in defense of pretending

 speaking of pretend, pablo likes to pretend he's an outdoor dog by looking out the window toward freedom. what a suppressed life that dog leads (not).

there was a man who called our house once convinced that someone else was on the other line.

he asked by name to speak to someone we did not know. and at first, we tried to explain. sir, you have the wrong number. but due to bad hearing or not listening or some combination of both, he kept on. he was thrilled to hear our voices. he had been wondering how we'd been. he missed us. he filled us in on the day-in, day-out happenings of his life. of cousins we must be thinking about and aunts he was certain we hadn't seen in ages.

and he called back, this man. left rambling messages on our machine. we'd huddle around it and listen as he breathed laboriously on the other end. sometimes, when we were there, we'd pick up, and engage him. be for him, in that moment, the family he needed us to be. he stopped calling after a while, but i never forgot it. maybe his memory failed him. maybe he truly thought my dad was his nephew. maybe he had pretended long enough that he forgot it was a charade and had succeeded in convincing even himself this was true.

i found myself thinking about him this morning while pouring my coffee. about how we morph into who someone thinks we are, sometimes without even knowing. and often, this is such a catastrophe. because the skinny jeans don't always fit and maybe the bangs aren't right for our face shape, or the book just doesn't excite that part of us that books are supposed to excite.

but sometimes this transformation can be just a little exciting, even fun. when you slip on the work pumps even though you sometimes feel just special enough for flats. when you curl your hair and swipe on the lipstick to become ready for friday night. or when you nod across the phone line that yes, you miss uncle billy even though you know full well that uncle billy is not your uncle billy and may not be anyone's uncle or even named billy. because pretend doesn't always mean pretense, after all.

on brothers and milestones

my little brother leaves for college this weekend. between beach trips and summer school and a busy schedule and the crazy/hectic/beautiful life of a teenager, i haven't seen him much these hot months. but i still call him every night and i'm still planning the long trip east this weekend to move him in. the same way i did for my sister, and they did for me upward of ten years ago.

and it's wonderful. it's such a gorgeous thing to grow and go and move and experience new things. but it's got me thinking about life and children. about the cycle of it all.

because no one ever tells you how to love a child. they tell you how to make your own hair bows with ribbon and a hot glue gun, how to sneak vegetables into a casserole, make all the voices on sesame street, bury pets discreetly, and make a halloween costume from a bed sheet. you learn how to pack a baby dress without crying and to drive away from the preschool with only one eye left lingering, sobbing and hot, still searching for her face pressed against the window. you become a doctor, blowing kisses on a skinned knee when the training wheels are taken off too soon. you are counselor and culprit, bank and hotel.

until one balmy summer, you find yourself in the middle of a little college town wondering how in the world it came to all of this. how the one person you know better than anyone is getting smaller and smaller in the rearview and you think as the pit forms in your gut if you really loved her the way you could have. if you didn’t have to learn all those things and take on all those roles. if all you had to do for eighteen years was lie in bed and cocoon her against your chest, rocking her back and forth as she grew in the nook of your elbows, her knees against her belly at first, then jutting out and resting against your own, until eventually you are two well-rested persons who have not really lived, but who have loved to their core.

it's times like these i think on such things. and lo, when that day comes that we are faced with this time, i hope i handle it with half the grace and optimism my parents have. because while no one teaches you these things, you do indeed learn. that's the mercy. and the learning and loving make a padding for the leaving.

love you, clint.

a shore and a scarf

there are times when no matter how pretty the sunshine is, or how strong my coffee, i wish i were here. right now, the rays are beating through my window, pushing aside the blinds and splaying themselves across my keyboard, and i just want to be there. with the cold sand and lapping breeze. the promise of a cape cod sunset, captured by the shutter of my love.

but today is friday. the 13th. in north carolina.

and so i'll browse through my pictures and albums. that scrap of a massachusetts receipt in the back pocket of my purse. and remember. thumb through these memories. and pull out my dayplanner to make new ones.

