The infancy of a fall

 

The dog pounces at the blowing leaves, testing the limits of her collar at the edge of the driveway as we wait for traffic to pass. Her nightly walk always starts this way. Both of us heading in the same direction, a line of webbing between us, pulling against one another. 

It is a kind of give-and-take that the two of us have received and bestowed for a dozen years.

The sun is momentarily blinding as it dips beneath the trees. Its light channels through red and yellow leaves electrifying the neighborhood and making it seem as if the whole world was on fire.

In a good way. An exhilarating way.

When it is finally safe we cross. 

The neighbors have already started the ritual cleansing of their yards. The fruits of their raking and pruning line the sidewalks, ready for an official transport to wherever it is we mulch or compost as a collective good.

The season is still in its infancy … the blink and you’ll miss it kind of development.

The crabapples gave up the fight during the summer. For a few years now I've noticed these diminutive trees that live near the mossy side of our dwelling bow out early. Not long after they flower and unfurl foliage, the leaves just seem to slowly give up. Fluttering to the ground here and there until the branches are mostly bare in the eighth month.

Stressed. I worry the trees might be dying. A fungus or a blight. Something other than old age. 

The sugar maples are holding on to their color while the oaks get ready for their turn. Hickory will follow soon after.

The drying leaves that have begun their descent, curl into feather-weight shells and crunch underneath our feet as we walk. It is a satisfying sound. 

The dog sniffs at the piles as I scuff along the edges. Careful not to undo the work of the rake. I want to rustle leaves, not feathers.

A teardrop leaf caught my eye. Its center was a translucent gold while sawtooth edges blazed fiery red. They hung on the shrub like a wave of festive garlands. 

Oh, what a celebration!

Oh, how I wish I could bark orders at our dogwoods. Get them to burst forth and shuffle off this mortal coil before the municipal sweeping ends … dog-willing.

But I would be barking up the wrong tree. The leaves will fall when they are good and ready. Certainly, after the birds have feasted on the fruit and left the remnants to molder underneath. 

My internal almanac can predict with witnessed assurance that the town trucks will have just made the switch from vacuums to other winter attachments when the lot will give up the ghost and finally unburden the tree.

Of course, they will stay put until after the first snow. That's how my memory tells me it happens. And I remind my husband that in those years we are content to let the lawnmower, Mother Nature, and the squirrels building nests recycle the remnants.

The dog will have a clear view of their abode, and she will remind us as the show piles up there is work for her outside. Haranguing, corralling, squirrel-patrol work. 

Until spring. When we are distracted by the leaves of old when fresh flowers and chutes poke out of whatever remains are left.

Changing spaces

I drummed my fingers on the table. Tapped my foot in imperfect time with the music. My thoughts jumbled an informal to-do list until I decided to finally write it down.

There was so much to do before we left and I didn’t want to forget a single thing.

I was filled with nervous energy because in just a three-hour drive (give or take some traffic) we’d be reacquainting ourselves with our daughter, who had, only a month and a few days prior, packed up just a smidgeon of the top-tier elements of her personal collection and moved them to a dorm room in Boston.

First things first: I had to locate the black, down jacket she’d need now that the temperature was dropping; and the red, bedazzled tights that would certainly not keep her warm in this year’s Halloween costume. 

She had directed me to her things as if she’d had them mapped. The tights would be in the topmost drawer of her dresser. The coat would be hanging up. 

I stared straight into her closet, but I couldn't see past the things she’d left behind: Things I’d bought her. A library of children’s books, a zoo of stuffed animals, a rack full of clothes that still fit her body but no longer fit her style.

And for the very first time since she left I understood that she doesn’t live here anymore.

Once I find this jacket … and the tights … 

“Oh … if you could bring the curling iron with the small barrel, too, that would be great. You should find it in the bookcase, bottom left basket.” 

Where in the … ?

Voila. There it was. The curling iron.

“Oh .. and some clothes hangers. I don’t know why mine keep disappearing.”

Once I fit the clothes hangers into a bag with the other items I’ve unearthed from her room, I would reckon with my nerves.

The last time I’d been this nervous was just before I met her. I had so many questions.

What kind of mother would I be? What kind of relationship would we have? 

Of course, I didn’t take the time to thoroughly explore these questions that flit through the minds of so many parents while we are still elbow-deep in diapers and daycare until we are surprised to find ourselves tiptoeing through a proverbial teenage wasteland. 

