Alone #SOL22 15/31

“Now I am alone.”
–Hamlet 2.2.1

I did not sleep well last night. My brain got all wound up and decided that it was a great time to plan a new unit or two, and my body decided that it was foolish to try to relax when we were just going to wake up sometime anyway. So this morning when everyone else was heading off on another adventure, I begged off.

I come from an all-for-one one-for-all kind of family, so staying behind was really hard. I felt terribly guilty – I kept saying, “I really want to go. It sounds like fun” – and my father, who has organized more outings that we can possibly squeeze into a week, dreamed up multiple ways to include me: “You could nap in the car” and “We can try to come back early.” Luckily, as I brushed my teeth, nearly resigned to joining in, my darling partner reminded me that I am allowed to want quiet. So here I am, alone.

When Hamlet declares “Now I am alone” the players have just left, the stage is empty, and he’s about to give his “O what a rogue” soliloquy in which, among other things, he spends a lot of time wondering what he should do. No one has murdered my father and married my mother (thank goodness!), so my “what next?” is considerably less pressing; I have spent the last hour or so letting go of my lingering guilt about staying home and wondering what on earth I should do.

I am a parent and a teacher during the time of Covid: I am rarely alone for any length of time. In fact, I cannot remember the last time that I was so thoroughly alone – it’s just me, the cat and the dog, and no one is going to interrupt for hours and hours. I’m not in my own house, so no one will call and my internal list of things that I “should” do is shockingly short. Despite that, I’ve needed about an hour of simply sitting to let go.

Now, I am alone. I’ve made a second pot of tea. I am listening to the clock tick and the birds call. Here in this quiet, in this moment of inaction, in a moment I chose for myself, my body is beginning to relax, my mind is starting to unspool. Now I am alone, to fill my time as I wish. Tonight, the players will return and I will be an enthusiastic, even participatory, audience when the stage is full and action inevitable. But for now, I am alone.

Vacation? #SOL22 14/22

Describe your ideal vacation. Does it involve going into a dark, wet, hand-carved, dead-end tunnel with a group of energetic pre-teen boys? If so, today would have been your day.

The last time my children and my nephews were together was July 2019, pre-pandemic. Their reunion during this week of March Break has been, well, loud. In two short days (and today isn’t even nearly over), they have done a “Polar Bear” dip in the lake (54F/12C) – then done it again because their aunt offered them $25 if they do it five times for five minutes and they love money, met their (adorable) baby cousin, convinced their grandfather to take them tubing even if the water is ridiculously cold, gone to (distanced) church, played Dungeons and Dragons (with my partner as their patient Dungeon Master), talked about D&D until we forced them to stop, exhausted their grandparents’ dog (who did not know this much non-stop action was possible), watched 40 gazillion episodes of The Simpsons, and gone on an adventure to Stumphouse Tunnel.

The Stumphouse Tunnel was carved into a mountain in the middle of nowhere South Carolina before the Civil War – apparently as a potential train tunnel. I would be able to tell you more about it, but we didn’t have time to stop and read the signs. We *did* have time to go to the end of the tunnel, climb over top of the tunnel to the peak of the “mountain,” have a picnic, and then go off-trail and clamber down the nearby Issaqueena Falls. The day was gloriously sunny and warm (at least for those of us from Ottawa).

After a few hours of climbing outdoors the kids were almost worn out – but not quite. They contemplated Laser Tag but opted to come home. We’ve played the family version of Cards Against Humanity and some of the adults (ahem – me) took a nap, but there’s still spaghetti pie to make (it’s pi day) and apple pie to eat and at least one movie to watch.

I’m exhausted and as happy as I’ve been for a while: writing on a couch with a cat curled up next to me, listening to boys laughing in the next room, to one boy and his grandfather cooking, to my partner and my stepmother deep in conversation.

Happiness sneaks up on us, doesn’t it? Even when your vacation day involves hiking in a cold, wet tunnel.

Fatigue #SOL22 10/31

When she first came to visit, I wasn’t surprised; March Break was coming, and she often arrives around this time. Most days, she showed up in the late afternoon, hung around until bedtime and then left, sated. I reminded myself that there was no point in pretending she wasn’t coming, no point in ignoring her – better to accept her visits and maybe go to bed a little earlier than usual to help send her on her way.

But since the beginning of this week, five days before break, she’s been here every day. Some days, I swear she shows up first thing in the morning and lingers until lights out. I can’t shake her. I’ve tried warm baths and early bedtimes. Still, she’s there the minute I open my eyes, laughing. “You thought I’d leave?” Her shoulders shake as she chuckles, “You know better.”

