what happens when you no longer wish for something

July 5, 2020

Like most couples, my husband and I want to have friends.  Not just individual friends, but couple friends, or family friends.  Years ago I realized that making new couple friends or family friends was like dating.  (Maybe making friends is, too?)  But it's more complicated because it's not just about two people; it's about at least four, and perhaps more, if you count in children.

When our oldest was born, we became friends with a couple from our birthing class.  The mom and I hung out at least weekly with our new sons.  The four of us got together maybe monthly on the weekends.  She made me one of the best chocolate cakes I'd ever had for my birthday one year (I think she put beets in it!).  She and I talked easily, laughing, sharing stories, trading ideas on babies.  But her annoyance with our one-year-old and her criticism of my husband made me reserved over time, then protective, then distant.  They cancelled plans last minute, we felt annoyed.  Time passed.  Other things happened, too, things out of any of our control, but what I remember is that I felt protective of my little guy and, even if I was frustrated with my husband who remain unemployed for a long time, I felt protective of him, too.  I could never totally relax.

The friendship passed.

I think of this family -- Emily and Ben and Ethan -- because we enjoyed each other for a long while.  We were young families and we went to the beach and spent Mother's Day picnicking at the Arnold Arboretum.  We sat at playgrounds and shared meals.

It was a lifetime ago, a sweet time when I was working only some afternoons each week and spent my days with our two kids.

-----------------------------------------------

There have been other friends, too, friends that we hang out with sometimes, but not a couple or family that we spend lots of time with, everyone in our family excited by the gathering.  This has bothered my husband more than me.  I have my girlfriends, I have people I like to see in our neighborhood, at the kids' school, at work.  I enjoy neighborhood gatherings with couples and families I like.  I tend to trust that friendships happen and grow when the timing is right.

-----------------------------------------------

My husband and I separated a month ago.

Yesterday was July 4.

Neighbors -- a family of five -- who took three of our (four) kids on vacation last week (camping turned into rain plan of renting air b and b) came over for a cookout.  This was low pressure.  We like to host and have friends and neighbors over -- a caroling party and potluck at Christmas; an Easter egg hunt and dessert; birthdays; First Communions.  But in our separated state, I felt awkward having folks over.  We invited this one family because the kids are best friends and we're all here and we also wanted to thank them for taking care of our kids last week.  I did not have high hopes -- we talk with this couple regularly, easily, or play Ultimate Frisbee in the street or help the kids navigate squabbles.  And we four adults like each other and find plenty to talk about, but it's not connection after connection or laugh after laugh.

----------------------------------------------

But there we were, six kids inside, the youngest outside with us, we four adults eating, talking about corona and older parents and the local CSA farm.  It was so easy, so comfortable.  And I was aware that this was nice, really nice, relaxed, comfortable, interesting, engaging...without trying to find any of these...was this what we'd been looking for?  is this what we wished for and now could see as we were losing our own relationship?  was letting go of us as a team as a couple somehow making hanging out with this couple work?  They hadn't changed.  Had we?  or was it just me, feeling connected to this couple because I wasn't worrying about whether my husband was happy or talking enough or having a good enough time?  I was just being.

--------------------------------------------

I did dishes in the kitchen and listened to Shawn Colvin.  The mom came in, offered to help, but I was all set.  She returned a bit later for more water, and then asked, ever so simply, "How are things going with you guys?"  They were perhaps the first non-family that we told when Daniel moved out, our wanting them to know before their own kids came home and told them.  (Five weeks later and our kids still have not told these best friends who live four houses over that my husband has moved out.  And he is here so much that their buddies don't seem to have noticed that he's not actually living here.)

The tears came, as they've been wont to do this weekend, and I wiped them away with my apron (an anniversary gift one year).  I told Catie how I love Daniel but I have endured too much hurt to do this more...I finally got to the crux of it, the situation that caused me finally to not patch up and adjust to the rest of the cracks: his platonic yet emotionally charged relationships with other women, with another woman, this past year.  Emotional affairs, they call them.  This was the third, or fourth, depending on how you count them.

Catie listened, kind, patient.  And then she talked.  Her own father has exhibited similar behaviors, and she has been frustrated with him and also with her mom about not speaking up.  I tell her, "Oh, it's not so simple.  You think you're speaking up.  Again and again, you think you've been speaking up, and you have, in myriad ways, but it's past the point of okay by the time you've finally had it."  Her parents are thirty older than we are, and their relationship mirrors ours a bit now.

While for years I've envisioned our growing old together,  I now envisioned being in a similar place in thirty years.  Not a place I want to be.

--------------------------------------

When they left last night I felt relief in having told Catie the truth and cried.  I am seeing that I find a relief each time I tell someone the truth about what's going on in our marriage.  I feel tense and crunched and nervous before telling someone, and then, once I get the words out, I feel such a relief, a lightening of a burden.

