Ramblings

Free Write Friday: Santa

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All she can think about is David Sedaris’ Santaland Diaries. She heard it on NPR a few years ago and now she wonders if she’s scarring her children by taking them to this place. As a child, though, she longed to see Santa, the fancy department store one: billowing beard, velvet suit, matte boots.

So she takes her children now, clothes them in glittery dresses, in dapper sweaters. The youngest likes fancy “party shoes” so she buys gold flats on clearance at the Nordstrom Rack, presents them to her with a flourish. Unfortunately, the toddler refuses to wear socks, shuns tights. Instead her tiny heels blister, redden with the rubbing of a stiff shoe. By the time she gets to Santa’s lap she has kicked them off, bare feet dangling. Her face clouded by the confusion of curiosity about, and fear of, this large stranger.

The five-year-old has written a letter this year, presents it to the man in the red suit. He wants mom to sidle up, support his entreaty. Head down, he makes his requests in a small voice, so different from his usual chatty nature. He is lately into jewels, into diamonds, into geodes, the shiny treasures of this world. He is lately into big cats, wants to travel to the Serengeti, tells any who will listen his animal factoids. He makes his request, then shuffles away to the safety of mom’s sturdy legs, strong arms and the reward of a sticky candy cane.

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Free Write Friday: Tractor

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We arrive late afternoon, after the youngest wakes from her nap. Pumpkins first, the field is littered with families arranging their littles on orange gourds, with teens snapping selfies before disappearing into the corn maze. It’s the weekend, late in October so the pickings are slim. My five-year-old rushes to a perfectly rounded pumpkin, the appropriate size, just to be shattered when he realizes the rotty blemish on the bottom precludes this particular selection. My eldest squints from the harsh sunlight, peels off her fleece jacket as she rushes across the field in search of less picked over options. When sufficiently satisfied with our selections, we wheelbarrow them back to the entrance, pumpkins flanking the littlest for the ride.

Kettle corn is next, oblong bags hung on an apple cart, ready for sticky consumption. I like the crunch, the mingling of the salty with the sweet as remnants of kernels wedge between my teeth. Little fingers joust for a handful of the popular snack.

We meander to the petting zoo, a miniature horse and stench of pig slop greet us near the barn. My son clambers onto the old tractor, rusty and stationary. He turns the wheel this way and that, bares his teeth in glee. He hops down eagerly when I mention the slide.

They climb the hay bales to the top and glide down, side-by-side, each on a burlap sack. Parents wait at the bottom of the slides,cameras at the ready, crane their necks in anticipation of their child’s turn. A few revolutions and mine are ready to move on to the bouncing blog, an inflated rubber pillow of sorts, embedded in the ground. Children hop and skip across, as if weightless on the moon, as if soaring off a trampoline.

The toddler pleads for the tractor ride, a lumbering pull past the corn maze and the play area. The rest of us acquiesce her request, tiny squeals still ringing in our ears. We sit shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip with other families as they snap pictures, wave to those we pass. My youngest rests her arm on a stranger’s leg to steady herself as the tractor lurches forward. The woman smiles down at her as we make our way back along the dusty lane.

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Free Write Friday: Soccer

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Her cleats are neon pink, a black swoop to give them credence. She hustles onto the field, tackling her girlfriends in a playful gesture. They run drills, found on the internet by the volunteer coach. Games to teach them teamwork, footwork, skills for basic play.

We bring our camp chairs, a bag of snacks, two water bottles to quench their thirst. The littles run on the perimeter, beeline to the playground where they can swing and slide and dig in the sand for a temporary distraction.

I see the girls from afar, their ponytails wagging as they scrimmage, green jerseys tangled up in the fray. They take turns kicking into the net, ball shanked to the left, to the right. Their legs scissor across the grass, some controlled, some gangly, some running to the goal with intention, comfortable in their bodies, aware of where thye’re going and who they want to be.

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Free Write Friday: Girl Scouts

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We met in a Methodist church on a weekday afternoon. Recite the pledge, munch a snack, craft a project. We’d earn badges through field trips, skills, lessons. I was snack helper, clean up helper. We’d rotate through, sit in a circle on the beige carpet. Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver and the other gold.

We took our sleeping bags to overnight camp, sang songs around the campfire. Kumbaya. I didn’t like the bugs, the forest air was foreign to my sheltered suburban self. I liked the novelty of it though.

I never was good at selling cookies. My dad retired young, couldn’t take them to work like the others. Too many other Girl Scouts in my neighborhood, we had to ration out the doors to knock on. Most people were nice enough to the awkward girl in the green vest but I wasn’t animated enough to make more than a pity sale. My mom, like me, an introvert and not wanting to be too pushy, didn’t help my failing cause. I wanted to be forward, learn the marketing skills, but I never did muster the ability to sell.

