Mom of Anarchy: Will Fight Biker Gang If Need Be

Trying to maintain sanity while fighting a migraine, with no place to go but the street next to my son’s elementary school, I park my car thinking I’ll have at least 20 minutes to rest and will the headache away 
before the final bell rings. However, I quickly sabotage my plan when I start to worry that someone will report me as a suspicious character; I can’t close my eyes because I’ll need to be awake in order to smile at the officer who will inevitably be tapping on my window. My luck, I’d be passed out and mouth breathing with drool dribbling down my chin when a grumpy Sipowicz-type officer gets dispatched to check out the dirty minivan in the school zone. 

Even if I can’t close my eyes, I’m desperate to minimize the pain, so I search almighty Safari for suggestions and eventually discover something called binaural beats for migraine sufferers. I put in my headphones, press play, and stare at the street ahead. Just as I start to focus on the two-tone musical frequencies instead of my brain trying to burst through my skull, a squirrel’s chirping breaks through the beats---there’s a good chance I might murder it. Twitter News Alert: “Crazed, drooling madwoman strangles Screwy the squirrel.” Eh, well, I guess that would make Sipowicz’s day more exciting. 

I let Screwy live. He’s not the only thing making it impossible to focus on the binaural beats; a steady chorus of recess noise adds a nice background layer to the symphony. As yells and laughter thwart my “good-God-make-this-horrid-pain-go-away” concentration, I start thinking about kids and my kid and how much he’s grown. Then, because I’m desperately trying  to relax, I start to remember the stress of babydom. Why not? I make another attempt at achieving meditative fugue and focus my eyes on the stop sign ahead. But, because I’m in memory mode and seem to enjoy taunting myself out of any kind of peaceful state, the stop sign triggers a flashback, one concerning a particularly disastrous diaper quest.

I was going to graduate school and working as both a teaching and graduate assistant. My son was transitioning from babyhood to toddlerdom, and I was an anxious mess. While trying to wring groundbreaking interpretations from 18th and 19th century canonical literature (I’m laughing right now) and playing with abstract philosophical inquiry, I was also wrestling with critical questions like “Should I be using time-outs? Is the fact that he’s trying to shoot all the cats with the water gun normal---is it a warning sign of some kind of mental pathology? How much time should I spend playing hide-and-go-seek during the day? Can he watch any television? Why is he trying to bite me? Will the steroids prescribed for his allergy-induced asthma stunt his growth?  Is he sick? Does he have a fever? Ear infection? Cold? RSV? Pneumonia? Cat Scratch Disease? ” The illness questions were the most prevalent because inevitably, every time I had a long paper or major task due, my boy would get sick. 

Often, at one or two in the morning, I’d finally get done with an essay about the perpetual public veiling of women evidenced by the pseudonym-ed main character in Ruth Hall (or something), and I’d collapse into bed.  As soon as I had tossed and turned into my most comfortable position and finally started to drift away, I’d hear a little “cough, cough” down the hall. No horror-film hallway scene compared to that late night sound. I’d rather see the little redrum girls riding their tricycles down my hall than hear my son coughing. I’d tense, and hold my breath, waiting to see if he’d catch his, but the cough was almost always followed by crying or vomiting or crying and vomiting or, on special occasions, pooping, crying and vomiting. 

One day, during this high-stress time of terrible-two tantrums, phlegm attacks, and frenzied scholarly pursuits, I was headed to Walmart---again. I needed diapers or Butt Paste or amoxicillin or Boogie Wipes (or something). And I only had a few minutes before pick-up time at daycare, so I was speeding down the side streets. Caregivers of any kind will understand the intensity felt during this type of errand running---everything becomes time sensitive and strained---a simple drive across town feels like an action-movie car chase. During my personal Fast and Furious remake, I expertly avoided red lights and focused intently on my end goal. I finally saw Walmart in my view---it was a straight shot; I was almost there! As I  approached the last cross-street before my turn, I saw some motorcyclists running the stop sign and turning onto the road in front of me. One, two, three biker dudes had the audacity to sail through the stop sign and cut me off. I remember thinking, “Who_the_hell do these jerks think they are?!” “What gives them the right to blatantly disregard traffic laws?!” “Oh no, I don’t think so, buddy! I’m not waiting for anymore of your ‘gang’ to round that corner!” So I floored it, and my dusty, Dodge Intrepid jolted ahead; I was determined to get those damn diapers. 

