Charting a Different Course

Thing 2 is on a roll.

     He's been at his job for a full month now.  He's learning the ropes.  He's earning the praises of his supervisors.  He's getting paid. It's all good stuff.  He's also overcome a paralyzing amount of fear to even walk through the doors as the New Guy those first few days.  He's figured out how to get himself home every day. He's reconfigured his social life to make sure he gets to bed early enough. (He starts work at 4 AM daily.)  He's adjusted his medication schedule. 

He's really doing it.

     I don't think my son believed he actually could. If I'm being honest, I'm not sure I believed he actually could.  I'm am so very delighted to be proven wrong.  

And that's not all.

     On his own, he went to the bank with his first paychecks and opened a checking account.  He went to HR to complete the paperwork to have his future paychecks directly deposited into that new checking account. He went to the Registry of Motor Vehicles and got his learner's permit.   Did I mention he did this on his own? 

     Maybe you aren't impressed.  He is nearly 22-years-old after all. None of these accomplishments are earth shattering.  All of his classmates are way beyond this. Hell, his own sister, Thing 1, managed all this as a teenager.  I get it.  I do. See, I had a gut-punched moment a few weeks ago, when a neighbor boy from my son's class in high school came by to show off his new sports car that he paid for with the money he earned from his prestigious internship.  He starts his senior year at business college on top of the world. I've known this boy since he was in middle school. He's a dope, the way that all young men are at that age. Yet, here he is succeeding all over the place.  And for a few days after that, I was wrecked, absolutely wrecked, because they weren't my boy's successes, too.

     Here's the thing, though.  I cannot compare my son to the other boys from his class. There is no getting around the fact that my son has significant mental health issues that make a traditional trajectory into adulthood impossible. That's just how it is.  I am blessed to have friends who also have kids who need to take different routes through their lives who remind me that I'm not alone. When one makes a tuna sandwich for his mother, when another plays baseball in between visits to his cardiologist, when one makes eye contact and initiates conversation with someone, it's the equivalent of that paid internship. We have shared plenty of rough days when there were medical crises and academic set backs. So it is only right that together we rejoice in our children's victories. They may not be a big deal to other parents, but given what we know our kids have overcome to earn them, they are a huge deal to us.

     And I am relentlessly optimistic.  My boy is on his way. He is working really hard to manage his anxiety so that he can move out on his own. He, himself, has discussed an ambitious "at the beginning of the school year" date for having his own apartment.  College is not off of his--or my--list. There is typical young man talk about getting into a band. (Oh how I would love to see him playing music again, truth be told.)  There are so many opportunities available for my son. 

The road doesn't dead end for him.  We just don't have the whole map unfolded yet.

More Experiments in Time Travel

I think this summer is making me younger. 

     I'm serious. When the spring rains finally ended and my yard bloomed, something happened to me.  It was subtle at first--the volume on the car radio slowly got louder. I came home from work and announced that we were going to the ice cream place for dinner. Before you know it, here I am leaving work to drive straight to the lake house, go from there to a party, from there to a campground in Maine and stay on the beach until  all hours carrying on like I'm not a middle-aged mother of three, and THEN get up at 3:00 AM to drive to work. 

     It is all reminiscent of my Summer Tour years, when I'd work a few days then travel from city to city to see a series of concerts, getting home in time to get cleaned up before returning to my classroom full of three-year-olds.  I'd teach all week, waitress a few nights, maybe, then hit the road again.  Niagara Falls, Washington, DC, Philly...Life was a grand adventure  and I had the boundless energy of youth to take it on.

    Time passed and I grew up.  I married My Persoal Chef (bless him, he followed me around the northeast for one summer when he was first chasing me), we had these incredible kids, we bought a beautiful, hundred-year-old Queen Anne Victorian. I started going to bed at a reasonable hour and making sure that everyone had well-balanced meals and clean, folded laundry.  Concert trips became weekly trips to Home Depot and the grocery store. It's the natural order of life and it has been very satisfying.

Until the temperatures rose and the fireflies returned a few weeks ago.

     Suddenly, I'm searching YouTube for videos from Grateful Dead shows from the 80s.  A friend comes to visit and instead of putting on the kettle for tea, I find myself mixing a pitcher of Concoction (a fizzy melon, mint, lime and gin drink that tastes like summer vacation).  I laugh right out loud when my Other Favorite Nieces say something inappropriate instead of scolding them. In fact, I respond with an even more scandalous anecdote.  

