Value added

I hadn't noticed her standing in line behind me at the grocery store when she said my name. I'd been too busy dreading the back-to-school shopping trip scheduled for later that afternoon. In my mind I was calculating what Expensive X 2 would cost me as my hand basket full of snacks rolled through the scanner.

I turned around to see a friend -- shopping for staples with her pre-teen sons – more tired looking but no less beautiful than she'd been mid-summer when I'd last bumped into her.

“Are you all ready for school to start?” I bumbled on, clawing for conversation as I swiped my card.

Small talk is an art I haven't perfected.

She shook her head rigorously back and forth as her sons watched, and soundlessly mouthed the word “YES!”

She is admirably adept.

“The Champ goes to kindergarten this year, right?” she asks.

I nod. “I can hardly believe it. He was just born yesterday.”

She smiles broadly, and chuckles as if I'd made an original observation.

“You know, the second one was easier for me,” she offered. “Never shed a tear.”

“I'm not sure if I will be so strong.” I say as I grab my bags to give her items room to move off the conveyor.

“She smiled. You'll be surprised.”

Truer words could not be spoken. I'm always surprised by something.

Surprised by how maddening a child's happiness can be. How mirth and song and repetitious glee can make a parent go ever-so-slightly insane.

Or surprised by how excited he is to be a big kid, for instance, even after I told him he was not allowed to get any taller.

Or how gregarious The Champ's become since graduating preschool in June. Back then he barely said peep to his classmates, now he starts conversations with strangers mid-stream as if they've been speaking in non-sequiturs forever.

“I turned five last week!”

“I'm going to kindergarten this day.”

“Hey, did you know that owls can't smell a thing? That's why they can eat skunks.”

“My mom just hit me in the eye with her pocketbook.”

“It was an accident.”

We all just laugh. Even his sister, who, at times has refused to go on shopping expeditions with him if given a choice, can't help but enjoy his company today.

He's never had to choose school supplies before and it's all so daunting.

He wants the backpack that comes with a toy keychain. I roll my eyes but she talks him out of it.

“This backpack is much cooler, and you can hang a toy from it if you want. All you need is a key ring.”

With that decided, we continue through the aisles. He doesn't care for my opinion. Only hers.

She nods at his choices of black pocket folders, yellow pencils, a ninja lunchbox and Batman Thermos. She senses a theme.

“He thinks he's Batman,” she tells a lady who leans over her to pick up a box of yellow No. 2s.

“I do not,” he corrects. “I just LIKE black is all.”

He's not angry. She doesn't take offense. They are comrades in arms.

They move on … Erasers, wide-ruled paper and fine-point ink pens for her. Crayons, glue sticks and blunt-edged scissors for him. School spirit has its price.

I can tell our cart is getting filled to over budget.

“It's only once a year,” I tell myself as the register wracks up the value-added costs of letting the kids choose their own supplies. And the joy on their faces at the prospect of summer's end is worth every penny.

On vacation

Sand between your toes. It's such a luxury.

“We need one of these,” I say to the sea, wishing I could carry it home with the sand and shells in my pocket.

The first time I came to this coastal town in Maine with my own personal tour guide I was equal parts jealous and smitten. He was born in the summer, and returns each year around that time to relive his youth and reconnect with the sea.

“It must have been so difficult growing up here,” I guestured at the sight of the rocky shoreline. “The beach – a once-annual summertime sojourn for me and my family – was year-round bike ride away for you and yours.”

My husband just smirked, and shrugged his shoulders. Youthful summers mowing lawns and painting oceanfront homes has colored his judgement.

“It's not the same when you live here,” was his reply, though I could tell the answer was more to convince himself of the value of his departure.

We were on vacation after all.

Each year since that first year, we've come here as a family. We put aside the work and the worry and we revisit this place, his childhood home; my dream home. But this is the first year we've arrived in waves: My daughter first, with her grandmother; my husband and son next for a guys-only trip; the dog and myself, last, after the completion of a job.

