Housekeeping

She's not what I'd call typical. 

The girl was getting ready to come home from college for the holidays, but she needed to do a little housekeeping first. 

"Hey ... can you do me a favor? Can you put nine dollars in my college bank? Our machines don't take cash or credit, they only take College Bucks."

She didn't want to be the kid who brought everything home in need of a wash.

"Sure, but it will cost you. I need a personal shopper:  Do you think your brother will like these?" 

I sent a link to what must have appeared to her sensibilities to have been The Most Hideous Pair Of Sneakers On The Planet. The Kind No Self-Respecting Teenager Would Ever Wear In A Million YearsTM. 

"You can't be serious," she shot back adding a link to a pair that I Never, In A Million Years, Would Have Guessed He'd LikeTM."

It will be good to have her home.  Even if it's not all sugar and spice. 

This is all I could think about as the gingerbread house sat beside me in the car, filling the cabin air with holiday cheer and filling my heart with glimpses of Christmases past. 

Fourteen to be exact. 

It hasn't been every year that I've managed to procure one of these seasonal kits from our local bakery, but I've scored enough of them for the kids to think of it as one our most enduring traditions. 

It brought the whole family together in a kind of frayed patchwork that makes us quirky and unique. 

My husband will crack his knuckles in anticipation of how his hands will cramp as he uses them, in a vice grip fashion, to apply steady pressure to the piping bag that I, in my only job aside from purchasing, had filled with royal icing. The kids will loudly unwrap what's left of the candy stash -- slowly pilfered as we bided time -- and playfully argue about a particular pattern of colorful confection and the proper way to stucco it to the dark gingerbread's exterior.

Our laughter scatters the wrappers, now empty and crumpled, all around the dining room where the sugar dust of renovation gathers. It also summons the ghosts of those who aren't with us any more. 

My mother ... in chunky sweater and still wearing her winter hat inside ... folds her arms and grins at my father, who is underneath the Christmas tree, setting up the train. 

The memories aren't all idyllic. There will be hard feelings bubbling up that might, under ordinary circumstances, create a mess. These stress of expecting too much or getting it all wrong. But even they are comforting in their own way. 

Odd Jobs

I must admit, I walked into this room with a purpose. Maybe I'd come to fetch something out of a drawer and become distracted by the myriad things that called out for attention. It's certainly a likely scenario.

But what had I been looking for? 

I know I'd come from the kitchen, where I had been emptying the dishwasher, and picked up a glass that belonged at the bar in the living room, so after I brought it there, I noticed the cat had thrown up on the couch slipcover, which I stripped off and shoved into the washing machine down the hall. Of course, the detergent box is empty, so I have to run out to the car where I had left the replacement because storage for that kind of thing is at a premium (I'm not a fan of stockpiling) so I keep the recent household chemistry haul in the trunk.

Had you walked into the house at the moment (past the woman with uncombed hair clawing through the boot of her car) you clearly would have seen an open washing machine, textiles spilling forth, with an item in need of recycling on the floor in front of it; a clean fancy tumbler sitting on a pile of coffee table books in the next room; an open dishwasher, half filled with clean dishes and the open cabinets where those dishes will temporarily reside; and a cat who would be hungry for second breakfast circling your feet.

The neighbor knocks, looking to borrow a thing I secretly hope won't be returned. It's just another thing that is taking up space.

I know I shouldn't be upset when she idly mentions missing having a house that looks lived in as her eyes trace the explosion of winter boots and gym bags and cardboard boxes waiting to be muscled into the recycling bin.

She's earnest. 

People make TikTok memes with adorable versions of open cabinets and abandoned tasks trying to convince us we are the victims of our disordered minds.

But I don't buy it. Evidence of a retching animal, be it sound or substance, should instinctively shuffle the order of domestic operations. It should not surprise when such an emetic eruption, even momentarily, throws the whole house into chaos.

The fractured attention we self-diagnose is just a label that might never have stuck without the modern necessity of increasing having to multitask how we multitask.

As the husband snickers to the camera about his wife's absent-mindedness, I wonder to myself "just how many butter knives has he left straddling the no man's land between the sink basin and the counter proper? He and his brethren will never see this utensil as abandoned or as a task undone because in his mind it is perfectly logical to decide on that second piece of toast ... a little later in Never.

Eventually, I will wrestle these things back into order. It won't be pretty, and I'll probably bash my head into an open cabinet door. It will be the final thing that needs to be buttoned up before I sit down.

But to be sure, the snowstorm that is life will blow through before I get up again.

It's the most logical thing in the world: Life keeps handing us odd jobs.

Cabinet of mysteries

 The box, grimy with dust and crushed on one edge, must have been sitting on a shelf in my father's garage for a number of decades. It looked like the kind of box that had been made in the 70s and sold at Hill's Stationery shop: sturdy, with a glued-on label that affirmed its contents had once been a raft of business-sized envelopes. Yellowed by time, the container was thicker and sturdier than its modern counterpart. It was something any generation might frugally repurpose. But it had clearly outlived its usefulness.