-------------------------------------

We invited this family over last night as a thank you for taking the kids last week, as a way to celebrate July 4 for the kids and probably for ourselves, too, in this time of semi-quarantine.  Instead, I got an unexpected ease in visiting with the couple on our back porch, and a mutual sharing (is that redundant?) over the dishwasher of vulnerability, heartbreak, sadness.  Really: a connection.  

It's hard to know when friendships really grow.

48

July 7, 2020

I'm 48 today.  What better way to start the day than to make a gratitude list...I imagine that it won't be too difficult to come with 48 things I'm grateful for today...the difficulty is/will be more in leaving each item as an item and not a stream of consciousness explanation that veers into a few stories.  After all, I have been awake since 4am, it's now 5:48am, and I want to get more sleep before the kids wake up, the kids who have decorated the dining room table for me (but I haven't gone in yet!...though I did see, as I walked from the front hall into the kitchen an hour ago, a piece of black construction paper hanging from the doorway...and written in light, standing out, block letters with lines within decorating them, was Happy Birthday, Mom.  A sign of beauty, of love, of art.  Oh, Connor, I can feel the love in that sign.  Tangent one, already.  But the list.  I will make this list and then go back to sleep.  And perhaps the list will lead to stories and thoughts...and this is okay...and those stories will have to wait for another day.  This morning, to start my birthday, I am simply making a list of 48 things I am grateful for.  I won't be able to fit everything, so I will just go quickly, without thinking too much about what I'm missing, how I should word things, whose feelings I could hurt, when I'm going back to sleep.

In no particular order here on this Tuesday morning, as I sit on our couch -- Skip's couch -- here in the living room...

1.  gli uccelli (what would we do without their sounds?)

2.  trees....standing tall and lying on the ground

3.  deer

4.  snakes in the woods

5.  learning the piano -- Amazing Grace, I'll memorize you soon!  Sonatina -- watch out, Sebastian, here I come!

6.  the windows in our dining room

7.  our new red umbrella on the back porch

8.  the back porch on which I sit to read or write or lie down or talk on the phone or eat a meal or have a gathering with friends or family

9.  the ping pong table and the easy way it gives us to hang out with each other

10.  books books books

11.  Thayer Academy

12.  the way Connor and Hannah jumped in and out of Ponkapoag Pond yesterday, flopping in, asking me to video them as they raced in, Connor in his underwear and Hannah in her Zeus shorts, lining up on the sand, dashing in as fast as they could, and diving.  Splash!

13.  yoga with Adrienne

14.  Robin Long pilates

15.  Sandra's class at the Y (will I ever get to go again?)

16.  Scituate

17.  Gram

18.  coffee (who knew?!)

19.  turtles from Margo -- not opened yet!  And she said that I don't even need to share them with the kids!

20.  Mary's kindness and hug and listening as I cried (transferred?) about not going to Scituate next week (misread the schedule and planned to go when it's already booked)

21.  a two and a half hour phone conversation with Cecilia days ago....being able to tell her anything and laugh and cry and everything in between

22.  a text from Joey yesterday -- a day early to say Happy Birthday

23.  Tara's email filled with emoji's yesterday

24.  my oldest friend, Tara, whom I've known since I was five.  A support in these last months, a support I never knew I would need, never thought I would confide

25.  learning Italian via Jhumpa Lahri's In Oltre Parole and Nicholas Sparks' Le Parole Non Che Ho Detto

26.  Italian movies on netflix

27.  netflix

28.  this blue sweatshirt of Chrissie's that I wear all the time...in fact, the many many clothes I have that are Christine's hand-me-downs...Chrissie then with me so often whether I wear her clothes or listen to her music on my phone.  Chrissie.

29.  walks with Julie in Prospect Hill

30.  Hannah's hundred kisses on Sunday 

31.  reading The Little Prince and Flora and Ulysses and Despereaux with Hannah

32.  Sebastian's laughter and deepening voice as he talks on the phone with Jonathan past 11pm last night

33.  Connor's birthday sign that touched my head as I walked into the kitchen this morning

34.  Mary's bringing me a cup of hot water in bed last Thursday morning

35.  Mary's doing her cupcake puzzle at the dining room table last week, each day, patiently, quietly, intently

36.  the quiet and picked up house of last week when it was only Mary and I

37.  the full bustling love noise calm that filled the house once the others returned from Vermont on Friday night

38.  the dining room table that I can spy from this couch, but I'm not going to check out...decorated by the kids for my birthday (loves!)

39.  Christa's text yesterday and her book choices to arrive in the mail soon...a two hour phone conversation with her a few Saturdays ago

40.  my health health health -- the ability to walk and run and play ping pong and swim and do yoga and pilates and bike and play ultimate frisbee and basketball

41.  journalling, blogging, writing letters, writing emails

42.  music, so much music..

43.  Mary's and Sebastian's learning and recognizing music of the 80s and 90s ...S on Saturday as I made dinner, "Is this James Taylor?"...years since I played James Taylor...