How things change.

For three weeks our kids have been visiting the library, taking swim lessons, collecting blueberries for breakfast, breading themselves on the sandy beaches and rinsing off in the breaking waves with their grandmother as if this place was home.

Arm over arm they practice their strokes in the pool. The Champ follows in his sister's path of not wanting to go under water, vexing his youthful teachers.

“I do it at home in my pool, but I didn't bring my pool with me,” he says for the laugh.

“I didn't bring mine either,” says the instructor. “It wouldn't fit in my backpack.”

If only such things were possible. It's not the first time the notion of lugging the sea home in our luggage has wormed its way into my wishful thoughts.

It's just better when one of the smalls says it out loud.

These things haven't changed. Long days, filled with sun and ocean air. Family walks on the beach start early and include balancing coffee and muffins against the strain of the dog bearing down on her leash.

The kids smell of sea and sunscreen as they chase the gulls like it was their job. They don't even mind the cold waves or the grainy pastries they collect in pay.

When a woman with a big-old yellow lab asks me how he likes the beach, I say “She's not a fan of the water yet.” “Ah but he likes the sand.”

My face reddens when I realize she's talking about The Champ as he tries to build a sandcastle a few feet from the encroaching tide.

I will blame the sun, whose kinship with the surf fogs minds and whets appetites.

The combination makes the us almost hungry enough to eat the occasional spiny fish the ocean turns inside out and tosses out of its tide each morning.

Almost.

The dog, however, would happily partake if allowed.

“Skunk would smell better,” we tell her as we drag her away from the putrid prize.

It doesn't matter that it's not true.

We are on vacation.

In an instant

I was just in the next aisle. Standing next to Ittybit, who was facing the daunting task of choosing a bicycle helmet to replace the one our dog ate as an evening snack.

The Champ, bored of pink helmets and bikes no one would buy him, had ambled over to peruse toys in the next aisle with my blessing.

“Is he your boy?”

I looked up to find an older woman trying to be in two places at once. She was leaning toward me and trying to keep her eye on my son.

“Yes. He's mine,” I said quizzically, walking toward her to see what havoc he'd caused.

I hadn't realized it just then – as I was looking down the aisle at my son who was quietly weighing the options (LEGO Friends for a school chum who had a birthday coming up or LEGO Star Wars for himself) by holding the boxes of each alongside his ears -- but she was almost in tears.

“It only takes an instant,” she whispered. Her hand lightly pressed my arm.

“Do they know they shouldn't go with strangers? Do they know what to do if someone grabs them?”

Noticing me talking to the lady, my son hop-skipped in our direction. My daughter, already clinging to my side and to a periwinkle helmet with reflective swirly bits drew her arms around him protectively. She had understood what the woman was talking about.

“I lost my daughter. … in Washington. I turned around and she was gone. I was frantic. For three days there was nothing.

“And then they found her ...”

Her eyes explained with tears the word she couldn't say.

“Teach them to scream, to bite and to kick. Just teach them.”

Up until this moment I hadn't given much thought to what-if scenarios about stranger abduction.

Oh sure, I'd recited by rote what they should do if they are lost or can't find me. Who would likely be a safe choice to approach for help: A police officer, a store employee, an elderly lady, much like the woman standing before us now.

But I hadn't considered strangers a true threat. I don't want to live in fear. I don't want to tether my children to my side because I can't shake the fear that danger lurks everywhere.

In fact I'd felt confident in my belief that Don't Talk To Strangers, Stranger Danger and other blanket approaches to rare but horrifying incidents of stranger abductions were completely wrong-headed.

“We have to talk to strangers,” I've told my kids. “You may find yourself in a situation where you need help and you can't always wait until you see someone you know. … But the trick is to understand what IS danger.

