Cole

Blogs seem so inconsequential in the real world, when young boys, doing as we would wish them to do, like play ball, or roll around in the dirt, get hurt in the process.

My neighbor Cole, a little boy who was like a second son to me, and a brother to my son, Davis, was hit a week ago in the head with a ball. Doing what he loved to do - Play ball. Cole grew up in my backyard, making his way through a path we carved out when he was four and my son two. We had no idea that years later, they would walk home from the bus on that path, that others would use it to check in on me, that the deer would trample through, that it would hold so many memories.

Though many tributes are already surfacing for Cole, I can think of nothing better than to share a piece of writing in my blogsphere from the night of vigil for Cole...

To Cole

A Prayer for My Backyard Boy

You are the little boy who made nose and hand prints
on your mother’s back door,
reporting the status of our dinner - hot, cold, pasta or pork -
while through our sliding door, my son reported on yours.

You are the reason we cut a swath through cottonwood trees,
the prickly holly bushes and native vibernum,
so that you two could run freely to our home and back.

You are the freckles and smile that greeted my little boy,
mornings on the path, evenings for slip and slide,
and a few water balloon launchers and snowballs at our back door.
You stomped through the creek, picked up turtles
and loved the life that God placed in your care.

You took the hand of my little boy as a younger version of you –
though you already had two -
and loved him when he needed a place to belong.

Together, you ate pizzelles, cookies whose name you could never say,
made mud pies and built forts with branch clippings and duck tape
that caused us to curse,
though today, we would resurrect every last inch.

And now we await your movement again,
You speak but only in the actions of a simple peace sign,
a thumbs up, agitation through the night.

Though you are the one we pray for,
it is us that needs the prayers.
So tonight, we pray

while the bullfrogs bellow out into the late spring night,
and ambient light wafts over the fields,
dissolving into the glare of the news van spots.

And somewhere in the distance, neighborhoods away
where they have not yet heard of your tragedy,
children shriek and dogs bark, as it should be.
And we sing, Heal me Jesus, but this is not singing,
we are praying with our souls.

We cry because we forget
God does not weep for those whom he has chosen
to teach us lessons that surpass our grasp.

You are still that little boy who steers his bike
through the backyard, over the cedar bark path,
to your dinner table or ours -
where a plate of pizzelles awaits your return home.

AJW

5-21-2009

Selling Ourselves

Look busy Father and Uncle would crow
to employees
toiling in the shadows
of 26^th and Broadway
beneath the banner of Januzzi’s Shoes.

Together they paced the aisles
before Father returned
to the back office space
to pore over “the books.”

We would be dispatched to our stations -
Brother to the store room to unpack
the cartons delivered by the man in brown.
It would have been like Christmas,
if Brother had been me,
caressing each style
before pricing and stocking.

Sister would slowly wind her way
towards the counter
to stand stoic
beside the rigid cash register queen
who scolded her when wrinkled ones and fives
were turned opposite of tens and twenties.

Grandpa, founder and mender,
would retire to his repair stand
where the musk of newly-shaped leather
mingled with the scent of cobbler’s glue.

Customer names were recorded on cards
kept in a metal cabinet.
Filing the recently pulled or
pulling the filed always fell to me.
I would make it a game
see how fast I could order the stack
or search for the cards
of boys with whom I was madly in love,
later to be stung by their betrayal
of wearing of new loafers
bought elsewhere.

Tension lingered in the air
on the days of sales
causing the aisles of shoes to quake -
the children’s section leaning into men’s boots,
rows of nursing whites
holding back women’s heels,
and ice skates teetering on the top
shelves above my head.

Retail was never easy
even before big box stores
swallowed up ideas and families.

But the business had been blessed
by the presence of the mill, the hospital,
and those who needed orthopedic shoes.
As if the store was a ministry itself -
serving and fitting -
and that purpose fed the family,
not the money collected
and carefully counted at day’s end.

Yet customers were never completely content
with the price, style or fit.
Ladies prattled
and squirmed in green vinyl chairs
squeezing bones into shoes too small,
waiting for us to admire their toes
in the slanted mirrors.
We could never lie to them,
we could never tell the truth.

We only knew that the odor of unwashed feet
would cause us
to seek out Grandpa’s shoe glue
or steal away to the store room,
relieved for a moment
from the duty and pride
of selling the shoes, the business, our selves.

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Annette J. Wick

awick@cinci.rr.com

What’s in a Name?

My mother was careful about the names she chose for her children,
never wanting to bestow one that others might
abbreviate, mutilate or annihilate altogether.

“Annette Marie”, my mother called,
when I ran afoul of normal.
“Peanut”, my father endowed me with,
despite Mom’s pleas for no pet names.
I was tinier than my siblings at that same age,
or perhaps it was the time gap, when I remained the youngest
for over three years.

Then came “Shorty”, because I never grew.
Followed by “Red”,
as in crimson, my face flushed with
embarrassment in seventh grade Spanish class or algebra.

When my older sister and brother were nicknamed “Shoes” and “Big Shoes”
after my father’s shoe store, I became “Little Shoes.”
And Jeff Thomas took to calling me “Slippers.”
So I had visions of my pink fuzzy ones at home,
that always accumulated dirt, though I wore them inside only.
Jacuzzi replaced my real last name of Januzzi
Followed by “Shoesies from Januzzi’s”
which really had nothing to do with me
only the jingle on the local AM station.

Soon, after creating a superhero story in Mrs. Garfield’s ninth grade,
I did it to myself. I sealed my own fate by penning a story about“Netti Spaghetti and the Meatball Kid.”
Thankfully, only the “Netti” and “Spaghetti” parts lived on.

Having survived those barrages of nonsense,
I answer to Mom, “Hello, Beautiful”, and a friend who
puts the emphasis on the first syllable and calls me “Ann – ette.”
But I no longer answer to Netti,

unless Aunt Lynne berates me for not writing
or Uncle Dennis calls.
To my father, I am now ‘Net Marie, as in “Yeah, ‘Net Marie, what’s going on?”
And my mother, she too shortened my name,
and says, when answering the phone,
“Oh hi, ‘Net. I was just going to call.”

Becoming Italian

You cannot just “be” Italian
even if you are born into la famiglia.
You start by teething on buttery pizzelles,
ingesting a bit of anisette
to soothe your tummy.

You begin to eat dittalini,
“small fingers” of pasta
drenched in sauce
from tomatoes drenched in the summer sun.
You pick them up with chubby hands
and imagine all Italians eating with gusto.

You savor the rind from a chunk of Grana Padano -
nutty, tangy cheese with a wretched stench
that drives your friends away
and all the better, there is more for you.

Your lover thinks of your body
as the Italian countryside
his fingers rolling through the richness
of rivers, valleys, vines.
And when you explode with emotions, it must be
because you cannot sit idle
while the world calls you dego, wop.
You are padre, amico, madre, que bella italiana.

To be Italian, you must feel the bows rocking
on the Madonna or Lafayette
as the ships cross the Atlantic,
inhale the smoke of hot iron
or the steam off the rising dough,
put in years of hard work
in the garden and kitchen,
like the Etruscans who fended off
those from foreign lands,
to keep pure the race of olive-skinned.

You slurp calamari with the same delight
that ‘mericanos slurp spaghetti
and know that someday
your two eye brows will become one,
not from hair,
but from the creases on your temple
where your determination
has met the world head on.

AJW

2/9/2009, rev. 2-19-2009

Journey of a Flower

What is this, the danger of growth?

The daffodil succumbs to that risk late summer,

falling below the musty mulch,

no longer in rhythm

with the events taking place above.