At work, she’s been messing with my calendar: every day this week I’ve found myself accidentally double-booked for at least one meeting. I’m usually very good with time management, so I’m sure it’s her fault. And she’s making me very grumpy. I’m trying to ignore her, but she’s *always* there, and I have to admit my temper is short. She’s even infiltrated my writing – I’ve been posting later and later even though I’m often a morning writer.

The good news is that March Break starts at the end of the day tomorrow. She may try to accompany me on vacation, but I have a feeling that some serious family time, a lack of commitments and, yes, some morning sleep-ins will let her know that it’s time to leave. After all, I much prefer her more pleasant sister, Energy.

Surprised by Winter #SOL22 3/31

I have lived in Ottawa for 15 years now, longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in my life, but somehow I’m still coming to terms with winter. I’m regularly annoyed when it snows before the end of November. I make jokes like “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a… lion.” As someone raised largely in the South, I mutter “April is the cruellest month” year after year when Ottawa April shows its capricious nature: freeze thaw freeze thaw; few things bloom and I often wonder if Spring will ever arrive.

I should know better. I should.

Despite all of this, I managed to be shocked this morning when I walked out to my car covered in a light layer of snow, and, underneath, the windshield slick with ice. For once, I was leaving vaguely on time, determined to get to school early enough to write this slice before students arrived. But winter had different ideas.

Why replace this scraper? After all, winter’s nearly over, right?

I swept my gloved hand along the seam of the top of the car door before I opened it so that none of the snow would fall on my seat. I half-sat on the front seat and turned the car on, followed by the front windshield heater, the back windshield heater and the seat heater. I groped on the floor for the now-broken scraper that I had decided didn’t need to be replaced this season because “it’s already March.”

Then, I spent the requisite three or four minutes brushing and scraping the car – not quite enough to make me late, really, but just enough to remind me that I should not be surprised by winter. The broken scraper meant that I couldn’t quite reach everything, so I drove to work with the mom minivan mohawk: the narrow strip of snow that not-quite-tall enough moms end up leaving in the middle of the roof of their minivans.

Pretty sure I still won’t buy a new scraper this season. After all, it’s nearly Spring.

Pure love

7:47am I should be getting ready for work. Correction: I should be ready for work. I should have done some yoga this morning. I should definitely have checked that Mr. 11 wore boots when he left for school. But it’s cold and I’m tired and the semester is coming to an end and my tea is warm and…

A sudden blur of brown and white flashes outside our sliding glass door. Our cat, Tippy, rises from her bed, looks out, does the cat version of rolling her eyes, and settles herself disdainfully back on her perch. Her sister, Hera, puffs up her tail and retreats towards the other end of the house, indignant.

Indigo has come for a visit. She is our neighbour’s Boston terrier and she regularly comes over to remind us that she needs to love us – or that we need to love her. Unclear. She tears out of her backdoor, bounds down the steps, across the yard and up the stairs onto our deck. Once there, she skids to a halt somewhere near where the door opens and sort of hurls herself at the glass, hoping we’ll be there.

If we are home and open the door, her whole body quivers with excitement. Sometimes she accidentally starts to roll over before she gets all the way into the kitchen. Sometimes she runs in, does a wild loop around the kitchen island, and then throws herself gleefully onto her back while she wiggles her butt, already anticipating a good belly rub.

She never stays for long. After a good pet, I say, “Go on, go home” and she bolts back out the door and over to her house, happy.

I’m happy, too. Since I’m already standing, I grab one more sip of tea and start gathering things for work, trying to love myself as purely as that nutty dog loves me.

The day he was born

I was running back upstairs for something – well, “running” is probably a generous term, let’s go with “waddling quickly.” I was waddling quickly back upstairs for something when my water broke. I had heard that sometimes women can’t tell for sure if their water has broken, but this was unmistakable. Andre was about to leave for work, but instead we called the midwife. “Well,” she shrugged, “statistics tell us that you’ll have a baby in the next 24 hours. Let me know when you’re in labour.” Before she hung up she suggested keeping busy. We decided Andre might as well go to work and get things organized before the baby came. I had a coffee date planned with a pregnant friend – they’re the most forgiving when it comes to last-minute “I can’t come; I’m in labour” cancellations – and she had invited her friend Kate – also pregnant – who she wanted me to meet. I told them my water had broken but that I was still up for meeting if they were. “We can always leave if my contractions start,” I said. They were both game.