(p.s. the day i bought a dayplanner was the day i knew i'd entered adulthood.)

a memory each morning

i will always think of you like that, standing there in your pajamas on the porch.

when the clouds of old age loom. when children grow up and move away and the rooms are too big but the clothes fit smaller. when the creaky floorboards give way to creaky knees and elbows. when i sit down on the cold basement floor sifting through the relics of us, our high school days and our wedding day. pictures in hospitals and on church steps.

i'll remember the mornings in that little cottage of ours, backing out of the gravel drive. you, always, there by the screen door. bare feet and messy hair. a sleepy grin and a wave. and the way that sight would feed me through the day, propelling me onward until we met again on that same porch, a different greeting as the sun faded to black.

i love you all the time, but perhaps the best like this.

scenes from a country cottage: a borrowed christmas

 

these are the hamburger years. the years of sewing on patches and cutting coupons and drafting a new, tighter budget every other week. of washing down baseboards and scrubbing steel sinks.

very few things are ours. at this stage, they are hand-me-downs. the old round table from my uncle in the corner. the light wood desk from my aunt, repainted a happy red. the kitchen table from my parents. there are stories in my house that are not my own. rather, we live in a little collection of sorts, an family antique gallery, just nice enough to display but worn enough to spill on, leave a sweaty cup on, or prop our feet on that it doesn't really matter.

it becomes especially apparent every december, when i lug the tupperware out from the basement. our christmas decorations are mainly borrowed. our stockings were made by aunts and cousins. our tree comes from our sweet neighbors. the ornaments come from mama, who started collecting them for me when i was a baby. when we turn the lamps off, the lights twinkle against the old blinds, an orchestra of color.

it's a loaned road, filled with loaned time. and we are the mosaics that walk along it. i can look at the stockings, with their particular, perfect stitches, and remember the skilled hands of my uncle. the crocheted ornaments sing of the skill of my grandma. the baby's first christmas ornament reminds me of my parents, young and just starting out.

so if i am to be a compilation, i'm happy it's of these folks. these memories and these christmases. for especially this month, i am reminded that really, when it comes down to it, we're all just renting this space, this blessed, borrowed life.

modern family, interrupted

pablo won't eat unless i sit with him. unless i'm rubbing his back and whispering that it's okay, that no one is behind him, that his kibble will still be there if he trots around for a bit. some time in the past, some long ago forgotten memory is lying latent in him. the awful idea that someone might take his food, hit him for eating, or try to nudge him out of the way of the bowl. i'll never know what happened to him those five years he wasn't mine.


but i do know how it is now. how i can't sit down to watch modern family without him nudging me, reminding me he is hungry. i've sat on the floral linolieum in that old farmhouse every single night for the past two years. i've learned the crevices of the squares, the intricate pattern of the sage green and buttercup yellow motif.


but it's a good thing, this being needed. being depended upon. even if it's just by a 13-pound ball of fluff. and when babies come to bless our days, as i pray they do, i'll feel just an inkling more prepared. it's ironic. all this time on the cold hard kitchen floor, and i've become softer.

good ol' volks

like the colors of bubble gum pink and baby blue swirled on my tie-dyed top, so the people of the high country bus festival blended. there were past-the-glory-days hippies walking around with dream catchers and headbands. there were sweet mamas and papas bathing their babies in the river. there were great danes and labrador retrievers swimming in the warm water and teenagers sitting in a circle on the great big rocks that broke up the current.

and then there was us. my bearded husband, intelligent brother and his devastatingly fashionable girlfriend. just a couple of kids from the triad, deep in the heart of the carolina mountains. we hopped on intertubes and spent two hours floating lazily down the river, warming our faces in the morning sunshine. we listened to live music (you've got to check out the honeycutters--a delicious blend of patti griffin and emmylou harris and all sorts of good folksy roots).

on the particularly balmy saturday afternoon, we drug our air mattresses onto the riverbank and slept under the shade trees. we woke to raindrops.

then, from 4 pm. until midnight, the sky let loose in a thunderous, dramatic and loud display of prowess. it absolutely poured. so hard that our little tent shook. we crammed ourselves inside and dove under warm blankets. then, for the next six hours, we stayed there. we ate pop-tarts and drank bottled water. we read books and my brother played his mandolin. we talked and told stories and stayed awake long past quiet hours, the next night's live music, an old bluegrass band, playing in the distance.

