At the beginning of the year, Mihiretu wasn't all that popular at preschool. In fact, kids would run the other way when they saw Mihiretu coming through the gate. On more than one occasion, one small ringleted girl or another would approach me and say shyly, "Mihiretu hit me yesterday." Or "Mihiretu growls at me." I'd kneel down, finger a glossy curl and apologize.
Around this time, Mihiretu met Luke, another high-energy, irascible, adorable pre-schooler. For months, they circled each other warily, two alpha dogs sensing a rival. Mihiretu would tell me, apropos of nothing, "Luke no my fen."
Then sometime around January, things shifted in the dust of that schoolyard. As Mihiretu softened at home (he is forever softening, like a pound of butter taken from deep-freeze and left at room temperature), he must have eased up at school, too. His peers began to sense his movie-star allure.
Now when he comes through the gate, it's like Norm walking into that bar in Boston.
"Mihiretu's here!" one tow-headed boy will crow, running to tell his friends. A tide of children will cascade past me, headed for my boy.
As we walk to and from school, kids, often kids I don't know, will lean out of car windows, waving madly and yelling "Mihiretu! Hey, Mihiretu!"
Things also changed with Luke, that elusive tough guy. Maybe they bonded over glitter or more likely, kicking a soccer ball, but Mihiretu and Luke suddenly and magically became inseparable. They wind their arms around each other as a welcome. They roll on the floor, reveling in each other's company.
Recently, we've been experimenting with play-dates. Luke's mom, Kelsey, will pick up both boys at school and take them home to trash her house, or vice versa. I have to say, when it's Kelsey's turn, it's exhilarating to have a few Mihiretu-free hours. I love the kid, but man, does he take a truckload of energy and patience. Working a puzzle quietly in the living-room with the girls without a shrieking brown blur upending our project is a little bit of heaven.
Last week, it was our turn to have Luke. The boys were in the back of the van, chatting away, as we drove home. I heard Mihiretu-talk, this time sounding like, "Batta-batta-booty! Fi-ah-poop!"
Mihiretu isn't the most verbal of kids. His vocabulary is limited, his pronunciation blurry. At first we attributed this to the obvious factors of being orphaned, adopted and ferried thousands of miles away from the only home he knew. Now, with the assistance of a speech pathologist, we're realizing that even if he were still in Ethiopia, still wrapped in his birth-mother's arms, he probably wouldn't be talking much. Eventually, with some therapy, he'll be speaking the King's English with the best of them, but for now, in place of recognized speech, often he chats in a language all his own. It's playful, it's funny, this tongue: it's Mihiretu. It doesn't mean anything, per say, more just that he's feeling happy and playful. It's often accompanied by a goofy grin and a great shaking of tail-feather.
The weird thing was, this time, the voice coming from the back of the van wasn't Mihiretu's. It was Luke.
"Luke-y," I said, adjusting the rear-view mirror so I could meet his eye. "That sounded just like how Mihiretu talks."
"I know," he said, puffing his chest a bit. "He taught me."
As the afternoon progressed, I eavesdropped on the boys as they dumped baskets of toys on the playroom floor, sailed down Ben's homemade zip-line, and chased chickens into the weeds.
"Whah-ka-tooty-booty!" Mihiretu would say, wrestling Luke to the ground.
"Ka-wa-tay!" Luke would respond, arms and legs akimbo in his approximation of karate.
At one point, as they climbed to the very top of the play structure, Luke caught me listening.
"I like Mihiretu's language," he said, the warmest, softest smile on his cherub face. "I think it's cool."
"Yaka-too!" Mihiretu trilled, jumping to the ground.
"Zaka-soo!" Luke answered, jumping and grabbing Mihiretu's hand in one move, the two of them launching themselves up the hill to the rope swing.
Seeing him enveloped and embraced by his own small people, seeing him cherished by others like he is by us Caprons, is a little like watching the sun coming out one misty June day after months of rain.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Circle It
The other day was Lana's teacher's birthday. Marcia Gunnarson is a favorite of ours. She taught Mae first grade as well and, along with being a terrific and inventive teacher, she is a wonderful mix of sweetness and steel. She's in her sixties, she has long iron-hued hair, she's raised four (count 'em, four) kids, she hikes for miles on the weekends and is a bitchin' gardener. All that and she manages to educate twenty six-year-olds, day in and day out. That alone would strike me down.
Lana made a birthday card for Marcia. It read: "Happy birthday Mrs. Gunnarson! [Then, to emphasize her message, in letters ranging in size from big to little] happy BIRTHDAY! Are you turning 63? Yes or no. Circle it." Marcia, of course, was to circle the answer, revealing to all the world, or at least to Lana, her age. Were she someone else, really almost anyone else, I would have censored the card. But Marcia isn't mired in vanity like some people I could mention (okay, me) so I thought she might get a kick out of it.
Ben and I, perusing the missive on the birthday morning, chuckled over our coffee.
"You want some smoothie?" I asked as I pulled the frozen berries from the freezer. "Yes or no?" Then, gritting my teeth and growling, "Circle it!"
It's very Lana, this demanding precision, particularly in combination with a letter of love. If she loves you, watch out, the demands are sure to follow.
Long ago, Ben starting calling me a schnauzer. As in, I'd nudge him and nose him until whatever it was I wanted was achieved. I can have a laser focus when I fix my sights on something, be it a weekend away, or, say, adopting a child from a foreign land. Lana is a baby schnauzer. She, too, when she's excited about something is unstoppable. I've overheard many play-dates that go something like this:
"You're the baby and I'm the momma. I need to go to work and so the babysitter is going to come - she's a teenager and you don't like her. Okay, cry!"
I can imagine her at thirty, laying down the gauntlet for her boyfriend, much as I did with Ben when I was that age.
"Do you want to marry me? Yes or no? Circle it!"
Lana made a birthday card for Marcia. It read: "Happy birthday Mrs. Gunnarson! [Then, to emphasize her message, in letters ranging in size from big to little] happy BIRTHDAY! Are you turning 63? Yes or no. Circle it." Marcia, of course, was to circle the answer, revealing to all the world, or at least to Lana, her age. Were she someone else, really almost anyone else, I would have censored the card. But Marcia isn't mired in vanity like some people I could mention (okay, me) so I thought she might get a kick out of it.
Ben and I, perusing the missive on the birthday morning, chuckled over our coffee.
"You want some smoothie?" I asked as I pulled the frozen berries from the freezer. "Yes or no?" Then, gritting my teeth and growling, "Circle it!"
It's very Lana, this demanding precision, particularly in combination with a letter of love. If she loves you, watch out, the demands are sure to follow.
