by bsquared5@aol.com | Aug 13, 2018 | Thoughts
Nine hundred and forty marbles. On the day your child is born, if you fill a jar with 940 marbles, you’d have in your hands the number of weeks between that child’s birth and his 18th birthday. That’s a hefty jar, maybe too heavy to hold with only one hand. All shiny and colorful, they clink against each other when you give the jar a shake. Deceptively small, they represent potential, time, milestones, birthdays.
By her fifth birthday, 260 of them are gone, spent over weeks that pass in a blur of diapers, feedings, Goodnight Moon, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Marbles disappeared from the jar in a haze of sleepless nights, the whir of the humidifier too soft to cover the sound of a croupy cough, frosty Christmas mornings, visits to grandparents, and post-nap cuddles in front of Dora the Explorer.
By 10, over half are missing from the once full jar. Hold it up to the light with one hand, and recall the ER visit for the broken arm, the sports equipment scattered in the foyer, and the too-big teeth in a rakish smile as he grins proudly, having scaled a tree to free a frisbee lodged between the branches. It’s not useful to pile guilt on a young mom, telling her to savor the moments, how she’ll miss all this some day. I believe in intentional parenting, but trying to live each second that way will drive you mad and eliminate all the best moments. Some good lessons come from spontaneity and stumbling your way through. To be honest, there are many bygone moments I don’t miss in the least.
Sometimes, most times, the jar is easy to dismiss. The noise of friends, flurry of school projects, and need to check the calendar constantly are more urgent matters than the number of little spheres in the jar on the desk. It’s a challenge to organize life with a teen, and siblings add to the chaos. There’s a loud chorus of voices and laughter as they raid the refrigerator, bang out tunes on the piano, and toss car keys on the counter as they come and go. By 16, only 108 marbles rattle around in the base of the jar. There are moments, sometimes whole series of them, where with gritted teeth I silently wished a few of the marbles gone, so great is the emotional toll of teenagers wrestling with independence. If they’d had a say, they might have tipped the jar themselves, willing the time to pass quickly, hungering for some imagined life of total freedom and self-sufficiency.
Mostly, as we hurtled through 17 towards 18, a sense of urgency gripped me. As their schedules became their own and we saw them less, I craved their feet on the coffee table, tousled bed heads at breakfast–or lunch. My eyes memorized their features as they did long ago when we rocked in the twilight singing “Baby Mine,” that song from Dumbo that the mama elephant croons. A remake is coming out in a few months, and we saw a preview in the theater recently. “Why are you crying?” my son asked through a mouthful of popcorn. “Don’t you remember this song?” I say. Stricken, I exchange glances with his dad, as he shakes his head. Some memories will belong only to me, made too early, before he started storing his own.
“Mom. What?” In the final weeks of their last summer, they would catch me staring and I’d look away, unable to explain, avoiding their impatience. How could they fathom the pride I felt, my wonder at their confidence, humor, and the fact that no matter how much stubble grew on his face or how smart she looked in a fitted jacket, I would always see them at 3, 8 and 16, their younger faces wavering in and out like holographic images? A curious emotional cauldron bubbled within, a witch’s brew of joy and excitement for their futures, and a deep and marrow-filling sorrow at their departure.
How did we arrive here? The supply seemed endless. Graduation parties, one last family vacation, and, this past week, a final pat on the dog’s head before climbing into the car destined for a new address, a new bed. I palm the last marble from the jar and grip it tightly. So many times when they were toddlers and teens I thought I might go nuts in the chaos and, as they say, lose my marbles. Last week, it turns out, I did just that.
by bsquared5@aol.com | Apr 25, 2018 | Thoughts
I’ve never seen a fat honey bee. This, despite their diet of some of the sweetest stuff out there. Those ladies are going 90 miles an hour round-the-clock, though, so that could have something to do with their trim figures.
As a kid, I ate whatever I could get my hands on in our family of five siblings, which amounted to whatever my mother served, like it or not. She was no short-order cook. On Saturdays, my brother and I had a few hours of cartoons before the house came alive, and I’d make us a breakfast of what I liked to call cinnamon toast. The recipe was easy: toasted bread slathered with butter and a sparse sprinkle of cinnamon, each slice coated with no less than a solid 1/4 cup of sugar. This was a Saturday morning given for months until my older sister discovered our sly concoction and told on us. My non-rotten teeth are begrudgingly grateful to her for the staged intervention.
