Birthday celebration

It’s a busy time of the semester, but we all took a break last week to celebrate With-a-Why’s birthday. I made a couple of apple pies, and the older kids stopped on their way home to buy shortcake, strawberries, and whipped cream.

Skater Boy has a birthday two days before With-a-Why so the celebration was for him as well. The candle ceremony would wait until Saturday, but we did what we do for any occasion — talked and ate. Philosophical Boy, who is in his first year of college, had just come home for fall break and we all exclaimed over how long his hair had grown. I sipped hot tea as I listened to the conversations around the kitchen table.

“Hey, remember that pianist you went to hear last year?” Philosophical Boy said.

“Dick Hyman?” asked With-a-Why. He glanced over at Boy in Black, who smirked.

“Yeah, he was at my school,” said Philosophical Boy. He mumbled something about a sextet  -- clarinet, piano, and strings. That last bit of information was too much for Boy in Black.

“A sextet?” he asked. “I mean, seriously? If your name was Dick Hyman wouldn’t you make one person leave to make it a quintet? Or maybe add a person?”

Shaggy Hair Boy laughed and cut himself another piece of pie. I put another log on the fire. First Extra stretched out on the couch, talking to my daughter, who had brought home a laundry basket of dirty clothes. Thinking Girl was talking about the work she had do, while Smiley Girl was nodding in agreement. We all had work we were supposed to be doing.

“And With-a-Why has school tomorrow,” my husband pointed out. But still, it was after midnight before the older kids left and we all went to bed.

With-a-Why, my youngest, is seventeen years old now. And Skater Boy, the kid we’ve known since he used to come up our driveway in a big wheel, is now twenty. It's still hard for me to believe.

Bear cub

The woods in the rain

On our annual trip to the mountains, my father pointed out places he remembered from the 1950s, when he worked at mountain resorts as a musician every summer.  The resorts were always on lakes; every winding road we took led us to yet another beautiful lake.

We stayed Friday night in an old inn owned and operated by a couple who live right next door with their small children. We ate dinner by a window that overlooked the lake, with the sky getting dark as we ate. After dinner, we pulled comfy chair up to the fire that crackled in the old stone fireplace. My father entertained the owners with stories about his days in the mountains as a musician while I found the guestbook and read aloud some of the entries. 

On Saturday, we hiked around a lake where my husband and I camped when our kids were little. “See that island in the middle?” I told my parents. “We canoed out there so the kids could climb up and jump off the rock. That was a very big deal for the kids.”

Each year our pilgrimage includes a stop at Kindergarten Friend’s summer home. Usually, the place is closed so we just walk on the lawn and dock, with me telling stories about the times I visited as a kid, more than forty years ago. This year, we were greeted warmly at the door by Kindergarten Friend, her mother, her husband, her two kids, and three little dogs who yipped and barked at our heels. They’d come up for the weekend.

It was raining outside by then, but the main room has high ceilings and huge windows, so the place was filled with light. “You can see the lake from here,” my father said admiringly. He and my mother hadn’t been inside the vacation home before, so Kindergarten Friend gave them a tour, with me tagging along to point out cool stuff, like the wood carvings she had done on the newel post. We’ve been friends so long that I feel like I can take credit for how creative she is.

We drove home along a road that followed the south shore of a lake. “We used to come here in the middle of the night, after we got off the stand,” my father said. “You’d see whole herds of deer sometimes.” Some of the trees were already bare, but the beech trees glowed orange and gold against the dark green conifers as we followed the winding road, making our way home.

End of the season

The docks are empty. Deer run through the deserted campgrounds. We saw loons on the quiet lake. The cosy mountain inn where we stayed is about to close for the season, opening again in January to host the snowmobiling crowd. The mountain museum closes tomorrow for the winter.

On our annual trip to the mountains, my parents and I drove through orange and gold foliage that shone against green conifers. Everywhere, we saw camps boarded up for the winter, stacks of firewood near year-round homes, and boats pulled up out of the water. Winter is coming.

