January 28, 2014 (log)

More snow. Icicles everywhere, as if someone in charge of dramatic icicle distribution said, "Okay, overnight, let's drape every porch, roof top, gutters and downspouts, every attic window, every house in this small town with such delicate daggers of once-rain-water. Let's dazzle these complacent people who insist upon fighting over potholes and athletic fields. Give all of them icicles, even the empty houses with real estate signs, half-hidden by last week's snow, for sale or rent. Make them choose beauty and frozen danger, despite the cost of bread, gas, and milk going up." Meanwhile, homeless people are freezing to death and empty houses sit empty.

Crazy week. One son is abruptly moving out, one year lease, into a floodplain. Everyone else knew before my husband and me. Minor ripple in the river of my existence. I had lunch with the last young person I tutored; she is struggling to stay in college because the grandparents who raised her both now have Alzheimer's. She takes care of them, despite older relatives who should be helping. We had developed a good relationship and I included her in my various community volunteer projects, as well as family get-togethers. She slowly trusted me more and now we are true friends, despite the age difference. I am old enough to be her mother, long dead, frozen in blue-eyed time, a blurry photograph, she once showed me, eerily similar to how I looked twenty years ago. We spend three hours talking and laughing, drinking tea and eating slowly in a Chinese restaurant until the lunch crowd is gone.

Half-heartedly, I answer an ad in the newspaper for "a homework attendant", and suddenly I am caught up in another family's dynamic. One parent wants me to jump through hoops of fire and be at her beck and call, but underneath she is looking for someone who can make her child normal. We meet, like spies, at Starbucks and she fills my head with a thousand things that are important to her. I listen, sip cappuchino, as the high school lets out at 2:45pm, pouring a parade of teenagers who sit on top of each other, laughing and happy, on the lookout, with their boots, backpacks and ponytails. They all look so beautiful and confused, buzzing with hormones. I want to shout, "Wait! Stay young longer! Go make a snowman! Don't become just another Starbucks latte/frappuchino/chai/crazed citizen in this icicle town!"

But I stay silent instead, above the roar, until the woman who is interviewing me is satisfied. Two hours. She tells me no one knows her child's condition, not even her family. I am vacillating between empathy and curiousity. She makes plans for me to do this and that, not knowing I do not respond well to micromanagement, nor being told what to do. I will know if the job is worth my time only when I meet the child. I caution her I'm rather blunt and honest. She assures me she is the same, then takes a phone call regarding her mother who suffers from dementia and is faraway, in a nursing home. Her mother is having difficulty breathing and has a temperature, is refusing her meds, has talked other patients into doing the same. She tells whoever is on the phone she's not paying extra for a recent haircut for her mother.

I start thinking about icicles again, how if the sunlight glances through them, it is so momentarily beautiful...I don't even want to take photographs. Later, I return Edith's car, borrowed at the last minute, as my older son tries to replace a dead battery in the van. Going in her front door, the last of the sun is off to the west, causing a cluster of icicles at eye level that almost blind me. We look at them together and she sighs, "So beautiful, so beautiful. I don't understand people who hate them. How about a glass of Merlot?" She wants to hear about my meeting, but first I must run through her back yard to check on my guys.

Despite the below freezing temps, van battery is replaced and my son is off. I turn on all the inside Christmas lights for my husband and make sure he eats something, takes his meds, while I tell him a little about the meeting. How I will only be away if someone is home with him. He looks at me, then very slowly thanks me for thinking of that. I tell him I need to check on Edith because she seemed lonely, but to read his new book and I'll be home before dark. He says he will be okay because the cats are home and our younger son is in the shower. We laugh because he takes 45 minute showers, sometimes longer. I say, "Our water bill might go down when he moves out." But my husband doesn't laugh, is sad. "Why don't you have some coffee and cookies?" I suggest and his face brightens, delighted about hot coffee and cookies, so I leave, telling him I have my cell phone if he needs to call.

I run back through the snow, seeing more icicles everywhere, sparkling and static. My footprints look large compared to squirrels' and rabbits' tracks. The sky is blue like fall or summer, as I suddenly feel like I'm tumbling towards heaven, when it's just Edith's back door, where she waits with her Pittsburgh cough, wine and dark chocolate, where she sits, wrapped in a blanket to hear what is going on in my life and I, in hers. She says, "I have a book for you, the first phone call from heaven." We end up watching Jeopardy until it's almost too dark. I reluctantly head home, book in hand, thankful for such a good neighbor.

I am back just in time to say goodbye to my moving-out-son, who suddenly decided to shave off his first real beard and all of his hair. "Have fun. Keep in touch...." but he is already out the door, not dressed nearly warm enough. I check on my husband and he's sleeping with his book at his side. The house is blessedly quiet. I re-heat leftover Chinese food and listen to a Latino music station on the radio, then text and call a friend, after checking in on my Mom, who tells me she saw so many icicles all around her town. She says everyone is talking about them, like they're a nuisance, even on the news. I tell her not to believe everything she sees on TV, especially the news.

the first phone call from heaven. Mitch Albom. 2013.
Lyrics by Neil Diamond. Home Before Dark.