But it didn’t matter. I was a knobby-kneed skinny kid, all elbows and hip bones. Even my hair was thin and fine, able to hold limitless static electricity but not a single barrette. My father used to pretend he’d lost sight of me in the living room. “There you are! You must have turned sideways and disappeared,” he’d say. “You must have to move around in the shower just to get wet.” Hardy-har-har. “I need an after-dinner toothpick–c’mere, Bon!”
A few(ish) years ago, I slammed into the proverbial metabolism wall called Welcome to Your Forties. After two kids and a love of carbs, my metabolism waved its white flag. Once, a friend’s precocious four-year-old, who’d clearly watched too many drug commercials, saw me take an aspirin and said, “Are those the purple pills? Because you’re not supposed to take the purple ones if you’re nursing or pregnant, and you look like you could be pregnant.” My youngest was six at the time. Years, not months.
For awhile I went to a gym semi-regularly but wound up so sore I could hardly lift my arms to steer the car. Then I threw my back out and decided to love me anyway, extra belt notches and all. I never played sports. I used to dread the annual presidential fitness test in gym class. Sit ups? Arm hang? Running? Ugh. Growing up, I rode horses, which does involve exertion, but truth be told–who’s really doing all the heavy lifting in that sport? The one with two extra legs and a penchant for carrots.
A few years ago we helped chaperone our son’s Spanish trip to Peru, where we visited Machu Picchu. Climbing hundreds of feet into the clouds at high altitude didn’t actually kill me, but there were points in the hike when I thought it might. At the gym, I’d met an amazing lady in her mid 70’s who was a master swimmer in her younger years. She had just hiked Machu Picchu herself, on a three-day climb, so how hard could it be? Pretty darn difficult, it turns out, for a panda-shaped person such as myself. The lithe teens in the group scampered up the trail like minks, while we parents eyed each other in solidarity, wheezing in the thin air.
Just last year we visited our daughter in Florence when she was studying abroad. Being the resident expert, she planned some of our itinerary, which is how we wound up booked to climb 436 steps to the top of the Duomo. “Are our children trying to kill us?” we asked each other. If we were on the African savanna, the lions would have painted bright red targets on our backs as the easy weed-outs.
So this year, just shy of a new decade, I started a new venture. No sugar, caffeine, gluten, or processed foods. It’s like 365 days of Lent. I’m “eating clean.” This begs the question of what “eating dirty” might look like. I have my own ideas about that. 
It isn’t terrible. It’s no “cinnamon toast,” either, but it’s sustainable and I think I can actually keep it up. It comes with a new vocabulary and some forays into new foods. I’ve actually eaten (and liked!) spiraled beets, hummus, hemp hearts, and chia seeds. It started with a detox, where every day began with a cup of hot water, lemon, and a teaspoon of ACV (apple cider vinegar), or what I like to call the vomit of Satan. Couldn’t do it, not even while slamming it and holding my nose. Also, I’m naturally suspicious of ingesting anything that has a “living mother” in it. In the same vein, the only kefir I can tolerate is Jack Bauer from 24. 
Each day the goal is to drink a gallon of water. Do you know how much a gallon of water is? It is approximately this much: 
This means I’m right back to sixteen years ago when I had a toddler in tow and had to stop at EVERY SINGLE public bathroom on my errand route. Sometimes twice. Only now I’ve had two kids and “things” have shifted, so there is no such thing as holding it. Jumpsuits or rompers are never, ever in my future.
Slowly, I started easy workouts at home with my new, fancy yoga mat. Body, mind, spirit, right? Exercise has never been my best friend, or let’s be honest, even a semi-close acquaintance. I will never run a whole or half anything, but to climb the Duomo without paramedics standing by would require practice. I kept at it, progressing nicely, until one day I caught my cat looking at me with an expression both sarcastic and bewildered…
I don’t need that much ridicule in my life. Now I go to a nearby gym that I love. I’ve learned several new words there. For instance, burpees are not what you coax from your infant after a good feeding, apparently. Suicides are not tragic endings (well, except in my case sometimes they are), and plank position is not that weird lying-flat fad from about 10 years ago.
