Mountain Dirt and a Horseshoe Crab Shell

When I gave in to morning a few minutes ago, I left the sleepy world of dreams where Bill and I were both pregnant and Bill was experiencing morning sickness. 

I’m not a big dreamer nor do I normally remember the dreams I have; hence my trouncing out of bed at 4:30 to be rid of these.  I think the dictionary played a part in this, for the second definition of pregnant is “full of meaning; significant or suggestive.”  And that’s where we stand today, April 29, 2021.  After a strange melee of a year, I’m feeling more forward motion than spinning, and being so used to that spin, the forward motion is dizzying. 

Will’s last day of school is tomorrow; prom is tonight; the outdoor promenade is cancelled because of rain; Will needs to select a college by the end of the day May 1st.  And through all of these things, Will is the main actor as my supporting role grows smaller and smaller—just as it should be.  Yesterday morning, he announced that he was leaving for school saying that he probably wouldn’t be home until after gymnastics in the evening.  I left strawberries and grilled steak on the counter for him when I went to bed.  This independence feels natural and exciting—as long as I don’t think too long about the stage were leaving. 

Over spring break, Will and a buddy went up north to look at University of Vermont and then to ski Tuckerman, a big, wide open bowl on the side of Mt. Washington, the highest mountain in the Northeast.  Will planned the trip himself with no requests from Bill or me.  “Just check in on occasion, when you get to each destination, maybe?” I asked.  Short texts emanated from Vermont and New Hampshire over the next 36 hours as Will hiked four hours up Tuckerman with skis on his back then decided to summit Mt. Washington, which meant another hour and a half of vertical climbing, before skiing down.  All completed in his snow boots meant for sledding and building snowmen.

“Arrived at hotel.”

“Heading up!”

“At the top”

“Hiking down”

“It was good”

“Heading home”

Last week, I was picking up the back porch; it was littered with a couple weeks’ worth of residue.  I took a brush to the snow boots and hung them over the edge of the deck as I cleaned the dried dirt off of them.  Mountain dirt.  It made me smile.  I glanced down to the corner of the deck and saw the treasure Will had brought home from Rhode Island a few days after the trip of north: a twenty-inch long horseshoe crab shell he found on a beach.  With his sense of smell still missing from having COVID in December, he managed to carry this beast home on the back seat of his car.  Will bounded into the house with his bags and said, “Mom, you won’t believe the horseshoe crab shell I found!” Will knows that I’m a sea treasure fanatic; I went to retrieve it from his car.  When I opened the door, a whiff of old sea hit me.  Never have we seen such a big horseshoe crab shell! 

Fifteen years ago, we were in Iowa for a celebration that brought all of my family’s extended family and friends together, maybe an anniversary or a birthday?  Will was two years old and had discovered a short ramp inside the hall where we were all gathered.  For ages, he walked up and down the ramp—falling over and looking a bit befuddled at the slanted floor.  None of the falls brought tears, and he hauled himself up each time.  I kept a peripheral eye on him.  One of our neighbors had been watching him… and me.  “You know, a lot of moms would be over there picking their sons up each time they fell.  Good for you letting him work it out himself!”

That moment made me question whether I should’ve been more alert.  Were there others who thought the opposite—why isn’t Mom helping?  Still, there were no tears and Will was entertaining himself; his mostly yellow outfit would be a bit dirty by the end of the day and he might perhaps have a few bruises on his knees, but otherwise he’d be intact.  Without a doubt, that question of how-much-should-I-do? has been the one most self-asked throughout these seventeen years. 

Over the last year, I’ve learned to respond more than to interject.  I’m supporting the adventures rather than planning them.  And I’ll forever be thankful for one-line texts.

“Can you make a grilled cheese?”

Yes.  Any time.

The Barn Loft

When we moved to the Boston area in 2005, we bought a barn and moved into the house on the same lot.  We needed that barn to store all of the stuff we were bringing to thickly settled New England from the spacious Midwest.  And, just like the goldfish that grows to the size of its bowl, the barn is full. 

