Immovable Object, Meet Unstoppable Force

Maggie, a student here, is obsessive-compulsive when it comes to her bed. She wants it to be clean. So clean. It must remain clean. Each night, after her shower, she goes right across the hall, changes quickly, and gets in bed before she has the chance to encounter any more dirt.

On Wednesday afternoon, people were coming in and out of the dorm, claiming their children and their children's clothes for the five-day holiday. One student's five-year-old sister, Sara, was running through the halls at this time. Sara has Down Syndrome, and she is the busiest kid I've ever met. She runs and runs. She runs to the edge of the stairs on the girls' hallway, looks around, then goes down the stairs and up to the boys' hall. She's tough to catch up with, and impossible to stop.

Maggie and a few other girls happened to be with me in my kitchen that afternoon, when Maggie's roommate came in, asking in Chinese who the little girl was. We told her, and she said, "She came into our room, looked around, and went to Maggie's bed. She moved all the covers, and left!"

Maggie bolted out of my kitchen to collect her sheets and blanket, and immediately did a load of laundry. Maggie's roommate stayed in the kitchen, looking puzzled. "I don't understand it," she said, "She just came in, went straight to Maggie's bed, then left. It's like she knew."

Ruthie

When I play the two-truths-and-a-lie game, I usually tell people the following:
1. I have 5 stepsisters
2. I have a tattoo
3. I had at least 30 babysitters as a kid

I don't have a tattoo. I have had five stepsisters since age 15, when my mom remarried. And before that, my family quirk was that I had at least 30 different babysitters. Thirty is no uncommon number for single-parent families. My mom worked full time, often nights. That's how it works if you want to support your two kids, and own a little Ford Tempo that you have to get repaired every month, and pay rent, and pay for food, even with the help of food stamps and certain economical cookbooks. Amid the parade of babysitters, some were worse than others. Most were trustworthy. Some were so caught up in themselves, unsure of what to do with two youngsters who fought constantly, that they backed away. I might have, too. Shoot, we were an awful lot of work. My brother and I became pretty adept at being unimpressed with our babysitters. Until Ruthie.

She was a junior in high school and my mom was working daylight hours in the summer of 1994. The first conversation I remember having with Ruthie was about music. I was five years old, and she asked me what kind of music I liked to listen to. What a smart question for a five-year-old. I responded that I didn't like music, "it's all just old men singing together without instruments. It's so boring." My mom has always been a fan of a capella men's choirs. I guess she was listening to that a lot in those days.

"You don't like music because of that? Well, 50% of singers are women, you know. Maybe you just need to listen to more music." I was so impressed with her command of statistics, her ability to counter my conversation instead of leaving me to think something false.

She was special in lots of ways, but that conversation was the first one that I can remember where I felt that my opinion mattered. And if my opinion mattered, I was sort of a grown-up. And if I was sort of a grown-up, I could talk to other grown-ups. And if I could talk to grown-ups, then I could certainly talk to people my own age. A shoot of confidence began to grow in me, from this tiny seed, these small conversations that Ruthie couldn't have any reason to remember.

We walked everywhere. We went to the library, and to the pool. We went to her house and helped her mother in the kitchen, or played badminton in their postage-stamp backyard. She took a general hold over the chores of the house, and what was once so disorderly became livable, a safe and homey place. She was like Mrs. Doubtfire, except younger and cooler... and actually a woman, not just pretending.

One day while she was ironing, she looked out the window, and I noticed that she was cross-eyed. It had never occurred to me before. Then she burnt herself with the iron, exclaiming, "¡Dios bendiga a los niños!" And I learned that she also spoke Spanish, which she had learned from her former stepfather. Every fact about her fascinated me. I wanted to grow up to be just like her.

Ruthie made the summer good. She read The Little Princess out loud to me, then we watched the movie together. She helped Stephen and me get along by engaging us in meaningful discussions. We three sat around the kitchen table and talked about the Great Depression one day. I asked Ruthie why we needed money, why everyone couldn't just give each other what they needed? If we all agreed to it, it would work. She looked at me, and said that was one question she wouldn't answer.

For two summers, Ruthie was our all-in-all. Then she went to college. She still cared about us, still kept up with us. But way leads on to way. And geography is so important. She eventually got married and had a son. Then got divorced, I think.

How do I make this post all come together? Ruthie mattered. As I look back, I see so much of her in how I relate to others. I see a turning point in my life.

Here's to you, Ruthie.

I Rock Your Baby Son to Sleep

When you announced that you would be married instead of going to college, I felt giddy with joy. Not, mostly, for noble reasons: it was putting together a wedding at such a young age; I must have seen a hundred movies with weddings and flowers, and rings, and kisses. Part of me was sad, too: we had planned to be college roommates; we would have made friends and histories that entwined forever.

So what would our lives look like at this distance? Occasional visits, always something shared deep down: separating histories, but a wire that kept our hearts moving in the same direction. Praise God! I have not lost you, friend. And I have gained a whole family of friends because you chose so bravely:

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I rock your baby son to sleep
Slanted light from the hallway
A CD plays a lullaby
Mellow-sweet, a gentle moment.