I'm acting like a kid.

     No.  It's not a mid-life crisis.  I'm not going to buy a convertible, get a boob job, or run off with my secretary. There's just something about the summer that has loosened my tightly wound bits.

     During the rest of the year, you will never catch me playing air guitar in my Cubicle-of-Doom.  Or sharing a scorpion bowl with a twenty-something colleague at the end of a work day. Or going along with the young--really young--Cool Cousins who think it is an excellent idea to introduce their mothers to Cards Against Humanity.  Any other season and there is no way I'd be explaining to a retired librarian what causes blue balls.  Any other season, I'd be acting my age. Come to think of it, so would the Awesome Aunts. So maybe there's a genetic link to the time-space continuum I should explore. . .

    

Wibbley Wobbley Timey Whimey Stuff

     Once upon a time, when my mother turned 50, she looked up from her birthday dinner and exclaimed, "I just cannot believe that I have grandchildren in school."  Her mother, my Nana Joyce, shot back, "I look in the mirror and I see a two-seater, red convertible.  I look out the window and I'm waiting for the senior van.  I have GREAT-grandchildren in school."

     Until that moment, I had never seen Nana as anything but a grandmother.  To my eye, she was always, well, OLD.  It tickled me to think that she could imagine any other version of herself.  And then this happened:

     This past weekend, three generations of my extended family gathered to celebrate the college graduations of Thing 1 (her BS), my Mama's god daughter (her MSW), and my uncle (his AA--the associates degree, not the 12-step group).  It was everything you could ask for in such a gathering--plenty of incredible food, coolers full of cold drinks, games to play, perfect weather for being on the boat and splashing about in the lake, and so many things to laugh about.

     Late Saturday afternoon, I'm sitting on the front porch next to one of my dearest friends (she was matron of honor in my wedding to my Personal Chef twenty-four years ago).  We are chattering away and just enjoying the day.  I looked up to see our daughters chattering away and just enjoying the day.  And for a second there, I couldn't tell us apart.  I mean aren't we still the 22-year-olds having a blast at the lake? How can we be, if those two beautiful, smart young women are our daughters?

     In that instant, I understood what Nana meant.

Things That Fill My Heart

For the third weekend in a row, things didn't go according to plan, but still ended up wonderful.

• I didn't get to have lunch in Newport on the Most Perfect Day to Be on an Island Ever Created, but I still got to spend my work day on an island with a harbor full of sailboats.  Beats spending a day in the warehouse, hands down.

Photo: sunbrella.com

• My Personal Chef and I  found that we are the last people in town to have discovered the charm that is Alicante, the local Mediterranean restaurant. Recognizing at least six couples, making friends at the bar, and getting the ahi tuna I missed out on at Friday's lunch was delightful.

Photo: Alicante Restaurant

• Through hard work, I remembered that when the weeds are relocated from the perennial beds, our front yard is beautiful.

• There's just something about a new salad spinner that makes the boys in my life (including the 52-year-old) giddy.
• There's just something about fresh greens from the garden to put in the new salad spinner that makes me giddy.

• I just love hanging clothes on the line to dry. 

• There is nothing like spending a few quiet hours in my kayak on the river. 
• There is nothing like spending a few loud hours with my first born at a concert.

• I love being married to a guy that is so terrific that my first born had to find herself a guy just like him.  And has. And twinkles when she talks about him.

• After days of hot weather, it was cool enough to bake banana bread today.  I bet anything that my house smells better than yours does right now.
• While the banana bread was baking, I got to lounge around in the screen porch and finish reading a book that the Evil Genius recommended to me. I love to read.  I love having children who want me to read what they're reading.  I love that they have such good taste in books.  (This time, it was "Bloody Times" a nonfiction book recounting the final days of the presidencies--and lives--of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis. Fascinating stuff.)

I hope you found plenty to fill your heart this weekend!

Boys Are Dumb, Don't Date A Plumber, and Other Things I Learned from My Father

     My father wasn't prone to giving advice.  

 He did once point out to me that if I didn't leave all of my crap on the floor in front of the door when I get home from school, then my Mama wouldn't come home from work a few minutes later and yell at me for leaving a mess. (Why I couldn't figure this out myself, because it happened EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. says something about me that I'm not particularly proud of.)

Other gems of fatherly wisdom:

"If you didn't do the job right [his way], then the job isn't done."

I have found those very words coming out of my mouth as I'm standing in a room that one of my children insists they just cleaned  that is still full of wet towels, wrinkled school papers, and dog-hair tumbleweeds.

