On Building a Wall

"By becoming intimate with how we close down and how we open up, 

we awaken our unlimited potential."  Pema Chodron

The water guy came on Friday. He changes our filter system every so often, and he's a nice guy overall.  He got busy with his work, and my son Zysean and I came to check on things after a few minutes. "Cute kid you got there." He was meeting Zysean for the first time. "My sister adopted two children." he continued without looking up from his work.

"Oh, how nice." I replied.
"One was native American, and the other was born a crack baby." He continued, still steady at work.
"Wow. Good for her." I was impressed.
"Cute kid you got there. Any...issues?" He asked.
I imagine he was aware of what foster parents deal with: the impact of abuse or neglect on young children. "We are lucky." I confessed,"His birth mother was very young and he didn't show any drugs in his system."

"Hmmm." he said, picking out the right tool from his bag. "Well, my sister's kids, the native American got curious about his people and went to live with them when he grew up. He's a drunk now. And the crack baby wanted to get back with his birth mother when he grew up. He's on crack now."

Wow. This was a sad story. His poor sister! I asked him how old they were when she adopted them. It sounded like they remembered life with their birth families. "Let's see" he looked upward,"Six months and....um..eight months. Yeah.....And she raised them right along side her other children..." He shrugged.

Infants! I swear he didn't even look at me or stop his work. He could have been telling me to leave the check on the counter for him. I could feel my mind setting up a wall against what I was hearing. This does not have to be Zysean's story. Nature vs. nurture bounced about in my mind for a moment before I looked into Zysean's big brown eyes and got steadied by his smile. Our little darling, who says "pease" and "Dank-u" and puts his toys back when asked - leaving home to become a crack addict? I understand that kids at least as cute as him have grown up to do great damage to themselves and those who love them. But I've been having too much fun with him to ever go there in my mind. "He's a cute kid, that one," the water guy said again, as a sort of consolation.

"We think so." was all I said. But inside I was deciding which part of this I was going to build a fortress against. I could easily seal out everything he said, or lock down against him completely. After all, it was pretty unnecessary for him to lay out an adoption misfortune story to a newly adoptive parent.  But I'm too old to take offense. I've collected enough been-there-done-thats in that department to fill a small city. With a burnt bridge in every suburb. Besides, I like our water guy. And I plan to keep liking him. He probably thought this would be good information to have. He probably  doesn't know how sensitive an adoptive parent can be. Thank you, water guy. Thanks so much.

But, a wall kept going up somewhere in my mind, a means to shelter from harm all the good I see in that boy every hour of every day, and all the good I feel I do as a parent. I could start laying brick on top of brick against crack addicts, his birth mother, for instance. Keep him far away from her and her influence. Deny any communication from her or his drug dealer dad. I could keep him away from all addictive substances: alcohol, cigarettes, sugar. Deprive him of things that might take him down the wrong path. Would that keep him safe?

All these thoughts seemed to amount to making decisions for him, which goes against my style. I like seeing him making good decisions for himself, even if he makes several bad ones on the way there. He burned his finger just yesterday, while dropping a pirogi in boiling water. I saw the water splash him as he threw it in with too much force. He was in my arms at the time. I didn't stop him. He discussed it in one-word sentences for the rest of the night. "Hot. Burn. Oww." pointing to the red patch on his fingers. "Yes. You burned your finger. The water was hot." was my repeated response.

But meanwhile, in another part of my brain, the part that fears losing him to the "evils" of the world, is still  busy constructing safety barriers. Where to start? I know his birth parents have a world of troubles, but I still can't turn my heart against either of them. I think of them as his family, too, against the advice of most people, even if they are the family he may never meet until he's grown and on his own. They are his blood. Their childhoods gave them little to work with, and yet they have never shown me anything but politeness and timid gratitude. That is a rare occurrence in the fostering system, so I return gratitude to them for allowing us to raise him.

But the wall-building energy persisted for the whole day. There must be some way to divert the forces that lead children to tragic fates like the water guy's nephews. There are so many distractions out there that can blind our children to what's important - in our media stream, in our food, in our communications, in our art, in our politics. I could build walls all day, every day and still not keep all of it out of his reach. All that walling up has to be damaging to a child's spirit, anyway, right? Not to mention my own.

Yet this instinct to build something strong and formidable wouldn't leave. It scares me sometimes how much willful energy I can have toward something that feels important.  My long practice with wall-building has provided enormous skills, but eventually it became clear that a new type of construction was in order. Zysean's spirit doesn't need walls. It needs wings! Strong, formidable ones, that can endure tough winds and take long journeys. Wings that can take him out into the world, and can bring him safely home. This is what I need to learn to build. Wings grown on encouragement, good food and a compassionate heart. Wings wide enough to embrace all beings but fast enough to escape the grasps of predators. Wings that fly high enough to see a distant goal, and strong enough to carry him there, past all hesitancy and doubt, past even the shadows of his mother's little walls.

