Beach, Music, and Home

Rachel and I drove to Virginia for her biannual Sandbridge Hammered Dulcimer Week. For those outside the HD world, this is the place where a very particular people dispel their excessive enthusiasm for the instrument by playing together 33.2 hours a day times 5.

This is also the place where my red-headed child drags me out of bed in the early mornings for walks on the beach so she can obsessively search for sea glass, interesting shells and half-dead or dead creatures that she carefully carries back to the water hoping to save.

She occasionally makes it back to our room just before supper and plays a song for me on her back up hammered dulcimer in our room. (Because she hauled TWO hds to Virginia and she is not tired of making music).

After one late night jam, she returns to our room, gets ready for bed and in her southern voice says, “I’m gonna spread out like a MAAN. And crack open a BEER.” Then she takes a swig of her “beer” (Coke), swishes it in her mouth and gets choked.

It is a good week. But a long one away from home.

HOME

HOME

HOME

HOME

HOME.

The place where they DON’T water your plants when you are gone.

Doing all the things

Settled in the couch corner with my laptop and working through my to-do list — schedule Rachel’s orthodontist appointment, research a new Spanish curriculum for the girls, order the next violin book for —

“Mama, I just want to snuggle,” Prairie says, plopping down next to me and curling close. She chats about her hair, aerial silks, the dog, her sinus headache…

Back to my list — I search for mattresses which the boys will need for college next month —

“Mama, can you rub my shoulder right here. It hurts.” I move my computer from my lap and turn to dig my fingers deep into Lincoln’s muscle.

Next on my list — pay the credit card —

Rachel settles beside me without a word, waiting for me to look at her. I glance up, knowing I will see her smile, the one that says “I want you to pay attention to me but I don’t want to ask you to pay attention to me.” Her back is conveniently located within my hand’s reach. Just in case I should feel like giving her a scratch.

Soon after, I run up the stairs to change clothes. I have 5 minutes to get ready for a 3 o’clock meeting in town. “Mama,” says Sidney, catching me midway up the stairs, “I have a video to show you. I think it will make you smile.”

I think about my to-do list. I should start every day’s list with “Focused, in-the-moment, attention to each child.”

Lest I forget … while they do need me to be a responsible adult who pays the bills, schedules their dental needs, plan for their education … they need hugs, an attentive ear, massaging fingers, an interested eye, and a scratching hand more. They need all the things that say “Love.”

Or maybe my to-do list can be squashed to one word — mothering.

They know me TOO well

A house full of teenagers is a house that goes to bed later and later, and our mornings were starting later and later.

So this week, I declared that all teens should be in bed by 10 pm, with a book or kindle, no phones Last night, from my bed, I heard doors opening and closing and footsteps in the hallway. Glancing at the clock, I saw that it was 10:20 pm.

Ah-ha, I thought, climbing out of bed and heading toward the kids’ rooms. Seeing a light under the girls’ bedroom door, I knocked and entered with my most terrifying frown. Prairie takes one look at me and rushes, “Mama, you would be proud of us. Rachel and I were downstairs having lots of liberal conversation with the boys until 10 pm.”

My girls having liberal conversation with their brothers? Well, okay then.

I blew the girls kisses and told them goodnight. In bed, I relayed our kids shenanigans to Sid. “They’ve got your number,” he said.

In which I wonder if I am raising responsible adults and who determines that anyway?

A knock breaks the silence of the room in the basement, where I might have chosen to be for its potential to hide me for 30 minutes.

“Yes?” I muffled, refusing to change position, my forehead pressed into the rug.

The 19-year-old walks in. “Just an update to let you know what’s going on in your house,” Sidney says. I concentrate on keeping my shoulders relaxed in child’s pose and breathing deeply. Stay in the yoga flow, peace, mindfulness of the breath. Though I can’t resist a mental eyeroll, a tiny ripple in my river of peace.

“I just electrocuted myself in the mouth a little bit and your phones don’t work, but I’m working on fixing that.”

“How is your mouth feeling?” I dutifully ask.

“It’s alright. It was only about 48 volts.”

I’m glad that I did not lift my head for this.

* * *

Later, I overhear Sidney and Lincoln talking . . .

“You electrocuted yourself?” Lincoln asked.

“Well, it was only 48 volts,” Sidney replied. “You don’t feel that in your fingers, but you really feel it on your tongue.”

Confused, I trip into the conversation, “Wait. How do you happen to feel it on your tongue?”

Sidney grins, “Because I licked it.”

My whole purpose

In a conversation with my 19 year old son today, he told me, “You inspired me . . . ”

And

I did not hear the words that came after

because my brain latched onto those 3 words

I looked at his sisters and brother,

“Will y’all carve that into my gravestone?” I asked

She once inspired her son.

Feeling vaguely pleased with myself

until I realized that I had rudely stopped

hearing my son, interrupted him even.

Chagrinned, “I’m sorry, you were still talking but I was not listening. ”

He said, “I said that you inspired me to get back to work on building that table for my elements collection.”

She once inspired her son to build something.

I just want to lay in this small puddle of contentment,

happy that in this one breath,

I inspired my child to create,

rather than to fracture or tear down.