Pedaling over to campus early this morning, I noticed a pair of flip-flopped feet next to the sliding door of a van. I could only see the feet. It was a mom-type person getting kiddos and their accouterments packed in.
In that tiny moment as I rolled by, I saw a baby, face grim and serious, peering at a book, and, as if woefully considering the implication of the Senate hearings, the wee bairn was all slumped over to the side in its car seat.
And I thought, I feel you, little one.
A few blocks later, I slowed to let a dad-type person and his daughter cross to the elementary school. Turned out, it was DEATH, the guy who always plays DEATH in The Christmas Revels. I don’t really know him, but we’ve chatted once or twice.
His daughter was just a small herself the first year he was DEATH, and my son Eli was in that show. So around the dinner table, we heard a lotta stories about this guy, who may or may not be a smidge quirky in real life, but who was especially entertaining during those sleep-deprived first months of parenthood.
We exchanged hellos, realized we only live a few blocks from each other, and wished each other a fine day.
This is one of those marathon stuck-in-the-booth gigs for me, so that glimpse of the slumped baby and the tiny exchange with DEATH were the right way to start the day.
Today I was pedaling home from an appointment and spotted a tiny guy walking his vintage Fisher Price pull-toy dog, exactly the one I’d had and loved. He was excited to see me, kept saying “HI!” in his biggest voice.
When I said hello, and he bent over laughing, grasping his knees like an old man.
“You’re walking your dog!”
And he popped right up, looked behind him, astonished, and his eyes and mouth became perfect, round O’s.
Then I wondered, what if adults behaved the way children do, with so much enthusiasm and delight?
And then I remembered my staff meeting yesterday.
My favorite student walked in, spread his arms wide, and in his best movie announcer voice, said, “NICOLE! I had… a FEVER… last weekend! I HAVE MONO!”
I was making some jokes about “the kissing disease” when another favorite boy walked in, looking lost and confused. I said hello, and he looked around and muttered, “Where is my husband? When will he return from war?”
“Who is your husband?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” *sigh* “I guess I’ll find out when he gets back from war.”
My work re-entry this last month has been hard. Post Mortal Peril, my brain has dumped so much information that I’ve had to relearn almost every damn thing. I have to think hard to remember events last year, students’ names. I’m tired. I don’t have time to write. It’s just hard.
Thank heavens I have these loony kids on my staff.
I was not yet weeping every day I wrote this. That would come a week or so later, when I’d count it a good day if I could hold off on the crying until after the noon hour.
The previous August I had spent a glorious ten days in Sitka, Alaska, house-sitting for friends. My sole responsibilities were feeding the cats and myself and watering a few plants. I took walks, met many lovely people, practiced fiddle tunes in the evening, and whipped out a draft of my book proposal.
The view from Mount Verstovia in Sitka.
By October, I was so strung out with exhaustion that when friends would ask about the book, I would have entirely forgotten that I had written 40,000 words.
Today, another year of healing and a new doctor who listens and has an actual damn plan to get me “back to medically boring,” and the world is new. Or, you know. Better.
I have the energy now to go to my job AND do other things. Like this “platform” for my “marketing plan,” gods help me. I foolishly spent the summer working on content, not realizing that even with the help of kind James at WPBeginner it would take infinity weeks to get launched. But, this website, with my own domain, is finally here, hallelujah.
And in the last week I have written two article drafts, a long-form essay, Sunday School with Ted Bundy and a shorter essay about my trip last July to explore natural burial sites with my friend Barbara.
I bought this sweet little antique cabinet for a song at a garage sale last weekend, from a couple in their 70s. The husband helped me load it into my car.
Wife: “Are you sure you can handle that, Karl?”
Karl: *grumbles*
He carefully laid the piece on a scrap of cardboard, then rolled it out on a handcart to my car.
Karl was keen to tell me how well-made it was, what a bargain I’d gotten. So I asked whether it had a story. Yes, they bought it when they lived in Europe, “and it was old then.” But Karl wasn’t really interested in telling me the story about that purchase.
