Feet Photo for Friday

I remember taking this photo, although I couldn't tell you why. My extended family were all gathered on an island, taking a swim, and I yelled, "Who wants to be in a foot photo?" Within seconds, the rock I was standing on was crowded with family members jostling each other to get a foot into the picture. If I had said, "Who wants to be in a nice smiling photo?" no one would have come. The only way you can ever get people in my family to pose for a photo is to suggest something weird.

I can remember when I lying in bed at night when I was a little kid, and hearing my mother come up the stairs, and realizing that I could recognize that it was her, just from the sound of her footsteps. In the same way, it is easy for me to recognize each foot in this photo. What might look like random feet to anyone else represent ten family members to me. I could even tell you the stories behind each foot -- why that one foot is bandaged or why that other foot is particularly dirty -- although I am not sure I could explain why my mother always wears red nail polish in the summer. I've always mocked her for it, even when I was a little kid.

From the way the feet are positioned, I can even tell you how people are standing -- my daughter leaning on her brother, cousins balanced with their arms around each other, my niece crowding next to her grandmother. I recognize the towels on the rock, and I can tell you which cousins were relaxing there, letting their bodies soak in sunlight after a swim in the cold river while they chatted. And of course, I can also tell the story behind the feet that aren't in the photo: family members who were busy leaping off the cliff into the water, or taking a nap, or lounging on boat with a fishing pole.

That bit of grey rock beneath the feet is as familiar as the feet themselves. Many times over many summers, I have pulled myself from the icy cold river to lie on that rock, my body pressed against the warmth, my face leaning against the rock to warm myself, to feel all that wonderful sunlight the rock had absorbed all day long.

(Okay, I know that Mona and Sergei said that the theme for today was HAND but I didn't have a photo of a hand so I went with feet instead. Hey, when you pick a random body part for the theme, I don't think you can be picky about variations on that theme.)

Classroom Moment

In a post over at The Happy Feminist, she describes a light bulb moment her father had, which reminded me of a discussion in my classroom some years ago.

We were talking about a chapter in a bell hooks' book, a discussion of cultural attitudes towards homosexuality. One student was analyzing historical reasons for homophobia in southern communities -- slave owners wanted their slaves to reproduce -- while another student was analyzing what she thought were the dynamics behind homophobia -- fear and anger.

SmallTownBoy, who seemed visibly disturbed by the discussion, kept interjecting phrases like, "it's just wrong." His reaction seemed so emotional that it made me curious. I wondered if he would have any sort of anecdote or reasoning to back up his vehement opinion.

Finally, SmallTownBoy told us that he had worked at a pizza place over the summer, and that one of the other workers was gay. He paused at that point, clearly ready to give us the important part of the story.

"And he hit on me," he said. He sounded shocked. "This guy wanted to date me. And even after I said no, he kept after me."

He looked at his classmates, clearly expecting sympathy and perhaps horror.

The women and a few of the men in the classroom looked at each other. Some rolled their eyes. Most of the men in the classroom were silent, shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

Finally, a woman sitting behind SmallTownBoy spoke up. "Congratulations," she said. "Now you know what it is like to be a woman."

College begins

My Wonderful Smart Beautiful Daughter is putting up posters in her campus apartment. Efficient and organized, it took her about twenty minutes to unpack. This is her third year in college, and she is looking forward to seeing her friends as they return to campus.

Boy in Black is sitting on the bed in his dorm room, playing his guitar. He is not as efficient and organized as his sister, but he has very little stuff, so he too was unpacked in about twenty minutes. His bed is made with the new black sheets his sister picked out, and his meager wardrobe, which consists almost entirely of black band t-shirts, is hanging in his closet. His roommate hasn't arrived yet, so that side of the room is still blank and empty.

I'm back home, sitting at my desk, thinking about how I too need to organize things for the beginning of the semester. Classes begin Monday. I like the energy of fall, the cold crisp air, and the way it feels to have students back on campus. I am proud of my oldest two kids and excited for them. But still ... it seems strange that they will not be returning to sleep here tonight.

I am grieving.

Transformation

I am shedding. Layers of translucent skin, white and ragged, scrape off as I wriggle my fingers.

