We braided each other's hair

View from the deck

From the deck, we looked out over a lawn, a meadow, a forest, and mountains that glittered with snow. The mountains would disappear when clouds moved in, and then appear later in the day when the sun shone.

We cooked together, ate together, and hiked together — nine women from nine different states gathered for a retreat that included some creative writing, an intense discussion, a book of poetry, and about 6 pounds of peanut butter.

My bags are packed

Early tomorrow morning, I'm traveling to a far-away place, where I will meet up with eight wonderful women. We're going to spend the next week together -- hiking, cooking, writing, and talking. There will be dancing. And massages. And naked photos. I promise to return with stories. And some of them might even be true.

Sweet tooth

“I don’t do extractions,” the dentist said to me. “You need to go to an oral surgeon.”

An abscess had formed under one of my wisdom teeth, and I’d been in pain for almost a week, and at that point, I didn’t really care who pulled the damned tooth out. If the dentist had suggested tying a string to the tooth and attaching it to a door handle, I would have agreed.

But I liked the idea of an oral surgeon. An expert. I figured that an oral surgeon would have some kind of high-tech way of removing the problem tooth.

The office was well-lit and sterile, with a whole wall of equipment to my left and a high counter to my right. An assistant in a white lab coat brought out two trays of sterile instruments, discreetly hidden under paper cloth. “You want to be sedated?” asked Oral Surgeon. “Or shall we try this with novocaine?”

I assured him that I wanted to stay awake and watch the procedure. I find medical or dental techniques fascinating. My midwife taught me to do my own urinalysis because I liked figuring out my sugar levels. The aides at the nursing home where my aunt lived used to let me help out when they’d change her catheter. And I got to see all kinds of cool procedures during my husband’s last kidney stone episode. I’m the kind of person who is always curious to see how things work.

The novocaine took affect pretty quickly, and the throbbing pain of the abscess disappeared. It was the best I’d felt in days. Next time I have a toothache, I’m buying some novocaine on the street.

Then the oral surgeon took a pair of pliers and yanked the tooth out. Yep, really. That was the entire procedure.

“Seriously?” I said to him as he was trying to stuff gauze into my mouth. “A pair of pliers? You went to grad school for that?”

He laughed. “See, doing it right makes it look simple. If I’d botched it up, it would have become a complicated procedure.”

“Can I have the tooth?” I asked. I figured I’d show it to the little neighbor children. They were always showing me THEIR teeth.

The nurse shrugged and wrapped it up for me. “Going to put it under your pillow?”

“No, but maybe I’ll take a photo for my blog.”

From the top

Last weekend, my husband and I stayed at a retreat house high above a lake lined with summer cottages, gorgeous old houses, and moored sailboats. At night, we walked along the top of the cliff in the warm summer air and watched the lights below us flicking off as people went to bed.

Noise

Raising four kids has meant spending lots of time in waiting rooms. When my kids were little, I’d come up with ways to entertain them, like sending them searching through the outdated magazines at the dentist’s office on a photo scavenger hunt, or showing them how to spin paper cups on wooden tongue depressors at the doctor’s. I’d take a rubber glove and blow it into a balloon so they we could bat it back and forth. I never remembered to pack toys — heck, in those days I was so sleep-deprived that I was lucky if I remembered where the doctor's office was.

As the kids got older, we’d bring books or journals, and I enjoyed the quiet time in the waiting room. During the years when all my kids were taking music lessons every week, I used those weekly thirty-minute time slots to write. Waiting rooms are terrific places for writing because there are so few distractions. You'd be surprised at how much you can write in 30 minutes when all methods of procrastination have been removed.

Now that three of my kids can drive, I don’t spend much time in waiting rooms any more. Shaggy Hair Boy usually takes With-a-Why to his Friday piano lesson, and all four kids have long since had their braces off. I'm past the stage where I'm always pregnant so I only see the doctor when I break a bone or something. But today, With-a-Why had a dentist appointment, and I packed my laptop to bring with me. I was looking forward to a quiet half hour in the waiting room, an enforced time to write.

But alas, the waiting room, like all good things, had changed. A big, flat-screen television dominated the room. It was turned on, and the volume cranked up. I couldn’t get away from the blaring noise. These floating heads kept talking, talking, talking. It was horrible.  I couldn’t think, no less write.

Writing in a music studio with lovely, classical piano music playing on the other side of a wall is one thing. Trying to write under the loud blare of journalists talking about the oil leak and flashing horrific images is quite another.

Rhapsody in blue

Just the two of us

When my kids were little, they took up most of my time and energy in the summer. We’d go camping, or go swimming at the beach, or go to parks like Pretty Colour Lakes. The living room was always cluttered with toys and kids.

But my kids are mostly adults now. Laptop computers have replaced Lego blocks in the living room. Beautiful Smart Wonderful Daughter is in Bison City for two more months, finishing her Master’s degree. Boy in Black is playing on three different Ultimate teams and doing physics research in his spare time. Shaggy Hair Boy and With-a-Why play Ultimate and spend their leisure time at the piano. We still have a gang of young people hanging out in the living room, especially late at night after everyone has gotten out of work, but they play poker now rather than Pokemon.

Perhaps the biggest change is that my husband and I have planned some summer trips vacations for just the two of us. After years of traveling with four kids — making sure every kid had a duffle bag packed, filling the car with camping gear for six people, and planning a schedule to accommodate kids of different ages and sizes — it feels strange to be making plans for two.

We’re doing that this morning, piling our stuff into bags and packing the car, heading off for a long weekend together. It feels good to roll back the clock 25 years and be able to take off whenever we feel like it, without lining up babysitters or packing diapers or trying to cram way too much stuff into a car that had to also hold six people. I’m looking forward to having long conversations with my husband without being interrupted by crying children or sarcastic teenagers.

But it’s also bittersweet. 

After the storm

On my way home

I spent from 9 am until 4 pm inside a conference room, meeting with colleagues and making plans for the next academic year. My day was productive and the work I did necessary, but as I drove home, I felt like I’d missed the whole day because I’d spent it inside. The weather was sunny and cool, and it would have been perfect for gardening.

Then I remembered that it was Tuesday.

Just a few miles from my house, I turned into a gravel driveway, and drove up past a bunch of silos, then down a hill and around the side of a barn. Another woman was already there, lifting a bin of vegetables into her car. “Do you need anything extra?” Mrs. Farmer asked as I approached.

“Tomatoes,” I said. “I used them all up within three days last week.” I didn’t mention to her that I’d eaten them all myself: no one else in my family got any at all.

My two boxes were already filled with vegetables, but she lifted the lid to add a few more tomatoes. “Which greens do you want?” she asked. “Pick two bunches.” I chose the swiss chard with its bright red/purple lines and the kale with its curly green ruffles. Greens pretty much taste alike to me so I just pick the prettiest ones.

We chatted for a few minutes. It was her birthday: she’s four years older than me. We went to the same high school, just up the road. “This is the first week for beets,” she said. “We’re having some for dinner tonight.”

The two boxes of veggies fit nicely onto the back seat. The car filled with the scent of fresh basil. I waved goodbye and pulled out of the driveway, looking forward to the salad I’d be eating in just a few minutes.