It's aturday and my s key i sticking

I'm not going to fix the "s" thing, so you'll have a little game today, I guess, this lazy Saturday afternoon.

Both boys have gone to the eat coast to spend the week in Hilton Head. I've decided to tay here with ophie and try to feel calmer and more relaxed. Hilton Head is not my happy place, to use a loathsome cliche, but I hall mis my family and the feeling of being together, however fraught with family drama. Perhaps it's a trial run for when Oliver goes to college in late August, and Sophie and I will be fairly alone and defenseless except for the large guard dogs we have and the crowbar I keep beside my bed, ready to swing at the first person who sets off my fancy Nest security system.

Reader, beware.

Today I went to see Dr. Jin, and when she stuck a needle in the flehy part of my arm just below my elbow crease, I felt a surge of -- something -- and then tears or were they water? started leaking out of my eyes and down my face where they pooled, I'm sure, on the white paper I lay on. What i this? I asked Dr. Jin, but she was already down at my feet and remarked, Almost done, it's good to cry. Cry and then relax. he put the tinny Chinese music on, and I cloeed my eyes and drifted, like I always do, to the past and a kind of lucid dreaming where I am at once aware that I'm lying on the table with needles sticking out but drifting through past lives and memories and boys and babies and it's all very zen and soft and humid and sensual without any exertion. Before I left, Dr. Jin reminded me to take the special pills she'd given me last week. I imagine they are some form of Chinese prozac and will help me to regain my former effortless composure and sunniness.

o.

What are you doing this weekend?

Hilton Hell and Heaven*

It's hard to know where to start when I haven't been on the old blog for over a week. The boys and I were on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. It was beautiful there, but hot. Oppressively so. I am not so good in the heat. I'm an admitted wimp when it comes to humidity, and I prefer the cold shock of the Pacific to the bathwater of the southern Atlantic. I also hate jellyfish, mosquitos, roaches and the fact that it never cools down, even at night. Did I mention that it was oppressively hot? On the positive side it's always a joy to see the nieces and nephews and my own children running around together, enjoying the beautiful ritual of this summer week that my incredibly generous parents have provided for so many years, and lord have mercy, but they're a bunch of beautiful children, inside and out.

We celebrated Henry's 18th birthday down there. I'm struck speechless that my first son is that old. He's the same preternaturally joyful kid he was on the day he was born. Gratitude for him and his presence on the earth over and over and over.

Cugini on Henry's birthday, only missing Sophie

Now I know you're dying to know whether we watched the Democratic National Convention all together, passing the popcorn and gently jostling one another, respectfully acknowledging our differing viewpoints yet exulting in the fabulous speeches and moving moments.

Um, no.

We're divided as a family, basically, into tribes, and the heads of one of the tribes are essentially the Bosses of the Land, so they determine pretty much everything, and we DON'T TALK AT ALL ABOUT THE DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION OR ABOUT DRUMPF OR CLINTON. I'll have to admit that it's the sanest way to operate, particularly in the oppressive heat of South Carolina. We did make conversation about what was for lunch or dinner or how hot it was or how beautiful the view was or how much we love one another despite not being able to converse about truly substantive things every four years or so. My sister and I resorted to watching the convention on a tiny television from the last millennium in her bedroom. I have no idea for whom the leaders of the other tribe are voting, but I know for sure who they're NOT voting for, and that's the first woman to receive the nomination. While it can be tense every now and then, I did make some sort of crack about how we were being denied our first amendment right to assemble peacefully and watch the dang thing in the living room and actually got a laugh from one of the chiefs of the other tribe.

Anyhoo, as they say.

I'd also like to mention the very large Drumpf sand castle that was built on the beach by a group of very white mid-westerners. Nor will I mention how members of our tribe got into it a bit and were called by the Drumpfers "liberal loons." In fact, they even etched a warning into the sand underneath the tower.

Yikes.

I'm proud to say that some of our tribe actually did knock down the tower later that evening -- or maybe it was just the tide?

I'll also mention that when the boys and I walked off the plane in Savannah, Georgia, we saw this ad, featured prominently in the waiting area:

The welcome ad displayed prominently at the Savannah airport

Hot blonde with great legs despite the camo and really cool boots, out for a little adventure with a killing machine thrown casually over her shoulder. I bet she feels safe as Hilton hell! And ready for some fun! I told the boys that we weren't in Kansas anymore (on second thought, things are probably pretty much the same as far as gun fun in Kansas) and that people are truly more afraid in these parts, even of one another, have strange and mysterious ideas about liberty and feel obliged to not only protect themselves but adventure with guns that have been manufactured solely to kill the maximum number of people as quickly as possible.

Did I mention how hot it was there? And relaxing?

I think that's enough for one day. I still have to tell you about the loggerhead turtles that we saw hatch and migrate to the sea one evening -- truly one of the most exciting and moving experiences of my 52 years on the planet.










*The levity of this post is in no way an entirely accurate representation of my thoughts regarding the election. While I tried to remain calm, cool and collected, I felt disgusted -- enormously so -- by the gun ad in the airport and the fact that middle schoolers would actually erect a sand tower to that man. Plus, I was hot.