Last week, I could barely use my hands, they had so reacted to the delicate toxins of the poison ivy plant. The skin between my fingers swelled up until my hands looked like they belonged in a Harry Potter book, a reaction to a spell or a potion gone wrong. When the itching drove me crazy, I held my hands under hot water. The hot water made the itching even worse, an intense urgency that is borderline erotic, but then when I pulled my hands away from the heat, I could feel the relief, sort of like the chemicals that come after a good cry or sex.

I've read that you should never break the blisters, but when some of them puffed to the size of kidney beans, I considered taking a sterilized needle to them. Of course, I did not have the patience to find the sewing kit or sterilize a needle -- I am not a patient person even when I don't have a weird itching rash all over my body -- so instead I took a thumbtack out of a band poster in the boys' room and popped the blisters with that. Yeah, all the oozing fluid was a bit disgusting, but at least I could close my fingers again.

Poison ivy rash keeps me awake on a hot August night, making me toss and turn and think about all about all the usual demons that come in the dark of the night -- doubts, insecurities, stupid mistakes. It's as if the plant knows how to trigger the fear and sadness trapped just under our skin.

But now, more than a week later, the skin is sloughing off, peeling away. The edges hurt, even after I soften my skin in the shower, and yet, it seems miraculous. All the soreness, the puffiness, the angry red welts have disappeared.

And underneath grows clear new skin, the colour of spring petals, smooth and beautiful.

Twin Towers

The movie theatre was crowded, and yet, it was strangely quiet. No shuffling of feet, no whispers, no munching of popcorn. Just the sounds of breathing. In the dim light, I could see faces, most curiously blank, almost as if the members of the audience were wearing masks to protect themselves. This was not a suspenseful movie: we all knew the ending before it even began. And yet, all around me, people were leaning forward, staring intently, their bodies tense.

Nothing exciting had happened on the screen yet, no action to advance the plot, just lovely scenes of the city on a sunny fall day. Ordinary people heading to work on an ordinary September day. And yet, at the sight of the familiar skyline, a scene hauntingly familiar even though it no longer exists, the way that your childhood home will always be accessible to your brain long after your parents have packed up and moved away, the air in the theater stirred softly as women and men began fumbling for tissues, raising their hands to wipe their faces.

I cannot tell you what I thought about the movie or the choices that the director made. I cannot even analyze the dialogue or offer a feminist critique in the way that usually annoys everyone around me. I cannot separate the movie from the memories.

The woman on the screen paced as she waited for a phone call about her husband, a cop trapped in the rubble. My mother called to say that Urban Sophisticate Sister was alive, still uptown because she hadn't gone to work yet -- but that her husband, a stock trader, was missing. A family gathered around a kitchen table, bracing themselves for bad news. An email chimed in to let me know that a friend's daughter, a dark-haired, hot-tempered young woman pregnant with her first child, had been last seen on the 92nd floor -- and was missing.

The energy that filled the room came from the audience and not the screen. For 129 minutes, people around me were breathing through their remembrances of that day: the waiting to hear, the not knowing, the frustration of jammed phone lines, the realizations that came gradually when names stayed on the Missing list. The most dramatic image in the room, the scene of the towers coming down, the one that played over and over all that long day while we here in Snowstorm region waited desperately to hear from family members and friends who may have been inside that building -- that scene never actually appeared on the screen.

My palms tingled.

I thought of Manhattan Man, the student who left my office in September of 2001 to drive to the city, to report for long hours of searching through rubble. Because he is a skinny guy, the rescue team kept sending him to crawl through tight places, desperately hoping to find some survivors. In one crevice, he and a firefighter spent long minutes retrieving what turned out to be a stuffed animal. His team went crazy trying to find the child that might have been with the toy, wiggling their way into every possible crack. A bigger guy held him by the ankles so he could descend into dark openings. But they never heard a voice or found the child. He wrote later in the journal he kept for me that this single realization changed the search profoundly for him: "There were kids in this building."

The movie ended, and groups of people began rising in the darkness to leave, slowly and quietly, as the credits rolled on the screen. There was none of the usual chatter and laughter, no talk of the movie or arguments about where to go to eat. People walked out into the hall, blinking at the bright light, and towards the exit signs without talking, the way people walk away from a gravesite.

The Answers Meme

Well, I am not sure whether or not this will work as a meme, but I like making up memes so I am going to try it anyhow. I hope this makes up for how bad I am at answering emails. The rules? You have to figure them out yourself.