44.  Paine Estate

45.  bright yoga mats

46.  Peggy

47.  movies movies movies

48.  not working in the summer or at least minimally working

As I got into the 40s I slowed down, slower, slower.  Not because I didn't have more things for which I'm grateful, but because I was afraid that I had missed something so important, something that would come to mind later and I'd think, Oh, gosh!  I missed that!  How did I miss that?  But for now I am not going to reread this list because I may do that to myself or feel bad that I didn't get a certain friend of family member or moment on that list.  Instead, I can think of this as a starter list.  More has already come to mind in the moments since I wrote #47: my car (I love the freedom a car gives me...I always have...), my bike (to be able to go somewhere and stay outside!), Justin, Jenn's forgiveness, LeeAnn, Dutch Blitz and Connect Four, Connor's army guys, Hannah's eyes, Sebastian's being taller than I am, dancing in the kitchen with the kids -- ooooh, I really want to sneak that one in there...but no, no altering the list..it's just a moment in time...Mary's passions and tiramisu.

6:15am.  Time to go back to bed before anyone wakes up.

Mary forgot to put out the trash and recycling.  I could do it.  I don't want to do it.

No wonder Ross Gay wrote The Book of Delights.

Tuesday Morning

At a friend's on a Tuesday morning

Her husband sets up the two adirondack chairs ten feet apart on the front porch before he leaves for work, and she sets up their three-year-old with "sports and toys," as he calls them -- badminton rackets and birdies, a basketball, and then a blanket and peg board and music and chunky pad and pen.  He wears a mask if he comes close to the porch, but off on the grass he can do as he likes maskless.

My friend and I sit in our chairs, sipping tea and eating scones.  We talk, full sentences even at times when the three-year-old allows it.  He wants company or a playmate or attention.  His mom volleys herself between keeping him occupied and sitting with me.

I sit, looking at their light blue hydrangea, their wood chips (red or brown?), the stack of toys on the blanket.  It's a summer morning, but it could be any morning with a three-year-old at home.  I have not thought of these days in a long time.  My kids are now eight and ten and thirteen and fourteen.  Those slow, quiet days with them at home, when we would just sit or play around the house and yard for a morning feel long ago.

But maybe it's not that they're so long ago; it's that they look different now.  Like my friend's three-year-old, my kids get antsy; they don't want attention so much as something to do.  But it's the same idea: they say, "I have nothing to do.  I'm bored."  And like my friend going back in and out of the house with toys and blankets and sports equipment, I say, "You could read or play a game or do a puzzle or go for a bike ride," and they, like her son with the toys she brings out, don't like any of these ideas.  They don't know what they want, but they don't like my ideas.

The three-year-old finds a song he likes and yells, "Mama!  Listen!" and my friend looks over and smiles and hums a little, delighted.  I think of my ride here.  I had driven about a mile when I put the radio on.  The first song to come on had the refrain "Before you go, is there something I could have said to make your heart beat better?..."  My kids and I have been singing this song for days, especially after I was singing the wrong lyrics (I thought "faster" -- but it's "better," they tell me).  I call my thirteen-year-old and put the phone near the car speakers so she can hear the song.  We sing a few lines together and laugh.

Sometimes when I'm sitting on the back porch reading a book, one of the kids will come out, plop down in a nearby chair, and start talking.  Or I'll ask one of them to play Connect Four or ping pong or to go for a walk.  

I watch my friend and her three-year-old, nostalgic for those early days, this slowness, this simplicity of a morning.  If I take this morning home with me, though, I'll see the toys and talking and requests for attention, hear the quiet between the talk, hear when they are looking for attention, stop to see their three-year-old selves in my kids with their eight, ten, thirteen, and even fourteen years.  The three-year-olds are there, and so are the slowness of a morning, the connection, the morning snack, the sweetness.

The Deer

When I see the first one, I am sitting on my friend's porch, her son in the yard in front of us.  In the yard across the street, a deer.  Standing there.  Looking around slowly.  A baby maybe, or at least not an adult.  Sleek, lithe, strong, solid.  Beautiful.  I tell my friend and her son, and we gaze.  Her son wants to call out, "Deer!" but we tell him to talk softly so we don't scare the deer.  She stays a few minutes more, then having given us a glimpse of her calm and grace, skips away gently and quickly.

-----------------------------------------------

Hours later I am walking in the woods near my house.  I am looping back to meet a girlfriend, so I head over the dry creekbed, stepping on the rocks, and pick up my pace.  Around me the leaves seem a richer green because of the earlier rain.  I'm a hundred yards from the entrance, and likely my friend, when I stop: on the trail, ahead of me, not far from me, much closer than this morning, are two deer, a mom and child, I think.  I stop and look at them, and they look at me.

A month ago, on another trail in these woods I saw a deer.  I was on the phone with my sister, and I was surprised first by the deer and then by the deer's not moving when it saw me.  I wanted it to move, expected it to move.  But no.  It stayed there.  I felt a bit scared when it wouldn't move, fearful of moving myself.  It started to eat the grass beside the trail, taking its time.  Eventually I walked the other way.