As if it knew my plans, the box wouldn't budge when I tried to slide it toward me. A task I had assumed would take only a minimal effort before I could inspect what was inside and unceremoniously pitch it and its contents into the great beyond. Which, for my purposes, was a forty-thousand-yard dumpster I'd rented to haul away all the things my father had owned that had somehow avoided eviction all these years. I increased pressure, and the box suddenly came loose, bringing with it a chip of paint from the shelf where it had stuck.

When I tipped up the lid, I found a leather-bound book tooled with flowers and smelling of age and must.

The book held sepia-toned photographs affixed to cards ... professional portraits, some of which bore the imprint of studios with Spindle and Collar City addresses. Someone had carefully inserted each photograph into the ornate windows of album's thick pages. They seemed remarkably preserved despite the fact that some had shifted over the years, their edges out of alignment, where they'd come unglued.

Known as Cabinet Cards, (I learned from Wikipedia) this style of photography hit the height of its popularity in the 1880s and 90s. And, as the name implies, were intended for display inside glass curio cabinets. The cards, however, fell out of favor by the 1920s once consumer market cameras and mass-produced picture postcards came on the scene.

As I flipped through the book, I met some unfamiliar faces: Men with wild hair and even wilder beards, the cut of their clothes suggested they were professionals, although some wore the garments of the priesthood; Women of all ages, some looking dour as they perched on the edge of an ornate settee, while others gazed sweetly into the camera as they stood wasp-waisted in layered skirts; One person, sitting ramrod straight, donning tartan togs and a high-tufted hairdo, defied gender typing. There were even a few children: girls with their long hair in bows, wearing straight-line dresses that reached their ankles.

As I continued to study the faces, it seemed entirely possible that at least some of these beautiful Victorian strangers had come from the old country only by mail. Perhaps, they were tucked into letters and sent by airmail half a world away. Just like my father's sister reported to have seen herself and her siblings on a mantle in Ireland when she made a pilgrimage there to meet our Irish cousins. Like these images those real-life relatives were essentially strangers she only knew about from reading letters traded between her late parents and theirs.

My aunt didn’t recognize anyone either. Nor did anyone in my mother's branch of the family.

Perhaps it was just a silent hobby of someone now long departed; A collection of paper wonders that would take up space on a shelf (albeit in a newer shoebox) destined to confound its next discoverer. A mystery worth living on in posterity.

Seen and not heard

I hadn't heard from her in a day.

Not a call, not a text, not even a blurry nested photo of what she was doing, and what she looked like doing it, when Be Real went live ... 

I looked at my watch. "It's been thirteen hours and one entire day."

The mission, should you choose to accept it, is getting proof of life before the NOC list gets out in the open. 

Not that the disappearance should have worried me.

As the semester's end neared, and with it, the time-gobbling tasks of course finals looming, I had told myself to expect a certain increase in cellular silence. 

Tests should trump texts despite this modern age of upheaval. 

My daughter's generation has migrated to new playgrounds that members of my generation don't easily assimilate. 

Our inner thoughts are encased by the thinnest of, yet nearly impenetrable, virtual walls.

Facebook is for the elderly, Linked-in is for the elderly who are still employable, and Twitter is a 44-billion-dollar hole in the universe where the rest of us shout into a void. 

Desperation is a text from your mom at 6:45 ... a time calculated to wake you up a few minutes before you needed to get out of bed anyway. 

In these early days of this new freedom, the message will be verbose and irritating by the sheer word count and the forced smile they intone: 

"Good morning!!! I know you are busy. But can you text back when you get a chance? Just want to know you are ok. You didn't post a photo yesterday on the only site you allow me to see (and for which I try not to comment or be intrusive in any way so that you might forget I am lurking ... like a stalker and come to regret allowing this small access). **Heart emoji, prayer emoji, smiley face emoji**"

Three dots drum their fingers on the screen and my fears immediately start to abate. 

"I'm fine. Just super busy with finals. *heart emoji, heart emoji, laughing face emoji.*"

The kids aren't here. They aren't supposed to be. That magic arc of childhood is hurtling towards the other horizon: adulthood.  

We knew the advice wasn't cliche: "Enjoy it while it lasts. You won't believe how fast time goes."

But sleep deprivation made us believe that we could be the exception. 

 

Our kids will call. They will write. They will visit every chance they get. And when they visit they will spend quality time ...

... with their friends. Or the kids who were not their friends, but who, with the hindsight of maturation, friendship was just a delayed opportunity. 

Which can be rectified over winter break. 

Our kids are still here.

Even when they aren't here. 

When they are out living their lives.

So, by this time next year, I fully expect to be able to text a "You good?" And get a thumbs-up emoji. As it should be.

But I'm not giving up hope of hearing her voice ... when she gets tired of typing and has more than a few words to say, she records a voice memo and sends it back in the chat. It self-destructs after playing.

A prayer for my mother ... over tagliatelle

"You want to start with the base.

"Onion, carrots, celery. ...

"A mirepoix ... the holy trinity."

It's my mother's voice that is whispering over my shoulder as I inexpertly dice the vegetables into uneven pieces and dump them into a pan to sauté. 

"Oh, do I?" I whisper back. 

No. I did not want to worship in the galley kitchen of tradition. I wanted to skip the base. Especially the green bits. 