I waddled the four blocks down to the coffee shop to meet the girls. Before we went in, we decided to walk a few more blocks to the grocery store to buy a pack of Depends. I immediately put on a pair, then gave the package to Lindsay, who was due in a few weeks. She put two in her bag and gave the rest to Kate, who had a few months to go. That taken care of, we went to Bridgehead.

We laughed and talked. Kate, my new friend, was delightful. (Our two babies, who met before they were born, are now in the same class at school.) We gloried in the last hot days of August, knowing that none of us would be teaching this semester, that our commitments lay elsewhere. I relaxed into the moment before the beginning, before everything changed, before this new life entered our world. For a few hours, I lived fully in liminal space.

Then the occasional twinge of something that I had been feeling became more clearly a twinge of… maybe a contraction? It was time to go. As we left, I tried to hug Lindsay – whose baby would arrive a few weeks later, bigger at birth than my baby who’d had time to grow outside of the womb. Our giant bellies made the hug impossible and we laughed again. Someone passing by wanted a picture. “When are you due?” he asked as he snapped the shot. I replied casually, “Oh, I’m actually in labour now.”

How I wish I had a picture of his face. How I wish I had the picture he took of us, laughing, our bellies so big we couldn’t wrap our arms around each other. Still, I doubt a picture would have captured the joy of that moment; probably better to hold the image in my mind.

A few hours later, the liminal space was gone, and our second child arrived.

Happy birthday, Mr. 11. You make our world better.

Thanks to the generous hosting of Two Writing Teachers, I write a slice of life every Tuesday. You’re invited, too.

Ambulance

We spend most of our time in the back part of our house in the kitchen, but this morning, something made me glance out the front door. Across the street – right in front of Pina & Mario’s place – was an ambulance.

I didn’t really think much of it at first; my in-laws are visiting for the first time since the pandemic began and I had other things on my mind. And yet… Pina and Mario aren’t young. I checked again. The ambulance was still there.

What is the difference between nosy and concerned? On our street, I honestly don’t always know. Mike, who lives next door and keeps treats in his pockets for everyone’s dogs, knows everything and often keeps us all abreast of what’s happening. The house on our other side, split into three apartments, has housed a series of delightful young couples – one by one they’ve left to get married and have children, leaving me happy that at least my kids haven’t made them rethink their plans. Two real estate agents live on the block – in different houses – and each of them is enthusiastically nosy in her own way. Across the street, baby V and their parents and grandparents occupy one house. I’ve been trying to teach V to say “truck” whenever we cross paths. So far, all we’ve got is enthusiastic raspberries and grins, but we’re getting there. Alex and Tessa used to babysit for our kids before they went to university, so we keep up with them via their mom. The couple next to Mario & Pina share gardening tips, and this year they gave me four hot pepper plants; the couple next to them has a very energetic dog, which means that they often pause in front of Mike’s. Two doors down from us is a family with two girls, both one year younger than my two boys; three doors beyond that, the corner house includes two boys who are nearly the same ages as my two: our families tumble over each other quite regularly. We live in a neighborhood where I feel comfortable running out to borrow an egg or a half cup of sugar. We don’t necessarily hang out together, but we know each other.

That ambulance had me worried. I decided to knit on the front porch. I settled in, trying not to imagine myself as a nosy middle-aged lady. The baby sweater was mostly finished, so I patiently wove in the ends and pretended not to watch Mario & Pina’s house. Eventually, Pina came out, well-dressed, fumbling with her purse. She passed behind the ambulance and disappeared. My heart dropped: Mario. It was Mario.

I waited. The ambulance didn’t move and I tried not to wonder too hard if that meant that they were treating him or if that meant something much worse. No way to know. I concentrated on my sweater.

Mario and Pina have lived on our block for 52 years, longer than anyone else. They bought their house for $34,000 when she was 22 and he was 25. They can tell you how much most of the houses on the block have sold for over the years, and Mario shakes his head when he recounts various neighbours’ renovation antics or inappropriate landscaping choices. He may never forgive the couple that turned their front yard into a driveway to a garage under the house. “Under!” He shakes his head with disgust. Mario himself is always on the go and prides himself on his yard. He mows and sweeps incessantly all summer, then comes out with a snow blower and cleans his sidewalk and driveway, day in and day out, all winter. And yet, Pina is the gardener. Last year she insisted on giving me some of her Rose of Sharon; the year before she took me on a tour of her (immense) backyard vegetable garden. They raised their children here; now their granddaughter – one year older than my oldest – visits every Saturday.

The minutes passed quietly. Pina pulled out in her car and drove off. Moments later, the ambulance followed, no siren. I finished weaving in the ends, then went inside to wet and block the sweater.