Suddenly, a pang tells me
how blessed you are among women;
that even to endure a thousand
crying, up-and-down nights,
bottle-or-no-bottle nights,
is worth his trusting, sleepy heart,
his fingers twirling his cropped, blond hair.
He snuggles into my arm and my side.

If I remain single and childless,
tonight I felt I’d miss
half the stars in the sky.

Never one for greed, I hope,
I delight in seeing your faces as
the skies unfold new grandeur before you:
the word “dog,” learning to run,
then the rock-step, snapping fingers,
sharing toys with his new brother.

My Niece

Me: Aida, wanna hear some of my really-boring paper?

Aida: Sure.

Me: K. Just say "stop" when it gets too boring for you, alright?

Aida: I will.

Me: "Both Saul Bellow and Jack Kerouac are writing in the post World War II era--"

Aida: STOP. That was really boring.

____________________________________

Me: Aida, I have a question.

Aida: What?

Me: Is there a story about why your dad calls you "Pickle"?

Aida: Sure.

Me: Is it a secret story?

Aida: No. It's 'cause he loves me.

Machetes, Mission Bamboo, Family

Why was my forearm hurting on Tuesday? Why was my hand cramped? Because I was wielding a machete all Monday. At Joella's family's home, affectionately called The Hideaway, some of her family, Becky and I worked at landscaping. We hacked at weeds and poison ivy, growing in large, jungly ropes up the sides of trees thick and tall. Some of the vines were so hefty that they were suitable for Tarzan-style swinging.

After the larger part of the work for the day was finished, it was decided that some of us should go find bamboo to be assembled into an archway at the end of the lane. The only problem was that no bamboo grew on their property. Normally, this is a blessing, for bamboo is invasive, as Asher pointed out, and Joella, and Zachary... "but the old place has bamboo!" "But we can't just go creeping around there. It's too visible. Plus that'd be weird." "There's some bamboo down the road at the neighbors'!" "Yeah!" "I'll go along if we can sing the 'Mission Impossible' theme!"

And so, Becky, Joella, and I took Snickers bars and the family pick-up down route 441 to a stand of bamboo on the shoulder of the road. We clambered out and hacked away, no doubt to the bewilderment of all passersby. But, I ask you, what would you do if you needed bamboo RIGHT NOW? That's what I thought.

We worked quickly, and I sat in the back of the pick-up with the 12 green stalks, my legs and arms around the bases of the stalks, foliage flying. Joella did not go slowly the half mile down 441, and several times the stalks wrenched almost free of my grasp, and out into the wide world. At the end of the lane, we deposited the bamboo and went flying up to the house to "get into our party clothes" for a picnic with Jo's family.

The Garbers are so sweet. The celebration began in a circle of lawn chairs, with Jared and Sarah, in unintentionally matching shirts, introducing the strangers to the family. Then we ate, and I drank up the atmosphere of family. Joshua, the one-year-old, was all the centerpiece anyone could wish for. He played alone in the middle of this circle, with the occasional family member stopping by to help him play his colored xylophone.

In little time, the circle had divided into three groups: the men, the women, and the youth, with Joshua, of course, on the outer edge of all three of these. I remained a member of the youth group for the purposes of this gathering, for even some of the young married folks found themselves still in the youth group. We told jokes and chatted about the silliest things. Haha, running barefoot...

It made me wonder what my family would do on such an occasion (if, say, we were ever to have one). Would there be outsiders? Would there be awkwardness if we were to so align ourselves in time and space as to be together? Would the men find a common interest? Would the women? Would there be pettiness? Probably not much, pettiness takes a certain level of comfort... I don't know. But I want to find out someday. I miss what I know of my extended family.

Helicopter Season

Jadyn and Luke climb up the ladder and bounce up and down on the trampoline. Jadyn shouts, "I didn't know it was already helicopter season!" "Helicopters!" they join. Luke's big eyes brighten with each bounce.

I hardly know what they are talking about as I try to extricate my ankle from the tiny jaws of the most annoying puggle the good Lord ever allowed man to create. The rat-thing has an uncouth fascination with anything below the knee. His sharp puppy teeth razor through most types of denim, dignity, and shoelaces.

Having distracted the varmint with something slimy and throwable, I finally make it to the trampoline. "Helicopter" seeds cover the jumping mat, freshly fallen from the trees. Helicopter season. We gather them up and throw them in the air and try to catch them with our hands, though our hair does a better job.

This is the first time I have babysat in five years. My favorite part is reading on the big couch with Jadyn and Luke, the youngest of the four children. We make it through The Ugly Duckling, and Why the Sun Was Late. Apparently, it is impossible to sink into the couch the whole way to China. Although, tigers may feed on pineapples, grass, zebras, Jadyns, and hippos.

Hace dos años

Y todavía te recuerdo bien, niño. Viniste a mi lado, habías estado borracho o algo. Me preguntaste, "?me quieres?"
Te dije, "no. No te quiero." Pero esto fue antes de saber que significaba 'te quiero' y como se relataba al frase 'te amo.' Niño, te amo como Cristo me ama. Lo siento que no podía decirte en tu propio idioma. No se donde estas. Pero si estés en la calle todavía, que el Señor te contara de su amor. Es suficiente aun para ti. Y testifica mucho mejor que yo.