Long ago, Ben starting calling me a schnauzer. As in, I'd nudge him and nose him until whatever it was I wanted was achieved. I can have a laser focus when I fix my sights on something, be it a weekend away, or, say, adopting a child from a foreign land. Lana is a baby schnauzer. She, too, when she's excited about something is unstoppable. I've overheard many play-dates that go something like this:
"You're the baby and I'm the momma. I need to go to work and so the babysitter is going to come - she's a teenager and you don't like her. Okay, cry!"
I can imagine her at thirty, laying down the gauntlet for her boyfriend, much as I did with Ben when I was that age.
"Do you want to marry me? Yes or no? Circle it!"
Monday, May 23, 2011
Gotcha Day
Sunday was the second anniversary of the day we met Mihiretu. In adoption circles, that's sometimes known as "Gotcha Day".
We started the day with a birthday party for Mihiretu's friend, Ephraim. I met Ephraim - and his mom, Chrissy - one September day on the playground of Mae's school. I'd recently been struck with baby fever but instead of fantasies of a growing belly or tiny pink fingers and toes, this time it had crystalized in an image of an African baby boy strapped to my chest in a Baby Bjorn. Somehow, on that fall day, the universe sent me Chrissy, with Ephraim strapped to her chest in a Baby Bjorn. The rest, I'd guess you'd say, is history.
Even though there was over a year and a half between Ephraim's homecoming and Mihiretu's, the boys ended up being just about the same age, Mihiretu actually six months Ephraim's senior. Now that they're to the stage of actually engaging with peers instead of just parallel play, their friendship has deepened. They see a lot of each other, those two. I imagine that when strangers see us at tumbling class or the park or the ice cream shop, they think that Chrissy and I are a couple and these two boys fraternal twins. Lately, we've been spending so much time together that that's almost the case.
Ephraim's party started at 10:30 but somehow the breezy spring weather, the jumpy-house, the good company and the continuing flow of food conspired to keep us (and many other guests) hanging around until well past three. The kids were all pretty strung-out on cupcakes and hours of jumping but we, along with Ephraim's family, decided to keep the party rocking. We climbed in two cars, children alternately wailing, and headed over to an Ethiopian restaurant in Berkeley to fete the Gotcha and Birthday Boys.
It was a new restaurant for us, one that had been recommended by an Ethiopian dance teacher I recently met. The place was packed. Along the window wall, there was a long table of at least thirty Ethiopians, also, it turns out, celebrating a birthday. Ethiopians, in my experience, both here and in Ethiopia itself, are initially reticent, at least to non-Ethiopians. Once, however, you can engage them in the smallest way, I've found them, for the most part, to be incredibly warm. Virtually every time we've gone to an Ethiopian restaurant with Mihiretu, and we've been to a lot of them, we end up in conversation with an employee or a patron. Often we leave with a phone number or a scrawled post-it detailing an upcoming Ethiopian festival. We've yet to meet an Ethiopian who resents our adoption, though, in situations like Sunday's, I find myself conscious of the state of Mihiretu's hair and skin. If we've got any nap or ash happening, I worry they think we don't know how to care for him. If, like yesterday, he's crawling around under the table and screeching, however joyfully, I worry they doubt our parenting skills. As we settled ourselves at the table yesterday, I felt eyes on us, friendly or unfriendly, I couldn't tell.
The food arrived and finally the reeling children settled in to eat. It was, it goes without saying, delicious. Mihiretu, as he does with Ethiopian food, was putting it away. Perhaps there's some visceral memory for him, some part of him that recalls eating this food when he was little and remembers there not being enough of it. Maybe it's just the combination of spices that spells scrumptious for him, speaks home. Whatever the reason, when we put a platter of injera in front of him, small piles of stewed lamb, pureed lentils and collard greens arranged artfully atop it, he goes to town.
Mihiretu was seated next to me and I was keeping a constant supply of ripped injera in front of him, occasionally scooping some delicacy on it for him, though mostly he helped himself. He had just swallowed an enormous mouthful when I scooped a spicy chicken stew onto the bread and put it to his mouth. He promptly spit it out.
"Dat one yucky," he proclaimed. "Weally yucky."
Then, a perplexed expression on his face, he said, "I gotta trow up."
He gagged and then a gusher of mashed food came out of his mouth like water from a fire-hose. The girls said later that it looked like someone had simply taken the beautiful food in front of us and put it in a Cuisinart. Thinking fast, I cupped my hands broadly in front of his mouth. The vomit just kept coming but somehow, as if I was wearing catcher's mitts, a reservoir of Ethiopian soup grew in my palms. Later, Eric, Ephraim's dad, eyeing my hands curiously, asked how big they were exactly. I held them up, large for a girl but no where near big enough to explain it. Whatever saint guards parents of young children was working overtime.
In quick succession, Chrissy threw napkins on Mihiretu and on the table, I dumped my goopy load on top, folded it quickly and threw it in a waiting trash can. Ben, meanwhile, had spirited Mihiretu out of his seat and been shepherded to Chrissy's car, where they found spare clothes of Ephraim's and some very convenient plastic bags for Mihiretu's soiled garments. Before I knew it, I had swiped Mihiretu's chair clean and he was once again in it, tucking in to more food. The girls, on Eric's advice, "changed the topic" and animatedly discussed their favorite cookies. In total, the crisis lasted no more than five minutes. I do believe, even with our prominent otherness, the diners surrounding us and even the wait-staff had no idea anything had happened.
Mihiretu wasn't actually ill. I'd seen this happen before, in the early days when he would gorge himself to sickness unless we took him away from the dinner table. I had thought he was past this remnant of malnourishment, but apparently not.
Later, in the car on the way home, Lana tried to spell "barf" out loud. Mae sang "B-A-R-F, B-A-R-F" as Lana howled that she, Lana, was spelling barf, not Mae. Mihiretu got into the act, shouting, "B-A" but then sputtered out not knowing how to finish.
It wasn't picture perfect, our Gotcha Day. It was, in fact, unequivocally disgusting. If you'd told me before that fateful autumn day in the schoolyard that I'd be catching the projectile vomit of a small brown boy, I'm not sure I would have believed you. But, in a way, it was exactly right. I am this boy's mother. With every passing day, I love him more deeply, more firmly. And I've got some giant hands to prove it.
We started the day with a birthday party for Mihiretu's friend, Ephraim. I met Ephraim - and his mom, Chrissy - one September day on the playground of Mae's school. I'd recently been struck with baby fever but instead of fantasies of a growing belly or tiny pink fingers and toes, this time it had crystalized in an image of an African baby boy strapped to my chest in a Baby Bjorn. Somehow, on that fall day, the universe sent me Chrissy, with Ephraim strapped to her chest in a Baby Bjorn. The rest, I'd guess you'd say, is history.