She had always anticipated my plans and endeavored to circumvent them. She may be gone, but her advice lives on in the blessing of memory. 

"Don't skimp on the celery."

Maybe it was the pile of green half-moon crescents left on my plate after every tuna sandwich or noodle casserole of my childhood, that had tipped her off that I didn't like the miracle vegetable's peppery flavor or its tough fibrous veins. She knew, also, from the first bite of my adult-hosting events that something was missing. 

And she firmly believed the omission was a culinary sin. 

"I know you had some success trading celery for pickles in your tuna salad, but I will pray aloud for the door to hit you on the way out if you try that kinda nonsense with dinner. 

"Just close your eyes and put the celery in. The flavor won't be the same without it."

That was her message for everything I would ever question about conventional wisdom: "You just have to have faith."

And so it came to be, on the eve of all food-centric holidays that our family meal would be pasta. Something sparse on ingredients that would nevertheless provide a plentiful yield.

My mother's go-to meal was Bolognese, a flavorful meat sauce she'd pair with noodles. 

It was a family favorite, mostly because she said it was "goulash" and called it "garbagé."

What you need:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium carrot
• 1 celery stalk
• 1 small onion
• 10 ounces ground beef (not too lean)
• 10 ounces ground pork
• 1/2 cup dry red wine
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 2 1/4 cups tomato puree 
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1-2 whole bay leaves
• 1/3 cup milk 

What you need to do:

Dice onions, celery, and carrots and put them in a large pot with olive oil. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally until the onion is translucent. 

Increase heat to medium and add the ground meat, stirring to break it up as it cooks. Once the meat browns evenly, turn the heat to high and add wine. Cool on high until the alcohol burns off (about 30 seconds) and then turn it back to medium. 

Stir in tomato paste, puree, salt and pepper then add bay leaf and reduce heat to the lowest setting and simmer for three hours. Stir occasionally. 

To finish, remove the bay leaf, add milk, and heat thoroughly at a medium temperature. 

My mother served it over elbow macaroni, but the recipe, one of the first she ever copied for me, called for a wide flat noodle linguini, fettuccine, or tagliatelle. 

Of course, she added some words of wisdom she thought I needed most: "Remember to cook the noodles before serving."

In Gratitude

At a family reunion, last summer my father's sister set a box of empty books out on a picnic table with a sign marked "Gratitude Journals" and instructed us to take one. 

The box sat there through the cookout, and as the band played up-tempo folk covers, their pages rustled at the edges in tempo with gusts from the warm late August breeze.

It had been a while since we'd all been together like this. Almost a year. My father had been there then, toting around oxygen bottles and getting tangled in the lines that had recently tethered him to them. I had been a nervous wreck, swooping in to untangle him and recriminating myself for taking him on this journey in his condition. I was so anxious that I couldn't even articulate my fears to some of the relatives who had decided we hadn't reached post-pandemic gathering safety quite yet: "... this may be the last time ..."

His memory was with us now, filling the void I had felt with absolute certainty that he would have loved every minute. From the moment we stepped into the foyer of the rental cabin with its decades' worth of one family's ski passes affixed to the wall, to the moment his granddaughter jumped from the rock wall's edge into a deep pocket of the river below. Unexpected miracles if you think about them. Even just the thrill of kicking a rainbow-colored ball into the weeds when the bases are loaded seems an outsized feat. I will cheer until my voice splinters.

Gratitude, psychologists will tell you, is more than words we offer in return for a gift or a favor. Gratitude is a trait that can be part of our dispositions as well as a fluctuating mood we carry from day to day. It can ease our tensions with a world we often find ourselves at odds with if we let more of it inside.

As she made her way from cousin to cousin, embracing each of us in a hug that belied her slender frame, my aunt explained the basics: Life is much too short to focus so heavily on its hardships. Take some time every day to take note of its gifts. 

I visited the picnic table before I left, selecting a book with a green leatherette cover embossed with Celtic knots and lined, cream-color pages from the others. I slipped it into the bag I had hauled around all day, from which I would harass my nearly grown children at regularly-timed intervals with cans of bug spray and sun-protective lotions.

I know the sun is setting on this moment, even as the kids wave away my concerns. The sun has gone behind the clouds, and the flies are not swarming. We have replaced our parents just as they will replace us. 

This understanding no longer fills me with dread. The future will come whether I note it or not, whether I worry about it between my thoughts. 

Of course, I knew this book would remain pristine for a while. It will stay in the bag with the unused potions and wait for me to decide where to take it. I will hesitate over penmanship ... trying to stave off that first cross-through line by not writing anything. It will surf from one side of my desk to the other, reminding me with its emerald hue that it is ready when I am.

Rescue remedy

The road is long. It is windy. And soon, I'll have to stop for gas,

I'd almost forgotten about the tin: A somewhat marvelous yellow container purchased on impulse at the recommendation of a friend and tucked into the side pocket of my car door. It still contained a handful of pillow-shaped capsules -- pastilles as they were labeled -- that claimed to safely and naturally alleviate stress, and that I'd imagined were a mixture of sorcery and snake oil.

