family

2013: April, May, June

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The Boston Marathon bombings affected us all, triggering both fear and fierce pride.

Whit started playing Little League for the first year.  His team, the Giants, had an undistinguished record but a whole lot of heart.

We had a great day at Plimouth Plantation on Memorial Day.

We marked the end of second and fourth grades, and I took the children on a surprise trip to Canobie Lake Park to celebrate the first day of summer.

Over a weekend in June we celebrated my father’s birthday, with his wife, both of his children and all four of his grandchildren around a table.

My favorite post: Inheritance

My favorite quote:

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going.  No feeling is final.
Don’t let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

2013: January, February, March

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Whit turned eight.  We celebrated with a small party: a trip to the batting cages, pizza, and Lego-shaped cupcakes.

I had a spinal tap.  I do not recommend.

Whit played with his hockey team on the ice during a Bruins game.  This was an enormous thrill for all.

We had a marvelous family trip to Washington DC.

It snowed.  A whole lot.

We celebrated Easter at a place that’s holy for our family: a deserted, wind-swept beach outside of Boston that we love best off-season and empty.

My favorite post from these months, about an evergreen theme, the endless, begin-again effort to be present in my own life: Tears at Hockey

My favorite quote from this season:

Every moment in life is absolutely itself. That’s all we have. There is nothing other than this present moment; there is no past, there is no future; there is nothing but this. So when we don’t pay attention to every little this, we miss the whole thing.

And the contents of this can be anything. This can be straightening our sitting mats, chopping an onion, talking to one we don’t want to talk to. It doesn’t matter what the contents of the moment are; each moment is absolute. That’s all there is, and all there ever will be.

~ Charlotte Joko Beck

Happy birthday

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Happy birthday to Matt, the man who many people who read my blog aren’t sure exists.  He does, I promise.  I just don’t write about him.  I have to draw the line somewhere …

On past birthdays I have extolled Matt’s well-known and lesser-known good qualities, listed things he is to me, and written a plain say of thanks and celebration.

Today, to mark another birthday, the 16th we have shared, I wanted to remember a few particular moments when my husband has distinguished himself.  To be married to me is not easy, I assure you.  It’s also not always fun.  Interesting, always.  And while the list of memories we’ve shared would fill several hundred pages, there are a few that make me chuckle whenever I think of them.  They also demonstrate Matt’s fortitude, patience, gentle humor, and keen intelligence.

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When we had known each other 2 months, we planned a 6 week trip to Africa.  In retrospect this seems like an act of wild faith, a reckless demonstration of certainty that we had no business having.  After climbing Kilimanjaro (among the least traditionally romantic, but most powerful experiences we have ever shared) we spent a week on safari in various parts of Kenya.

On day one, we piled into the beaten up Land Rover that came out of Safari Central Casting.  Off we headed into the Masai Mara.  Within 30 minutes I was green with nausea.  “Matt,” I whispered, “I need him to stop the car.”  He looked at me, alarmed, but he made our driver stop.  I ran to the back of the Land Rover and threw up.  This was repeated multiple times a day for a week.  And Matt, my brand-new boyfriend, who does not himself get carsick, never once complained.  Not once.

When you consider a safari – which you should, because our week was spectacular – I urge you to just think about whether you get carsick.  Maybe Dramamine is a good idea.

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As I’ve mentioned, Grace’s labor was a long one.  39 hours of labor, she was posterior, over 2 hours of pushing.  I will always be thankful for how fully onboard Matt got with my commitment to a medication-free delivery.  While his nature probably did not lean in the Ina May Gaskin direction, he saw how important it was to me, and he fully supported me for the weeks leading up to the delivery and for the endless, brutal, howlingly-painful hours.

There was some humor laced in among the screaming, though.

At about 36 hours, I was sitting on a birthing ball, bouncing, delirious with pain and exhaustion. Suddenly I looked up, locked my eyes onto Matt’s.  I saw fear in his face.  I’m sure he was wondering: what now.  Through gritted teeth, I said, panic-stricken, “Matt.  We cannot do this.  We can’t afford a baby.  We aren’t ready.”

For the rest of my life I’ll never forget the bewildered expression on his face when he answered me.  Lifting an arm and gesturing, as if to indicate the delivery room, the hospital gown, the enormous beach ball stomach.  “What exactly is your plan?”

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Every single year, Matt has a favorite birthday present.  A month or so before his birthday every year he starts talking about it, eagerly awaiting its arrival.  This favorite gift is from my sister and brother-in-law, who give him both an Amazon gift certificate but, far more importantly, a thoughtful list of book suggestions.  Matt says this list has over the years provided his favorite books, and I personally think this fact says a lot about both my husband and my sister and hers.

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I have mentioned that I am a casual cook.  When we were first married, we lived in a small apartment with a commensurately tiny galley kitchen.  I was occasionally overcome with fits of culinary ambition, and there were more than a few grand flame-outs.