Even though there was over a year and a half between Ephraim's homecoming and Mihiretu's, the boys ended up being just about the same age, Mihiretu actually six months Ephraim's senior. Now that they're to the stage of actually engaging with peers instead of just parallel play, their friendship has deepened. They see a lot of each other, those two. I imagine that when strangers see us at tumbling class or the park or the ice cream shop, they think that Chrissy and I are a couple and these two boys fraternal twins. Lately, we've been spending so much time together that that's almost the case.
Ephraim's party started at 10:30 but somehow the breezy spring weather, the jumpy-house, the good company and the continuing flow of food conspired to keep us (and many other guests) hanging around until well past three. The kids were all pretty strung-out on cupcakes and hours of jumping but we, along with Ephraim's family, decided to keep the party rocking. We climbed in two cars, children alternately wailing, and headed over to an Ethiopian restaurant in Berkeley to fete the Gotcha and Birthday Boys.
It was a new restaurant for us, one that had been recommended by an Ethiopian dance teacher I recently met. The place was packed. Along the window wall, there was a long table of at least thirty Ethiopians, also, it turns out, celebrating a birthday. Ethiopians, in my experience, both here and in Ethiopia itself, are initially reticent, at least to non-Ethiopians. Once, however, you can engage them in the smallest way, I've found them, for the most part, to be incredibly warm. Virtually every time we've gone to an Ethiopian restaurant with Mihiretu, and we've been to a lot of them, we end up in conversation with an employee or a patron. Often we leave with a phone number or a scrawled post-it detailing an upcoming Ethiopian festival. We've yet to meet an Ethiopian who resents our adoption, though, in situations like Sunday's, I find myself conscious of the state of Mihiretu's hair and skin. If we've got any nap or ash happening, I worry they think we don't know how to care for him. If, like yesterday, he's crawling around under the table and screeching, however joyfully, I worry they doubt our parenting skills. As we settled ourselves at the table yesterday, I felt eyes on us, friendly or unfriendly, I couldn't tell.
The food arrived and finally the reeling children settled in to eat. It was, it goes without saying, delicious. Mihiretu, as he does with Ethiopian food, was putting it away. Perhaps there's some visceral memory for him, some part of him that recalls eating this food when he was little and remembers there not being enough of it. Maybe it's just the combination of spices that spells scrumptious for him, speaks home. Whatever the reason, when we put a platter of injera in front of him, small piles of stewed lamb, pureed lentils and collard greens arranged artfully atop it, he goes to town.
Mihiretu was seated next to me and I was keeping a constant supply of ripped injera in front of him, occasionally scooping some delicacy on it for him, though mostly he helped himself. He had just swallowed an enormous mouthful when I scooped a spicy chicken stew onto the bread and put it to his mouth. He promptly spit it out.
"Dat one yucky," he proclaimed. "Weally yucky."
Then, a perplexed expression on his face, he said, "I gotta trow up."
He gagged and then a gusher of mashed food came out of his mouth like water from a fire-hose. The girls said later that it looked like someone had simply taken the beautiful food in front of us and put it in a Cuisinart. Thinking fast, I cupped my hands broadly in front of his mouth. The vomit just kept coming but somehow, as if I was wearing catcher's mitts, a reservoir of Ethiopian soup grew in my palms. Later, Eric, Ephraim's dad, eyeing my hands curiously, asked how big they were exactly. I held them up, large for a girl but no where near big enough to explain it. Whatever saint guards parents of young children was working overtime.
In quick succession, Chrissy threw napkins on Mihiretu and on the table, I dumped my goopy load on top, folded it quickly and threw it in a waiting trash can. Ben, meanwhile, had spirited Mihiretu out of his seat and been shepherded to Chrissy's car, where they found spare clothes of Ephraim's and some very convenient plastic bags for Mihiretu's soiled garments. Before I knew it, I had swiped Mihiretu's chair clean and he was once again in it, tucking in to more food. The girls, on Eric's advice, "changed the topic" and animatedly discussed their favorite cookies. In total, the crisis lasted no more than five minutes. I do believe, even with our prominent otherness, the diners surrounding us and even the wait-staff had no idea anything had happened.
Mihiretu wasn't actually ill. I'd seen this happen before, in the early days when he would gorge himself to sickness unless we took him away from the dinner table. I had thought he was past this remnant of malnourishment, but apparently not.
Later, in the car on the way home, Lana tried to spell "barf" out loud. Mae sang "B-A-R-F, B-A-R-F" as Lana howled that she, Lana, was spelling barf, not Mae. Mihiretu got into the act, shouting, "B-A" but then sputtered out not knowing how to finish.
It wasn't picture perfect, our Gotcha Day. It was, in fact, unequivocally disgusting. If you'd told me before that fateful autumn day in the schoolyard that I'd be catching the projectile vomit of a small brown boy, I'm not sure I would have believed you. But, in a way, it was exactly right. I am this boy's mother. With every passing day, I love him more deeply, more firmly. And I've got some giant hands to prove it.
Friday, May 13, 2011
Mother's Day
We went en famille to visit my mom at her board-and-care on Mother's Day.
When we arrived, she was seated at the kitchen table finishing her dinner. The room is cheerful, a great improvement on the gloom of the assisted living facility. A large picture window framed blooming roses climbing a wooden fence, the brilliance of the May sky peeking from above. A caregiver busied herself washing dishes in the adjacent kitchen, one eye discreetly on my mother.
She didn't seem to recognize me this time, which is new. The greeting I received was similar to what she might have given a neighbor she didn't know very well, back in the days when she understood the concept of neighbor.
"Oh, hello," she said, unsmiling, unsure.
We sat around the table with her.
"Well," I said, tracing the violet on the plastic place mat in front of me. "Happy Mother's Day, Mom."
"Mother's Day?" she asked, poking at a piece of sausage with her fork.
"Yeah," I said, eyeing Mihiretu as he squirmed in Ben's lap. "It's a day to celebrate mothers." And then, in case she forgot that she was in fact a mother, "We're celebrating you and we're celebrating me today."
She eyed me skeptically. "I'm being celebrated? Well, I didn't know that." Her tone implied that the celebration had not been celebratory enough to capture her attention. My guilt suggested that if perhaps we had brought her flowers or arrived somewhere before dinnertime, it might have felt more like a party.
"Did Jean-Paul visit you? And Tracy and the boys?" I asked, knowing that they, loyal son and loyal wife of son, must of.
"Who?" she asked, folding and refolding her cloth napkin. "No, I haven't seen anyone."
