Cold, hard facts

Long before popular science nudged coffee onto the “good for you” list, I had adopted it as a health food.

Back then, the pots full of drip Folgers I drank every day took the place of smoking a full pack of Camels. 

Decades later, it’s entirely possible that the fluid coursing around inside my veins is a blackish brown in color and almost altogether caffeinated. 

Since I don’t add cream or sugar, I’ve assumed my beverage of choice would factor into at least 10 of the eight doctor-recommended glasses of water per day.

I’m knocking on a wood-based product as I tell you I can have a bedtime double espresso and still fall asleep at night. 

Now, I would wear this addiction proudly on my sleeve was it not for two tiny problems: the fact that I am spending the kids’ college education on single serve’s $45-per-pound equivalent; and the K-Cup mountain of trash for which I must also account.

Only two of the cups’ three component parts are recyclable: the foil lid and the paper filter. The cup itself is neither recyclable nor compostable. 

Oh sure, I have a set of green refillable pods taking up space in some kitchen drawer. I may have even used them once or twice before the mess of filling and cleaning and refilling convinced me the taste of the brew just wasn’t the same.

I tried to offset my callus return to disposables by reusing the pods as receptacles for seedlings. However, it soon became apparent we don’t have the acreage to support the farm my coffee habit would produce.

Of course, it isn’t just the pods that pile up in the trash. The machines themselves also seem to be disposable; as not a single device has lasted in our house for more than two years.

Meanwhile, somewhere in Vermont, my aunt is percolating a pot of coffee in the same hollow silver urn that my parents gave her as a wedding present a more than a half-century ago.

Which is what I imagine as I try unsuccessfully to descale our sixth single-serve monster in nine years.

I give up the ghost when the contraption groans like the undead.  My decaffeinated mind has already begun to fray. I even contemplated taking my mug to the next door neighbor and pressing my nose against their kitchen window until they let me inside.

My husband —  with two-cup limit — says nothing as he rummages through a cabinet and unearths an old aluminum octagonal stovetop espresso maker, dusts it off and fills it’s lower chamber with water. 

In the time it takes to boil water he’s magically turned three tablespoons of coffee into two mugs of nothing short of delicious.

Just a few taps of the filter, the swish of a bottle brush and a swirl of warm

water (no soap) and all that’s left is a bit of compost and a clean Moka. 

“I’ve also been thinking about getting a cold brew filter. You store a jar of it in the fridge and heat it up whenever you want. I understand the coffee tastes smoother, too.”

His voice seems far away as I hold my cup up to my chin, gripping it with two hands and inhaling deeply. 

I stare at this work of art in the dish drainer. I can almost picture myself divorced from the convenience of single serve and reintroduced to elegant ingenuity. My life’s blood thinner, maybe, but just as robust.

Maybe even get out from under this plastic mountain of guilt.

“They say cold is the new hot.”

Loaded questions

The lights are dim in the restaurant, and I am sitting across the table from my daughter, who is able to read from the menu without the aid of a flashlight.

Unlike myself, who, holding the double-sided laminated tablet at arm’s length, I can’t even pretend I’m not reciting the list of options from memory.

But this is fun. Something special. Out of the ordinary. We dance around the choices as if we will try something outlandish. Something different than the usual things we order: Salad. Pasta. Extra bread, please.

Maybe, dessert before dinner, for instance.

Should we get appetizers and share? Separate entrees?

It doesn’t matter what we order.

It’s just the two of us. Dining out like friends.

We will chat, and laugh, and share bits and pieces from our plates as if the morsels were merely happenstance treasures.

The tales we tell about our day seem like threads of stories woven into a grand tapestry.

It really could be delightful.

If I didn’t try to insert a generous portion of parenting as a side dish.

I serve it up as if it were a casual conversation about current events.

I ask her a question about her opinion, which we both know is dangerous, but of course, I think I can control where the chit chat takes us.

After all, she is my child. I raised her.

And like all parents, I get caught in a trap hoping my kids will see the world as I understand it; or at least within the same grand scheme and plot points. After all, this is what we are expected to do as trusted adults: impart values and model appropriate behavior so that when we launch our kids into a space of their own, it’s really just an orbit of our own planets.

She knows it’s dicey:

Can she be honest? Can she have beliefs of her own? Or is this just a test, where I get to see how much of her wisdom aligns with my own?