then, when night fell on the camp and the bluegrass started to fade, we got out some speakers and played cat power in the darkness. and lying there, three people i love to the left of me, listening to cat's deep rasp float between us, i closed my eyes and finally slept.

it was a fabulous weekend, and integrating myself back into reality has proved quite cumbersome. yes, for many it was a weekend of parties. for some, it was a weekend of children and animals and music. but for me, it was a weekend of beauty. of God's great nature and man's great machine. co-existing and cohabitating the same blessed space.

curious george has dyed

i had a lingerie shower before my wedding, and for a 21-year-old from a tiny town in north carolina, it was an overwhelming abundance of lace, straps and snaps. and i loved it. and i packed it all into my tiny samsonite when we left for our honeymoon in jamaica.

but then, somebody else snuck into my bag as well. george.

i've had these shorts since the seventh grade. middle school, i tell you! i got them on my family's first and only trip to disney world. the summer it was so blazing hot that even a water spritzer with a fan on it couldn't cool me down. the trip where i rode the rockin' roller coaster with mama and the initial jolt threw my hips forward so bad i couldn't walk straight the rest of the time. the happiest place on earth, i say.

and i saw these bad boys hanging in the gift shop. they were overpriced. they were cartoonish. heck, with the two buttons in the front they were most certainly for boys. but i had to have them. and i've worn them every single night since. george traveled with me through high school, and was there in bed when i cried myself to sleep over boys that didn't last, tests that didn't end well, and that one two-week fight with robert in july 2007.

they went with me to college. and my first apartment. then, on my honeymoon. after that, i stored them in my very first chest of drawers in my very first home with my new husband and our new dog.

but last week, i did something awful.

i washed george with a new pair of red jeans. some fabulous red jeans i found in a thrift store, but that's beside the fact.

and george turned pink. how can george save the world from outer space invaders when he's traveling through a sphere of pastel rose? it just doesn't fit. i've washed and washed them, and the stain is starting to fade, and from the looks of these pictures, it's not too bad. 

but they still bring me comfort. like reading my Bible in bed at night or waking up and stretching outside with the sunrise. and the best part of all? robert thinks they're cute.

and whatever it is that makes you feel like you--whether its your boyfriend's oversized sweater, your favorite pair of skinny jeans, your favorite sweatpants, or even a lacy get-up, it's worth holding on to. worth washing and re-washing and stretching out the elastic and literally getting all you can out of the threads.

and worth writing an entire post about, apparently.

no hand hugs

i took so many pictures last autumn on our west coast road trip. i saw sunsets so gorgeous i couldn't drive, and had to pull over and just sit. i saw mountains screaming to be climbed, with hidden trails that wove through forests and ended at sweeping bridges. i saw bats in a cave as i shrouded down, clasped robert's hand and ran through, just to see a hidden waterfall fade into blackness as evening turned to night.

i was looking through my pictures this morning, and i noticed this picture from pike's place market in seattle. and for the first time, i saw the "no hand hugs" signs. at first i was perplexed, and thanks to google, i now know that hand hugging a fruit is another word for fondling it.

and this totally made my day. that, and pluots, a little plum/apricot cross-breed.

real simple

during the summer, i appreciate the simple things so much more. primarily because there are two great loves of my life during these sacred months. one is a cool living room, with a glass of sweet tea, a good magazine and something sweet to nibble. the other is the little dirt path near our house, right when twilight hits. with its tree lined glory, old tobacco barns and long stretch of flat, good country.

last night was one of those great, easy ones. where i was in bed by ten with time to read the Bible and play with pablo before lights out. one highlight was this bowl of homemade strawberry pie that robert's grandmother sent home with him. full of crust and perfectly juicy. the other was the sunset we caught on our way to the little trail. an explosion of magenta against the outline of the darkening trees.


summertime means easy living, even if the living ain't always easy.

a case of me

the other day, mama handed me a tupperware container and said, "i want you to have this." she had taken it from the attic and, with the help of my dad, brought it down the flight of stairs, where it sat on the hardwood floor. inside were mementos of another life. my childhood. from report cards to pictures of my first days of school, it was all there. all preserved. as if only a few days, maybe months had gone by since my sticky fingers put too much glue on the diaramma.

