I’ve had great news. I will will be performing The Tiffany Box, a love remembered in New York City! This is a dream come true for me. The show is on November 16th at 9:00 PM at Theatre Row on 42nd street just off Broadway. It’s part of the United Solo Festival. Tickets are $18 and can be purchased at www.telecharge.com or 212-239-6200. Please see www.unitedsolo.org for more information.
Our 100 pound, male lab died in surgery on Tuesday night. He had a tumor in his lungs we all believed was operable. Sometimes things don’t go the way you hope. I’m up early, trying to write, to make sense of what happened, so quickly, so unexpectedly. The morning sounds different without Buddy in the house. I miss the jingle of his collar and his eager greeting. “Hey, it’s been all night since I’ve seen you. God, I love you!” he’d say when he found me in my chair working and then he’d dip his big, block head, nuzzle into my leg, playful and affectionate.
Buddy was the most glorious spirit I have ever met. He had a triumphant enthusiasm that bolted light and love everywhere he went. He lived with great heart and courage. He bounded through waves to retrieve balls. He climbed mountains, swam in rivers. He was beautiful in all aspects. In spirit. Physically. Emotionally. Playfully. In his kindness. He was the king of kings, true royalty.
This past summer we decided to plan our family trip around Buddy. We drove to Arizona with him in the minivan and spent a week at my father’s ranch where Buddy ran with the boys in the meadow and swam in the creek. Then we drove to three national parks. We found areas where he was allowed to play. He got to swim in the Virgin River with all of us at Zion. He figured out how to run upstream and then float down to us. We all laughed watching him learn how to ride the current of the river.
My daughter left for college this fall. In August, as our family trip was ending, we spent the last night in a Best Western on the outskirts of the Sierras. We were all in one room. Two queen beds, my husband, our three kids and Buddy. I woke early and felt that all was right in the world. All that I loved most dearly was there with me sleeping—a mother’s sense of peace and heaven.
Three years ago we moved to California, I had a tough time with the move. That’s an understatement. Buddy had never been a leash dog as he had lived on a large piece of property in Arizona. But Buddy quickly learned to love his walks and I learned to love walking him. He’d smell the flowers and pee on them; I’d see the flowers and think they were pretty. Noticing beauty helps any problem, so does having a 100 pound lab pull you forward into life. His spirit literally walked me mile after mile back to happiness.
Because I work at home, it’s as if he and I danced together all day. I’d talk to him and he spoke English. I’d tell him I was going to write for a bit and that he could go nap and then we’d have lunch together. Sometimes he’d doze beside me while I worked at my desk. Other times, he’d go up to my son’s room, sleep on his bed until he heard me clinking away in the kitchen. We ate lunch sitting on the steps together and I always gave him half. Often in the afternoon, we’d walk out together to meet the school bus. So the days went.
The day after Buddy died, I let the boys skip school. They slept in. When Scott and William woke, I made pancakes and we told Buddy stories. They laughed recalling the time they made a harness so Buddy could pull them down the street on a skateboard at full speed. They remembered when they were little and dressed Buddy up in costumes for different skits their sister had created. They remembered the Christmas where he ate all of Santa’s cookies. They remembered the fourth of July party where he’d eaten too many hotdogs and watermelon rinds and got sick under the picnic table where everyone was sitting. Scott and William both told me that they felt lost, didn’t know what to do with being so sad because whenever they were this sad, they went to Buddy.
“I feel lucky he was our dog for nine years. I wanted more. But I’m grateful we got what we got. We are really, really lucky to have him as our dog,” William said. “He’s the greatest dog in the world,” William added and Scott agreed.
“The thing with dogs,” Scott said to me, “Is that when you get one, you know it’s going to hurt, the worst kind of hurt, when they die, because you love them that much, more than anything, but Mom,” he said, “It’s worth it. It’s worth the hurt.”
Two days after Buddy died I met with my minister. I told him about Buddy. I told him that Buddy had attributes that I lacked, that being with Buddy made me feel complete. Buddy lived without fear, I explained. He bounded into the world with pure enthusiasm. I tend to want to dip my toe in the water, again and again, checking and rechecking if it’s safe to dive. I’ve been known to wait so long that I’ve missed the window to swim. Buddy always dove in. He never hesitated when going after a ball he wanted.
“I don’t want to let him go,” I told my minister.
“Don’t,” he said. “Embrace what he gave you. Embrace him.”
I am trying my hardest to take his spirit into my heart, all one hundred pounds of it. While he waited for me to attach his leash, he would spin in circles around our entry hall. When he and I were ready to walk, Buddy would prance out the door smelling the day, taking it in, “Ahhhh, life! I love life!” That’s what he’d say.
I want to bolt out the front door with joy and zest, but I’m struggling. I want to feel that pull on my left hand, the excitement in the leash for what the day has ahead, taking me out into the world.
I try to recall other things Buddy said often so that I can understand the weight of who he was— top of the list was, “I love you sooooo much!”
He also said, “I love to eat! I love food!”
He also said, “That smells soooo good, will you pleeeeeeaaaasee give me a little taste?”
He also said, “Ball? Ball? Ball?” and “Walk? Walk? Walk?”
He also said, “I know you’re sad. I’m here. I love you.”
He also said, “Thank you” for food, for walks, for tummy scratches.
The more I take in of who Buddy was, the more I wonder. What if we’re not supposed to be stoic individuals? What if we got that all wrong? What if we’re supposed to let ourselves be profoundly touched, affected, changed by those we love and admire—humans and other living creatures? Maybe this is how we progress as a people, through open admiration and a courage to love and keep loving, even though it hurts when there is loss, great loss—because it’s worth it.
Dan, my husband, came into my office. “Hey, good morning!” he said to me with outstretched arms. He’s usually not a morning person by any definition. I noticed in him a new warmth, a new depth of gratitude for just seeing me.
“Is that my Buddy greeting?” I asked sitting alone at my desk.