The main floor of the building is a three-car garage; the huge loft houses all past hobbies, seasonal decorations, old furniture, and mementos.  The dirt cellar stores outdoor furniture and miscellaneous junk that we aren’t ready to part with.  With the exception of the cars, this is how much of the stuff in this building could be categorized. 

In 2014, we had an extended family of squirrels make their way into the loft.  We hired a pest removal company to catch them one-by-one in live traps, for around $100 per squirrel.  In Massachusetts, at least back then, it was illegal to catch and release squirrels, so the pest company took them from our property and destroyed them.  In a few hundreds of dollars – er, days—they were gone, and we had someone come in to help us stop up the holes in the walls where the squirrels had entered. 

The loft would be a great spot for a man-cave or a she-shed.  In the wall facing the driveway, there is a large sliding patio door with a small deck and an octagonal window above it.  It faces east and the morning sun cascades into the space.  At the back of the barn is another small octagonal window high up toward the peak.  The old wooden roof beams rocket to the sky, mimicking the architecture of a church sanctuary.  The prior owners were working toward making this a poker room and had started plumbing a bathroom in the front corner.  The idea got no further than pipes sticking up through the floor that now act as tripping hazards.

Once the squirrels were gone, we found remnants of squirrel poop scattered throughout.  The patio door proved extremely useful at that point: we parked a big dumpster under the door and dropped damaged goods out from the deck above the dumpster.  Squirrel poop had an amazing effect on determining what was good and what was garbage.  What were we willing to clean poop off of in order to keep?  A powerful decluttering technique.

We get into the loft through a doorway in the back corner of the garage, on the ground level of the barn.  A long steel staircase runs up the back side of the barn.  Early in the spring of 2014, I opened the door and saw Christmas ornaments spewed down the stairs, together with the shoe box that had contained them.  Momentarily, I was convinced a human trespasser had been or still was in the loft.  I called out and listened for a reply.  Nothing.  That was my introduction to the squirrels in the loft.  The ornaments were not just boxes of red Christmas balls that could easily be replaced.  They were plaster of Paris, hand-painted ornaments that I had made in 1982.  I collected the broken pieces, rewrapped them in the strewn tissue paper, and tucked them back into the box.  I put the lid on it.  Last November, I handed the box to Bill to see if he could find glue to hold the pieces together.  Bill, an engineer, knows these things about materials and what kind of glue will hold.  I’m good with Elmer’s glue.  Read that as for seven years, I couldn’t bring myself to fix these ornaments, for I knew they would never be perfect again.  Bill worked his magic, and for Christmas, I laid the mended ornaments out on a table for a few days, then returned them to their box, wondering how to more safely display them in the future.

In early March, I carried out the last tub of winter decorations to put away in the loft.  At the loft door, I loudly knocked three times and called out, “Coming up!”  If there are any small animal species up there, I want them to know I’m coming up.  And they should go hide.  This is how I have entered the loft ever since the squirrel incident in 2014.

All of our seasonal decorations are in the loft.  They are stored in rodent-poop-proof tubs.  We’ve been in the house for 16 years, and now as seasons roll around the prospect of pulling these tubs down from the loft and across the drive to the house, especially in snow, appeals to me less and less. I went up to look through the Easter tubs ten days before the holiday.  I had to dig past three craft tubs to find the two Easter tubs—they were to the right of the twenty Christmas tubs. As I dug through those big plastic vessels, I decided that the spring decorations I already had on display, blue and yellow vases and flowers, would be more utilitarian and last for the months of spring rather than just the week of Easter.  The baby chicks and bunnies would not be making an appearance. 

Then, having a change of heart, on Maundy Thursday, I made two trips to the loft and brought down an armful of Easter decorations each time.  I left my sons’ childhood Easter decorations in the tubs.  I brought in glass rabbit bowls, a wicker Easter basket, and metal silhouettes of a light green bunny and a light yellow chick.  Each are about ten inches tall and have small white light bulbs around their perimeter that light up.  I flanked the blue vase on the mantle with these creatures.