My daughter will only be a teenager for a moment longer. 

Which is the overwhelming feeling I have as we reach her address and wait for her to make an appearance. She is smiling as she exits the building and jogs down the stairs. She gives each of us a hug. Mine is extra long.

We have so many plans for this weekend. Dinner reservations. Tickets to a home game. Plans for shopping and sightseeing.

But as much as we have been excited to see her again, she has been preparing herself, too.

It’s a delicate reunion. 

We are a different family here and she is the first to know it. In as much as we have prepared to visit, she has prepared to receive us. We are in her city now. 

Hoping for the best

I’ve been thinking about “family” a lot recently.

Particularly about the connections we’re born with … and the connections that fray as we meander through the seasons of our lives. A wall of silence is a reminder that relationships can be as hard as our feelings.

Our wanting to do better than our parents did. Our hoping that we will. And the likelihood that we will fall short seems to be the embodiment of the human condition itself.

A friend reminded me of my own setting and resetting of boundaries as she recounted a rollercoaster ride of familial discord twice removed. The kind of thing that starts as a friend of a friend’s story of hurt and misunderstanding so big that it becomes a telegraphing parable of a story for the ages.

In this story, the daughter had a tumultuous relationship with the father, which had ebbed and flowed over the years in predictable ways. Admiration floated naturally along with the jetsam of off-the-cuff banter that eventually led to a host of invisible wounds that were healed with silence. Some of which she let go, but some gathered to her like scar tissue, overgrowing, becoming proud flesh. 

I know the feeling. Anxiety often rules these interactions. We interpret words - sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly - and commit them to a dictionary of feelings we’ve written in our minds. 

We bring our fallible selves to witness and often we can't help but believe the worst. 

My friend’s friend has erected fences and barricades to protect herself. It had been in her best interest. Anything to blunt the hurt, she understood, allowed some form of relationship to remain. 

 

Which is what I had done for a time. Like the friend of my friend, I had harbored the pain of a mother’s harsh gaze and thoughtless words and let them resonate within. I had wondered if love could be extracted and measured. That we just had to accept that love could coexist with unsolicited advice, disappointment-laced judgmental tone, and the occasional I-told-you-so. 

But we didn't have to like it. 

Avoidance of discomfort sometimes becomes central to our relationships. Not that we shouldn't mitigate abuse via the least taxing ways possible.

After all, avoidance feels like it does the least harm.

But why don't we have an impermeable layer that prevents the muck of our thoughts from drenching us in toxins? 

Maybe that’s where we will find ourselves one day If we were unlucky enough to have been wrong; once avoidance is no longer required  … maybe it will be in a box of old letters or the pages of a journal.

Maybe we will find the evidence of the loving parent we had never known or had forgotten.

And we will see ourselves in a different light. A dimmer one that missed enough possibilities to have mattered. 

My friend found it heartbreaking. All those years of animosity and keeping oneself at arms-length for naught.

For some reason, I found it comforting. 

The note, in my mother’s handwriting, about her joy at some tiny thing I didn't even remember doing, was reassuring that my fears about being unliked, let alone unloved, were unfounded. 

Though it didn't erase any of the awkwardness that had existed in our relationship, it reminded me that my feelings are not always as reliable as they seem and that stoicism isn't the absence of love. And that the work of understanding was neither hers nor mine alone. 

It may even take more than one lifetime.

Long in the tooth

The cats greet me every morning in the kitchen with big, toothy screeches. 

They show me with the skeletal ridges of the hard palate as they unhinge their jaws - that they want their breakfasts. 

I move a new crop of overnight dishes from the counter to the sink, first things first: unearth the coffee machine from this mess we call a kitchen. 

One cat sits on the lid of the garbage can and mewls as if the decibel level of her caterwaul has a direct bearing on the amount of vittles I will trickle onto her plate, she watches me intently as I pour from the clear glass canisters rising from the counter like crystal silos in some reimagined castle in Oz. 

She knows I can be swayed.

The other cat stays low to the ground and waits impatiently. She silently swishes her tail and paces, drawing figure eights between my ankles until I fill her bowl. 

She has learned to scootch the dishware (and herself) into a corner to protect the meal from sibling rivalry. There’s no place like home. There's NO PLACE like home. 