“Yes,” he said walking towards me. “I’m working on incorporating his spirit into my life. He lived well.”
I smiled and let Dan’s arms embrace me.
For a moment, I could see how a hundred pounds of sadness could turn into a hundred reasons to live a little differently because a lab named Buddy showed us how.
A little girl bounces past me. She’s about two and she’s wearing a white-cotton sundress, her wispy blond hair pulled up into little barrettes.
“Are you going to the dentist?” I ask.
I’m sitting on the sidewalk outside the dentist’s office in the shade on the cold concrete trying to write, to not be distracted by kids in the dentist’s office.
The little girl smiles, eyes bright.
“It’s her first visit,” the mother says proudly.
In they go. The door closes.
My 18 year-old daughter is inside. It’s her last check-up before going to college. She leaves in two weeks. I left her in the x-ray room wearing a heavy apron. They’re checking her wisdom teeth.
A woman comes out of the dentist’s office carrying a 3 or 4 year-old boy on her hip. He looks groggy, a bit reserved.
“How you feelin’?” she asks. “You tired?” Her voice is kind.
He snuggles into her as they go to the car.
A middle school boy and his father walk out. The boy is 12, maybe 13. Outside the door, the boy stops. “See, this is the one that was broken,” he says lifting his top lip to show his teeth.
The dad stops walking, bends to look.
“Now it’s fixed!” the boy says.
The dad pats the boy’s shoulder, gives it a squeeze, they turn and walk on together.
My daughter has been up late sorting through her things–– what to take? I went to bed before she did leaving her in sitting in the middle of a pile of clothes and magazines, new sheets and towels.
In the morning by the front door there were plastic garbage bags filled with give-away items–– clothes, shoes.
As my daughter starts to make the pile of things to take with her, I want to say, “Take the love. Take all the love we gave you. Leave the rest.”
Another mother comes out of the dentist’s office with two young boys. Both boys carry new treasures. One has a green plastic camera.
“Say cheese, Mom,” he says. “Say cheese!”
She’s four or five feet ahead of him. She turns, stops and says, “Cheese.”
She smiles at him–– a loving I-sure-love-you-a-lot smile.
He clicks the camera. And they walk on.
My daughter comes out of the dentist’s office.
“No cavities!” she smiles. I love her smile. “And we’re waiting on the wisdom teeth.”
We walk to the car together. Many of her friends leave for college this week. She’s talking, talking–– telling me about who’s leaving next, how excited she is to go.
“It’s so hard with my friends,” she tells me. “I go to say good-bye and I’m sad they’re going, really sad. It’s hard to be the one who is left,” she says. “But they’re excited, so excited that I have to suck it up and be excited for them. You know what I mean?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say.
I can see it. We arrive at her dorm. Walk around, see things, get her settled. And then it’s time to leave. She hugs me and I hug her. I snuggle in–– smelling the scent of conditioner, lotion and youth. And then I give her shoulder a squeeze. She smiles, eyes bright. And off she goes. She bounces past me. She’s wearing a white cotton sundress, her wispy blond hair pulled up into little barrettes.
I hear a child’s voice, a young child, say to me, “Say cheese, Mom. Say cheese!”
My boys made a giant sling-shot to launch water balloons over the lake. They built it using bungee cords, a funnel and two giant poles they secured to the ground.
They purchased water balloons and spent hours filling and launching balloons–– sometimes at nothing, sometimes at each other and sometimes at pretty girls on rafts.
Boy heaven.
The other day my youngest son and I were going for a swim. It was hot at last after a summer of cold days. The sun was shining. We dove in, delighted to cool off, but still surprised by how cold the water was that lurked under the top six inches.
We quickly determined if we floated on our backs the water was all warm. Our dog, Buddy, a100-pound male Labrador retriever, sat on the dock and watched us. He had a summer lifeguard disposition as he casually tracked our movements but he was more inclined to enjoy the soft breeze passing through his fur.
My son and I were trying to decide which buoys to swim to. We would stretch out, get a little exercise and then swim in. Then William had an idea.
“I know Mom, what if I launch a tennis ball and we swim for it? I bet I can get it out 200 yards.”
The idea sounded fun to me. Given I was never a 12-year-old boy, I often try to take the opportunity to do things I’ve never done before. This means I’ve had the pleasure of shooting airsoft guns, wiping on a skateboard, and eating sour candy before 9 am.
Here was another activity I could add to my list of experiencing life as a boy.
William swam into shore and found a tennis ball under a raft on the dock. Buddy perked up. “Hey, someone gonna play?”
William put the ball in the funnel, stretched the bungee cord tight and let go. I watched the tennis ball arc high in the air and then soar past me. It was a beautiful launch. I heard the ball land. I swam for it. Delighted with the game, I reached the ball, grabbed it and turned and started swimming back for shore.
I had gone a hundred feet or so when I paused. It was a challenge trying to swim free-style with a tennis ball in my hand. I considered tucking the ball in my suit. I could even hold it with my teeth.
I treaded water, doing a slow doggy-paddle as I reviewed my options and then I looked up. There on the dock were William and Buddy. They were watching me, waiting as I retrieved the ball.
There are moments in life when one pauses.
At least William hadn’t yelled, “Fetch Mom!” when he launched the ball.
“Come on Mom!” William said. “Bring it on in.”
At that point, I decided after I got out and shook myself off, I’d nap in the sun and savor the thought that in a few hours someone would feed me dinner.
The message on my voicemail is getting familiar. “This is the attendance office calling to notify you that your child was marked absent during the following periods….”
When my high-school senior called during school hours, I could tell from the background noise that she wasn’t at school.
“Where are you?” I asked.
There was a pause.
“I’m in the city shopping for swimsuits,” she said. “We’re allowed five unexcused absences.”
I remembered her learning to count.
When I began to fret, her freshman brother tried to comfort me, “She’s an angel compared to other seniors, mom.”
“I’m still her mother,” I said to him.
