So This is Maine

I write this sitting on the sofa in what we call the "main room" while listening to Seals & Crofts. To my left is a fireplace, where a fire is roaring. To my right, on the floor, lies Kya, our beloved pit bull-lab; she is keeping my feet warm with her massive body. The view from where I sit is noteworthy: Rain is coming down in sheets, sometimes sideways, other times, all whirly and swooshy. The leaves on the trees that line our side of the inlet are red and orange, gold and green. The leaves on the other side of the water are still green.Wind keeps the scenery ever-shifting as trees sway and the water current swiftly churns. The tide will come in later today, as it always does, and the water line will be higher than usual.

I love being here.

The kids and I have lived here now for six weeks. We are still transitioning, and probably will be for quite some time. We've already had sleepovers, and we are learning shortcuts to the places we like to go. Tuck has found fellow musicians with whom he plays, and he has his first gig this coming Saturday in Portsmouth, NH. The girls and I have already stormed the public library, which is housed in two old buildings across the street from each other. I laughed when I realized that, instead of moving into one new, bigger building, it just adapted to the space it already had and made do. And you know what? It's exactly as it ought to be. Bella thinks the older building should have a ghost who haunts the top floor, where the young adult books are shelved. I agree; it's just that kind of place.

School has arguably been the most difficult transition for the kids to handle. Tuck went from a high school of 1200 students to one of 280. Within the first week, he knew basically everyone, and boy, did everyone know him. And somehow, before the week was out, kids at the middle school knew Tavia was Tuck's sister, though they don't even share a last name and the schools are not geographically close to one another. Word travels quickly in a small town, and though I had warned the kids that they would be looked upon as minor celebrities (I've been down this road myself, in high school) for at least a while, I don't think they believed me. Now that girls are after Tavia so that they can get to Tuck, I think my kids are getting the picture.

Tavi and Bella go to the same school, grades 4-8, student population of around 350 or so. They're already taking NECAPS (pronounced kneecaps), the Maine equivalent of CSAPs. Why they're taken so early in the school year, I don't know. And I've been asked by Bella's writing teacher to come in and make a presentation to the class about the importance of editing, much like I did at Skyview in Windsor. Looks like I will be teaching a creative writing class, too, for 6-8th graders during what they call CREW time, which is the same as a study hall. Academically, the school is decent. Athletically, not so much. Tavi dropped out of cross country because she felt it wasn't coached very well or effectively. Tried to sign up for soccer then, but it was too late. She's considering trying out for basketball now.

As small as we are here in Kittery Point, the kids have found things to occupy their time. Tuck continues with his music and has begun giving me guitar lessons (woo hoo!). How fortuitous is this: Two houses away from ours lives the owner of the York Harbor Inn, a restaurant and lounge. In his basement is a 16-track recording studio, and he gave Tuck an open invitation to take advantage of it whenever he wants. And the lounge has open mic night every Thursday beginning in November. My boy is heading down to Boston this weekend for his first concert at the House of Blues. Has another one to attend on Tuesday. He'll take the bus there and back. I like that he's broadening his autonomy while learning his way around a new city, doing something he loves to do. Life could be worse than being 15 and having the freedom to explore, maybe get lost, find his way, and return home to the comfort of his own family.

Tavi is enrolled in two dance classes at the dance academy in Portsmouth. She says they're hard-core and that she's learning a lot. She's considering auditioning for the school's honor choir, which joins other regional honor choirs to form one big group, and then they perform all over the place. She has also joined the school's yearbook staff. Come spring, she wants to audition for the regional theater troupe. Tavia? Drama? Really?

We arrived too late for Bella to sign up for the traveling soccer league (there weren't enough participants to have a local rec team), but she plans to sign up in the spring. She will begin violin lessons soon, as next week we make a trip into New Hampshire to fit her with a violin rental. Her interest in writing continues to develop, and she has joined the school's newspaper staff as a reporter.

As for me, I spent the first three weeks meeting just about every repairman in the area. Seriously, there were so many things that needed to be fixed in this house, I felt like Shelly Long in that movie "The Money Pit." I opened the mailbox and the door fell off. Rick flushed the toilet and nothing happened. The steam shower didn't steam, and the fireplace didn't light. To fix one thing sometimes meant damaging something else, so then that something else had to be fixed. It was unceasing. When things finally settled, I had deadlines, so that was two weeks of little else but work, and the last files for a book I'm writing were turned in this week. So here I am. 