After that, my day filled up: there were children to feed and errands to run. I checked things off my to-do list and immediately added others. The baby sweater dried; I spoke with friends.

After dinner, my partner gently said that it was ok to go over and see if they needed anything. I didn’t want to intrude, but I was worried. I decided he was right. We rang the bell and waited, not sure what to expect. After a few moments, Pina’s face appeared at the door. Through my mask, I asked if Mario was ok. “I saw the ambulance this morning,” I babbled, “and then I saw you.” She stared. “I can bring food,” I offered.

Food. They are Italian. Their family is in town. I suspect that they never, ever lack for food.

Pina’s eyes darted left, right and then opened wide with understanding. The ambulance! She had left! No, no, Mario was fine. She, too, had wondered and worried about the ambulance. She watched it out her living room window: what was it doing in front of her house? Perhaps it was there for neighbours? Maybe the driver needed a rest? She didn’t want to be nosy, so she had waited inside, but eventually she had to leave the house. Flustered, she had fumbled for her keys as she made her way down the front walk. She did not know that the ambulance had followed after her. Mario, whose knee was bothering him, had uncharacteristically spent most of the day inside.

They are both fine.

We looked at each other, and our eyes filled with tears. “Come in! Come in!” Pina insisted. I did. We sat at her kitchen table and talked about our neighbors: is Mike well? Isn’t it a shame that the neighbours don’t sit on the porch anymore? Have I seen how her granddaughter has grown? My son is so tall! I declined the offer of coffee. Mario insisted on showing me around the house because he was fine – fine, except for his knee, but what can you expect? This is what it means to get old. There was their wedding picture, Pina’s train spread out forever and ever. They were so young. “Do you know when we bought this house?” asks Mario, full of good spirits, laughing because I thought he was sick (or worse) and he is not. “We were so 22 and 25! Let me tell you about the neighbourhood…”

And I listen to his stories again. Nosy? Maybe. But at least for tonight, everyone on our street is ok.

Confessions of a former mermaid

Getting this cottage for the week was pure luck, a bonus in a summer that we’ve otherwise spent far too close to home. It’s rustic (read: bring your own drinking water; wood stove for heat; don’t even think about a dishwasher or laundry), but the screened in back porch might be the most perfect place in the world: We’re practically inside the trees, their branches swaying and soughing around us, the lake glimmering up through their trunks. I could stay here forever.

I won’t of course, because my children choose a different definition of perfection: the dock and anchored floating platform mere metres below this porch. I could sit here, away from the sun and the bugs, all day, but their bliss is the water.

I, too, love the water. We lived in Panama when I was a toddler, so I grew up swimming in the ocean. In early elementary school in Texas, after I passed the deep water swim test, I decided to walk to the pool by myself. After all, I reasoned, I was now allowed to swim alone and the pool was just down this street…somewhere. I made it to the pool, but the lifeguards, unimpressed by my bravado, called my mother to come get me before I got to swim. Years later, as we drove from Texas to California, our first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean filled me with glee. Our parents, probably tired of driving with three little girls and a dog, stopped the car almost immediately, and I stripped down to my underwear and ran into the ocean.

Soon enough I joined a swim team and, when we moved again, another. Summertime saw me in the water for hours every day, often heading home only long enough to eat lunch and go back. I swam so much that one summer my blond hair turned chlorine-green. For a while, I even swam on a year-round team, waking in the wee hours of winter to dive into a pool and swim before school. By the end of high school I was a lifeguard and a swim coach, a job I continued into college. I scuba-dived on vacations and snorkeled while pregnant with my eldest. I once joked that I was half-mermaid, as at home in the water as I was on land.

These days, I’m no mermaid. We’ve been at this cottage for three days, and I have yet to go in the water. Oh, I’ve let my feet hang over the edge of the dock and wiggled my toes as fish swim by, wondering if they should risk a nibble. I’ve kayaked the entire perimeter of this small lake. I even tried stand-up paddle boarding. But actual swimming? Nope.

Yesterday our friends came for a visit and, as the fathers splashed and swam with the kids, my fellow mom and I sat and watched. I was wearing my bathing suit, but I declined even a direct invitation to join them in the water. I was completely content on land.