The craziness of Senior Spring is upon us–– that attitude of “we’re out of here soon, so let’s live for today” is what keeps mothers awake. Ask most adults and they remember spring of their senior year. Most don’t remember their mother.
The recent bulletin home from the school confirms my uneasiness. “Senior Reminder: to maintain appropriate behavior for the last few days of school.”
Graduation is this week. Today I’m taking the younger brothers in for haircuts. Grandparents arrive the day after tomorrow. I bought a new dress for me and made reservations at an Italian restaurant for 7:00 after the 4:00 graduation ceremony. I started the day making lists.
But more than all of these details, is the hope and prayer that I’ve done enough right.
Tomorrow my daughter turns 18. Two days later, she graduates from high school. The other day she asked me to go shopping with her so she could select bedding for her college dorm room. This was the week before finals.
“We’ll have time this summer,” I said.
But she’s D-O-N-E.
I’m reminded of being pregnant. There was a lovely time, maybe it lasted a few weeks–– it was between morning sickness and swollen feet and I loved being pregnant. I loved feeling the baby move inside of me, her stretches and hiccups, her graceful swirls and twirls. I remember seeing a foot glide across my belly pushing my skin from the inside out. I could see the imprint of a tiny heel, the ball of the foot and toes. Otherworldly? Definitely.
And then the mystery and awe of that time gave way to physical discomfort. She elbowed my rib. She kicked my bladder. I had indigestion and ate antacids all day and all night. I waddled. I didn’t sleep. She wanted out. She wanted more room. I wanted her out. And then she was born.
And now, at age almost 18, she’s ready to go again. I watched her clean out her closet and give two bags of clothes to neighbor girls. Early this morning, she was stressed trying to print out a high school physics portfolio, but how much can it really matter when you’ve already packed for college?
Even the phone call from my mother-in-law added to my concerns.
“We didn’t want to fly in on her 18th birthday. I remember my 18th birthday, and I sure wouldn’t have wanted my grandparents around.”
When the children were young, I didn’t go to church regularly. I found the daycare centers germ-infested and the stress of getting everyone ready and out the door not worth it. But these days I go. I go every Sunday and I stop in church mid-week as well. I’m asking for help. God’s help.
As a teenager, I remember touring cathedrals in Italy and France with my family. In every church, there were towering arches, beautiful stained glass windows and tiny old women kneeling and mumbling prayers on worn wooden pews.
I had no idea why the women were there. Now I know.
I don’t know how to let a child go. It’s against everything I’ve been creating as a mother–– arms to hold her, a home to hold her, a school that would hold her–– until she started kicking.
She’s starting to outgrow the house. She’s starting to outgrow me. I suppose this means my job is almost D-O-N-E. Words of wisdom I say don’t matter anymore, don’t stick. From her perspective, I’m overprotective, worry too much, am overly concerned with safety and consequences and basically, know nothing.
The more I talk, advise, suggest, counsel, fret, beg, plead, threaten, get angry, cry… tell stories from my life, tell stories from friends’ lives, use fancy metaphors and plain English, the more she’s ready to go.
“Grandpa had a dear friend who died spring of his senior year,” my husband told our daughter during a serious conversation.
Later I asked my husband about it. “I never heard that story,” I said.
“I made it up,” he said.
When church service ends, I find comfort and inspiration when the minister says, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.”
Can you imagine me saying to my daughter as she’s on her way out the door to her fifth graduation party, “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord”?
What can I say to her? To myself?
Know that when you go that I did the best I could, in my wounded way, in my human way. That I loved you. And will always love you. And I release you. I release you as I always should have into the hands of God. Who is there always for you, who has always been there for you. Who will guide you in ways I can’t. Who will show you your purpose, in ways I’m not meant to. Who will love you through people and places I will not know. You are here for important reasons, to do important work, to shine in your way and your way alone.
I’m sorry I didn’t take you to church, that you don’t have a more traditional hand-off. But I didn’t find God in church. I found God in you. In the mystery of being pregnant, of a tiny newborn reaching her hand out to grab mine. In your first laugh. Dad and I marveled with awe at your every new stage. You made us see the beauty that is life. And because you changed so quickly, you reminded us that life is fleeting and if we didn’t notice-–– breeding hamsters, wearing braces, having lemonade stands–– it was over. So we tried to notice and to savor.
Last Saturday I spent the day going through old pictures to create a collage for graduation. I saw pictures from everything—cake decorating to dance recitals, stuffed animal birthday parties to high school prom.
I called a friend of mine that evening, “I had the best day,” she said, “I spent all day in my garden.”
I laughed. “So did I,” I said. “So did I.” What a beautiful garden of memories and love it is.
These days, the teenagers look young and the women praying in church don’t look so old.
I slide into a wooden pew and all I can say to God is, “Watch over her. Guide her. And if you love her half as much as I do, it will be enough.”
The flyer arrived in the mail yesterday. It looked like junk mail, but then I noticed it was addressed to “the parents of….” Checking the return address, I saw it was from my children’s high school. Our oldest child is a senior. The bulletin began, “Class of 2010, Almost Done! As of today, only 47 of your 2,340 days in school since kindergarten remain.” There was information about Caps and Gowns, Junior/ Senior Prom, Grad Night, clearing textbook charges and library fines. These days, I cry easily about my daughter’s imminent departure so I told myself, “will read later, cook dinner now” and put the flyer down.
That evening, my daughter appeared dancing with the piece of paper around the dining room. “Only 47 days left,” she cooed. Was I glad that for years I drove her to ballet lessons so that when she spun, it was graceful and effortless? The other night when I went up to her room to tell her goodnight, she was clicking away at the keyboard.
“What are you working on?” I asked.
“I’m looking at everything there is to do in college,” she said to me with the same excitement I had seen in her eyes when she was 7 years old and pouring through catalogues selecting supplies for a haunted house. “We have to get the slimy worms, the brain jell-o-mold and the glow in the dark eyeballs.”
