselves only find expression in actions that seem to defy what life passes to us, even what we choose? I wonder what makes us feel more alive when we speed through space, feeling the vibrations through our skin, into our minds, testing the very limits of our physical life, and abandoning in those sublime moments all that has meaning here on Earth.
And then… what makes us feel justified to return, perhaps unscathed, perhaps damaged irreparably, always hoping to be cared for and loved by the ones we left behind…. or at least, not forgotten?
I wonder what the seeker seeks, if he even knows, or is it the search that he lives for, the never-ending journey? What comfort does the road bring? Perhaps it is the moving skylines, the exchangeable faces, the well-polished security of the new and unblemished. Perhaps the road brings an illusion of perfection, and the safety of never truly being known.
It is with utter amazement that I announce my first purchase with an as-yet-unearned paycheck from the new job. Ladies and gentlemen, I have bought myself a leaf blower.
Now, this is no ordinary leaf blower. According to Consumer Reports, it is the top-rated blower/vac system for its size and price range, rated above the gas models (it is electric), and it is mine.
You may be asking yourself, why power tools? Why not something to wear, like a beautiful piece of jewelry? Why not a nice meal with friends? Why not a purchase that would bring great pleasure, like Brad Mehldau’s new CD?
Well, friends, the yard is a mess. We spent about ten hours last week getting to know one another, me and my leaf blower, but in the end, I can say that while things are looking neater, I am only more aware looking around of how much work I have to do to get things in shape around here, and I think I may need to look beyond the leaf blower for help.
If you page back to last August in these little musings, you will find some remarks I made about home repairs. I did indeed start chipping away at paint with a metal scraper, all with the best of intentions. If you read the following few entries, however, you will find that during the two weeks last year that my kids were gone, I rode my bike, took naps, listened to Lou Rawls and June Tabor, went out (don’t recall how much I actually wrote about that), and had a general all-around good time. I did not paint, repair drywall, or build shelves. I could argue that my lack of power tools was standing in the way of progress.
The only problem is that it is not true. I do own a few tools, a drill, a sander. I have not yet found the sander, but it somewhere, behind the stacks of still unpacked boxes that still inhabit my garage. The drill has been handy numerous times. Time to get these things out again, repair, rebuild.
The yard really is beginning to look a little better. Years of dog (the last owners’), sand (some just there, some thrown by the snow plows), and overhead trees make it a bit challenging, but it is a lovely yard, and a lovely house—with no problems that cannot be mended with a little care and love… and a little extra from time to time—hence the power tool purchase. I find myself seeking a restful balcony, an inviting entrance, and a porch to lounge on, room to wonder and a place where I can simply do, or maybe be… and a life that fills that house.
Oh, but I do, and I am, and I rest and invite, and yes, I do wonder. That life is already here. It already is, but sometimes I forget. Perhaps that life is just waiting for the right setting.
Has anyone seen my extension cord?
My friend’s neighborhood is about to be invaded by adults with Prader-Willi Syndrome.
This, apparently, is a problem.
The issue came to light recently, when the other house on the market—oh, my friend is trying to sell her house right now—sold, to an organization that places people with various disabilities in group homes. And get this: the group homes are in ordinary communities, right next to everyone else. In this case, it is one of the finest neighborhoods in town.
Some may call this inclusion.
My friend’s “neighborhood organization,” created solely around this issue, by the way, calls it a threat.
My friend, who also has a few kids with special needs, is incensed by her neighborhood’s reaction. Knowing my views on the subject, she called me. My advice? Go door to door and ask all the families who have kids receiving special education services to put up signs that say “THIS IS A GROUP HOME.” After all, what is the difference?
The agency that owns the home intends to go door-to-door to talk to neighbors in the community. The neighborhood association sent out emails suggesting that residents should not invite the agency representatives in. Instead, neighbors should wait for the public forum, with attorneys present.
And for what? To keep everyone who is “different” away from this elite group? Perhaps they see the group’s individual approach as a “divide and conquer” approach. But what if the neighborhood organization has simply made statements that only appear to reflect the opinions of all its members? What if the emails that the group sends out ask not for input from the community, but only determine the action that should be taken? What if someone disagrees?