But today I don't feel scared or nervous.  I feel curious.  Calm.  They stand there, then move a little to eat.  They don't seem afraid of me, just sure of themselves, composed, relaxed even.  I watch them eat.  Still.  

I want them to stay there so I can keep watching them.

------------------------------------------------

One day.

Three deer.

---------------------------------

 a poem version:

The first is defiant

standing in my path

on the trail 

looking for food

not moving

I'm on the phone

with my sister

in awe but

also impatient

wanting to take

that same trail

on which he stands.

I turn back on my trail,

giving up.

The second is across the street

in a yard

when I point her out to

the three-year-old son

of my friend.

A safe distance this time

to admire

not confront

to stare

to revel

to enjoy.

The third and fourth are

together

back in my woods

on the trail

in front of me

a mother and baby

perhaps

a tableaux 

with the leaves and dirts and trail

around them.

They are the closest

unafraid

and this time I'm 

unafraid, too,

again in awe,

but more patient this time,

more calm,

more amazed that they

are allowing me

to be this close

to witness their 

standing

staring 

eating.

I don't want them to leave.

But they do.

They lightly lift

their heavy bodies

from the trail

to the wild

again, three steps

and they are 

through the woods,

and I see the skinny

graceful legs fly

and hear the leaves

crinkle.

And they are gone.  

Again.

Carrots, Exercise, and Outside Time

Articles and friends told me, "Your kids will eat vegetables if you make them.  Make the vegetables the only option.  They'll come along."

Our children were four and two, and I thought, I have to get Sebastian (age 4) to eat more vegetables.  He eats only sweet potatoes for vegetables.  I will insist, and we will succeed.   I put the carrots on Mary's (age 2) plate and on Sebastian's plate.  He didn't eat them.  After dinner, I told him, "You have to eat those in order to be done."  He sat at the table some more, looking at the carrots.  I got ready to go to the YMCA to work out.  The kids wanted to come to play in the kid room; I said, "After you eat your carrots."  I was grouchy, inflexible, eager to get out the door.  He stood in the kitchen, this teary but determined four-year-old.  "Okay, okay, I will," he said.  I got more impatient, knowing that the Y kid room was closing soon, that my workout minutes were shrinking the longer it took him to eat the carrots.

Finally, he bit into one.

He gagged, choked a little, teared up a little.  Gagged again.

------------------------------------------------

I've not required Sebastian to eat a carrot since, nor has he eaten one voluntarily.  At age fourteen, he still eats sweet potatoes, and two years ago, he added onions and peppers to his diet (at a sleepover at a friend's house, the dad cooked onions and peppers with the meat, and Sebastian reported his feat the next morning on the ride home) and avocado (since Sebastian considers Tostitos and salsa a standard meal, he's come to like guacamole).  No carrots.  I still feel bad that I forced him as a four-year-old to eat the carrots.  He gagged.  

But how do we know how much to push or whether to push when it comes to vegetables and other things that we think are good for our kids?

(I asked a friend once, "Why do you make your kids play instruments?"  I was debating whether we wanted to keep pushing our kids on this one since they rarely practiced.  She said, "It's good for them.  It's like eating vegetables."  We kept scheduling and paying for lessons even when they didn't practice.  I even stopped my threat of, "If you don't practice, we're going to stop paying for lessons!" because really, even one lesson a week and one practice the hour before the lesson seemed better than nothing.  Now they sit at the piano for fun to learn each other's songs or to play around with a buddy.)

-------------------------------------------------

For summer, I have told the kids that they need to write for fifteen minutes a day (standard summer practice in our house except for last summer) and read for thirty minutes a day.  The latter most of them will do without being asked so long as they have a good book.  Covid makes this trickier, since the libraries aren't open, and two kids lost their kindles last year.  They don't balk at the reading, and they balk a little at the writing, but at this point they pretty much accept it, too.  Write for fifteen minutes a day Monday through Friday.  Or write for ten minutes and spend five minutes going over what you wrote with an adult.  I don't insist on math or summer packets from the elementary school teachers.  Reading and writing and playing.  They would likely argue that there are also chores thrown in and sometimes yard work or extra chores and sometimes lawn mowing (a paid job in the neighborhood).  

So they groan, and I push, and we get through it.  We're used to each other, and for the most part, they trust me.

----------------------------------------------------

We're four months into Covid, semi-quarantine, and Sebastian often does not get out of the house until five in the afternoon.  Classes are over, and mostly he wants to play Magic the Gathering ("Mom, we just call it 'Magic,' "he reminds me), splayed out on the living room floor.  Sometimes he lies in bed or on the couch and reads a book, but mostly he reads about Magic cards and rules and updates on his phone.  He's not on social media: he's on the sites that talk about Magic.  His favorite topic is Magic -- who won (he or his sister or his friend), why, how, which cards are the best, what changes Magic is making, the color combinations, the strategy, the Cube, Commander, the next draft, the potential reopening of the small stores that run tournaments, MTG Arena online.  