My teenager looked at me with pure longing and said, “I want to go now, Mom. I want to go now.”
“Soon,” I smiled, “Soon.” I admired her spirit but was glad my heart was under a sweatshirt, t-shirt, bra and skin, because she couldn’t see it breaking.
As a parent, that’s what you want, right? For them to be eager to go.
I’ve always been a procrastinator. I’ve noticed I’m trying to cram everything in right now that maybe I didn’t do so well. I’ve got a few months left with her at home. I’m making more home cooked dinners. I want to frame preschool art, hang pictures of family vacations. I’m trying to hug her more, savor her more—talk longer when she comes in at night.
For years—almost 18 to be exact, I’ve been focused on helping prepare her for life—from meeting simply needs like food and shelter, to much harder ones like hugging her when a friend of hers died. I could never have imagined motherhood would be such a journey. As I see my daughter radiant, joyful and strong, I feel hopeful about the future. I admire her energy, her forward energy. It’s like watching a young sapling grow, or seeing a wild gazelle run free on an African savanna. There is so much life force in youth, such self-determination to search, to find oneself and to be one’s self in the world.
The more she seems to spring forward, the more I look back—at the little girl who learned how to skip in second grade, who asked that I put her hair in five ponytails, who insisted on wearing the same dress for a year. There was the 7th grade girl who asked the pediatrician “when will I grow?”, who had as many birthday parties each year as I would allow, who made a best friend and together created homemade mud masks and dance parties. There was the teenage girl who danced in point shoes until her feet turned red and then sailed in big winds and cold water until her hands and lips turned blue—who always looked at time with friends as what life asks for, what she asks for.
Forty-seven days of school left isn’t very many. If I were going to start cramming on my behalf, I don’t know where I’d begin. I’m certainly not the same person I was when I became a mother. I used to think I knew a lot. Now I know there are hard questions I’ve been asked, that I can’t answer. Why does someone young die? There are hard situations I’ve had to oversee and I don’t know if I made the right decisions. Can teenagers spend a weekend without parents at a ski cabin? I used to think my career was what my work would be. Now I realize I’ve been working on creating a philosophy on living that I can impart to my children. Forty-seven days left to articulate a philosophy isn’t very many.
Last summer, I took my daughter to see colleges on the East Coast. It was a trial run for her and for me. Neither one of us is very good at directions and so we paid extra for a rental car that had a talking GPS program. We could type in where we wanted to go and “The Never Lost” would talk to us and tell us how to get there. “Approaching turn in .5 miles… turn right now.” If I made a mistake, the Never Lost would say to me, “Recalculating route” and sure enough, we’d end up back on track. And just as we were arriving, the Never Lost would say, “Destination ahead.”
As we made our way around the East Coast– “turn left in 2 miles, turn right now”– the voice emanating from the dashboard bothered us, got us into tough situations, bailed us out of tough situations. Dutifully, we listened. Sometimes I followed along with a map, double and triple checking the route Never Lost selected—much to my daughter’s dismay.
“Mom, just do what it tells us.”
Sometimes I wanted to find my own way.
“Today, I’ve planned our route. We’re going it alone,” I’d say and I loved the silence, the feeling of independence, the sense of adventure. Other days, arriving late in a foreign city, I was happy to follow Never Lost commands.
After looking at colleges, we drove to Virginia where my daughter spent a week with a host family and a group of high school girls competing in a sporting event. Arriving at the drop-off location in Virginia—Never Lost got us there– I met some of the other girls, got my daughter checked in and within seconds, watched my road-trip buddy transform back into a high school girl. “It’s what is right,” I told myself.
I punched my destination into the Never Lost and started driving. My plan was that I would drive to New York to see a friend. I’d left my daughter many times, but somehow having just looked at colleges, I felt more aware of the separation. In my rear view mirror I could see her– she was laughing on the lawn with friends– “Mom, I’m fine. It’s ok to go,” she had said. As I drove, I felt lost and singular.
Motherhood, by definition, is not about feeling alone—at least physically. I remember years when I had children draped on my legs, in my arms, in my belly. There were nights when I would crawl into bed and lay there and try to feel my own skin against the sheets and the mattress so I could remember who I was. Now I was on that same road again, except somewhere along the way, my heart had changed. I had to change by learning the ways of another, ways and needs that were different than mine. As much as she had grown, so had I.
I punched in my destination and selected “most direct route.” I drove north. I expected to take the main interstate back to New York—I95. I started in Hampton, Virginia. I drove over a short bridge and then went under a long tunnel. I was following the Never Lost, turning right here, merging there, doing as I was told.
As I drove, I was aware of feeling profoundly lost. Was this what it would feel like to have her go? To have to get her settled, leave her at a dorm, and then drive away. It was going to hurt. I knew that much and eventually I would have to ask, “Who am I?”
I began driving over another bridge. It was a long bridge, a causeway. I noticed there was water on my right, big water, ocean water. I drove for what seemed like miles over water. We had not crossed over these bridges on our way down the East Coast. Over an hour had past since I had left my daughter. Eventually, when I came to a town, I pulled over and checked the map. Where was I?
I remembered one of my boys, when he was about five had talked his way onto a man’s fishing boat for a tour. My son and I had been walking docks, admiring boats and the next thing I knew, I was on the bridge of the biggest fishing boat in the marina. Honoring my son’s request to come aboard, the fisherman had marched us upstairs to show off electrical toys.
“This is a GPS,” the man told my son. “It tells me where I am wherever I am.”
I was feeling uncomfortable being on this man’s boat, but proud of my son for asking for what he wanted. My son asked a few more questions—he was a talker– about how to program the device. My son listened carefully and then he asked with little boy wonder and innocence, “Why do you need to know where you are? You’re right here.”
Fortunately, the man laughed.
