Juggling buoys

We're moving. We think. We're actually mostly waiting to see the forthcoming building quote, hoping we can even afford to do this thing that we've already set in motion.

While we wait, our own home is undergoing an upgrade. New siding. A broken window fixed. Painting. A repaired faucet, a replaced lamp shade. A new sliding glass door, a new roof for an outbuilding, several replaced lighting fixtures. Upgrade this, tighten that. And all the while help the dogs cope with loud noises and new people in our daily lives.

A buoy sculpture, Cliff Island, ME.(Photo: JP Myskowski)

We're fortunate we can [kind of] afford to build and move. It's not our first choice--mostly since we have recently paid off the mortgage on our home. But it's not our last choice either, since it is all rather exciting.

When we purchased this home in a lovely cul-de-sac neighborhood on an oval about the size of a high school track with an open field in the center for the neighbors to enjoy, we did so as a temporary house. It was too small for our young family.

But over the years, as you sometimes do, we turned a one-car garage into a master bedroom suite, and finished the basement for an at-home office and an entertainment room for the teens. We planted gardens, fruit trees, bushes, a Japanese Maple. Two sheds were added--one to hold what the too small one-car garage once housed, and one to keep the wood dry for our stove. Privacy fencing popped up along the northwest side of the house to help enclose the backyard, creating a secret garden where laundry hangs and we hide from the morning sun.

Now we are four humans under one roof again. But this time it is two in-laws who have joined us. One from his side, one from mine. They'd never met before. I actually only met my step father-in-law once over our 30+ years of marriage.

Our buoys hanging from one of our peach trees.

And again we find the accommodations a bit too snug. And not at all private enough.

So we wait for the quote to come in to see if we can build our new home on a bit of land we purchased earlier this summer up the road apiece in a nearby town. In the meantime, we improve that land a little at a time--clearing brush, removing dead timber, paying for a septic design--while we daydream about living there, in our slightly downsized home, with just the right touch of privacy and separate spaces.

I've been sorting through decades of memories and the stuff you accumulate when you sit still for 17 years. My rule is: if we haven't used it in a year, it goes to the town's swap shop. If it's an item that conjures a memory, I weigh whether or not it brings enough joy to lug around any longer, or whether one of my children might want it. I'm growing surprisingly better at cutting stuff--35-year-old yearbooks from the three high schools I attended in Oklahoma, New York, and Massachusetts included.

If it's something that both my hubby and I have a history with, we decide together. Currently our challenge is trying to decide which buoys to keep. They represent nearly 17 years of going to the seashore as a family. But my husband's not quite as fond of them as I am, which has made me sour on them too just a bit. Should they stay or should they go? Only time, and whether or not we can even afford this venture, will tell. 

Batman Works for the CIA

Mother recently told me about a childhood friend,

A boy I’d played Caped Crusader with

Nearly everyday after kindergarten.

I was Robin to his Batman.

At his house we wore towels for capes, and

Were actually permitted to jump from

Sofa to coffee table to chair in pursuit of

The Joker or, my favorite, the Penguin.

At mine, our capes were mimed as a

Backyard plum tree provided the obstacle

To climb, dodge, and drop from as we narrowly

Escaped injury in time for PB&Js dunked in milk.

Our mothers kept in touch through the years

As we moved about the country,

She and her husband still in that cozy northern

Ohio home a block or two from our first house.

“Apparently he works for the CIA now,” Mother said.

Since learning this news, I’ve envied him. At first for

Becoming what I’d only ever dreamed of. But as I grow older,

I am jealous he can return home to a place he knows well.

My family continued to move, finally depositing me

In a New England college town like sediment left  

Behind by an iceberg on its travels; the rest 

Eventually migrated to Southern California.

In the year before he grew ill, Dad was accompanied

Everywhere he went by a new security guard. Mother

Would complain that the guard was eating with them

Again and sleeping in their guest room again.

The guard even traveled with Dad to his new

Destination of China and places around the region.

We wondered why Mother was no longer invited

To journey with him as she had so many times while

He visited the English plants that he managed from

This side of the pond, the German manufacturers with

Which he often did business, and his Italian relatives

With whom he was pleased to finally become acquainted.

None of us knew why he was suddenly sending us selfies 

From the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square, yet saying 

Little about his new Far East adventures other than they 

Were equipment-purchasing forays from retired mills.  

In an office desk drawer, which Mother thought

Was jammed as, upon his death she cleaned out

His personal effects, and which my brother

Successfully jimmied open, was a handgun.

“He was a decent shot,” said the guard who

Suddenly darkened the threshold, there

To retrieve the weapon. But we knew

Dad could not possibly have been. After all,

We’d seen him shoot his 22, balancing the butt of

The gun in his armpit as he used a hand to cover

His eye and the other to pull the trigger because

He couldn’t blink. How could he possibly sight a pistol?

Apparently he’d been trained to work around his

Odd handicap. He’d had to learn for his own

Protection. Not even an undercover CIA operative

Posing as the new head of security could protect

My father twenty-four-seven from the 

Hit that had been placed upon his head 

By a foreign government. Perhaps all his

Training had been for naught after all.

When he suddenly fell ill with stage-four 

Cancer—dying five months later—he often 

Said cryptically that it probably wasn’t 

Natural causes that got him in the end.

Dad had been spying for Congress. Foreign steel had

Flooded the marketplace, purchased illegally by unscrupulous

Businessmen who dared blame their shady dealings on legal

Loopholes that allowed them the luxury to shun domestic steel.

A contingent from a country south of north had allegedly taken a

Contract out on my father. Either they or natural causes—

Or perhaps all those chemicals he’d been exposed to over

The years—got him before he could deliver his expert testimony.

He’d spent many more than Malcolm Gladwell’s ten

Thousand hours earning his reputation for greatness

In the wire mills of the world, and could easily identify shifty

From legal, frugal from dangerous, and strong from fragile.

He also knew how to recognize working mills from

Reportedly retired ones, which may have been the

Final nail in his coffin—

Or cancerous tumor in his spine.

My father had worked undercover with the CIA

As a super-secret agent for our government,

Giving me yet another reason to admire him.

I wondered if he and my kindergarten Batman

Ever worked together, feeling a sudden pang of

Jealousy if they had. But as time continues on,

What I most envy is that my childhood friend is 

Still able to return home and visit with his father.

  

  

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Discounting Time

Today I could unfurl my sails
and surf the net, lonely,
in and out of waves of storefronts
boasting 10 percent off this, 25 percent
off that, buy one/get one, or land a
free phone with a two-year contract.

Today only.

If only today I could open our front door
to the rush of friends and relatives who
blew in Thanksgiving afternoon; our
King Arthur table stretched to an oval
with five leaves that held all the
boisterous rollicking of the pop-up
party as we laughed over stories,
debated the politics of slavery, and
read aloud notes of gratitude penned
in green on beige paper hand cutouts.

Then only.

If stores could then only offer us 25 percent
more time together, instead of tempting us
with stuff to buy and give, that's a cyber
deal I could jump on and ride; instead of
these cyber Monday blues, today we might
again cook together, swap recipes, hike the
local trails with our canine friends, and play
the silly games we had planned to, but for
which time ran out before the night was done.

If only.