There are many things to appreciate about my life here in rural Maine. Living on the ocean suits me well. I love to head down to our dock when the tide is coming in and the sun is shining and just...be. The water, the geese, the gentle sounds of the trees, the tugboats in the harbor, the scent...altogether, it offers a sense of solitude I find at once comforting and exhilarating. I appreciate the warm welcome my family has received--at Open House at the high school, several folks came up to me (admittedly, after staring at me for a while), shook my hand, and introduced themselves by telling me which house they lived in ("I live in the red house," "I'm in the yellow house next door," etc). I love how everyone here on our little hill has dogs, and no one cares if your dog visits them. So Kya and Scout have lots of friends, and it's kind of a canine free-for-all. I dig the weather. When it rains, it really rains. We've even already had flash floods and power outages (but seriously, what is this, compared to a tornado?). And when the sun shines, it reflects off the water with a brilliance that takes my breath away. Gratitude. It fills me with gratitude.

Other things, I'll have to get used to. I know many people well enough to say hello, but I don't have any real friends here (I know: it's been only 6 weeks). I miss my friends in Windsor more than words can express. I miss the connection, the being known and knowing them. It feels like so much work to start a new friendship at this stage of my life. Someone is going to really have to be something special for me to invest in. I'm not as generous with my time as I once was. On a more shallow note, I miss authentic Mexican food and melon margaritas from Guadalajara (the restaurant). I miss the convenience of being five minutes from the grocery store. Sidewalks. There are no continuous sidewalks here, and the roads are so narrow that you could high-five someone in a passing car without having to fully extend your arm. I'm not kidding.

So like all periods of transition and change, this one unravels one moment, one event at a time. The kids and I aren't always alone, as Rick comes in every other weekend, sometimes more often. His visits with us in Colorado were noteworthy because they were sporadic; the dynamic of the family would shift, even if only slightly. Now, though, he just seamlessly fits in...life continues as it does during the week, only now we have one more person to talk to, laugh with, consider. His presence is a great support for me on so many levels. His thoughtful input, his willingness to treat my kids as his own, his easy rapport with them...these are the things I've come to cherish. 

And for myself, this feeling of being truly seen unleashes in me a veritable tidal wave of emotion I didn't know I possessed. It owns me, and I willingly give myself to it. Because in this life, I have developed a strength borne of necessity, of the desire to survive and thrive. It is an unyielding strength, and I have relied upon it for as long as I can remember. But the strength Rick encourages in me is flexible. It builds on a sense of communion, of togetherness, of trust. The glory of it brings me to my knees, and it's just one more thing I add to my ever-growing list of things for which I am grateful.

So. This is Maine.

Packing Up, Taking Stock, Moving On: Thoughts on Leaving Home

My house has always been cluttered. I share an intimate love-hate relationship with "stuff," and though I've tried to change my evil ways, I have never succeeded. Now my stuff is in boxes, neatly labeled and stacked along the perimeter of rooms. Except when it's lying in the middle of the floor, or stuffed into bags to be put in the garage and unpacked later this week for our yard sale. One of my favorite things, my simple pleasures in life, is to walk through my home at night, when children are asleep and lights are dim. I have taken comfort in checking doors to be sure they're locked, in folding that last load of laundry (alas, never putting it away until I need an empty laundry basket), in replenishing the dogs' food and water bowls. Before bed, I blow out candles, kiss the dogs, turn out the lights.

To walk through this house at night now is to put one's life at risk. Scissors, tape rolls, boxes both full and flattened litter every square inch. Thumb tacks, nails, even stray pieces of (unchewed) gum threaten my bare feet. I am leaving Windsor; I am leaving this house I've called home for the past 13 years.

I never dreamed I'd be leaving this house until Bella graduated high school. I fell in love with the house itself the first time Wes and I walked through it in 1998. I admired it for its practicality. I loved the open floor plan and imagined watching my kids playing in the backyard while I cooked supper. I liked the idea of playing music on the stereo in the family room and being able to hear it upstairs. I craved the sunlight that I knew would pour through the living room window each morning. I could easily envision raising my family within these walls, and so I set out to make it a home.

We covered those stark white walls in vivid colors: periwinkle, fire-engine red, autumn leaf orange, sunshine yellow, lime green, cerulean blue, turquoise, aqua, terra cotta, purple. This house is a veritable palette of color, and it loyally reflects the personalities of the people who have inhabited it all these years. I painted furniture--wood benches, kitchen chairs, children's bookcases, chairs, stools and chests of drawers. I decorated the walls with kids' artwork and family photos, and my kitchen cupboards became bulletin boards for pages ripped from coloring books, messages of "I love you, mom," and other youthful masterpieces. Books filled every room, and my children grew up understanding that, with books, you never have to be bored or lonely.

As the kids grew, our home became a place in which their friends came to hang out. Just this past summer, it was nothing to find a half-dozen--often times, twice that--kids in Tuck's room (sometimes, when he wasn't even here) or gathered on the back patio, just talking, laughing, and generally kickin' it. Some of Tavi's friends have basically grown up here, so much so that when Tuck came through the door just last week and saw one of them at the kitchen table, he asked, "Do you live here now?" And he was serious. 