We continued to sit, the kids surprisingly placid, probably uncomfortable with this forgetful old lady. It's rare I take them to see her these days. It's hard to hold up both sides of a conversation with a mother who's forgotten she's your mother when you're simultaneously trying to pull a small Ethiopian boy off the chandelier.
My mother broke the silence. She pointed a wobbly finger at Mihiretu and Lana.
I readied myself for the usual "Is he yours?"
Instead she asked, "Is that boy five?"
I gestured to Mihiretu. "Mihiretu's four," I said gently.
She shook her head. "No," she said, pointing more pointedly at Lana. "That one."
I saw that we were past her even noticing that Mihiretu was brown in a family of whiteys and felt a rock sink to the bottom of my belly.
"Well," I said carefully, "that's a girl. Her hair is short, I know that makes it confusing. That's Lana. She's seven. And this," I pulled Mihiretu onto my lap, "is Mihiretu. He's four. And that," I smiled at Mae across the table, "is Mae. She's nine."
My mom squinted at Mae. "He's nine?"
"Again," I said, "short hair-cut. He's a she and she's nine."
At this, Mihiretu made a break for it, running pell-mell into the kitchen. I saw my chance of temporary escape.
"Hey, kids," I said, collaring Mihiretu, "You want to see Grandma Margaret's room?"
The girls, also ready for a reprieve, followed me down the hall. In her room, we looked at family photos, marveled that the brightly smiling ten-year-old girl in roller skates could actually be that snowy-haired lady in the dining-room, and perused the Mother's Day card that my brother had indeed delivered earlier that day.
While we were gone, Ben later reported, he made small talk, really the only kind of talk one can make with my mom these days.
"Well," he said, revisiting the same old material, "Happy Mother's Day."
My mother returned to her dinner and said offhandedly, "Yep, we have that in common."
Ben was fingering a domino that was on the table. My mother eyed it while she chewed.
"This is really smooth," Ben said, noticing her attention. "You want to feel it?"
She cocked her head like a bird, her eyes raptly surveying the domino.
"Yes," she said decisively. "Yes, I would."
Tentatively she reached out a finger, tapped the domino and pulled her hand back quickly as if burned. She brought her eyes almost to table level and examined the domino from a safe distance.
"This red dot," she whispered thoughtfully as she pointed to a green dot on the domino, "really gets on some people!" This last she hissed vehemently, pinning Ben with her gaze.
The kids and I came back into the room and Ben, now ready for his break, rose to take the two younger ones into the backyard.
I sat and Mae, relishing a moment without sibling competition, plopped herself on my lap.
My mother smiled for the first time in the visit. "You're a good guy," she said to Mae.
I took a deep breath and gave Mae what I hoped was a comforting squeeze. "Mae's a girl," I reiterated. "Except she has a short haircut."
We all laughed. This time, apparently, it was funny.
"Oh," my mom said, wiping a tear of mirth. "I'm sorry." And to further the apology, she reached forward and gently touched Mae's hand. "You're a good guy."
"Girl," I said, sotto voce. Again, we all laughed.
My mom sighed with pleasure at the joke, looked at Mae one more time and said solemnly, "You're a good guy."
Soon it was time to go get our own Mother's Day dinner. We said our goodbyes to my mom and she watched us quizzically as we took our leave.
As the door closed behind us, I think we all, even Mihiretu, took a deep breath of the cool outside air.
I swallowed the usual cocktail of fury and grief. So sad that my mom is leaving me, memory by memory, and so mad that my mom is leaving me. The usual two-year-old piping up that if she really loved me, she'd stay. I swallowed it down because on this day, on my Mother's Day, I didn't want to feel that. I wanted to be with my kids, marvel with them over the cards they'd made me, laugh with them over our Puerto Rican dinner. For that one day, I didn't want to be sad for what I'd lost but joyful for what I'd found.
When we arrived, she was seated at the kitchen table finishing her dinner. The room is cheerful, a great improvement on the gloom of the assisted living facility. A large picture window framed blooming roses climbing a wooden fence, the brilliance of the May sky peeking from above. A caregiver busied herself washing dishes in the adjacent kitchen, one eye discreetly on my mother.
She didn't seem to recognize me this time, which is new. The greeting I received was similar to what she might have given a neighbor she didn't know very well, back in the days when she understood the concept of neighbor.
"Oh, hello," she said, unsmiling, unsure.
We sat around the table with her.
"Well," I said, tracing the violet on the plastic place mat in front of me. "Happy Mother's Day, Mom."
"Mother's Day?" she asked, poking at a piece of sausage with her fork.
"Yeah," I said, eyeing Mihiretu as he squirmed in Ben's lap. "It's a day to celebrate mothers." And then, in case she forgot that she was in fact a mother, "We're celebrating you and we're celebrating me today."
She eyed me skeptically. "I'm being celebrated? Well, I didn't know that." Her tone implied that the celebration had not been celebratory enough to capture her attention. My guilt suggested that if perhaps we had brought her flowers or arrived somewhere before dinnertime, it might have felt more like a party.
"Did Jean-Paul visit you? And Tracy and the boys?" I asked, knowing that they, loyal son and loyal wife of son, must of.
"Who?" she asked, folding and refolding her cloth napkin. "No, I haven't seen anyone."
We continued to sit, the kids surprisingly placid, probably uncomfortable with this forgetful old lady. It's rare I take them to see her these days. It's hard to hold up both sides of a conversation with a mother who's forgotten she's your mother when you're simultaneously trying to pull a small Ethiopian boy off the chandelier.
My mother broke the silence. She pointed a wobbly finger at Mihiretu and Lana.
I readied myself for the usual "Is he yours?"
Instead she asked, "Is that boy five?"
I gestured to Mihiretu. "Mihiretu's four," I said gently.
She shook her head. "No," she said, pointing more pointedly at Lana. "That one."
I saw that we were past her even noticing that Mihiretu was brown in a family of whiteys and felt a rock sink to the bottom of my belly.
"Well," I said carefully, "that's a girl. Her hair is short, I know that makes it confusing. That's Lana. She's seven. And this," I pulled Mihiretu onto my lap, "is Mihiretu. He's four. And that," I smiled at Mae across the table, "is Mae. She's nine."
My mom squinted at Mae. "He's nine?"
"Again," I said, "short hair-cut. He's a she and she's nine."
At this, Mihiretu made a break for it, running pell-mell into the kitchen. I saw my chance of temporary escape.
"Hey, kids," I said, collaring Mihiretu, "You want to see Grandma Margaret's room?"
The girls, also ready for a reprieve, followed me down the hall. In her room, we looked at family photos, marveled that the brightly smiling ten-year-old girl in roller skates could actually be that snowy-haired lady in the dining-room, and perused the Mother's Day card that my brother had indeed delivered earlier that day.