There I was sitting in a McDonald’s parking lot trying to figure out where I was. It was a humid July day. I knew that much. And because of where the sun was in the sky, I also knew I was facing west and that it was late afternoon. A mother pushed a child in a stroller past me. Another woman used a walker and moved slowly along the sidewalk. True to life, I was somewhere in the middle, between those women—the one with the stroller and the other with the walker.
I did figure out where I was on the map. Never Lost had taken me over a series of bridges on the eastern shore of Virginia and then Maryland. I was heading towards New York—through stoplights and small towns—definitely not the fastest route, but according to Never Lost, I was headed to New York on the most direct route.
I looked at the map. It would take hours to get to the interstate. Instead, I decided I would continue on the unexpected way. I committed to the adventure and started driving again. The road was lined with cornfields and signs for family seafood restaurants serving shrimp, clams and muscles. The signs were painted on wooden billboards and the paint was chipped and sun-worn. There were marshes, miles of wetlands and wild birds. The colors of the land were gentle blues and greens. As the sun set, the summer light was long and warm.
I drove for hours enchanted. After feeling such a pronounced pain of separation, I was relieved to discover a capacity to feel wonder and awe. Instead of pushing on too late in the dark, I stopped and stayed with my aunt and uncle in New Jersey and made it to New York the next day. I did make it there, but the getting there was full of surprise and beauty.
The high school flyer told me, “Commencement means beginning.” Perhaps this is a beginning of my understanding. I want to believe there’s something about faith in the Never Lost– that there is a voice within that’s always with us, that tells us we are loved, cherished, taken care of. If we listen, it will guide us, show us where to go and when. Sometimes, tired of listening, or not wanting listen, we may go it alone. But it’s always there, always ready to say, “recalculating route” to help us discover that joy of living, that purpose of why we’re here. We may not go the interstate way, the expected way, the way others say we should, but the road will be beautiful, worth the journey, paved with pain and with grace.
When I held the high school graduation flyer in my hands, I felt aware of a time coming to an end—of a teenage girl in my rearview mirror saying, “I’m fine Mom, you can go.” As one time closes, another begins. A road stretches out in front of me.
What do I take with me? A capacity to wonder, to see beauty, to love. If I were telling my kids to pack a bag for life, I’d tell them they don’t need anything else. Forty-seven days left and I know my philosophy. As I release my first child into the world, I understand that she truly can never be lost and, for that matter, neither can I.
A friend called—she’d been checking on me two times a day for a week. It’s important to have lifelines when the kitchen counter is lined with medicine bottles and the house has yellow hazard tape around the perimeter.
Both of my boys had been home sick for 10 days, double pneumonia, high fevers and bad coughs. It had been raining for that long too. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw the sun. In fact, I was wondering if it left.
“You know what you need to do?” my friend said to me.
“What?” I said. I could tell she was trying to cheer me up. I had been worrying about my boys. They’d high-five each other when their fevers broke 104, but it bothered me when they coughed so hard that they couldn’t breathe.
“You need to go on Facebook and make more friends,” my friend said. “That way when you’re ready to sell your book, you’ll have people who will help you.”
I’d been working on a book for a year—I could also say I’d been working on a book for the last 15 years. It depends on how you count. Anyways, I’ve completed the book and I’ve decided to publish it myself.
“Just send out some friend requests,” she teased.
“I can’t do that,” I said. “I mean, you know, what if people don’t want to be my friend?”
She laughed and challenged me to add a few new friends each day.
“Ok,” I agreed. “I’ll do a few a day.”
As my boys watched another TV rerun on the couch, I sat down at the computer and went to Facebook. I’m new at this stuff. I know– everyone is new at this stuff, but I happen to feel particularly awkward with it. I like to know playground rules before I proceed. I’m the watcher in the corner who studies four-square for a week before I decide I know enough to play. With Facebook, I could watch for years.
I opened my Facebook page and scrolled to a column that said, “find friends.” And then– and I don’t remember this clearly because it happened so quickly– Facebook said to me (notice how Facebook has become a protagonist?) So Facebook said, “Do you want to search your email for friends?” And I clicked, “Yes.”
Facebook showed me a list of all of the emails I had ever sent or received from my email account. Each address had a box beside it. I scrolled through hundreds of names and selected a few people I felt comfortable approaching with a friend request. I selected about ten. And then I took a deep breath and clicked “OK.” I felt brave. I was embracing a new world. “I can do this,” I thought. I was feeling hip and young. I was even considering buying colorful bras and wearing low cut jeans.
And then Facebook sent me a message that told me I had sent “friend requests” to every person in my email account—475 “friend requests” went out.
I tried to breathe. I tried to pretend it didn’t really happen. I checked my “sent mail” and sure enough, I had sent out hundreds and hundreds of friend requests. I checked my own email and found I had a friend request from myself. It wasn’t a simple friend request either. To my horror, I had created a more elaborate one. The friend request included my picture and these words, “Dear So and So (insert specific name), I set up a Facebook profile where I can post my pictures, videos and events and I want to add you as a friend so you can see it.” Not only did I approach 500 people and say, “Do you want to be my friend?” I said, “Do you want to see pictures of me?”
I told my boys who were on the couch what I had done. They didn’t hear me.
“Mute the TV,” I yelled. They did and when I told them what I had done they both hid their faces behind couch pillows. “Oh Mom,” they said and coughed and laughed. “Oh Mom, that’s really bad.” One even got off the couch, came over and hugged me.
I crawled under the kitchen table with our dog. When I told him what I had done, he rolled over and covered his eyes with his paw.
When my daughter came home from school, she asked why I was sitting under the kitchen table.
“That explains it,” she said. “I’ve been getting texts from friends telling me that my Mom sent them friend requests on Facebook.”
I spent the afternoon feeling mortified. There was the quick email from the school secretary saying Facebook was blocked at the middle school. There was the email from the high school band teacher saying he didn’t do Facebook with parents—it was polite. There were a few emails from my husband’s business colleagues saying they didn’t have Facebook accounts. Eegads.
