Under Surveillance

From the time my sons were newborn and two, until they were 10 and 12, we lived in a neighborhood where my sons were the only children. Elderly neighbors doted on them. It was not unusual for one of the many 80 year old grandmothers who lived across the street to call me while the children were in the front yard playing.
"Are you getting pictures of this?" they would ask. "Those boys are just adorable. Make sure you get pictures of them making that snowman..." or "playing in the sprinkler," or "riding their tricycles in the driveway..." I never needed to worry about the boys. Several gentle, keen, old eyes were always watching. Their own children and grandchildren lived far away or were simply too old to need oversight. My boys were freckle-faced reminders. They were funnier than afternoon TV, and they were more entertaining than a good book.
When the boys were 10 and 12, we moved to a larger town, into a neighborhood thick with adolescents. It seemed nearly everyone on the street had boys exactly my boys' ages. We needed more eyes to watch them all. Boys were everywhere, running through the unfenced backyards (armed with Nerf guns), wading in the creek (wearing my rain boots), riding their bikes to nowhere and everywhere (helmets dangling from their handlebars instead of on their heads). The boys made it through those years, thanks to an unnamed collective of watchful moms, dads, and neighbors, all eyes on duty.
Today, it is storming outside; and my boys, 14 and 16, have friends over. A dozen teenaged boys are slouched on the old sofas in the downstairs den, taking turns with the Xbox controls. A few are playing cards. Someone's playlist, accompanied by rumbling thunder and drumming raindrops, is the soundtrack of the day. So far, they have eaten their way through several bowls of homemade salsa, two bags of tortilla chips, several dozen Chips Ahoy cookies, a teetering mountain of barbecue sandwiches, and a crockpot full of chili con queso. My trips to the basement, bearing snacks, give me ample opportunity to make sure all is well. I take in the scene as subtly as I can, keeping an eye out for trouble, or danger, or spilled drinks on the carpet.
I think of all the watchful eyes that have looked out for my sons over the years, and I am grateful. I imagine all those eyes, peering from beneath gardening hats, looking through bay windows, watching from back porches and patios, covertly taking it all in as they gather up empty bags of chips and restock the mini fridge with cans of soda. I imagine how the eyes of so many mothers and fathers and teachers and neighbors have tracked my sons' growth and progress, cheered for their accomplishments, monitored their safety, reported their transgressions, overlooked their shortcomings, and silently applauded their good manners.
I remember our neighbors, years ago, watching my boys be boys. "Are you getting pictures of this? Those boys are just adorable." I realize now that their childhoods have played out on a stage much larger than I'd ever imagined, their fan base spanning two neighborhoods, two towns, three schools, and three churches. Their activities, antics, and accidents becoming anecdotes for all the eyes that have watched over them over the years.

Weather Aware Day

The meteorologist,
on the news at noon,
says, "It's a day
to stay
weather aware..."
I watch from the porch.
The sky is bone white
and eerily still,
a clean sheet,
a canvas...
Ducks on the creek bank
tuck their beaks
under their wings.
A crow flies over,
silent for a change.
In the distance,
a lawnmower hums, then stops.
Someone thought better of it.
Leaves on the trees wave,
barely revealing their silver undersides.
The hot air closes like a fist,
as summer teeters
from June to July.