Waits through the wintry mix

for the warmth of the March sun

to begin poking its arms

through the shards of birchwood.

Then slowly,

rolls it golden saffron head around

neck stiffening slightly

in an effort to awaken.

Begins to lift up its chin and unfurl its face,

outstretch it arms.

The pendulum of progress

forces the full bloom of the flower.

Oh how dangerous

to be made noticeable for the singular act

of living, breathing, growing

out of the shadows of the dwarf cherry tree

or pink spirea bush with its fairy dust blooms,

each time discovering new strength

should the frost come to strip away

its sunny disposition

or feet tread upon it.

Its bulbs still multiply beneath,

Its soul still spreading the good word.

That is the nature of the daffodil,

it refuses to stay stagnant, below the ground forever.

Rilke once said, ‘Live everything.’

And the daffodil risks rising before the calendar says its time.

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All Points Bulletin:

Missing: One young son, his brain and his hat. Last seen all intact Monday, getting off school bus profusely preaching the gospel of the weatherman and his teachers at school. Went to bed with pajamas on, but turned inside and backwards. Last heard flushing his toilet at midnight. Who wakes at midnight to flush their toilet unless they really have to pee? Only kids who want a snow day. Was found in bed in the morning, at 5:30 after being informed school was closed, was noted to be high-fiving his stuffed animal that he still sleeps with, though he probably doesn’t want anyone to know publicly, so if you can keep that out of the media, that would be appreciated.

Disappeared only hours later into the new fallen snow, having did his share of shoveling, retrieval of the sleds and then headed for parts unknown. Was believed to have had lunch at the neighbor’s house, as hot chocolate still formed a ring around a few mugs left in neighbor’s dishwasher and a squished marshmallow on the floor. Was last seen with brown moustache - from chocolate has not hit puberty yet. Was witnessed to have been flying and then colliding mid-air with other such young boys, after having built a ramp out of the corn hole game and sledding down a hill and across ramp. Was heard to have hurt himself and quite possibly left his favorite Oregon hat somewhere in the dregs of the snow plow’s path. Arrived later for dinner, to cook for parents, only watched his sisters do most of it while he turned on the TV and checked the computer simultaneously for any indication of snow falls that would increase chances of not returning for a second day. Was rewarded for this effort with second snow day.

Was called in an emergency relief effort to the neighbor boys house for a sleepover in an effort to offer relief to said boy’s mom who had been the host of her four boys and another round of four boys through the day’s white death. Returned home at 10 next morning with said boy in two, to retrieve more outdoor wear, as other outdoor wear not suitable for an entire day outside. Warning, it is not known when missing boy last had a shower. It is unknown as to whether or not he was wearing clean underwear despite his mother’s protest to the contrary.

Busied himself with his duties of shoveling with sisters then building igloo in case of need of emergency shelter for the homeless in the area or for his friends, it is unclear what his motives were at this point. Stayed in that same spot all day, with exception of retuning inside for lunch of peanut and jelly and said moustache now contained purple jelly and chocolate. Again, stayed out all day, returned for dinner, movie and another cancelled day off school. Felt need to be rescued from his family by calling in another of said friend, only said friend had to stay home so said friends father came to pick up missing boy, take to their home, where missing boy was said to have remained until 2 pm the following day. Missing boy answered neighbors phone three times when his mother called that number, only to turn down a chance to return home. Mother then appeared frightened that he had turned to runaway status or had forgotten everything he knows, including where he lives. Mother left him at neighbor’s house regardless.

Missing boy’s school cancelled for a fourth day. Boy’s mother now OK with his runaway status. If found, please return his hat and his brain, which by now should have grown considerably smaller. Do not, I repeat, return missing boy’s underwear, or boy himself without a shower.

Here is what I know on this snow day – 1/27/2009

1. Stanley’s Driving School is closed and their classes are cancelled. With two teenage drivers in the family, I believe Stanley to be a wise man,

2. The Open Door Food Pantry is closed - they should change their name.

3. At 5:27, my husband looked out the window and said, there’s really not that much snow out there. At 5:28, the school called to cancel classes for the day. At 6:30, the newspaperman had made it through the street and the plow had not. At 7:00, I began shoveling five inches of snow.

4. On the local TV station website, the number of cancellations were closing in on 500. I may need to adjust that figure later, when the Get Fit with Frannie class shows up scrolling across my screen. However I did just notice that Curves in Kentucky is closed and that will directly impact their state’s fitness goals.

5. Following the webcam mounted on the TV truck of the Fox News Channel is making me car sick, like I am on a roller coaster called “The Cut in the Hill”.

6. The Christ hospital, the one hospital that “stands about all the rest”, is canceling their afternoon outpatient clinic appointments. Their tai chi class is cancelled as well. If you have ever waited in the outpatient of a hospital, you know you can’t have one without the other.

7. The Clermont Recovery Center and the Office of Comprehensive Counseling are closed. They work to offer support for alcohol and drug abuse. I hope they’re open tomorrow, I’ll need it to recover from being at home with the kids today. Do you know how hard it is to get kids motivated to go shovel the driveway so that you can drive them to go sledding on a day when the buses couldn’t get moving and somehow you are supposed to.

8. The winter storm advisory has forced organizers to cancel a class on weather spotting where students are taught to observe and identify different types of clouds, dust whirls, rain shafts and tornado related conditions. Apparently, it does not apply to snow storms which is too bad because they would have hands on experience today!

9. My friend Carol is venturing out to feed the birds and calling that an accomplishment.

10. I laughed at yesterday’s headlines, “Expect Big Crowds in the Milk Aisle Before Nightfall” - words that created panic at the grocery store. Now, not laughing as that last jug of milk in the extra frig is past due. Perhaps a little sugar will help.

Diary of a Woods

1-15-2009

Here’s she comes. I can spot her a mile away, pulling her pink hat atop her fancy do, walking out of the house. The keypad for the garage door opener is not working again – she checks to be sure the key is still under the ceramic pot which once grew fiber optic grass hair.

She hurries past the neighbor’s homes, but I can still see her across the backstreets which she must trudge, out onto the main road, careful to avoid attention or falling into the sewer ruts.

Last week, she was here with her husband. They walk here occasionally though there is still a sign posted No hunting, fishing, shooting. Trespassers will be prosecuted. The sign hangs more as a reminder that once she did not walk here and merely as a suggestion for her days now.

But since the Fall, when the township took ownership of the land, she did too. She has been here, following its progress from overgrown brush to path of stones to paving. She wishes the paths will not be entirely paved and we do too. We that soar above are protection enough for even the weakest of souls, people do not need paths, they just need encouragement to create their own.

She feels she must still sneak in here, but she should not fear. We want her here to document the fall of a landowner and the rise of the woods, if only for her. Today, she stumbles in, fearful that the trucks across the street are on to her. Perhaps she should quit wearing that neon pink ski coat which she cherishes for its warmth.

She is agitated, for no reason. The wind chill is at zero and the snow is softly falling, like gratitude, for finally the sky is releasing its pent up moisture from the clouds and rewarding us with something to cover the paths, so one can make new paths from here. Trucks across the street are idling noisily creating a white noise with which the snow cannot compete.

The deer have already been by, so has the dog from the neighbor’s home. The dog once chased away by her husband, who now insists on carrying a stick when they steal away into these our woods.

She is now past the barricade, which had been moved aside weeks ago. Again, she was grateful that the little signs forgave her for her trespasses, even if the law would not. She busies herself thinking of these sins, looking down at deer hoofs, rabbit prints and is jostled back to the interior by sound of branch cracking. She looks up in time to see an incredible winged creature. She calls this stranger Mystery. This is twice now the creature has appeared to her, she only glimpses it from the back, as the bird flies away. Is it the owl she hears in the morning when at the bus stop. Is it the falcon that made its appearance one day in the tree of the Foxes – the neighbor’s real name?