and i went through it with robert. read aloud the funny, often hilarious, things that were jumbled in my mind at seven years old. the letter i wrote to a non-existent modeling agency detailing every part of my face down to the length of my eyelashes and how beautiful i thought i was. my favorites. my hobbies. my likes and dislikes.

and it got me thinking, when's the last time i filled out a questionnaire that revealed nearly as much about me as the standard elementary school "student of the month" one? i swear, one can tell a lot about girl by her favorite food, favorite holiday and favorite day of the week.

many of those answers would be the same. i still love pasta. still cherish my fridays. still idolize my parents.

but my likes? oh boy, have they changed.

i like hot baths at seven in the evening. i like blueberries coated with fine sugar and tart blackberry jam. i like the way pablo smells in the morning and the way robert's white t-shirts feel when i reach across the bed at night. i like the way joni mitchell sings "oh canada" in the beginning of a case of you. i like the way sunshine weaves through open blinds and spills into rooms around four in the afternoon.

and as sweet as it was to look back, i'm even more excited about looking forward. as long as the future holds lots of pasta on fridays, i'm certain i'll be just fine.

a little vacation recap

there was mango italian ice. lots of it. at night under the brightly lit and boldly painted picnic tables. there were children in brand new swimsuits, carrying buckets and wearing floppy hats. bike rides to the gazebo and back. bike rides at night looking into houses. the tiny ones by the shore with worn shutters and chipped paint. the mansions on the back avenue that could easily hold four of our little cottages.

and i tell you, if God cannot be found along the sea at twilight, walking on smooth shells with water lapping at bare toes, with the moon high in the graying sky and only a few lone sailboats along the horizon, something is amiss. i never fail to feel so beautifully inadequate standing on the shoreline. i didn't bring my camera on the beach, so i failed to capture its glory, but i probably couldn't have anyway.

but now, we are home. and one hot shower, game of fetch, and soul-filling catch-up session with a dear friend later, i sat on the couch around midnight. the kitchen still a bit smoky and smelling like bacon after robert got a feather in his cap to make breakfast for supper at 10:00 p.m. and i gathered them in my arms. these boys of mine. and thanked the sweet Lord above for making home the place i want to visit most of all.

blue collar, warm heart

there are some chores i hate. chiefly, scrubbing bathrooms. but there are some that for whatever reason, be it the repetitive motion or the solitude and reflection they provide, are not too bad. i feel this way about dishes and laundry. when warm water is running between my fingers and the hundredth plastic cup fills the drying rack, there are no stresses. for ten minutes, there are no worries, and no tasks that need to be accomplished sans these dishes. and i love it.

last night was laundry night. with robert and pablo watching television in the dark living room, i snuck out to the mud room. the unheated one with brick interior walls. with the three big windows and screen door leading out to the  blueberry bush. and i filled the machine with robert's plumbing clothes. cornflower blue work shirt and navy work pants. with a logo sewn on by his grandmother. they are dirty, yes. but they are my husband's.

one day, he might work in an office. and he'll re-wear the same variation of a suit and tie every day, and the laundry basket will be exponentially lighter. he'll dab on the gray flannel and tuck the handkerchief.

but for now, i'll buy the extra strength detergent and check his pockets every evening. and i'll breathe in deep the smell of pipes. the scent cemented in my memory along with mama's clove cookies and pablo's soft, downy fur. and i'll complain about the loads of wash sitting in the basin, but really cherish that time. in the little cottage by the woods, where work is shed at the threshold, and real life, real love begins after five.

slam dunk

 

sometimes date nights aren't magical. sometimes there are no car doors opened and no roses. sometimes, it's not even worth putting on red lipstick for.

sometimes it's just a late run to wal-mart. the new one a few towns away. with the dog in the backseat and the windows rolled down, iron and wine on the radio. holding hands at red lights.

and sometimes you stumble upon a dunkin donuts. right before closing. and the tired teenager behind the counter asks, nay begs, you to please take one of each donut. because it's nearing eleven and they're just going to throw them out anyway. she stuffs them all in your brown paper bag and only charges you for your two small coffees.