I couldn’t even bring myself to look at the list of friend requests I had sent—I only saw a few before I went into hiding—my son’s football coach, all the kids on my teenage kids’ sports teams, all the parents on all the committees I’ve been part of…. I had to stop tabulating. If I weren’t so concerned about getting pneumonia from my boys, I probably would have started sucking my thumb to comfort myself. OMG.
Every hour or so, I crawled out from under the kitchen table and checked my emails. I felt like a little girl peeking out from behind a tree— and there were people I’d known for years—hadn’t seen in years, saying, “Hi. I’ll talk to you.” There were also people I’d met once who were saying, “I accept your request.” Wow. Cool. To my surprise, all sorts of people were saying they would be my friend. I got responses from people I loved hearing from, from people I would never, ever have approached and I was happy to hear their words, see their name.
Despite the cringe factor, the ohmygosh I did something I’m not supposed to do feeling— I have more than 100 new friends. And every single one who accepted felt like a blessing to me, like a neighborhood kid showing up on the street and saying, “yeah, I’ll play.”
I’ll be honest. It feels good to have friends.
This experience of being human can be quite lonely, even when you’re sitting in a room with two boys, a dog and a bird. There’s something singular about fear and worry. There’s something uniting about friending.
And it makes me wonder. What would the world be like if we reclaimed the innocence of a kid— before we got rejected and learned to “play it safe at all cost.” What cost? What about the initial desire to request a friend? Sure some people will be silent. Some will say, “no.” Some will think odd things, but what about, what about the one who clicks “accept.”
As this world wide web keeps growing—I’m wondering if it really is a web— and we’re all connected together like those cut out paper dolls—the ones that are linked hand to hand to hand. It feels like that— linking us together with good thoughts and good wishes. The connection is full of love and power and strength.
Together we’re joining hands one click at a time, one accept at a time, one friend at time—or in my case, 500 requests at a time. We can pray this way, laugh this way, live this way. And it’s a whole lot better than being afraid by yourself in the middle of the night. Trust me. The total and complete mortification of accidentally sending 500 friend requests is nothing compared to feeling alone and NOT reaching out.
One friend matters a lot. In fact, I’m willing to say one can make all the difference.
I called my friend and told her what I had done.
“Did you really?” she asked. “You sent 500 friend requests?”
“I did,” I told her.
“You’re an over-achiever,” she laughed. “Whatever happened to friending just a few? “
“I made a mistake,” I said. But after the hot sweats and the total mortification passed, I knew it was worth it.
While on vacation in the Bahamas, we went to a dive sight called “Danger Reef.” The reef got its name because of its location—this is what my husband told me to lessen my fears. He said that a long time ago ships didn’t know the reef was there and crashed into it, thus the name. But I knew better. Danger Reef was famous because it was known as a shark dive and my teenagers were excited to tie up to a buoy in the middle of the ocean and jump in the water with sharks.
As one of my children recently explained to me, “Mom, I don’t worry about much because you do it for me.”
There’s a statement to give the overprotective parent pause.
There we were in a small motorboat cruising over the ocean surface in search of Danger Reef. The guide was watching islands to get his bearings. The children were elated, their hair flew back with the wind. It was as if they were riding galloping horses on a great adventure. I clung to the guard railing.
“The buoy should be around here somewhere,” the guide said. “Everyone keep an eye out.”
The sea was rough that day by my standards. This meant it had swells moving through it and that it wasn’t flat as concrete. We bounced over the waves scrambling to secure scuba gear so it wouldn’t fly out of the boat.
“I see it!” my daughter called out.
Sure enough, in the middle of nowhere, there was a buoy. The guide slowed the engine and we tied up, but before he turned the engine off, he revved the engine a few times.
“Let’s the sharks know we’re here,” he said
“Great,” I thought, why not just ring a cowbell and yell, “Lunch time sharky, sharky. Lunch time!”
“Look! I see them!” my husband called out. Sure enough, large, dark masses approached the boat and began circling. There is something distinct in how a shark moves its body in the water. It has a casual, decisive swagger that says, “I own this place.”
My family began to count with enthusiasm, “One, two, three….” They were up to six. Six dark masses circled the boat.
“Seven! I see seven!”
I remembered taking my children to the zoo when they were little and together counting lions. They had counted with enthusiasm then as well. I had taught them to count. I had taught them to revere nature. Had I left out something? Did I forget to point out the deep trench and the steel fence that separated us from the lions?
I watched my family put on their scuba tanks, strap on fins and fill their masks with anti-fog drops. I watched their fingers spread clear goo over the surface of the mask. They wanted to make certain that if they were going to be eaten by a shark, they’d see it clearly.
We’d gone snorkeling on reefs before where hundreds of fish showed up when we did and we had hopped in the water with crackers and fed them. This time my kids were hopping in the water without crackers.
Transformed into amphibians, my family sat on the edge of the boat listening as the instructor reviewed safety hand signals and then without a thought, they all flopped over backwards into the water.
I could see them in the water, see them descending. I watched the plumes of air bubbles. I counted the plumes. And then I couldn’t see them any more. They were gone. The sharks were gone and there I was alone in the middle of the ocean, tied up to a buoy bouncing around with the roll of the swells.
For a while I was angry at my husband for introducing my family to such adventures. It was his fault we were here. I’d rather take them to a farmer’s market. A table covered in heirloom tomatoes can leave me in a state of rapture and a bouquet of fragrant sweet pea blossoms can render me speechless. I don’t need sharks to feel excitement.
For a while I held my breath, awaiting their return. I soon realized this was not a sustainable solution. I worked on breathing and not thinking.
“Roll with it,” soon took on a new meaning. “Either they will be eaten alive by sharks or they won’t,” I thought and I began to arrange water bottles in the cooler. I refolded beach towels and reapplied sunscreen. I tried to hum and I watched the surface of the water.
My plan was that I would look for the return of their air bubbles. When I knew they were beginning their ascent to the surface, I would put on my snorkeling gear and join them. I would take a quick peak at Danger Reef.