Kids who spent a lot of time here over the years were treated exactly as I treated my own. They got hugs, food, advice. They heard me yell when I got fed up, and they knew they were expected to respect the rules of our home or face the consequences. They heard me play piano and sing, lose complete control in fits of laughter, say bad words, apologize. Tuck has, over the years, lamented the fact that I don't act differently when his friends are over. He would prefer I have two personalities: one for public and one for private. That's never been my gig, though, so he's had to learn to deal with that. And when all is said and done, I believe that the kids who have returned to our home time and again know they are welcome, that in some cases, I dearly love them. As I contemplate the days ahead and know I will not see the faces of my children's friends, I feel a genuine sense of loss. They have been a major part of my own life.

A house is just a house; I know that. It is because I made it a home that it matters and means something. But still, I struggle with leaving this physical structure. This is where two of my four children took their first steps.  In this family room, the kids and I would push the furniture to the side, crank up the stereo, and dance like there was no tomorrow. Sometimes, other people's kids would join us in our joyful silliness. Scores of birthdays were celebrated in this house and the backyard. How many birthday candles were blown out at this kitchen table? These walls once vibrated with the sounds of Max learning to play piano and baritone, of Tavi's singing and learning to play piano, of Tuck learning to play guitar and trombone. There was nothing I liked more than to be in my upstairs office and hear Max and Tuck playing guitar and bass and sometimes even singing as the sounds drifted up through the floor vents. The bedroom walls brought comfort as I read bedtime stories with my children each night before tucking them in and telling them one final time that day how very much I loved them.

The memories aren't all good, of course. The master bedroom is where Wes and I lost our baby boy, and where I very nearly lost my own life in 1999. I sat at the kitchen table in disbelief as my sister hyperventilated over the phone, screaming that our mom was dead, in 2004. It was in these rooms--and yet so far beyond them, as well--that my relationship with Wes fell apart, into such a state of disrepair that there was no salvation for us. And it was here that I had to tell my children what that meant for them. 

And consequently, it is within these walls that the kids and I learned how to regroup and continue growing as a family in which the dynamic had changed but the love remained. So I feel a profound sadness at leaving this place that has seen countless milestones, been home to the people I love with a fierceness unparalleled by anything else I know. And yet I leave it also with a sense of excitement, of hope, of security and certainty that I have never known before in my life. I know that home is something carried in the heart. It is created and nurtured, not simply found. It is not so much a where, but a who, a communion of hearts and souls.

I guess, then, I'm leaving home to go . . . home.

To College, and Beyond

One week ago today, I drove with Max to CU-Boulder. And I left him there. And he was happy about it.

Huh.

Just a couple months earlier, Max spent nearly a full month in India, hiking and backpacking. It was his high school graduation gift. I thought it would help me prepare for his leaving in the fall.

I was wrong.

Nothing prepared me. Oh, I knew he was growing up and pushing himself away from shore. I knew that when he made some crazy choices over graduation weekend. I knew it when he transported home a hookah from India, cradling it in his lap as if it were a precious newborn. I knew it when he spent more time with friends than family throughout the summer.

I knew. I swear I did. And I told myself that this was nature's way of getting me used to not having him around. Let me tell ya, I can be one convincing broad. But now that he's actually gone, meaning, HE DOES NOT LIVE HERE ANYMORE, I realize that there is no getting used to it. There's just acceptance, because what else can I do?

Though he once spent nearly all his waking hours--and many of his slumbering ones, too--literally attached to me by sling or backpack or some other baby-carrying apparatus, the Barnacle Boy did develop into an independent young man. Despite the warnings of people who did not know me or Max but who likened our family bed to child abuse, my son did not grow up to be a serial killer (yet) or a mama's boy. He does not suffer from low self-esteem, nor does he have intimacy issues. He's a normal young adult. And he was so ready to leave this house, this town. And me.

I tried not to take it personally. I mean, really. He had the confidence to strike out on his own in part because I nurtured that independence and spirit in him. How many 17-year-olds hop on an international flight to a foreign land by themselves (though he did meet up with a friend) and take each day as it comes, just living in the moment and embracing whatever adventure awaits him? But that's Max. He's comfortable in his own skin, and the unknown doesn't unnerve him. He lacks street smarts (come on, we live in Windsor, population 20,000) but makes up for that in the level of faith he has in himself. Those attitudes? They don't just happen. They are crafted.

So I totally realize and understand that Max was able to tell me it was time for me to go last week as we stood outside his dorm because I did my job right. We don't share all the same values or beliefs. We don't agree on a lot of issues. One of our favorite pasttimes these last few years was late-night debating. Max and I are two sides of the same coin. We are of one another, but we have steadfastly different views on life.