She shudders and snaps her fingers in a darn like fashion, the trucks idling is still like a roar in her ears, she wanted the quiet, but even her clothes –bundled like ralphie’s brother in a Christmas story – preclude her from enjoying the peace – what will it take one wonders.

Swish, swish from her ski pants overrides the red cardinal’s call until she is directly upon it. She stops, to find it in the collage of brush and leaves and logs, modge-podged together by the fallen snow. The bird is startled, stops its tweaking and twitching and flies off in the direction of another object moving away from her – the white-tailed deer. Had she not stopped to hear the bird, she never would have seen the deer. Such lessons she is learning today, for it feels like she is pushing through life now, not really enjoying it, hardly breathing. One wonders if that is why she is here.

She is coming upon the creek. Unable to wait til Spring, when the rains rush down this ravine here and the swish of water overrides all that is on her mind today. It is the ski trip, the prepartoin for, and the unwillingness to be away right now, right when her life fells on the verge.

But perhaps everyone with the state of affairs in the world, the Israel- Palestinian wars, the historicu inauguration, the economy, everyone is on the verge - suffering from an unknown grief. And she always came to the woods to grieve what was lost and find what was left – the black walnuts. Oh she hopes there are not hoarders that will come by and pick these up – that they will be left to sustain that for whom reaches them first.

Her first step at the creek is on ice, not as it was last Sunday, when she and the He were there. In a playful act, she stepped first, balancing on log with barely a branch to support it. Her foot slipped off and into the water, that day the weather stood in the 20s, but with her wool socks, she persevered through three more miles. Today hope is written on her face that she can cross without breaking through the ice. Alas, she is surprised that she must weigh more than she thought, for the ice breaks through, but alas she is also surprised that her boots stand in 3 inches of water without taking on an ounce.

Safely across, a set of man’s footprints appear and soon join in with tire tracks from a truck. Her pulse quickens despite the plummeting temperature outside. This is just what she always imagined, being found here, alone with no protection other than her phone. She quickly reaches inside her pocket to ensure its presence.

Luckily, the tracks stop near a path entrance from another neighborhood. Workers trespass here more than she can imagine, though they are the ones allowed, according to the law. She sees the orange twp cone in the middle of the sticks of trees. She notes the ancient water heater, set aside from possilbly the meade owners, how historical can their home be if the well behind no longer works and at least one water heater has been tossed aside. Plenty of intruders have come and gone before her.

She reaches the stream again, crossing it from the other leg of the “U” in the path. She can still hear the diggers – she says that word in her mind, yes, diggers, that is what the little boy always called them. He would spot a construction truck driving down their street and say, “wow, would you look at that big digger mommy.” And mommy would exclaim with delight.

As her neighbor, we recall those days of looking over our shoulders, when the construction was finishing off on her street. The trucks roared, interrupted our peace, came in two by two, like the animals in noah’s ark. And on one bright and sunny day, she and the boy had a picnic outside, on their driveway, so he could exclaim, would you look at those big diggers. This is what she is thinking now. How those days have slipped past. And how sad and lonely she must be without that child at her side, always at her side, in the woods, across the creek, in the backyard and she at his side at bedtime.

Maybe she has been running away from his growing up. Keeping him small with her hugs. Maybe his grandparents frustrate her in not spending more time with him, because she sees such goodness in this child, who comes home from school and says, everything was great, but doesn’t have a reason why, why would you not want to spend time with him. He is not special, but perhaps she sees more than most see in their children. Because they have had to look each other in the eye, in the same she will someday come face to face with this mysterious creature in our woods and they will meet, and then he will fly away.

The rest of the walk, she tramples grass not yet grown, nor able to, to avoid the gaze of anyone who still might be out there, creating parking spaces and restrooms. And while this appears to meet the original covenant with the owners and township that this land would always be used for park space, now there will be a flower show and a log cabin placed here that does not belong. So much out of place in this family of things, that her neck goes limp, head falls down in recognition that she may soon have to share these woods.

Something Brighter

When the local fire department
set the Royal house ablaze,
grey confining smoke billowed up
over the woods of Cemetery Rd

The home had rested in a barren field
with its barn only yards away
and a tiny shed standing like its sentry nearby.
The barn’s paint had been washed out
but you could still make out
streaks of royal blue and red and a faint rusted orange.

If the sun from the west
was shining on the chubby apple tree
something brighter would quickly catch your eye.
Parked along the rear of the barn
was an old chevy truck
painted construction cone orange,
its polished chrome headlights and rusted grill
peeking out as if to let some passer by know
that life still abounded around that barn.

If you knocked,
feet would shuffle inside the home,
a space eclipsed
by a local college dorm.
A gentle man would open the door,
his long hair graying to white,
wearing a faded college t-shirt
and the presumed uniform of a farmer.
He would greet you
with a smile, lips turned up five degrees,
“Phillip Royal, but folks just call me Royal,”
he would say,
“been Royal all my life
so long ‘s I’ve lived here.”

On his land, no dirt had been turned
for the sake of crops,
no corn stalks were weeping in the wind,
or rows of garden
burrowing beneath themselves.
What life had Royal abandoned –
on the river, on the run –
for this retreat here?

The paper ran a story about a new public park -
the old fireworks factory was moving -
There would be a missing link between old park and new.
Thus the Royals negotiated a sale
as a tradeoff
for a town’s need for green.

Where would they go? Was there a “they”?
With a care center located minutes from their door,
would you drive by the entrance one dawn
and find a homemade sign,
Happy 100th Phillip Royal – King of Cemetery Rd?

The firefighters had left only straw
to cover the footprints of the three Royal plots.
At last sight, on that ground
stacks of trees that would never be climbed
sat in piles with a sign marked “dump”
holding the damage from the latest wind storm.

A spotted owl had migrated here,
one street over from where its giant oak had split.
And a man with two kayaks atop his truck
gazed through his binoculars
at a soaring skeleton of a tree, seeking the owl,
or waiting for Philip
to offer wisdom from this noble land.


Annette Januzzi Wick Manley

Food for Thought

I don’t spend much time volunteering in the schools as of late, with my youngest in the seventh grade. In his youth, I was a reading tutor for years, helping other students in his school develop the same sense of joy that he now enjoys, reading through pages of the latest fantasy fiction or sports novel.

Back in September, during PTA sign up week, I checked off November food drive, thinking that was far enough away for me to not have to plan for it in the present. There were no dates to mark down, so I tucked the notion away.

Following Halloween, a pleasant e-mail arrived, gently reminding me of my commitment. It was also a quite lengthy e-mail regarding all the volunteer opportunities that existed to serve one single purpose, using the Loveland students and families to help stock the pantry for Thanksgiving.

Each classroom and grade was given specific assignments for boxed rolls, canned broth, bags of stuffing. Each volunteer was asked to take on one or several of many roles, including sign maker, box bringer, children organizer, hot chocolate money collector. I speed read through the list of wants and needs, offered to make signs and committed to being there on the day of, to collect the food staples and stack them high.

When the day arrived, I showered, had my coffee and literally felt as if I were going of to work. The space for the food pantry drive was the gymnasium of a church I once considered attending. Because I liked their music, because I liked the time of their services and mostly because I could sit in the back, with Davis in the Sunday school and contemplate my life. Space to be at peace.

So it was I the same building, where children snaked through lines, sometimes missing the right pile, placing canned fruit in the canned broth section, or mistaking stuffing mix for roll mix.