We go over that, too. “Adults you don't know won't need a kid's help for any reason. If they lost a puppy, they'd call the animal shelter. If they had car trouble they'd call a tow truck. Beware of strangers bearing gifts and all of that. And remember if there was an emergency, believe me, we wouldn't send someone you've never met before. So Never. Ever. Go with a stranger. Anywhere.”

They repeat after me: “Don't ever go anywhere with a stranger.”

“Adults don't need kids' help.”

“Mom will find me. She won't send someone I don't know to look for me.”

I can tell from their eyes and robot voices they probably won't remember any of it should a really, really nice person tell them he lost his dog.

“What do you do if someone tells you they're going to take you to see me?”

“I'll tell them My mother wouldn't send a stranger to get me. ...”

“No. That's what you THINK. Don't reason with them. Don't tell them anything. Just say NO! Loudly. And then find a policeman, a store employee or an elderly woman.”

“So … Don't talk to strangers then?”

“In that situation … where you're just minding your own business and someone comes up to you with a story about how they're supposed to take you to me … No. Don't talk to them.

And …

Two blank stares headed my way, tell me the lady was right.

It only takes an instant for a lifetime of regret.

“If someone tries to grab you, scream, bite, kick and run.”

They seemed happy with than answer. For the rest of the afternoon they practice on their own with forceful “Nos,” “Hiyahs,” and “You're NOT my Mothers.”

As I watch by kids fight imaginary foes, I understand something, too: Living in fear isn't a result of hearing information you'd rather ignore, its the consequence of ignoring information that you might need to hear. 

Dragging our feet

“You need to put your foot down!”

No matter how much I think it, say it or feel it, the words never seem to morph into action.

Every time we stop, the kids just sit on their bikes as if they were lawn chairs. The training wheels keep them balanced.

Why would they pay any attention to me, their mother? I'm just trailing along behind on our commute one-half-mile to day camp as they buzz along the sidewalk – the tiny third and fourth wheels branching off their bikes' rear tires scraping against the ground like nails against a chalkboard.

The sound reminds me of yet another failure as a parent: My kids – ages 8 going on 9, and 5 going on 25 – don't know how to ride their bikes.

Not that I haven't tried to rationalize my inaction in this area:

“Maybe they're just not ready.”

Or “They're just not interested.”

Or “We live on a high-traffic road.”

There is also my favorite: “The dog ate their helmets.”

That one was good for a least three weeks of blissful inaction until I got around to visiting the sporting goods store.

Once I run out of Perfectly Legitimate ExcusesTM, I just shift the blame.

“Isn't it the father's job to teach the kids how to ride bikes?”

Oh ye of shirking feminism.

The truth is, I am scared.

I don't remember when the training wheels came off my bike. I don't know if I was five or seven or nine. Memory has a way a minimizing some stuff and magnifying others.

I do remember falling a lot until I managed to muster enough courage and speed to balance. I remember scraped knees and ankles. I remember pants getting caught in chains.

I also remember the summer a kid got hit by a car and died. At least I remember my mom telling me about it, and reminding me to be careful out there. I thought helmets were weird; my kids think people not wearing helmets is weird. At least that's an improvement.

But I wasn't scared back then. I barely even thought about how my blue Schwinn alloy 10-speed changed my life.

That bike meant freedom. It expanded the diameter of my world by 10s of miles each year as I got taller, stronger and more reliable in traffic.

It wasn't until I was a parent, driving along the narrow, winding back roads of my childhood bike commutes, that I wondered how, exactly, had my parents let me ride alone there with all the hidden driveways, blind curves and joy-riding, newly-licensed teen drivers?

Things weren't really different back then.

Sure, there are more cars and more distractions in those cars, but accidents have always happened and we have more safety features built into our lives than ever before to protect ourselves against them.

Getting over all the what-ifs is hard.

It's not as if I'd be letting The Champ drive his tiny Spider-Man two-wheeler down the center of a freeway once the training wheels come off. It's just that I know, eventually, I won't be trailing behind to give them pointers.

Eventually I will have to stop dragging my feet, and allow them to pick up theirs.