Summer Sounds and Silence

That's late August, 2001 when our family spent our first in nearly fifteen years in Hilton Head, South Carolina. In this photo, my father was entertaining Henry and his cousin Mary by puffing up his cheeks and blowing the air out with a loud and goofy noise. I remember that Henry and Mary were hysterical, over the top amused when he made the noise and then falling silent and expectant as he worked up to doing it again. And again. All of us were beside ourselves with laughter. It's a happy, happy memory.

What you can't see in the above photo and, of course, hear is the sound of Come On Down! that ancient game show refrain that apparently remains very seductive, even in 2015. I have good memories of getting up during the summer and watching game shows on television when I wasn't at the neighborhood pool playing Marco Polo. Oliver, I'm sure, has fantasies of winning all manner of material goods and has asked me numerous times whether he can be a contestant on The Price is Right, but it was Sophie's rapt attention to it that freaked me out. Sophie generally has no interest in television or movies, but she was into this program, and I literally tiptoed back and forth so as not to distract her.

Then there's the lazy no-sounds of summer where you just lie down on your soft bedroom rug and sleep for a bit.

Reader, tell me what you hear on a typical summer day.

Fresina

My cousin Joanne came down to Hilton Head this year to stay with her brother, my cousin Philip, who has a house a couple of doors away from my parents'. Joanne led a few of us in making and baking fresina, a regional sweetbread that our Italian family has been making for as long as I can remember. The dough is basically a yeast dough with tons of eggs, similar probably to challah, with the addition of black anise seeds. Black anise seeds are indigenous to the Calabrian region of Italy and are very expensive and difficult to find. We didn't have the black anise this year to make our fresina, and most would say that regular anise is a poor substitute, but that didn't stop our enormous gang from eating nearly the entire batch in a matter of hours. It was really a scene from the children's book The Little Red Hen, as only Joanne, Oliver, Charlie and I helped mix the dough, watched it rise, shaped the fresina, let them rise and then baked them, while the rest of the cousins played cards, went to the beach or napped by the pool. The moment they came out of the oven, though, redolent of yeast and a faint licorice, the fresina were grabbed and wolfed down in seconds.

Here's Joanne, Mistress of Fresina Ceremonies:

There's no time here to really describe how particular Joanne is when it comes to recreating these Italian traditions. Suffice it to say that she's militantly clean. The dough is kneaded in a pot in the sink, because that's the way my grandmother did it. Despite the huge kitchen in which we worked, we kept to the tradition, a pot in the sink, because that's the way you do it. 

 Here's Joanne, scraping the dough off the wax paper that lay on top of it for the rise. Nothing is wasted.

I was proud of Joanne for letting the guys shape and roll the fresina. In the past, her militancy and cleanliness have prevented this. I think she realized very quickly that these guys are little Italian-blooded pros.

When Joanne asked for a clean sheet, again -- that's the way we do it, my father brought her one and told her that he'd taken it off the bed, and when she was finished, she could put it back on. This is probably tradition as well, and I can imagine my credulous grandmother would probably have screamed in horror and begun to pray if the same joke was played on her. Constant badgering and joking is still how we do it. Here are the shaped fresina ready for a second rise and then baking.

Here's my father and Joanne, probably arguing over the clean-up.

The finished fresina are pictured at the top. We spent a few minutes debating on how many to split in half and then re-bake, because this version is particularly good for dunking.

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My father evidently got a hold of most of those and stashed them somewhere in his bedroom, along with the home-made soppressata that Giuseppe, Joanne's husband makes, a knob of mozzarella from Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and his personal beach chair. You have to take these kinds of precautions when there are 24 people roaming about your house for a week.

Cugini and stuff

Low Country Questions

When we were children, my sister and I would ask one another the impossible question: If you had to, who would you kill? Mom or Dad? Neither! we'd scream, Neither!

If someone asked you whether you'd kill a terrorist who threatened your children (popped an olive in his mouth, an unsalted nut), what would you say (as you pull the plump mussel out of the lemon broth)? If  you toss and turn in bed all night, will those precious hours after sunrise seem heavy or deep and restful? Is the pen really mightier than the sword? Is your child's life worth more than mine? Is that child's life worth more than that one's? Or that one's? Would you send others to do your killing or would you hold them back and do it yourself?

Is Gubbinal about imagination and illusion or is there a world at all external to it?

That strange flower, the sun,
Is just what you say,
Have it your way.

The world is ugly
The people are sad.

That tuft of animal feathers.
That animal eye
Is just what you say.

That savage of fire.
That seed.
Have it your way.

The world is ugly.
The people are sad. 

Wallace Stevens

Gathering

Whenever seventeen people from one family gather together in one house, there are moments of pure hilarity and moments of pure insanity. There are fish hooks through fingers and card games. There are meals prepared and old roles slipped on with resentment and shed with  confidence. There is sunscreen and too much alcohol. There are frayed marriages and those tempered by humor, bound. This year, the long table was laid out with old Christmas ornaments, and sisters were instructed to pick what you want to keep. Pink glittered balls with green felt tops stood in for -- what? My own pile was small by intent as I have no interest in holding on, in piling up, in stand-ins. It's no accident that I should be reading Madame Bovary, the story of disappointment. If there were a copy of Cheever lying about, it might be smoking, at the very least, smoldering. The children, year after year, ride in circles on the wide sand. Their legs grow longer, their eyes look sideways at the spectacle. They, too, are gathering and will sow, years later, perhaps squander, hold on, let go.