And I, in my big ol’ mom car, did it---I showed those bikers who was boss. I stopped any more of them from running the stop sign. Boy, I felt vindicated---so proud of my total ballsiness: “That’s right, no one’s taking away my right of way! I don’t care if you are on Harleys!” Glowing with badass pride, I squinted into the rear view mirror at the bikers behind me, and then peered at the gang ahead. Just as I was celebrating my way into the Wally World parking lot, I saw that the same group was running the stop sign onto the highway as well. I couldn’t believe their nerve--bikers think they can do anything! I cursed and squinted at the caravan as it blocked traffic. Then, as I watched the front of the group heading east on the highway, I noticed that a black vehicle was leading them. Wait, could that be? No, no, no--it wasn’t. It couldn’t be! Yes, yes, yes, it was. A hearse was leading the biker gang. Yep, that’s right guys, I had just interrupted a biker funeral procession. 

Immediately, my pride turned into vehement shame---I was mortified. I wanted to chase them down and apologize. But how could I? What would I say, Pampers made me do it? I’ve been watching Sons of Anarchy? I’m an awful person? I can’t run guns, but I can tutor your kids in English? (I know, the majority of motorcyclists are nice Janes and Joes, but my overactive imagination tends to initially direct me to believe all bikers are Hell’s Angels.) I imagined I would weep for their forgiveness, saying through tears, snot, and labored breathing “I’m so, so sorry. I’m an exhausted mom---inhale, sniffle--- who has to read Confessions of an English Opium Eater by tomorrow.”   

A  lightning strike of pain zaps me back into real time when my binaural track on Pandora is interrupted by the sound of a man screaming his admiration for a car insurance company. MURDER. Squirrel, victim #1. Man from insurance advertisement, victim #2. Oh, Grumpy Sipowicz, we are going to have a time! 

The school bell is about to ring and the day is almost done. Soon, I’ll be able to take a few too many Benydryl,  throw the covers over my head, and wait for the migraine to go away. My guy is old enough now to give me time to achieve this. Although, I know that while I’m unconscious he’ll probably end up binge watching the A-Team while simultaneously playing Madden on his iPod and eating Cinnamon Toast Crunch from the box. There’s also a very good chance he’ll let the dog out and said dog will bring another dead animal or better yet, a cow placenta up to the porch. Then I’ll end up having to clean that, only to find later that it was just half a cow placenta when the dog regurgitates the other half in horror-film style onto the living room carpet. Please, just give me the redrum twins instead. (Unfortunately, the dog thing has already happened. People, it looked like he was giving birth to a black slug the size of a bread loaf through his mouth. Sorry, so sorry.) I wonder why I get migraines.

To this day, I feel bad about my incredible lack of awareness. I so was blinded by my tasks that I couldn’t see the hearse right in front of me. The present moment didn’t exist, only the threat of the future did. Even though I understand the lesson, I continue to race around. Yet, I try to remember my biker blocking shame and slow down a bit---not having a toddler and going to graduate school also helps a lot. But, of course, there’s always stuff to do. Interestingly, much of my racing is now focused on getting the boy to school early enough for him to play the first round of Lightning. I guess motherhood has taught me a few things so far, and one of those things is that I am capable of taking on a biker gang, but I will feel incredibly guilty about it later. 

P.S. Leave me a comment. ;) 

Flu Chronicles: I Wore a Holstein Hat

As I am writing this, I’m trying to keep myself from coughing. If I take short breaths and ignore the fact that my chest feels like Dumbo is sitting on it, I can do it. Except for when old Dumbo waves his tail in my face and I feel the need to sneeze; then I “let ‘er blow” and begin hacking uncontrollably. I contort and retch in ways Linda Blair could never manage. My biggest fear is that I’ll pee my pants. Oh, you know you’ve been there. When I finally manage to tame the great alveoli annihilator, one of those Mucinex commercial characters---a blob wearing a hardhat and carrying a lunch box--- I go back to shallow breaths and hope Dumbo keeps his tail in check.

Interestingly, my dog seems to have a cold too. He’s been sneezing like crazy and it’s really ruining my concentration. Staying focused on not coughing becomes quite difficult when a golden retriever is reverse snorting in your face. I don’t know what his problem is, but he’s been walking around here acting like he just did a line of cayenne. I feel like I need to paint “Quarantine” in red letters on a white sheet and hang it off of my front porch, but I can’t move because I’ll start coughing and probably pee my pants. Hopefully people will just be deterred by the sounds coming from within my house.

I have a weird coping mechanism when I’m very sick or in a lot of pain, I joke around. In college, I dislocated my shoulder making a malt for a chemistry professor. No lie---I worked in a place called the “Dairy Bar” and when I turned around to ask him if he wanted extra chocolate, I forgot to move my malt mixing arm and “pop” out it came. My still attached arm grabbed my dangling arm and I squealed “excuse me,” went out the backdoor, put my back against a milk cooler and slid to the floor. I remember there was quite a debate about who would take me to the ER. Some unlucky kid in a hairnet lost. He was much smaller than I and had to push me up into the big white ice cream van. Thank goodness, I didn’t lose my balance and fall on top of him. That’s not how I wanted to end up in the student newspaper.