1. No, I don't live near Bison City. I live near Snowstorm City. SNOWSTORM CITY GETS WAY MORE SNOW THAN BISON CITY. We get more snow than any other city our size in the lower 48. Don't confuse us with Bison City! Sheesh.

2. Yep, pretty much. It's easier than making stuff up.

3. Why does everyone ask that? 45.

4. Because he's a very reserved person. I don't think he wants a starring role on my blog. Besides, this is my space, not his. I think he reads the blog on occasion, but mostly he respects it as my space.

5. Since 1978. We've been married for 22 years.

6. I'm not telling.

7. I never seriously considered moving away. I am lucky that I have a job I love, because I can't imagine relocating for a job. I am rooted here.

8. I don't have one. But everyone thinks I do.

9. Yes. I love that. Often readers will email me with their own stories, often very personal stuff, and it makes me feel honored that they share that kind of thing with me.

10. Oh, yes. I know it's hard to imagine, but I do. I am often tempted to post hate email because it's written so badly, and it would be so much fun to just rip the writers apart in a blog post. But that would be mean. And mainly, I feel sorry for the hate mail writers. I guess I should feel sorry that they are filled with so much hate and anger, but mostly I feel bad that they are such terrible writers. Seriously, we need to do something about education in this country.

11. Yes. About five posts in all. They were really personal, and my blog was getting so much traffic that I felt it was time to take them down.

12. My daughter does. And my mother and my sisters and my nieces. I think the males in the family -- particularly my teenage sons -- are worried that they might see a naked photo of me or something, and be scarred for life. So they don't usually read it.

13. Yep. Two siblings stumbled onto my blog while googling the name of this tiny island we swim on. I didn't give the island a fake name because its name already sounded like a pseudonym, and I figured no one would recognize it. And my daughter and niece found my blog when they used my computer. Anyone who has accidentally come upon a blog post of mine has recognized me immediately. I wasn't making a big effort to hide my blog -- I just hadn't announced it. But everyone in the family knows about it now.

14. Because I'm such a caretaker. It wouldn't be healthy for me.

15. Since September 11, 2001. See, eating lower on the food chain helps reduce poverty. And that can help reduce terrorism because poverty breeds terrorism. Yes, I know it's really a loose connection and mainly just symbolic but I wanted to do something. And it makes more sense than dropping bombs or voting conservative assholes into office.

16. Yeah, that was a result of 9/11 too. Reiki is a healing energy. It seems like we can use all the healing we can get.

17. Well, it's a way of being in solidarity with women in the Middle East. Besides, belly dancing is fun and a great way to keep the abdominal muscles in shape.

18. Roman Catholic. But now I am an eclectic mix of all kinds of beliefs and spiritual practices.

19. Benedictine. I go there on retreat every September and every March.

20. Red.

21. Oh, mostly I am being silly. But it fits with the way I take photos, since I don't particularly like posed pictures -- I like some posed photos but too often they seem fake to me. I think that's why so many people will act goofy when you ask them to pose. I was taking faceless photos long before I started blogging. But I also like that some of my blog entries could be about any family, anywhere .... well, any family with a bunch of kids who do stuff like duct tape small toys to the ceiling fans.

22. I choose pseudonyms that I can remember easily so that my blog will have consistent characters.

23. Of course not. Like if I have a fight with my husband, I am going to talk to some close friends about it. I am not going to write about it on my blog. Well, unless it's funny.

24. Well, people are surprised to find I'm not funny. I mean, sometimes I can write funny, but in real life, I am more like my serious blog posts. Sappy and rambling.

25. Why not?

Brothers

I can remember the first night of With-a-Why's life outside the womb. Not yet even 24 hours old, he was already revealing his identity as the baby from hell who would never sleep. I'd been in labor with him for days (quite literally -- my water had broken nine days earlier), and although I was thrilled with this cute lively baby, I was exhausted and sore. Labor and delivery had been wonderful, but the afterpains that shrink the uterus back down to size get worse with each pregnancy, and this was my fourth full-term birth. And sensitive skin means that my nipples always took a few weeks to toughen up each time I had a new baby.

I hadn't had a good night sleep in more than nine days. In fact, I hadn't had any kind of sleep at all for 24 hours. So I was ready to hand this wide awake baby, cute as he was, off to someone more responsible.