I remember traveling with my troop to the Peace Arch on the northern U.S. border, admiring a stylish girl with long braids and a green beret, souvenir pins stuck to her vest. What travels she’s made, what friends she’s met! I started collecting pins that day, not to trade but to keep: document the family road trip to Disneyland, the annual summers in Hawaii, the study abroad in France, the Mekong Delta, the crowded dusty streets of India and beyond.

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Free Write Friday: Pay Phone

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We hardly see them anymore, the free standing booth a novelty. A friend’s son once asked, “Mom, why do they say ‘hang up’ the phone?” Well, this is why: the dangling silver cord like a techy serpent, tethered to a bulky handset.

Now we’re all cordless, no need to connect other than with head down, blue screen filtering. Everything is shiny, posed, captured. No hang ups, strings attached, call waiting. All is instant, polished, curated.

I remember anticipating a call at home, phone ringing in the kitchen, my dad answering hello soon after I picked it up in my basement bedroom. “I GOT IT!” reverberating through the house, high pitched preteen voice anxious for privacy.

I remember fumbling with silver coins at the pay phone, flipping through weathered white pages skimming for the right name, pen scratches and coffee stains marking the tissue-like paper.

I remember a friend’s dad’s car phone, brick handset centered between the front seats of their Chevy Suburban. The wonders of a phone call made from a moving vehicle, away from a stationary box without foundation, without directional bounds. It was fancy, magical, very nearly unheard of. I watched in awe as he answered, mid-errand and corresponded, communicated, then moved on about his day.

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Free Write Friday: Swing Set

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The swing set in their their backyard was evergreen, angled legs buried among the smooth stones of a playground’s gravel. Their mother would shoo them out the sliding glass doors, the house couldn’t contain two growing boys and their spirited sister.

She’d scamper down the grassy hill, passing the roses, transplants from their previous rambler in another affluent suburb. That house was too small for their growing family but she remembers the room she shared with her baby brother fondly. The tiny dresser with yellowed fabric, decorative flowers and overlapping plaid; just flashes, fragments of memories.

This new house was bigger, each child their own room, a greenbelt bordering their backyard. She liked to explore among the sticker bushes, pretend to make a meal from the salmon berries that lined the creek each spring.

Two swings hung from the top bar of the modest play set and she usually started here, choosing the one on the left if she beat her brother to it. Skinny legs pumped high, leaning back and letting go at the top of the arc; just the right timing to jump far, ever farther, trying to beat her previous sneakers’ impression in the gravel.

Then she’d move on to the face-to-face glider, tiny backed seats allowed swinging with a friend. They’d hold on to chained ropes on either side, leaning back, leaning forward, mirrored and synchronized.

Eventually they’d grow too big, knees touching. Other activities took precedence as outdoor play receded into childhood. Green paint peeled, rust emerged. Too many years neglected in the damp Northwest air.

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Free Write Friday: Campsite

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I like waking up in the tent, shadows from evergreen trees looming, voices from the adjacent campsite echoing as if through a tunnel, muffled and yet amplified. I took a nap, youngest child restless the night before, waking up in her crib every couple of hours whimpering, unable to articulate what was the matter. I sang to her from just above, hanging over the opening of the the Eurovan pop top, coaxing her back to sleep. “Shhhhhh,” I pleaded, “it’s sleepy time.” She’d suck her tiny thumb dutifully, nestle her chilled toes back under the blanket and fall into a temporary slumber.

We spent the morning on the trail, a 1.2 mile hike to the falls; unambitious I thought, but the way there all uphill elicited whining and necessitated cajoling and stops for snacks of peanut butter sandwiches since I couldn’t find the jelly. We carried the toddler in the hiking backpack, secured by straps, covered by sunshade. The other two discovered perfect walking sticks, treasured for a bit, then tossed aside in search of more appealing finds.

In the evening we ride our bikes around the campground, sampling different loops with unexplored hills and towering trees. Then we settle at the amphitheater for the kids’ ranger program. Khaki-clad speakers with wide brimmed hats talk about native wildlife, the history of the park, admonish about safety and recycling. We dissect owl pellets, we search for huckleberries and signs of animals scampering in the nearby bushes.

After s’mores we sit by the fire crackling. Does it cackle? The flames burst up from the pit, leaping to their destiny, unable to reach their desired height. Instead they are confined, sequestered. I look up to see the black outline of the trees, pine needles fuzzy against the dusky sky, bluing to black. The shadows are spooky and comforting. A paradox of sensibilities.

A gaggle of preteen girls stroll by our campsite, gossiping loudly. My husband remarks, ”That will be M soon.” A troupe, a pod. That’s how she’ll survive, how she’ll thrive or shrink, the passageway to adulthood. For now, this stage, she sleeps silently in the tent as we watch the embers flicker and pop, sip drinks, read books by the rising firelight.