Resilient in our complacency

Last Friday morning I opened my eyes, looked at my phone and learned a young man had shot up a Denver-area movie theater with a semi-automatic weapon, killing 12 and wounding 58 others.

My reaction probably was not unlike your own.

There's that sinking feeling -- a moment of horror and disbelief -- followed by hours and days of watching the news. Waiting for information that would make me feel better about what had happened.

Explanations, no matter how dissatisfying, tend to put me at ease. Words to file: Loner. Brilliant. Psychopathy. It won't happen to us.

We humans are resilient this way.

Of course, for a while we read and write and yell and keen. We'll wonder what's happening in the world. We'll look to place blame. We'll try and find solutions.

Mostly, though, we just tend to point fingers. We talk about the need for more mental health services despite being aware of the sad paradox: even if it reaches all who need it, therapy doesn't always provide relief.

We rekindle the battle over gun control. People on one side calling for a ban of certain kinds of guns and ammunition; and people on the other side saying we need more fire power.

Soon we'll shake it all off our slickers like rain from the cloud of personal responsibility. Then we'll simply hang up this old coat in the closet of our pushed-aside thoughts, semi-forgotten, until the next time it thunders.

Sad, really.

Because eventually we'll accept this tragedy as we have the many that have come before it and we'll move on.

We'll focus on dangers to our children that don't have such clear constitutional protections and we'll hammer away at those:

We banish the BPA lining our water bottles because of mounting doubts about its safety; we jettison the drop-side cribs that endangered our infants, the trans fats clogging our arteries and the cigarette smoke causing our lungs to be diseased.

Some will yell “Nanny State!” But we won't listen. “ I'll see your Nanny State and raise you a Car Seat Law, my friend. … Go on … tell me how that's infringed on your inalienable right to be a negligent parent.”

The discussion on gun control (and increasingly any regulation) rationally these days seems impossible. Even talking about creating tough guidelines and restrictions for those attempting to buy military-grade weapons -- is somehow blasphemy against the framers of the constitution.

I'm not sure who shaped the argument, that no regulation is preferable to sane regulation, but my guess it wasn't the good, law-abiding gun owners who value safety and education above easy access and mayhem.

Ah … But you've hear it all before.

You've said it.

You've railed against it.

You've even voted for more than one person who'd promised to take on the opposition, whichever camp you opposed.

But nothing changes.

Perhaps they are right: People who want to hurt people will find a way to do it. Why not just fight gunfire with gunfire on a level playing field? Eye for an eye.

Or perhaps it's time to let bygones by bygones, ye pacifists. Whatever will be will be.

Either way there will be other causes to cling to once this whole tragic event is behind us. We could start out slowly by banning midnight movies and work our way up to sanctioning shyness, higher education and the lack of an internet presence.

Anything so we don't become complacent.

Road food

Tiny ears can hear the tinny sound from miles away, like a whistle only a dog can hear. I know this because my children usually clamor for money long before the mangled music emanating from the ice cream truck even reaches my radar.

It's always the same:

There's usually a panicked rush to find pocketbooks and piggybanks, followed by a temporary terror that the truck has turned toward another neighborhood. The music always sounds squashed, like it's coming from a warped record or a dented loudspeaker. It could be coming from or going toward anywhere. Ominous … like the Pied Piper.

“It's creepy,” my husband says as a drab, gray truck -- colored only by photographs of artificially flavored confections – practically screeches to a stop as it nears our house.

The man behind the wheel knows where all the weak links are in his territory chain.

Our house might be the weakest.

The kids have hauled pockets-full of nickels and dimes to the curb, depositing it on the window of the van and then stepping back to see the menu and make their choices.

They bounce back and forth in a familiar dance of indecision, made even more long and drawn out of a performance by the fact that Rocket Pops are out of stock.