The Hillside Grave

       I'm not a licensed counselor, but in my job I hear a lot of stories from people who have lost a loved one. We phone our bereaved families several times throughout the first year of their loss, and sometimes they call us, too. They often will see a counselor or join a group, but sometimes they don't want any of that. Sometimes they just want to talk briefly to someone, buffering against their loneliness.
         This story is about one of those callers, a widower who served in the Marines during four wars.  Vernon X and his wife were married over 60 years ago. One day he called our office just to thank us for the phone message we'd left. I think he just needed to talk about his wife to someone. I was lucky I had a little time; it was my honor to listen. After our first conversation, he called a couple more times, remembering my name, and sharing a few more thoughts and memories on a lonely afternoon. He had met the girl who would become his wife before joining the service, just before WWII. They both lived here in the rural mountains of NC. He was a grade or two older than she, but several grades were taught in one room then. Even with such close proximity, he never spoke to her then.
       The story went like this: she was the little sister of a classmate/friend and one day this friend rode out in a wagon to their farm to make a trade. An errand for the boys' fathers; something to do with logs and hay, I wasn't too clear. The sister came along, and apparently she was friendly with Vernon's own sister. So, these kids were hanging out, loading stuff into the wagon for their parents and just eying each other. He decided that day that she was the one he wanted to marry. They were outside of school, at his own property, but still he didn't approach her. In his words, "I didn't speak to her. I knew her to see her, but we never spoke." In my mind I imagine those teenage boys toting, lashing and preparing a wagon full of wood while the girls busied themselves in other ways, the gender lines drawn as expected. They were mountain people. It's common to let silence make its connection before trusting the use of words. When he got out of school he went straight to war. Either he wanted to make something of himself, or he wanted to stay occupied until she finished school - he never explained. It might simply have been that the war was on and he wanted to be a part of it.
     On his ship's first return, 11 months later, he wrote her a letter, from the urging of a buddy. "I didn't know what to write  'cause I wasn't sure she'd remember me." As it turns out, he actually proposed marriage in the letter. No words had yet passed between them. He gave the letter to his sister who managed to get it to the girl somehow. It turns out she not only remembered him, she accepted his proposal. I'd have to guess whether it was a case of silently reciprocated attraction, fueled into confidence by the nudgings of mutual friends, or if it was a complete shot in the dark for Vernon. We may never know. This story was told to me several times, but always in the same way, without embellishment.
     I asked him if he found things to talk about with her after they got married. "We never left each others' side." he boasted, not exactly answering the question.  He told me about the military bases around the world where they lived through the years: Germany, South Korea, the Mediterranean, even New Jersey, and ended up back in these rural mountains after Desert Storm when he retired. He was still very active as a military volunteer. He helped set up the Veterans' cemetery in Black Mountain and for 15 years was on the maintenance committee, keeping it clean. Most veterans in that graveyard have a flat stone, he said, "To make it easier for mowing." Only high ranking officers are buried with "upright headstones" in a separate section.
      He had reserved a place for himself and his wife early on. His buddies at the cemetery were aware of his wife's declining health and how he spent time as her caregiver. Vernon hadn't earned rank enough to claim an upright  plot in the officer's section, so he ordered a flat marker with her name on it while she was a hospice patient. I found it difficult to understand why he wouldn't have earned an officer's grave after 60 years in the service, but this is what he said. Then two days after his wife's death he was given word he had special permission to bury her in the upright section. I guess his buddies sent up a special request for him without his knowing. He called me when the stone was ordered and called again after it was set in place. Apparently a wife and husband can share a headstone for a fee, with one eulogy on the front face and the other engraved on the back side. He loved telling about the location of their plot. He had walked between those stones and worked on that land for years. He knew the grass, the slope of the land and all the rules that held it as a sacred place. From the hillside of upright stones one can see plenty of sky and the graceful shapes of surrounding mountains, It was as if he had lovingly prepared a quiet resting place for the two of them to spend eternity in the hills where they grew up.

    I haven't heard from Vernon in a while. I guess he still maintains the cemetery and visits his wife's grave while he's there. Maybe he talks to her out there in the officers' section. Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe he just looks at her stone, remembering their whole lives together, and lets silence make the connection.