There is no doubt we won’t see eye to eye.

The only question is will we be able to agree to disagree?

There is no doubt we disagree. Hissing at each other quietly as our server clears some plates.

Dinner is officially over.

And yet, I hang on the notion that my facts are accurate and in time, she’ll see them just as clearly as I do.

But the problem is at this moment I couldn’t be more wrong.

And it’s precisely what happens when you ask a question to which you are sure of its answer.

We can see it in each other’s faces —these one-generation removed reflections — that any test of this nature can only result in failure.

We are not of the same mind, and only one of us is currently OK with that.

It’s. Not. Me. But I’m silent.

The server brought the check without asking if we wanted dessert. Sensing the chill in the room had come from our table and neither of us would warm up to ice cream.

I paid the check, and we started to walk home. In silence at first, and then in a swirl of admonishments and accusations.

It. Wasn't. Me. Yelling.

But I did find myself apologizing in earnest.

I should have known how loaded questions have a tendency to backfire. 

Running in my sleep

I dream about running. 

I get dressed in my sleep, tie my shoes, and rapid-eye-move my way through an unfamiliar course where I’m dodging all manner of obstacles: Sprinkler systems, barking dogs, limbs falling off my body. I repeat a number in my head like a mantra -- it's my personal record -- until my joints feel as if they are hardening into concrete. 

The alarm clock comes to my rescue, awakening me to a more realistic but still unwelcome sluggishness. 

It’s been a recurring dream for about a year now, on or about the time an injury took me off course for half marathon training and relegated my running status to a slow walk along the sidelines. 

More of a nightmare, really.

My husband will tell you, it hasn’t been the best year for any of us.

He can describe the way my mouth twists in envy as I sit in the passenger seat and gaze out at the runners dotting the usual roadside paths.

It’s not pretty.

I envy them as they rock their arms and seem to glide along the sidewalk. I crane my neck and contort my body to get a better look at "my competition." For what, I don’t know. My loving spouse thinks I must be secretly chanting some evil spell that will strike the runner at that very moment with some harmless but insurmountable obstacle: Like a cartoon pothole followed by an anvil from the sky.

I’m not wishing harm.

I’m just wishing my body would catch up with my mind and heal itself. 

I went to all the doctors. I had all the tests. They gave me a name of something obscure and unpronounceable but eminently treatable with more time and strength training than seems humanly possible. Of course, it’s something I shouldn’t talk about in polite company since the general location of this non-infectious, inflammatory injury rhymes with “Elvis.”

In six or 104 short weeks I might return to nearly normal.

Lucky me. And lucky anyone asking “how are you feeling,” just to be polite. Runners … especially ones who are sidelined … are nearly incapable of keeping tales of their injuries, and the 47,000 quack-prescribed remedies they’ve tried in an attempt to solve them, to themselves.

“I went to a pelvic physical therapist … you know the kind of treatment you may have heard about in the news by a disgraced Olympic gymnastics doctor, only this is totally legitimate.”

I get a lot of blank stares from my propensity for TMI … but the whole thing has been rather eye-opening. 

It had never occurred to me that the tremendous pain I had been feeling was the result of a muscle imbalance, which may have stemmed from an old c-section scar and an incrementally compensating posture, rather than just the expected over-running and under-stretching.

But in a few sessions, I was beginning to feel better.

Not great, mind you. Not back to normal. Just not as terrible.

And that was apparently enough to start running again.

And slowly, slowly …

… Literally one minute at a time ...

I have begun to run again.

It’s not great. I’m not back to normal, but it’s not terrible. And now when I dream about running it doesn’t feel like such a nightmare.

And that’s a start.

This is only a test

I was building an epic sandwich when the phone rang.

It’s the landline. Whatever that means in a cordless world.

The sound simultaneously startles and annoys me.  I don’t know who could be calling the house at 6:30 in the morning on a school day, but I can guess: it’s either a robocall or an emergency. 

For some reason, our landline has become the phone of least importance.

All I know is this ringing phone is either a family member (who is relying on actual memory instead of digital memory) calling to say they’ve fallen and can’t get up; or a business to whom I have refused to give my cell phone number, asking me to take advantage of some “UHmaizing” opportunity. 