But my favorites were the muffin mixes instead of roll mixes, creamed rice as an alternative to what, I don’t know. The expired labels on canned goods, the non readable labels on canned goods – how do manufacturers get away with that one? The beef broth instead of chicken broth and the gallon cans of golden yams. I have a family of six, but had no clue they came in these hefty sizes.

The group of volunteers mixed and matched canned veggies until I would later see the labels in my sleep – aftereffects of a Kinkead Ridge Red and Jeff’s BBQ in Landen. The tables were late in arriving due to power outages, so first, we stacked the goods on the floor, then we boxed, then we stacked again on tables.

As I began to make my way through he myriad of vegetable offerings, a chill traveled up my spine. I began to consider how often I had donated to food pantries in the past – rather nonchalantly. I would simply peek inside my cupboard, too tired to drive to Meijer – only a ½ mile from my door – places where I have walked to in the past. In the past, I might have been the contributor of the creamed rice, or certainly, being Italian, provided canniloni beans or chi-chi beans. I would have donated beef broth, because it was what I had. And yes, some blueberry muffin mix, instead of the rolls. And while I think the patrons of the pantry would appreciate the variety and my intentions were always clear, my mind was not.

In that space, when that thought occurred to me, I was rather embarrassed of my past actions when I hadn’t taken the time to check expirations, when I might have been in a hurry in the grocery store and perhaps picked up pork –flavored stuffing for the turkey or muffin mix instead of roll mix. Or even bought the generic jellied cranberry sauce instead of Ocean Spray, because it was closest to the cart.

I don’t discount any of the offerings or donations made that day by students who were participating in the activity with some sense of understanding of the predicament of the homeless and the hungry. Clearly, there are students in the district that may visit the pantry later that week, with a different purpose. They will be the client who gets to choose which canned vegetables they want – even if it is baked beans- or pick out pancake mix, instead of bread mix. Who knows, the pilgrims probably served some version of them!

But I will think clearly next time that this food passes from my hand to that of someone else in need and even if the ink for the expiration date rubs off on my hand as I pass it on, I will know its safe.

AJW
11/22/2008

After my recent stints of sales person at Kenwood for my sister's business - Golf-Chic Boutique - I was reminded of how hard retailers work for such little reward. I want to be mindful of that fact this season when sales are down and so are spirits. This is my ode to such.

Selling Ourselves

Look busy Father and Uncle would crow
to employees
toiling in the shadows
of 26^th and Broadway
beneath the banner of Januzzi’s Shoes.

Together they paced the aisles
before Father returned
to the back office space
to pore over “the books.”

We would be dispatched to our stations -
Brother to the store room to unpack
the cartons delivered by the man in brown.
It would have been like Christmas,

if Brother had been me,
caressing each style

before pricing and stocking.

Sister would slowly wind her way
towards the counter
to stand stoic

beside the rigid cash register queen

who scolded her when wrinkled ones and fives

were turned opposite of tens and twenties.

Grandpa, founder and mender,
would retire to his repair stand
where the musk of newly-shaped leather
mingled with the scent of cobbler’s glue.

Customer names were recorded on cards
kept in a metal cabinet.
Filing the recently pulled or
pulling the filed always fell to me.
I would make it a game
see how fast I could order the stack
or search for the cards
of boys with whom I was madly in love,
later to be stung by their betrayal
of wearing of new loafers
bought elsewhere.

Tension lingered in the air
on the days of sales
causing the aisles of shoes to quake -
the children’s section leaning into men’s boots,
rows of nursing whites

holding back women’s heels,
and ice skates teetering on the top

shelves above my head.

Retail was never easy
even before big box stores
swallowed up ideas and families.

But the business had been blessed
by the presence of the mill, the hospital,
and those who needed orthopedic shoes.
As if the store was a ministry itself -
serving and fitting -
and that purpose fed the family,
not the money collected
and carefully counted at day’s end.

Yet customers were never completely content

with the price, style or fit.
Ladies prattled

and squirmed in green vinyl chairs
squeezing bones into shoes too small,
waiting for us to admire their toes
in the slanted mirrors.
We could never lie to them,

we could never tell the truth.

We only knew that the odor of unwashed feet
would cause us
to seek out Grandpa’s shoe glue

or steal away to the store room,
relieved for a moment
from the duty and pride

of selling the shoes, the business, our selves.

Becoming Mom

The evidence is above my head. Old t-shirts from Davis’ basketball teams, old hand towels from my first wedding, a Loyola shirt that someone has grown out of, leftover t-shirts from charity events hosted. All these sit atop the wire shelves in my laundry room, in plain sight, pointing to my guilt.

Each day, a new piece of evidence appears. Just last night, I rinsed out a carry home salad container from the pizza parlor to store with my Tupperware. And when my friend Leigh and I are out for lunch and she offers me lotion, I watch as she squeezes the lotion out of the tube into her palm, while I flip my hand over and nudge a little lotion onto the top of my hand, then rub both bony tops together.

My sighs are heavier now, my worries a little deeper. I have set laundry days and usually threaten that any remaining items in the laundry will be donated to Goodwill. When did this begin, this becoming my mother? I ask and laugh to myself.

Surely, I have always been her, in some fashion. But now, I want to bake more of her cookies, try my hand (again) at ravioli, create my own sauce from homegrown tomatoes. I sink further into this writing chair knowing it is because she is slipping away.

Were I to survey my friends, my cohorts, would they reply the same? That “becoming their mother” occurred when they noticed she was not really available to them anymore.

There has been no official diagnosis of dementia, but even if there were, my mother would forget that she had dementia anyhow. If it werent so sad, it would be quite a funny running dialogue about her either forgetting to take her meds, or not wanting to all because she forgets she has the disease!

Oh sure, mom still answers the phone. Oh sure, she still makes cookies, better than I ever will. But for Fall, she iced the cookies with Easter colors. When asking about the stepdaughters’ birthdays, two of whom were born in November, my mother cannot understand why the third daughter’s birthday does not also appear on her November calendar. I answer quietly, “If you flip to April, Mom, you’ll see her name there.”

As we speak over the phone, I envision her scrutinizing her calendar. She mumbles back and forth about this April birthday and that, while in my mind, I am wishing, “I don’t want you to go, mom. Inside your body to a place where none of us can find you. I know you will be safe there. I know it is a good place to be. After all those years of fighting back the arthritis, which I swear was caused by the stress of your worries, you are lighter. The telling is in your face, your oh so youthful, almost angelic face. Your soft cheeks, not yet hollowed all the way out. You were and are the original Ivory girl. There was never a need for a Sephora in your life. No cosmetician ever asked you to sit in her chair. There was no need, they could not have sold you on any product that could soften or lighten your face and cheeks.”

Her actions, her quirks, her ideas are now lost in a jumble of neurons. As of late, I have been telepathing them, almost intentionally performing actions that define her as Mom so as to hold on to her as she was. Her thriftiness that she displayed by saving all the old tees and towels for rags, I too am coveting, as if there are stories attached to each piece of fabric or rag. Stockpiling peanut butter, when it’s on sale or not, though it is the cheapest lunch item by far in my grocery cart. I leave my shoes at the foot of the staircase, when I go up the carpeted steps to the 2^nd floor. When I descend, I put those shoes back on.

I find myself shopping less, because I know she doesn’t anymore, considering more duties in the community or the writing center. She was a committed person, who taught first grade CCD every Saturday morning for ten years. Who could blame her for choosing the first graders, they had to be so much cuter than we were at 14. And too, she had been trained as a teacher for the young ones, she was at her best, reading the Bible stories, emphasizing the Ten Commandments, she was never deep, but always firm. And then, immediately following her classes, she would rush us off to bowling leagues.

