Hospitality

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My friend from DC took a mental health break by visiting me this weekend. A remedy of shopping, talking and eating - sans either of our six-year olds. But Boo wanted to make sure Aunt Jess knew her way around our house. . .










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Monday BFF

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Donna Bigus
Priscilla Rodriguez.

BFF's before BFFs.
Whispers.
Sit next to me.
Notes.
Be my partner.
Double dutch.
3 - 4, shut the door.
BFF's.
In school.

I'd go by their house, on my purple spider bike.
After school, a Saturday? a Sunday? Summer?
Sun shining on
sparkly banana seat got hot in the sun.
sparkly squishy handles
streamers wavering.
I'd stand there, untangling them.

Nobody invited me.
Priscilla would look up then down.
Our stand next to me's forgotten.

Donna, hair hanging over one eye, like always.
No, I can't play.
But the other eye jumpy, looking back at her house.
I can't play.
Digging her toe in the lawn.
Jumpy.
Then a jump, when a grown-up voice calls her name.
I GOTTA GO.

Turn and run.
Leave me holding my bike
untangling my streamers.
Leave me.

Monday.
Whispers.
Sit next to me.
Be my partner.
Double dutch.
3 - 4, shut the door.

*

JFK - 1967

In the plane.
Darkness.
The deep "brrrrrrr."
My knees aching. My mom holding me. Wanting Salonpas.

A long, dull corridor. Everything hard and square and colorless.
My mom, struggling with us 4.
Exhaustion.
A soldier approaches us. My mom nods.
He carries me in his arms.
I can hear him breathing.
In rhythm to the jostling of his steps.
I wonder if he regretted asking to help?
It was my fault I was too heavy.
Just inches away - a big nose, pink skin. Again.
A strange smell. Milk?

A car.
Darkness.
Bright city lights above.
My Dad driving.
Dad.
My Dad.
Dad.

I am all electricity.

I know this is the start of something big.
It's not home.
No.
It's not comfortable.
It's something exciting I can't control.

*

Zen Cast

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It's the beauty that moves me.


What you may see is cold. Boring. Even, dull. What you sense might be de Chirico's Melancholy.
What I see is Order.
Intent.
Design.
Peace.

It's birth, like all births, is violent. The earth is scarred, the workers exhausted, fighting with gravity and the sinfulness of humanity.

But in maturation, peacefully the structure sits in space. Stable. Gracefully it hovers. Reflecting its surroundings. As if to say, "Yes, I exist. Yes, you exist and I am listening." Not piercing violently. Not showing off with stars and gold and pinnacles. Like a monk in gray robes, in prayer.

Our close friend who works there and got us past the food court and video screen sees the guts of the building. In the most grotesque of terms, I am sure.

As an architect, at every line between floor and wall, panel and door, frame to frame, I see the dream that disseminated to a team that spread through fingers and nerves to pens and keyboards. The realignments, the corrections, the red slashes, the late nights, the power play, the anxiety, money changing hands reluctantly, the resentment of one trade for another. I see code books and officials and council meetings and insurance agents and accountants. I see the welder who gets it right, the scheduler, the trucker, the crane operator, the erector, all getting it right. Or wrong. And the ensuing angers.

I see how two lines on a drawing came to exist as two lines on a wall hundred of feet in the sky that only an architect would notice and love and honor and cherish.

Robert A. M. Stern, Architect.

OCD? Anal Retentive? Personality disorder? Control freak? Yes. Manifest in our frail humanity, yes, yes, yes and yes. In God? He ordered the universe and knows the number of hairs on our head, and yes, calls us by name. Order and beauty.

So I wandered in the peacefulness of line meeting line, panels hugging frames. Sculptural elements, a shock of color here and there. Tone on tone, maizes, creams. Sky.

Cast in clouds and dreams.

*

Saturday Morning

Do you remember your Saturday mornings? Watching cartoons in your jammies? the weekday routine thrown asunder? Well, actually, I woke to a Beethoven symphony while my dad made pancakes. But you get the idea.

Here's our "family" room. You can tell I use the term "family" loosely, since Boo seems to have taken over:




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In Any Language

Bedtime is our special time, me 'n Boo. He snuggles into me and I read him a book. Review his Bible verse. Pray. Lately, we've been reading E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan. It has all the elements that draw my boy into the story of a silent cygnet: the outdoors, an adventure, a secret, and some silliness. All the trumpet swans call out, "Ko-ho! Ko-ho!" But Louis the Cynet has no voice.