Veterans Cemetery, Black Mountain, NC

Mothers-R-Us

   For starters, I always figured I could get through life without ever having to darken the door of a store with a backwards "R" in its name. English majors don't go for that kind of shameless jocularity with our language, even if the place does carry everything your baby will need and ten times more.  But there I was last week, sweeping through the Babies-R-Us, sniffing out the weekly bargains, completely oblivious to the subject/predicate disagreement or the heinously cornball, backward "R" attempting to be a verb that is printed on every tag. Nowadays I only notice the red clearance tags, and I can spot them 3 aisles away.
   I was in the boys' pajama section, looking for some discounted warm ones when a woman sped past me. I guessed that, like me, she was on limited time before getting back with her kid. "Do you know where the stockings are, you know. like, little girl tights?" She swiveled back in my direction, lost. I pointed to the girls' leggings rack, since I have, sadly, memorized the layout of the place.

   But she had more to say,"I don't believe I'm doing this! My little girl's been swallowed by Cinderella!" OK. So, I had to hear more now. Just in case my boy gets swallowed by something. "I don't know where she gets it! I swear I didn't show her this. She's a girly girl! Suddenly everything has to be pink and girly." She squnched up her nose in distaste, "And I never wear pink - I never...I mean, look at me!" I took time to really see her. She was right. From the toboggan covering most of her hair to her thick stretch pants and athletic shoes (all dark blue) she looked like she'd just ridden in on a bike. Make-up-free, and outfitted possibly from the men's department of Diamond Brand. Hmm. Interesting. And then she went on, clasping her hands dramatically. ""Oh, Prince of my dreams, my one true love, where are you?'," she imitates her girly-girl's play acting. "Here I come, on my trusty steed, fair maiden!" she galloped a few steps, demonstrating her own appointed role in the scene. Her eyes roll and I'm laughing now. "I don't even know how to put those things on, do you?" She asked, not waiting for my answer. It must have been obvious that I never wear "those things" either. She continued, "And she's starting to look at me very disapprovingly, too. She asked me yesterday, 'Mommy, why don't you dress like other mothers, with pretty high heels and dresses?' " She threw her hands up.

  "Oh, no," I moaned sympathetically. This was starting to get distressing. I gave her a simultaneous smile and frown in solidarity as she huffed off in search of something pink for little legs. "Poor ol' gal" I thought, returning to my pajama search. "She's got it rough." Then I look at what I'm actually doing. I had two pair in my hand, and I was deciding which monster truck print looked most realistic. Standing in an "R-Us" store, picking out monster truck pajamas. Me! I thought of the accumulated hours I've sat with Zysean on my lap, watching You Tube videos of steam trains. I actively study steam trains these days. I thought of the early morning we drove out to the train track to watch the cargo train roll under the overpass. I thought of the night that my whole family heard a train whistle in the car and sped off toward the nearest access to the tracks and stomped around in the dark weeds just to let Zysean see the train go by. And I held all this up against my actual interest in trains. Or monster trucks. The things we do. A sigh went out for what is lost of our self-perception when we become parents. We can't create their character from our own. With each embrace of this unique, growing life in our house, our own image becomes more and more...beside the point. My heart went out to that nice tom-boy mom who would love to be raising a grungy trail-hiker. She doesn't know it yet, I thought, but she'll soon be wearing high heels and dresses, guaranteed, right along with her daughter. And laughing, too, I hope.
         
 