Magic is his world.

I am thrilled that he is passionate about something, even something I am not even close to understanding.  

And I want him to get fresh air.  And exercise.  He's fourteen: he fights me on it until I'm worn down.  "But I play Ultimate most days around 5 o'clock!" he argues.  Most days he does, it's true.  But not always.  And I want him to get some fresh air at some point in the morning, just a little exposure to fresh air and sunlight and life outside our house.  I tell him that he needs one hour of outside time by lunch each day.  Half an hour of this hour must be exercise.

Often I have felt like the anomaly in this time of kid activities in the twenty-first century.  I insist that the kids do something physical, and they choose what it is.  One activity is plenty.  No academic enrichment classes or activities unless they ask.  No need to push for honors level classes unless they're a good fit.  I would like them to practice instruments more, and I am aware that if I get back to learning piano for fifteen minutes a day, they will likely start doing the same.  Their dad plays all the time, but he is so talented and skilled that his playing does not necessarily attract them to the bench the way my tap-tap-tapping does as I try to learn the scales and songs they have already mastered.

I feel like the anomaly because we have not pushed them to achieve achieve achieve.  And while this feels right and good for me, sometimes I wonder whether we should have pushed them for their own sakes --would they feel accomplished and thrilled to be so good at soccer or basketball or piano?   Will they resent that we didn't push them to excel as their peers did?

I've given up the carrot fight.  I've given in to phones once you turn twelve.  We've increased screen time since Covid.  But I want something, too: I want exercise and outside time.  This pains Sebastian.  His body slumps and his face scrunches up and he says, "But why?  Do I have to?  But I get outside.  It's not like I'm getting fat."  He's over six feet.  I'm not worried about his BMI.  I'm worried about his lethargy and happiness.  I can control neither, but fresh air and adrenaline would be good.  But he fights me.  And I wonder, Do I push the fresh air and exercise or are they the carrots?

-----------------------------------------------

Two days ago Sebastian hadn't gotten outside by 1pm.  He'd slept in (something we've allowed though my parents never let us sleep past 8am on any day of the week), showered,  eaten his Cheerios.  He asked me to go on a walk with him, just a half hour, he said.  We went into the woods, and he talked about Magic and tried to teach me what he could.  I pointed to the longer loop -- the hour one -- and he said, "Yeah," and kept talking about Magic, which colors go together, and why it matters, how a Draft works, how his sister and brother do with the Drafts at tournaments.  We walked and walked and talked and talked.  The hour went by.

We were both sweating going up the hills.  We were talking, laughing.  He was expressing his admiration for his eight-year-old sister and how she keeps up in Magic.  I understood about thirty percent of what he told me and basked in his walking with me.

Later I said, "Was that hard for you?  It was hot, and you were sweating."

He said, "Really?  I didn't notice."

The next day he slept in, showered, and then did a chess activity that his school was offering (I'd forgotten about it until I saw him at the computer and he shushed me as I walked through the hallway flapping away in my flip-flops).  He came down later, told me he was going for a walk.  When he returned almost an hour later, he asked if he could finish listening to his Magic podcast.  There was a minute left.  "Yes," I said.  "Where'd you walk?"

"The walk we did the other day," he said.

--------------------------------------------------

Then we played a game of chess, after I found my cheat sheet from nine years ago, the notes that he dictated to me back then, telling me which directions each piece can move.  I sipped my Barry's Tea and my water and tried not to lose.  That was the goal: just don't lose too fast.  A draw.  

--------------------------------------------------

This morning their neighborhood buddies were going on a walk with their mom.  We rounded up which kids wanted to go.  We told the mom, "Sebastian is still sleeping."  It was about 9am.  

The mom stood outside the door on the steps.  We heard noise from the upstairs window.  Sebastian was yelling down, "Catie, can you wait for me to take a shower?"

"If you can take a one minute shower," she yelled back.

------------------------------------------------

I'm not expecting that every day will be an easy task in getting this fourteen-year-old outside and doing exercise.  But I'll take these three days in a row.  Maybe we're at least turning a corner.

ALS 5K in Covid time

"Our doing the 5K for ALS in memory of Jimmy is the equivalent to a memorial mass," I tell my kids.  "In my family you go to mass each year to remember the person who died.  Instead of doing that for Jimmy, we do this 5k."

In the beginning, we all went to the ALS 5K each June.  Jimmy died in 2007, and I think we started doing the race in 2009.  As the kids got older and had activities and opinions, some of us went.  So attendance -- which some years meant hanging about with my extended family and eating treats and not actually running or walking -- went from mandatory family activity to optional event if you want to come.  Some years it was all six of us; others, two or three of us.  