At the ER, after trying to get the receptionist to take me seriously even though I was wearing a cockeyed, Holstein-patterned (black and white cow print) baseball cap, I filled out mountains of paperwork with my left hand and finally got into a room. My arm was completely numb----total dead arm. Anticipating the pain of returning bone to socket, I went into funny mode, cracking jokes about whatever I could think of. I remember specifically joking about my brother, who was on his way to pick me up. He was being a good little brother, and I was using him for comic fodder. I have no idea what I said because after they gave me some painkillers my comedy act took on a life of its own. It’s all a bit fuzzy, of course, but I know the nurse had to readjust her hold on the sheet a few times because she was laughing---they had wrapped my arm in a sheet and the doctor was on one end and the nurse was on the other. The theory was that when they both pulled, my shoulder would somehow slip back into place. It makes no sense to me. Maybe it was a weird student health experiment or prank, and I, the crazy girl in the cow cap, was the butt of the joke. Eventually they upped my medication, perhaps in an attempt to silence my amazing routine. I have no memory of how it went down, but luckily the sheet trick worked, and my arm was back to malt making a few days later. I did, however, have to apologize to my brother because the medical staff knew a number of his embarrassing childhood stories.

Hey, this is working. I haven’t coughed in some time. I wonder if I should tell you about the time I fainted down half a flight of stairs because I thought I had a blood clot in my leg. Turns out it was just a bruise and a wicked sinus infection. I don’t know, that one’s a little too scary. What about the time when my five-year-old self woke up and thought I was blind because my eyes had matted shut---or the time I was sure I had Tietze syndrome because WebMD told me so or when I laughed and laughed at the doctor who told me that the muscle relaxants he was prescribing for my back spasm might work so well I could poop unexpectedly--upon hearing my giggles, he looked at me very seriously and said “I’m not kidding.”

Maybe I’ll tackle those stories after I google Benadryl dosage for dogs and Bic pen chest tube DIY.

Live, laugh, love...cough.

Satan’s Little Helper

I have a terrible cold and feel like my head's underwater and everyone sounds like the adults on Peanuts; I’m hosting a huge Halloween party for a bunch of 4th graders and their families in 6 days; and I’m buried in midterm grading, so now is the time to write something.

That didn’t last long, now it’s Christmas and no one will want a "Halloween-y" story.

Now it’s days after Christmas and people are in the In-Between, kind of like the Upside Down but lacking a Demogorgon. Perhaps the Christmas hangovers and the “please, just let 2017 be over” feelings will create a space for this semi-macabre blurb. I guess we’ll see---I don’t want to wait until next Halloween.

Okay, now it’s 2018, damnit!

Today the high is 17 degrees and the low, with wind chill, is -29, so I’m laughing about the way I began this all the way back in October:

Autumn [what I now see as the seasonal gateway to the dreaded frozen In Between] is my favorite time of year. For some reason, for me, it inspires both cozy [laughing] and corrupted thoughts. The changing of the light casts shadows that make the twilight hours even more mysterious. The crisp chill and changing light beautifully blends with fiery golds and bursting reds, and the air assumes that “cider woods” and “rustic pumpkin" candle smell [oh, the memories of 50-degree warmth].

During [the balminess of] October, one of my favorite activities is running (well, er, jogging, jaunting… or walking) around the gravel driveway circling my house while listening to the Lore podcast (“Sometimes the truth is more frightening than fiction”). I used to go for runs on the open rural roads, but my true crime obsession put a stop to that insanely risky behavior. So now I just stick to my own little rocky track and listen to stories about ghosts, witches, and monsters (both human and other). The podcast with its haunting piano soundtrack and spooky subject matter accompanies autumn’s twilight hours perfectly and the mosaic of leaves covering the road makes the farm look like a New England Sleepy Hollow.  This ambiance, of course, fuels my imagination. One time I went as far as envisioning the driveway as a fairy circle, like the one on the Spiderwick Chronicles--a circle of salt around the house that produces a protection spell keeping the goblins out. Alas, the spell hasn’t worked as a few goblins have sat at my dining room table. I think of such fantasy (the fairy circle not the goblins) when I repetitively meander my way past the northern grove of trees just outside of the circle. I guess, the deep pockets of darkness also inspire magical thinking.

Years ago, I told my friend’s daughter, who was all of 7, that spirits and gnomes lived in the grove trees and that the giant mound of dirt covering an old septic dump was actually a dead and buried troll. I even showed her a giant cow skull my brother had nailed to a tree (years prior he and his pre-teen friends built their own little hobo village in the grove, complete with fire pits, winding trails, ponds turned mosquito hatcheries, and animal bone displays). We also found an old lamp-like thing, and I convinced her a genie was likely inside it. As I told her about the troll, showed her the skull, and discussed the wishes we’d ask the genie to fulfill,  her little-girl eyes opened wider with each tale, and a twinge of guilt hit me. Was I cultivating imagination or just lying? She believed the stories for quite some time--maybe she still believes portions of them. In fact, I hope a little part of her does. But now she’s fifteen and has moved on to more horrific teenager things---which brings me to the reason for my title “Satan’s Little Helper.”