While we were gone, Ben later reported, he made small talk, really the only kind of talk one can make with my mom these days.
"Well," he said, revisiting the same old material, "Happy Mother's Day."
My mother returned to her dinner and said offhandedly, "Yep, we have that in common."
Ben was fingering a domino that was on the table. My mother eyed it while she chewed.
"This is really smooth," Ben said, noticing her attention. "You want to feel it?"
She cocked her head like a bird, her eyes raptly surveying the domino.
"Yes," she said decisively. "Yes, I would."
Tentatively she reached out a finger, tapped the domino and pulled her hand back quickly as if burned. She brought her eyes almost to table level and examined the domino from a safe distance.
"This red dot," she whispered thoughtfully as she pointed to a green dot on the domino, "really gets on some people!" This last she hissed vehemently, pinning Ben with her gaze.
The kids and I came back into the room and Ben, now ready for his break, rose to take the two younger ones into the backyard.
I sat and Mae, relishing a moment without sibling competition, plopped herself on my lap.
My mother smiled for the first time in the visit. "You're a good guy," she said to Mae.
I took a deep breath and gave Mae what I hoped was a comforting squeeze. "Mae's a girl," I reiterated. "Except she has a short haircut."
We all laughed. This time, apparently, it was funny.
"Oh," my mom said, wiping a tear of mirth. "I'm sorry." And to further the apology, she reached forward and gently touched Mae's hand. "You're a good guy."
"Girl," I said, sotto voce. Again, we all laughed.
My mom sighed with pleasure at the joke, looked at Mae one more time and said solemnly, "You're a good guy."
Soon it was time to go get our own Mother's Day dinner. We said our goodbyes to my mom and she watched us quizzically as we took our leave.
As the door closed behind us, I think we all, even Mihiretu, took a deep breath of the cool outside air.
I swallowed the usual cocktail of fury and grief. So sad that my mom is leaving me, memory by memory, and so mad that my mom is leaving me. The usual two-year-old piping up that if she really loved me, she'd stay. I swallowed it down because on this day, on my Mother's Day, I didn't want to feel that. I wanted to be with my kids, marvel with them over the cards they'd made me, laugh with them over our Puerto Rican dinner. For that one day, I didn't want to be sad for what I'd lost but joyful for what I'd found.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Family Photographs
My bureau keeps coughing up long-lost relatives.
I'll back up.
When my mother went into assisted living, much of her furniture came to us. It is mid-century Danish teak gorgeousness. Our house was built in 1954 and when we did our superficial remodel upon moving in, we styled ourselves "modern". The furniture is perfect. You walk in the door and it's like stepping onto the set of "Mad Men".
My parents had a set of matching dressers in their room when I was growing up. My dad's was thin and tall, much like the man. My mother's, long and low. We didn't acquire these two pieces until fairly recently, when my mom moved from assisted living to a furnished board-and-care.
Though I hold my mother up as the home-organization tree from which my finely-ordered apple dropped, if you opened a drawer in the house I grew up in, you might get a whole lot of crazy. By the time I was packing up her condo just after she was diagnosed with Alzheimers, those drawers were full-on nuts. Her dresser was crammed with old bank statements, silk scarves, opera programs, control-top pantyhose, magnifying lenses, European coins, love letters from my father (that was worth a good cry, snuffling dust in the failing light of a winter afternoon, him dead, her vacant, his twenty-one-year-old words of devotion scrawled across a yellowing page), and finally, family pictures.
I didn't really know my family. Yes, I knew my father, my mother, my brother, my sister. But my mother's parents were dead by the time I was on the scene. My father's parents, somehow, had no interest in meeting me. Might have had something to do with the fact that my mother wasn't French and Catholic, unlike the zillion generations of depressed and depressing French Catholics that made up my father's lineage. I met my father's sister once, when her Navy husband was stationed in California. Aunt Charlotte informed my mother that I was spoiled and my mother should really give me a good smack like Charlotte did with her two-year-old son (the son that, shocking!, became a professional criminal later in life). My mother's brothers were in Michigan and she and I took a trip there once when I was five. For a week.
My mother grew up dirt-poor, downright hungry, in the Depression. Her parents were immigrants from Romania. Her mother died early and her father couldn't speak English, couldn't get a job beyond being a laborer. My father was born into the lower middle-class, a step above my mother. Though his first language was French (my mother's was Romanian), his parents were born in Massachusetts. It was another generation back that had emigrated from Quebec. Regardless, they were both essentially immigrant stock. And like many immigrant children in American, they shed everything they could of their past and sailed full-steam into the future.
My father joined the military at seventeen. By the time they met on a Miami beach when he was twenty-one, he was a pilot in the Air Force. The G.I. bill put him through college when he was in his late twenties. My mother put him through medical school in his early thirties. Soon, they emerged, fully formed, on the West Coast, a doctor and his wife, two beautiful children (the third beautiful child - that'd be me - not yet in the picture), a new house on Mount Tamalpais above the ever-chic Mill Valley.
They lived their upper-middle-class lives, with no connection to their past. When I was packing up the condo, I stayed true to family form and filed all the old pictures away in storage. But here's the thing. Photographs keep appearing in my mother's dresser.
The first time was a year ago, when I was unpacking after our move from San Jose. I accidentally pulled an empty drawer too far and it came out of the dresser completely. With it, apparently stuck for millenia to the bottom of the drawer, came a photograph.
It was a posed family portrait, circa mid-forties. My mother, about fifteen, stands by a grand staircase - certainly not theirs - dressed in some kind of uniform, complete with a stiff nurse-like cap. Was she a candy-stripper? Some kind of war volunteer? At the center of the photo is her father, looking kind and tired, dressed in a shiny three-piece suit and his second wife, Stella, wearing a giant flowered dress, her face set in a smug, double-chinned smirk. Stella was eventually committed to a mental institution. She was a rabid horder and psychotically messy and abusive, screeching and smacking if my mother quietly cleared the sink of it's piles of dishes. I had never before seen a picture of this woman. This woman, who, it must be assumed, had an awful lot to do with my mother's later obsessive need for cleanliness and order and my own inability to sit down to read a book if there's a speck on the floor.
Also featured are my mother's two older brothers, one round and Romanian-looking, the other, surprisingly, a ringer for my dad, clean good looks in a varsity sweater. A little boy stands in the center, my mother's half-brother, Stella's son, sweet, rumpled and big-eared. Off to the side is the infamous cross-dressing uncle, looking creepy as could be. It's said that he lured my grandmother, my mother's mother, Valeria, to the United States, with a promise of work as a seamstress and locked her into a marriage with my grandfather, twenty years her senior and poor.