Her energy I have never duplicated, but I also recall her naps – and am prone to my own – on the couch when we came home from school, her daytime attachment to General Hospital – I guess that’s no different from my attachment to West Wing or 30 Rock.

Just last night, I looked up from my post at end of the kitchen table and was caught off guard by my reflection in the sliding glass door. I may someday fear looking in any mirror, seeing myself actually age into my mother. But for now, I observe a woman who saved the world- the world she lived in - through photos, dinners, traditions and green stamps. I am trying to become a little piece of that woman.

08-27-08

My husband Mark once said that I write best about loss. But if writing is about capturing a moment, one that was formerly present, then writing is truly about finding a container for the past.

First, I tell you, I carry an ocean with me everyday. I have since the day I first dipped a tentative toe into the Pacific Ocean along the Oregon Coast some fourteen years ago. My son Davis was birthed there, my first husband’s ashes spread there, but mostly, it is where my soul resides. Every year since I moved away, I return to spend days at a time strolling the sands of Oceanside, and the many other beaches where my spirit found peace and healing in the tide pools and sand dunes. It helps that my son’s grandparents now reside where we once did.

I used to plan my Oregon trips according to the tides. When the moon was at its fullest, at the height of the July summer, the tides were at their lowest due to gravitiational pull. A tug that not only impacted the water levels, but pulled at me too, to take flight and return to my place of peace. I would pack up my son, and then my not quite yet ready for blending family, and head West. This year, that date coincided with a family trip to Europe.

So I gave up the notion of traveling when the tides talked the loudest to me. My consolation was that I could use my frequent flier miles to travel to Oregon with Davis, my son, for a quick trip on the heels of the European tour. Such was the plan, until an e-mail arrived in my inbox one day with a flier about his tryouts for the golf team.

To understand the importance of golf in Davis’ life, one should know it is of equal or greater importance to the tides. His father was a golfer, his grandfather and great grandfather. We held golf outings in memory of his father. And when it came time to spread his ashes, we did so with a 21 golf ball salute into the ocean. We still comb the beach looking for the return of any of those balls, but that would be a pointless as expecting his father to arise from out the ocean and walk back into out lives.

Davis had to make a decision on whether to travel to Oregon or stay at home and tryout for golf. And regrettably I would have to follow. In the back of my mind, my hope for peace washed away, carried out to become an actor on someone else’s stage that night. Sadly, Davis placed the call to his grandparents – he would tryout for the golf team. And they were ecstatic – there are dreams of families and then there are family’s dreams.

In the end, Davis would call from the car phone, to tell me he made the team. The coach had expanded the team by three places because the coach couldn’t make the cut. In Davis’s mind he questioned whether he would have made the first cut. In my mind, I knew that to choose an ocean over the greens, one must surely be in favor with the golfing gods, or at least a golfing dad.

Yet I still feel like I let Davis down. It has always been my job to help him remember his father, and for me to honor his memory as well. I could never have imagined that allowing Davis to choose between sandy beaches or sandy traps that he would have chosen the latter. And that this too would be a way, albeit a mature one, in which he could honor his father.

It is true, Mark was right. I can only write about loss. But I am writing so that I can let go of those moments of birth and death, son and father, and of course, my own rebirth as mother and writer, and give that moment away when necessary – even if I am only giving it back to me.

Make New Friends, But Keep the Old

6/10/08

We left behind the house on Observatory, a sunny yellow Victorian, with greenery everywhere, and its olden brick patio, moss ever so slightly creeping through the cracks. The stars were out, the moon in its banana form, with a few milky white clouds in the form a mouth, preparing to consume the moon. These are the nights when friendship is meant to be consumed, in between slurps of borscht, bites of Tuna Niçoise and chucks of blue cheese.

Our small group of writers had been together for one semester of Women Writing for (a) Change, but we had shared lifetimes, in the fifteen minutes that we often aired our writing. Inga, Allsyon, Naomi and I shared our values through our feedback and our compassion through our silence, or sometimes, from Naomi, the occasional, Ooohh.

It’s no secret in middle age we all struggle with making new friends. I have never given a thought to how close we were as writers and women, just always knew we were. And yet here we sat, Inga, the Danish mother of three, Allyson, so entrenched and liberated as a modern Jewish mother, now moving to support her husband’s new work at a Jewish Center, Naomi, a sixties-ish WASP, recently remarried, after time alone or spent advocating for the environment, and me with my Italian Catholic roots, my blended family, and my love for all things Oregon, and yet we could save the world in one night.

As I drove home with Allyson and Inga in the car, Inga riding shotgun – we had to explain that one to Naomi - my thoughts drifted to Lynn, my close friend now faraway in Phoenix. I never did call her back yesterday because the car pooling was horrendous, and then I needed time to get ready and be present for this outing with my writing friends.

I have been having a friend “crisis”, possibly just reimagining, which began shortly after my training within the Feminist Leadership Academy. This crisis was caused by a few events that occurred while I was proceeding through the weeks at the academy and only after last night could I put them into words that made sense.

The first event occurred while in conversation with my neighbors. I happened to be discussing my middle step daughter, a bright child with so much hope and desires for the future to truly find a way to eradicate hunger, educate the homeless. These are no small tasks and require not only a bright mind, but a solid core. Of course, I was bragging about her, because here was a child that lost her mom when she was 11. Her mother had been ill since she was six years old. For a young woman with poise, potential and compassion, I would brag on her all day. As we continued our discussion, one woman suggested that Shannon was a show off about her grades. (Shannon has a 4.6). And I said, “Of course, she should show off. I would show off too.” But then, I also said, “I find that hard to believe because she does not do that at home, at all.” At an all girls school, there are plenty would be happy to start that rumor anyhow.

As Allyson, whose mother died when she was young, declared later when retold this incident, “I’m an uber person too, and sometimes, I think it because my mom died when I was young, when she was young, I don’t want to leave any stone unturned.”

The second event occurred while in conversation with another close friend. We were eating lunch, discussing a separation between my sister and her husband. I simply shrugged my shoulders and said, “She doesn’t feel happy and isn’t sure this is the life she wants.” To that my girlfriend replied, “It sure seems like she has everything, what’s not to be happy about?” I replied, “There’s plenty in her background that she dealt with over the years that’s not my business to share, but everybody has their stuff.”

And from this I learned something else. When those who appear to have everything begin to “crack”, confusion reigns because someone is making a choice that may not be in line with societal expectations, but may certainly bring that person happiness from within.

These two events had caused me to rethink my relationships, in particular with women. While I missed my Monday night writing class, I had found solace in the company of women from my leadership classes. But with summer approaching and both classes and the academy ending, I missed those women more. When I am feeling lonely, my writing friends are the ones I think of. They are so authentic. They own their own problems and recognize when they are having problems they are simply pulling too many outside factors into themselves and not allowing themselves to be out in the world.

At the beginning of year, I embarked upon a journey to make new friends without the knowledge that Lynn would be moving. How refreshing to tell my young girls that I am making new friends. And I want to be intentional about my friendships. After writing the above stories, I see how easy it is to be unconscious and how quickly we can cause pain with our outbursts.

So this morning, I am taking time to write this, to put down in words, my commitment to be intentional with my new relationships, as well as the old ones, recognizing they could take months, years to build and they only take seconds to dismantle. For my longtime friends, for Allyson and Lynn, for Inga and Naomi, for Leigh and my FLA sisters, wherever their life will take them, I will put my energy into growing that which can be grown or cultivated regardless of how near or far.