This past winter, Bill entertained the thought of setting up an indoor net in the loft where he could hit golf balls when snow was on the ground.  We went up to the loft one time together.  With few words we came back down.  Overwhelmed.  A dumpster was needed.

I returned to the loft a few days later on my own; I thought I’d look specifically for documents that could be destroyed—a starting point for perhaps making room for a golf net next winter.  Four boxes of tax papers and old bills, dated from the early 2000s, would be a good start at thinning out the loft.  A week later, Bill and I went up together so I could show him which ones could be shredded.  After I pointed out those boxes, I picked off the lids of a few others with mysterious labels thinking we could each take one box into the house to sort.  “Bill’s stuff from June’s loft” was written on one tardis.  This box from his mum’s loft looked compact and therefore easy to deal with.  However, it was as deceiving as our ranch-style house that we lived in when we were first married.  The house looked small from the front, but inside, the rooms strung out toward the backyard and to the side behind the garage.  The steps to the basement revealed a lower level the full length of the house that was invisible from the street.  And the patio door in the basement opened up to a three-quarter acre lot filled with perennial flowers and a lush green lawn.  This smallish box in the loft was that complex.  And, it was a time machine.

Boxes like this are the reason I do not want to start this clearing-out-the-loft project.  One box can be cavernous in memories and in the decision-making of what to keep and how to store the treasures.  Bill was catapulted to his childhood with an A-level test book, an old yearly planner, various medals, and his judo certificate among the artifacts.  Similarly, I lifted another box lid to find a cloth bag full of papers, and out of the top peeked a letter.  “Dear Linda,” in my grandma’s handwriting.  I would take this one bag to the house and go through it.  It was a start.  A tiny start.  I left Bill in his tardis and made my way back to the house. 

I held the bag by the handles as I brought it into the house, and all the papers settled to the bottom of the bag.  My grandma’s handwriting had shifted and sunken into the pile.  I grabbed a handful of greeting cards and pulled them onto the counter.  I’ve only started recycling hand-written cards in the last couple of years, and every time it pains me to place them into the bin.  In this bag were cards from family, friends, acquaintances, and strangers—friends of friends.  They were sent to me in 2009 and 2010, the breast cancer years. 

In those chemo days when my immune system was compromised, I lived relatively close to home.  I wore gloves to the grocery store and had coffee once a week with two dedicated Tuesday-we-have-coffee-and-normal-non-cancer-conversation friends.  Otherwise, I avoided public places and pre-school events where there might be snotty-nosed kids, and even kept my distance from my two sons if they had a fever or a cough. 

Back then, those cards stood in for physical connections.  Finding and reading them this week did the same thing again.  The wishes were still warm some twelve years after they were written, and their balm welcome in the thirteenth month of the pandemic.  I’m now set on the task of finding a place to keep them—well away from the recycling bin. I cannot yet part with the warmth that flooded over me from this small collection of paper.

The Professional Golfer

I’ve FaceTime’d with my mom and dad most days since March 2020.  Sometimes we just raise our eyebrows at one another, shake our heads at the events of the day, and confess we have nothing to say. 

Sometimes my husband Bill has a project going, and if Dad is on the other end, I flip the camera around so Dad can get in on the action.  In addition to being a professional golfer—an unpaid professional golfer—Bill has also dipped into the glories of design and construction geekdom. 

(After I mentioned that Bill was “retired” in my last musing, Bill corrected me with his actual title of “professional golfer,” backslash “unpaid.”) 

The major equipment that Bill-the-engineer frequently uses includes a 3D printer, an electric whet stone to sharpen knives, and most recently a log splitter was added to the mix. One Sunday afternoon this winter, Dad watched Bill sharpen knives on the kitchen counter for twenty minutes.  Satisfying for both guys, I think. 

(Local people, please read this as free kitchen knife sharpening available.) 

I asked Bill if, as a professional golfer, he’s ever bored: never.  And he added that he sleeps without the work worry that chased his dreams for the fifteen years we’ve lived in New England.