In 1991, my best friend and I were obsessed with the television show Dark Shadows: The Revival. We’d always had wild imaginations, so the show was right up our alley. Not to mention, it also satisfied our hormonal curiosity. We were 14 (if she reads this, this is when she’ll be telling the screen she’s actually one year younger) and Barnabas was our vampire crush. Every week we’d look forward to the opening scenes of the winding train heading towards the castle on a cliff, waves pushing up against the rocks below. I’m sure we promptly phoned each other after each episode to discuss the supernatural soap opera’s latest mystery, murder, or reveal. I’d love to watch it now and laugh at its ridiculousness---I just googled episode one. Wow. But, for two teenage girls who lived on farms in the middle of nowhere, it was exceptional television---and, in my opinion, far more sophisticated than Twilight.

We’d always had active imaginations. Sometime around the age of 8, I was convinced that a vampire lived in our corn crib. The bunk at the back of the creaky building, a wooden partition about 8 feet long and 3 feet wide, terrified me. The wall of the bunk was too high for me to see over, so because it was the perfect size for a coffin, I was certain that a country Count Dracula slept there during daylight hours. I now envision my child self peeking around the corn crib door, my sunlit, blonde pig-tailed head a stark contrast to the darkness inside. I’d stare at that bunk and imagine the vampire within it. The vampire, who would wander the farm at night, was just waiting for someone to invite him in. One day, my curiosity could not be controlled, and I mustered the courage to walk to the back of the corn crib and climb up the old barn-wood coffin container. I vividly remember trying to get a foothold between the grey boards and struggling to get to the top, fully prepared to see the grotesque creature sleeping among the cobs. When I finally managed to peer over the edge, I was actually disappointed when all I saw were dried up husks and cobwebs.

Around that same time, my friend and I were also introduced to the hermit of Union Grove. The local lore was that a scary old man lived in a cave in the park near her house. He was clothed in dirty furs and survived on fish and squirrels. I think my aunt even said she saw him, but maybe that was her version of the buried, septic-tank troll. We conjured our own stories about how he followed hikers, hiding in the trees, and I assume someone was horrifically murdered at some point in our storymaking. In addition to the hermit, we also believed that a black panther hung out along the creek (or “crick”) in the park---the creek also passed right behind my friend’s home. Somehow we caught a few episodes of Manimal and this inspired our panther fantasy. The show followed the adventures of a wealthy crime-solving shapeshifter, and all I can remember is one incredible scene of him turning into a black panther in the back of a limousine. It was terrifying (for different reasons than it it is now). And so, after such entertainment, we were fairly certain that a panther (shapeshifter or not) roamed the ravine behind her home. One day, in her clubhouse, an old outhouse with Hello Kitty stickers posted on the inside, we heard scratching on the tin roof---the black panther! We talked about how we would escape; it was serious business. The only way to survive would be to outrun him--we’d have to make it to the house before he could eat us. Like the time I peered into the corn crib bunk, my memory of this experience is extremely sharp. My heart nearly burst as my chubby kid legs awkwardly propelled me to the small white farmhouse. It was a miracle we survived. (Later, we considered the possibility that the noise was tree branches rubbing against the outhouse roof, but we never completely ruled out the existence of the panther.)

  

Eighties pop culture also caused us to believe in lizard aliens. During our play dates, we became characters in the television show V. When we weren’t in the Hello Kitty Shitter, an old, abandoned corn bin with small trees pushing through the cracked cement floor, was our home base. The silo was a cage-like bin; you could see through it. We’d climb up the walls yelling about the lizard aliens attack. The barn loft served as their lair. As I write this now, I wonder how we watched these shows! I always remember my parents being so strict about the media my brother and I consumed. How did I get to to watch Manimal and V when I was only 2nd grader? I’m sure I sneaked peaks because I remember watching the limo-man-panther scene while I was standing in my apple green carpeted bedroom.

So, back to where I began, circa 1991.

Continuing our curious endeavors, the same friend and I became infatuated with Reader’s Digest’s Strange Stories and Amazing Facts, courtesy of my grandmother’s library, I think. I’d haul the big red book to school and during study breaks or in the halls, we’d pour over the tales of werewolves and Egyptian mummies. Every page gave us exciting weird facts our inquiring minds wanted to know. From Atlantis to Uri Geller, the subjects fed our appetites for knowledge of the mysterious and odd. However, the book was not appreciated by all. In fact, many of our 8th-grade peers considered it the satanic bible.The same kids who were playing spin the bottle in the storage closet, decided that the hefty crimson book, published by Reader’s Digest, was a spellbook for evil. Suddenly, my friend and I became known as Satan and Satan’s Little Helper. Because I brought the book to school, I was Satan (perhaps a little part of me found this flattering). After a brief stint arguing the fact that we were not, in fact, conjurers of evil, we decided to humorously go with the hype---perhaps this was just our coping mechanism to convince ourselves we weren’t actually being ridiculed by our pubescent peers. Of course, not fitting in, in the 8th grade would be far worse than being attacked by Country Count Dracula or the man panther.