Water nymph

My friends know by now that I’ve got this blogging tradition: when I go off on trips, I try to return with a naked photo. My readers expect it.

I keep telling my friends that the naked photo tradition is a serious project that leads to in-depth discussions about the body. At academic conferences, the mere mention of naked photos leads to all kinds of feminist critique of the dominant culture. My friends are willing to jump into that conversation, but they can’t resist teasing me about the project. “You have to admit,” one friend said to me frankly. “It’s a little weird.”

They kept reminding me of an unfortunate incident that happened a few years back. We had climbed to the top of a mountain, and three of us posed naked for what I thought would be a lovely silhouette shot. I’d given my camera to Dark Curly Hair because she didn’t want to pose. She snapped a few pictures, we put our clothes back on, and we walked back down the mountain.

Then I looked at the photo.

In the picture, the three of us are standing in yoga poses, dark silhouettes against a blue sky, other mountains in the distance. It was a lovely shot, except for one thing. A single ray of sunshine, like the hand of God, was shining directly on my butt, which glowed almost supernaturally.

My friends thought it was hilarious. I never posted the photo on my blog, but the image is apparently imprinted indelibly in their minds because they’ve never forgotten it. We’ve had many sensitive discussions about body image, but always somehow the conversation always turns to the infamous white butt shot.

“Do you still have the picture? Or did you delete it?” asked Makes Bread.

I’ll never tell.

And I’ve learned my lessons about trying to take group shots of naked women. It’s too difficult. Trying to get a group shot of women who are laughing and joking around, and paying no attention to the photographer – well, it’s worse than trying to take a holiday photo of four kids. They just won’t sit still.

So instead I asked just one friend to pose. She is the oldest of the group, an elder really, so it seemed right. We stepped off a hiking trail that meandered along a stream, and she stripped off her clothes.

“Shake your hair out,” I kept saying. She’s got really long gorgeous hair, part dark and part silver, and I wanted to catch the way the sun glinted off the silky strands. But when we looked at the photos, the unposed shot — the one in which she was undoing her hair as she walked down to the stream — was our favorite.

Quilt Artist as a water nymph.

(Readers who want to know the history of the naked photo tradition can check it out here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and  here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here. )

Telling our stories

During our annual weekend in the mountains, my friends and I are good about giving each other space. Quilt Artist will go out to the deck to write in her journal. Makes Bread will find a chair by the lake and settle into it with a book. Signing Woman will grab her binoculars and look for birds. I’ll go off for a walk with my camera.

But it’s definitely not a silent retreat. Our main activity is talking. Even when we’re hiking to a waterfall, or walking a trail, or stripping down to swim in the lake, we get into the kind of deep conversations you can have with friends who know you well.

Saturday afternoon, Beautiful Hair and I decided to find a patch of sun by the lake where we could relax and talk. As the sun moved, we kept moving our blanket, keeping our bodies in the warmth, knowing that it might be months before we’d once again feel the sun on our skin. Gradually, our friends joined us, the conversation continuing as the shadows deepened, until finally it was time to go indoors for hot bowls of homemade soup and a crackling fire.

Photo taken by Beautiful Hair.

Off to the mountains

Nights are getting cooler and leaves are beginning to look yellow around the edges. It's October. I spent all last weekend grading papers (seriously, I did nothing but grade papers) so this weekend, I deserve something more relaxing. I'm heading to the mountains with a bunch of women friends for our annual retreat.

We're traveling to the beautiful old summer place owned by Signing Woman's family. The lodge has a fireplace, a full kitchen, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake. It's near hiking trails and a labyrinth. Most importantly, it's got the kind of peaceful atmosphere usually found in monasteries and retreat places. I'll be back next week, renewed and refreshed.

