Refocus

The plan was to pick up Jeb from school and take him for a little treat. We could find some quiet spot, spread out on the grass, lick popsicles at sunset and enjoy a little mother/son time together.

But when he moves off the four-square court in the school yard and comes to me, there’s a shrug when I ask him if he’s had a good day. “Hmm…kinda.”

At the car, he pulls out the paperwork informing me that he was given a “refocus” in class, my signature requested at the bottom. Essentially, this is a second warning issued by the teacher that he’s close to having more serious consequences as a result of poor classroom behavior. It’s the yield sign, a kind of yellow light, you could say. He sighs, “Second one, ever.”

I’m not sure how to deal with this one. He seems genuinely remorseful, yet, under the circumstances, I question whether my plan for an after school treat is merited now.

Maybe it’s the wrong thing to do but I decide it’s ok if I make a mistake. Let Jeb buy the rainbow-colored popsicle with blue dye number 5 and, keeping it light (hah!), take him to the Japanese cemetery just outside of town.

It’s a quiet hill with scattered tombstones, most made from ancient lava rock and carved with Japanese letters. Moss grows and grass tangles at the bases, while plumeria trees bow at scattered junctures. Just beyond the fence line, the slope leads to the crater, beneath which once spewed hot lava exploding and seeping out to the sea. Today, it is long-past dormant.

I grab a beach towel from the back seat and spread it out between the headstones. Jeb’s lips drip and stain in lego-colored blue.

We’ve been here many times before. Jeb knows the story of this place. I want to keep this visit fresh and attempt an offering of sage wisdom.

“You know, Jeb, each stone you see means there is a human being buried underneath.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“And each one of those human beings was like you and I. They had a life. They laughed, got mad, fell in love, had broken hearts. They had a mother and a father. Had their favorite foods. They wondered about the world…”

“Uh-huh…”

“So they lived their life and then it was over. Now they are somewhere else. But we’re still here, you and I.”

courtesy of Juhana Leinonen

The blond hairs on his forearm are soft in the sunlight. I reach out and touch him. “I still get to touch you, hug you. Hear you breathing. Because we’re still alive, right here, on planet earth…in this life. We’ve got to fully enjoy it. We get to feel love and share it.”

He hears me but doesn’t respond much with words. His eight-year oldness is soon pulled in directions beyond mom. Toward the base of the ironwood tree or the swinging gate. He meanders among the stones.

I sit on the beach towel, my heart beating.

It seems like part of being human is living with some veil of forgetfulness. I hear my profound carpe diem plea to my son as words moving through my mouth. But I’m not sure I really grasp the depth of what they mean.

Am I forever slated to live with breath as an assumption?

As I try to impart to Jeb the sacredness of each moment, I realize that don’t fully get it. Even in the midst of tombstones, there’s some sort of filter that fools me into thinking this existence is forever.

I come here to sit in peace with the dead. Try to refocus. But I only get so far.

 

Seeing Stars

Deep prose stirs and crafts itself in the background of my days, but for now, in the foreground, business is at hand and being handled.

The Bohemian nurses me back to health over the weekend by simply steering the ship while I sleep at length, bonding with Jeb, all the while. In the midst of it all, he takes on the refrigerator defrost project, which does not mean simply piling all of our food into a couple coolers and unplugging the appliance. Each shelf and drawer are removed and the entire unit’s every nook and crease is cleaned to day-of-purchase perfection.

Adding flair to daily chores, as usual, the Bohemian whistles “When the Saints Come Marching In” with casual enjoyment, as he works. Shirtless, sexy, helpful – saintly.

Monday brings the pruning project, where an entire stand of trees are trimmed, a new garden bed mapped and plotted, and three loads of laundry washed.

In addition, the Bohemian follows up on his theory that Jeb has outgrown the bed he’s had since he was two, and coordinates a replacement. By day’s end, the sun setting, I’m helping haul a lightly-used king sized-bed from our neighbor’s house up our stairs. It’s so massive we have trouble cresting the stairwell and I consider giving up. The Bohemian is certain we can bend the mattress just enough to pass through.

My monkey mind has already jumped ahead to the box spring still waiting downstairs. Mid-mattress move, I protest, “If we’re having trouble with the soft mattress, we’ll never get the hard box spring up these stairs. I don’t think this is going to work.”

“It will work,” he assures, tugging the mattress just a bit more up the stairs.

I’m thinking he doesn’t understand my point. I try again. “But the box spring won’t give, and this mattress is only getting through by us bending it. How will we get the box spring up the stairs?”

Ever-patient, “Just push the mattress a bit more. Don’t worry about the box spring.”

Well, of course, the mattress makes it up the stairs with relative ease. And I, embarrassingly, discover that the box spring comes in two light-weight, dimensionally-friendly sections that the Bohemian can, essentially, carry under one arm.

Every crease of the new mattress is vacuumed with care. Jeb gets into the suction work, too, repeating, “This is so huge! It’s like a bed for a king.”

And the Bohemian is smiling, and I’m just shaking my head in awe, and then by night’s end we’re all just sprawled on this huge bed in the dark, trying to put Jeb to sleep but he’s wired. It’s cozy there with the three of us, though there’s still another good three feet of empty space. I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy family sweetness until Jeb pats me kindly and says, “Ok, mom, you can go now.”

Meaning he’s ready for mom to leave so the Bohemian can put him to bed.

