savagemama

For years now when I’m feeling restless I act out a Robert Earl Keen song and drive into town. I cruise once down Main Street and turn back around. Arlee doesn’t really have a Main Street but it has a main drag and when I feel the need to get out of the house on a winter evening or a summer afternoon I turn my car toward that tiny town, make the big turn toward the gas station and let the mountains fall away behind me.

Last night I was on train exhausted-from-traveling and Eliza and Lucille were on train been-stuck-together-too-long. Both trains were barreling recklessly toward each other headed for a collision. Chaos and mayhem awaited us all. Earlier in the day Eliza and I had had maybe the worst tussle we’ve ever had. Shouting and tears on a neighborhood street corner, gritted teeth and threats. It wasn’t pretty. I wasn’t proud of how I’d acted. Someone has to be the grownup right? Well, not yesterday on the sidewalk on the Northside.

 


So by the time we finally got home I agreed to a show on Netflix and left my children on the couch while I watered the garden. Standing there, hose in hand, watering kale and carrots I could barely see because two weeks of weeds threatened to overtake the whole space, I thought about the diametric pulls in our lives. Living in the country while our whole lives are in town. Finding time for our family while being active members of our community. Fueling the embers of long-distance yet fundamental relationships with parents, grandparents and family I wish we saw more of. My own desire to be with my children in meaningful ways while answering a deepening need to do something for myself. Is that ambition? Desperation? A little bit of both?

I have been a stay-at-home-mom on and off for almost six years. I have worked from home, worked part time and even, for a stint, worked full time. But through all of this, my children have taken priority even to the point of making myself really, really sick. Sometimes I feel like their doormat and they are only four and five. How will I feel when they are teenagers? What can I do now to avoid the wave of resentment that will surly come if I stay on this path?

Some days I feel as though I’m completely in the service of my children. I take them places, make sure they have play dates with friends they love, long bike rides by the river and healthy snacks along the way to swimming. I forgo my own runs or dates with friends to make sure my kids aren’t over stimulated or too tired or that they have enough unstructured play at home.

I’m deeply tired and it isn’t just because we traveled for most of June.

So last night I cruised once down Main Street. As I drove into Arlee I saw the weekly farmer’s market there. I almost didn’t stop thinking I needed to get home then I thought better of it and pulled my car into a parking spot. Always a sucker for farmer’s markets, flea markets and junk shops, I walked around the booths smelling flowers and fingering cherry tomatoes. I stopped and talked to a woman I’ve known for years, one who once offered to come sit with me while I was having a miscarriage so many years ago. I didn’t know her well then, she’s just that kind of person. I talked to a local lady about a strawberry pie and the quilts she’d made, to another about pageboy hats and then another about birds’ nests. I bought a handful of flowers and left feeling a little renewed.

As I headed home I breathed deep the sweet pea bouquet and my shoulders eased a bit. It was small. But it was something.

Last night I found myself in the Atlanta airport. Two travel weary children in tow, we made our way through the busiest airport in the world. Off the plane after a three-hour flight, through the masses, down and escalator, onto a train, back up an escalator and to our gate. Eliza and Lucille were hungry and disoriented. We’d had enough snacks, enough airport food so we lined up to get ice cream at 9 p.m.

The kids had been champs bouncing from one end of the country to the other and in and out of airports all day. Ice cream seemed like a treat we could all get behind. I read off the flavors and Lucille jumped up and down beside me as man in front of me told me he’d be picking our tab.

“Order whatever you want,” he said. “It’s on me.”

“Oh you don’t have to do that,” I said finding my southern, apparently, after a few breaths of Georgia air.

“No really, I’ve have this voucher. I’ve been looking for someone to let me buy them ice cream for 20 minutes. I’m going to basic training tonight and I won’t get ice cream for a while.” He showed me what looked like a check. “I have $24 to spend and I can’t eat that in ice cream.”

I looked at the voucher and realized it was a military meal voucher. Then I looked back at him and realized how young he was.

“That’s really generous,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Well, the United States military is really generous,” he said. “You’re welcome. Go ahead, order whatever they’d like.”

I ordered one cup of cookie dough and one cup of mint chocolate chip. We said a few more thank yous and headed slowly to our gate. I pulled our suitcases while Eliza and Lucille meandered through the busy corridor licking their ice cream.

We sat on the carpet and waited for our flight to Columbia, S.C. After a few minutes I spotted the man who’d funded our ice cream at the same gate. He was lapping up his own cone of mint chocolate chip when I started to put it all together. He’s going to Fort Jackson, I thought. And it’s going to be hot. In terms of heat in the summer, Columbia is in the third circle of hell. Basic training sounds like it is too, so I was feeling a little sorry for this kid when he came over to chat.

He said he was from Michigan and that the hottest it gets there is about 85 degrees. It can be that hot in the middle of the night in Columbia, I thought, but I didn’t tell him that. He was 23, just out of college and had traded a summer working in fast food to go to basic training. He’d been running, he said, to get in shape. From the looks of his biceps, he’d been lifting weights too. As he nibbled the edges of the cake cone that held his dwindling ice cream, he sat back against the wall and closed his eyes. He looked nervous for what awaited him on the other end of the flight we were about to board. He saw another man about his age with a similar army issue backpack across the terminal.

“I wonder if he’s going with me,” he said and stood up as if to say over here. I’m over here.

But that man kept walking to another gate.

The man who’d bought our ice cream sat down again. I kept thinking how it seemed he was looking for connection is this giant airport, this unruly world.

“Can I ask you a favor?” he said.

“Sure,” I said.

“My phone is dead. Can I use your cell phone? I just want to call my mom and my girlfiend to let them know that I’m okay.”

I handed him my phone and moved my daughters a few steps away so he might have some privacy.