Forget about your worries and your strife

Since Shaggy Hair Boy has classes during the day and does his schoolwork in the evening, it’s often fairly late at night when he sits down at the piano. Most nights, I fall asleep to the sound of jazz music reverberating up the stairwell. Since my father and his friends used to jam together when I was a kid, I learned long ago to sleep in the midst of music.

The other night, my husband woke me. “Listen,” he said. “How can you possibly sleep through that?”

I sat up in bed. It did sound like a wild party going on below. But when I listened closely, it was really just two voices, Shaggy Hair Boy and With-a-Why. They’d found a book of Disney music and decided to do some recording. When I walked downstairs to get a glass of water, they were both at the piano. Shaggy Hair Boy’s hands were moving fast and he was laughing while he played.  With-a-Why was standing at his side, his uncombed hair hanging in his face, singing into the microphone.

“They’re having fun,” I said to my husband as I got back into bed. “They’re bonding.”

I fell back to sleep right away — I can sleep through anything — but the next time I woke up, I noticed that my husband was gone. He’s a light sleeper compared to me. The raucous singing and laughter was still coming up the stairwell. I could make out the words from the Jungle Book: “The bare necessities of life!”

This time, I recognized my husband’s voice.

I looked at the clock. It was 3 am. I came down the stairs to sit on the couch and watch the performance. Shaggy Hair Boy’s hands were still moving like crazy, half following the music and half improvising. My husband and With-a-Why both leaned to sing into the microphone, making up words whenever they didn’t know them.

Family bonding in the middle of the night.

The scary Jesus barn

During the roadtrip I took with Artist Friend this summer, we drove through the midwest: lots of flat farm country. When we passed a scary Jesus barn, I insisted he stop so I could take a photo. I'd never seen anything quite like it.

Trapped

I was sitting at my desk this morning, grading papers, when I heard a thumping noise. The sound came from upstairs. I took a bite of chocolate and another sip of hot tea. Then I moved to the next paper. When I’m grading, I try to ignore the sounds of the household. 

The thuds continued. I figured it was probably Boy-in-Black doing his exercises. He’s got this whole routine he does before he takes a shower. When he jumps rope, it’s pretty loud. I graded another paper. Then I heard Boy-in-Black’s voice, yelling from the living room in an exasperated way, “Hey, what the fuck are you doing up there?”

There was no answer from upstairs. But the noise continued, loud bangs as if someone was kicking the wall. I stepped out of my office and looked into the living room. Boy-in-Black was on the couch, doing something on his computer, a laptop that’s bigger than most people’s desktop computers. It looks like something you’d see on a spaceship. Shaggy Hair Boy and Smiley Girl were squeezed together on the red chair; they both looked sleepy.

I went back into my office and graded another paper.

The thumping noise continued. It sounded a bit like someone hammering. I glanced out the window but my husband’s vehicle wasn’t in the driveway, which meant he wasn’t even home. I graded another paper.

It was my daughter who finally went upstairs to see what the thumping noise was. I heard her yell from the top of the stairs. “Hey! With-a-Why is locked in the bathroom!”

What? That got us all up from our chairs.  

We crowded around the locked bathroom door. “Why didn’t you yell something?” I asked through the door.

“I did,” he said. “You must not have heard me. I’ve been banging on the door forever.”

I grabbed a screwdriver to start removing the door handle.

“I can’t believe we all just ignored it,” Shaggy Hair Boy said.

“Why didn’t you use Morse code?” I asked With-a-Why when he finally emerged from the bathroom.. “Why did we bother learning it?”

He looked at me. “Like any of you would have paid attention?”

"The thumps were too rhythmical," said my daughter. "They didn't sound frantic. But then I thought, I wonder why he's kicking the door like that."

“I better I could yell loud enough to make you all come running,” said Shaggy Hair Boy. So we tried it. We locked him in the bathroom and all went back downstairs. Then he let out a high-pitched scream that made it sound like one of the cats had put her claws into his throat. 

Yep. We would have responded to that.