I was at home on our king-sized bed, surrounded by children. Spouse had been cuddling three-year-old Shaggy Hair Boy, and they had both fallen asleep on the quilt on the floor. I hated to wake up Spouse. In his efforts to be supportive of me during labor, he hadn't gotten any sleep either. My eight-year-old daughter, who had spent the day rocking the baby and waiting on me, was asleep on the far side of the bed. I knew she too was exhausted from the excitement of a new baby in the house.

But one person was still wide awake -- our night owl, the kid who never sleeps, six-year-old Boy in Black. He was sitting cross-legged on the bed, dressed in a black t-shirt and shorts, his big brown eyes looking at the baby. He did not look tired in the least.

I handed him the baby. "Here, just hold him, and let him suck on your finger."

Boy in Black nodded solemnly. He and the newborn baby looked at each other, both with that same wide awake stare. The baby still had on that little knit cap that babies sometimes wear the first day to keep up their body heat, and Boy in Black pulled the cap off to kiss his brother's head.

"I like to kiss his head," I heard him say. He put his finger, upside down the way I'd shown him, in the baby's mouth and the baby began sucking vigorously.

"He's six," I thought to myself. "This is probably irresponsible." And then I drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up later, Boy in Black was still caring for the baby, both of them still wide awake. "I like having a baby brudder," Boy in Black kept saying. He sounded surprised.

I nursed the baby, handed him back to his six-year-old brother, and went back to sleep. And that night set the pattern for With-a-Why's life.

We always joke in the household that Boy in Black is the only person that With-a-Why listens to, and that is pretty much true. They've never had a fight, or even a squabble. They both have that same easy-going temperament and rational mindset that they inherited from their Dad. (Their mother, their sister, and their other brother all considerably more emotional.) Although they are six years apart, people always comment on the likeness between them.

Almost twelve years later, With-a-Why still looks up at his older brother with those big wide-awake eyes. Night owls both, they've been staying up ridiculously late all week, playing games, watching episodes of Futurama on the laptop, or playing with legos. They are prepping, I think, for what is going to be a dramatic change.

Boy in Black is going off to college.

His closeness to his siblings is one reason Boy in Black chose to go to Snowstorm University, rather than a more prestigious college. (Well, that and a full scholarship.) So Boy in Black will still be able to come home for a meal now and then, or to say hello, or to snowboard with his siblings. He will be living about nine miles away. With-a-Why will probably go spend the night with him in the dorm at least once this semester, just like he has with his sister, to charm all the college students and have the excitement of buying candy and soda from the vending machines.

My daughter, already a student at Snowstorm University, will be thrilled of course to have her brother on campus. But our household is going to feel a loss, as another child grows up and leaves home. It will be strange to check on my kids before I go to sleep and not find Boy in Black playing his guitar in the living room, or looking through music on the computer. Shaggy Hair is going to miss his company when he stays up late to work on a homework project. Spouse is going to miss the child who is more like him than any of the others. But the most difficult change will be for my youngest child, who bonded with Boy in Black his very first night, and who is going to sorely miss his role model, his buddy, his big brother.



Boy in Black teaching With-a-Why some guitar basics. (The guitar is upside down because With-a-Why plays left-handed.)

Finding his way

Last night before I went to bed, I went in to say good night to the kids. Boy in Black was sitting on the floor with his brand new laptop computer, loading onto it all the important things he might need for college, like every song that Bob Dylan ever recorded and every episode of Futurama. He was fascinated with the GPS (Global Positioning System) that came with the computer. "Look, the computer knows exactly where we are. See the map?"

I find that kind of technology creepy, but Boy in Black loves it.

"Watch, I'll put in an address and it'll tell me how to get there."

He typed in FirstExtra's address, and sure enough, a map to his house popped up on the screen. It's a neighborhood I've known my whole life, but how strange that this computer could provide such precise directions. Of course, I can't imagine what Boy in Black is going to use the GPS for, since he is going to Snowstorm University and he has lived in Snowstorm region his whole life. Perhaps he is planning to hike with the laptop? That seems kind of inconvenient.

As I stared at the map on the screen, that familiar neighborhood, I remembered the first September that Boy in Black was in kindergarten. He'd made a friend right away, and we had invited him over, and we were driving to pick up the new friend. Boy in Black assured me he knew how to get to the friend's house.