Etsy Envy

Etsy is bad for my self-esteem. I can spend hours marveling at the sheer genius of those crafty people who can turn duct tape and bottle caps into jewelry that does not look as if it is made of duct tape and bottle caps.
"Why didn't I think of that?" I ask myself when I see people cleverly covering mason jars with inverted cupcake wrappers. They claim it keeps bugs out of the sweet tea, and it looks adorable! I have only ever used those little cupcake papers for cupcakes. For Heaven's sakes, who comes up with these fantastic ideas? How do they do it?
For as long as I can remember, I have longed to create something unique that others will want to purchase from me. Growing up on Pear Street, I spent my summers manning lemonade stands; but those long afternoons of squeezing lemons and sloshing the sweet and tangy beverage into Dixie cups did not satisfy my entrepreneurial spirit.
After trying a soft pretzel, drizzled with spicy mustard, at an amusement park, I went straight home and grabbed a bag of crispy Rold Gold pretzel twists out of the cupboard and a plastic squirt bottle of French's mustard out of the fridge. I dragged out the card table and the rusted lawn chair and set up my pretzel and mustard stand. I tried to sell each tiny twist, covered neatly in mustard, for a nickel a pretzel; but no one seemed interested. I ended up sharing the mustard-covered pretzels with my best friend who had agreed to keep me company at the pretzel stand instead of riding bikes. She was a good friend.
Burned by the food business, I ventured into art. My teachers always complimented my drawing, and I took special care to make sure all my projects were neat and creative. Perhaps I could make my fortune drawing those funny caricatures that I had seen artists creating on the spot at little booths in Gatlinburg.
I set up my card table and lawn chair and brought out a tablet of white drawing paper, a nice ink pen, and a Christmas cookie tin filled with crayons and colored pencils.
My first customer was a girl who lived down the street. She agreed to pay a quarter for a caricature of her older brother. I knew her brother well; but I suggested that she go and get him to sit for the portrait anyway. I was nervous and suddenly couldn't remember exactly what he looked like. She said he didn't want to sit still that long; so she brought me his most recent school picture instead. I worked hard on the drawing, biting my lower lip in concentration. The neighbor girl looked over my shoulder the whole time. When I handed the completed caricature to her, she shook her head and held onto her quarter.
"My brother's head is not that big," she complained. I guess she'd never been to Gatlinburg.
"It's supposed to look like that," I told her.
"You made him look like he's got a giant's head and a little body. He's not going to like it."
"Sorry," I said.
I felt defeated; but I did not let my failed caricature stand keep me down for long.
Over the years, I kept trying. In high school, I sketched out hand-lettered birthday banners. I ended up making them for free, though. I felt bad charging anyone who was nice enough to surprise a friend for his or her birthday.
In graduate school, I spent a summer sewing adult rompers from an old pattern I'd found. Even though the adult romper was not really in style, I modeled my creations that summer and actually sold one for $15 to my mother's friend.
One autumn, when my husband and I had been married for only a couple years, I actually convinced him to join me in my craftiness. The two of us repurposed logs as Stumpkins! My husband used the power saw to slice one end of the logs at an angle. We stood the logs on their flat ends, and I painted friendly scarecrow faces on their angled tops. We wrapped flannel scarves under their painted faces and topped the Stumpkins with straw hats. We set the Stumpkins next to our porch stoop and added hand-lettered welcome signs that we painted on wooden slats and wrapped around the Stumpkins with a length of wire. We sold several, stashing away our proceeds to use as extra Christmas money. It was a lot of work, and we eventually ran out of logs.The Stumpkin business was short-lived; but I still remember it as the most successful of my mostly unsuccessful crafting projects.
Oh, Etsy! Where were you when I was a kid trying to make my mark as a caricature artist? Where were you when I tried to single-handedly popularize the hand-sewn, adult jumpsuit? Where were you when I was cranking out those crazy Stumpkins? I was a fan of crafting before crafting had a fan base. When I retire, perhaps I will go back to the drawing board. Maybe then one of my crafty ideas will find its way to Etsy; but until then, I will continue to be amazed by all those crafty geniuses.

Nearsighted

I was eight-years-old when I realized I needed glasses. At the time, I was a cheerleader for my elementary school's biddy-league basketball team. I loved being a member of a team, wearing my pleated skirt and short-sleeved sweater. I loved learning the routines and perfecting my crisp arm movements in front of the full-length mirror in my parents' room. I knew, though, that cheerleading would be a short-lived experience for me. My tumbling was awkward at best, and I was not spunky by nature. The thought of soaring through the air as a "butterfly," the term the high school cheerleaders taught us during cheer clinic, terrified me. I would rather be a "base," my K-Swiss cheer shoes firmly rooted to the gym floor. Bases, though, were strong and confident, tossing and catching the "butterflies" as if the smaller girls were weightless. I trembled when the tiniest girl on the squad climbed on my thigh to put one foot on my shoulder and one foot on the other base's shoulder. The rubbery sole of her sneaker dug into my skin. I didn't like it.
On a February night in 1978, I stood at attention on the far sideline of the elementary school gymnasium. I was waiting for the captain to call out a cheer. I could clearly see the action unfolding in front of me...the referee's striped shirt, the boys' gray jerseys with navy numbers, their high-topped Converse.
I glanced across the gym, toward the bleachers, and I realized that I could not find my parents. I knew they were there, watching the game, waiting for our half-time pom-pom routine; but I couldn't see them. I squinted. I couldn't see anyone. All the faces in the stands were like flesh-colored smudges...like eyeless, feature-less, skin-toned ovals floating above our school colors. I suddenly felt scared. Did the fans look the same to the other cheerleaders? I missed the captain's "Ready? Okay!" and hurried to catch up to the other girls.
After the game, my heart thudding in my ears, I told my mother. The next day, we went to see Dr. Wooten, the ancient, kind optometrist who shuffled around his office in his house slippers. His receptionist, Mallie, went to our church. She was probably only in her 30s; but with her tight perm, huge glasses' frames, and silk blouse with a bow at the collar, she looked permanently middle-aged. She giggled nervously at the end of every sentence; and she had to look over the tops of her own large glasses in order to slip the different frames on my face.
I wanted to cry. None of the glasses looked good. None of them would match my cheer uniform. I would never be able to master the back-handspring now. My glasses would go flying right off my face. None of the other girls had glasses.
My mother explained to me that I should wear the glasses most of the time. She said I could probably take them off when I was reading, since I was nearsighted. She explained that nearsighted meant I could clearly see things close up; but I had difficulty seeing things that were far away...like the faces in the stands. Who needed to see those faces, I wondered. I was happy to see only those things closest to me. I hated glasses.
At school, I put them on only to look at the chalkboard. Otherwise, I kept them stuffed in the little quilted glasses' case that I hid just inside the open cubby in my desk. At night, I prayed I would not go blind from failing to wear my glasses as often as I should.
I squinted my way through the next five years, until I was thirteen; and my mother and Dr. Wooten decided I was old enough to wear contact lenses. The world finally came into focus.