Ittybit, innocently enough, will settle on the most expensive treat the man in the paper hat has to offer. The Champ, ironically, will want the head of a superhero on a stick. As the driver sweeps their money into a chocolate smeared apron and settles back behind the wheel, they will declare this the best ice cream they've ever tasted.

“Blasphemy,” my husband huffs in disgust. He can barely believe he has sired children who would rather eat frozen milk and artificial colors from a battered truck than make the pilgrimage to the mecca of locally sourced homemade ice cream just a few miles up the road.

There's no sense reasoning with him.

He claims he doesn't understand the draw of bad food.

He's not the type of man who despises McDonald's just on principal; he'd rather have a root canal than eat a McRib sandwich. “Special Sauce my eye teeth … it's just sugared-up Thousand Island dressing,” he grumbles.

That horror show of an ice cream truck is almost worse than the freak show that is road food,” he says from the comfortable cocoon of his front-porch hammock.

The kids mostly ignore his self professed high-brow tastes until rivers of neon blue, green and red start to trickle down their arms onto their sneakers.

It's hot and their truck treats are outrunning their tongues.

While I will protect this artificially flavored and unnaturally colored rite of summer passage, I won't put my white capris in harm's way. The only thing worse than an uneven cone is a rainbow colored stain on stark white clothes.

Out of desperation, they offer him a lick.

He turns up his nose at first, grousing that he'd rather eat a sponge that had been backed over by the garbage truck than taste even a single lick of a trademarked spongey character (who ordinarily lives in a pineapple under the sea, but in ice cream form has gumball eyes). Then, with a great, thespian gesture, holds out his hands to accept the horrific chore.

To watch him you'd think he was eating poison. He sputters and gurgles and bobbles his tongue.

They watch each lick with squinty eyes.

“Ok … okay,” The Champ tells his father forcefully. “That's enough. I can take it from here.”

They know their father. They know he doth protest too much.

“Listen,” I tell him as he reluctantly relinquishes the treats. “I think I hear the demonic music of the ice cream truck headed this way … . I'll buy you a frozen sponge pop with gumball eyes. I'm sure the ice cream man will be happy to back over it with his truck if you insist.”

An infrequent victory

He always wins.

It's just how it works.

She may start out with the advantage, but eventually his strategic maneuvering will overtake her in the end.

She usually doesn't make a big deal of it; don't want to be a sore loser, you know.

You can probably picture the scene:

A family of four is gathered around an out-of-the-way table at a local public house, or pub for short. It's the early dinner hour, and aside from a few patrons at the bar the place is quiet.

The kids have reached the limit of their summer-time imaginations. The parents have had it “up to here” with the stressors of the day, including their now unimaginative kids. Everyone is hungry and tired and antsy. The last thing either of them feel like taming is dinner. Even strangers can see that this is the make or break moment.

The waiter appears bearing menus and jokes that only add heat to the tiny pressure cookers bouncing around in the booth. How long before they turn from tender to falling apart is anyone's guess. The mom, out of character, orders for everyone. And they wait. The smalls beg them to play a game of checkers, which the smallest of the smalls runs off to retrieve.

When he returns he is trailed by his sister who is collecting the debris of pieces left in his wake. He didn't bother to notice that the clasp on the box was broken.

He extracts the checker board and she dumps the handful of red, plastic disks (some of which she fished out from under the booth of a couple who, up until then, had been trying to have a quiet meal.

“I call girls against the boys,” she hollers, after she shimmies out from under their table and runs for “game central.” She imagines the girls have an edge.

No such luck. The boys win.

What was lost in the game, however, is made up in timing as the food arrives as the last checker is swept from the board.

They eat. They chat. They consider how long they have until the meter runs out on this the smalls talk them into playing just one game of chess, citing an often used legal maneuver: The “you promised” clause.

This time the boy offers his game plan.

“Boys against the girls.”

But the rule of chess prove daunting. After three moves, the kids become disinterested.

The girl goes to ladies room.

The boy turns his attention to his fortune cookie, the pub's official, and complimentary, dessert.