I called a friend who deals with this issue, and others like it, often enough. The suggestion: nada. The group has mobilized, and a relevant state agency, Commissioner included, has already been notified of the neighborhood’s intentions to fight this home tooth and nail. Do they have a case? Well, sure. It’s a case, as long someone makes it one.
So, after a few days of incited work to educate the community, I am calmed by my friend in-the-know. “They’ve made up their minds. They don’t want to hear your side,” he says. He has seen a lot of this before, so I believe him. But I do not want to. These neighbors just don’t want to hear the worth of people with developmental disabilities! My friend tells me this. And this guy is one of the most unflappable people I have ever known.
I do not deal with this realization so well on my own. After all, Prader-Willi… well, kids with Prader-Willi are not so different from my own kid. In fact, he has been tested for it, because he’s a food-loving kid with low muscle tone, cognitive impairment, a sweet temperament, and according to this group, no value! When he grows up, will no neighborhood want him either?
Here is a description of a few Prader-Willi symptoms, in far more detail than anyone wants to read:
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Neonatal and infantile central hypotonia, improving with age
Feeding problems and poor weight gain in infancy
Excessive or rapid weight gain between 1 and 6 years of age; central obesity in the absence of intervention
Distinctive facial features—dolichocephaly in infants, narrow face/bifrontal diameter, almond-shaped eyes, small-appearing mouth with thin upper lip and down-turned corners of mouth
Hypogonadism—genital hypoplasia, including undescended testes
and small penis in males; delayed or incomplete gonadal maturation
and delayed pubertal signs after age 16, including scant or no
menses in women
Global developmental delay before age 6; mild to moderate mental
retardation or learning problems in older children
Hypothalamic dysfunction is thought to be the cause of the disordered appetite/satiety function characteristic of PWS. Compulsive eating and obsession with food usually begin before age 6. The urge to eat is physiological and overwhelming; it is difficult to control and requires constant vigilance.
Infants and young children with PWS are typically happy and loving, and exhibit few behavior problems. Most older children and adults with PWS, however, do have difficulties with behavior regulation, manifested as difficulties with transitions and unanticipated changes. Onset of behavioral symptoms usually coincides with onset of hyperphagia (although not all problem behaviors are food-related), and difficulties peak in adolescence or early adulthood. Daily routines and structure, firm rules and limits, “time out,” and positive rewards work best for behavior management. Psychotropic medications—particularly serotonin reuptake inhibitors, such as fluoxetine and sertroline—are beneficial in treating obsessive-compulsive (OCD) symptoms, perseveration, and mood swings. Depression in adults is not uncommon. Psychotic episodes occur rarely.
Motor milestones are typically delayed one to two years; although hypotonia improves, deficits in strength, coordination, balance, and motor planning may continue. Physical and occupational therapies help promote skill development and proper function. Foot orthoses may be needed. Growth hormone treatment, by increasing muscle mass, may improve motor skills. Exercise and sports activities should be encouraged and adaptations made, as needed. Proficiency with jigsaw puzzles is frequently reported, reflecting strong visual-perceptual skills.
Hypotonia may create feeding problems, poor oral-motor skills, and delayed speech. The need for speech therapy should be assessed in infancy. Sign language and picture communication boards can be used to reduce frustration and aid communication. Products to increase saliva may help articulation problems. Social skills training can improve pragmatic language use. Even with delays, verbal ability often becomes an area of strength for children with PWS. In rare cases, speech is severely affected.
IQs range from 40 to 105, with an average of 70. Those with normal IQs typically have learning disabilities. Problem areas may include attention, short-term auditory memory, and abstract thinking. Common strengths include long-term memory, reading ability, and receptive language. Early infant stimulation should be encouraged and the need for special education services and supports assessed in preschool and beyond.
General health is usually good in individuals with PWS. If weight is controlled, life expectancy may be normal, and the individual’s health and functioning can be maximized.
The constant need for food restriction and behavior management may be stressful for family members. PWSA (USA) can provide information and support. Family counseling may also be needed.
Adolescents and adults with PWS can function well in group and supported living programs, if the necessary diet control and structured environment are provided. Employment in sheltered workshops and other highly structured and supervised settings is successful for many. Residential and vocational providers must be fully informed regarding management of PWS (http://www.pwsausa.org/syndrome/basicfac.htm).