New construction is much more thrilling than repairs.  Since we’ve lived in New England, if a fence blew down or the hot water heater stopped working, I used to call a repairman as chances were that Bill was traveling for work when those events occurred.  Now, I text Bill. “Do you want to look at this or shall we call someone?”  If you want to crawl under professional golfer/engineer’s skin, suggest that you call a professional to fix something before a proper consultation with said professional golfer/engineer.

Bill has consulted for start-ups a bit, and in that process, he has learned how to use the latest and greatest design software.  Weekly there is manufacturing happening in the Malcolm house as Bill designs products on the software and then prints them on his 3D printer.  This feels like a little bit of magic dust sprinkled over utilitarian problems. 

My all-time favorite 3D-printed adaptation, from the 25 or so in the last year, is the flashlight holder mounted to the handle of the grill.  The grill sits outside our kitchen window, and on dark winter evenings, we couldn’t see the grill temp from inside.  Bill designed a gadget that holds a little flashlight in place to shine on the grill thermometer.  We can easily see when the grill is hot enough to add meat, and also when it has surpassed 800 degrees—an indication of fire in the hole.  The frog and the rose that Bill 3D-printed for me are quirky and whimsical, but that flashlight bracket made my heart sing on cold winter evenings.  

This is Bill’s 3D printer, and the white block in the middle is a 15-hour project: the down spout insert to divert water to the rain barrel.

Today, Bill is designing and printing a rain barrel spout to insert into our down spout so our rain barrel is functional this season.  We bought it a year ago from the town, but it hasn’t functioned properly because the spigot was missing—and it was haphazardly collecting rainwater from the heavens rather than directly from a down spout. 

Last week, Mom and I were comparing to-do lists of those things that should be done but didn’t have a deadline, so they just trailed along in life like an unwanted wart.  I mentioned that I needed to call the town as surely a spigot should’ve been included in the purchase price.  “Have you looked inside the barrel?” Mom asked.  That afternoon, I sent her a picture of three spigots floating in the mucky water inside the barrel. 

In the same Facetime session, I told Dad that Bill was hand splitting logs that were too big to go on the log splitter and that his ax kept getting stuck.  “Well, he needs a splitting maul,” Dad said.  Later that afternoon, I saw a photo on Bill’s computer with the caption something to the effect of “Using an ax versus a splitting maul”—probably a result of the Googled question “Why is my ax getting stuck in the wood such that I have to pry the wood apart with crowbars to get it out?”

We’ve lived our married life without family in the area, and we know no difference as this is the way it’s always been.  Yet these two events made me think how different the day-to-day would be if Mom or Dad occasionally dropped in.  Dad would have immediately noticed the rain barrel and curiously inspected it, noticed the hole in the side where the spigot should be, and had the lid off to look for the spigot.  Similarly, he probably would have said, “Bill, let’s fire up that log splitter and see how it works.”  And in that vein, together they would’ve discovered the logs too big for the splitter, had a discussion over Bill’s chopping ax, and then ridden together to a DIY store to find a splitting maul.  In the end, both jobs are done, just in a rather round-about, independent fashion.

After adequate consultation, we’ve decided to call in professionals to fix the furnace, the fence, and the lawn.  For there are down spouts to be designed and golf to be played.

Planning Backwards

I like to think of myself as thriving while teetering on a fence that divides routine and change.  Dipping my toes into the goodness on either side, alternating between the excitement of new and the comfort of the known.  Thinking myself a real woman of adventure, I once told a friend that I love the change of seasons—that newness that comes with every tilt of the earth either away or toward the sun.  She replied, “But it’s the same every year.”

I’m taking an executive functioning class with my 15-year-old son Liam.  The systems of middle school fell away with his move to a new high school, and together, we thought taking this class would be a good way to build a skillset to plan and organize, manage time, and prioritize goals and tasks.  My thought is to build and use the skillset in the confines of high school so that when Liam goes to college, the foundation of this strategy will be in place.  The instructor requires a parent to join their child in the class, and it didn’t take the instructor long to realize that our family was getting a two-for-one deal.