When did this happen? When did I become one of the moms who sits and chats instead of playing? Was there a day? A month? If I looked back carefully, could I pinpoint the last summer that I went into the water willingly? When did going into the water turn from joy to job? It’s not like I’m worried about my hair (it air-dries just fine) or my makeup (I stopped wearing it during covid, in part to encourage my students to turn on their cameras regardless of their concerns about appearance). I tease my family that I cannot trust Canadian-born people to accurately assess water temperature – their warm is not the same as mine – and it’s true that Canadian lakes, even small ones, are not as warm as South Carolina lakes, but I can tell that this one is not especially cold. So why don’t I go in? I honestly don’t know, but even thinking about it, recognizing the change, I’m not tempted. To be fair to myself, I’ve already swum across one lake this summer, and I have every intention of swimming across this one before we leave. Maybe tomorrow, I think, maybe then I’ll go in.

I might, but I’m not sure. Even as I sit here, remembering my former mermaid self, I feel no sense of loss. I’m happy on this perfect porch, letting the wind caress me, feet up, hair down, appreciating the smooth silver surface of the lake from a place of quiet.

With gratitude to Two Writing Teachers for creating this place where teachers can practice the craft of writing.

Advice when I can’t quite write

“You should write about writer’s block,” says Mr. 13 as he shoves more popcorn into his mouth.

“Nobody wants to read about that,” I reply.

“I don’t know,” he says, “I mean, you’ve been trying to write for a long time today. Aren’t you supposed to write about your life?”

In the not-at-all distant background, Mr. 10 is experimenting on the piano that hasn’t been tuned since before Covid. He has not yet found his way to a tune; I’m not convinced that’s his goal. The random notes are not helping me concentrate.

“You could just publish what you already wrote.” Mr. 13 is still trying to help.

I make a face. “It’s not good enough.”

“Mom,” he is exasperated, “you wouldn’t let me say that. Maybe you need to just publish it and be done.”

But I can’t. The funny story about how today I left the pan of oil on a warm element and set off the fire alarm just isn’t that funny. The Golden Shovel poem about being lonely isn’t that poem-y. The lines I’ve captured in my notebook have potential, but they seem intent on remaining kernels of ideas rather than full-fledged pieces.

The piano continues in the background, discordant, unpredictable, distracting.

Shall I write about being 13? Missing my family? Waiting and waiting for the Canada-US border to open? I could write a memory. I want to be funny, but I’m not feeling funny. I’m just feeling off and this house is full of noise.

Maybe today I can give myself grace. It’s summer. I am taking things in, noticing, walking, being. Maybe today I can accept that what I’m writing is what I’m writing which is this. This is what I’m writing. And it is enough.

“I think you were right,” I say to my son as he heads to bed. “I wrote about writer’s block. It was good enough.”

He smiles. “Good night. Love you, Mom.”

How to make banana bread

It’s a lovely quiet summer morning. The kids are still asleep and your partner is somewhere in the house. You shuffle into the kitchen, put some water in the tea kettle and turn it on. While you wait for the water to boil, realize that you could might as well mash the four overripe bananas on the kitchen counter. Find a bowl (just under the cupboard with the mugs) and mash.

Mashing bananas only takes a minute, so the water is still not ready. Turn the oven to 350 and add an egg to the bananas. Decide to replace the sugar with honey because you have an awful lot of honey right now. Check quickly to make sure that honey is a one-to-one substitute for sugar. It is! Add ½ cup of honey and – because the water is almost ready – use ⅓ cup canola oil instead of butter today.

The water has boiled. Spoon out the tea leaves and set the tea to steeping.

Put a dash of vanilla in the mix. Oh, and maybe a dash of salt. Add 1½ cups of flour right on top of the wet mixture. Sub in some whole grain flour for some of that because it’s healthier, right? Um… double-check the recipe on the post-it on the fridge. Where is it? There! Behind a receipt. Receipt… recipe… receipt… recipe…

Our time-tested banana bread recipe – more or less

Yes: 1 tsp baking soda. Dump it on top of the flour. Go ahead and add 1 tsp of baking powder, too. Gently stir those two into the flour so they don’t clump, then give the whole mixture just a few strokes so it’s moist.

The tea has steeped plenty long enough. Take out the tea leaves and set them aside.

Check the cupboards for extras. Today you will throw in some unsweetened coconut, a generous handful of walnuts and another of chocolate chips. Grease a loaf pan, pour the batter in, and pop it in the oven.

Add some milk to your tea. Start to sit down and realize that if you don’t set a timer, the bread will burn. The recipe says 50 min but the honey is sticky… Go for an hour.

Pour a cup of tea, sit down and read.

When the next person comes into the kitchen, agree that the bread does, indeed, smell wonderful.

(I love this banana bread recipe. I’ve made it a million times and it’s both easy and flexible. It makes great muffins, too – though do NOT cook those for an hour! The honey in today’s bread made for a really sticky loaf, so I can’t call it a resounding success, but it still tastes pretty good.)