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And really, what would be so bad about anyone with any disability living here? What if the group included those with mental illness? What if they were supported, trying to live a life within a community? Do they not have the right to do that?
All right, readers, this is just not right. Last year I had the rare opportunity to be a fellow in a LEND program. LEND stands for Leadership Education in Neurodevelopmental Disabilities, and I entered the program with no more credentials than the ones you get from being a parent, and perhaps a determined parent. There we fellows spent our Thursdays and Fridays on the grounds of the Fernald Developmental Center, an institution, a constant reminder perhaps of what we did not want for the future. It was one of the most challenging years of my life, and I can only hope that the late-night hours spent struggling to finish papers on disability policy issues were not for naught. The effort should be more, part of a bigger picture. I wanted the training so I could help change the world. And if it takes the rest of my life, I will fight in whatever way I can for the rights of “those people” to live as people not in places like Fernald, not away from “us”, but with “us”, in “our” communities.
You never know when “one of them” is really “one of us.”
Well, yes. Actually, you do. After all, we are all only temporarily abled, and maybe not always at optimum ability level, even at that. It is all a part of the human condition that we seem to fear so much.
This, from the Developmental Disabilities Act of 2000, sums it up well enough for now:
“..disability is a natural part of the human experience that does not diminish the right of individuals with developmental disabilities to live independently, to exert control and choice over their own lives, and to fully participate in and contribute to their communities through full integration and inclusion in the economic, political, social, cultural, and educational mainstream of United States society… ” [underline mine]
And now the real challenge, when preaching a cause seems so easy… I will try.. be it so hard, to understand and hear the fears of the people who want to keep these “different” people–all “different” people–out. I will try to understand. We are not all so different, and we all have our fears, our prejudices.
Perhaps we are also all a bit different, but we can still love our neighbors.
All right, this is the biggest thrill of all. The kids, the three who came home, yes, they are home. For all the rest and relaxation I needed so much, I missed them. My oldest is almost twelve, so he ran in the house, looked around, and said, “Wow. You cleaned,” before he headed upstairs with a bin of Legos he could barely hold. The girls ran from room to room saying “Hello kitchen! Hello basement! Hello room!” Then they put on the Spice Girls (my almost-twelve-year-old loved “Naked” when he was about two and a half—don’t tell his first date). It was “Mama,” and they said it was for me. A dedication. How sweet! My six year old informed me after squirming around a bit that she even missed the toilet here.
So they are home, running around, not dismissing today parts of dinner that will inspire a scowl tomorrow. It’s new again. It’s all new, really, with one not here. Yes, I still miss him. Everything seems new. My oldest starts middle school Tuesday, and needs a pile of binders and folders to organize his life in exactly the way that every other kid in sixth grade will be organized. I think he grew. He wants an electric guitar. I thought I had talked him into the acoustic, but apparently I created a monster when I suggested guitar at all. The girls have slipped the Spice Girls CD into the karaoke. They already know all the words, and I know which girl grabbed the mic, and which one grabbed it back. There is a mish-mash of musical bits all over the house right now. Joe Henry down here, Linkin Park in my son’s room. I love the noise. Some noise is quiet now, but in our hearts, always here.
My friend’s washer broke, and she is coming over to throw her kids’ laundry in before we drink some coffee on the porch and watch the kids. They will be looking for the two-year-old neighbor, who has been checking daily to see if my kids are home to take a walk with her. The next-door kids should be back from Colombia tonight or tomorrow. The sky is bright pink, and the kids are running down the sidewalk, then climbing the Japanese maple in the backyard.
And it is true: my house is clean, maybe even inviting. It is really quite remarkable that I accomplished anything at all, considering that I feel refreshed after what felt like nothing but luxury.
But this, this is luxury: small hugs so big they embrace the whole world.
Today, on this beautiful summer day, I am on day two of my time without children. It is time to paint. No, not artwork right now. I really don’t know exactly what I am doing, I admit. This is my first attempt at exterior house painting, and I am reluctant to get too high on the ladder. Still, the chipping paint has been irking me for some time, and I can do something about it right now, before winter comes to battle the woodwork again. Yesterday’s downpour was a bit unfortunate, but I have time and desire to make something better.