Chances are high that it’s the latter rather than the former. My husband, if he were to answer, would hang up after yelling an obscenity into the phone. As if the recording on the other end will dutifully comply. 

Of course, it could be a school administrator, perhaps, in a prerecorded message, letting us know some random bits of information and how they plan to proceed.

Information that isn’t intended to inform so much as cover some base that needs covering.

Maybe buses are late ... or a student posting a threat on social media. Nothing credible. Systems normal ... Keep Calm and Carry On.

Whatever the case, it’s still a ringing phone; a thing that siphons my away attention from the fury of day planning and lunch packing.

Of course, I will run from room to room trying to find a working handset — one that has been plugged in correctly and charged to capacity — before the answering machine clicks on and takes over.

As I chase the ringing from the kitchen to the living room and into the den, I am aware of how useless my endeavor. The working phones have been abandoned between couch cushions or stockpiled in a bedroom half-a-house-away by the only member of the family who still calls people routinely: my son. A prince of the new-age play: He leaves the caller on speaker while they dig around in a virtual world together.

No. The phones I am looking for are silent. The ringing ones - if I find them - will tell me they are “busy” when I press “talk.” The quiet ones have just lost their charge.

How I miss the reliability of the rotary desk phone of my formative years. How many hours did I spend on it chatting with friends as my mother warned I would get a “cauliflower ear.”

These cordless phones are less than a decade old. One of these days I will fix them with a total replacement, grumbling the whole time about repair being a thing of some bygone age.

Finally, the answering machine picks up, and I return to the kitchen and the Prince and the Peanut Butter sandwich I abandoned. 

A familiar voice goes through my head: “This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. ... this is only a test.”

Had it been an actual emergency your cellphone would be the next device to ring.

Baseball daze

Rushing around trying to gather all the things a list said he needed for the new school year, my mind was divided when the boy dropped a truth on me:

“I don’t think I want to play baseball anymore.”

For a moment I stood in silence near the shopping cart, now mostly filled with paper and pencils and folders and binders.

I was holding up a pencil case for his final decision, wondering if the blue and black mesh would fit his newly-crafted style as a newly-minted sixth grader. “They don’t have any baseball cases. This one seems nice, though. Sturdy.”

“No, mom. The case is fine. I mean I think I’m done with baseball. For good.”

I keep standing there, still a little dazed.

I should be elated at the news. But I wanted to be wrong.

Since his first game of rookie ball, I’ve waited for the moment he’d call it quits. Give up the dream (he never dreamt) of going pro.

I listen to coaches argue over the rules, parents scream at their children, and I come to realize when I cheer my kid catching a pop-fly I am ecstatic as someone else’s kid suffers a defeat.

I hate this game.

Season after season, I dragged a folding chair to one baseball field or another — two hours of practice here, two hours of a game there — holding my breath as my deep-in-the-outfield boy steps up to the plate.

I sit next to other parents who tell me what sports have taught their children. They usually get to the “winning isn’t everything” part just as my kid strikes out.

The only other thing I’ve known about the lessons of sports is that unless you excel, only a few make the cut.

The dividing is already apparent.

Losing with grace is something I should be able to teach, as winning has never been my strong suit. They’ve heard all the stories; how I made JV volleyball in ninth grade (because I went to all the practices) but never once played in a game (because I was a terrible player). It wasn’t for me, but I gave it a shot.

Winning isn’t anything if you can’t play the game. My boy can’t help but toss the bat and storm off the field when he swings and misses.

It’s not as if he’s alone in his disappointment. His age group still breaks into tears when they get called out at first base.

Maturity, I know, is the best solution. But that means everyone must have patience and perseverance. And me, especially, not making unforced errors.

Of course, he wants to quit. We had just spent a small fortune on the Little League-approved bat, a backstop and a bucket of baseballs for practice.

What enthusiasm he had gained from paying attention and seeing a little improvement was dashed when a wild pitch snuck in between his chin and helmet and left a stitching-shaped bruise on his jaw.

Game over.

“So, what do you think?” He asks, flopping a package of paper into the cart. 

“It’s up to you,” I say. “Why don’t you get through basketball season and see how you feel. You still want to play basketball, right?

“Yeah, I love basketball. There is no way to get hit in the jaw with a baseball if I play basketball.”