It’s a sweet sting. The kind of hit mom’s take daily, and somehow welcome, because they know this is how it’s supposed to go. The weaning, that is.

At our house, we’ve got these charts on the refrigerator (which is now sparkling clean, I might add). There is a chart for each of us. And when we feel an appreciation for one another, we will announce that we are going to add a star to the respective person’s chart.

I’m feeling a lot of gratitude these days. Being constantly surprised, nearly not believing. For now, I don’t want to think about my the disbelief lurking in the shadows. How I fear that somehow I may be getting this all wrong. That this is just some dream I’ll eventually wake up from.

Right now I want to just rest in appreciation. Soak in the wonder.

Wow.

Let myself see stars.

Smoke and Chilis

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

In Sickness and…

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

I’m under the weather
a mother
under cover
resting
and what I’m meaning
is that
there’s a Bohemian in the kitchen
in a bright
Aloha shirt
moving about
and pouring grape juice
(with ice)
for my son

I’m sleeping
mostly
except for this fine moment
with my one eye open
to spy
the soft flutter
of that tropical red print
in motion
by the refrigerator

11 years
he says
he’s had that shirt
long before Hawaii
“It’s been to the Hoover Dam!”

has its tour stopped here?
some permanent (working) vacation
now
in our island kitchen
gracing the sun-kissed shoulders
of the man who’s
closing windows from the rain
scooping tortilla chips
that I know
will be eaten in Jeb’s bed
while the two of them
talk Skylanders
and read books past bedtime

right now
I don’t care about crumbs

for the first time
in seven years
this mother’s resting in bed
and everything
seems quite
taken care of

In A Pickle

Jeb wakes up at 2am three nights in a row.

Sleep is spent with eight-year old elbows in my neck.

But, hey, it’s Friday.

Dill in the garden goes to seed.  I cut a bouquet and bring it inside.

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

In the Cavern

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

away
from the white noise
of hissing waves
wind and sand
the sunning
Saturday tourists
who wonder
and wander

we step
out of the elements
walk slowly
with adjusting pupils
into the darkness
of the cave

it’s here
that sound
is softened
our feet slowed
and the womb
envelops us
in sweet silence

hush
we are in the belly of the mountain now

for a brief
five minutes
there are no more visitors

just quiet
you and I
both silently imagining
what this cave mouth
must have looked like
before a parking lot
with cars
in primary colors
were the view

when this opening of light
was all
just brightness
to a wild world
the cave
a shelter
of noiseless
muted
peace

Every Day Is Love Day

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

The Winds of Monday…

…bury the weekend.

Here’s to working with the elements!

Jessica Dofflemyer ~ all rights reserved

Unflappable

It keeps coming into my mind. This odd word, with unknown origin. A term I rarely use.

And now I’m beginning to think that I do not possess its quality in the least.

It’s the daily challenges that seem to get me most. That post-work hour when dinner hasn’t been prepared, Jeb’s homework has not been done, the sun is going down and everyone at home is tired and hungry.

It’s right about this prime time when cranky is most likely to crack me that I find the Bohemian exuding utter calm. And not in some self-righteous way. Not in some laze-about “what?-just-chill-out” way that would send him relaxing on the couch while I’m still wrestling pasta on the stove.

No, it’s in this whistle-while-you-work way, that usually has him humming at the sink, washing dishes or tidying the house. Between domestic chores, he’ll peek over at me in all my fluster and smile – some sort of subtle SOS flagging me to bring it down a notch. In one soft look he’ll remind me that nothing is such a big deal – even 27 Reading Mastery sentences due tomorrow.

Good god. I’ve been seen. And now the truth is out:  I am so far from perfect.

As he skims about the house on some sort of tranquil cloud, the word just blinks in my mind like a flashing roadside sign. It makes me want to slow my 90 mph speed, park my sports car and ponder.

Unflappable.

It seems impossible to make this man flap.

Where I, on the other hand, seem to be like some tarp unleashed, flailing in gale-force winds, tethered only by one corner about to spiral off into a storm of Oz proportions. In the mellow reflection of my beloved, I am realizing a truth about myself I did not see before: I am, quite certainly, flappable.

courtesy of Mark Heathcote

Oh, I can get the job done. That pasta on the stove will be reckoned with and served. We’ll get that Reading Mastery completed. I’ll even cross a few more items off of my to-do list and probably get some laundry folded (ok, maybe not yet put away). But am I doing it with grace and ease?

Once in a while I’ll hit a magic stride, though usually the winds have died down to a breeze my tarp can handle. Give me extreme crisis and I find myself tapped into some sort of emergency calm.

But the daily demands…they still seem to flap me.

And the Bohemian, well, he’ll just be whistling Jingle Bells (I kid you not), sweeping the floor and smiling.

Unflappable.

More Than A Blender

it started when I agreed
to see him one more time

and then another
and another
and for weeks
upon each of our goodbyes
I really didn’t know
if I would ever
see that Bohemian again

it was a milestone
when I bought him that purple toothbrush
the one to keep at my place
and then
eventually
I scooted
gave him half a drawer
which slowly morphed
to two

it was effortless
how space was made
and filled
now men’s shirts
hang neatly next to blouses
and we practice
saying ‘our house’
through silly smiles

but appliances
now that’s big stuff
and when the blender
and the food processor
both broke in one day
we took it as a fated sign
which lead us
to our first joint purchase

now we’re steaming soups
making sorbet
creating concoctions
in the Vitamix
the appliance
that’s, oh so much more
than a blender