Of course, I do not believe in such hocus pocus. Not even at the price I'd paid, which, by pre-inflationary standards, was well above the threshold at which manufacturers understand that unmet claims would need to be properly reimbursed. But I bought the citrus, honey-flavored bonbons nonetheless and then promptly forgot all about them after an initial taste test made me worry the remedy might instead lift the enamel from my teeth.

But then Election Day happened. And the blathering of talking heads for days, weeks, and months as a lead-up wore on me. Their voices were like knives, my focus strained from the convergence of all the refractive screens in my general orbit. I start to become like stone. My hands clench a little tighter and my shoulders inch a little higher, especially as I drove myself to various errands and to mild distraction.

I was afraid for it to be over. Afraid of the landslide that would annihilate everything in its path.

I dipped my hand into the door gap and felt around for the circular tin. I shook it, listening for the satisfying rattle of tiny lozenges. Still there.

The sound it makes as I open it is loud and percussive. It feels like a drum beat. When pressed, the lid of the container echoes as it pops loose. Pushing in against the rim from both sides fixes the lid back into place with more of a metallic snap. I repeat the process in what I imagine to be 2/4 time. 

Anyone listening might disagree. The incessant popping and snapping could set their teeth on edge or make knuckles white. I wouldn't blame them for being annoyed to the point of explosion because of my tin beatbox pulsing atonal jazz.

I notice then that the box has shifted and a cascade of candied gels has spilled out into my lap. I realize the package's entertaining engineering requires two hands.

I abandoned all sense of order, took a deep breath, fished a pill out of my pants, and popped it into my mouth. It tasted like honey-sweetened nothing. Chewy, honey-sweetened nothing.

I take another deep breath and wait for the promise of soothing natural botanicals to wrap me in its blanket of calm as I keep driving.

There are so many miles yet to go. I roll down my window to let the unnaturally warm breeze clear the air. And just keep breathing. And I keep opening and closing the now empty tin with the beat of music on the radio.

Eventually, I realize I AM calm. 

I don't need the remedy, but maybe I'll just keep the tin.

Stroganoff

"It smells good," said my son, whose nose, which up until this moment had been metaphorically pressed against his computer screen, led him into the kitchen where I had been tinkering with dinner.

I say "tinkering" because I am a cook in the chore description only. I have no loftier aspiration than following simple instructions and am especially fond of the pre-packaged kind. Time and again, I may add a dash of this or that to doctor the taste. Sometimes it works; sometimes it fails spectacularly. No one seems to notice. 

My tinkering has been made more extensive as the years wear on and the fonts keep getting smaller and smaller. Instead of searching the house for drugstore readers, I make wild guesses as to the measured amounts the directions called for. 

Often I am wildly wrong.

There was the Great Tablespoon of Cornstarch saga one Thanksgiving not that long ago, which created the need for several rounds of hydrotherapy until finally, we paid our last respects to the decimated sauce as I tipped it into the trash.

My husband took over gravy-making from then on.

Eventually, he took over a lion's share of the regular meal preparations, too. Leaving me to bake fish, blanch vegetables, and boil instant rice in the evenings work places him elsewhere.

On this night I attempted to recreate my father's stroganoff, which is really my mother's dish that my father managed to recreate so flawlessly that he just took over cooking one day, too.

But I digress.

The stroganoff started with the slicing (against the grain for tenderness) of beef that we somehow managed to have left over from a roast the night before. He'd brown it more, adding onions and mushrooms and sautéing the lot over medium heat until the vegetables were soft. 

He'd dump the contents of the pan on a plate and add butter and flour to the pan. He'd stir and stir, slowly adding beef bouillon he'd already dissolved in hot water until this roux became a gravy, then he'd return the meat to the pan and let it cook down.

There may be a reckoning if the sauce was too thick (he'd add water) or too thin (he'd add water whitened with flour) and keep watch.

He'd splash in some Worcestershire sauce, which he would mispronounce on purpose, and a generous pinch of dill before finishing up by incorporating a solid amount of sour cream.

My mom used to ladle it over egg noodles, but my dad use to make "bowties" for his biggest fan ...

My son.

As much as I have tried ... I can't get around the roux. I brown it too fast, or it will hold on to its clumps yielding a deeply unpleasant texture. I'll forget a key ingredient and the taste will mirror paste. And no matter how hard I squint, I can't make out which way the grain is going. No matter how I slice it, I fear the meat will be tough as leather.

So I cheat.

I start with some pre-sliced beef and an envelope of powdered gravy ... and I follow the directions on the back, and in a few minutes, I have a soup that kind of looks similar. 

The boy brushed past me, picked up a spatula, and gave the pot a stir.

"You want to scrape all the way to the bottom of the pan and then kind of fold it over," I offer, hoping to blunt any perceptions of criticism with the adoption of a sing-song voice.

He digs in.

"It tastes good, too."

Leading questions

"Hey ... I don't suppose you want to come with me and the dog on a walk?"

I know how it sounds. It's an offer with a subtle twist of the arm as well as an escape hatch. The cast of it would have let the sdol slip the hook entirely.

This is why I am surprised by the somewhat enthusiastic "Ok," followed almost immediately by the clomping of feet on the stairs.

We had reeled him in. 