Just last week, as I was storing winter clothes and bringing summer clothes out of bins, a drawer in that very same dresser wouldn't close completely. I pulled it out to extract the pair of leggings that had been stuck behind it, to find, along with the leggings, a bank statement from 1981 and a manila folder.
I set the folder on the dresser, knowing it might hold a surprise from my unknown past, a long-dead someone reaching a skeletal finger to find me. I took a breath and opened it. There were five photographs. One three-by-five sepia portrait of a young couple I didn't recognize, peering solemnly into the camera. As I turned it over, I realized it was indeed a postcard. On the left were words that I could only recognize as Romanian, having seen letters arrive in a similar script for my mother when I was a kid. I could make out the word Bucarest, the city my mother's people came from and what could be names, "Elenoi si Surel Dron". It was addressed to Dan Belgoir. My grandfather, Dan Balger. Here before me was his original Romanian surname, a name that had been bastardized at Ellis Island, a name that my mother had never known. A name that, until this instant, had been lost.
The other four pictures were different prints of the same image. My father, probably in his early fifties, sits in his red winged armchair, his eyes downcast at something he must be reading. I believe, actually, that I took this photograph. I vaguely remember taking a summer photography class after my freshman year of high school. These four prints, each having sat in the developer a different length of time, were my homework.
It was good to see my father's handsome face again. His cleft chin that I see echoed in Lana, the slant of his cheekbones that I now see in myself. But as I gazed at this picture, standing beside the dresser, summer and winter clothes in untidy piles around me, what I could see, even more clearly with the wisdom of time, was his disregard for me. His teenage daughter stood above him, not a foot away, taking his picture, certainly on a weekend because he was never home during a weekday, and he continued reading his medical journal. In the crease between his eyebrows, I could see his irritation at my attempted interruption. All this picture says to me is "Go away - I'm busy." Really, the story of my life with him. It's difficult to admit because I loved him so, I miss him still and I know that he deeply loved me. And, to be fair, how many times have I attempted to escape to a quiet corner of the house away from the noise and demands of my kids? Though mine are little and loud and many and one would have to think that one bookish fourteen-year-old girl wouldn't have the same effect. But perhaps he was still so busy striving for greatness, still so busy actively forgetting where he came from, that there was little space for anything else.
There are mysteries in these photographs. Family I've never seen, shades of a relationship I had forgotten or wished to forget. It's a little magical, that dresser. Will a snap-shot of an illegitimate half-sister fall out of a drawer next? Or a grainy picture of Mihiretu's birth mother? Our history keeps on unfolding itself, long after the players are gone.
I'll back up.
When my mother went into assisted living, much of her furniture came to us. It is mid-century Danish teak gorgeousness. Our house was built in 1954 and when we did our superficial remodel upon moving in, we styled ourselves "modern". The furniture is perfect. You walk in the door and it's like stepping onto the set of "Mad Men".
My parents had a set of matching dressers in their room when I was growing up. My dad's was thin and tall, much like the man. My mother's, long and low. We didn't acquire these two pieces until fairly recently, when my mom moved from assisted living to a furnished board-and-care.
Though I hold my mother up as the home-organization tree from which my finely-ordered apple dropped, if you opened a drawer in the house I grew up in, you might get a whole lot of crazy. By the time I was packing up her condo just after she was diagnosed with Alzheimers, those drawers were full-on nuts. Her dresser was crammed with old bank statements, silk scarves, opera programs, control-top pantyhose, magnifying lenses, European coins, love letters from my father (that was worth a good cry, snuffling dust in the failing light of a winter afternoon, him dead, her vacant, his twenty-one-year-old words of devotion scrawled across a yellowing page), and finally, family pictures.
I didn't really know my family. Yes, I knew my father, my mother, my brother, my sister. But my mother's parents were dead by the time I was on the scene. My father's parents, somehow, had no interest in meeting me. Might have had something to do with the fact that my mother wasn't French and Catholic, unlike the zillion generations of depressed and depressing French Catholics that made up my father's lineage. I met my father's sister once, when her Navy husband was stationed in California. Aunt Charlotte informed my mother that I was spoiled and my mother should really give me a good smack like Charlotte did with her two-year-old son (the son that, shocking!, became a professional criminal later in life). My mother's brothers were in Michigan and she and I took a trip there once when I was five. For a week.
My mother grew up dirt-poor, downright hungry, in the Depression. Her parents were immigrants from Romania. Her mother died early and her father couldn't speak English, couldn't get a job beyond being a laborer. My father was born into the lower middle-class, a step above my mother. Though his first language was French (my mother's was Romanian), his parents were born in Massachusetts. It was another generation back that had emigrated from Quebec. Regardless, they were both essentially immigrant stock. And like many immigrant children in American, they shed everything they could of their past and sailed full-steam into the future.
My father joined the military at seventeen. By the time they met on a Miami beach when he was twenty-one, he was a pilot in the Air Force. The G.I. bill put him through college when he was in his late twenties. My mother put him through medical school in his early thirties. Soon, they emerged, fully formed, on the West Coast, a doctor and his wife, two beautiful children (the third beautiful child - that'd be me - not yet in the picture), a new house on Mount Tamalpais above the ever-chic Mill Valley.
They lived their upper-middle-class lives, with no connection to their past. When I was packing up the condo, I stayed true to family form and filed all the old pictures away in storage. But here's the thing. Photographs keep appearing in my mother's dresser.
The first time was a year ago, when I was unpacking after our move from San Jose. I accidentally pulled an empty drawer too far and it came out of the dresser completely. With it, apparently stuck for millenia to the bottom of the drawer, came a photograph.
It was a posed family portrait, circa mid-forties. My mother, about fifteen, stands by a grand staircase - certainly not theirs - dressed in some kind of uniform, complete with a stiff nurse-like cap. Was she a candy-stripper? Some kind of war volunteer? At the center of the photo is her father, looking kind and tired, dressed in a shiny three-piece suit and his second wife, Stella, wearing a giant flowered dress, her face set in a smug, double-chinned smirk. Stella was eventually committed to a mental institution. She was a rabid horder and psychotically messy and abusive, screeching and smacking if my mother quietly cleared the sink of it's piles of dishes. I had never before seen a picture of this woman. This woman, who, it must be assumed, had an awful lot to do with my mother's later obsessive need for cleanliness and order and my own inability to sit down to read a book if there's a speck on the floor.
Also featured are my mother's two older brothers, one round and Romanian-looking, the other, surprisingly, a ringer for my dad, clean good looks in a varsity sweater. A little boy stands in the center, my mother's half-brother, Stella's son, sweet, rumpled and big-eared. Off to the side is the infamous cross-dressing uncle, looking creepy as could be. It's said that he lured my grandmother, my mother's mother, Valeria, to the United States, with a promise of work as a seamstress and locked her into a marriage with my grandfather, twenty years her senior and poor.