He wanted to tell me about when they were first married, living in Burien. “We had nothing. Just a couple of Japanese pillows on the floor and some lawn chairs. This was, oh, fifty-one… fifty-two years ago.” They bought a table, “beautiful carved legs,” and four chairs at a junk shop, “and you know what? We have used that table every day ever since! Imagine. Built to last. What a concept.”
Built to last.
He gave me what would be called in a novel a significant look. Which may have been simply commentary on presswood furniture, which is everywhere and about all many of us can afford.
But. In the five minutes I chatted with his wife and daughter, it became clear that they were in the process of a massive downsizing. A lifetime of memories and stories coming to an end. Perhaps even death cleaning.
No wonder he grumbled when his wife asked if he could manage with the hand truck.
Home again, I shared my find on social media, and then immediately after heard the news that there had been another mass shooting. I’ve lost track of how many there were in the last week. (For a moment, it felt disrespectful to share my mundane delight.) And then I learned about soft targets, my friend Valerie explaining exactly how a bullet kills. “We are all soft targets.”
Bodies. Not so much built to last—as I was reminded a year ago. Although, life does seem to want to happen.
Barring a house fire or the big one, that charming cabinet will outlast Karl and his wife, and, presumably, me and my children, too. I hope I conveyed that I would care for and cherish this item, because I will.
One winter break when our #1 son was in about fifth grade, he was sick in bed, reading, and just finishing the fourth in Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. His father, Ross, came to me and said, “Where’s the next one? IS there a next one?”
I told him we didn’t have it yet, but, yes, the next one had just come out.
“Where is it? Does the library have it? Nicole. He’s almost done.”
He was not exasperated, exactly. He was on a mission, and evidently, I did not understand the urgency. (Like when I didn’t know to put a washcloth on a child’s feverish forehead, which Ross had learned was necessary and proper by watching Hoss on Bonanza.)
“They have the new book at Costco.”
Ross pulled his keys from his pocket and left the house.
***
I spent this past Thursday with my two favorite boys, the smaller favorites, who, like the big favorites, are serious readers. I had brought them a bag of books from my epic book purge, some to borrow, some to have, all beloved.
The next morning I noticed our stash of Unfortunate Events and realized I should have brought those along, too.
Not half an hour later, I happened across a fine article, which I shared with friends.
My brilliant chum Gwynne had also read a few, which she found to be “a hoot.: She reminded me that “Daniel Handler is unfortunately not one of our best people.”
Unfortunately.
I think I knew about the Handler kerfuffle and had either forgot it along with a whole ton of stuff I’ve forgotten since Mortal Peril™, OR I had… conveniently… misplaced that information.
(Pronounced con-VEEEN-iently.)
Lately I’ve struggled with separating the art from the artist. When do you draw the line? Where?
For instance, I loved David Copperfield and will continue to love the book and characters for the rest of my life. But after reading a devastating biography of his children, I cannot bring myself to read any more Dickens. He, too, was not one of our best.
Since then I’ve resisted the urge to read biographies of dead authors whose books I admire. With living people, who can still cause harm, it feels different, and I do look for some context when before I read their work. Often to my great disappointment.
In the art vs. artist dilemma, Gwynne has decided to not read male novelists, her “quick fix” for that genre.
And I briefly considered only reading fiction by dead males—or, to be clear, only reading fiction by males if they are already dead. But that’s a hard one because I’m besotted with Flavia De Luce, and Alan Bradley is not quite dead yet. Although he’s old, so could be any minute—also upsetting because a) I sure do not want the literary, delicious, pro-woman Flavia books to end, and b) Alan Bradley seems, from his work, at the very least, one of our best.
I have turned this over in my mind, and I assume I will continue to not have a good answer. And, sure, it’s nifty that our son was exposed to literary conventions, text and codex. But mostly, today, I am grateful for the context. I like the story in the story, the emergency run for the next volume. The lasting value, of course, is that our boys were raised by one of our best men.