Designated Mother

Mark is in Scotland, or perhaps his flight has already departed for home. I don’t deny him the joy of this trip, for he has learned that life is not measured by days on the calendar but by the miles of life he explores.

In this week of his absence, I have found myself to be a different mother, a kindler gentler mother. In the days of Marks’ presence, in particular with his girls, he had always been mother and father, there seemed little wiggle room for me. While my son Davis was content to go to whomever was available, for tossing balls or quizzing on homework, the girls still went straight to their dad. And oftentimes, I would just be the maid, the cook, the cleaning lady, the chauffeur, the signer of the many declarations of independence, but never mother.

This week, while Mark was rounding the greens of Scotland, I was traversing the state of Indiana to reach Cheryl in Illinois and return her home for a few weeks before she returned to Loyola for the summer. My stomach was often tight during this trip, on the way up, as I listened to classical music and the return trip, wondering what she and I would have to talk about. But she surprised me, I surprised myself by actually finding common ground, talking to her specific interests. She does not need me for advice, she needs me to just show up, keep her apprised of family events that she or may not attend to, and offer her dinner which she may or may not eat. But she is here, and she is home.

While the middle of the week was occupied with Davis and baseball and Davis and Strings concert, I found myself readily handing out cash to the girls, which most of the time, I don’t do. Shannon, here is money for groceries for Relay for Life. Kaitlyn, here is a ride back and forth from Kiera’s for the science project, waiting up, picking her up later than that time I suggested to eliminate the prospect of being such a taskmaster. The girls readily ate dinner and with aplomb entertained Davis’ grandparents, their step-grandparents, with their stories of boys and grades.

At week’s end, I was scheduled to pick up Kaitlyn for the OB/Gyn appointment. Since the beginning of her periods eighteen months ago, her periods have been irregular, lengthy, heavy flow, unpredictable. I understand her deceased mother also had this problem as a teenager, so we are having her checked out for thyroid, blood and hormonal issues. I have come into raising teenage girls without the benefit of giving birth to them, to knowing their bodies cradled in my arms, such that when the doctor asks, I too can respond with knowledge of their bodies. So all I can offer them is another woman who has a broader knowledge of bodies than me. We discuss periods and breasts and frequent urination with a teenager who is giggling during the doctor’s instruction for a self-exam of her breasts. I glance over at her breasts and see that they are more like the women of ancient times, round, full of life, whereas mine have disappeared, or are at least below my sightline. I tell her, I know that was not fun, but you may as well make friends with your body, so you don’t feel as if you are coming up against the enemy each time you are at the Ob/Gyn.

My final hours of interim single parenthood were filled with boys and baseball cancellations and sub sandwiches for dinner. For as much as I enjoy eating green and red and orange and yellow, I could not fathom another dinner without Mark, cooking at my side, or cooking in my place. Shannon called from the Relay for Life for Cancer Event, first to find out if we had received a letter from her school about academic awards. I confirmed this to be the case. Second, she wanted to tell me that the Relay luminaria ceremony would be held at 10:00 p.m.

During the ceremony, they turn out the lights in the stadium, light bags that spell out HOPE, and then light bags that have the names of those who have died from cancer or are still in the midst of treatments. Shannon had written two – one for Devin, and one for her mom – Susan.

I told her I wasn’t sure I could make it to the stadium, my legs were aching from running around all week, and my eyelids were finding themselves more relaxed when I closed them. But after a quick board game with Davis and a friend, I sprang into action, baked my “love cake” for Mother’s Day, and decided to join Shannon.

I called her from the snack stand at the stadium, and she walked around the track to meet me. Her friends joined in welcoming me, noting that they missed having Shannon’s dad there, as he was last year. We walked in the rain for a half-hour, then made our way up to the main tent. Danny Strunk, a survivor, talked about how he bears the burden of finding a quick cure for cancer. We all do. Shannon stood apart from me, but I could feel her sadness. Quick cure vs. long-term grief. Looking at Shannon’s face, it was an easy choice.

We continued our walk, noting each individual candle and name, first finding Devin’s name. She asked if I wanted to stop, but I shook off that notion, wanting her to know I was here to support her. I have made my share of memorials to Devin over time.

We walked on another 200 meters and found Susan’s name. Shannon and I stopped and she turned to me. I offered her my arms and tears. Soon we were joined by friends who stood by her side, crying in the rain. Why is it always easier for tears to come in the rain? As she sat by her mother’s candle, many more classmates stopped by to share in her sadness. As I stepped back, another group of classmates approach Shannon, only to be surprised by that fact that she had indeed lost her mom. Shannon, her friends and I walked on another lap around the track, slowly they all peeled off. It was she and I for one last lap.

Before we approached the main HOPE luminaria, the announcer was calling out names of those we were honoring. Shannon said, “I don’t know why they say in memory of, because I really don’t have much memory of her, maybe just at the end.” I nodded to agree. “I think they should all be in honor of…”

We continued around the oval and Shannon asked of us, “Let’s listen.” We walked more in silence, and instantly, upon reaching the stadium bleachers where the HOPE was spelled out, the announcer called out, “In memory of Devin Wick.”, then “In memory of Susan Manley.” Shannon and I looked at each other with near delight. A sign, I am always looking for one from above.

We found Devin’s name again and this time paused. I put my arm around her and said, “You know, when I was pregnant, Devin and I were convinced I was having a girl. He knew I wanted a Januzzi girl, really bad. But obviously that didn’t happen.” “And so now, you have three,” Shannon spoke out. “Yes, now, I have three – three bonus girls.”

We passed by her mom’s candle one more time, then she walked me to the entrance. We said our goodbyes and I love you’s. I cried all the way to the car. I was grateful for this time of Mark’s absence, not for the task of driving the kids all over the city for baseball, doctor’s appointments, school functions or Chicago. No, I was thankful that his trip allowed me to be, even for a week, the designated mother to my bonus girls.

Ski Dreams

A long time ago, in a land far far away, there was a little girl from Amherst, Ohio, who came home from school one day waving a flyer that said she could rent equipment and learn to ski all for the cost of seventy-dollars over six weeks. Her mother looked at her with a dazed look in her eyes, wondering, will my child be safe, and weighed that with the fact that her mother too had always wanted to ski, but girls didn’t do that in her day. So, with reluctance and prayer, her mother said ‘yes’. Her parents faithfully took her shopping for attire and patiently waited each week night for her return, when she would regale them with tales of diamonds, only these were black and double black.

Soon enough, the time came for her to pick a college. Her parents were not wealthy and not knowledgeable enough to encourage her to follow her dreams to attend school in Colorado. She settled on a college called the University of Akron. In those days, the university sported a ski club which once a year offered a trip to “Ski West”. She knew of this trip and dreamed of it often. When her junior year rolled around, she enlisted, without any friends to accompany her.

She would travel 2000 miles by bus through states she hardly remembered the capitals of, over a twenty-four hour timeframe, which eventually turned into 30 hours, after their expedition was besieged by a snowstorm somewhere in Kansas and as she would learn, all of Kansas, is really just nowhere. She would survive on her mother’s famous Italian Christmas cookies which had been packaged carefully in bubble wrap, bypassing the stops at McDonald’s.

On this trip, she would flirt with a football player who played for Gerry Faust, learn about grain alcohol, acquire more friends that she could have imagined, but mostly, she would fall in love with the West. And someday, when she grew up, really grew up, with a real job and a real life, she would come West for good.