How the day whiled

There was make-your-own-sub-sandwich lunch time:

and there was play Monopoly time

There was a long walk on the beach with my father, under stormy skies:

There were pelicans doing synchronized acrobatics in the sky:

There was a surprise for those of turning forty years old (my little sister, Jennifer) and those of us turning 50 years old (yours truly)

Then there was sunset on the beach --

There was the usual high drama, too, but I'll leave you with the illusion of perfection. Usually, it's the fine line between them where most of family relationships lie, and our family is like most, I imagine, in that respect.

Brainwash

What happens when you spend more than two weeks in South Carolina.

Hilton Head, Part 4,567,356

So, they look good, these boys of mine! They've spent nearly three weeks at Camp Grandma and Pop Pop, and I was so happy to see them tonight after my day of airplanes and airports and airport spinach dip and airport beer and a large pack of Twizzlers and three New Yorkers and one fantastic memoir (my friend Tanya Ward Goodman's Leaving Tinkertown). Tomorrow I'll catch up with my parents and my sisters and all my nieces and nephews and a few cousins. I might just possibly put on a bathing suit and go into the warm Atlantic ocean and drink cocktails at 5. Or maybe I'll drink a cocktail in the morning and then put on the bathing suit and go swimming in the ocean. In any case, I'm happy to be here and will probably be largely absent from blog world. Don't do anything crazy while I'm gone.

She in there, she know (a re-post)

Hilton Head, August 2008

This was one of my first posts, when I began blogging over four years and 2,275 posts ago. I'd forgotten about it and wanted to share it with you, particularly since when I first began blogging, only about ten people read anything I wrote. I was flipping through photos, looking for inspiration and prompts to write last night when I scrolled down to the one above of Sophie on a family trip to Hilton Head. I needed not only a prompt but the reminder of my Sophie's connection to this world. Seizures and the drudgery of daily life sometimes get in the way of the essential, and the air I breathe gets too close. The inhale is often easier than the exhale, and these words with this photo help me to release the breath outward, to fill up the world.

Here you go.

I left my boys in Hilton Head and returned to Sophie and The Husband -- and the human weather -- in Los Angeles. This is only the second time I've refused to schlep with Sophie to the east coast, but it's difficult on nearly every level. We yearn to be a family like everyone else in my extended family -- a family that can pick up with relative ease and just go. Oliver cried when we left The Husband and Sophie last week, and he cried, again, when I left on Sunday to return to them. Why can't we all be together like everyone else? he said. My parents are disappointed that I didn't do so this year, as we celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary and took another family photo (into which The Husband and Sophie will be photo-shopped), but I just couldn't do it. Everyone knows the sacrifices and modifications families with disabled children must face, but this might be a silent one -- doing what is practical in the face of a nearly existential sorrow, acknowledging what is fact and accepting what will never be.

The boys are busy with their cousins, the beach, alligators and bicycles. The Husband is working so that we can all live as we do. Sophie is at Communicamp each day this week, which I'll post about later, and I am at home, sitting in the silence, both grateful for it and longing for its opposite.

Waxing Gibbous

Waxing Gibbous Moon (more than half-lighted, less than full)

Who am I kidding?

I'll never post about the puzzle of family, the pull and the repel, the warmth and the isolation, the un-bloggable. I'll post instead about the moon, shining its cold, beloved light into my airplane window in the early hours of the morning and the one paragraph in a short story by Junot Diaz that set me back to a night long ago, a memory that pierced me and through whose tiny pinprick hole came despair and gratitude in equal measure, more than half-lighted and less than full. I wrote the memory down, the beginnings of a larger story:

The ring came in a little box, a coat of arms, a crown, a tiny bed of velvet. His mother had worn it before, or not. He was the second of the four sons, the first to marry. She always felt as if she were floating when she was with him -- floating through a forest near Mark Twain's house, a forest like the fairy tale, despite the thick undergrowth, his lightly drunken laugh. He dragged a guitar. She felt as if she were floating or, rather, drifting away in a small row-boat, the oars placed carefully inside, no effort and aimless after love on the white sheets, the air-conditioner humming, the smell of strange meat that the Laotian refugees cooked in the house behind them. The bed had swayed then, the growing distance between them an ocean as placid as the unsuspecting smile on his face. After he gave her the ring and they ate their dinner, they had floated down the road, their car enveloping them in silence. They held hands over the gear-shift, the new ring sparkled, floating reflections from the headlights of passing cars. The two people who trudged along the highway appeared to have just floated in, too, pushing a small stroller, the baby on the woman's hip, its blonde curly head buried in her shoulder. 


We have to stop, she told him, lifting her hand from his, his own down-shifting as they slowed and she rolled down her window and spoke to them, her words floating out into their open, surprised faces, white in the night air.