The dog, exhibiting all the courage of a cowardly lion, exacts a tax if the cat doesn't cover her work. One swat will send her into the next room. 

My son calls the area of the counter I've dedicated to “pet-ween-meal snacks” the treat factory. 

“If you stand here for any amount of time you get a curious audience and a standing ovation.”

 

My family thinks the animals have me trained.

“They get morning treats, afternoon treats, walking into the house treats, oh-I-didn't-notice-you-there startle-me treats. Not to mention the I-just-went-for-a-walk treats and it's-not-long-now-before-I'm-gonna-need-my-after-dinner and just-before-bed treats.

They are even allowed to choose, using their noses to sniff out the treat of greatest desire with the old “pick a hand” gambit. 

The magic? They also get what's in the other hand, too. 

"You are a pushover."

I've always been a pushover, as my mother used to say. An easy mark. Soft target. 

“Maybe you're just kind-hearted.” 

My son has entered the chat. 

I'd been thinking aloud again. Going over the thoughts that snake through my mind as I wait for the coffee, unaware that there's no cup to catch them has they brew. 

The animals have vacated the vicinity now their tummies have been temporarily placated. 

“Who called you a pushover? I'll pummel them,” he said dancing and jabbing in at the air. “I’ll p-p-p-pulverize them.”

Pummel. Pulverize. Fighting words that sound like they are stuttered from a bygone era. 

I ask him if he’s familiar with the expression. 

“Pushover?” He looks at me like he hasn't known me for all 16 of his accumulated years. “Yeah. it just means someone who is easily manipulated. Someone who would do extra things they don't have time to do because …  well, I don't know why they'd do it … maybe just because someone asked.”

“Do you think there's a word that means the same thing as pushover … that maybe doesn't have the same negative connotations?”

The boy fell silent as he considered the alternatives. I could see the pages turning through the thesaurus in his mind.  

And that's when the cats settle in on my lap  and the dog curls up at my feet.  The house ... even in its cluttered disarray ... feels like home. 

“Maybe the word you are looking for is ‘mom’.”

Raise your hand

 I raised my hand when the kid’s team asked for volunteers. I was eager. Confident, even, despite my limited knowledge of competitive high school sports and a total lack of technical proficiency with timing devices of any kind.

What could go wrong?

I am a runner. I have volunteered at races before. I have perfected the art of safety flag waving and have mastered the three stages of a water cup hand-off: eye contact; flat-handed balance and shoulder-length levitation. The runner can take it from there. Some people think that's it; that's the job. But I know the service isn't complete until we rake the crushed cast-offs into the trash. 

 Furthermore? I know these trails like they are in my own backyard. 

So on this particular occasion, I was excited to be in the woods, standing next to my son - who is also a runner but who was injured and unable to participate in this hallowed event - even if I had NO IDEA what to do.

“Where are the cups?”

“There are no cups.”

“Wait. What's the distance?”

“Two point five miles.”

“So what do we do?”

“We literally stand here and keep the runners from going the wrong way. We are figuratively traffic cones.”

“Ah … we provide direction!”

“That does not mean coaching,” cautions my son, who has heard the lilt in my voice and knows he must dial back my enthusiasm.

He punctuates this directive by jamming his hands into his pockets, elbows locked so his shoulders crowd around his ears, and he sighs heavily.

“No helpful hints, no yelling. Try not to be too excited.” 

None of these kids know you. It will be weird. Try not to be weird. I'm not saying this to hurt your feelings but to protect you … from yourself.”

“I know that,” I said with all the know-it-all-ness motherhood bestows. “I just want to understand the route. Once they come down the hill towards us, where do they go?”

“They go down the trail to the right and into the woods on the left where they will loop around and come back this way. When they do come back, we stand facing the other way, so they run through the woods that we kept them out of the first time.”

I think I've got it: “We point them back up the hill when they emerge?”

He sensed I was overthinking.  

“Everyone should have previewed the course before the race, and there are chalk markers on the trail. Just relax and it will be fine.”

He knows better than I do that going above and beyond sometimes only means you will miss your mark completely.

He was entirely correct because when the first group of runners crested the hill and came barreling toward me, I pointed to where they needed to turn and yelled: “LEFT!!!” Which was the verbal expression of the exact opposite of where I was pointing. 

“TO YOUR OTHER RIGHT!” he hollered over my shoulder. “Don't worry, you got this ... but you can put your hand down now."