He gave me careful directions: "Turn right. Wait a minute at this corner. Turn right." He spoke with such confidence that I didn't question his directions at all, until I noticed that we seemed to be going up and down every street, crisscrossing the neighborhood methodically, stopping at every corner.

"Boy in Black! Are you sure you know where the house is?" I asked. I am terrible at directions myself, but even I could see that the route we were taking was pretty circuitous.

He looked at me, surprised, but with the complete self-assurance of a five-year-old.

"This is the right way," he said, "It's how the school bus goes."

Game over

When Boy in Black chooses an activity, he pursues it passionately. And the rest of the household, his siblings and extras, always follow. This summer his passion has been Ultimate Frisbee.

Neighbors have given the kids permission to play in the huge empty field across the road, a green lawn that is perfect for this sort of game. It seems strange that the neighbors keep the lawn so nicely mown because I've never seen anyone but my own kids use it, but it’s great for the kids to have their own private Ultimate Frisbee field.

Every afternoon, as soon as they get out of work, teenagers begin arriving for the game. They play in the heat, they play in the rain, they play despite the mosquitoes. They gather on the field, and try to match players up fairly to make two even teams, but no matter what they do, it's never completely even. Boy in Black's team almost always wins.

What's funny is that Boy in Black doesn't seem competitive. He's gentle and compassionate, and during a game, he yells encouraging things to people on both teams. He'll give me a compliment if I make a good catch, and he does the same with With-a-Why, who is the youngest and shortest player. I never hear him yelling for people to throw to him. And yet somehow, no matter where the frisbee goes, Boy in Black is there, his tall lanky body appearing out of nowhere, leaping high into the air or diving right onto the ground to make a dramatic catch. It's an exciting game -- filled with running and diving -- but it's a graceful game too, all the players moving and changing directions together like dancers each time the frisbee gets thrown.

Boy in Black prefers to play in bare feet -- and that means everyone plays in barefeet. Luckily, the grass is soft. On rainy nights, everyone comes into the house, soaking wet and muddy, the guys stripping off their clothes to wrap beach towels around their waists. On hot nights, they are red-faced and drenched with sweat. And no matter what the weather, everyone is thirsty, ready to gulp down big glasses of juice or water, ready to devour cut-up slices of watermelon.

I think we've had an Ultimate Frisbee game here every day that we've been home this summer, even during the heat wave. Every person in the household has played, including Spouse, me, and all of our extras. My daughter's friends have been recruited to play, and neighbor kids as well.

But this is the last week of Ultimate Frisbee. Already, the sun is setting earlier each evening, darkness closing in long before the frisbee players have tired. And other changes, inevitably, are creeping in as well. Sweet Funny Extra left for college Monday, the first of Boy in Black's friends to leave. Within the week, other frisbee players will disappear, one by one, leaving for colleges in the northeast. And a week from today, my two oldest children will pile their belongings into the car and move up to campus.

Ultimate Frisbee will be over for the season, at least for this household.

Falling water

I can't take the heat. So on August weekends, I prefer hiking trails that wind along streams, trails that lead to waterfalls and pools of cold water. Just the sound of water beating against rock and sloshing downstream makes me feel cooler. Even though trails that follow gorges tend to be a bit more strenuous -- we are always walking up or down a steep incline -- it's worth the extra sweat to be able to stop to wade in cold clear water or duck our heads into the spraying mist of a waterfall or plunge right into rushing chilly water.

Last weekend, we explored a quiet trail that took us past several waterfalls, with a shallow stream that was perfect for wading. Shaggy Hair Boy looked at the first waterfall carefully before deciding to slide down the rock with all that water. Even just sitting on the rocks near the waterfalls was delightfully cool, and the patches of sun on the flat rock felt great after we were wet.

The kids had started the hike at a fast pace, pulling way ahead of their parents, but soon they stopped to skip stones and play in the water. On a bridge that crossed the stream, the kids began playing a game with Shaggy Hair's sandals -- tossing the sandals upstream and letting them float downstream a little way before performing dramatic rescues. I took some photos, explored one of the waterfalls, and then sat on a rock in the shade with my husband. A lazy August afternoon.



If you look carefully, you can see all four of my children in this photo. Boy in Black is in the black shirt, of course, With-a-Why in the red shirt, Shaggy Hair in the blue shirt, and my Wonderful Smart Beautiful Daughter is sitting in the shadows under the bridge.