In particular, there was the chicken and caper dish for which I purchased, by mistake, green peppercorns.  Matt gamely crunched through several bites before throwing in the towel.  Then there was the time I made something that called for 2 canned chipotle peppers, but I instead included 2 full cans of chipotle peppers.  In this case Matt made it through two bites.  After two, his eyes streaming, having downed three full glasses of water, he apologized and choked out, “Linds, I’m sorry, I just can’t.”

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Happy birthday, MTR.  I love you.  Please join me in wishing a happy day to this second twin, this Gemini, and this MIT graduate (my father is also all three of those) with whom I share my life.

 

Learning from the expert

Mum Dad Lindsey 1975

The older I get, and the more established in my own mothering patterns, the more I appreciate this woman.  The one who taught me everything I need to know.  The one whose middle name is the same as mine and as Grace’s.  The one whose hair my sister and I unabashedly share (I remember her saying, when we were children, that sometimes – for example if we were whiny in a store – she wished our hair didn’t make us so glaringly, unquestionably hers!).

My mother has a big, shiny, extroverted personality.  She exemplifies casual competence and resolute cheerfulness.  She is a hugely effective natural leader, she’s never met someone she didn’t welcome into her life with open arms, and she has a million friends.  When she enters a room the energy shifts palpably; her charisma is both entirely natural and absolutely undeniable.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the fact that most of my very closest friends are sparkly extroverts.  It occurs to me that maybe I’m just trying to surround myself with people like my mother.

Though I don’t generally go in for big mother’s day celebrations (the day just feels a bit artificial to me), today seems as good a time as any to reflect on some of the important lessons she passed on to me:

– Sailing is an art, not a science.  Knowing how to read the water and the wind, how to time a racing start, how to know when to tack to make that harbor entrance is all pure instinct.

– Speed limits are suggestions.

– So are the times that people put on invitations.  Or start times in general.

– There is always, 100% of the time, a way to see the good in a person or situation.  There is no use in dwelling on the negatives because there is so much positive to celebrate in the world.

– There’s no better outfit to garden in than a towel wrapped around a just-out-of-the-shower body.

– Cooking dinner for someone is a way of demonstrating love, and homemade food is grace incarnate.  Let there be no obstacle to this: I remember Mum and Sally cooking spaghetti on the grill during the power outages after Hurricane Sandy.

– Always, without exception treat everyone you encounter – a superior at work, a server at a restaurant, the gate agent at the airport, a member of the royal family – with the same degree of respect and kindness.

– Outdoor showers are hugely superior and can be used at least 10 months of the year (in New England).

– Picking people up at the airport is a really nice thing to do.

– Handwritten thank you notes are essential.  Always.

– Throwing together a gourmet dinner for 10 with an hour’s notice and no special grocery store trip?  No problem.  Recipes?  Unnecessary.  Fresh flowers?  Crucial.

What did your mother teach you?

Huge hands

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I grew up in the embrace of several extended families.  One of these was my godfamily.  And one of these godsisters, who lives nearby, had a baby this winter.  One February afternoon after school Grace, Whit and I stopped by.  I parked too far away so we walked several blocks in the cold, our shadows already growing long in the golden, quick-to-fall February light.  Impatient, Grace and Whit galloped away in front of me.

We tiptoed into the living room and took off our shoes.  My godmother handed the baby to me and I instinctively cradled her and looked down at her closed eyes, wrinkly skin, rosy, pouty lips.  She wore a pink knit cap, and my mind immediately pinwheeled to the cream cotton cap with curls of ribbon tied around the top that a nurse at the hospital had given Grace to wear home .

“May I hold her, Mummy?”  Out of the corner of my eye I could see Grace bouncing up and down on her toes next to me.  I remembered a Saturday walk a year ago during which I carried my friend’s two year old most of the way.  That night Grace had fallen apart, weeping inconsolably that “she wanted to be my little girl.”  Grace explained that she was sad about a time in her life that she couldn’t get back, as well as a little jealous.  I worried, as I do so often, about the sensitivity my children have inherited from me.  Whit has this tendency too.  It is perilous having a mother who is more shadow than sun.

“Sure.  Sit down here on the couch.” my godmother sat next to Grace, helped position her arms, and I slowly lowered baby C into Grace’s lap.  I stood back and looked at them, Grace and the two-day-old baby of a woman I met when she was two days old.  I took pictures of both Grace and Whit holding the newest addition to our godfamily, and then, anxious not to overstay during what I know first-hand is a raw, precious time, we left.

That night, I uploaded the three pictures I’d taken of the afternoon.  I couldn’t stop staring at the picture above.  Look at Grace’s hands: they are enormous.  They engulf the baby; she is closer to the size of an adult now than to the baby I still sometimes think of her as.  I remember our pediatrician’s words that adolescence’s growth spurts often start with feet getting rapidly bigger.  Is this true of hands, too?  Has Grace stepped into the tunnel that will spirit her, faster than I can blink, to young womanhood?

When I look at her holding the brand-new member of our godfamily, I can’t deny that the answer must be yes.