I was curious.
A half hour passed and I was enjoying the roll of the waves moving through the boat. Breathe in, breathe out, I told myself and don’t imagine your family being eaten by sharks. Breathe in, breathe out. I liked the movement of the boat and the water. I was comforted by the sea.
And then I saw air bubbles, plumes of air bubbles. My family was returning from the depths of the ocean. They would be home at last. I have come to know that home is not a place. It’s a feeling that happens when we’re all together and nothing else matters.
I put on my fins and my mask and sat on the edge of the boat. Was I really going to jump in the water at Danger Reef to have a look? I gave myself the option of not going in. “I don’t have to do this,” I thought. I sounded reasonable. But curiosity eventually won. I wanted to know what Danger Reef looked like.
I hopped in. The water was cool, but not cold. I felt the strong pull of the tidal current and I swam for the line that was tied to the buoy to stabilize myself. In the distance, I could see a dark mass approaching me.
“The sharks are curious,” the dive instructor had told us.
The shark approached me the way I cruise the display case at the butcher counter. “What looks good for dinner?”
I could feel my heart race and was certain my increase in adrenalin would smell like a tasty marinade to the shark.
Breathe, I thought again, breathe. “Calm thyself,” I instructed. I pretended I was an Akido master. Man over beast. Man over beast.
I still could not see my family but I could see the columns of bubbles in the distance. A few more dark masses came towards me from the depths of the sea. And instead of ripping me apart limb by limb, they swam past me.
“Ok,” I thought, “so that’s how this goes. You’re here. I’m here. We both know it. Ok.” I took a deep breath and began to look around. As the saying goes, there were definitely other fish in the sea. I just hadn’t seen them because I had been so focused on the sharks. True, the sharks were still there, but as the instructor had said, “They won’t bother you.”
As I began to breathe and look around and not focus on the four sharks circling me, I saw that there were many other fish in the water. There were jacks, yellow tail, snapper and reef fish. There were lone groupers and schools ranging from 15 to hundreds. Sometimes the sunlight would catch the fish scales and light would shimmer. It was exquisite, a quick flash of silver light emanated from the dark water. It was beautiful.
Below me I could see coral heads and sea fans. The colors were purples, pinks, golds. Schools of fish magically appeared out of the depths. Their coloration and rhythmic movement, swimming together, forward and at the same time being swept sideways with the tide, was entrancing.
I didn’t forget that the sharks were there. They seemed to become more casual as they swam past me, but maybe it was I who became more casual about them. There were sharks at Danger Reef. Many of them. There was also a lot of other beautiful creatures to admire.
And then I saw something new and I laughed out loud under water into my snorkel. Danger Reef looked exactly like my mind.
My mind is always teaming with life. The question is whether I see only sharks. Do I allow them to eat me limb by limb and leave me paralyzed with fear, consumed by dark thoughts that appear out of the depths? Often, the answer is yes. I let myself be eaten thought by thought. What the dive instructor didn’t say about the sharks was that “They won’t bother you, unless you let them.”
In the time that has passed since I was at Danger Reef, I have been working to notice my thoughts. I know which ones are sharks. I’ve even started to catch myself when I’ve put my entire head into a shark’s mouth. Here’s what I’ve discovered– an undisciplined imagination can kill you and your loved ones several times a day.
When we pulled ourselves back onto the motorboat, my children were full of stories about what they had seen. I watched their enthusiasm, enjoyed their retelling.
The dive instructor asked me what I thought.
“Danger Reef looks like my mind,” I told him.
“What?” he said. He was a blond-haired tan kid from Texas.
“That’s what my mind looks like,” I said.
I could see him thinking, “middle-aged woman from northern California.”
These days, I tell myself, “Jump in and breathe.” I try to take my head out of the shark’s mouth sooner—or not even go there at all—and instead I look around. If I’d stayed clinging to the guardrail, I could have missed it all. Instead, I’m left in awe, “God, what a beautiful world we live in.”
The only ship that gets wrecked on Danger Reef is my own. I remind myself—I’m the captain and to all the creatures who dwell in my mind I say with a casual, decisive swagger, “I own this place.”
How does one write about one’s most embarrassing moment? The thing you did that you bury deep, hide, don’t even tell yourself because you can’t believe you ever did it? Today while writing in my morning journal, I felt sadness in my chest, buried deep there, hidden. But it was asking to be felt.
What are you? I asked.
I am sadness that you allowed me to do something that was demeaning—that teachers, parents, and coaches, didn’t say, “No, this isn’t an appropriate role for you.”
As a sophomore at a prep school in New England, I was required to participate in a spring sport. To fulfill this requirement, it was also possible to volunteer as a water girl for the boys’ varsity lacrosse team. A friend of mine and I signed up thinking we had beat the system—we didn’t have to exercise and we could watch cute boys play lacrosse. All we had to do was take ice bags to practice and run water out during timeouts and half time. Sometimes I even had the job of tabulating shots on goals, completed passes and other game statistics—but usually I was in charge of making certain the water bottles were kept full.
In retrospect, I was much like our lab. Buddy sits every morning beside the breakfast table and waits. He watches as we eat our toast. Each bite, each gesture, from plate to mouth, mouth to plate. He keeps his own statistics. I am certain he knows better than I how many times a piece of toast journeys from plate to lips—until that last moment, the moment he waits for all morning—when one of us, possibly tosses him the last bit of crust. Sometimes he gets it because it’s burned or because he sat patiently. And he gobbles it up in one snap, his jaws like a crocodile—far more powerful and hungry than a tiny piece of toast crust warrants. But there are other times when lost in thought, I forget and eat the last bit of toast and only later notice the dog who has a stunned, hurt look on his face, “Wow, you ate it all and forgot me. Bummer.”