As long as I’m intentional and deliberate, this new path is walk-able. I don’t know why we so fiercely resist doing things that are good for us. We’re like toddlers fighting naps. We’d rather sit and scream and rail using all manner of energy and emotion than just do it already for goodness’ sake. This goes for not just eating better or taking a walk, but also unplugging, reading, making progress towards goals, flossing. Women make this a professional gig, nurturing friends, family, children, even the bagger at the grocery store, leaving crumbs for ourselves. It is not good for us to exist on hurry, excuses, fear, depression, sugar, coffee, and wine. It will not end well.
A good-for-you life is an abundant one, one where we indulge in the good stuff so it overflows like the loaves and fishes. The really good stuff, not the fake, pretend mock-ups. Instead of posing the question “is this (behavior, activity, direction) bad enough I should stop?” ask instead “is this good enough to stay this way?” Lets in a whole different light, doesn’t it?
My conveyor belt at the grocery store yesterday contained spinach, celery, peppers, and blueberries. At the end I hefted a 25 pound bag of sugar onto it, and the cashier raised an eyebrow. “That’s a lot of sugar,” she said. Sheesh. Had she known my nark sister when I was little?
“It’s for feeding the bees,” I replied, “Not me. All the rest of this is for me.”
“Good for you!” she enthused. Yes, yes it is.
by bsquared5@aol.com | Nov 8, 2017 | Thoughts
A friend of mine ends each hectic day by soaking in a hot bath, a time of uninterrupted luxury that I’ve heard of but never actually experienced, like those TV ads for all-inclusive resorts full of super-model couples getting tandem massages. Now that the kids are *mostly* grown, I get my share of uninterrupted time, which admittedly is half the battle in this scenario. But there’s no way I’ll ever experience bubble baths with scented candles and dim lights.
It’s not because we don’t have a tub. When we bought our house 13 years ago, we were impressed by the garden tub in the master bath. It was the first time in our marriage we’d actually been able to share a bathroom, period. Before that, we had cubicle apartments or tiny bathrooms with no counters, and we’d split the difference, mostly with one of us storing our stuff down the hall. When we bought the house, the kids were small. Occasionally they’d get a bath in our big tub, the jets stirring the bubble bath until they’d become buried beneath the suds. By the time the tub got cleared of the foam and their 57 bath toys, I was no longer in the mood for a private soak, and the second I’d start to think about it, some catastrophe on the other side of the door would arise to squelch the impulse.
It was convenient for bathing dogs. Also it was great for scrubbing a child’s muddy feet without having to fully submerge said child. When we had a house full of visitors, we lined it with blankets and let our kids sleep in it. Once, when we had to move our 55-gallon aquarium, it made a superb way-station for buckets of briny rocks and stressed out fish.
I had intentions. The tub surround was laid with expectant candles and nicely rolled towels that would have made a nice neck pillow amid the suds. I readied a good book and some background music and tried to settle in. You know how when you look out the window of an airplane when you’re in a cloud bank and the clouds are so thick and white you can convince yourself they’d surely be able to hold you like a soft billowy pillow? That’s what cats imagine when they see a tub full of magical white bubbles. It is a mind-blowing scientific fact that clouds can’t hold you; you fall right through. Same with bubbles and cats.
Except beneath the bubbles is water, which most cats dislike almost as much as they dislike being forced to wear clothing. Also there is a person, who until the moment of the surprise bubble collapse had been unsuspectingly engrossed in a novel, under the illusion that the next 30 minutes would bring bliss and relaxation instead of splashing and claws scrabbling for purchase on naked flesh like a Kraken had just been released. Candles were extinguished, neck towel lay in a soggy lump at the bottom of the tub, and the pages of the novel were fused together by copious amounts of water. An enthusiastically unhappy cat meowed loudly in humiliation.
After the terror from the deep, our big tub is now neither garden, nor tub. I explain to people that no, the scar I wear is not, in fact, from a Cesarean gone horribly awry. When the young optimistic couples on House Hunters exclaim over the spacious jacuzzi tubs in the “en suite” bathrooms, I see my past self in their starry eyes. But years of reality have set in. The tub has not held actual water or bubble bath in years. It is now, especially in the later months of the year, a repository for future events. Currently, for example, it holds bags of holiday and birthday presents, Christmas crafts, Boy Scout paraphernalia, signage for an upcoming wedding. These are layered, like an archaeological dig, in order of which comes first. Also it houses a giant yellow exercise ball that hasn’t been paroled in several years. I no longer question its existence. It simply glows like a small yellow sun from beneath the stockpile. 