We ditched the book, but this occurrence probably lead me to amazing fashion choices like wearing pewter dragon earrings and black Zoso t-shirts. I think I even turned our brush with the “bad” social classification into my advantage when I hit a wall of depression----I could use my dark imagination for drawing eyeballs onto moons and women wearing capes blowing in the wind. I remember I taped a number of these artistic gems to the wall right under the shelf lined with my Clearly Candian bottle collection. Uff da.

But, some time before high school, the innocence of our curiosity completely soured. It became something bad, something wrong. I wonder if this “wrongness” just aligned with my inner feelings of wrongness and my curiosity simply adapted. These were times when I felt I wasn’t fitting in---I wasn’t thinking like everyone else. I’m sure everyone feels this in varying degrees during their coming of age. But my imagination somehow made it worse. I just remember that I was really bored and depressed in rural South Dakota. My friend and I ended up turning to other things to satisfy our curiosity and need for excitement, things like sneaking out, going to parties, and meeting under the overpass to smoke cigarettes.

So, I aligned my imagination and curiosity with being a bad person. I wonder now how much of it was actually the fact that we were girls who shouldn’t have been so curious or if my ideas about myself just became corrupted.

I’m not sure which came first, the judgy chicken or the depression egg.

Excerpt from "The Book"

Incredibly, I struggled with this for quite some time. In my twenties, I remember worrying, that if I died, my family would find my Ed Gein biography and be incredibly disappointed in me. To this day, a little part of me sometimes feels that  my dates with Friday night Dateline mean that I’m indulging in something grotesque. When I began binging on the My Favorite Murder podcast while driving myself and my 8 year old 12 hours across the desolate lands of South Dakota and Montana , I felt that it was somehow wrong---sure it wasn’t the best choice because I became convinced we were destined to be murdered by an antique pickup driving, dirt covered, tobacco chewing, psycho perv, but I felt like I had to keep my fascination with the podcast a secret. But why?

I do know that indulging in too much of something can affect thought processes, and I do believe that society has become overly infatuated with gore and shock value---but that’s never been my interest. I like to observe and try to figure out why and how people do what they do. I try to comprehend the incomprehensible. And here’s the thing I think we all need to remember, learning is not satanic. Ha! Having an analytical mind that wants to try to figure out the mysteries of our world and human nature should never be a shameful thing. How we treat one another is what’s important and, dare I say it, maybe seriously trying to figure out what turns people into “monsters” would actually benefit our society. Too much time is spent judging and not enough time is spent trying to understand. It took me too long to figure out that understanding is not the same thing as condoning and that thinking should never be shameful. What if we tried understanding each other instead of ridiculing and punishing each other? What if we saw ourselves as human nature investigators instead of just human evaluators? Well, that’s where I’m at---and I’m signing off now because this is becoming too preachy, and I have to get ready for work in the real world.

I’m not Satan, and she’s not Satan’s Little Helper, but what if we were? [laughing]  

Have an imagination in the new year! I plan on it---right now I’m imagining edits and how I will respond to negative reviews. ;)

Yay! I finished some writing before Halloween 2018!

The Hero and the Stewardess

In about a week, we will bury my grandmother next to my grandfather in Arlington National Cemetery. I've been thinking about this and about her passing, so I wanted to share something I wrote years ago after my granddad passed away. Granddad was a successful military man, rising up the ranks and earning accommodations. I don't think he could have done it without my grandmother. She was supportive, vivacious, adventurous, creative, and caring. Her amazing spirit touched us all and taught us to be lovers of life; she was a hero too. She was always by his side and she will return there on Monday. Tutu, we love you.

      The Day After  

The sky was heavy and grey like the uniform of a cadet, like the walls of my mother’s memory. She has told me of the monochromatic, Virginian army base that was once her childhood home. Purple violets creeping through the stones were the only things that, for her, broke through the cloudy shades of slate; they were the only vividness among the endless uniforms, the neighbor’s dusty Labrador, the rock walls, and the loneliness I am sure she felt. Her father was an ambitious officer and her mother was an ambitious officer’s wife. Years later, far removed from this Army base of my mother’s memory, the grey pangs of loneliness had returned, but they were felt by all of us now. The General had died.  

