I’ve got a fire blazing at the hearth, a couchful of college students, and a half-dozen laptops in my living room. Boy in Black is doing some kind of internet quiz game by reading aloud the questions while everyone in the room yells out answers. Sailor Boy is stretched out in the red chair with a cat on his lap. Smart Beautiful Wonderful Daughter is reading me aloud a text message from her phone. “Blue-eyed Ultimate Player says he wants to make an apple pie. He's at the store and needs you to tell him what to buy.”
Skater Boy has come home from college with a beard. (A beard! When did he get old enough for a beard?) Film Guy is using my camera to take a picture of a cake that’s got the name of his blog on it. Quick is talking to With-a-Why about chess. First Extra is bragging that he dominated a game of Candy Land. The group of young men at the kitchen table have discovered the crayons and coloring books I keep her for the little neighbor kids. Butters is talking about making pancakes.
The day before Thanksgiving is officially the start of the holiday season, which leads to weeks of eating, talking, and hanging out by the fire. I’d like to describe exciting and exotic traditions but really, talking and eating is mostly what we do.
I’ve introduced the two little neighbor kids to some of my favourite childhood board games: Candy Land and Chutes & Ladders. I love games that involve no skill. You just choose a card or spin the arrow, and move the little figure accordingly. No choices. No stress. It’s all so relaxing.
I’m not the only one who thinks so. Friday night, I left the games out on the kitchen counter. My three sons plus Blue-eyed Ultimate player were all here, lured by the apple pie I’d made for Blue-eyed Ultimate’s birthday. The four young men were just starting a card game when my husband and I went to bed. But in the morning, I found the children’s board games out on the table.
“You were playing Candy Land?” I asked Shaggy Hair Boy.
He looked up from his laptop. “Only once. Mostly, we played Chutes & Ladders. It’s way more fun.”
Piano recitals that take place during daylight hours can be tough on a nocturnal college student. Here's Shaggy Hair Boy, taking a nap while waiting his turn.
It's so rare to see him in anything but flannel pajama pants or sports shorts that I couldn't resist sneaking a photo of him.
Most days, I come home to find Little Biker Boy and Ponytail, the two little neighbor kids, playing with the toys on my front porch. On sunny days during September and October, I’d take a break to sit outside with them, asking about their day, inspecting bruises, and admiring lego block creations. Now that the days are getting colder and the dark comes early, I come home to find them riding up and down the driveway on their bikes, their cheeks red with the cold. When they see me, they run to give me hugs and come inside to color pictures at the kitchen table.
When I bought the coloring books, sketch pads, and crayons, I wondered if the two kids could sit still long enough to color. They’re very active kids, very rough and tumble. They’ve always been mystified by the way members of my household spend their time writing, reading, sketching, working on laptop computers, playing quiet games like chess, or doing schoolwork. They’re puzzled by the lack of television and the fact that we call spending time on the computer “work.”
I’d been a little worried about how the transition to playing indoors would work out, but it turns out the kids love sitting at the kitchen table, drinking milk and eating cookies while they color and talk. “I’m going to use pink today,” Ponytail will say importantly as she settles down at the table. “This one is for you,” Little Biker Boy will say as he begins drawing. He’ll glance over at Boy in Black, sitting on the couch doing research on his computer, and smile. I think the quiet work makes the two kids feel like they fit into the household.
Today, we were talking about the little orange kitten that we found this summer. Film Guy’s brother adopted her in July, and I’d seen a picture of her recently. “She’s gotten bigger,” I told the kids, “And she’s happy.”
“I miss her,” Little Biker Boy said. Ponytail said nothing. She simply put her head down on the table and began crying. That happens sometimes with her: a conversation can trigger overwhelming sadness. She’s a child with deep pockets of sadness. I moved to the red chair by the fireplace so she could sit in my lap and cry as long as she needed to. Little Biker Boy went on coloring. Ponytail sobbed for several minutes, cuddling up to me. Then she stood up, wiped the tears from her face, and went back to her spot at the table.
During a busy week, when I'm on campus all day with a heavy schedule of classes to teach, meetings to attend, and appointments to keep, a glimpse of sky in the morning as I'm getting into my car is the only daylight I get. By the time I drive home at night, it's dark.