Yesterday I spent the afternoon with my favorite small boys. While their grandmother was at the market, I helped negotiate the terms of war, which involved the hose, water balloons and pistols, and the usual amount of screaming and tears and what my own boys called “violent affection” — easily mistaken for going for the jugular.
“Will there be blood?” I asked.
“We can’t promise there won’t be blood, Nicole.”
(There was no blood.)
I was Switzerland.
After drying off, we moved on to card games, the six-year-old slaying me with his dramatically drawn out, “Go … fish … M’DARLING.” Every time.
After dinner I read aloud the first chapter of Eleanor Estes’ Rufus M. (highly recommend) while the boys enjoyed fudgesicles I had made.
I used the recipe passed along by my college boyfriend who wasn’t too keen on children and who ended up with five boys—two sets of twins and a “pickle in the middle.” He was good at jazz improv and favored redheads. I am a brunette; he broke my heart.
But good pudding! Probably found on the back of some container or other.
Homemade Fudgesicles
3 tablespoons cornstarch 1/4 c good quality cocoa powder 1/2 c (or slightly less) sugar sprinkle of salt
Whisk until there are no lumps, in a wide pan that hasn’t cooked fish lately—I use a skillet with high sides, which, according to the college bf, cooks up the pudding faster than a tall narrow pot.
Slowly add:
3 cups milk, whisking constantly (continually?) Don’t let lumps form!
Cook over medium-low heat until almost simmering. I switch to a spatula for stirring when it starts to get thick.
Transfer back to the large Pyrex measuring cup, then let cool ten minutes or so.
Remove and skin that forms and eat it, then pour into popsicle moulds.
Negotiate sharing or fight over the leftover pudding.
Rufus M. got a bit of a soaking before bed. The wrinkled pages will make an excellent story someday, just like the coffee stain on our beloved old copy of Michael Sims’ Darwin’s Orchestra.
Last week I was too worn out after the natural burial site expedition to go to my morning ballet class, so I decided on an afternoon stroll instead.
I had a lot to think about, death and all, and a walk provides fine thinking time.
At one point, coming up a hill, I heard laughter ahead. Two women were sitting on a bench enjoying a spectacular view of the water and each other. I guessed they were in their thirties, wearing sundresses and extravagantly colored hair. They each had… a look. A large presence.
We exchanged smiles and hellos, then one said, “I like your glasses!”
“Thank you!” And then I noticed they both had much more exciting eyewear than mine. “Yours are pretty swell, too!”
After I had passed them, I turned to add, “And one of you has such a lovely musical laugh!”
As I continued, I thought about two things.
One: That was an awkward sentence, one of you….
And, two. Why do women do this? It was such a classic female exchange.
Then I remembered a morning scene at my number one son’s daycare, when he was maybe about three years old. There were two other children eating breakfast, Michael Lawless, who was always referred to by his full and excellent name, and a little girl, whose name I do not recall.
My son sat across from Michael Lawless and they began making grunting and snorting noises at each other, laughing.
The girl child sat silently, daintily scooping her cereal into her mouth.
(Twenty-five years later, in my mind’s eye, she is sullen and eating porridge. Somehow that image has the correct gravitas.)
And then another child entered, and the silent girl leaped out of her chair like one of Mister Geppetto’s puppets coming to life. The two girls hugged and jumped up and down holding each other’s hands. Then they began a litany of admiration. Squealing.
“I LOVE YOUR BARRETTE.”
“YOUR SHOES ARE SO CUTE.”
“LOOK, I HAVE NEW TIGHTS.”
The boys fell silent, watching, impassive, then returned to their festival of giggling and grunting.
I remember very little about that time, that difficult chapter in our lives, but I sure remember the scene. Over the years I have pondered how much to make of gender differences, which, until that moment, I had always assumed were not nature but nurture. I mean, I just had no idea after the grunting and preening and squealing.
That day at the breakfast table, the difference seemed so stark, the way the two pairs interacted. But winding my way up the trail past the beautiful women laughing, admiring my glasses, I wondered if these encounters were all, generally, driving at the same thing, the basic human need for connection and delight.