We had gathered in Arlington. That day was one of those autopilot days, a day when everything happens around you, when you numbly witness events as if you’re riding on one of those long, moving sidewalks in the airport terminal. The funeral day was cold and crisp but full of sun; it was also full of pomp and circumstance. My senses witnessed the grand military band, the black shiny horse pulling the black shiny carriage transporting the black shiny casket, the bagpipes’ haunting moan and the fully-kilted musician, the canons, the stars and stripes, the fields of flowers weaved into wreaths, and the ceaseless rows of bone-white headstones—my senses witnessed these things but my heart could not fully appreciate them. I was an anesthetized observer; although I was surrounded by trumpets, vibrant flags and garlands, to me, everything appeared in muted grayscale. I appreciated all of the honors because my Granddad, the three-star General, deserved them, but my Granddad, the cartoon-loving, bird-watching, story-teller didn’t seem to be part of them. 

The following day, our hearts sank further into that lonely sadness of loss; our spirits were dim like the cloudy sky. The sunlight was heavily veiled. My brothers and I decided to return to the grave site to say our final goodbyes. On this day, we encountered groups of tourists, busses, and did not have the band leading us down the long pathway. We struggled to find the grave because we were not allowed through the same entrance; on this day, we were the general public.

After hiking  quite a distance, and using a map to find Granddad’s resting place, we stood before the temporary headstone as a mist of rain began falling on us. We were quiet. There were no pipes or prayers. We hung our heads, letting our tears fall with the rain. We heard only the sounds of our internal dialogues “Goodbye Granddad, I love you. Thank you.” Then something encouraged our weighted brows to lift towards the sky. The dull background above was contrasted by moving black and white, and the honking sounds of geese interrupted the wall of silence. A few feet above us, three large Canadian geese flew low in perfect formation. After they passed, my brother and I instinctively turned to one another. The geese, like the ones he loved to watch, were his three stars. We recognized the same thought in each other’s tear-filled eyes, “It’s Granddad.” We felt connection. We felt comfort. We embraced. On the day after the funeral, that dreary unceremonious day, we truly felt the spark of his spirit; the black and white bodies of the birds moving across the overcast sky became our violets in the wall. 

❤

Nostalgia, a Norwegian, and the North Lawn

Looking around the church, I saw members of the congregation smiling and nodding while, using the tree metaphor, the priest compelled us to understand the greatness of God’s love. Watching the congenial haze of spiritual blossoming, I felt my body tense with guilt as I continued to recall myself yelling profanities without hesitation because the lawnmower noise diminished my potty mouth. I frequently end up screaming at the trees because I risk injury trying to go as far into their branches as possible---for if I don’t mow the grass underneath them I’ll surely face a passerby’s harsh judgment. I push the mower forward into the trees, groan, squint, pray, and bend my body back, straining and contorting myself into unnatural poses in order to avoid being skewered. Sometimes I try to lift the branches out of the way and sneak under them—a technique that has nearly caused a shoulder dislocation and evisceration. One day I was so fed up with being poked that I killed the mower engine, marched to the shed, and got my extra-large Fiskars lopper. With grumbles and gritted teeth, I awkwardly snipped/sawed away at branches, some 3+ inches in diameter. I even pulled a large one down and stood on it while I tried severing it from the tree---another precarious maneuver. I’m sure me wielding those clippers like a mad Edward Scissorhands in a pink visor was quite a sight to behold. 

Remembering that and other mowing scenes, I felt anger brewing while I sat in the church pew: “[bleepity, bleep, bleep, bleep] stupid trees!” Fortunately, I kept that to myself and avoided a verbal outburst during the sermon. By the time “Peace be with you” rolled around, I managed to shake off the negativity and shake hands. I smiled too. Guilt set in, and I thought the ridiculous thought, “I hope the priest sees my tree necklace and knows I understand the metaphor, the lesson, and the goodness he spoke of even though my mind went to the dark side during his talk.” I thought that such a recognition might forgive my lack of attention and tree-murder fantasies. In fact, I do very much love and appreciate the beauty and majesty of trees---when I don’t have to mow under them.

Post North Lawn Fight,
Pre- Pink Visor

The “north lawn” is my summertime nemesis. It’s just the space on the north side of the house, but I view it as something similar to the land beyond “the wall.” Sometimes I look at the north lawn, consider mowing it, shrug, and then just walk away. I tell myself “It’ll be okay until tomorrow or even a few more days. It’s shady over there so the grass isn’t really that tall.” Or I start mowing all the other areas on the property and hope I'll eventually conjure enough ambition and courage for the north-side venture. I start with the easy part, the “south lawn”—the section with very few trees and obstacles, where I can mow in pretty straight lines and imagine fancy checkerboard designs like those of some expansive English manor-house garden. Sticks rarely get in my way and the only things I typically need to watch out for are baseballs, baseball bats, baseball gloves, and snakes. Unfortunately the mower blades did gobble up and shoot out two (or four) balls during a July mowing. It’s amazing how far they travel. Snakes are far less aerodynamic.