"Go to college so you don't have to work outside in bad weather doing manual labor like your Old Man."

I remembered these words fondly as I was standing in a church parking lot during a monsoon moving 50 lb. bags of potatoes and crates of produce around in preparation for a farmers' market for food pantry clients. I didn't learn about this in college, I tell you what.

"There is nothing wrong with working in the service sector, but if you are going to be a waitress, work at the 5-star hotel on Nantucket, not at the diner in South Podunk."

This served me well, as I waitressed my way through college and the early years of my professional career when my entry level salary needed some reinforcing.  Working banquets at a PGA golf club was WAY better than my gig at the pizza place.

"Don't date a plumber.  They'll put their hands in anything and I don't want them touching you later."

This just makes me laugh. Especially when you realize that he advised my brother to consider BECOMING a plumber, because it is a recession-proof trade. "People are always going to need a good plumber, Mike."

The piece of advice I have re-shared most often, though, besides the "don't date a plumber" piece was this response he gave me when I asked him what to do about a bit of boyfriend trouble:

"All men are assholes.  Even the good ones.  Once you come to accept that, you can lower your expectations and things will go more smoothly for you."

Over the years, I have edited that to "Boys are dumb," because there are some situations where referring to someone as an asshole (like at a women's Bible study) isn't kosher.  It's actually a corollary to my training in developmentally appropriate practice, where early childhood professionals are cautioned to not expect a child to behave in a way they are not yet developed enough to manage.  Don't expect a child (man) to know something he hasn't yet been taught.   Don't expect a child (man) to be someone he isn't.  Don't expect a boy (man) to behave like a girl (woman.)

My father died almost four years ago, but the lessons he left behind stay with me. Thanks, Dad, Sir.

Things That Have Kept Me From Writing a More Serious Post

• Learning how to tie bow ties.
• The Evil Genius' induction into the National Junior Honor Society

• Discovering great Portuguese food at lunch with Thing 1 and my cousin
• Trying out the boyos' new bicycles 

• Celebrating Smarty Pants Sons at dinner with old friends  
• Making new ones while we were at it
• Unexpected company making a surprise morning visit
• Kayaking on the Blackstone River

• Sitting in the hot tub
• Grilling for dinner
• Fielding questions about smoking meat from across the country

It's a good list.  It's been a good few days.  Tomorrow there's brunch with my sisterfriends, and coffee & jazz with my teacherfriend, and other such niftiness on the docket.  I wouldn't trade a minute of it for a Pulitzer-worthy article. 

How have you joyed today?

The Return of the Summer of Awesomeness To Do List

     After starting a mama movement yesterday, I took the Evil Genius for a long walk at a local state park.  When he finally stopped complaining about being pulled away from video games (it only took a mile and a half), we could get down to business.  Today is June 1st.  Summer is practically upon us.  So together, we began drafting this year's Summer of Awesomeness To Do List.

     For those of you who missed it, the original Summer of Awesomeness To Do List came about during the week following the Boston Marathon Bombings last year, when I was in Rwanda and the Evil Genius found himself basically stuck in the house during his school vacation week.  You can read about it here, and here,  oh, and here.  Here, too! This one is a bit silly.  I am deadly serious about this one.  There's pressure to top this.  And finally, there is this.

So far we are going to shoot for:

• Getting the kayaks out on the ocean, because somehow, we never did last summer.
• Going strawberry picking.
• Making jelly after we get back from strawberry picking.
• The Evil Genius wants to get a job, because boats are really just holes in the water a boy pours money into, and the Evil Genius is sorely addicted to having a boat.
• The Evil Genius will be returning to Popham Beach with his best friends.
• The FabFam will reunite on the Cape again in August with all the awesomeness that goes with it.
• My Personal Chef and I hope to experiment with espaliering apple trees along our garden fence.
• Thing 1 will be feted at TWO graduation parties--one at the lakehouse in NH.  One here at home.
• Thing 2 hopes to move out into his first apartment.
• I want to take the GRE so I can return to graduate school.  Again.
• Trekking to Tanglewood.  It's one of the FabFam's happy places.
• Pulling together the Second Annual Family Photoshoot Fandango.
• Getting to at least 3 museums.
• Hiking 5 new trails.
• Trying out at least 3 new restaurants in Boston, Worcester, and Providence.

There is sure to be more added as we go along. Drafting the list is part of the fun.  What's on your list?