On those mountains of Crested Butte, she would learn that skiing was meant to be a solitary sport, no matter who she rode the lifts with. And that someone else could tell her about the gentle slopes or steep drops, but no one else could really tell her how she would feel about them that day. And that she really could fly downhill, if she held your arms out just so. And in the woods and powder, she could tell the trees her secrets and they would be safe. She could stand quiet there, hear her heart beat, and the branches would flutter in rhythm to hers. And she would come to understand that winter would always be her season, one that not many others would claim, and she would claim it just for that reason

She went on to join the ski club out West for five more years, even after college, though by then, the allure of riding the bus had been lost in her youth. She would fly by plane, but miss those times when bonding happened in the backseat of the bus over cookies and cards.

She married a young man Devin, who knew little of the sport. But they would ski Big Sky and Mt. Hood and Mt. Bachelor all the same. And when the time came, she would finally make her move West, only this was further west than the Rockies, this was the Oregon Coast. The mountains would still move her, but the sea would still her heart.

In subsequent times, she would give birth to a young son, Davis, lose a husband to cancer and teach her son to ski in areas she could only describe as hills. Together, they would attempt Wyoming skiing and snowshoeing, but somehow, she was still deep enough in grief to resist the pull of the powder.

Years passed and she met someone else, Mark, who had also attended college in a land far far away. And he had three daughters, older than her son. And they decided to become a family, but it would not happen instantly or gently for her in the months that followed. His college friend would come to own a home in the mountains of Utah and invite him to ski. After amusing her with stories from his time on the slopes (and off) with his friends, he suggested they ski together, as a new family.

So, they would travel during a blustery January day to take respite on the slopes of place called Deer Valley. The first day would be filled with constant activity of moving the children from slope to slope. The second day would be filled with motherly frustration for her son who needed to leave the slopes and sleep instead and motherly angst for the teenagers need to be themselves. And wifely resentment for the husband who always found the glass and never cared if it were half-empty or full. And on the third day, the sun would rise over the mountains, first in flesh tones, then pink, then yellow and she would be happy again.

And she would ride the lift to the top of Flagstaff Mountain and stand tall, gazing at the other peaks in the range and think, everything is insurmountable and nothing is as well.

AJW
1/30/2008

20071012 – Thoughts My Own Private Italy

What have I left behind for my child? What did my parents leave for me? I asked this question of Mark as we flew blindly over the Atlantic Ocean, awaiting the sleeping pill to take its effect. I was drifting off but still bothered by the oaf sitting next to me who huffed and puffed every time he changed his seating position as if it were someone else’s fault that he was here on this flight to Genoa or that he could control when dinner was served or the lights go out. I tried to keep my mind on other things.

What had my parents left for me? Did they really leave me the legacy of our Italian heritage or was that something I chose. I have four siblings. Did they remember being served baccala (smelt) at Christmastime? Does the scent of anise wafting in through their noses bring on a dance of joy?

My grandparents, Enrico and Stella, had both died before I turned 18. The same was true of my mother’s mother, Rafaella, who died before I was born, and her birth father, Vincenzo, her namesake, who died before she was born. I remember the Italian language spoken at various holiday meals, but don’t recall anyone specifically trying to teach us this language in order to help us absorb the culture.

We pronounced most Italian foods dropping the last vowel, prosciutto was proscuitt, in same way Americans drop the a in Roma and just call it Rome. We were told it was a dialect thing and shook our heads in agreement. I had a waitress once who corrected me with the pronunciation of a certain kind of pasta I had ordered. “I’ll have the gnocchi,” I asked.

And she corrected me while writing it down, “It’s gnocchi , with an e sound at the end.”

“Oh,” I said, embarrassed for her. Devin, my first husband, rapidly put his head down as if he could feel the confrontation at hand. He smirked into his empty plate.

“Well, I continued, “in the Italian language, there are many dialects, just like English and yes, I know how to spell gnocchi, but growing up in the my house, we always made gnocchi(i). So. I’ll have the gnocchi(i).”

Our service that night did not improve, but at least I had won the battle.

But there were other things that my family has left behind. Banquet tables filled with tradition were the backdrop for every family gathering that was captured via Polaroid or Kodak. Baptisms, Holy Communions, Graduations, Christmas and New Years. Every Christmas since I can remember, Mom has made her famous raviolis, filled with either meat or cheese. She has never veered from this, despite the new fusion which might call for vegetables or crab as filling.

Just as the interiors of the pasta remained the same, so did the exterior. The raviolis were always served in the same bowls, with a toile (twal) like scene around the bowls, the scene on one bowl depicted in red, which has now turned pink, and the scene on the other bowl depicted in blue. And so it become that the red bowl coddled the meat filled raviolis, while the blue bowl held the ones with cheese. I have begged my mother not to put those bowls on any garage sale because for me, they have held more than pasta over the years.

My mother’s birthday cakes were somewhat legendary at least in our own family. They ranged from an elephant and bunny to a fire engine cake with marshmallow wheels. The only store bought cake we ate was for graduation. When Davis was born and started having birthdays, my mother arrived with armed with cakes. In his eleven years, she has produced a puppy, Scooby doo Mystery Machine, fire engine cake, a golf course, a bowling alley, veggie tales, dinosaurs, trains, and baseball and some other cartoon character that is no longer in my memory or his.

This year, though visiting for his birthday, my mother arrived with a Kroger cake in hand. Davis is 11 now, and though we would have been hard pressed to come up with an appropriate theme for nana to bake his cake, secretly he was looking for one too.

My father has been an avid gardener. This summer of 2007 was the first time he had not planted a garden in the forty-one years I have spent with him mainly because my parents are encroaching upon their eighties and selling their home. Each summer, my father would fret about the rains and when could he rent a tiller to turn the garden. May 15 was too late, April 15th too early. My father staked the tomatoes – the romas, the beefsteaks, and as life progressed, he succumbed to our culinary whims or branched out by growing cherry tomatoes and grape-size ones too.

I was more of a homebody in my teenage years, and I would wander out to help my father water the garden and flowers. We would discuss nothing in particular, other than the size of the zucchini or how my mother would kill him this year because of the huge size of the crops or that the darn weatherman was wrong again about the rain and its arrival, because no where on the horizon did dark clouds appear and as a matter of fact, the sun was so red it prompted us to both repeat – red skies at night…

We picked apples from his miniature trees and swore at the bugs infecting his cherries and pears. They froze their own produce, unheard of at the time in our little burb of Amherst, and canned their tomatoes. The freezer still contains green beans from 1984. But my father stood side by side with my mother in the freezing, the canning, and the dishes. After every one of the banquets referred to above, my greatest memory is also of my father in the kitchen. He never cooked, but he is always there.

And each spring, I watched him carry out the scarlet pot containing the fig tree, which had hunkered down in the winter beneath a blanket of burlap, a tree handed down to him from his father. Funny all those years, until you start missing your own father you don’t realize how much he must miss his. The fig tree never produced more than a dozen figs in any year’s span, but we lauded them as each one was the prodigal son returning home. As the fig tree grew, dad’s strength waned, so much that he decided to put the pot on wheels, so he could roll it in during the harsh winter and then roll it back out. Spring came not when any crocuses bloomed, but when the fig tree appeared on the patio.

My parents drove us to all our sporting events, gave advice when we least wanted it, and yelled and grounded us for our many infractions against curfew, grades and general malaise. But when I take stock of all they offered to us, what they gave us mostly was not food filling our stomachs, ravioli filling out the meat and cheese bowls, tomatoes filling the sauce bowl. But passion to fill our hearts.

What to leave behind for Davis? I struggled with this too. He is part German, part Italian. He is part meatball, part saurkrautball, though I have to say he likes the meatball part better.