and all of a sudden, this date night turns around. and from the fluorescent lights bouncing off the mopped tile floors to the empty shop ringing with silence and closing time, something begins to come alive. and the date becomes, yes, a little more magical.

sara bareilles is a goddess

robert has had a surprise brewing for me for weeks. to kick off my birthday week, he's been sweetly scheming. every once in a while, he'll break into a sly smile out of nowhere and exclaim, "i can't wait to tell you about your surprise!"

last night was the big unveil. and it was everything he built it up to be, and more.

we went to a sara bareilles concert in a little chapel, at nearby wake forest university. it was hands-down the best live show i've ever been to. and i love live music, and i've been to a lot of shows. sara was beautiful, effortless on stage, cutely entertaining and had a voice like clear diamonds. she ended the show with a cover of coldplay's "yellow", and when she sang the line "you know i love you so..." i wanted to yell it back at her.

forgive the awful cell phone pics, but behold the imitable sara:

i highly, highly suggest if she ever comes within a reasonable radius of your home, you go. she will not disappoint. and neither did robert. i love the fact that he chose to take me to see an artist that i liked. not one that we were both in love with, but that i particularly fancied. and by the time we left the show, i do believe he was a little in love with her as well. and i'm okay with that:)

here's one of my favorite by her, city. listen and fall in love.

goodbye old oak hollow

xxx

i remember when it was first built. signs that read "this is my mall" hung proudly on the newly painted walls. fresh carpet and shined linoleum were underfoot. the immediate addition of a movie theater, and it was like high point had been reborn. the oak hollow mall. with its giant acorn entrance and just the right number of stores, it breathed life into our asthmatic mill town. 

only two stories high and a light tan color, it's really not much to look at. each of the triad cities has its own mall, and oak hollow is certainly the smallest and least assuming. but it had everything a high school teen could want, especially in its glory days of 2000-2005. two days before my first date, on a warm august night, mama and i spent hours below the fluorescent lights, scouring the department store racks and stacks of folded sweaters at the gap for the perfect ensemble, settling on white capris and a teal tank top with "ciao" written in glitter across the front. i don't have either anymore, and can't tell you where they are.

then, about a year later, on another august night, i had another first date. one that would turn into a thousand subsequent dates. robert and i ate at one of the mall's restaurants. one of those typical ones where waitresses write on the table and talk about cheese fries and rib specials. a friend from school waited on us, and afterward we left the mall to play putt-putt. the restaurant closed down a few years later. nothing took its spot.

and now, a major university has bought the mall. for the time being, it's leaving it as is. however, for the past year or so, the stores have been shutting down. slowly but surely in a sad defeat. now, the only stores left are ones with names like "pastor steve's leather" or "global village." the gap was the first to leave, followed by express, dillards and other snapshot memories of my past.

because a mall is a social experience. and all the movies i watched in the dingy theater, all the half off bins i squirreled my hands through, and all the red plastic benches i ate hot pretzels on are ingrained in me, just like the people i shared those moments with. 

a lot of my friends have left our little town. but i stayed. and i pass the mall on my way home sometimes and remember. and this will always be, no matter what happens to it, my mall.

coming to my senses

it's been warm around my little town lately. warm enough that on my ride home yesterday, i rolled down my windows. immediately, it hit me. a gentle breeze, carrying with it the smell of summer. someone was grilling out, or burning leaves, and the smoky, hazy atmosphere attached to my radio waves, and i rode both all the way home.

and as i drove, the sun started to set and my steering wheel warmed, and i went back. to the five summers i spent lifeguarding at the community pool. shopping for sundresses. my first kiss under the august moon. cheap fireworks on the pavement on july 4th, with names like "sprinkling rain" and "lotus flower." the simple scent of fire, and the memories came flooding back. and like the bradford pears shedding their gorgeous blooms on the sidewalks, so my heart shook itself back into feeling.

my mama keeps a little porcelain avon jar on her bathroom sink. just a little screw-top mini container, filled with a pale pink cream that she dabs on her wrists every now and then. it's the scent my grandma used to wear, and when mama found it again in a cosmetics catalog, she started buying it for herself, and it has maintained its place of honor in a pretty yellow vase ever since.