At some point in my life—actually, one night in Vermont, when I was sick of peeling wallpaper—I decided to do some simple home repairs. The wallpaper was easy enough to fix: I found the pieces that had been left on the floor, and glued them back. Voila. It dawned on me at the time that the house could be much nicer without that wallpaper, historic though it may have been, but we were about to move, and I let things be. It was in the next house that I made my changes.
The next house was nice, but not my dream, a dark house whose front did not face the street, but a path along the side of the house. No one came to the front door. It hardly mattered, though, because the house was set back from the street a long way—I could not see the street from my driveway without walking about halfway down. I realize that for some people this is a dream, but not for me. We were in a suburban neighborhood, but so secluded that we barely saw it. For someone who enjoys sidewalks and city bustle, it was hard. Harder still was the austere feeling of the house itself. Maybe for real estate purposes, maybe for personal preference, the previous owners had painted many walls a stark white, where the dull browns and overbearing toile wallpaper were not left up. It was a dark, sad house, which may explain why the previous owner was going through a divorce and making wine in his basement.
I did have to admit, though, there were some nice things: a sun porch with a cathedral ceiling, a wall of rhododendrons that were blooming magenta flowers when I saw the house, and the mix of seclusion and convenience that I knew would be a necessity if I really wanted to move that summer.
I had to spend a lot of time in the house. Before we moved, I had sought out the special education services my son would need. The town had set up full-time home therapy for my son, to start the week after we moved. It was incredible, but it also meant that I had to stay home for most of the day while the services were going on. I was new to town. I couldn’t leave the house to seek out the other kids in the neighborhood, and my own were too young to go wandering alone. So I decided to make things better. The first thing I did was to start working out. The other was to change the house.
I moved furniture around, but the house was still dark. On one of my first weekends that my then-husband was away, I realized that paint could make things better. I loaded up the kids, and headed to the hardware store with a plan. It was Friday night. By Sunday morning, the bathroom was jalapeno green and beautiful, if I do say so myself. To this day, my older son asks me if I will paint the bathroom here the same color.
I did not stop there, continuing over the North Carolina motorcycle week to paint the kitchen sunshine yellow and an orange whose name escapes me. There were bricks exposed in most of the kitchen, and I painted yellow above them. In the part without bricks, the orange went below the chair railing. I had a sunny kitchen. I hung a painting. I found a print in Montreal—a fairly common one, with a clown inside an orange peel, selling Campari. Color. It made all the difference to me. I patted myself on the back when several months later I saw a similar color combination in Architectural Digest. Trendsetter, I was… (well, actually probably not, because those articles must be shot long before the magazine comes out). But I loved it.
Many came and went from the house with their own opinions, but it was clear that the house was becoming mine. I ripped down the impractical shelves in the laundry area and put up ones I liked better. That was the next home improvement. Nothing was stopping me anymore. I repaired a stair. I patched a crack in the concrete. I stained a deck. I learned how to take the hinges off the door from the garage to break into my old house. I mended the drywall that my son kept destroying in his room. I repainted. I put up padding on his walls. I installed a light. Fall came, and my son started going to a half day of school.
In the midst of all of this, something strange was happening to me. I was playing my music a little louder, and started helping with an ESL group in the school. I started to meet people, learn my way around. It was so different from Vermont. There were other parents to talk to about our kids with autism. I could run to the grocery store for rice milk after dark, and I had figured out the short way to get there.
Other things seemed so much clearer, too. I realized that some things, things I had always taken as my burden, were in fact simply problems that needed to be addressed. My younger son had a good program at last. Things there were going well then. The challenges at home persisted, though. It was a long journey, looking for the right thing for my oldest, always thinking a gifted program or a sibling club for children with special needs would make all the difference for him. We met with therapists in Vermont around those issues. My older son drew a lot of pictures of his anger. Well, someone visiting our home did mention that she thought he might need more help than that. The girls were bright, but they never attacked the way their oldest brother did. He was a whiz at so many things, but so quick to anger, so insatiable when he was angry. A lot of changes came from the move. Maybe he was reacting to those. I talked to his teacher ahead of time about the fears. A fire alarm could set him off for days of tears and refusal to go to school. A dog bark could send him inside for the rest of the day. It did seem like a lot of things set him off. What was happening?