Selective hearing

I never noticed how many corners and crevices our house has, and how the sound doesn’t seem to reach around any of them with clear or even audible volume. I had just assumed the selective hearing of my children fueled the war between standing at attention for parental requests or relaxing into the at-ease slump as they tune in to the ambient electronic life: air-conditioners chugging, overhead fans swirling, and earbuds in full bloom. 

It’s hard to hear a parent calling up the stairs during a power outage in your ice-cold lair of a room, but amid a 21st-century wall of sound, it’s impossible.

A mother still tied to the 20th century opens her maw and screeches. 

I just stand at the bottom of the stairs and yell her name over and over until her brother - tired of my increasing vocal fry - knocks on her closed door to relay the message. “Mom wants you.” 

She lollygags. Mom is safe. “Mom has the patience of a saint,” she’s heard her grandmother say ... though she, having never been to church herself, doesn’t fully grasp all the ins and outs of beatification. 

Her father, on the other hand, will see this lack of sound transfer as willful disregard, and he will respond with the booming voice of a drill sergeant. 

Out of desperation and a disinclination to climb stairs one more time, I join the new millennium and text her: It’s dinner time.

And she texts back:  🍩😆.

Without an actual word her door opens and she clamors into the kitchen, plate at the ready. Voices trailing her in cyberspace.

This is how it is now. 

How often had I joked that I’m waiting in rapt anticipation for the Internet to break? Salivating for the moment when torment and ruination bring us back to basics.

Face to face. 

The grandparents would complain about “kids today,” but they can’t without a small measure of hypocrisy. They get just as sucked into games of smartphone solitaire.

But honestly, I don’t want to go backward. I like being able to change plans in real time. I love being able to make our impolite conversations quieter. 

After all, it has been a while since I lost my voice screaming into the voids of the house since the advent of Snapchat. And my daughter can “talk” to me without the usual barriers of time and space; and without having to interpret the look on my furrowed brow.

A part of me misses the nights I’d sit at the end of her bed, and we would chat, or brush hair or read bedtime stories. 

These days I poke my head in, and she waves goodnight. She’s in the middle of some teenage ritual, be it homework, or makeup or something I just wouldn’t understand. 

I close the door and retreat. Attending to my own nighttime routine: brush teeth, skin cream, read a chapter or two ... think about the morning when we’ll cross paths in the kitchen.

I will take a moment to lament laughter replaced with LOL.

Until my phone chimes like a spoon against a wine glass; she has sent me little face with tears.

My daughter, wanting a different kind of heart-to-heart, one with cartoon hearts and Internet shorthand that I will have to decode.

I do my best to find animal videos that seem apropos.

When she’s feeling better, possibly after the fourth cat meme I forward, I will start to correct her spelling and grammar.

And my phone will stop clinking its glass.

Perhaps I’ve found a corner of the internet where our teens can no longer hear us.

Talk, talk

“We have to talk.”

With these four words, my kids are terrified. You can see it on their faces.

“Are we in trouble?”

Now, it seemed evident that I wasn't happy. The children didn't have to be mind readers to guess that how that Thing We Are Not Going To Talk About Now was handled. But they were not in so-called “trouble.” 

Still, they were not comforted by the sound of reason and reassurance.

And it didn’t matter that I had said the words calmly and without emotion.

Perhaps that just made the waiting part worse.

Most humans, even small ones, understand that the formal announcement of a management conference (especially after a minor dust-up and a not-so-minor period of silence) means the boss has had time to think and perhaps decide a course of action. And that a course of action so quietly and carefully deliberated is unlikely to be overruled by any person higher up the ladder.

There must be wiggle room. We are well into this new millennium, and there is always wiggle room.

“Are you mad?”

Now, ordinarily, any assurances I make that I am not seething with rage will be gobbled up by my family with a serving of relief. But I can tell this time they are hoping I will answer in the affirmative.

If I am angry, they still have leverage. The accused could explain their side, and admit where it may have fallen short. The culprit can then apologize and be forgiven. After which we can all move on to dessert with a scoop of someone promising to be better.

The meal can continue to the games portion of the evening.

But I’m not angry.

I’m not hurt.

And I’m not offering forgiveness.

I most certainly do not want to play any games.

I will see their gloomy faces and raise them a white flag.

“I’m done playing. I quit.”