(One year I was in Colorado for a conference.  My husband left me a voice mail the night before the ALS 5K, saying that they were going to skip the race because they were all exhausted, having attended end-of-year events and preschool graduation that week.  He said to let him know if that didn't work.  I could understand his weariness and his not wanting to get four kids (ages 4, 6, 8, 10) out the door at 7:30 on a Saturday morning.  I called and left a message: "You do need to go to the race.  Christine is counting on you, on us.  Showing up means a lot to her."  When I called him the next morning, hoping that he's heard my message, the noise was loud and excited: our oldest ran the whole thing!  they were with my sisters!  they were eating pizza!)

------------------------------------------

Annual memorial masses were part of growing up.  When someone died, we went to the funeral or maybe just my parents went to the funeral, but a year later and in subsequent years, close to the date of the person's passing, we went to a memorial mass for the person.  Uncle Joe, Gramps (paternal grandfather), Pat (maternal grandfather).  A year after my mom died, my dad started the ritual for her.  He expressed to me at one point that it was a custom that he wasn't sure about, though he is still a practicing Catholic.  He just wasn't sure why we did it and whether he wanted to do it.  But still, for the past fifteen years, he's organized a mass in her memory -- which means that he has called St. Peter's Church, put her name in, and at a regularly scheduled mass on a Saturday afternoon, the priest says my mom's name -- Ann Sullivan -- twice during the mass.  Then we go back to my dad and his wife's house and have a dinner with everyone who has showed up -- aunts, uncles, cousins.

It's a nice ritual, whether you're Catholic or not, setting aside a few hours to be together in memory of that person.  Rarely do we actually talk about my mom at this annual gathering.  But we all know why we're there, and that's enough.

------------------------------------------

My brother-in-law Jimmy wasn't Catholic or religious.  He told my sister not to have a funeral when he died, so she didn't.  A year or two after he died, she had shirts made for the run, and then, a few years later, when she married again, she and her husband made a team called Team Jimmy, to honor the memory of both her husband Jimmy and her new husband's father, also named Jimmy, who had also died from ALS.  (Yes, strange coincidence.)

-----------------------------------------

It's COVID time 2020, so there's no ALS gathering this year -- no balloons and pizza and bagels and cookies and Ben and Jerry's and face painting and shoot the basketball for $5 (which I never have on me, and my Dad and sisters give my kids money for).  I plan to do the 5K here in my city, so eight-year-old Hannah says that she'll join me.  When we wake up, we search different websites that can map a route for us; it's possible that we spend more time dealing with the computer's making us a route than we will spend running.  We decide that 5.4 kilometers is close enough since it's a loop, and we want to begin and end at our driveway.

Hannah borrows her brother's phone (he's fourteen and has a phone), he makes her a playlist for the run, and we write out the route on a piece of paper -- Bacon to Lexington to Beaver to Main and looping back to Bacon then Greenwood then Claremont (our street).  I'm expecting that I'll run the 5K in about thirty-five minutes, and I'll spend a lot of time going back to check on Hannah, run with her, direct her.  We've got a plan.

But her brother's phone needs to be charged, so we have to wait for that.  And I want some new songs on my phone, so I purchase those and wait for them to download (no matter how often I buy songs from itunes, I make this process time-consuming and confusing -- how do I get off the screen that advertises apple music for $9.99 a month?  how do I find my song?  how do I get the song that I've bought on the computer onto my phone?  how many times do I need to restart my phone to see the songs and get them onto my running playlist -- the only playlist I have?).  Hannah makes me a playlist on youtube also, so we'll have some of the same songs -- "High Hopes" and "Senza Farlo Posto" and "Count on Me" and "Shotgun" -- and Sebastian can't believe that we still haven't left.  We're about an hour behind schedule (yes, our own, since there is no set time for this virtual race or event...in fact, we're doing it a day early to accommodate another kid's birthday wishes).

We finally get up from the table with our map and playlists, ready to go.

Ten-year-old Connor runs in the door.  

"I'm coming!"  he says.

"Why?" I ask him.

"Because I was bored at my friend's house.  So I want to come."

"All right.  Let's go over the map.  You sure you'll be okay to do this?  It's really really hot, and you haven't run in months," I say.

"Yep.  Let's go over the map," he says.

So we do.

He draws it twice and we review it, and he's ready to go even without music.  Tracking Connor and Hannah around Waltham was not how I had envisioned this run (I run once a week both because it makes me tremendously happy and because I love to listen to my music.  Running more than once a week I would feel in my knees or hips or back -- at forty-seven years old.  Ah, well.  Once a week is perfect.), but I go with it: an eight-year-old and ten-year-old who want to go on a 5K run or walk with me on a summer day of eighty-five degrees -- I am delighted.