* * *

Years later, during graduate school, I was working part time writing copy for a public relations firm when a colleague and I had a conversation about our nearsightedness.
"I'll never forget when I got my first pair of glasses," he said. He said that he, too, had been eight-years-old when he realized his vision was not 20/20.
"Until that day," he said, remembering, "I never realized that trees had individual leaves. I mean, I knew the trees in my yard had leaves; but the trees we passed on the side of the road always looked like big green blobs to me. I never knew that each tree had hundreds, or even thousands, of leaves. It was amazing to me. I was sitting in the backseat, looking out the window, just fascinated by all those leaves. I kept sliding the glasses down my nose. There were the old, familiar, green, tree blobs. Then I would push the glasses back in place; and there were those beautiful leaves. I never wanted to take the glasses off. I never wanted to miss seeing those leaves again."
His story made me smile. I imagined how happy he had been to see each of those lovely, shimmering leaves. I still remember his story, and how I was embarrassed to admit how vain I'd been...how devastated I was by my own glasses. I wished we had been friends when we were eight-years-old...two little friends who were finally seeing the world for the first time. I could have used a friend like him, a friend who could see things clearly, someone who marveled at the uniqueness of every single leaf.

Just a Notion

In my mind
stories unravel.
It's a messy business,
like a disorganized
sewing basket.
A hodgepodge of loose buttons,
Knotted threads,
A thimble from Gatlinburg,
A needle packet,
One lonely needle still stuck in place
His more adventurous brethren
scattered across the bottom of the basket,
fraternizing with straight pins.
A scrap of Velcro, hook-side only
matted with loose threads...
If only I could straighten it all,
make sense of it,
sew something
for Heaven's sake!
Instead, I sort through it,
frantically looking for
something that makes sense:
a new spool,
a carefully-rolled measuring tape,
a sharp pair of scissors...
hoping beyond hope
that a pattern will emerge.