"I'll hold her," he says, taking the leash from my hand and opening the door. He notices the dog's elation as she chomps at the tether and bounds onto the porch.

"Is she always this excited for a walk?"

I consider answering with an outright lie: She's NEVER this excited; it must be your presence that has sparked such joy.

"Yeah. This is part of the routine. She'll hop around with her leash for a while at the start, then she'll get serious about surveilling the local squirrel population."

I don't clue him in that there will be a mile's worth of dawdling ahead of us with random pinpoints of unruliness inserted for excitement.

Nor do I outline all the remedies a dog's-life worth of repetition has taught me. That a fluffy puppy nearly minding its own business at an intersection may provoke an unneighborly reaction from our beloved pooch. Or we might pass each other like proverbial ships in the night. Like ghosts.

It's a crap shoot.

"That will be your job," he says as if he's heard my thoughts. He extracts the bag dispenser from the loop and hands it over to me. A ringing endorsement of my skills.

I could have predicted that.

But if I've learned anything about this ritual of ordinary life is that you can always be surprised.

Evidenced, in part, by my son's voluntary presence on this warm fall evening stroll, not to mention his enthusiasm for answering my intrusive questions ...such as "What are you working on in social studies?" and "What did you have for lunch?"

Questions intended to get him talking but invariably make him chuckle at his knuckle-headed mother: "Burgers and child labor. ... Which reminds me, we're out of milk; and if you wanted to pay me for the lawn mowing two weeks ago, I wouldn't protest."

It's not a bad deal. For the promise of some future payment, he reveals more about his day as he strains against the force of the dog and the unexpected extension of her bungee leash.

I learn about the school's therapy dog, who has a taste for footwear and has cost his owners plenty in emergency vet bills.

I learned about his non-plans for Halloween. Maybe he will go out into the night dressed as a weird monster from his twisted imagination, hitting the houses that don't get quite as much traffic. Using his decades of experience, he has deduced that the offset houses will offload armloads of candy just to be rid of temptation. Or maybe he'll just sit in his room watching YouTube videos explaining the hardships of life for children in Victorian England.

"Did you know that in England, a girl fell behind in her work at a textile mill and as punishment, they put her alone in a room with a dead body? True story."

"Sounds like the beginning of a horror movie."

"Ohh. Maybe that's what we'll do on Halloween, watch a movie. I heard they remade The Shining.

"I don't suppose you'd want to watch it with me?"

"You never know."

Finding Fenway

I barely drive in unfamiliar cities, let alone run in them.

In my mind and in the expressions of many of the faces I've encountered, it seems crystal clear that runners (especially ones who are directionally challenged) don't belong on crowded sidewalks, or in bike lanes or on city streets.


That's what I tell myself, anyway, as I swipe my room card and open the door that leads to the hotel's idle treadmills. I think at least if I get lost around here I might get a sauna out of the deal.

I'm not a huge fan of the hot or steamy.

However, I am a big fan of cities; their stunning architecture; their hidden alleyways filled with bright murals; and their inviting riverside parks, where I pretend to be as I run in place.

So, on a recent trip to Boston, I willed myself to try again. To risk accidentally winding up on the other side of the city from where I wanted to be (which I managed to do twice) as I searched for cross-streets that never connected.

Even after studying maps and consulting GPS, I couldn't tell North from South or up from down. But I certainly understood how Beantown's city planning had been based, albeit mythically, on the travel paths of wild game or the meanderings of cows.

I was lost.

Every turn lead me on a new adventure.

Right onto Hemenway. Left onto Boylston. Through the chain link fence onto a narrow path along the Muddy River.

There it was.

The name alone made me touch my throat in anticipation: The Emerald Necklace ... Approximately seven miles of linear parkways that connect Boston's historic parks. The place got its name from the way these gems of greenery appear chained around the neck of the Boston peninsula.

As I loped around this place, I began to think time stood still here.

A flash of yellow flickered in my peripheral vision. When I turned my attention to the motion, I saw a songbird draft low alongside me. The moment floated on the breeze for longer than seemed possible before the bird banked smoothly and disappeared into one of the many gardens nearby.

Unlike that showy waxwing, I weave my way around the perimeter of "The Fenway Victory Gardens," the oldest continuously tended plots in the country, looking in on all the home-grown marvels that have sprouted here since the 1940s.

Connected but partitioned by fences and locked gates, the gardens are a delightful patchwork of purpose and style created by citizen gardeners. Some tracks feature kitchen herbs and rows of delicate vegetables punctuated by the tightrope antics of climbing squash. While others offer a festival of fragrant flowers dotted with decorative touches like park benches, sundials, even a birdbath shaped like a ready catcher's mitt. I find myself surrounded by a beautiful tangle of color and whimsy that parallels perfectly with the streets of this complicated city. Both seem to have fended off gentrification with tenacity and pride.The changes made over the years included a more humane progress, such as making the space more accessible to people of all abilities.

As I jog along a temporary fence line where heavy machinery is staged I read a sign asking for support in the bid to restore the river banks and buckled pathways to its former glory.

This place might have faced a bulldozer long ago had it been anywhere else. Leveled to make way for something only resembling progress: a high rise building or a shopping center, or maybe a parking lot for a high-rise shopping center. Something developers would undoubtedly name after the very thing they razed: Victory Gardens Plaza.