Gone are the dreams of a spa-like serenity in the master bath. They have vanished like bubbles deflated by a flailing cat. A small sign hangs above the tub, a dim beacon of days 
past, when the struggle was real, before I succumbed to the avalanche of futility that is my bathtub. Maybe this is thinking out of the box–or tub. This is what creative types do, isn’t it? It’s trendy to “repurpose” things now. Thrifty and all-American. #chipandjojo
We all have that junk drawer, the place we don’t have time for, the one we’ll get to later. My tub is a magnified junk drawer, the junk drawer you wish you had. It’s a harried attempt at organization in the face of the holiday onslaught and, if we’re being honest, a place I can hide presents at this point in life and not forget about them. What good are stocking stuffers in mid-February?
Maybe someday I’ll reclaim the tub and eventually take that stress-dissolving soak. Maybe when the calendar clears, when the holidays are someone else’s responsibility, and we do away with occasions like birthdays and graduations. By then, I’ll be too old to get in and out of the thing, and I’ll just use it to plant tomatoes. Garden tub, indeed.
by bsquared5@aol.com | Oct 23, 2017 | Thoughts
It didn’t strike all at once. The dinosaur thing was kind of a slow burn; maybe you could call it an awakening. I’m not even all that interested in dinosaurs to be honest. The little I know about them comes from when my little brother was around three, and he cataloged them like an encyclopedia, pronouncing their long stumbly names like a miniature paleontologist. He’d point his small finger at the picture book and methodically state them one by one: stegosaurus, triceratops, ankylosaurus, archaeopteryx. A toddler mouthful.
Fairly recently, I finally gave myself permission to take some risks and dust off interests and talents that I’d tucked away while my children grew. I (like most of America) stumbled upon the Chewbacca Lady. This woman’s infectious laughter over discovering this mask lifted a fog I hadn’t even realized was there. It reminded me that I used to have fun; I used to be fun. When the kids were little, I had game. We’d deliberately go outside in the rain and splash in puddles until we were all covered in mud and our sides hurt from laughing. I’d make up rhyming couplet clues for scavenger hunts all around the house with a surprise at the end. Instead of finger painting, I’d spread an old sheet on the kitchen floor and the kids painted with their feet, making rainbows with their toes.
Before that, I was the friend up for spontaneous shenanigans in college. Water guns, karaoke, hilarious skits and performances. Somewhere in the crush of responsibility and adulting, in the service of respectability or convention or simple emotional exhaustion at curve balls lobbed my way, I’d forgotten. I’d forgotten how it felt to laugh until I couldn’t breathe, to listen to my music even if it wasn’t anybody else’s tune. Silliness and tomfoolery had been shushed.
Scrolling through random videos one day, I saw a giant inflatable T-Rex frolicking on a trampoline, his tiny arms flailing in the air. Something within screamed THIS. This ridiculous silliness looked F.U.N. I announced it to my family: Guys, this is what I want for my birthday. I replayed the video, pointing as T-Rex twisted in the air. For Mother’s Day. For Valentine’s or Easter. I want this get-up. I’m not kidding. My husband and grown children were not amused. I saw their quick glances, which settled the matter once and for all.
Two days later the UPS truck pulled up out front, and I danced to the porch with a grin plastered across my face. Pure glee. Christmas in June. I broke open the box, pulled out the costume and yanked it on.
“Whatcha got there?” My husband approached cautiously, trying to gauge just how far his wife had unhinged.
Once it inflated the dog went wild. Apparently dogs are not evolutionarily equipped to deal with 65-million-year-old reincarnated dinosaurs. This is why I have always been a cat person. A saber-toothed tiger would have pounced and carried me around like a limp mouse, but the dog just cowered under the table. I promptly went outside–with some difficulty, as I was now about 9 feet tall–to stalk the donkeys in our field. Surprisingly, small donkeys do not respond positively to carnivorous predators. Especially ones who laugh uncontrollably while attempting to run.
So began the Year of Rex. Every now and then, when the occasion warranted, Rex appeared: waving a sparkler on July 4, reading dino stories in the children’s section at Barnes & Noble, playing Pokemon Go at the mall, riding a two-seater bike, rock climbing. Rex went everywhere, playing in the fountains at a Florida mall and running from the waves at the beach. He failed miserably at making snow angels. The tiny arms were his fatal flaw.