Last night, I slept with Boo, not wanting to be awakened at 5:30 by HH getting ready to go into the City. (That is an hour that only exists conceptually in my mind. It's not actually a time that exists in my life, because whenever it is that the clock shows that time, I intend to be asleep.) Boo and I woke up together, Boo all squishy and warm with sleep. Hair all askew, eyes squinted to the light, a little frog still in his throat.

"Ko - ko- ko," he said gently, nodding his head with each syllable, then explained, "That's 'I love you' in Ko-ho language."

Good morning, dearest one.

*

Life in the Burbs: Nearly Spring Edition

I love where we live. After years living in various cities - Boston, Philly, Pittsburgh, St. Louis - I had to face something that surprised even me: I am a small town girl. (Non sequitur: the use of the term "girl" to refer to grown women gives me the heebie-jeebies, but you know, what I said, it's a saying. It wouldn't sound right if I said "I'm a small town woman." Y'know??)

Now that I'm a mother, I like where we live even more. (Non-sequitur #2: yes, it's annoying that I have to drive everywhere. Even places that are close enough to walk are inaccessible because there are no sidewalks.) Our neighborhood is two roads off a major thoroughfare. We're a 35-house neighborhood built mostly in the late 60's and early 70's. That means good, solid construction and lots of mature trees.

I love watching Boo ride up and down the middle of our street. It makes me happy. Happy. I love tootling up and down the neighbor's driveways with him on my Wal-Mart bike.

I love that we have great neighbors and Boo can go climb their tree without some old man coming out, swearing and waving a cane at him. I'm glad none of the neighbor dogs bite. Bark annoyingly and incessantly? Yes. Bite? No.

I love when the neighbor boys are doing skateboard tricks down the block. When Boo talks to them, they'll stop and let him try standing on the skateboard. 12-year old boys aren't usually that sweet. Anywhere.

I love that the trees soften our world. We live up a hill. It's cooler here when it's blazing hot. It's less blustery when the cold wind is whipping further down. It's quiet here when the traffic is whizzing or coughing by, down a couple of streets. You can hear the ringing of the kids' voices in between the rubbery WHOOSH then clunk! of the skateboards.

One of the questions I had as a new mother was, "How do I know when to let him play alone?" That comes as you watch him grow, and learn your child's character. But more importantly, when you know where you live, and you know your little hatchling is safe in the neighborhood nest. Now, at nearly 7, I can let him go up the street while I tinker in the carport. And I love that.


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Target Market

Our little town is turning into another bituminous field of land erosion, ozone depletion and consumerist overspending. Across the street from the "old" plaza with the grocery store and dry cleaner, they're building a New Plaza with a grocery store and dry cleaner. And Target. And Best Buy. And. And.

As we're driving by the construction, Boo says, "If someone was selling you, mom, I'd buy you."
Thought bubble:

Is there a learning opportunity here?
Should I point out we don't buy people?
How can I make this positive?

I stumbled over and edited past several options before settling on an awkward chuckle and a "Why, thank you, honey."

"I don't think anyone else would buy you."

Why, thank you . . . I think.

*

Hold Me Tightly, Lord

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing*

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.



*R. Robinson, J. Wyeth

Beat of a Different Drummer

You've heard that phrase a time or two, haven't you?? Hey, if the shoe fits. And yes, it fits. I've always been this way. Marched to a different drummer, that is. Maybe it's my glass-half-empty mindset that makes me feel this way? Maybe. But I think I am actually off-beat.

I see those who seem to hear the same beat, the same rhythm, like so many aligned majorettes.* Kicking and twirling. Turning and smiling. I join them, swept up. I go along for awhile and even think I'm one of them. Enjoying the beat. I can hear it.

Then. Then the rhythm becomes too relentless for me and I lose focus. Suddenly, I'm out of formation. I've injured someone. I sing instead of march. I get stares. What are you doing? What are you talking about?

Not 'NSync. I dust myself off. Look around. I get my bearings and look at myself. Then I remember: that's not my beat. Fortunately, I find others out in the field like me, who prefer to let the sequins and batons go by.

*Now if you were a majorette, don't get offended. I'm just trying to make an analogy. I used to be a cheerleader.