After the south lawn is cut, as I move closer to the house, the mowing difficulty increases. My route must be more strategic and less decorative as to avoid careening snakes, balls, sticks and stones into windows. (There was something of a “glass door” incident a few years ago.) It seems simple enough, but for some reason, the lawn/bush/tree configuration always forces me in the wrong direction and the debris field inevitably points towards home. I end up mowing in reverse far too often---a truly dodgy direction_for me_on a mower. But I’m improving, and I’ve even refined other skills, especially the “nudge method.”  The technique was developed because I kept repressing the existence of a turkey-butchering log that sits near the barn. My brother took a tom’s head there once and there the log (thankfully not the head) has remained. Every time I mowed, I was surprised by the butcher block in my path. Eventually, I didn’t bother to get off of the mower to move it and instead decided to use the machine to push the wood chunk out of the way. I’ve since perfected this mowing tactic and have used the method frequently--pushing soccer balls, bicycles, large branches, chairs, and even merry-go-rounds out of my way. Let me be clear, I do not use this technique because I’m lazy. It’s just that sometimes, after one has picked up 101 sticks, it makes more sense to push stuff out of the way instead of interrupting the mow flow. (About that merry-go-round---it’s a push-pull version with tractor seats, and it’s the highlight of the north lawn. Children love it, but I’ve started to view it as a tortuous death trap and one heck of a mowing problem because it weighs a ton—I got the mower stuck on it using the nudge method once.)

When not in strategic mowing mode or cedar peril, my mind wanders while I’m bouncing around on the John Deere lawn tractor. The entire process takes me a minimum of 3 hours, so I have lots of time to ponder random things---schedules, to-do lists, conversations, memories. Sometimes my daydreaming leads me to the strangest of places. For example, the last time I mowed, I thought about the movie my son and I watched a few months ago---The Soccer Nanny. It was incredibly bizarre. Sure, I should have known it wasn’t going to be your typical feel-good family film when Traci Lords’ name popped up in the opening credits, but in the moment, I simply furrowed my brow, thought “something isn’t right here,” and watched on. Luckily the movie was only strange and not particularly unsavory---and my son lost complete interest after 15 minutes. I, on the other hand, was coerced into watching because of the weirdness. Traci plays a widowed mother of two boys---one ten years old and one teen aged. For some reason, she needs nanny help for them because she lives on a buffalo ranch in Kansas. So, her and the boys go to the airport and pick up their Norwegian (you betcha, he flies in from Norway), soccer-playing nanny named Oddmund. I expected Oddmund would win the hearts of the boys and their mother by forming an amazing small-town soccer team from a group of ragtag kids and winning a tournament against a powerful team of bullies after adverting some small crisis.  However, the movie went in an altogether different direction and instead involved the ghost of the boys’ cross-dressing father, teen drinking, accusations of sexual abuse (just because Oddmund was a male nanny), and Mama Traci falling in love with a doltish PE teacher. The only soccer involved was Oddmund’s constant soccer ball juggling. I avoided having to try to explain the lack of actual soccer play and the “complex” situations to my son because he left the room shortly after Oddmund unpacked and got acquainted with the buffalo---the lengthy buffalo-feeding-while-soccer ball-juggling scenes were less than entertaining.

As I crisscrossed the yard, I attempted to analyze the film’s existence, but before long, my thoughts drifted to a more appealing dalliance---manny hiring. As I rounded the lilac bushes, I thought: 

I could really use a manny--except I would like one from Sweden, one who resembled Alexander Skarsgaard. Yes, I would pick up Alex from the Sioux Falls airport and drive him back to the farm. He could play soccer, baseball, football, and basketball with my son while I mowed. 

I imagined a perfect slow-motion scene of me watching them frolic in the freshly cut grass as I gleefully performed a mowing ballet around the cement cistern covers. 

Alex would love it here and he would be more than happy to accept room and board and mulberry pies and ebelskivers (sure, they’re Danish, but he won’t mind) as payment. He would do some chicken chores and help me fix things around the house---maybe he’d even like to throw some straw bales. 

As I threw the mower into reverse, I sighed, smiled. 

Oh, yes, Alex would make a wonderful manny. How I would enjoy his company, and I could actually get some things done…I could clean out the dreaded toy room [the other thing on my nemesis list]. Grrr…I loathe that toy room! Why, despite my attempts, do all well-organized boxes of teeny-tiny animals, superheroes, cars, and Legos get dumped, thrown, and occasionally dipped in bottles of Gatorade?! 

And suddenly, as I approached cedar row, my thoughts abruptly switched from manny-Alex wonder to toy-room angst.