But who would want to get lost in a place like that?

Comfort Food

I love this time of year. 

The sweet. The sour. The hidden treasure.

The trees' warm hues take the edge off the crisp, sharp air as it swirls around me in gusts, seemingly dancing with a new batch of falling leaves. It never occurs to me that I am a part of this changing rhythm yet despite my layers, the chill always finds a way to reach in and ruffle my arm feathers. 

No matter how I close up the zippers and buttons, the horripilation of hair follicles stands at attention while the rest of me shivers to get warm. It's thrilling really.

I will make a cup of coffee just to hold it in my hands. 

The spirit of the season will soon be floating through the neighborhood wearing gossamer capes and yarn wigs and red light-up eyes. The small ones will have parents in tow and get the best of us. The older ones will see our worst.

After this, we won't see them again until it snows.

Our black cat will find her way to my side. She scootches in close and presses her flank into mine. Her paw rests on my arm. It is soft except for a single claw that she has attached to my sweater. Insurance I won't suddenly get up and leave her exposed to the cold.

I don't love that the dark comes for us sooner. Or that the laundry tips the scale with its winter weight. I don't love wearing long socks and heavy boots. I dread driving that first mile and a half in a car that refuses to warm up ... until we get to the vet clinic and finally feel the heat from the vents.

It is time for the comfort of food: For soups and chilis and pot pies made of thankful leftovers. For loaves of bread that proof on the wood stove as you leave the oven to heat. No one will complain about the stuffiness of the smell, all yeasty and reassuring.

Tonight, I have it in mind to warm up a summer staple and put a pot of water on the boil.

I have time so I use the slow burner. The one that made me realize I was now old and in possession of a least favorite heating element.

I will do the work to sliver up cabbage and carrots and bell peppers. Mix them with shell-shucked peas straight from the freezer. 

I'll turn my attention to peanut butter, warming up half a cup or so in a saucepan. Splash in some rice vinegar and soy sauce. Add a few squeezes of siracha and ginger ... (did you know they make a paste?) and a healthy dollop of minced garlic. I throw a little salt over my shoulder in appreciation for the gods of processed basics, but none into the pan.

The boy wanders into the kitchen, following the scent of the air. He pokes a fork into the pot and swirls the strands inside.

Twelve minutes ago I was able to put spaghetti in the pot. And now it's what my father used to call "al dente," but my son will argue it's actually a little undercooked. In a minute I'm going to need tongs so I can coat the noodles in sauce.

What did I forget?

The sweet! I would have added maple syrup, but I found the bottle empty. Maybe a pluck of brown sugar will do in a pinch. A few more tumbles with tongs and we'll know.

Clothes out

The clothes hanger fought my efforts as I tried to pull it from the sale rack. It seemed almost welded to the display until one strong yank suddenly freed it of all its entanglements, including the very thing I had sought to inspect.

The sweatshirt stayed where it was, tightly packed amid a sedimentary layer of similar garments arranged by shade, darkest to lightest. There was no doubt Goodwill vibes were going on at this warehouse sale but I was rapidly losing humor. I plucked the garment from between its peers and held it up, snapping a blurry picture for the boy.

How long had I been here? Up to my elbows in overstock, wondering if he'd like the fawn or the cafe ole? Would he prefer teal or cerulean? All I knew for sure was that this was thankless work. 

It hadn't occurred to me until now that online shopping would still be a necessity even when standing in a brick-and-mortar store.

Yet here I was, draping an array of selections over the store fixtures and snapping away. Folding sleeves and pants' legs into action poses. Getting close-ups knowing the devil would certainly be in the details. 

I should probably feel more embarrassed to be at a store, staring into my phone as I try to curate a cascade of merchandise I've purposely flung akimbo. Is this the knoll I'm willing to die on?

But I don't feel any shame. No one is side-eyeing me over yonder in Men's Large. And I fully plan to return all rejected items to their original places in Men's Small once selections (if any) are made.

Truly, I'm not even a little irritated by my excess of indecision. It has a purpose.

I don't know what he likes. But I know I want him to not just see, but understand, that this triangular panel was a kind of wide-wale peeking out between the seams of flat knit. A glance could be deceiving and could be the deal breaker after the sale.

He has preferences that defy my best intuition. And I know from experience that any clothes I buy without such input are destined to become the unworn merchandise of the local thrift shop after giving up hope that the style grows on him or he outgrows them all together, whichever comes first.

It seems silly, I know. All of this could be avoided if I just made him come along or peruse the modern-day equivalent of the Sears & Roebuck catalog from the comfort of our couch. He could be looking over my shoulder or wading through these close-out clothes himself.

Shopping isn't his thing at the moment, it's mine: I want him to have clothes that fit his growing body and suit the plummeting temperatures. He would just as soon face the winter with a shrug in shorts or ankle-showing pants.

So I send the photos off into the ether and wait for a response I'm not sure will come.

Three dots appear.

"I think I like the lighter one," typed my son.

"What about a sweatshirt?"

"The tan one looks nice."

"Do they have any socks?"

"What color?”

