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September 3, 2003 Peace Places Mouse over pictures to see comments. One of the things I cherish most about my relationship with my family, is the fact that we can talk about anything and everything, safely and with a confidence that we're not going to be misunderstood or blown off, and that the importance of what we're thinking or feeling won't be overlooked by the other family members. Monday was an emotionally full day for Calvin and I. It began with a phone conversation with Michael. We've been having a hard time getting in contact with them over the past few weeks - come to find out we'd re-written their phone number on the whiteboard in the kitchen incorrectly, when we were cleaning it off for a new month. Since it's right next to the phone, we never bothered looking on the phone list inside the pantry door. When the number didn't get through to them, we just assumed they were out of reach, and didn't think to re-check the number. Until I asked Lilly to send it again, and discovered the mistake. So! Monday we finally talked to Michael. And he seemed to us to be in positive spirits, nervous about his impending fatherhood, and very, very far away. Calvin talked to him for five or ten minutes, then handed the phone off to Marie. As Marie was talking to him, I noticed that Calvin seemed rather down. So I asked him what was wrong, and he said that he was hurt that Michael didn't seem to want to stay in closer touch with us, and that there seemed to be a certain distance in their conversation. He knows that's a part of growing up and moving away from one's parents, but he figured that with our family, it'd be different. Especially considering how close we all seemed to be before Michael moved away. I encouraged Calvin to get back on the phone with Michael after Marie was done talking to him, and they talked for close to an hour. When they finally hung up, Calvin seemed to feel a lot better. He'd stated his feelings, and Michael assured him that it was just because he and Lilly were both very busy. He doesn't want any distance between us any more than we do, and that went a long way toward reassuring Calvin that the feelings between us all are as tight as ever. I wanted to talk to Lilly, but Michael said she was sleeping. I was disappointed, but far be it for me to begrudge a pregnant lady her rest! Still, though, the few times I've been able to speak with her voice-to-voice (we e-mail quite a bit), I've really enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to getting to know her better. Is it within every parent who has children that have moved out of state to hope that they move back again some day? Later that evening, Marie was working at the kitchen table on a project for school. It involved writing about certain events and important people in her life, and making a scrapbook memoir with photos. She asked for certain pictures that would be okay to cut up and paste into her book, and that got me looking through the box of pictures stuffed in the closet under the stairs. Calvin and I sat on the couch and looked through vacation photos from a few years ago, and hanging-around-the-house photos, and going-to-the-baseball-game photos, and Christmas lobster photos. Pictures of the four of us all together, which brought the memories right back to the forefront as if they'd only happened yesterday. Lilly, if you're reading, be prepared to sit for a few hours with a mountain of pictures when you guys come out. You've gotta see some of these. Calvin and I talked about what our vision of a "perfect" family relationship would be, with the kids after they're grown. That we'd all live near to each other, and stay in touch without being intrusive into each other's lives. We'd see each other often, and have plenty more opportunities to capture our all-togetherness in pictures. We'd be able to take vacations together and make memories together. We'd be able to have a close, wonderful relationship with our grandchild, and Lilly, and the gentleman (he'd better be!) that Marie eventually chooses to be with. We'd all like each other, just as much as we all do now. One of the things that Calvin mourns the most is the end of the chances to make memories with Michael - which is one of the reasons that we're working so hard to keep making them with Marie, while we still have the chance. It's a hard and unfair reality that we're better able to take vacations and experience things now than we were when Michael was still living with us. Calvin and I were just getting started, then, with each other. Both of us recovering from divorces (which wreak havoc on checking accounts), dumping our energies and finances into making the house into a home for a family, trying to re-gain stability and a foundation for our new lives. Our ability has increased over the past few years to play more, and make more memories, and that just happened to coincide with Michael's growing up and moving away. I hope Michael doesn't resent that. It was just sucky timing and a sucky coincidence. Then Marie cracked out her stack of baby pictures, and Calvin kept exclaiming, "Oh, she was so cute!" "Her hair smelled so good!" "That's one of my favorites." He got more and more melancholy as he flipped through the pictures, and I got the sense that he really adored the kids' childhoods. It's times like that, and feelings like that, that make us really tossed on our decision of whether to have more children or not. We went into the bedroom to get comfy and watch some TV, and a few minutes later Marie knocked, wanting to show us her finished scrapbook. She did an absolutely wonderful job, and I told her that as soon as she gets it graded, she's giving it to me so that I can keep it safe. It's definitely something that Calvin and I will cherish. She wrote about herself and her friends and her personality, and she chose our wedding as the important event in her life that she wanted to write about. She chose the angel box we gave her as a "just because" present as one of her most cherished possessions. But it was what she wrote about Calvin, choosing him as the most important person in her life, that brought tears to our eyes. I wish I had it here to quote verbatim - maybe she'll let me copy it when she gets it back. Or maybe it's too personal to her to share with the whole World Wide Web. Spilling your guts on-line is certainly not for everybody. I will say that her words were evidence that she has exactly the relationship with her father that every dad hopes they have with their daughter. She's a beautiful person, and Calvin's an amazing dad - and those words sound so trite and so