How do we sleep at night?

I can’t sleep. 

But I’m so tired. My heart keeps racing and my nerves are jangling in my head like bangles.

The ceiling fan stirs hot air above me but doesn’t add any pleasantries. It makes an odd sound, a metallic scrape, leaving me unsettled. How safe can that be?

I check my phone.

Nothing.

It doesn’t happen as much these days, but sometimes I swim into the murky waters of opinion when I believe I am right. It doesn’t matter that no one ever saves the other by trying to sink their ideas. No one seems to drown.

Guns piercing schools seems to be my trigger.

I’m arguing with a woman in Texas, whom I’ve never met but whose children share a digital universe with mine where they play and smile and pose for the camera.

We are venting our fears. Communicating ideas. But ultimately speaking into a void.

We are together in pain and worry and fear until ... we talk about solutions.

“We need to do something to stop this ... Don’t tell me gun control is the answer.”

“Guns don’t kill people. ...”

She tells me we have enough laws. Laws don’t protect people. Her husband tells me we need religion and corporal punishment and family values. They tell me we can’t stop people from killing people.

It’s the same argument playing out across generations all over the country. It’s a needle stuck in a groove.

They want tighter security. Better healthcare. More religion. Stronger accountability. Stricter parenting. More guns.

They also want to pay fewer taxes. And be free to be a responsible gun owner not under the burdens of more onerous oversight. The laws we have already say they are responsible gun owners and that is all the law will allow. 

They have the right to protect their own with guns.

I can’t express how crazy it seems to me that we can’t (or won’t) regulate guns the way we regulate cars. You know ... licensing and registration, insurance and periodic inspections, and regulations that hold manufacturers accountable. 

They've stood their ground the legislation of tighter safety controls in the name of privacy, a right we've relinquished for automobiles, air travel and single-box purchases of Pseudoephedrine. 

The results are indisputable:

Auto deaths are declining while gun deaths on the rise.

I argue that is the result of well-crafted laws.

It’s not as if we’ve done nothing. 

We have already fortified schools. We have stationed police in them. We have spent precious time from the business of education so that our kids can practice surviving.

We can add metal detectors and barbed wire and block out the windows. We can harden our schools and our children. But that is untenable.

Soon, I imagine, we’ll be strapping the staff with sidearms and subjecting our kids to mental health evaluations as a requirement of being admitted to the school building because crazy ideas will seem reasonable if you just repeat them over and over and over again. Like guns being an inviolable right.

Guns don't kill people.

The so-called responsible gun owners apparently don’t kill people either. But it seems from one shooting to the next, some of their children do.

But there are glimmers of hope.

Many of our children, from both sides of the political aisle, are raising their voices.

Last week hundreds of students and activists from New Yorkers Against Gun Violence rallied at the Capitol Building to urge the State Senate to pass a bill for Extreme Risk Prevention Orders before their legislative session ends in June.

The law would create a new type of court-issued protection order that allows family members and other domestic relations to seek the temporary removal of guns as well as the prohibition of firearm purchases when there is evidence the person poses a threat to themselves or others.

Laws of this type have already been enacted in eight other states, including Connecticut, California, Florida, Maryland, Oregon, Vermont and, Washington.

I can only hope our children keep using their voices ... and the ballot when they are old enough to vote.

I hope, for the sake of all of us, that our children win. 

They won't have to ask themselves how they sleep at night.

With every fiber of my being

The days are getting longer, the nights warmer, but nature still keeps us guessing.

What perils await?

Honestly, I thought quicksand would prove more detrimental to my life as an adult than the common mosquito, but here we are.

The ground has firmed up under my boots. Finally. The early spring sponge has been swished and swallowed by the roots of the fast-growing meadow grasses. I don't have to worry about losing a shoe to the bog.

The dogs in my pack bound through the new growth, disturbing songbirds as they rush past, using the same effort they would have to plow through the snow and the wet.

If there is a swath of swamp remaining, they will find it and come back to me reeking of dung and detritus. 

Everything in our path, including the path itself, seems lush and verdant. The colors are explosive. 

The pond is cool and inviting. Of course, the dogs will swim.

Emerging insects don’t buzz me as much as they collide with my sunglasses. Bounce off my face and into my hair. Down my neck.

I hate them. 

The breeze takes the lightest ones away. My guard is up, though. My shoulders tense. Every itch I sense makes me feel flea-bitten. Every freckle could be a tick.

I meant to bring insect repellant. I never remember it.

This is not my season.

The sun is warm until it slips behind clouds that conceal a torrent.

In an instant, my clothes are too warm and then not warm enough.

The heat in the air is already hinting at an oppressive summer. 

I am afraid to dig out the garments that would suit this emerging weather.

The big question of course being: Will the things I tucked away to hibernate still fit?

On humans, winter doesn’t have the same slimming effect it has on bears. We widen into new soft and flabby skins. 

A part of me wonders why I save these clothes I shuffle semi-annually from bed to bureau. Week in, week out, I wear the same four things: Something old, Something new, Something borrowed Something blue ... 

Even if I am spared the expense of an entire wardrobe replacement for size, I will spend similar capital trying to mitigate the shock of my winter faded flesh.

I will try a few lotions and tinctures before giving up and buying a new pair of drugstore sunglasses to protect myself from the milky white glare of my skin reflecting back at me in the mirror.

Not that there won’t be pleasant surprises in the totes that have grown dusty under my bed. I am nothing if not sentimental.

For example, last year I’d forgotten about those coffee-colored yoga pants I’d practically lived in the summer before. I’ve lost track of how many years I’ve had them. Ten years at least. Somewhere between Kid Number One and Kid Number Two. They never wrinkle, stain or fade.

