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Writing About the Kids Again

Writing About the Kids Again

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“What will your children think of this,” she asked me, this jolly woman who pens lovely essays and is one of the writers who meets a few Monday evenings a year. We were sitting in a large corner booth at a down-on-its-heels pizza place where the waitress never forgets your name or your order.

“I haven’t asked them,” I said, the words sounding more clipped than I intended.

After sharing anecdotes about my children early and often — making a living from writing parenting magazine articles and a book — I stopped this practice cold turkey after the book came out. Not because I wouldn’t share the stories but because I stopped writing the articles.

And then there were the years of teenage angst. Those stories may never be told.

But my youngest child is 20 now. I thought I was in the clear.  Am I really?

So I fretted and rearranged words — I even considered removing the stories entirely. But in the end I kept them in. And yesterday, just for the heck of it, I told my youngest what I was doing. “That’s OK, Mom — just as long as you don’t use my name.”

I didn’t. I won’t. But I’m sending the piece out today. It’s time.

Big House

Big House

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Suburban roads and American cars aren’t the only things looking big to me these days. There’s the house. With Celia back in college the place has grown overnight.

As the youngest and last child in residence — and in love with clothes and shoes — she had spilled out of her bedroom and turned her sister’s room into a big walk-in closet. So two rooms are emptied, not just one.

And then there was her habit of falling asleep in the office — enough so that I would automatically tiptoe when I came downstairs early in the morning.

In other words, she was here, even when she wasn’t (which was often). But now she is most assuredly not here. No music pulsing out of the bathroom as she gets ready for work. No Chanel perfume trailing in her wake.

She’s fine, she’s happy, she’s where she should be.

The house is too big. That’s all.

In Benin

In Benin

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In the last 24 hours I’ve been on two continents and in three countries — but I’ve finally come to rest here in Benin. The sun was setting as we took a walk, Suzanne showing me the route she takes to work, to church; introducing me to her favorite merchants. “Bon soir, Mama. Bonne Fete!”

The sights and sounds and smells overwhelm the senses. Motorcycle taxis zip around from all possible angles. Chickens rest in cages ready for slaughter. Markets offer pineapples, mangoes, onions, carrots. Busy main streets give way to dirt side alleys that dead end at the train tracks. The smell of burning trash mixes with the aroma of roasting meat.

Another continent. Another world.

As the plane prepared to land today I kept thinking of Suzanne as a baby, a girl and now a young woman. Suzanne who chats up shopkeepers in French, who grabs her mother’s hand as we cross the street. She brought me to this place. This is where our children will take us — if we let them.

Back to Africa

Back to Africa

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I tracked Suzanne’s flight across the ocean — her plane was off the coast of northern Europe by the time I went to bed — and am now checking the status of her connecting flight to Africa. That plane is flying south over France, the Mediterranean, Algeria, Mali and Niger, and is scheduled to arrive in Cotonou at 9:30 tonight (3:30 my time) — 24 hours after we said goodbye at Dulles Airport.

Suzanne returns to a life I can barely imagine — a place where taxis are motorcycles, kings ride on horseback, and electricity and running water are sometime things. Her digs in the capital are relatively deluxe compared to her life in village, where she drew water from a pump, took bucket baths and shared a latrine.

What struck me most from the stories she told is the deep faith of the people. Some worship Jesus, others worship Allah, most all believe in magic of one sort or the other. Many educated people live their whole lives without riding on a plane or leaving their country. Their lives are hemmed in by the unknown far more than ours are.

I was thinking of this today while reading Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness: “‘The Unknown,’ said Faxes’s soft voice in the forest, ‘the unforetold, the unproven, that is what life is based on. Ignorance is the ground of thought. Unproof is the ground of action.”

Farewell to Suzanne

Farewell to Suzanne

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For six weeks I’ve been joking that I would tie Suzanne to a chair to keep her from boarding the plane back to Benin. Now the moment is here: she leaves today.

But I’ve come up with a better idea. In a month I’m planning to visit her.

So it’s “see you soon” instead of “goodbye” — “a bientot” instead of “au revoir.”

Don’t know how I could let her go otherwise …

Farewell to the Teenage Years

Farewell to the Teenage Years

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This is the second to last day of the month — but the absolute last day for me to be the parent of a teenager. It was an era that began innocuously enough in October of 2001 — but stepped up in intensity as years progressed and there were three teenage girls in the house.