non-encompassing. Really, I'm in fits of warm-fuzziness over the both of them. I'm truly blessed to be a part of their lives. And, admittedly, I'm a little sad that I haven't experienced the father-daughter relationship that they have, with my own father. Ah, well, his loss more than mine. I've already got enough love for a hundred people in my life. After Marie went to bed, Calvin and I lay awake talking. We're both scared at how blessed we are, because we really don't feel like we've done anything to deserve it. It's like we're afraid that God or fate or karma or whatever will turn around someday and say, "Oi! What are you doing with those blessings? Give those back..." How is it that things just seem to work out for us, where so many other people are struggling? And, how close are we to struggling, if only one or two things go wrong? Sometimes it all feels so big, and overwhelming. The way Calvin and I feel about each other, if something happens to one of us, how is the other supposed to keep going? It's so hard to go about day-to-day life without having almost paralyzing fear - fear of getting hurt physically or emotionally, fear for the safety of your loved ones, fear of dying, fear of the end, fear of being left behind. Calvin said that the happier he is, the more fear he has. And I completely understand that. I shared with Calvin what I do when that fear becomes almost overwhelming. On those days when I feel like my sanity is a tentative thing, I have what I call my "peace places". Different from a happy place, if you can understand the distinction. A place that calms me down, puts me in a more accepting frame of mind that whatever happens, happens, so we should cherish every day and the opportunities we have to love each other. A mental frame of mind that I can hold within me, that helps me deal with the fear and allow it only its appropriate level in my life - just enough to respect that life is a fragile thing, without making me completely unable to leave the house. I spent a lot of time thinking, as I was growing up in Grandma's household. For an internalizing kind of person, living in the country is the perfect place to nurture that need. I had three places that I would go to, sometimes all of them in one day, where I would think and wonder, and sometimes just sit and be. These places have become my places of peace - if it's quiet enough, I can close my eyes and actually convince myself that when I open them again, I'll find myself there again. One was up in the branches of the poplar tree in the front yard. When I was very little, I couldn't wait until I was tall enough to reach the lowest branches. As I got bigger, I figured out a way to jump and grasp the lowest branch, walk my feet up the trunk, sling one leg over the branch, and pull until I could reach up to the next highest branch and lever myself up. Once in, the branches were spaced such that I could climb easily, almost to the top of the tree. One specific branch was my favorite, spaced in such a way as to conceal me completely, but from which I could see clearly. Sunsets were framed perfectly between the branches and leaves, and I could see the main road a quarter-mile away. I'd watch for Grandma coming home, from that tree. Another peace place was directly under that same tree. The grass at a certain spot underneath it was softer than the grass anywhere else in the yard. It was at the lower part of a little slope in the lawn, and I would lay there for hours, staring up at the branches and leaves and sky, watching the birds come and go, listening to the breezes moving the leaves, slowing my breathing down until it was full and deep. Sometimes my dog would lay next to me, sometimes she'd be wandering around pursuing her nose, occasionally coming back to lick my ear or hand. I could hear the television through the open windows, and as soon as I'd hear the theme song to Magnum P.I. or MacGuyver, Grandma would be calling me to come in so I could watch it with her. The third place I'd go to almost every day, always at dusk. The corner post of the fence in neighbor's field, which was thicker than the posts holding the fence up at its lengths. I'd walk the short distance down the dirt road from Grandma's house, wade a little ways into the field up to the fence, and climb up the first three slats to sit on top of the post. If I sat still long enough, and my dog was elsewhere, the wildlife would stir from their hiding places in the long grass. Plenty of birds and rabbits, moles and field mice scurrying to their holes before the owls came out. Bats skittering across the sky, herons making their ponderous way back to their nests on the pond. I'd sit, and be peaceful, and wait for the mists to rise over the field before jumping back down and heading back home to Grandma. On more evenings than not, we'd take a walk together down the hill, along the dirt road, picking our direction at a whim. The dog would alternate between trotting along just ahead of us, her back end wagging off to the right, or dodging into the fields and woods along the road, chasing after her favorite playmates, the squirrels. Then on the way back home, I'd walk behind Grandma up the hill. Resting my hands on her back, I'd "push" her to help her along, her laughing that distinct Grandma laugh all the way up. Man. I had the best childhood ever. I shared these places with Calvin, and he really understood what I meant when I referred to them as my "peace places". His, he said, were all in his childhood, too. Running back into the kitchen after playing outside, pausing long enough to gulp down a glass of water before charging back out to play with George and Wally. Or the night before Christmas, being in his bed in his mom's house after she tucked him in for the night. But, he said, as safe as he ever felt at that time, he was still scared of the monsters under his bed. And if that isn't analagous of adulthood, I don't know what is. There are always the monsters, but we have a means of defending ourselves from them. You can't be afraid to put your feet over the edge of the bed, for fear that something will grab your ankles. You can't be afraid to live and love, for fear that something will happen to torture your soul. There are so many pictures. This doesn't even scratch the surface. I kept finding more I wanted to include, so I had to make myself stop. Eventually. You'll notice there's more than one page (more than two, even!) to this entry. What, you didn't think I was done with the pictures, did you? Keep going! ...or go to Page 3 ...or go to Page 4 Comments? Head on over to Colloquial!

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©Laura Charon 2000 - 2003.