because scents are tied with memories, and good or bad, they stay ingrained in our psyche until, one thursday afternoon at five o'clock, they hit us straight in the heart and open the dam of emotion. it's the reason wives dab perfume on their husband's pillow when they go away for the weekend. why old ladies still cling to moth-holed, dusty sports coats. how babies know their mama in a sea of women.

i used to think that if i had to lose one sense, smell wouldn't be the worst to have taken away. but yesterday, with the sunlight twirling through my hair and the smell of hickory wood filling my little honda, my mind was changed.

a tight pair of genes

on our evening walk yesterday, robert and i came upon this sight. that's my mama and dad, sitting on lawn chairs, on their driveway, reading the newspaper.

perfectly comfortable front porch furniture was mere yards away, with cushions and back support. why they chose to sit on the edge of the pavement, just behind my brother's car and in front of the lamppost is beyond me, but i love it.

because my parents are like that. after almost 29 years of marriage, they are still in love. as we walked toward them, i remembered the time that mama and i flew to chicago to get my senior year prom dress and visit my uncle. my dad stayed behind to take care of my siblings. i'll never forget his eyes glistening with tears as he kissed mama goodbye at the airport terminal. they are never apart.

or the way mama can remember vividly the first time she met dad. at a college party, where their ice-breaking line was the epic "wanna chip?"

i worry about a lot of things in life, but i never worry about my relationships. because they come from strong roots. and last night, as i lowered myself onto the driveway and gathered my legs indian style beneath me, we watched the sun set low in the sky together, then walked into the warm house for dessert.

and i can't wait for the day when that's us. when our kids find us dancing in the kitchen or snuggling on a saturday morning. i can't wait to embarrass them, delight them and ultimately, nurture in them a deep love for others, and pass along this crazy, tight, good-fitting pair of genes.

let's go on an adventure

i reached for his hand across the stick shift.

lets go on an adventure, i said. where to, he asked.

anywhere. i looked out the window at the field beside our house. the blades of grass were swaying in a rustic harmony on the tails of a sunday morning breeze. the window was down and the sun was warm on my closed eyes.

we decided it was too soon, only a month after our last vacation at the coast, with family beach trips coming up and weekend commitments the rest of the month. i let out a sigh of discontent.

then i looked down at the hand i was holding, and followed it up, past the cuffed church shirt and to the face of the man i love. and i smiled. because this, this very moment, was an adventure. driving to church with summer just ahead of us made me feel alive. and later that day, napping on the couch with the window open and birds chirping.

we'll go on another adventure. we're suckers for road trips to kitschy destinations like the world's largest display of pork (nahunta, n.c.). the northeast is next on our list, but it won't happen tomorrow.

no. tomorrow will hold another early morning alarm, my same white coffee cup, and the same daily grind of phones, papers and people. but if i'm lucky, tomorrow will also hold a doorstep greeting, with evening settling into the bones of our house and pablo itching to get out the screen door. i will put down my pocketbook, pull my shades off my head, and collapse into robert. maybe we'll take a walk to mama and daddy's house. or maybe we'll stay in and watch netflix with cheap popcorn. we'll talk about our days over a crock-pot creation and revel in all that is ordinary, natural and satisfyingly simple.

either way, i'm sure, it will be a most spectacular adventure.

a full inbox and heart

mama called me the other day just to tell me my cell phone message inbox was full. and it was true. and i knew it, but didn't know what to do about it. because every single message i've saved makes me smile, brightens my day, and reminds me i am loved.

like the one from robert in april 2009, on my birthday weekend in charlotte. calling with a funny joke, told only in a way that robert can. i hear that 90-second tidbit, and i go back to that beautiful hotel room. the white water rapids. the rock climbing wall where i thought i very well might die, but resulted in the most fabulous zip line ever. it's a gorgeous memory, saved on my silver bit of plastic.

or the calls from my sister and mama, inviting me to go for a walk. the ones from my dad, who hates the phone. for him to call, let alone leave a message, is special to me, and worthy of being saved. i erased a message from one of my good friends once. she passed away in a car accident a few months later, and i'd give anything to hear her voice again.

so i've kept them. and i know i can get one of those recorders and transfer them, so i can save them forever. but right now, i like having them close. it's instant comfort.

just like the people who left them. only a phone call away.