“Anything is fine. And hey, thanks, mom. I hate shopping."

Just another day

 "Happy Anniversary!"

The words, followed by a volley of digital fireworks, popped up on my phone at 8 a.m., which was an unusual time for my daughter to be attempting communication regardless of any twenty-year milestone. 

"Where are you going to dinner?"

But before I could type a gracious response that included all my motherly concern about her constantly shifting schedules, she had answered my question:

"I think I need to go to urgent care."

Ordinarily, my mind might have spun into orbit, bouncing around an infinity of possible scenarios in a panic, but my early intuition kept me tethered.

"Why? What's going on?"

"I got stepped on in Spike Ball last night. I can't walk today. University Health says I should get an x-ray."

"Foot? Ankle?"

"Knee."

"Ugh. It's always the knee."

I knew she wasn't as nonplussed as she sounded.

She would have waited until after the ER visit to tell me there was one.

But her friends were in class. And she was alone with a wonky knee that she couldn't use.

For the next several hours we exchanged messages while she waited for campus police to help her hobble from her third-floor dorm room to a medical center about a mile-and-a-half away. We kept texting as she waited in triage for an available slot; and as she waited to see the doctor, or maybe a physician's assistant, she wasn't sure. I stared at my phone watching the blank screen as we both waited for imaging to return a diagnosis and the inevitable instructions she should follow upon release.

It seemed like forever. And the text chain was a mile-long string of typos and half-answered questions.

When I finally called, she immediately started to cry.

She had been handling it, and my voice wasn't a comfort so much as another problem she had to figure out how to solve. The pressure, releasing in one unexpected explosion.

She immediately apologized.

I get it. I can't say that it felt nothing like a proverbial blow to the old breadbasket, but it was easily remedied by a few deep breaths and a forced grin.

 "I know. You are doing everything you need to do, and you will be fine. I just wanted to hear your voice so I can sort out what I need to be doing. ... if anything."

I felt certain I could still play an ancillary role as an advisor. I have, after all, sprained many important hinges between my head, shoulders, knees, and toes. "The day after an injury is always the toughest. Just take it easy and get some rest. Hopefully, it will feel better in the morning." 

She seems to have the same idea.

"Thanks, mom. I'm going to be fine. You just enjoy your anniversary... Where are you going for dinner?"

I didn't know. 

"Anywhere your brother wants to eat, I suppose," which is an answer that infuriates him as much as it does her.

"Whadaya MEAN! Where do I want to go? It's YOUR anniversary."

Sometimes you just want to celebrate with everyone you love.

"Like when your brother tells me later that it's weird not having you around to celebrate, I'll be able to tell him that I feel like I got to spend the day with you, too."

An epic minute

 The boy stood at the curb and looked blankly into my car before turning away and squinting into the sun at the long line of vehicles idling in the pickup line.

Did he not see me? Was I invisible?

I tapped the horn briefly and waved.

His head swiveled until his face softened into that look of recognition. He could relax now. 

"You didn't look like my mom," he laughed as he opened the back door and dumped his 400-pound backpack onto the seat. He dropped himself into the front seat and smirked.

Impulse overcame every rational thought in my head as I checked the rearview mirror and eased into traffic. Who do I look like? I asked, knowing full well I was opening myself up to self-destruction through the boy's unvarnished truth.

This could be just like that moment in kindergarten when his classmate tugged on my pants leg and asked ... "Are you his grandmother?" 

I didn't cry (thanks for asking) but I did go directly from school to the hair-color aisle at the local pharmacy for a box of Color So Natural Only Her Hairdresser Knows For Sure ... and that guy in Toothpaste who heard me cussing out a five-year-old as I tossed boxes of Clairol at boxes. "Nutmeg is the darkest you should go, you'll look like Severus Snape if you go with the Midnight Black.

I will tell you, in case you were wondering, there is NOTHING that compares to a helpful old man in the toothpaste aisle. Not even a teenager whose mom's crazy, unkempt tri-colored hair hasn't seen a hairdresser since before pandemic times.

The son has learned not to take the bait.

No slouch, the boy pretended he hadn't heard me as he rummaged through the cockpit for snacks.

"What's this?" he asks playfully, snatching the day's offering from the center console and wrinkling his nose at the aroma that emerged from the stay-fresh pouch. "It has to be based on a dare."

And there just isn't any kinda way that kid is going to let the raw organic compost product pass anywhere near his super-sensitive taste buds. 

It feels strange to acknowledge, but this afternoon drive time is the best part of my day. Even when I compete with his noise-canceling earbuds to the smallest tidbits from his day, there is something deeply satisfying about the easy silence.

He doesn't harbor unhappiness yet. Right now he is content inside his own skin, even if he dresses it up with layers of snark and surliness. A smile is as contagious as a yawn with this kid. Not for trying, but he just can't help it.

I look forward to seeing his face as he walks out of school at precisely 2:19 ... four minutes after the bell. When he arrives at 2:20, not recognizing his mother, I know there will be an epic story about the harrowing journey between the last block and the locker bays. It will fill the whole ride home.

It doesn't get better than this.