We’re nearing the end of the nine-week course; we meet via Zoom once a week.  We are in the thick of application: logistics.  It’s one thing to learn “how” in an ivory tower, but the magic of any education is in the “how-to.”  Last week, we planned backwards from the due date to complete an imaginary three-page research paper.  The steps were concrete and logical from breaking down tasks in the project and assigning each of them times to opening a calendar and choosing specific days to complete each task.  Looking at a paper calendar and fitting the tasks around other commitments moved the lofty project to reality. 

Over the years as a mom in a family, I’m at the hub of… well to be brief, making shit happen.  Looking for a draw to join our family of four to one room, I’ve suggested to my family that we should watch the new Avenger series “Wanda Vision.”   I’ve only seen a few Avenger movies, so to get into this new series, my sons suggested we watch a few movies to brush up on Wanda and Vision’s history.  For most Avenger characters, it’s easy to see their special abilities: Ironman builds a full body of armor around himself, Thor couldn’t do much without his hammer, and Captain America has a boomerang shield.  Then, there’s Wanda.  She holds balls of electro-fire in her hands and pushes and pulls and throws things; if it’s a particularly challenging task, her eyes glow red.  I asked my sons what her superpower was, and they replied rather something to the effect that she can move things around.  How?  They weren’t sure. 

In the early comic strips when Wanda first appeared, she was called the Scarlett Witch and was credited with magic and telepathy.   However, Wanda has evolved on-screen to use more telekinesis: “her ability to move and manipulate objects with her mind.”  Watching Wanda in action, using her power to push and pull objects into place, feels… well, like she’s making shit happen in a way that no one really understands—because she’s doing it without an iron skin, a hammer, or a shield.  She’s simultaneously an enigma to some and a touchstone to many.

Back to human reality… Looking at my calendar, I notice major gaps.  Commitments have fallen away.  Some have fallen suddenly and quietly like ashes to the earth, from traveling to see family and friends and eating out with friends at restaurants to in-person book signings. Others were more predictable given the passage of time, yet they have left a hole.  At the beginning of September, Will got his driver’s license.  While excited for him and this new independence, I knew I would miss our daily conversations to and from the gym.  What was more surprising was how those driving commitments anchored time on my calendar like stone cairns marking paths on a mountain. 

For years, my weekly calendar has been built around our family’s commitments.  And within the space of a couple years, and pointedly within the last six months, those cairns are gone.  My husband Bill has retired.  Will drives himself.  Liam makes ramen.  My seasons have shifted.  My planning backwards is no longer predicated on using Wanda powers in the same way as before. 

For many beginnings of school years, it took the month of September to massage the seasonal school calendar into place.  When the boys were younger, I naively looked to September as the place where waters would calm with new routines.  However, it took September to set and settle into the routines.  October was the month of new calm.  Once the family’s commitments were set, I could plan backwards from them and fill in the empty spaces for myself.  This year, when Will’s gymnastics calendar reset, I lived for weeks thinking I needed to get his practice and coaching times on the family calendar.  That task hovered like a gray cloud pointing to the undone. About a month ago, I realized that there was no reason to put his precise gym schedule on my calendar: Whether to practice or to coach, Will drives himself to the gym.  He’s never at home in the evenings and eats dinner late.  Cairns dissolve.

In the coming months, there will be a few Will-outliers on the calendar: graduation, college selection, and college move in dates.  As for picking Liam up from school, Bill golfs near the school, so he likes to golf nine then swing through the pick-up lane.  More cairns dissolve.  To get my executive functioning functioning properly again, my points from which I plan backwards need to be redefined. 

As I look forward, I remember back to a spurt of rock climbing Liam did a few years ago.  Climbing straight up on a rock wall builds confidence so that when that challenge is no longer a challenge—through time or choice, the next wall tilts outward, defies gravity a bit, and forces the climber to rely on old skills while building new.  

Surely, Wanda powers are transferable.