Ode to a Baby Wipe

    I was really lucky at age 12; my parents gave me a little baby sister. I loved having a baby around the house.  I didn't know then that it would be a thirty-five year wait to have my own baby around the house. Not only did my skills with infants get really rusty in those years, but the baby product market has completely changed. I've been re-learning just about everything. Back then, nobody used car seats.  Magic markers stained everything they touched, and disposable diapers were so primitive that they were used mostly for traveling. New to me also were: Sippy cups, breast pumps, pack-n-plays...the list of new products goes on and on.
      But the thing I think about more than anything is the baby wipe..... There was no such thing in 1975. We used a warm wet washcloth back then. I'm serious! And if we were traveling, we had paper towels or something that we had to dampen with whatever water source we could find. It sounds so archaic, but back then it was pretty much standard procedure. It wasn't until a few years into my little sister's life that a new product called "Wet Ones" came on the market. I remember the first time I saw that plastic canister with a little round snap top from which you could pull out a brand new moist towelette one after the other. Neat! It was designed for general use, anytime you needed a quick clean up. As I am with so many other things that have become phenomenally successful, I had my doubts about Wet Ones ever finding a lasting market. I thought they were too expensive and, well, wasteful. I couldn't see people paying money like that for something you're just going to throw away. What did I know. I was young and sheltered.
      One thing that did cross my mind way back then, though, was their use for babies while diapering on the go. I guess because, well, we had recently had a baby around the house. They weren't marketed that way at all, at first. You'd never know that now, unless you remembered. For at least 20 years babies' bottoms have been their primary target, and every company that has anything to do with babies has their own line of wipes. Whole aisles are dedicated to every kind of baby wipe imaginable.  I shouldn't be surprised that nobody uses anything else, ever. But silly me, I never take that as a reason to do anything. When we got a new baby in the spring of 2010, even though we were fostering, he was in our care, and we were entrusted with parenting him as we saw fit. We figured out how to install a car seat. And yes, I went against some better judgements and bought disposable diapers. But by God, I grabbed a washcloth when it was time to change a diaper. Afterall, I wasn't babysitting here, taking directions from this child's mother, I was mothering, and this is what made sense.
     Can you imagine that I've been going to the sink for warm water and washing Zysean's behind with a washcloth several times daily for almost 2 years now? No, I can't imagine that either. I caved eventually, but not because every mother I know uses them. And not because every daycare on the planet uses them or that the proper use of disposable wipes are taught to every student getting infant/toddler certified.  Not even because when I casually mentioned my practice to Zysean's social worker she smiled quietly as we do when we discover someone has a tragic mental illness. These are never reason enough for me to change a practice that feels right to me. What ended the washcloth was that I was given a half-used pack of wipes along with the baby himself. It was part of his "layette" that came with everything else that was taken from his birth mother. I felt if I didn't use them they would go to waste.
      I put them in his diaper bag, and used them, at restaurants or at friends' houses. And when it ran out, I bought another pack, only for the diaper bag. Then sometimes, I would grab the bag at home and use the wipes out of it...you know, just because I was in a rush, and the diaper was a really messy one. Slowly, one dump at a time, I started taking the kool-aid. Lulled into the convenience, knowing full well that none of them are particularly biodegradable, reusable, or in any way "green."
      I've learned of myriad off-shoots of the wipe that serve a mother, too. Not only the sensitive skin, the thick "premium" and the anti-bacterial wipes, but there are "paci-wipes", with a cleanser that babies can safely put in their mouths. There are "boogie-wipes" made with a saline solution and pull the mucus straight out of a runny nose. There are "toddler wipes" for those being potty trained. And to get that warm, wet cloth feeling, there are baby wipe warmers. Surely no baby-mama reader is a stranger to any of this. You may also know about some initiatives made like .bamboo-based wipes that are flushable (biodegradable) and chlorine-free. They all come in plastic containers, but to take on the job of completely barring the plastic that flows into the home of child can be more than full-time. I could miss his entire childhood!
      So, despite my personal resistances, I have learned to embrace the baby wipe and all the ingenuity that lies behind them. I continue to buy what's on sale and hold a wide dream that one day baby wipes will be as environmentally friendly as leaves falling upon the earth. I am eager to learn of any ideas from readers toward this end. In the mean time, I wipe on, conservatively.

Free Bird!

The hospice where I work has a small staff of music therapists, and a stable of young interns on their way to being certified. The other day I walked through their office area and heard a beautifully light, acoustic rendering of what sounded just like the opening notes of Freebird. "Is that Freebird?" I asked the 22 year old intern who was following chords from a fake book. Our interns pass along this sheet music book from one to the next, full of songs that hospice patients are likely to request. "It is." she paused to answer. As the tune continued, releasing 1970s memories for me, high school concerts, painters' pants and cassette tapes, I also started hearing how the lyrics could easily serve as a song for a dying person.

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be traveling on, now....

Amazing how that worked! I came closer to her and more memories of my youth shook down from hiding with each strum of the strings. Afterall, as time goes by, more hospice patients are closer to my own generation...huh. Wouldn't Lynyrd Skynyrd  - wherever they all may be - love that their song could transform during a person's life from a "sex, drugs and rock n' roll" anthem to a poignant end-of-life ballad? Cool. I looked at the notebook she was reading from, vaguely hoping to find some clue on the page about how it got into this book. I saw scribbled margin notes made in several hand writings. "Here are some interpretations people have used with this song." the intern explained. Without my glasses I could read none of them, but she shared one or two about goodbyes of various kinds. I smiled thinking how the lyrics were loose and free enough for many scenarios to work.

 'Cause I'm as free as a bird now
And this bird you can not change...