I know my power rests in choosing the right battles, but there are just too many skirmishes within our ranks.

This surrender doesn’t mean they’ve won. It doesn’t even mean I’ve lost.

All it says is that someone isn’t playing fairly.

Maybe she’s a sore winner?

Maybe he’s a terrible loser?

There's even the genuine possibility that the person not playing by the rules is yours truly.

It’s more than likely that each of us can make a case that every one of use has been taken for granted.

It could mean the kitchen looks like it’s been through an earthquake.

Or that socks are all over the floor.

How many times do I have to tell you to brush your teeth?

Or that praise has been withheld where it should have been free-flowing.

I shouldn't need to ask, but I might have acknowledged.

So many reasons ...

Honestly, I don’t want to talk about it either. If I were able to nip all these buds, there’d be no tree.

So maybe we don’t have to talk after all.

Planting the seeds

I’m smiling.

Well, I could be smiling.

That’s what it looks like from the outside, anyway.

Check my Instagram. You'll get Insta-Envy. 

My lips are drawn up at the edges. The skin over my cheeks is tight. The chords of my neck are visible if not awkwardly pronounced. This chicken neck is a new and troubling development. As soon as the autumn winds clear out my summer closet, I will have to dig out a scarf.

I get sidetracked easily.

You can tell by the open dishwasher in the kitchen and the piles of laundry in the living room. I had started loading one machine, but then a buzzer summoned me to unload the other.

But I can’t be certain which alert sound came from where.

It shouldn’t matter. I can’t remember the last time I did laundry. Yesterday I climbed a mountain. Today I’m on a beach. 

My children have leashes tying surfboards to their ankles. For the few hours we are here, we will pretend we can conquer an ocean.

We should be happy.

They shouldn’t be bickering.

I should have rest-fortified patience.

But I don't. Any patience I had has been replaced by irritation, sleep deprivation, and a touch of Insta-envy. I miss the days when the children were young and the sleep I lost I'd assumed I'd find again one day. 

Maybe I'm just remembering it wrong.

My face hurts.

Am I smiling? I might be. I lose myself to scowling more often than I tend to imagine.

You can’t see my eyes behind the dark sunglasses. Ray-bans that came in on the tide one summer’s-leaving morning, which I’ve managed to hold onto however many summers have come and gone since they washed up on the beach.

My right hand raises to touch one of the arms that loops the shades over my ears. I make an imaginary adjustment. The sunglasses sit perfectly straight on my less than symmetrical face.

I wonder for a moment if this is theft by finding. Or merely salvaging joy.

My left hand clenches. Fingernails press into the palm making shallow, crescent-shaped trenches. Impressions that will go away once I relax.

If I can will it to happen.

That’s one of the problems.

I can’t relax. I can’t loosen my grip on expectations. I can't just breathe.

I have the feeling, without any evidence to the contrary, that I can't fix what has broken, and I can’t push any of the debris from my mind. There is danger in thinking any of it is beyond repair.

This is unnecessary stress.

I know this.

Small disappointments are only magnified by dwelling on them.

And small disappointments are everywhere a person can dwell these days.

Especially on vacation.

I am thankful it's almost time to pack up and return home. I'm ready for the mountains of laundry that will have smuggled buckets of sand. As I go through the pockets, I will find a few treasures from the sea: some beach glass, or a mollusk shell of some indeterminate genus.

For now, I will add them to a jar that contains 15 years worth of “joy.”

When I am ready to see it, I know these artifacts will be the seeds of memories that will take root for next year's holiday.

In the moment

It’s difficult to recreate a moment if not downright impossible.

And yet our family seems determined — with each summer-vacation square in our datebooks — to try.

Of course, we have a name for what usually turns out to be our ham-fisted, annual attempt: we call it “tradition.” And no matter how narrow or crumbly the ground underneath our tradition becomes, we are determined to stand on it.

This year’s must-recreate-experience involved a long weekend in Acadia with two branches of our extended family and two canine “cousins.” Together the bipeds and quadrupeds would walk the woods, trek through town, see the world from nearly a thousand feet above the ocean, and dine anywhere that had outdoor seating and a sign welcoming dogs.

We’d had so much fun the year before ... you know when the idea was new and uncertain. And when the children thought walking around the circumference of a mirror-still pond seemed putrid and a luncheon of popovers utterly preposterous.