He asks for a quarter for the candy machine, dissappears and then returns, with M & M-gooey hands, to climb Mt. Concentrating Dad.

Unsurprisingly to everyone but the mother, who knows her husband to be unshakable in his stratigic skills, he blunders forward.

Twice.

She takes advantage. How could she not?

And ends up winning.

For the first time. ...

Ever.

She is stunned, amazed and perhaps the happiest she's been in recent memory.

Happier than the time she found a parking space in the first-swoop of the supermarket's clogged parking lot or when she found pine nuts on sale.

Small wonders like these always make her smile, and talk to strangers ...

Because who knows when this will happen again.

He's not the type to let her win.

The cicada of life

“I want to keep it for a pet,” said The Champ, his attention split between me and a rather large, prehistoric-looking insect that had just emerged from the earth near where he'd been digging in the backyard.

I'd seen the hollow, amber-colored shells affixed to trees where the cicada nymphs had left behind their childish things and flew off with new adult wings to sing their songs, attract a mate, lay eggs and start the whole, long process of life underground again. Yet, with such long spaces in between sightings, a person tends to forget in the meantime.

After all, no matter how amazing these creatures are, cicadas have a face only a mother -- and it would seem a boy, newly five -- could love.

“I will name him Clorindo Ramindino Insectivorianda, and he can sleep in my room.”

Honestly, his declaration surprised me a little, having just hours earlier responded to five-alarm shrieks demanding that a tiny beetle and a slightly oversized cricket – neither of which were close enough to touch him – be inducted into the insect relocation program.

Though perhaps the attraction is something he inherited. As I watch him study the insect's almost iridescent segmented body, it occurs to me that so many big moments in our lives as a family have been marked by the reawakening of these gentle giants.

On our honeymoon, hiking in New Zealand, my husband and I tramped for miles along the coastal track of the Queen Charlotte Walkway as the cicadas made a wall of noise almost as impressive as the scenery and twice as memorable.

After Ittybit was born, five months after to be exact, we travelled to D.C. smack-dab in the middle of the cacophony that was the awakening of the 17-year-cicadas. Everywhere we went, golden hulls and red eyes followed us. It was an event that rivaled the emergence of cherry blossoms a thousand times over.

These bugs – harmless to humans – are found all over the world and are “born” in their own time. Although some are annual, most live underground for years, growing incrementally as they feed on the juices of roots. Once mature they burrow to the surface and shed their skins revealing transparent, veined wings and luminescent bodies. In the five or so weeks they live as adults, they are busy. The song the males sing to attract a mate comes not from air moving through a throat but vibrations bouncing around resonating chambers in their abdomen. The female deposits hundreds of eggs into slits she makes in tree branches. Six or so weeks later the eggs hatch and ant-like nymphs burrow into the ground where the life cycle continues.

It's no wonder they are seen by many cultures as symbols of longevity, love and renewal. They connect the past with the present.

The Champ has heard this all before as has Ittybit, who's been assured we will return to D.C. in May of her 17^th year to meet her cicadas' sons and daughters.

She's got a while to wait.

The Champ can't wait another minute. He runs off to find a box, comfy pillow and fleece for his new pet. And returns to heartbreak.

“Mah-meeeee!” he wails. “You need to get rid of the dog. Clorindo Ramindino Insectivorianda is dead and she ATE him. Look, she sucked him right out of his shell!”

“Ah … honey. She didn't eat Chlorine Ramona Insectivous-er-whatever. He's just gone off to find a girlfriend. And guess what? Maybe, when you are 12, you will see his children. Right here in our backyard.”

Blank. Stare.

“He's going to have babies?!!! Here?!? Ewwwwwww.”

The best part of any movie will always be talking about it afterward

“What was your favorite part, Mama?” she said between mouthfuls of steamed dumpling and bites of broccoli.