Just last week, as I was storing winter clothes and bringing summer clothes out of bins, a drawer in that very same dresser wouldn't close completely. I pulled it out to extract the pair of leggings that had been stuck behind it, to find, along with the leggings, a bank statement from 1981 and a manila folder.
I set the folder on the dresser, knowing it might hold a surprise from my unknown past, a long-dead someone reaching a skeletal finger to find me. I took a breath and opened it. There were five photographs. One three-by-five sepia portrait of a young couple I didn't recognize, peering solemnly into the camera. As I turned it over, I realized it was indeed a postcard. On the left were words that I could only recognize as Romanian, having seen letters arrive in a similar script for my mother when I was a kid. I could make out the word Bucarest, the city my mother's people came from and what could be names, "Elenoi si Surel Dron". It was addressed to Dan Belgoir. My grandfather, Dan Balger. Here before me was his original Romanian surname, a name that had been bastardized at Ellis Island, a name that my mother had never known. A name that, until this instant, had been lost.
The other four pictures were different prints of the same image. My father, probably in his early fifties, sits in his red winged armchair, his eyes downcast at something he must be reading. I believe, actually, that I took this photograph. I vaguely remember taking a summer photography class after my freshman year of high school. These four prints, each having sat in the developer a different length of time, were my homework.
It was good to see my father's handsome face again. His cleft chin that I see echoed in Lana, the slant of his cheekbones that I now see in myself. But as I gazed at this picture, standing beside the dresser, summer and winter clothes in untidy piles around me, what I could see, even more clearly with the wisdom of time, was his disregard for me. His teenage daughter stood above him, not a foot away, taking his picture, certainly on a weekend because he was never home during a weekday, and he continued reading his medical journal. In the crease between his eyebrows, I could see his irritation at my attempted interruption. All this picture says to me is "Go away - I'm busy." Really, the story of my life with him. It's difficult to admit because I loved him so, I miss him still and I know that he deeply loved me. And, to be fair, how many times have I attempted to escape to a quiet corner of the house away from the noise and demands of my kids? Though mine are little and loud and many and one would have to think that one bookish fourteen-year-old girl wouldn't have the same effect. But perhaps he was still so busy striving for greatness, still so busy actively forgetting where he came from, that there was little space for anything else.
There are mysteries in these photographs. Family I've never seen, shades of a relationship I had forgotten or wished to forget. It's a little magical, that dresser. Will a snap-shot of an illegitimate half-sister fall out of a drawer next? Or a grainy picture of Mihiretu's birth mother? Our history keeps on unfolding itself, long after the players are gone.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
The "Me, Too"
"You know what's amazing?" Ben said tonight as he was ferrying the dinner dishes into the kitchen.
"What?" I said from my position at the sink, pink gloves up to the elbows in soapy water.
"How many people, when I tell them that we've adopted from Ethiopia, say 'You know,'" and here his voiced deepened with gravity, his face drawn long and ardent, "I'm considering doing the same thing.'"
I set the pot I was scrubbing down into the sink, struck with the realization. "Oh my god," I said. "You're totally right!"
It is incredible how many people, strangers generally, who, when they see a picture of our family or spot Mihiretu on the playground, divulge that they, too, might just adopt a child from Ethiopia. I want to say it's like thirty percent. I love to talk about adoption, both the general idea and our specific experience. I want as many people as possible to adopt if they think it's a fit for their family. I want to be a sounding board for anyone considering the idea. That said, most of the people who tell me they're considering the concept, while well-meaning and perhaps even earnest, are also aware it's a really right-sounding thing to say.
I was sitting at the local ballet studio a few years ago waiting for my little ballerinas to finish class, when I got talking to the mom next to me. One thing led to another and soon I confessed that we were in the process of adopting a child from Africa.
"Oh, I want to do that!" she said, her eyes wide and bright.
She told me that she and her husband have donated a "great deal" of money to the many needs of Africa. She said that they were debating whether to have another biological child or adopt. I, new to this game, immediately met her enthusiasm with my own. I offered the names of the agencies we were using, the details of the process, what I knew of the orphanages in Ethiopia.
"Well," she said, after the chitty-chat had gone back and forth for a good long time. "On the other side of the argument - you know, we got this dog from the pound once -"
Here she seemed to stumble, her confident, breezy stream of talk slightly stymied by this less attractive point.
"Well, the dog wasn't good. It was a mutt, you know, which was great, except that - well, it just didn't work out." She leaned in confidentially. "We had to take him back. And then we got a pure-bred - our dog, Lucky - and it was a WORLD of difference."
"Not that," she eyed my frozen grin. "Not that I'm comparing a child with a dog."
No, I thought, a headache beginning to pound in my temples, my jaw clenched. Of course you're not.
I somehow exited the conversation with my new friend and managed to avoid her for the rest of the class term. A year or so later I ran into her at the market. Mihiretu was seated in my cart, reaching for every can, every apple. She was serenely caressing her rounded belly.
"We didn't end up going in that direction," she said, with a lift of her chin at Mihiretu and a self-satified smile. "But what a cute boy you have! I love his hair!"
She reached out to touch his curls and simultaneously, Mihiretu, perhaps in self-defense, pulled a bottle of olive oil from the shelf and it crashed to the floor between us. She swept back her skirt to avoid the splash, her smile hardening on her face.
"Okay," she said, backing down the aisle. "Good luck!"
I don't know if she meant with the spill or my son. What I do know is that sometimes people are full of shit.
"What?" I said from my position at the sink, pink gloves up to the elbows in soapy water.
"How many people, when I tell them that we've adopted from Ethiopia, say 'You know,'" and here his voiced deepened with gravity, his face drawn long and ardent, "I'm considering doing the same thing.'"
I set the pot I was scrubbing down into the sink, struck with the realization. "Oh my god," I said. "You're totally right!"
It is incredible how many people, strangers generally, who, when they see a picture of our family or spot Mihiretu on the playground, divulge that they, too, might just adopt a child from Ethiopia. I want to say it's like thirty percent. I love to talk about adoption, both the general idea and our specific experience. I want as many people as possible to adopt if they think it's a fit for their family. I want to be a sounding board for anyone considering the idea. That said, most of the people who tell me they're considering the concept, while well-meaning and perhaps even earnest, are also aware it's a really right-sounding thing to say.
I was sitting at the local ballet studio a few years ago waiting for my little ballerinas to finish class, when I got talking to the mom next to me. One thing led to another and soon I confessed that we were in the process of adopting a child from Africa.