Turns out a couple of guys have a thing called #trextuesday, and they release a video each week of T-Rexes doing random things. The Rexes even went on a European tour, riding in London cabs. People hardly batted an eye! My own family went to Italy earlier this year and practically made me sign a contract saying I would not let T. stow away in my suitcase. (They are easily embarrassed and clearly need some remedial lessons in how-to-have-fun-and-not-care-what-others-think, but each of us must walk our own path. I can only be a beacon on a hill.)
A few friends and family gave me wary looks at first. They asked, “Should we be worried?” “What’s with the dinosaur?” I casually shrugged. “A mid-life crisis?” “Some weird role playing thing?” Nope, just something to delight in.
On my dad’s last birthday while my mom was still with us, she slipped us five kids cans of Silly String when he wasn’t looking. While he opened presents in the living room, she crept up behind him and gave us the signal. We let loose, neon pink and green foam spraying furiously, coating my father’s head and filling the room with laughter. I can still picture the surprise and disbelief on my father’s face. That was two days after Christmas. She’d just been diagnosed with the cancer that would take her 10 months later.
In the midst of that crushing news, with family all around, that Silly String gave us permission to laugh and remember that–despite it all–life still held delight. Even when–maybe especially when–finances, children, health, relationships refuse to be wrangled, we can choose to find delight, silliness, moments of sparkle.
The Rex has developed quite a following, and it’s sometimes been surprising. I’ve had more than one person kind of take me aside and whisper conspiratorially, “I love your TRex,” like it’s a big secret. Glancing around in case some of their delight is showing. He’s served his purpose in my life, reminding me to fly my flag (and I’m not talking about those unfortunate upper arm flaps that move about on their own). Coincidentally, he last made an appearance around the time of the 2017 total eclipse, so it wouldn’t be the first time his species went extinct because of some wild astronomical event.
My family has made it clear Rex is not under any circumstances allowed to appear at any upcoming graduations or weddings (although, I ask you, who ELSE would have such a memorable ring bearer??). I suppose such lines must be drawn. Maybe it’s time for T to retire. Maybe his ship has sailed, and I’m ok with that.
Look what I saw the other day: a rainbow balloon unicorn. *stifled giggle* Don’t tell my family.
by bsquared5@aol.com | Aug 28, 2017 | Thoughts
An Alabama university town like the one I happen to be in today is all business. Herds of students laden with backpacks schlep to class, earbuds in, dodging traffic at crosswalks. The stadium parking attendant must have been NSA in a past life. No way was I parking there without written permission. My out of state license plate branded me as suspect from the get-go. It’s just a parking space, dude. Chill.
Here, summer is full-force. Summers in the south are not to be trifled with. Without the benefit of months of hard frost, we live side by side with mosquitoes, chiggers, and the insidious no-see-um’s that will unapologetically eat the flesh from your bones while you sit on your front porch. My small son once rode a golf cart through a field for 15 minutes and came back with his entire body peppered with seed ticks so tiny we had to use a flashlight and magnifying glass to see them all. Ever tried to tweeze 200 seed ticks off a hot, cranky, squirming toddler? Good times, is all I’m saying.
Summers in Alabama ain’t playing. Old men cut the grass in long sleeves because the sun isn’t particular about sprinkling melanomas far and wide. They wipe their necks with worn handkerchiefs and wave away the flies while the mower sends up clouds of red dust. In church on Sundays, the ladies wave their paper funeral parlor fans in time with the preacher’s cadence, stirring the stuffy air perfumed with talcum powder and hair spray. From the balcony it looks like a synchronized school of fish, their tails flicking to and fro. Summer Sundays in small-town churches have a funny way of reminding you where you’re ultimately headed–ashes to ashes, dust to dust–and how you most certainly better straighten up and fly right lest you end up anywhere near this hot.
In case you missed it, we had an eclipse last week. We happened to be in the path of totality, which was quite a wonder to behold. The moon blotted out the sun in the middle of the day. Yes, yes, it was a bucket list spectacle, but it wasn’t all noble and educational: people in the south were dancing in the street because for about thirty seconds we had some blessed shade.