My adrenaline began to spike. I thought about the toy room and the trees ahead. I zipped under a cedar, bent back, grabbed a dead branch, and with a fierce battle cry, snapped the twig. When the twig broke, my train of thought took a detour. The cedar-induced stress and aggression must have made me a bit emotional because when I started thinking about the toy room again, I wasn’t frustrated or angry--I was sad. It struck me---“pretty soon he won’t need a toy room” and before I knew it a pathetic, little tear dribbled out, and when I wiped it, I smeared dirt, dust, and lawn refuse all across my face. I began anticipating nostalgia (a recurring theme lately). I imagined the toys disappearing and playtime being replaced with sports activities and homework. I thought of how soon he would lose interest in all those small figurines. I thought of the ending of things and I proceeded down that mental path as I continued to duck under branches and mow beneath the cedars.

Leaning to the left as far as possible to avoid a particularly pokey limb, I squeezed

between the mailbox and a tree. I wiped my face again and kept thinking too much. I recalled mowing in the same spot last summer when a big, old champagne-colored Crown Victoria pulled up in front of the house. It was windy that day, and I was worried about how I looked because I was completely covered in yard grit. A tall man got out of the car and walked towards me. I saw a middle-aged woman in the front seat and an elderly woman in the back. He introduced himself and told me that he brought his mother to look at the property. Apparently in the late 1920s, during the summer months, she would visit her aunt who used to work in the house as a switchboard operator (the house contained a room designated as the community’s telephone exchange). The man and his wife helped the woman out of the car, and we began chatting as we meandered across the yard. The old woman told me how she loved to come to the farm as a child and that seeing the house now brought back so many wonderful memories. I imagined what it must have been like here during that time when the farm and the community was full of hustle, bustle and promise. The farm had its own creamery, and the little town that surrounded the place had a harness shop, blacksmith shop, general store, and a Model-T garage. In the mid-30s, all of that disappeared. I pictured the small, grey-haired, hunched woman as a little girl sitting in the corner of the small room, watching her aunt at the switchboard. I imagined her little-girl self running around the farm. 

As I remembered the woman’s visit and continued to zigzag through cedar row, I began anticipating ends again. I imagined that one day my son might drive me here to visit, and I felt the pain of memories that hadn’t even occurred---of all that will become a “had been.” Since we do not own the farm, that day is inevitable, and as an act of preparation, I tried to place myself in that specific future moment. Perhaps I thought if I tried to feel it in the present, I would not feel it as strongly in the future---it would sting less. Then, of course, a few more tears mixed with splinters, grass, and leaf crumbles trickled, making it difficult to negotiate the rest of cedar row.

Well after that mowing moment, I considered my nostalgia-infused anxiety attacks and all of my whining about mowing and sticks. I wondered how it all connected--the yard work, my tendency to mourn what’s not yet gone, the things the priest said (including my internal cursing), and my daydreams; I tried to determine a singular lesson. I knew that being appreciative and being present were at the heart of this thought process, but I wasn’t completely sure that was the point I was to understand. Wasn’t it too simple? I didn't know how to wrap up this reflection. I spent the afternoon wrestling with ideas. Then, that evening, it all seemed to come full circle: God, the universe, and/or my own recognition of great coincidence, resolutely emphasized the lesson via 80 mph winds. Nature asserted its dominance—the sky darkened, the wind whipped, branches bent and snapped. After the fast and furious storm, my son and I tiptoed out onto the lawn filled with thousands of leafy sticks and several very large tree extremities. We surveyed the damage and discovered that one of the cedar row tenants lost its top half. The storm made it very clear for me: be thankful. We were safe. I still had a home, a yard to mow, and many beautiful trees to contend with. All of the whining, wishing, wanting, and worrying was pointless or perhaps just part of the path to truly understanding how extremely fortunate I am. In that moment, I acknowledged how lucky I am to have a home and such an amazing space for my son to grow up. It’s strange how easily we can get so hung up on little annoyances even when we know better---like all those clichés that we throw around but don’t fully practice in “real” life (“you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” and “see the forest for the trees” come to mind). Stress and worry take over and we fail to see the beauty of it all; fears of what might happen remove all the bliss from what is happening.

A week or so after the storm, I sent my son off to second grade. It was a tough morning—another end and another beginning. In addition to navigating that emotion, my coffeemaker broke down before I could get a cup; my phone screen went dark (not a good thing for an anxious mother who just sent her son off to an unfamiliar school); I discovered that the university bookstore failed to order my students’ books for classes set to begin in T-minus 4 days; and I couldn’t stop obsessing about how devastated my son would be when he found out that I forgot to sign him up for fall soccer. Thinking of all of these things, I pulled into my driveway that morning, whining and worrying, feeling defeated and overwhelmed. And then I noticed something odd: my mailbox was missing. Driving closer to where it was supposed to be, I realized that it wasn’t actually missing, it was buried under an enormous tree branch. I saw the little white mailbox through the leaves, and I started laughing. Okay, okay---yes, God/universe, I understand!