------------------------------------------------

Connor starts off fast, but stops and waits patiently at the first light.  I usually jog at lights, a break that I like, but if I keep moving, even in place, I count it as part of my run.  He runs with ease, even without music, calm and quick (or quick to me).  Hannah turns around and points to her feet while boogying a bit: this means that she's listening to "One Foot" (Walk the Moon) at the moment.  I've run with Hannah before, so I know that she won't put too much pressure on herself: she'll stop when she needs, walk a bit, sit a bit, get going again when she feels ready.  I worry more about Connor, who is competitive and might want to prove that he can do this 5K better than his younger sister and I can.  He'll push himself, and I'm a little concerned about his passing out.  But he's stopping at the lights and standing in the shade.  He's walking a little.  He's not blocks behind, and I haven't even once gone back to find or check in with either Hannah or him.  They both stay ahead of me.

Hannah turns around again, crosses her arms and puts a leg out to show me that "Wherever I Go" (Miley Cyrus) is on.  I smile as she taps her foot out a bit.  I smile as she catches up to Connor, and the two of them run side by side until they get to the next light, then stand in the shade together.  Their faces are so red, and they are sweaty and breathing heavy, but when the light changes, on they go.  I cannot adore them more.  

Some years ago a neighbor called Connor and Hannah "the littles," in distinguishing them from their two older siblings.  It stuck.  As a kid, I was one of the "three little kids," so I project on them the comfort I had in belonging to the "three little kids," (as opposed to the big kids, who were our older brother and sister).  The Bigs are at home hanging out, at age thirteen and fourteen.  But The Littles are running and walking around Waltham, passing each other, slowing down, taking breaks, doing dance moves, checking in, passing me.  

--------------------------------------------------------

They speed ahead as we get near our street, gunning it to our driveway.  Later, when they discuss the race, Connor says, "Hannah beat me by a second or maybe two."

Hannah responds, "No.  Definitely two seconds."

I arrive thirty to sixty seconds after they do.

Connor says to me, "Can we do that run again next week?"

-------------------------------------------------------

My brother-in-law, their Uncle Jimmy, died in 2007.  He was thirty-six.  Connor and Hannah never met him.  But I imagine him smiling at them as they pour water over their heads and walk around the block to stretch out and discuss the final two seconds of the run.  

A mass.  A dinner.  A run.  A walk.  A laugh.  

There are so many ways to remember.

What you notice in quarantine

If not for quarantine, would I have spoken up?  would I have insisted that Daniel leave?  You hear that couples and families and singles -- everyone, then -- have trouble during this pandemic, but I thought back in March, Are you kidding?  I get more time with my kids than I ever get; I get to take walks in the woods daily; I have zero commute; and my husband and I are spending more time together.  These are serious silver linings.

As always with being home, I noticed more: the windows in the kids' dressing room need to be replaced; the yard needs work; my husband is on his phone a lot; the new chairs in the living room are fabulous; the little kids have so much love for me; my husband's phone dings a lot; the big kids work hard at school; our Italian friend responds to my husband's messages more promptly than to mine; our fourteen-year-old cares a lot about how he does in school; our twelve-year-old gets happier when she talks to her friends over zoom; the little kids can actually write decently; I like the break from school life; I don't need as much sleep because I'm not commuting and spending all day at school; my husband is doing Italian and texting with our Italian friend before I am even up in the morning.

My awareness of these things was not entirely new.  On some level, I had already noticed all of these at some point or points and had put them aside.  Raking one afternoon, I listened to the podcast Modern Love.  The topic was relationships during quarantine: some couples were beginning their relationships; some had just ended their relationship but were still living together, trying to endure; some were in the middle of a break-up when quarantine began.  I raked and listened, mesmerized.  I thought, I'm lucky that I've had more time during quarantine to talk with Daniel, to walk him to work when he goes, to hang out.  It was easy to find the positive.

And I ignored the things I was noticing, things I had noticed for months, but had convinced myself out of.  Cristina and Daniel text much more than Cristina and I do; he's putting more time into learning and improving his Italian.  Cristina and Daniel leave each other many voice messages.  Daniel's enthusiasm for Cristina and hers for him seem more than I'm comfortable with; I can work on not being jealous -- we're all friends.

Cristina and Marco and their son Emanuele had planned to come to visit us -- and stay with us for three weeks -- in June.  Daniel had mapped out a schedule, including a camping trip to Lake Umbagagog.  I hadn't committed to going, thinking that, with a three-week-stay, I might like a break from all the company at home.  I vacillated though, because being out camping sounded pretty great, too.  I like camping (provided that our kids or Daniel sets up all the tent gear).  Back in January or February, I had thought, I don't think I can go camping with them.  It will be too much to be around Daniel and Cristina and their flirty energy.  I'll need a break.  I didn't think that anything physical was going to happen between them; it was more their excessive admiration of each other, an admiration that seemed to have grown since our return to the states, that now, I sensed and saw on some texts, was more than I was comfortable with.  I told myself, They're friends.  We're friends.  It will fade.  He needs attention, and eventually this will run out.  I'd seen it before -- twice with an ex-girlfriend and once with a woman who lived in our city.  Not full-out romantic relationships, but emotionally-charged-building-in-intensity-time-consuming relationships that gave him energy and made him feel happy and purposeful.  Until I said, You can't be in touch with ex-girlfriend because you told her that you dream that, if something happens to me, you'll grow old with her.  Or until I emailed same woman years later and said, No more contact between the two of you, and does your husband know about these emails reliving the past?  Or until I said, You lied to me about Gabby.  You lied.  You said that you were by yourself one night, but she was here, too.  You need to move out of the house.  (It was a brief three week exile of which our kids never learned since he left after bed and arrived by breakfast.  They were small.)