In them, I can salute the sun in the morning and kick sand at the beach as the sun sets.

I smile at the irony. There’s no way those fibers are natural.

Mother's Day

Can I mow the lawn?

The boy, with his mop of artfully tousled hair and permanent marker tattoos creeping over his skin, barreled into the house, dropped his bags and gear and various sport-related brick-a-brack and set off to find me:

MAAAAAAAAAAAAA? MAAAAA!? Can I mow the lawn?

You’d think I’d hit pay-dirt ... or that my daughter had finally read “Tom Sawyer” and had improvised a fence-painting scene of her own.

“You want to cut the grass?” I had to ask lest my ears deceive me.

“Yeah,” he said with a shrug, not entirely remembering the events of last season when the jewel blue electric mower was not only new but also a novelty. 

We had all marveled at the effortless, push-button start; the fume free and surprisingly quiet purr of its motor; and the impressive cut of its mowing jib.

We did not, however, anticipate how hard it would be to push has grass clippings filled up it’s bag attachment. 

A few passes with the thing and it became evident the activity of mowing the lawn could replace any thought of visiting a gym.

The boy couldn’t even manage a single pass without nearly hyperventilating. 

I felt a little sorry for him. For years we had been spoiled by an ancient riding mower (even though it needed to be jump started and had long ago stopped being able to go in reverse). We soon became reacquainted with the hard work of the landscaping Sisyphus because even as this pretty, new mower roared to life on demand, it did not have self-propelled handling.

The boy never had the chance to drive that old clunker around the yard, turning our lawn into his own private NASCAR track and having a Tom Sawyer experience of chores. He was too young. 

With this push mower, he was starting on the ground floor. 

And apparently working his way into the basement: Two wiggly horizontal passes of our narrow front lawn and the boy was red-faced and panting.

“This is hard,” he huffed, not a little disgruntled at the fact that I was watching him from the comfort of a lounge chair on the front porch.

“Pace yourself,” I coached. “Stiffen your abs, angle your upper body, bend a little more forward and plant one foot in front of the other. Don’t forget to breathe.”

Half a pass more and the mower sat abandoned in the middle of the lawn. 

“I’m going to practice pitching,” he said somewhat melodically before running off into the backyard; unbothered by a job left unfinished.

His young mind, back then, unable to wrap itself around the notion that “work” isn’t always equal parts fun. 

I expected as much. And once I finished my coffee, I’d go out there and take a few swipes myself.

I’ve also had to adjust to the pace and charge of the new device.

 The battery will die a few passes before completion, and its recharging will take just enough time for me to do two loads of laundry and vacuum the pool before I can return to the lawn. (Not that I will EVER vacuum the pool). 

Instead, I will make more coffee and sit on the porch listening to the thud of the kid's baseballs against the backstop. 

The quick fix

The doorknob clunks to the floor for the zillionth time. I can hear it roll the entire length of the teenager’s uneven room.

An exasperated gush of air claws its way through her larynx as she announces her displeasure.

“Stupid door! When are you going to fix it?”

Old houses. Don’t let anyone tell you their ghosts aren’t real. The true specter of their terror, however, is untold trips to hardware stores as one repair leads to an indefinite number of others.

I smile. I know what her father’s answer will be: he’s scheduled all minor household repairs for somewhere between finishing the window trim and gutting the kitchen. Quite possibly between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on the next Tuesday in Never.

You are, of course, always free to attempt the repair yourself.

Which is not bad advice for two reasons: the first being that thing that inevitably happens when menfolk see their gender counterparts rifling through a toolbox, looking for a screwdriver. They find the seventeen hours they need for the job and take over. In no time at all that wonky thing that’s been plaguing your dreams for the last fortnight will get fixed.

Or ...

Through trial and error, you learn that tightening the whosamawhatsits with the dinkus isn’t nearly as complicated as you thought it might be.

For all other things there is YouTube.

Which is where I find myself often, just scrolling around, trying to solve the mysteries of life:

Q: Will mulch attract ticks? A: Maybe not the mulch itself, but the warm, moist environment it maintains might.

Q: How can I sharpen these fabric scissors my kids used on paper? A: fold a piece of tin foil eight times and cut through it eight times at a 15-degree angle. You will be amazed.

Q: How do you stop a dog from jumping? A: Don’t pay her any attention until she’s keeping her four feet on the floor. Stop looking for quick fixes.

Q: What’s school serving for lunch on Thursday, May 10th? A: Grilled cheese, tomato or chicken noodle soup and broccoli. Go pack them lunch, you lazy bones.

Q: Why does the expensive cordless vacuum cleaner I bought pulse and stop working when I just cleaned out the canisters and, there don’t appear to be any other blockages?

At which point, some smiling YouTube dad, sent me on what seemed like a 12-month odyssey wherein he would explain the intricacies involved in remedying this high-end suction failure but assuring me the problem could be fixed in 30 seconds!

Thirty. Seconds!

He began this 12-minute journey by explaining in detail the trouble I had already experienced. He even went to the effort of recreating the sound the machine was making through the magic of ventriloquism.

Er-errrr-Er-errrr ... Er-errrr-Er-errrr ... Er-errrr-Er-errrr ... Er-errrr-Er-errrr!

Oh, he was good. I barely saw his lips move.

But for the love of Pete, get to the point. What’s the problem with this dumb vacuum cleaner?

“See this bit here? It is a filter. Now, it may not look like it’s clogged but you will see rivers of mud flow through the thing once you hold it under the tap and give it a good wring out.

"Afterward all you need to do is just let it dry for 24 hours, and you’ll be good to go.”

Wait a minute?

Did he just say rinse the filter and let it dry for 24 hours? How is that a 30-second fix?

At least we have an extra few hours to fix the doorknob.