And that is why I can respect my son even as I want to shake him and ask what the hell he is thinking. It is why I can truly feel how much I love him even when I don't necessarily like the person he is being (and he's not liking me). It is, ultimately, why I can let him go with tears, yes, but also with the knowledge that he is exactly where he should be.

That, and he's coming home to visit tomorrow. Heh.

If They're Never Mad, You're Not Doing Your Job

I've been home alone with my 16-year-old, Max, since mid-week. Wes took the three younger kids to his annual family campout in Missouri. With just the two of us to care for, life has been much slower. Quieter. Yes, dare I say, easier?

Just yesterday as we were driving to get Max a burger, I asked if he was enjoying the solitude. "Yeah," he replied. "Just think Mom, this could be how life is ALL the time." I smiled at that...Max has always and forever believed he should be an only child. I ruined that, three times over.

I know Max believes in the truth of what he said, but I also know how much he loves his family, even as he denounces us as stupid and annoying. Tucker and Max are as close as any brothers I've ever known. When they're here at the house, they're usually together. They exchange insults on a regular basis, but separately, they admit to the love they feel for one another. It's how family is.

Last night, I had the good fortune to enjoy the company of some wonderful friends, people I respect. The topic turned to parenting and kids, and we pondered the idea that raising kids with strict discipline does not necessarily result in kids who regularly make good choices. Conversely, kids raised with looser discipline don't always head down the wrong path.

I do think there's one measurement for parenting that is consistent across the board, regardless of parenting style: If your kids are never mad at you, you better step back and think about what you're doing.

With four kids between the ages of 8 and 16, I can almost count on the fact that at any given moment, at least one of them thinks I know nothing, am out of it, am mean, abuse of my power...the list goes on. In short, I suck. Knowing that the people I love most in this world feel that way on a semi-regular basis used to make me crazy. It hurt my feelings, made me second-guess my decisions and choices, left me feeling inadequate. But as they got older and began to voice their dissent more often, I came to recognize the phenomenon as one that I was just going to have to live with or change how I parent. And that second option wasn't very realistic.

Not that I'm a perfect parent. God, no. I wish I were, but Mom always told me to wish in one hand and poop in the other and see which filled up fastest. But I listen to my gut, and that intuition is reliable. And, generally speaking, my kids are good people. As one friend put it, I "allow them to be individuals and still give 'em a kick in the ass when they need it." Well said, friend.

I'm not here to be my kids' friend; they have enough of those. I feed those friends. I let them sleep at my house. I counsel some of them when they ask for advice. In short, I live with those friends; I don't want to be one of them. Some days, I don't want to be a parent, either. I'm tired. Or just feel lazy. Or am on the edge of the abyss because I have said, "Would you (fill in the blank)" 821 times already and the request still hasn't been fulfilled. Maybe I have a work deadline I'm struggling to meet. I don't want to cook dinner for myself or anyone else. Really, I just don't wanna do it.

But.

I signed up for this job willingly and without much understanding of what it entails. I took the risk, accepted the challenge. And so I will see it through. And if that means Max is mad because I won't allow him to sleep at a friend's house unless a parent is home and knows Max is supposed to sleep there, too bad. It's my job to know where my kid is, or at the very least, where he isn't.

If being a parent means explaining to Tucker for the 93rd time why I will not let him see that R-rated movie he so badly wants to see and which everyone else has seen, so be it. I'll do it. My teeth will be clenched, my eyebrow may twitch. Saying "yes" would require less effort, and I'd be the hero instead of the enemy. But I will still say "no."

If parenting this particular set of children the way I think they should be parented means Tavia is going to shoot me the 56th dirty look--really, Mom, are you serious?--of the day, then I will be the recipient of the 56th dirty look of the day. She will stomp up the stairs, slam her door, and be mad...until she isn't, which is probably not too long because she wants me to paint her nails, draw with her, toss her the volleyball so she can practice her bumps.

Bella, at 8, is young enough that she still wants to always do the right thing. My requests and restrictions may impose upon her happiness; they may be met with pouts and slumped shoulders to show me she's carrying the weight of the world. But by the day's end, I'm getting kisses and being told she loves me.

I can live with all of this. What I couldn't live with are kids who don't talk to me. Who never share the good and bad of their day, who can't be bothered to hug me goodbye or kiss me goodnight. I can live with the unpleasantness, but not without the good stuff. And I don't think the good stuff is a given; I earn that. How? By caring about where they are and who they're with. I love them with words and actions. The limits I impose act in the same way hugs do; they say "I love you," "you are worth caring about," "I know you're smart, but I'm one step ahead of you."

I'd rather my kids are always happy with me; that would be a slice of heaven. Who needs angels and clouds and everlasting life if you've got kids who understand you're just doing the best you can by them, even if that means not letting them do what they want? But I'm no fool. I know being a parent sometimes means they see me with horns and beady, red pig eyes.

That's cool. I look good in red.