For the last three days, I’ve done nothing but read student portfolios.
Okay, maybe that’s an exaggeration. I did other things. I drank some tea. I ate some meals. I took a shower.
I stepped outside to look at the meteor showers. I went to some meetings. I taught some classes. I saw my husband in passing. I drove my youngest son to school.
But mostly, I’ve been focused on getting through the portfolios. I wanted to give them back to students in class tomorrow so they would still have time to make an appointment with me before Thanksgiving if they had questions about their grade. I want to be able to enjoy Thanksgiving break next week with a clear conscience, with no backlog of student papers.
My students are smart and creative – and they’re pretty good writers. I’ve read all kinds of papers in the last 72 hours, mostly focused on environmental issues. I’ve read about wind turbines and photovoltaic cells and biodiesel fuel. They’ve been proposing solutions, ways to save the earth.
Spending every waking minute immersed in student papers leaves me feeling dazed, overwhelmed, and oddly hopeful.
“It kills the flu germs,” explained With-a-Why. He’d been talking to Philosophical Boy about how we should drink hot liquids to prevent ourselves from getting the H1N1 flu.
So that’s what we’ve been doing on these dark November evenings. I build a fire, and we settle down in front of it with books, laptops, and homework papers. Then I put on the tea kettle – cocoa for my husband and the boys, herbal tea for me. I don’t know whether or not all the hot liquid is warding off the flu, but I love the coziness of the ritual.
The cold fall weather makes me crave fall foods: steaming squash soup, squares of cornbread, pie made with tart apples. I’m busy most evenings – reading student papers, working on stuff for class – but already I’m looking forward to the winter break when all the kids will be home and we can just hang out in front of the fire, talking and reading and doing nothing much at all.
With my husband out of town and my college sons at an Ultimate tournament, the house felt quiet this weekend – and uncharacteristically clean. Beautiful Smart Wonderful Daughter was home, so we had many cups of hot tea, along with vegan chocolate cake. Film Guy came to hang out, of course. With-a-Why and Philosophical Boy sat on the floor to play Scrabble and chess: they both have the quiet, intense personalities that lead to long, serious games. My daughter didn’t have much to say about grad school. “All I do is work,” she said. “I'm so busy that when I get to Friday, I think, oh, wow, I've got some free time, maybe I'll take a shower."
Saturday afternoon, I got a text message from Blue-eyed Ultimate Player. “Want to meet my mother?” His mother was in town, and he brought her over to the house for a visit. We sat by the fire and talked: she was just as warm and friendly as her son. He goes to school at Snowstorm University, of course, but their home is hours away, in a town called Sandwich, which is such a cool name that I haven’t even bothered to make up a pseudonym.
The little neighbor kids tested positive for the H1N1 flu this week, but that has not stopped them from coming over. “I’m not contagious any more,” Little Biker Boy will say optimistically as he coughs on me and rubs his fevered head against me to give me a hug. I tend to be resigned about sickness: if it’s going through the community, I’m going to get it. But With-a-Why keeps getting up and disinfecting surfaces in the house every time the kids leave. And he keeps putting up facebook status messages to alert the rest of the family. “Swine Flu kids are grabbing and touching everything in the house.”
Of course, Red-haired Sister should be coming down with the flu any day now. Last week, when she was in town, she took the little neighbor kids out shopping. I think their mother, Woman with Many Tattoos, thought my sister was taking them to the dollar store. Instead, my sister bought them clothes, toys, hats, mittens, winter boots, sneakers, bicycle helmets – pretty much everything they need for the winter months.
“It’s like having a fairy godmother,” Woman with Many Tattoos said to me later. “I wish there were more people in the world like your sister.”
Red-haired Sister is one of the most generous people I know. (And her husband, Tie-dye Brother-in-law, is the same.) If only she could wave her fairy godmother wand and keep those kids safe: I’m sure that’s what she really wishes she could do. But during her visit, she did what was within her powers to do: she’s outfitted them with warm clothes so that they can play safely outdoors during the long winter months ahead.