Bird Mansion

As a teacher and a mom, I am amazed when my sons come home in the last few weeks of school with a brand new project assigned by their teachers. Often, these projects require working with a classmate outside school hours.
We have only 12 days remaining in the school year, state assessment testing begins tomorrow, spring sports are in full bloom (practices, games, tournaments), academic clubs are wrapping up with end-of-the-year parties, and my 16-year-old is knee deep in scrap lumber, power tools, spray paint, and bird seed.
With 12 school days remaining, his environmental science teacher assigned a project that requires my son and his teacher-assigned partner (who does not live in our neighborhood and whom I have yet to meet) to gather materials and work for several hours after school. The project also requires parent oversight and the use of an electric jigsaw.
When I arrived home from the Student Council pizza party and end-of-the-year PTSA meeting yesterday at 8:30 PM, I was stunned to find my husband and son working in the backyard in the glow of the porch light. A long extension cord connected the table saw to the outlet, sawdust was flying, and my husband was measuring plywood while my son consulted the detailed blueprint that he and his (apparently) invisible partner created during class that day.
"What's going on?" I asked.
"We're building a bird fraternity house," my husband explained.
"It's an assignment and a contest," my son said enthusiastically. "The winners get to choose a surprise for the whole class, and the teacher is going to buy it. We're trying to decide between pizza and donuts."
"I have an idea," I suggested. "Let's just go ahead and buy pizza and donuts for the whole class and scale this project down a little."
"No way!" my son said. "We've researched colors that attract birds, and we're making a two-story bird fraternity house. Do you know the Greek letters for BRD?"
"Beta, Rho, Delta?"
"I'll double check," he said.
"Maybe your partner could double check," I suggested.
"He's doing other work," my son assured me. I could not imagine what other work the partner could possibly be doing. Were the partner's parents involved in any way? Were they at home assembling tiny bird-sized furniture? I doubted it.
My son handed me the blueprint...a two story bird mansion, with tiny American flags depicted in the drawing, a roof-top garden for the birds' enjoyment, and a replaceable birdseed ring hanging from a dowel rod.
"Impressive," I said...and hours away from completion, I thought.
"It's gonna win...hands down," my son exclaimed. "Some other team brought in a plastic bottle with a string wrapped around it, and birdseed stuck all over it. Can you believe that?"
I couldn't help wondering if those kids had parents who, like me, were also teachers...teachers who did not assign a large-scale group project when summer break was practically around the corner...teachers who had to drive two different carpools three nights a week and finalize grades and organize academic awards and invite parents to end-of-year conferences and take inventory of classroom materials. Was it wrong of me to wish, for just a fraction of a second, that my self-motivated, over-achieving son would settle for turning in a plastic bottle covered with birdseed?
With a little sigh, I banished the thought.
We would help my son complete the ultimate end-of-the-year bird mansion/fraternity house. We'd accomplished similar feats before...the end-of-the-year eighth grade music video (which required green screen technology), the end-of-the-year food truck marketing project (which included 200 homemade meatballs), and the end-of-the-year social studies soundtrack (which featured songs about desertification).
"The winning birdhouse is going to go out back, behind the high school," my son said, still trying to convince me of the validity of the project.
"Well, in that case," I said, "keep up the good work!" Party on, birds, party on.

Not Good Enough for the Gander

This morning, a gander took a dip in our neighborhood pool. I heard him honking while I was walking the dog; so I stopped and watched him through the slats in the privacy fence. He was making a racket, honking loudly as he paddled around the pre-season murk of the deep end.
No doubt he was complaining about the cloudy water and the slick blobs of green algae splattered around the sides of the under-filled pool. He must not realize that the pool won't be ready for swimmers for three more weeks. We have a great deal of work to do.
Our pool has been in our neighborhood for many years; and while we don't have a swim-up tiki bar, a tube-shaped slide, or a lazy river, we have hours of memorable moments grilling hot dogs under the circus-striped awning and watching everyone's kids learn how to dog paddle.
My husband is assistant maintenance director for the volunteer coordinator of our neighborhood pool. It's a fancy way of saying he spends a great deal of time weed-eating outside the fence around the baby pool and replacing loose boards on the old, weathered, sunbathing deck. He carries a key to the gate and makes sure the brimming trash cans are pulled to the curb on pick-up days. As he chats with friends on the upper deck, he takes pride in the pool's tidy appearance...the little pots of flowers, the pressure-washed chairs, the carefully patched concrete.
My younger son tries to be the first one in the pool on Memorial Day and the last one out of the pool on Labor Day. He definitely logs the most hours there, his skin (in spite of layers of sunscreen) gradually deepens to a toasty brown. He has a group of friends, three boys and a couple of girls, who have made the pool their hangout for the past four summers. They run barefoot on the blistering surface of the adjoining tennis court and play wall ball, following a complicated set of ever-changing rules. They spread their towels on the deck and gather their allowance in order to have Jet's Pizza delivered poolside. Summer stretches ahead of them like a slow motion highlight reel.
Despite his busy schedule, my older son still finds time for the pool. He naps under the shade of a beach umbrella after varsity soccer two-a-days. Sometimes he sits on the edge of the pool with his long legs dangling in the water. He throws a spongy ball again and again to the little kids as they jump off the diving board. He throws the ball right into their hands so they can catch it triumphantly before making a splash.
As for me, I mark the summer hours by page numbers, reading novel after novel through my cheap sunglasses. I arrive early so I can claim my favorite chair. In one hand, I carry a vinyl book bag filled with library books and magazines; and in the other hand, I carry a Tervis tumbler filled with crushed ice and Diet Snapple. For eight weeks, I leave the worrying to the teenaged lifeguards; and I lie on the reclining deck chair with my eyes closed, tapping my flip flops to the background music of the ice cream truck.
"I can't wait for our pool to open," I thought this morning as I stood on the sidewalk, watching the gander shake his long neck in disdain. As the dog and I watched, the grouchy bird lifted off, still squawking his disapproval. I guess our little pool is not good enough for the gander, but it's good enough for us; and in my memories, it's better than good enough. It's perfect.