"This one here," she pointed out, "even says it could be a song about a man who is leaving a woman because he doesn't want to make a commitment." she glanced up, musing over the novelty of this. The laugh I held back hopefully didn't leak out of my pores. I forced myself to remember that she was being kind to this middle-aged woman by letting me interrupt her practice, allowing my memories to ride in on the echo of her notes. Of course this was the ONLY interpretation I'd ever, up until moments before, ever figured existed. I realized then how many worlds apart we were, looking at the same song and hearing entirely different songs. It gave me a little head rush, and I felt free as a bird.

The Velveteen Reindeer

      My son Zysean, who will be two in February, was only 10 months old for his first Christmas last year. What he got out of the whole holiday was two solid weeks of family and some really, really long stares at Christmas lights. He went right to work on all the toys from loved ones, but at 10 months old, who knows where toys come from or what its all about? One gift, from my supervisor and her family, was this chubby stuffed reindeer. It had a saxaphone in its mouth and when you pinched its foot, a verse of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" on sax came out, slow and dream-like. The reindeer's head swayed with the rhythm, and the baby's head would sway, too. It became such a good friend, we put it in his crib at night. He would play it over and over until he fell asleep. It went far beyond being a Christmas toy, and by April it had had several battery changes. By summer, its feathery hat was torn up, the stuffing was bunched in its limbs and its fleecy fur was pilled. We no longer heard the tune as Christmas music. It was the reindeer's serenade, the notes lifting and falling while we ate, played, took road trips. It was different than most. The tune was gentle and relaxed, a likeable contrast to the over-the-top enthusiasm that all toys seem to need today. He played it so much that the music track finally got a little warped - the rhythm wavered even when batteries were brand new. It became too jumpy to sway along with, but the two had become such good friends by then that Zysean didn't let on that he even noticed.

       I don't recall when it happened, but one day the music stopped altogether. Zysean squeezed and squeezed that foot every time he saw it, getting nothing but a blank, bead-eyed stare from the reindeer, the plastic horn quietly stitched to its mouth. I wondered how to talk about it. He'd point to the battery drawer, but not even a lithium EverReady could take the Don McClean song out of our parental minds, or send that warm ribbon of music back through that droopy old reindeer. "The music is all gone." was all I could report, turning my palms up in a letting-go gesture. After a few days he did stop looking at me when he pinched that foot. Inside a week he stopped pinching the foot altogether. So many other toys have battery-run squeaks, growls and happy melodies that the quiet reindeer got left in the toy basket more and more. Or stayed in the crib all day.
     If you know anything about toys with batteries, you may be familiar with the random uprising of otherwise dead computer chips, and how toys sometimes do a postmortem dance on their own volition. This reindeer had a few such spasms. We'd be eating dinner or watching a movie and suddenly a muffled sax solo would wail from under a pile of toys, wishing us a Merry Little Christmas. We'd startle, laugh, and if Zysean was there, a moment of hope would cross his face and we might dig it out to try the foot again. But it was really dead. Just a phantom.
    Just before Christmas this year, we cleared away the toys-whose-time-had-come to make room for a new pile that would surely take its place. It was decided that the reindeer would have to go, too. If only it could still play its Christmas song, it might have had a chance at a second season. But it was retired with all the love-wounds a stuffed toy would ever want. It spent the holiday in the garage, its damaged Santa hat poking out the top of the bag of outgrown toys.  
    Meanwhile, this Christmas there were many more teachable moments. We got familiar with Santa images. We looked at creches and talked about the "Mommy, Daddy and the Baby." And the cows. And the angels. And the star. We learned how to tear open presents. Toys filled the floors. Family surrounded Zysean in every direction and music came from harmonicas, ukuleles, whistles and voices, much of it made by Zysean himself. It was a day or two after the visiting family went home that Zysean and I were in the garage together filling bird feeders. It was good that he got bored and wandered off - birdseed was getting all over the floor and there would be sweeping to do. He got attracted to the bag of discarded toys and yanked his old reindeer out by one leg. Walking over to show me his discovery, his hands went instinctively to squeeze the foot. "I know, all gone." I sighed. But the reindeer's head began to sway and the plastic sax shifted with a click. The music began. Our eyes struck on each other and we both laughed out loud. Hanging upside down, wriggling with sudden life, our reindeer's presence was felt as he belted out his creed one last time, not too late to have ourselves a Merry Little Christmas with him.

Haikus for the New Year

Big World, you will be
expanding beneath my hands
hot with intention.
____________

Inside their creased bark
wrapped by wise, concentric hugs
Old trees make new sap
____________

Shall we take a leap
past the Mayan calendar?
What choice do we have?
______________

O, Brave New Year, why
do you, in my mirror, still
look just like the old?
_______________

The famed twenty twelve
Compels our greatest strength for
gold-diapered baby.