"Oh, I want to do that!" she said, her eyes wide and bright.
She told me that she and her husband have donated a "great deal" of money to the many needs of Africa. She said that they were debating whether to have another biological child or adopt. I, new to this game, immediately met her enthusiasm with my own. I offered the names of the agencies we were using, the details of the process, what I knew of the orphanages in Ethiopia.
"Well," she said, after the chitty-chat had gone back and forth for a good long time. "On the other side of the argument - you know, we got this dog from the pound once -"
Here she seemed to stumble, her confident, breezy stream of talk slightly stymied by this less attractive point.
"Well, the dog wasn't good. It was a mutt, you know, which was great, except that - well, it just didn't work out." She leaned in confidentially. "We had to take him back. And then we got a pure-bred - our dog, Lucky - and it was a WORLD of difference."
"Not that," she eyed my frozen grin. "Not that I'm comparing a child with a dog."
No, I thought, a headache beginning to pound in my temples, my jaw clenched. Of course you're not.
I somehow exited the conversation with my new friend and managed to avoid her for the rest of the class term. A year or so later I ran into her at the market. Mihiretu was seated in my cart, reaching for every can, every apple. She was serenely caressing her rounded belly.
"We didn't end up going in that direction," she said, with a lift of her chin at Mihiretu and a self-satified smile. "But what a cute boy you have! I love his hair!"
She reached out to touch his curls and simultaneously, Mihiretu, perhaps in self-defense, pulled a bottle of olive oil from the shelf and it crashed to the floor between us. She swept back her skirt to avoid the splash, her smile hardening on her face.
"Okay," she said, backing down the aisle. "Good luck!"
I don't know if she meant with the spill or my son. What I do know is that sometimes people are full of shit.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
The Bunny
Our house backs up to open space which makes for a lot of wildlife. We see hawks, deer, wild turkey by the bushel, and even the occasional coyote or bobcat. Ben and I woke the other morning to the distant scream of a mountain lion. That's better than coffee for getting the blood pumping. You should try it.
In amongst these creatures, is the quiet and elusive jack rabbit. Often, when the kids are making me apeshit on a Saturday morning, I'll send them out on the hill to look for bunnies. We know the warrens are there, the bunnies are less reliable.
Usually, a bunny sighting happens about once every month or so, a rate akin to spotting a celebrity in L.A. For the past few weeks though, virtually every morning, we've seen a bunny, we assume the same bunny, somewhere close to our house. Sometimes he's down by the trailer, sometimes near the chicken coop and often camped out by the great oak that reaches over the living-room. Generally, he's with his two friends, the deer and the turkey. Always a single deer, always a single turkey, though those animals usually travel in groups. It is, it goes without saying, mysterious. Ben and I have been joking that this bunny is our spirit animal.
This morning, the bunny was settled for a good hour just outside the living-room windows. He stayed while Mihiretu performed his routine seven a.m. joyful whoop up and down the hall. He weathered the frantic few moments of the feeding, clothing, combing, shoeing and backpacking of Mae before she spilled out the front door at eight. He even remained zen during the shoving and screaming match (performed on bar stools) between the invincible Lana and the undefeated Mihiretu.
As he stayed and stayed, I suggested that perhaps we should give him a name. "Tip Top" was Lana's suggestion. Predictably, "Butt" was Mihiretu's.
The truly amazing moment was when Mihiretu opened the window not four feet from the bunny and hollered at top Mihiretu volume (on a whole different scale than other voices, his goes to eleven) and the rabbit merely turned one long ear towards the barrage of sound.
If we did indeed have spirit animals, Ben might be an otter, basking in the waves on his back, cleverly working a clam shell open, I, perhaps, a preening peacock, fanning colorful feathers, Mae undoubtably a horse running free, mane streaming behind her, Lana, a sly kitty-cat in the window, sleek and aloof, and Mihiretu a road-runner, moving fast and beeping loud. Put all those animals together and what do you have? A zoo, I suppose. Where in there, I wonder, is this placid jack rabbit, fast and shy and silent? Maybe that furry little guy knows something I don't. Could there be some soft, quiet, peaceful undercurrent that calls him to our record-high decibel house? It might just be he's a little masochistic and neurotic, a fuzzy Woody Allen. Or a flunkie Easter bunny, looking for entertainment while his cousins are frantic with colored eggs and beribboned baskets. Whoever he is, I like him.
In amongst these creatures, is the quiet and elusive jack rabbit. Often, when the kids are making me apeshit on a Saturday morning, I'll send them out on the hill to look for bunnies. We know the warrens are there, the bunnies are less reliable.
Usually, a bunny sighting happens about once every month or so, a rate akin to spotting a celebrity in L.A. For the past few weeks though, virtually every morning, we've seen a bunny, we assume the same bunny, somewhere close to our house. Sometimes he's down by the trailer, sometimes near the chicken coop and often camped out by the great oak that reaches over the living-room. Generally, he's with his two friends, the deer and the turkey. Always a single deer, always a single turkey, though those animals usually travel in groups. It is, it goes without saying, mysterious. Ben and I have been joking that this bunny is our spirit animal.
This morning, the bunny was settled for a good hour just outside the living-room windows. He stayed while Mihiretu performed his routine seven a.m. joyful whoop up and down the hall. He weathered the frantic few moments of the feeding, clothing, combing, shoeing and backpacking of Mae before she spilled out the front door at eight. He even remained zen during the shoving and screaming match (performed on bar stools) between the invincible Lana and the undefeated Mihiretu.
As he stayed and stayed, I suggested that perhaps we should give him a name. "Tip Top" was Lana's suggestion. Predictably, "Butt" was Mihiretu's.
The truly amazing moment was when Mihiretu opened the window not four feet from the bunny and hollered at top Mihiretu volume (on a whole different scale than other voices, his goes to eleven) and the rabbit merely turned one long ear towards the barrage of sound.
If we did indeed have spirit animals, Ben might be an otter, basking in the waves on his back, cleverly working a clam shell open, I, perhaps, a preening peacock, fanning colorful feathers, Mae undoubtably a horse running free, mane streaming behind her, Lana, a sly kitty-cat in the window, sleek and aloof, and Mihiretu a road-runner, moving fast and beeping loud. Put all those animals together and what do you have? A zoo, I suppose. Where in there, I wonder, is this placid jack rabbit, fast and shy and silent? Maybe that furry little guy knows something I don't. Could there be some soft, quiet, peaceful undercurrent that calls him to our record-high decibel house? It might just be he's a little masochistic and neurotic, a fuzzy Woody Allen. Or a flunkie Easter bunny, looking for entertainment while his cousins are frantic with colored eggs and beribboned baskets. Whoever he is, I like him.
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