Dragging their feet and harumpfing every step of the three-mile distance.

Realizing at the bitter end that the trip was actually quite sweet.

Of course, setting the bar low is the key to success.

Without even knowing it, the experience turned from dreary to dreamy with the advantage of hindsight.

Turns out our basic cabins had “secret rooms,” and the grounds had a heated pool. After-dusk swimming parties became a nightly requirement.

Even a before-dawn rousting of our sleepy bears from their dens turned into a moment of wonder, as sunrise on the summit kept even the most reluctant hiker among us from complaining the moment the clouds parted and coughed up a glowing red orb for their amusement.

This year’s trip would only get better. We’d do all the same things, but with foreknowledge and planning. We’d make sure to soak up at least a third more enjoyment.

For one thing, we’d have better weather. This was something we didn’t realize would be the case until the temperature — oppressive for August in Maine — plastered our shirts to our bodies with perspiration.

Suddenly, it dawned on us that last year we’d shivered in a cold so unexpected that we’d found it necessary to venture out and buy the kind of tourist shop sweatshirts we’d have ordinarily avoided.

This year, with the streets crowded and parking practically non-existent, hopes of walking through the shops evaporated.

And soon the shards of more dashed expectations began to pile up.

Our teenage trail guide — who fought with varsity debate club skill to be able to set the family course — misread the map and plotted our trek in reverse. Nothing makes embarrassment more evident than a half-a-dozen hikers telling you you’re headed the wrong way on a one-way trail.

But, small failures along the way make room for redemption. And redemption can be as simple as the aforementioned gangly teenager running ahead to the teahouse to secure lunch reservations for a party of nine.

The popovers will be better than we remembered, and we wouldn’t have to battle wasps for the strawberry jam.

It’s not like you really get to pick the moments in your life that become memorable.

The moments pick you.

A quiet house

I don’t appreciate my children enough. 

It’s raining. The house smells of floor cleaner and wet dog.

Not as unpleasant as it sounds. It has been worse.

If my children were home, they'd be singing to themselves in a happy, repetitive way that infuriates me. Or they'd be arguing with each other until I felt the need to intervene. They'd leave their socks in the crevices of the furniture. Their dishes would pile up somewhere other than the kitchen sink. They might even be complaining about losing at Fortnite, and how some kids' parents are getting them, online coaches, the emphasis being on but not my parents.

But they aren't here.

The house is so silent. It’s eerie.

Aside from the resident canine, the place is clean. Or as clean as an old house can be after the children who live there have packed up all their prized possessions and disappeared with them for a parent-less visit with grandma in Maine.

As they soak up the sun at the beach on that first day away, I will have soaked up whatever remains of a spill no one mentioned, and left to fester under the bunk bed.

That won’t be the only surprise. A discovery of seven teaspoons and six crusty cereal bowls will solve a dishwashing mystery that’s hounded me for weeks.

I will strip the sheets and launder the blankets. Gathering rumpled clothes into one big pile on the floor.

For the remainder of the day, the washer will mimic the comforting sound of the ocean.

I will rid their rooms of a years-worth of debris: packages and tags, bits of wrappers and cellophane that probably date back to the Christmas before last.

I will vacuum and mop. I will fluff and fold. I will tuck things neatly into drawers and smooth out fresh linens over their beds.

Upstairs, downstairs: I will go from one task to another without taking a break. 

On that first day, I will be too busy to miss them.

When they call, later on, we will talk about their day and how it was filled with sand and surf and too much sun. The boy will be brief, wanting to get back to his spare allotment of time for his treasured devices.

The girl will take her time, explaining in detail how much fun she’s having balanced on how much she misses me ... mostly, this complicated calculation hinges on how she didn't appreciate how my lack of structure has increased her overall sense of independence.

But mainly because our seasonal rescinding of bedtime rules has been rendered null and void under this “new management.”

Maybe we should intervene, my husband ventures over dinner out. The second restaurant meal since the children’s departure.

I shake my head.

“When in London you have to drive on the left.”

He looks at me blankly.

What I mean is: It won’t kill them to follow someone else’s rules.

It may even make them appreciate us more.

They may not have fortnite lessons, but they have a grandmother, an ocean, and parents heading their way. Maybe grandma can get them to pick up their socks.