Oh, the drama! Oh, the laughter! Oh, the driving lessons, the boyfriends, the required parental participation in track meets and band concerts and cookie dough sales. Oh, the anger and the misunderstandings and the hours spent waiting for texts and phone calls to be returned. Oh, the late nights and the early mornings and the long talks after which things finally seemed right again.

It’s all part of growing up, I know, part of separating and achieving independence. Also nature’s way of preparing parents to be empty-nesters.

Now that the waters are calmer (notice I said “calmer” not “calm”), now that I have three young adults who are kind, generous and funny — in other words, now that the teenage years are ending — it’s possible to write a post about the teenage years. Before now, it hasn’t been.

So here’s to the next era, when all three girls are in their 20s. Can they be that old? Can I? Nah, it isn’t possible!

The Guestbooks of Thule

The Guestbooks of Thule

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I’ve always been an adventurous traveler, preferring trips to places
I’ve never been before. I’m seeing now what great good comes from
returning over and over to the same place, a family place, in this case a cottage named Thule. 

Flipping through the old guestbooks here, seeing the girls’ handwriting change through the years, reading entries from those no longer with us, I gain for a few minutes what I’m always craving but so seldom have — perspective.

I remember the party boats, campfires and paddles into secret coves, the skits and the late-night swims. I also recall how nervous I was when the children were young. Would they fall out of the canoe? Could they swim across the lake and back?

Reading the old journals, it all comes back to me — the time when Claire split her foot on a shell, the visit when Suzanne almost drove her grandmother’s car off the road, the summer when Celia learned to kayak. All those visits are part of them, part of me — and part of this place. Reading the guestbooks brings them alive again.

My Favorite Veteran

My Favorite Veteran

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Until March 20, 2014, World War II was for me a living entity. A part of history, yes, of course. But because my father was a tail gunner in a B-17 bomber and flew 35 raids out of East Anglia, it was also a part of family lore. I grew up hearing tales of London during the war, meeting girls under the clock in Victoria station, coming back to base to find empty bunks and chairs after a raid.

Since Dad died, the personal part of the war is by and large over me for me. It’s there only in a sepia-tinged way. Not my memories but someone else’s.

On the other hand, Veteran’s Day has taken on new meaning. Mom and I went to the cemetery on Sunday, left flowers by Dad’s headstone. I looked for a small American flag to plant there, but small American flags are in short supply in November.

I stood for a minute in the wan autumn sun, looked out at the rolling hills, the grazing cattle in the distance. Dad would like this spot, would probably make a joke about it — hey, not bad for a grave.

The optimism and jauntiness that served him well in wartime kept him going throughout his long life. And it spilled over to others, too; it certainly did to me.

So Veteran’s Day is no longer a musty, creaky holiday. It’s about doing one’s duty with a wink and a quip. It’s about grace under pressure. It’s about Dad.

Familiarity

Familiarity

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Suzanne was born 26 years ago today. It’s the first birthday I’ve spent with her in three years. Not that one expects to be with an adult child on every birthday, but after having her so far away from home these last three years having her here feels pretty darn good.

I think today as I always do about the moment I first saw her — and the feeling is as clear today as it was then. It was a supercharged familiarity. “I know you,” I said to myself the instant I glimpsed her face. “Of course. It’s you.”

And even though she lives in Africa now, and has been independent for years, I still have that feeling about her — and about Claire and Celia, too. There they are, I think, as I watch them grow up and enter their own lives, the children I was meant to have. As unmistakable as blood or water.

International Arrival

International Arrival

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You would need a heart of stone not to be affected by the
international arrivals hall at Dulles Airport. Everywhere you look are reunions of one sort or
another: husbands and wives, children and parents, brothers and sisters, friends. There was a man next to us who
said he was waiting for his sweetheart to return from Denmark. His cap was pulled
down low so it was difficult to see his eyes — maybe because he was expecting
them to fill.
Claire and Celia were holding Claire’s two homemade signs.
One of them said “Welcome Home” in “pennant” letters. The other was a map of
Benin in green magic marker.

After what seemed like an eternity, we saw Suzanne. She was wearing a short-sleeved “Virginia is for Runners” t-shirt and
her arms and face were tan. She was wheeling three large suitcases and a carry-on. (I later learned that only
one of those large bags was hers; the others were for Peace Corps friends.) 

The first impression — that ever amazing,
important first impression — was that she’s a world traveler now. There was a
nonchalance in the way she wheeled the bags, a certain jauntiness about her. 


My second impression — or perhaps I should say thought once I was capable of having thoughts — was that I don’t ever want her to leave again.