We had just seen “Brave,” and were seated at a table in the restaurant next door to the theater, debriefing. I use the word “sitting” loosely. Neither Ittybit nor The Champ could contain themselves. Eyes flashing, mouth chirping, she was practically levitating off the seat. Swashbuckling with chopsticks, he was attacking his meal with the ferocity of a wee Scottish lord.

“I really liked the witch's workshop,” I said, explaining that I loved looking at all the animated carvings and listening to the way they clanked together as the hero of the story, Merida, blew in following the mysterious “wisps.”

“Oh, that was good!” she exclaims. “Yeah, that was good,” echoes her brother as he tries to spear his meal. Truth be told, however, more than the work of foley artists, the thing I loved most was that its hero is a girl.

I loved that “Brave” is all the things you could want in a lifetime let alone a movie, whether you are male or female. It has lush landscapes, a loving family, action, adventure, humor, ingenuity, failure and redemption. And it is as much about acknowledging duty as it is about breaking tradition.

Things we wrestle with for all our lives not just for 90 minutes in a darkened room filled with the rich smells of popcorn.

Most of all, though, I loved that girls as heros won't be as novel a concept to my children as it was to me when I was their age. And that girls don't have to become boys to find or measure their worth.

“What was your favorite part?” I say a little too loudly, drowning out the bagpipes in the soundtrack of my imagination.

“I liked when the free brovers ate all the cupcakes. They were like free little pigs. That was funny,” said The Champ, his own mouth full of dumpling.

“Oh … I liked it all, especially the part where she fixes the tapestry and everything goes back to being the same only better,” Ittybit says.

“But that's not … what happened … not exactly ...” I stammer.

“Sure it is. She didn't sew very well but it was good enough,” she says with conviction.

“It was more than just a ripped picture. It was the relationship between mother and daughter that had been damaged; the tear was just a symbol of that bond. They actually had to fix their relationship.”

“That's what I said.”

It's interesting to watch movies with my kids. To see the symbolism sail straight over their heads, where it will hang around (once the movie is released to DVD and I fall prey to little pestering) until one day they see it with more mature eyes. And something else clicks.

And as much as I want them to see what I've seen, I know we all experience the world a little differently. We come to our understanding with filters … some I've installed … some friends have installed … some they've discovered themselves.

“You know what I really frink the best part of the movie was?” says The Champ, moving on to the fortune cookie portion of the meal.

“Let me guess?” replies his sister. “The sword fighting? The horse? The boy who had a tattoo on his face?”

“Nope. I liked that the mom didn't die. … These movies always kill the mom.”

They both start to laugh, and it strikes me: The best part of any movie will always be talking about it afterward.

Home office

Now that I am ungainfully employed by the Corporation of Cyclical Chores – a completely imaginary Subchapter S corporation -- I am forcing myself to get dressed each morning and face the day (and the school bus driver) at 8 a.m. wearing something other than a bathrobe and fuzzy, pink slippers.

Free of my windowless cubicle, my days are spent milling around the Home Office checking in on the various departments that make CCC (as I like to call my imaginary firm) run like a top … the wobbly kind.

As chief exective of CCC, I wear many hats.

For example, as head of appropriations I usually stare blindly into the shopping cart, wondering what I can throw in there that will magically prepare itself once I get it home. Raw meat during BBQ season seems to be the best option. The head chef is as protective of his grill as the laundry czar is of keeping red items from infultrating the white. All it will cost me is a beer.

More worrisome is how to handle the dishwasher. Sure … he shows up to work consistently (being built-in and all) but he tends to leave everything he washes crusty and unappealing, causing me to have to redo everything by hand.

I'd fire him, but I've asked around. My problem isn't unique. He's just a hollow shell and replacing him would not only be labor intensive and costly, but also unlikely to solve the problem. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Then there's the three-foot-tall house elf who speaks in riddles and is always on some secret mission to empty and redistribute any and all prefolded garments produced by the laundry department, which, turns out, operates at a daily albeit at an inconsistent capacity.