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Free Write Friday: Rocks

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One day, before the cancer resurfaced, before the papery pale skin that transformed her into a childhood memory, she told the young girl that stones with a complete circle were special. She taught her how to search for them along the rocky shore, barnacles and seaweed camouflage carpeting like a mold.

They’d stroll along the Sound, down a woodsy steeped path, down from the musty cabin, faces groundward, searching for the wishing stones. Sometimes a clear white ring signaled upward, demarcated from the the concrete grey base of an oblong rock.

Decades later she teaches her own daughter: look for the one with the ring, the sign of infinity round and round. Hold it in your hand, warm it, keep it. Or return it to the ocean; give it a new life among the rolling waters.

They like to collect the different stones, squat and oblong, granular and smooth. Such varied colors from the surface of the earth. They turn them over in their hands, so different. One small and delicate with a child’s tensile skin; the other spotted, weathered from decades of existence. They each make a wish, the girl tossing into the sea, the woman holding on, relegating her hopes to her pocket.

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Free Write Friday: Fish

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My dad is a fisherman. For decades he wakes predawn, slurps his miso soup under the lone pendant light hanging above the kitchen table. My mom sews mesh pockets into his fishing vest, fashioned for easy portability of his catch as he climbs the steep hill back to our Hawaii home. He says he likes the quiet, the peace, the solitary sunrise. To the fish he is a hunter, to the ocean he is miniscule. He is a witness to simplicity, to grandeur, to the significance, the impermanence of it all.

He regales with stories of almost being swept away: a riptide, an irritated eel, an aggressive ulua he fights to reel in, almost to his own demise. He says if he has to go, this is the way he prefers: swallowed up by vastness, not dust to dust but water to water.

Mom waits for him on the beach, latest novel in hand in the grey dawning light. They leave just as the tourists saunter onto the sand with their bright towels, their sweating coolers, their rented snorkel masks and fins.

We run to him when he arrives home, rinses off his fishing gear and his salt water soaked tabi boots, a type of Japanese shoe with a split toe and rubber sole. He proudly displays his catch as he transitions to the galley kitchen, deftly cleans and fillets the fish, readying it for that day’s dinner.

He settles in the turquoise armchair to prepare his fishing pole and reel for the following day. His clothes dry in the afternoon sun as his lids lower for a siesta.

Most nights Dad pulls out the deep fryer, lowers the breaded morsels into the sizzling oil. We three kids wait impatiently at the kitchen table for him to place a large plate of freshly fried fish next to our bowls of calrose rice, of pickled daikon radish. We complain about having the same meal every night for six summer weeks on end.

Now I crave fish, expect it, miss it when we make a pilgrimage to the Aloha State. I never learned the skill, had the temperment, the patience, the passion for catching fish. Nearly 80, my dad still wakes before the sun, ventures out to commune with, to capture the sea life. My dad, he is a fisherman.

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Free Write Friday: Loose Tooth

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She avoids brushing her teeth, the bottom central incisor hanging on by tender roots, too delicate for her seven-year-old sensibilities. She eats oatmeal and yogurt, asks for Tylenol to dull the constant ache and budding anxiety. “I don’t think I can go to school today,” she announces, brow stern, eyes pained. “My tooth, it just hurts too much.” We convince her, mouth still full of baby teeth yet to be discarded, in order to finish elementary school before adulthood she’ll have to learn to endure.

The first tooth was lost in dramatic fashion on a cross country trail in the middle of Washington’s Methow Valley. Our family paused for a snack of dried mango, parents and three children irritable from a wrong turn, traveling on rented skis much farther than anyone intended. Gnawing on the leathery fruit, our eldest suddenly exclaimed. Her mouth ajar just an inch, thumb and forefinger gripped a tiny nubbin, crimson blood dripping onto the late winter snow. We celebrated and paid her the going rate. Some friends said a dollar, others said two.

Now at home, her second loose tooth dangles and each day is a struggle. She can’t eat this, can’t brush that. I venture a suggestion: maybe Mama could help wiggle it out?

I remember my own dad reaching into my barely open mouth, gripping onto my jiggly tooth; the anticipation, the rush with extraction. My own daughter is crying now, she craves resolution but is loathe to let me complete a task that could cause even momentary agony.

“Use a tissue!” she cries. I defer to her wishes and lay a tissue over her dangling incisor as she backs away from me, eyes wild as if I am a monster from a nightmare that once haunted her slumber. I speak gently, grip firmly, twist slightly and then it’s out.

Her eyes brighten instantly, her mouth widens with an authentic grin. She forgets about the blood, the raw nerves, grabs the tooth from me and rushes downstairs to write a note to the fairy, requesting an exchange for funds. She’s saving up for a unicycle, likes to hand cash to the homeless people holding cardboard signs on the city streets. She bounds down the stairs with her treasure in hand, carefully scribes her request, tucking it under her pillow in anticipation.

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