His father died when he four, fought cancer for the three years before that. Tradition was absent for fear we would take hold of something that wouldn’t stick. So we piggybacked on to everyone else’s, which is as good or the same as coming up with your own. Now with a few Irish in the household, there are other traditions to consider as well.

Davis’ father and I moved to Oregon with the notion, “this is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” and we were right. After his diagnosis of cancer, we returned to Cincinnati, with the subconscious contract we had made with ourselves that we would return to Oregon in five years. But two years following that declaration, Devin would pass away. I have since returned to Oregon with and without Davis, but never with Devin and never permanently. It was, a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Kaya, a writing peer, recently approached me to inform me “I was told to read your book, the way you describe the northwest and what you found there for yourself, your love for a place,’ Another writing peer had counseled her to do this. My book centered around not just love and loss but finding who you are in the midst of chaos and tragedy. The book boasted of the Oregon Coast and how its stark nature allowed me to strip down to the bare necessities to be the me I wanted to be. Kaya loves California, the northern redwoods, the southern sun in the same way I love the Douglas firs and northwest rain of Oregon Coast. The northwest is a gloomy beauty in some of the ways that I have often thought of myself.

Davis will surely recall those days that I cried, alone, and wiped tears from my eyes to shield him from pain and the days I wiped tears from his eyes, with me, as we missed his father’s presence and guidance and hugs. Those were certainly days that Davis will recall as gloomy beauties – there was something sorrowful in our days and yet something magical at the same time. We were becoming our hopes. He was growing up and was doing so in a fashion that even I could not imagine, wise beyond his years, having fun – “yep, that’s how I live my life,” he told my mother once when asked if he was off to find more fun.

He is proud of his birth in Oregon, because that makes him different. I gave him that, the ability to proclaim yourself separate. He returns each year to visit with his grandparents who still make the Oregon Coast their home though we had been first to call the coast ours. He calls Oregon home. Every walk on the beach is blazing a new trail, every agate he gathers up is another just recently let go from its mother rock needing a home. I will leave behind for him the western sunset, the bow to the day that had just been completed, a reward for a day well lived, a salute to a good life.

I have not left him any traditions of food. And instead of recalling me bending over my garden and digging with hands for summers on end, he will recall the steam from tea or coffee or whatever was hot as my fingers flew over the keyboard to capture a moment in the same way my father tried to capture the perfect tomato, or my mother roll the perfect ravioli.

Kaya, my writing friend said after reading my book, “I understand what you mean about finding yourself in a place.”

I replied, and yes, once you find that place that makes you who you are, no one can take that away from you. You can carry that (confidence and love of self) with you wherever you go.”

No matter how far away from Oregon I am, that I am still there, I go there in my mind in times of pain, I go there in my mind in times of confusion and I can feel the arctic winds from the north blow down and blow away the cobwebs of confusion. When I need to stand firm in my life, I picture the three arch rocks, standing erect in the open sea, no one allowed to come within 500 yards of their structure, letting only the sea lions rest and sing at the foot of these rocks. When I need strength, I reach back across the miles to the tiny town of Oceanside, its 200 some inhabitants clinging to a way of life that is eroding elsewhere. And when I feel a loss, it is the first place my mind travels to, the place of Devin and his blue-green eyes that were a reflections of the pines on the sea, the loss of dreams.

I travel to Italy in my mind when I need to feel life. When I need to conjure up joy, I recall a certain meal at La Stalla, being greeted with Prosecco. I let myself recall the stinging coolness of the Mediterranean when I want to be awakened, not in the morning, but to feel awake in life. When I am flabbergasted, in awe, in wonder at what surprises have been brought into my life. When I want to remember and celebrate my family, especially my parents, I think to the tiny towns clinging to a hillside that helped spawn this new generation. I travel to the Liguria sea when I want to remember Mark and how his eyes matched the color of the Ligurian sea, and yes, it is a blue different from the Mediterranean, which is so deep, it seems to block out the light. The Ligurian sea is blue, but light bounces off the waves all day long.

I have given Davis a sense of place in Oregon through my words in the same way my parents and their love of food gave me a sense of place in Italy. Someday when he makes his trek to his Mecca, he will be the beneficiary of my having given him the Oregon Coast to house his soul and Italy to light his fire.

20070911

It is that day again. It arrives always with much anticipation, for him and for me. And now, for the others who fill up our house with chatter and love. It is September 11. Davis was born on this day, or shall I say this morning, at 2:18 a.m. His father Devin and I had been traveling in Portland, Oregon, but upon my hitting my mark of 5 out of 7 sevens of being in labor, we hurriedly checked out of our hotel and raced back towards Oceanside, our little retreat on the Oregon Coast. We didn’t quite make it to our home, which is OK because the hospital was on our way and we thought we should stop there first, and have our baby – considering we had no knowledge of that process ourselves.

As a newborn, Davis arrived in true Davis fashion which over the years, he has come to be known for being first up, despite the last to bed , or at least later than me. He has arisen early, dressed for his first baseball game of the year, then plodded into my room, to let me know he was ready – three hours before the umpires would be.

Davis original due date was October 5, 1996. And now, here he was, wanting to show up a little early, maybe check out the competition, of which there would be none for many years to come, or perhaps he was just hungry.

As a newborn almost premie , the doctor recommended I feed him every two hours. Anyone who has ever had a look at my breasts, with or without shirt on, will testify to the fact that this is nearly impossible. I tried nonetheless. The Tillamook visiting nurse association even brought in a contraption that came straight out of Dr’ Suess’ Horton here’s a Who. We were running out of strategies, so I switched him to formula instead. I promised him as a mother that he could always rely upon me, no matter the situation, but apparently, I forgot about failing him within the first six weeks. The two hour feedings were brutal, in particular, because his father traveled through the week, though helped out tremendously on the weekends.

I have to say, he may eat fast now, because I always encouraged him to drink up when he was a baby, knowing, that I could put him down, somewhere, a stroller, a nap, the floor, and have some time to myself. I also have to say, he still eats every two hours. So it is true that the first five years determine so much about a child later in life.

But what a day it was. Prior to giving birth, Davis was the breech position. There is a well-known technique that doctors can perform which will allow the doctor to attempt through massage to turn the baby in the womb. Apparently, the doctor had lost sight of my frame, what with the extra 28 pounds and all, and did not see that there was really no room for him to move. He head was stuck beneath my upper rib cage, and when Dr. Saylor attempted to turn him, I thought my ribs would bust, and not in a funny way. I soon put a stop to that, loud screaming will do that to a doctor, and we decided to “go for” the C-section instead.

This of course, involved a not so small incision 5 inches below my belly button, the number of inches grows each year, depending on my stomach size. I recall making friends with the anesthesiologist on staff, or maybe he was making nice with me, especially if he heard about the screaming incident earlier with Dr. Saylor. When the surgery was complete, I had delivered a 5 pound baby boy. I could never imagine that someone or thing that had caused so much physical pain, caused me to grimace every time I made a move to the bathroom, that he could bring me so much joy.

He woke this morning to the sounds of his grandparents, grandpa wick playing the piano and the two of them signing Happy Birthday, as recorded on my cell phone. Can’t wait to see the phone bill for that message. Unfortunately, Davis day also began with that fact that his stepsister’s mom had died on September 11, and a suggestion from school that he wear red, white and blue, in honor of September 11th attacks.

“Why did I have to be born on a bad day?” Davis always asks. And I tell him, “First, you came into this world before that happened, and second, you were born on this day, as a reminder, that good things happened too.” With so many dates that we honor for something tragic, we have to find a reason to go on. He is that reason to go on.