As a kid in central Florida, summers were for bare feet and swimsuits, running through the sulfur-smelling sprinklers and drinking from the hose when we got thirsty. Weekends were spent on horseback, calves stuck to our horses’ flanks and hands full of mane. I’d come home with the creases in my wrists, elbows, and knees lined with black dirt, the tang of horse sweat and leather as sweet as the honeysuckle we’d pick to lick nectar from the stem.
At least once, our family would pile into the station wagon and head north to the Gulf Coast, where my grandparents lived before the condos, go-carts, and mini golf outfits modernized everything. We were overheated and irritable, arguing over who had to sit on the hump and who hogged all the scupernongs from the last roadside stand we passed. Round about Gainesville, in a little town called Fort White, we’d start to see piles of inner tubes along the highway and my dad would stop to lash several to the top of the car. It seems God, having made the intolerable summers in the first place, had provided an oasis for weary travelers and sun-scorched southerners. Itchetucknee Springs stays the same cool 70 degrees year-round, its crystal waters a tonic for the parched and perturbed. We lashed our tubes together and rode the current down the river, while a watermelon chilled in the cooler in the car. It made us nicer to each other the remainder of the trip.
Once we reached Panama City, my grandparents endured no extravagances like air conditioning. This is why southern coastal houses had sleeping porches, where you could escape the stifling indoors and retreat to the sticky and humid outside. Summer gardens are in peak production in the south, and my grandmother canned everything that sprouted from the sandy soil. An afternoon of canning peaches, tomatoes, okra, and pickles made the tiny formica kitchen steamy, the heat itself wafting out the screen door trying to find a cool spot. There must have been some old video footage of us lugging jars from the shed to the furnace that was that kitchen. I’m convinced that’s where the ludicrous idea of hot yoga originated.
It’s easy to get all out of sorts in the heat and traffic. I was just in Atlanta rush hour a few days ago, and I’m sure my blood pressure jetted skyward several points. Outrage is the emotion of the year and tempers seem to flare at every real or perceived injustice. We foam at the mouth over politics, co-workers, and uncooperative toddlers or teens. When you add humidity-hair, sunburn, and swollen fingers to the mix, it gets ugly. My phone actually turned itself off because it got too hot the other day. Even the technology is rebelling!
I found an acceptable parking space in a nearby Starbucks, where as it turns out, a reminder appeared. Near her grandmother, a sprite of a little girl sat swinging her legs. She was dressed in a filmy cotton-candy-colored tutu with jeweled Cinderella slippers because that’s what you wear on a Monday in August when you’re four. She giggled and smiled and clack-clacked across the floor in those slippers to fetch a napkin for her grandma, and every head in Starbucks turned to smile at her. She radiated delight.
What would happen if we traded our collective outrage for delight? If despite the heat, traffic, and 1,000 every day annoyances, we found one small thing to delight in? Maybe you don’t need to don a pink tutu, but eat your favorite flavor of popsicle, ride a bike, or belt out a song in your car. Breathe. Come in out of the heat, eat a home-grown tomato and a piece of chess pie and chill.
by bsquared5@aol.com | Jun 13, 2017 | Thoughts
diving practice in the backyard
For a couple of magical years when I was very young, we had a house with a pool in Florida. I remember clear blue water and palm trees. My older sisters practiced diving off the board while I made up mermaid games in the shallow end and my toddler brother tried his hardest to drown. My father spent hours in the summer bobbing along the perimeter, sometimes in a mask and snorkel, scrubbing algae off the concrete sides. The family’s oasis, to him, was a chore-inducing money pit and he couldn’t wait to move.
After we changed addresses, summer in the mid-70’s meant casting our lot with the unwashed masses in the public pool where someone else was responsible for algae patrol. The older sisters still practiced diving, but now they sashayed to the board with groups of friends, laughing and glancing at the lifeguards. They most certainly did not want to entertain younger siblings and made sure to remain in the unapproachable deep end, beyond the dividing rope.
Mermaid games did not go as smoothly when strange kids were doing cannonballs right 
next to you or knocking you in the face with their water wings. Occasionally, my father would let my brother and me stand on his shoulders as a prelude to launching us airborne for a few breathless seconds as we screamed at mom “watch me! watch me!” He lured us into peeking inside his cupped hand to see a caught crab, before squeezing his palms shut and jetting water into our surprised faces. He’d tolerate us clambering on him like baby monkeys, clinging to his back and head, shrieking with laughter and trying to push one another off until one of us got hurt and went crying to mom.