As it had for some time, a tornado raged inside my house. In the middle of one, I called a therapist who was recommended on a listserv about special needs. He was supposed to be the one to calm the storm for kids who make them. We made plans, tried to stick to them. It never seemed to be enough. The daily battles continued, then the tears, the late night talkativeness and the amazing Lego creations after midnight. He seemed an unusual child, intense. He was the challenge, the joy, the indigo child, the explosive child. There was a section in my library devoted to how to parent him, nearly as big as the one for his brother. It was hard to see, until my son with autism was receiving a visit one day from the program consultant. She pulled me aside and told me that she considered it a crisis. Wow. She was worried. She asked me if she could call the therapist. She did.
So, the next week, when my younger son was visiting our new pediatrician, we chatted. “How are the other kids?” Oh, fine, well, mostly. Actually, it was kind of scary. I said so. Daily threats. Rooms torn apart. A kid who loved to talk and take things apart, and could make detailed plans for intricate machines. Something set off bells in the fine doctor’s head. Yes, I went back to talk to him. In the weeks to come, everything inside the colorful walls began to change. I started writing again—something I had hardly done in years. As I did, it all began to make sense, and I kept writing trying to make it all right. It was. It was all right. Whatever it was, it was going to be better, and it is. It is better. Different, but better
Yesterday my mom called to see if I wanted her waffle iron.
Today, she was trying to remember how many windows are in my girls’ room, and what size the windows are.
She has been concerned about this sort of thing lately, because she is preparing to move from the house she has lived in since 1967.
Forty years. I am forty-two, and, yes, this is the house I grew up in. It is the same house with the same basement I described in my first journal post here. It is the same house that has the mostly dry creek behind it, and used to have acres and acres of woods beyond that. It is the house I sometimes hated to come home to when I was young and wanted to fly, the house I was sometimes relieved to see. It is the house where I dreamed those dreams of faraway places. It is the house that I always think of when I think of my childhood. And soon, it will be someone else’s house.
This is hardly an unknown event. We all grow up. Most of us leave. I left home in a flash, literally, making up my mind in two hours to pack a suitcase, kiss my mom goodbye, and climb into the passenger seat of a sports car headed to Colorado. It was a crazy thing to do, unprecedented even for me, at least on that scale. Up to then, my spontaneity had been limited to an afternoon, a week perhaps… not a lifetime. Lessons learned.
But it was still time to leave home. I never went back.
Some of the same neighbors still live in the same houses next to my mom. Most of them are very old now, and I have known them since I was a little girl. My mom is 76. She says now that she should have moved somewhere more convenient, smaller, after my dad died, years ago. I agreed at the time. I was 20, and hated going back to the ‘burbs when I quit college. I wanted my own apartment, and I wanted my mom to be the independent creature she seemed to have aspired to be. I had moved back home with her partly to help her, partly to help me. I went from door to door with my resume and found work. I was ready to leave my mark on the world when the time was right. In other words, I wanted to leave. In other words, I was determined not to die without living first. In other words, I wanted my mom to live, too, not become some lonely middle-aged woman in a ranch house with a boring job, a cigarette, and a television in the background. It frustrated me, and made me feel guilty at the same time… Who was I to judge?
We did live in a three-bedroom ranch, not unlike a lot of middle class St. Louis houses. It was a nice suburb, not the richest or most glamorous. My mom had worked before I was born, taught, dressed to the nines, drove a ’62 Galaxy convertible and had her pilot’s license. Her legacy to me: the clothes, the hats, the gloves, and 1950s lingerie. Amazing. The sense of adventure. Then she got married, pregnant (yes, in that order), went to PTO meetings, and never had a paying job again before my dad died.
When my dad finally did die (it was awful, slow, cancer), she agonized about what to do for a long time, as she does about most things. Finally, after getting fired from an evening stint selling some substandard product over the phone (unsuccessfully, which is why she got fired), she found a job in a kitchen design place. Never one to overstep her role, she cattily critiqued the designers, and was usually right, and went right on answering the phones and typing envelopes. Her boss offered her the chance to learn to design kitchens herself, but she never took him up on it. This lasted until she retired, several years after I had headed west.