I heard him make the first call and I was so glad that it sounded like he reached someone. On the second call, he left a message. He thanked me, handed me back my phone and walked away for a few minutes. He looked like my brother. Round classes, boyish face, turning-into-a-man body. He’d joined the army. He wanted to talk to his mother. And the mother in me just wanted to tell him it was all going to be okay.

About that time I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. It was a number unknown to me, from Michigan.

“Hello.”

“Um, hi…did my son borrow your cell phone to call me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I didn’t recognize the number so I didn’t answer. Is he…there?” she said.

“He’s walked away,” I said. “But we are on the same flight. I think he’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Will you just tell him that I love him?” she said.

“I will.” I said.

Somehow I had tripped into this moment. I wanted to tell her he looked like he needed a hug, that he was nice young man who’d bought my daughters ice cream, that she didn’t have anything to worry about. Instead, I just promised to relay the message.

I took the kids to the bathroom to wash the sticky off of their hands and returned to the gate just in time to board. When I saw the man who’d bought us ice cream, he looked so much like a scared boy. He was sitting alone with his eyes closed, taking what appeared to be deep breaths. I tapped him on the shoulder and offered him my phone again.

“Your mom called,” I said. “You probably still have time to call her back.”

He dialed the number quickly and I heard him start to talk to her. He thanked me again and returned my phone as we both got caught in the rush of boarding.

When we arrived in Columbia, Eliza and Lucille were amped, having spent the last forty minutes on the flight whipping glow sticks through the air. They’d been on planes for the better part of a day and ran through the deserted airport to nowhere in particular. They just needed to move. We met my aunt, who was picking us up, and headed to get our bags. On our way up the last escalator of the night, I looked over my shoulder to a waiting area teeming with young men and women, boys and girls. All of them carried an army-issue backpack. They’d arrived from all over country, I imagine. They were all waiting for a bus to take them to basic training. Just as I was about to to slide my suitcase off the moving stairs, my eyes met those of the boy we’d met in Atlanta.

There was so much I wanted to say to him. Be careful. Don’t die. Watch the business end of your gun. Call you mother. Come home. But all I could muster was something so inconsequential.

“Good Luck!” I shouted over a sea of other people just like him.

“Safe travels,” he shouted back.

And with that my aunt, my daughters and I stepped out into the rain of a southern summer night.

This essay originally appeared on mamalode.com.

Dear Missoula,

You know you’ve been my home girl for a while now. You wooed me way back in the winter of ’96 with snow up to my waist, warm coffee shops with board games and bars with cigarette smoke, back when that was cool. Even then I loved the drag racing down Higgins, boys in trucks and rodeos on the coldest night you could conjure. I left you in May that year, heading West and promising I’d return. I’ve crossed the country a few times for you since then. I started calling you home ten years ago, and really, I never thought I’d be so lucky. We’ve had our ups and downs, it’s true. But I’ve always come home to you. So today when I looked out my back door and saw the snow line 50 feet above the valley floor I had to wonder if I’d done something to make you angry. Did you overhear me talking about San Francisco? She’s fine, no doubt. But, girl, she’s got nothing on you.

Seeing snow the first week of June has got me thinking, though. Girl, how do I say this? It’s not me, it’s you. Maybe we need some time apart. Maybe we need to see other people. I’m not saying break up, I’m not ready for that. I just want to have a little fun and, really, snow in June isn’t my idea of fun. So I’m writing to tell you I have a hot date Friday night. With Portland.

I know how you feel about her. You are often compared to her, even called her little sister. I’m sorry girl, I just can’t help it. I know what you’re going to say. It’s probably raining there and I know you are right but at least it’s not snow. And let’s be honest even with all that rain, she’s got city on her side. And she’ll probably wear funky glasses. You know what they say, girl, all the hot girls there wear glasses.

If that doesn’t work out I’ve also got my eye on Asheville. We’re going to meet up in a couple of weeks. What can I say? She called. I called her back. I haven’t seen her in a while but I remember her all tank tops and long wavy hair. I know. Not to mention she’s all Appalachian and shit. Girl…

Did I forget to tell you that Asheville thinks June means summer? She thinks June means sun and warm nights down by the river. Just sayin’ girl. Warm nights down by the river.

I remember some of those, you and me. I know you’ve got it in you.

I’ll give you a call when I get back. Hopefully the snows will have melted by then.

xoxo,
savagemama

This essay originally appeared on mamalode.com.

I read A Dull and Witless Boy today by Colin Meloy. This is everything a graduation speech should be.

“The world beyond these mountains is a lesser world; it rests on you to make it better,” CM

Lucille wakes up every morning asking the same question.

“Do I have to go to school today?”

Sometimes she rubs her eyes, stretches and yawns before she asks. Others days she screams it, her hair standing this way and that. On this morning her little body, soft as the belly of crab, flops all around the room until she settles, usually on the floor, wearing nothing but a pair of princess panties.

When she balks about going to wile away her day at maybe the best preschool on the planet, I remind her about that Benjamin and Moana will be there, that Mina is waiting for her, that there are naked baby dolls in the water table.

“You don’t want to be stuck here with me,” I often tell her. “You’ll have a great day!”

So recently she’s reframed her question.

“Mama, am I stuck here with you today?”

“Yep, you’re stuck here with me,” I tell her when she doesn’t have school.

“Yeah!” she says.

I’ve tried to figure out why she says she doesn’t want to go to school. When I talked to her preschool teacher, a seasoned veteran of the three to four-year-old crowd, she encouraged me to watch Lucille after I dropped her off.

“She comes right in and finds friends,” she said. “She has lots of points of connection here.”

I watched and Lucille is as happy as can be.

“So, she’s yanking my chain?” I asked her teacher.

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