Family

I am not the only one who waits at the window for my little friends’ return.

It was hard work. I had to lift heavy pine branches over my head to finish the lean-to, and while I held still to staple the sides of the tee pees, the mosquitoes nearly ate my face off. In fact, one bit me on the left side of my lower lip, and I have been doing dead-on Silvester Stallone impressions all afternoon. Adriaaaaaaan! I wanted to tell them no, because I am old and tired and over-caffeinated. But this was the first weekend after the first week of a new school year, the end of the first week of our new days spent more apart than together. So I said yes instead. Yes, I will play with you. Yes, I like what you do. Yes, I love you.

Our family is going through a time of necessary change. This new season in our lives is exciting, and nerve-wracking, and emotionally exhausting. Some of us are pining away for what was, and some of us are straining toward the new adventure. Some of us find ourselves standing, bewildered and in between, like a transmission half-received.

I’m not so brave as to enter their tangled web. Only they know which threads are sticky and which are not.

“Before beginning a hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it.” – Winnie the Pooh Things here are still brown and gray, so we hearty Northern types have to hunt for Colour in March. We found a marble, played Pooh Sticks, collected rocks, and endured A Perilous Crossing. I think five is my favorite age.

A little one acting not quite right. A pizza lunch at the amphitheater, sheltered from the drizzle. A visit to the library. A confession: a sore throat since morning. A quick ride home. A fever. A bed.

One day, when I was about five years old, my mama found this piano on the side of the road. She recruited friends to haul it back to our falling-down farmhouse, and then just like that, we had a piano. She played it, I played it a little, and when he visited, my crazy Swedish grandfather played it a lot. We were very poor when she found that piano. My father still slept on our downstairs couch because he had nowhere to go after the divorce. We scrounged clothing for free from the Rescue Mission. I had sores in the corners of my mouth from malnutrition. You know, that kind of poor. ...

He will be eighty years old this October but he still mans the grill on Sundays.