She did all right, still does. It’s strange to think of her not sitting in the living room with a crossword puzzle and a cat on her lap, strange to think that she’ll be in a living room somewhere else. It’s strange to think of the bird feeders in the backyard—she will no longer have a backyard. Ah, the backyard, and its wildlife… My family had some strange customs, I realized later. One was feeding raccoons. When I was about five, a little masked thief was prowling around the backyard. My mom thought it was cute, and gave it a Hershey bar. It came back. Before long, we were feeding many raccoons regularly. Hershey bars were cheap, but those coconut-covered marshmallow puff things with the cookie bottom were even cheaper. With Mystic Mints as the choice, we also did not tend to eat the marshmallow things. At some point, my mom decided that the new wild pets needed a healthier diet, and started buying Chuck Wagon dog food–maybe that brand because my brother and I liked the commercials. We were lucky not to have skunks or larger, more ferocious wild things, and only saw the occasional possums in the mix. The birds cleaned up the leftovers the next day. I realize now that all this was a little odd. The brand of dog food has changed to Purina Dog Chow (it’s supposedly healthier), but by golly, my mom still feeds those raccoons. One night this week, I expect to hear a report on how big the babies have gotten. Her new neighbor, who has expanded her entire porch out into the woody hill, seems ready to take over the care and feeding of suburban wildlife. This, I believe, is a great relief to my mom.
Houses are containers of memories. I sometimes think about this at garage sales, and wonder about the lives that touched an ordinary object with a masking tape price: 25 cents. I can imagine the things that my mom will never be able to move, things I have no room to take, things my brother cannot use. A white pyrex dish with turquoise roosters around the outside reminds me of the rice that my mom made for nicer occasions, and the faces that sat around the table at different times that it was served. The big yellow bowl was for popcorn, on Sunday afternoons, made in the heavy frying pan, with a mismatched lid. A western was on the black and white television in the basement, and the fire in the fireplace was too hot, nice but making me sleepy on a day too cold and grey to lure any of us outside.
Once, after I had left home, I went to visit my mom’s aunt and uncle. They lived in St. Louis until I was around ten, and had always been like grandparents to me. Uncle Perry had left Poplar Bluff in his twenties, and talked about going back home. “You can’t,” he said. Things change, some remain, but the circumstances change, and you change. So what remains? What makes places and things hold us and call to us? Is it really the lamp on the corner end table? The Spode china? The piano with the recently repaired key? The button box? Oh, oh! these things enchant me and exhaust me.
No. Not the clutter. I think what we want is some piece of our lives, some tangible reminder of the stories, some mnemonic trigger to conjure up the faces, the precise feelings we still hold and cherish in our hearts. The comfort of things. And at some point, the courage to let them go.
An online dating service has asked me what I do on my typical Friday nights. I named off a few exciting things, that involve clinking glasses, snippets of overheard conversations, cars, night noises. It sounds like fun.
Wishful thinking, at least for this Friday.
Well, not true exactly, for the “wishful” part. I’m pretty happy, not too far off the general idea, so I do not really wish I were anywhere else than where I am right now. But I have a few other ideas about what I would be doing now that the house is quiet. The time is right. It is my weekend for kids, but duties are reduced tonight. Two kids are at their respective camps, doing the overnight option. Two are here, tucked in bed. And where am I?
Here, of course. At the very moment, here means sitting at my computer, typing these words. But here, in a more general sense, means at home. I like my home. I could neaten up a bit, but it’s a great place, full of the character I love in older houses. I need to hang more pictures. I need to paint. I need to do something in the yard. I still love this place. I have been busy. Life calls. Life changes. Life is life, and life is grand.
So, I have plenty of music, shelves of books, pictures, magazines. Plenty of distractions that I love. I also have a balcony, a nice enclosed porch below it, a Japanese maple in the backyard, and a blanket to sit on. I have wonderful bubble bath that aromatherapeutically is supposed to do something magical—I cannot quite remember what it is for this bottle. I have tea. I have wet hair and a towel. I am outside, drying it on the balcony. I see the lights on the street, a few stars. It’s hot, and I abandon the balcony for the quiet air conditioned comfort of my house, quiet after the noise of the day. Bebel Gilberto seems to fit whatever was in that bubble bath, and I can light candles and just lie around now. I don’t even feel like talking about her music, or even her father’s… which is rare for me. That is for another time, definitely. For now, though, it’s all about the moment. And this, for this week, is how I am spending my Friday night.
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 was in the oven, 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.