Care and Packaging

I smiled to myself as I pressed an address label onto the recycled cardboard box, smoothing it with both hands. The spot where an old label had been, left a furry texture that felt oddly comforting, like the  soft underbelly of a brand new puppy.

It felt like I was handling a unicorn: The first Care Package from home.

Just the box was a thing to behold:

The box was the perfect size, the perfect shape. It was sturdy. Without dents or tears. It had structural integrity. And it had just been sitting around the house, collecting dust as I imagined all the trinkets I might fill it with.

In that area, I had been just as meticulous. I had selected things that would surprise and delight. Things that would make her laugh and roll her eyes. Things she'd asked for mixed it with things that I knew would make her smile. Even the address label bore the unmistakable brand of our silly familiarity.

I couldn't wait for her to see it.

Three strips of tape, perfectly aligned and unwrinkled, closed the top flaps so well that when I brought it up to the counter the postal clerk wouldn't think to offer an extra swath of adhesive for security's sake.

Though they would still ask if I was sending anything that was liquid-fragile-perishable-corrosive-perfumy-chemical-or-otherwise-dangerous? Did this include batteries? Live snakes? Illegally taken fish or wildlife? You aren't mailing crickets, are you?

I would answer without any humor.

I had learned that, to the postmaster, joking around about the cholesterol hazards of the boxes of candy sent out one Christmas wasn't really a laughing matter.

Neither was the text that arrived two days later:

"Ummm. So, apparently a bomb went off ... 700 feet away

We're all good, but there's another package that's suspicious. Maybe even more than one. IDK".

I was expecting a silly selfie and kudos for remembering to include her favorite snacks.

As I sat there staring in disbelief at my phone, searching in vain for breaking news, her face popped onto the screen.

She didn't want me to worry, but, moreover, she didn't want me to inundate her with a cascade of questions that she wouldn't be able to answer. I could hear the temper flair in her voice.

"All we know right now is that there was a report of an explosion on campus, and one person - possibly a staff member -- suffered minor injuries."

I started to speak, but she cut me off ...

"Don't worry, mom," she said, ignoring the oxymoron weighing down her words like an 800-pound gorilla sitting squarely on my chest. "We are going to be fine. One of my friend's dad is a firefighter here in the city. He's giving us all the information we need to stay safe."

We said our goodbyes and our I Love Yous, at the same time.

And then her father and I sat glued to our phones for the rest of the evening. Searching. Scrolling. E-mailing links to what we found to one another. And then, finally, to her.

It was a rollercoaster, with new reports of suspicious packages popping up all over campus. Our over-stretched minds couldn't fathom the idea that with heightened vigilance would come no small amount of false alarm.

We signed off and went to sleep once officials declared the situation to be under control. In the coming days, once the facts began to settle, and the whole thing felt less harrowing, I asked the only question I had kept myself from asking:

"I don't suppose you got the package I sent?"

Carrying the load

 You know that moment ... when your eldest kid goes off to college and you're all sad, and melancholy ... You've spent weeks planning how the move-in would go? And it happens ... as planned, with nary a hiccup?

Not that moment.

Your little family of four drives off in a car filled with the contents of her dorm room - a metric ton of essentials hefted up four-floors by none other than your youngest child -- and returns, just the three of you, to a house that seems almost too empty.

Not that moment, either.

Fast forward a day or three when said youngest heads back to school with ...

One pencil.

Not even sharpened.

That's the moment.

The one in which you think all of your focus has just turned and landed with a thud.

The sibling that time forgot is suddenly front and center.

The boy is blase. He waited until the last possible moment -- when classes had already started, and he realized the pencil he carried behind his ear might not suffice -- to deal with the matter of school supplies. 

Of course you knew his school also required supplies. You might have intervened had the task of picking out bedding, laundry baskets and contraband twinkle lights with your daughter not been so alluring.

Oh how you enjoyed those errands.

"I guess I need a few things," he says.

You will enjoy this errand, too.

You grab the keys and your wallet. 

It will be late by the time we arrive. The store would be closing in a few minutes. We move through the aisles quickly, gathering things from a list and head to the front of the store. The weight of the handbasket lessened as I removed one thing after another and stacked them on the counter. An orange binder; a package of paper; some notebooks in different shades of blue; pens; another binder, this one white. 

The "counter" was just a square landing pad, really, and with nowhere to separate the scanned from the unscanned, the cashier struggled to process the pile of school supplies I had stacked there in a lopsided mound.

The clerk announces the total, to my absolute shock.

How could it be so low?

"I'm not sure you scanned this compass," I offered, listing off an inventory by category. The man squints as he examines his register's display.

"No. I have the compass, but I must have scanned one binder twice. Sorry, I'll remove it.."

The total was even lower now.

I turn to look at my son. His face reveals nothing. If he is concerned with the exchange, he doesn't let on. Things should add up. Fair is fair.

I extract a card from my wallet and push it into the slot, my mind spinning until it lands on the three bunches of cherries: I have one high-schooler instead of two.

Jackpot.

Will he see it that way? No more split attention at home?

All eyes on him?

The cashier's too?

"Do you need a bag?"

My son and I look at one another. He lifts his shoulders as the corners of his mouth theatrically turn downward.

"Naw, I can carry it all."