I don't even want to think about the cleaning crew. They are about as organized as a pack of rabid squirrels and only half as tidy. I tend to try and pull that hat over my eyes.

Perhaps, though, the most surprising of the hats I wear fits only loosely and has a wide brim offering a surprising amount of revelation and protection.

Gardening.

Frankly, it's a job that, in my previous life, I had likened to sewer cleaning or carrion removal: Knee deep in dirt, breathing in the rancid smell of defeat.

Whatever I attempted to grow either failed to germinate or choked the life out of every other lifeform around it.

The thought had occurred to me that now, with my hours expanded, my duties varied and my compensation greatly devalued, the only way I could balance the inequity for myself was to grow something with value added.

Food.

Cabbage instead of Cosmos. Tomatoes taking the place of trillium. Peppers where once peeped peonies.

Even the shareholders of my fictitious firm … the people who clamored for pancakes and bacon as I poured yogurt on granola … were sneering at my plans to turn around the company. They beggged me to reconsider.

“What will the other imaginary companies say? What if there's a hostile takeover?”

Sure … it looks out of place – an imaginary corporate headquarters landscaping its entryway with edibles, protruding akimbo, where ornamentals had once appeared orderly.

But I press on. When the greedy shareholders get their hands on the fruits of this labor, they'll be glad they invested. …

Of course, that's my plan. Get them hooked now because next year we're going co-op.

Holding my breath

I often hold my breath.

Not just during the angsty times: doctors visits, teacher conferences, all manner of difficult conversations.

But also when I'm thinking. When I'm listening. When I'm writing. When I'm rearranging my closet in my mind's eye.

I just forget to exhale. It's an unconscious, momentary thing. Like a blink you squeeze shut until you tear up or see stars.

I've always held my breath this way.

Still, it makes my husband nervous.

He thinks it's all about him.

“Are you upset with me?” he asks when the inevitable heavy sigh releases all this pent up air.

I tell him not to worry. “It's not always about you. … And that the exhalation hissing out of my lungs is just my body's way of making sure I don't pass out.

“I'm not mad. Really, I'm not.”

He doesn't buy it.

Truly, I have forgotten all about the argument we had the other day. I can't even remember why we were fighting. It's always something silly.

“Is Jeremy Piven playing all the bad guys in this movie?”“No, that one was James LeGros.”“No, it was Piven. I'm sure of it.”“It's LeGros.”“It's definitely Piven.”“Fine. I'll Google it.”

He barks dog. I hiss cat.

Stubborn we are.

“Oh … I guess it is Piven.”

And that eye-rolling thing? That's just a reflex. Has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I wish Google would break even if, on occasion, it proves I was right.

Win the battle, lose the war.

Anger and resentment can do that to people, small irritations blow up in their faces.

Mountains and mole hills.

I'm sure there are times he'd rather be married to someone else. There are times I wouldn't even want to be married to me.

Like the time I volunteered him to assemble a thousand piece, plane-shaped teeter-totter for the preschool playground. I smiled as I pictured him pulling his hair out over Parts A and C being too small to fit into Slots B and D.

That wasn't terribly nice of me.

But he returned the favor.

He's raised my hand for jobs that would prove equally frustrating.

Dinner? Party? Small talk?

Honestly, I'd rather put together an oscillating jet engine and try to launch him into next week.

But I don't have enough weight to hold my end down.

Marriage can seem like it is balanced on absolutes:

“You always … ”
“You never ...”

But that's a mirage … not marriage.

Nothing is absolute. None of it crystal clear.

Except for a moment or two when you catch a glimpse of your family, the children skipping along a sidewalk in the afternoon sun and your partner close behind. He's holding their ice-cream-sticky hands as they sing some nonsense songs into the air.

Small moments in our lives that are capable of filling the cavities etched by our own moments of smallness.

“Try to focus on this moment” I tell myself. “Let the other moments float away.”

This is why I married him. This is why he married me.

Heart racing once again, I notice I've stopped breathing.

And I exhale.