So I told myself, Don't be jealous.  Check in with him.  Put more time into your friendship with Cristina.  Work on your Italian and your communication with Cristina to get rid of your jealousy.  Give Daniel more attention.  He needs attention.

I did all of these.

Ding, ding, ding.

The texts came in during the day.  I heard his speaking in Italian leaving voice messages before I even got out of bed.  When he'd been up for a couple of hours before me, and I asked, Oh, did you meditate?  He'd sometimes say, Not yet.  I was working on my Italian flashcards.  Flashcards that had not only Italian words but entire phrases and sentences in quotes with dates from Cristina's WhatsApp messages.  I asked him one day, "Don't the flashcards with Cristina's sentences on them make you then think about her and her messages or the conversation you had?  They would for me."  "No," he said.  

I said, "These are pretty effusive, this message about how you send messages with enthusiasm, passion, with the heart, with happiness."

"Yes," he said.

In response to her list of emotions with which she sent him messages (con entusiasmo, con allegria, con cuore, con passione, con amore), he wrote: "Tutto per me?"  (All for me?) and she answered, "Tutto per te, Daniel William Keleher. 😊"  And I thought, But that's a line from one of our favorite movies, Love Actually.  The secretary says to her married boss, when he compliments her on her planning of the holiday party, "It's for you.  It's all for you."  So we have used that line, too.  I tried not to think too much more about it.  Even if he wasn't aware of the movie reference here the way I was, it was still a line that goes over a line.  

Having conversations about his friendships with women in the past haven't gone well.  Even now, years after I insisted that he not have relationships with the ex-girlfriend and the woman in our city, he told me that he didn't like that he couldn't have these relationships; that he didn't think it was fair and didn't really get it.  I thought, I can try harder, try to accommodate his need for attention and Italian learning.  But it wasn't enough.

I started checking his phone when he was outside or in the shower.  Him in Italian: I love you.  This friendship isn't just fun for me; it's integral to who I am and how I live and brings me so much happiness.  Her: I love you, too.  Last night I went to sleep smiling thinking about this message of yours.  You're my favorite/best friend.  

And the mundane: I'm at the grocery store that you used to shop at here in Italy!  Here's how you say "than" in Italian, depending on the context.  You are amazing, wonderful, incredible, talented.  I am full of admiration for you.  I woke up so happy today and with a hundred smiles and I am sending them all to you today!  

------------------------------------------------

I was becoming more unhappy.  My attentions, no matter how much, were not slowing down Daniel's outreach and messages to Cristina or hers to him.  

I started asking for reassurance in ways I never had before: Am I your number one?  Will I always be your number one?  Will we stay married forever?  Questions I never could have imagined asking.  He said, "Yes," and moved on.  

I noticed that I needed to speak up.  Okay, with the help of two girlfriends who said that I wasn't just being jealous.

I noticed that even then, his focus was more on how Cristina felt after I sent her an email than on how I felt.

I noticed that again, I was told that I had misunderstood, that it was only friendship, that this friendship was important.

I noticed that he couldn't stop being in touch with her even after I asked for their not being in touch.  He still texted her son on Cristina's phone, facetimed her and her family on his birthday, called her by accident one Saturday morning.

When I thought that the worst was over, after we had read Olive, Again aloud in bed and made love one midnight, I lay there afterwards and asked, "What do you understand now?"  I was curious, hopeful, eager.  I wanted to know that he understood what hadn't been okay, how hurt I was; I wanted reassurance. 

He said, "I understand that you were hurt by my relationship with Cristina.  Cristina has been a huge part of my life.  She plays an integral role in my life.  She lives out what I'm learning in meditation.  She has given me more support than anyone else in my passion to engage citizens."  There was more.  Ten minutes more of Cristina's enthusiasm and love of life and engagement and insight and generosity. 

-----------------------------------------------

I was miserable.

Finally I had to change something -- and this time it wasn't myself.

I noticed that the rules I was living by -- that you stay married, that you compromise and find depths of flexibility for your marriage and your family, that you speak up but you don't fight in front of the kids, that you try to understand the other person's needs, that you use only "I feel" language to talk about your hurt, that you support your spouse, that you accept your spouse -- were not good enough.  Finally not good enough.

----------------------------------------------

I noticed that I wanted more.  That this was not enough.

I noticed that I didn't have to follow these rules any more.