Relaxing poolside did not come naturally to my father, who could not rid himself of the mental to-do list that went undone while time frittered away. He took his work and responsibilities with a seriousness that clung to him even on days off. Which is why the summer of his high dive remains clear as a bell.
My mother must have tired of his nail biting and glancing at the giant clock by the concession stand. She’d managed to finagle all five of us into swimsuits and sunscreen, pack all manner of snacks, shoes, towels, and toys into the station wagon, and park us in chairs strategically located near the restrooms. She was not about to leave early with her tired, hungry brood just because he needed to organize the garage. She must have sent him out to the deep end with exasperation to have some fun for crying out loud so she could read in peace.
Like my sisters, everyone at the pool watched the older boys jump off the high dive, trying to outdo each other with bravado. After a particularly fancy flip or an unfortunate slap of a belly landing, an audible gasp or appreciative “oooh” could be heard from the lounge chairs. This of course only egged them on. My father swam long, smooth laps in the deep end, his thin 6’1 frame cutting a handsome swath through the lane. Not so many years ago he would have been leading similar shenanigans with his friends, grinning at the girls in bikinis as he clowned and performed.
I watched as he pulled himself out of the pool by the metal ladder, made scalding hot by the summer sun. He adjusted his trunks and strolled casually towards the steps of the high dive. He glanced at my mother. Her head was bent over the latest Michener novel and her large dark glasses masked any indication that she was aware of his intent.
The crowd of teenage boys parted like the Red Sea as he approached, some fifteen years their senior. A couple of them snickered behind his back as he started the climb. Some kid kept dunking and retrieving his ball in front of my face until I finally grabbed it and threw it out onto the concrete. I searched for my trio of sisters, who had stopped giggling and stood aghast with their friends, eyes on the high dive.
He’d reached the top. The high dive was no man’s land for me. I was a good swimmer but could not abide the stares and comments from the gaping audience of the public pool. I was skinny and flat-chested and at that awkward stage where my face hadn’t yet caught up with my teeth. The limelight was off limits. I’d never seen my father up there before.
He took his time. The boys waiting at the bottom were all elbows and ribs, flipping their wet hair and breathing hard while my father stood at the edge of the board, his toes barely hanging off. Then he turned around. A back flip? Instead, he walked a few paces towards the ladder, and my heart sank. He’d chickened out and was heading for the exit. More snickers from the youth below.
He stopped and sat, his back to the water, and scooted backwards with his legs straight out in front of him until his backside just brushed the edge of the board. Carefully, he rose, making sure his feet remained stationary. Now he was standing with his back to the water, about halfway between the ladder and the board’s edge. He glanced backwards a few times, straightening and adjusting his feet.
My mother had raised her head. Michener’s pages lay in her lap, the edges soaking up the baby oil she used for tanning.
One of the older boys below grasped the ladder and goaded, “Come on!” Even from that height I could see the smirk on my father’s face as he let himself fall backwards. He landed squarely on his backside, his legs straight and flat on the board. The board dipped with the force of his weight and he tipped backwards off the edge, flipping in a perfect 360-V before hitting the water.
He resurfaced to whoops and cheers from the chairs. A ’10’ for originality! The boys at the foot of the ladder cheered the loudest and he gave them a casual salute while he tread water. They’d been shown up by someone’s dad. Astonished, my mouth hung open. When he ducked under the dividing rope, I latched onto him with the siren song of childhood: do it again, Dad! Do it again!
He shook his head and swam to the side with me hanging off his shoulders. My mother had taken off her glasses and looked at him in that way that I knew meant we would be having an early bedtime after dinner, blaming it on a “long day at the pool.” Already, boys had ascended the ladder and were attempting to copy my father’s feat, arguing with each other over how to do it right. A few of them were talking to my sisters, who were now famous by association.
It wasn’t until years later that I discovered my father’s fear of heights. Why, then, did he climb the ladder that summer? Maybe to prove to himself he could still compete with the young bucks. Maybe to show off for his bride, who couldn’t resist his big wet grin. Whatever his motivation, the result was that we were the family with that guy for the rest of the summer at the public pool. It gave us all a little boost.
And in the eyes of an awkward, shy little girl who wished she could be a mermaid, it proved that superheroes could fly. Or at least do amazing feats off the high dive.