This was who I was at 16. I waited, on the sidelines, on the bus traveling to away games. I waited for a smile—a look of acknowledgement from a cute senior boy—as if somehow his smile meant I was worthy. I waited in the trainer’s room, where athletes soaked injuries and got body rubs while I filled ice bags in case someone got hurt. I was invisible in the trainer’s room. The boys walked around in towels, talked dirty to each other. They laughed about some girl’s tits, another girl’s ass. I shrank deeper into myself, eyes down, get the plastic bags, go to the icemaker, find the scooper, fill bags with ice, tie each off. And then I would walk to the playing field carrying jugs of water and bags of ice as varsity athletes ran past me. No one offered to help.
Some days, I’d walk back to my dorm, “He smiled at me,” I’d say to myself. “He smiled at me.” Other days I’d walk more quietly. “Wow, I carried all that water and ice, kept track of all the statistics and no one said thank you. No one saw me. Bummer.”
Today in my home, we have a new toaster oven. It toasts bread on both sides. We don’t really remember when the last toaster oven started to give out. We limped along as a family with it barely working for—oh we debated it last night—some say it was weeks, others say months and then there’s one family member who insists it’s been years since the toaster oven worked properly.
How long do we go accepting something that’s broken? A toaster oven? A way of treating some people as les than? We get used to it. We compensate and we don’t even know we are. The problem becomes invisible by our habitual action. We cope until finally the toaster is truly only toasting one side of bread and not doing that well.
And only when we correct it, do we see. We were only toasting one side of a slice of bread for years. Now we all stand and marvel at the toaster– all of us watching– it’s remarkable, to put bread in, turn the knob and have it come out evenly toasted on both sides.
What would happen? What would happen, if I said, “I will no longer beg for toast crumbs. I am already delicious and I will continue to seek warmth and energy, hoping to transform, to fulfill my own dreams and inner longings.”
The family member who knew it had been years since the toaster over worked properly was the dog.
So where do I go from here? I tell myself, “I am sorry. I am sorry I didn’t value you enough to say, “Serve yourself water girl. Serve yourself.””
The piano had been out of tune for ages. It was moved twice. One key would even stick when pressed down. Other notes were a few steps off. Finally, I called a piano tuner. He and I scheduled an appointment and I made certain I was home. When he didn’t show, I called.
“I lost my datebook. It had all my appointments in it, all my numbers,” he said. ”It’s created a complete mess in my life. I don’t know when or where I’m supposed to be.”
I laughed and said, “Life is like that sometimes and then it sorts itself out.”
He seemed relieved I wasn’t angry.
We rescheduled.
When the piano tuner arrived at my front door, he had orange hair, black glasses and carried a bag of tools. He was surprisingly young. Most piano tuners I had met seemed to be part of an ancient craft passed on from generation to generation and reflected the age of the tradition. I didn’t know anyone young who got into tuning. Often our new world seems too fast and scattered for such deliberate work.
I moved the music and the lamp off the piano and got the area set up so he could work. Then I went to my office. I was exhausted. The weekend before was daylight savings and I hadn’t reset the sprinkler timer. Each morning, I listened to the grass being watered at four a.m.. By four in the afternoon, I was tired.
I lay on the floor in my office and listened to the piano tuner working. I heard him plinking away at notes- plink, plink, plink. He adjusted the pitch. I heard him get one note right and then move on to the next– plink, plink, plink. There was something meditative about hearing a note off key being played, adjusted, played, adjusted, until it was on.
I lay on the floor and called different people I thought would tell me good stories. I had nothing to share. I merely wanted to be entertained. I called my aunt and fortunately she answered.
“I’m lying on the floor of my office listening to the piano tuner,” I said.
“That’s lovely,” my Aunt Mary Lou said. My aunt usually finds the details of the present moment lovely.
She told me her back had gone out recently and that she was learning how to point. I didn’t know what she meant and she clarified.
“I kept getting angry at Phil,” she said. (Phil is my uncle.)
“I kept getting angry that he wasn’t doing what I wanted him to do,” Mary Lou said. ”And then I realized I had to tell him what I wanted him to do. And so now I ask and I point. I say, “Phil would you rake those leaves and put them in a pile over there.” And you know, it’s remarkable, because when I ask and point, he does it.”
Mary Lou and I laughed.
Her story reminded me of my friend Gini. Gini has twin boys and she would often share their stories with me. Her twins came home from school one day and told her about a boy at their bus stop. They were all in fourth grade. Apparently, a boy named Timmy was complaining about his lunch.
“I hate my lunch,” Timmy told the twins. “I hate it, I hate it, I hate.”
The twins consoled him.
“It’s the same thing every day,” Timmy said. ”Day in and day out, it’s always the same.”
One of the twins piped up with an earnest suggestion for Timmy, “Why don’t you ask your mom to put something different in your lunch?”
Timmy immediately refuted the suggestion.
“That wouldn’t change anything,” Timmy told the twins. ”I make my own lunch.”
I listened to the piano tuner working. Plink, plink, plink. I heard notes asking to be changed. I heard someone listening and responding.
When the piano tuner finished, he called me on my cell phone. I was in the room next door, but he couldn’t find me. I got up off the floor, found my wallet and my way to the living room. I sat down on the couch to pay him.
Our piano is a black, upright Kawai. We purchased it used years ago. I’ve had visions of purchasing a grand piano someday.
“What’s the best piano out there?” I asked.
The piano tuner’s eyes sparkled. ”I always get asked this question. Everyone always wants to know– what’s the best piano. And I always say, the piano that’s in your living room.”
The piano tuner ran his hands over the keys, played a scale and then a few notes. Our piano sounded much better. ”I fall in love with each piano,” he said more to my piano that to me. ”It’s all about getting it tuned right, bringing out its own sound and then when you play, you play the piano that’s in front you, and you see what it can really do. That’s all there is really. Tuning it and then playing what you’ve got.”
I gave him his check. The front door closed. I put the music back on the piano. I set up the lamp too. I didn’t need to turn on the light. He already had. I just had to listen.
Plink, plink, plink.
