Watching My Words

I'm sitting on a folding chair watching Tripp wield a small lacrosse stick. A hanging net separates me from the group of boys and their two coaches as they run drills on spongy green indoor turf. Tripp prances through a series of hula hoops, carefully cradling the ball.

"Knees high, boys!" urges Coach 1.

They are to stop behind red, yellow and blue plastic cones, place a foot forward, and heave the ball at Coach 2, who is playing goalie. The ball flies roughly 4 feet.

"That's it, boys!"

They bend their knees and scoop the plastic balls and run in circles like a herd of unruly wild ponies. Some of the boys lie down on the turf. One or two yawn. Each time Tripp runs by me, he waves. I film him with my iPhone so I can message his Mom, who is home with the flu. In my excitement, I confuse photo with video on the camera AP, and catch fuzzy snippets of Tripp in his red shorts and grey tee shirt, poised mid-gallop, stick aloft.

I notice him fiddling with his nose, and beckon him over.

"What's wrong?" I ask him.

"I have a stringy booger."

"That's okay, " I say reassuringly. "It's fine; there's no blood."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm positive. Now, go on back out there."

When I turn around, a lacrosse mom with long blonde hair has taken my seat, and has turned it in toward a circle of younger women. Really? I think.

After practice, Tripp leans against me and sips from his water bottle. His small body is damp.

"I think we can play some games," he says, looking toward an arcade in another room.

"Okay, how about just one game?"

He chooses a racing car and gives the wheel a few quick spins.

"I think we can get some candy," he says.

"I think not," I tell him.

He holds my hand as we walk toward the car. 

"Can I play with my Bat Cave that you gave me when we get home?"

"Of course you can," I reply. "Maybe Ollie can play too."

"No, I think not," says Tripp.

When he's buckled into his car seat, and I'm backing out, a few of the skinny lacrosse moms are standing in the middle of the parking area, gabbing.

"Okay, you dumbos, how about moving out of the way?" I mutter.

"I do not like that word you used, Beauma. It makes me very sad," a mournful voice calls from the back seat.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said they were 'dumbos'."

"They are my friends," says Tripp. 

"I'm so sorry," I repeat, "But, say, are you ready to get some soup for Mommy?"

"Chicken noodle?"

"Yes."

"I like the kind with extra noodles."

"What music shall we listen to on the way to the store?" I ask.

"Cheerleader," replies Tripp promptly. "It's my favorite song."

We listen to Cheerleader six times in a row, and then find the chicken noodle soup with extra noodles, a packet of Ricola, and a bag of orange clementines at Stop N Shop.

When we get home, I tell his mother what a big help Tripp's been hefting the net bag of clementines onto the scale and through the scanner.

"The scanner? How do you know about a scanner?" his mother smiles.

Tripp shrugs. "I just do."

We have grilled cheese sandwiches and Tripp and his mother and Ollie slurp chicken noodle soup with extra noodles. Then we sit in the warm November sun and blow bubbles.

"BUBBLES!!" Ollie squeals. "POP!" and "BYE BYE, BUBBLES," he sighs as they float filmy and rainbow colored up into the sky and out of reach.

*

We Can't Be Naked at the Beach

As Federer battles Djokovic at Wimbledon, I'm watching the boys at the beach while their mother smacks a basket of tennis balls with a dreamy dark haired pro named Leo.

The boys fill buckets with sand, a respectful distance from two bigger boys.

"I have that same bathing suit at home," says the older boy, Hugh, pointing to Tripp's blue and green surfer shorts. Tripp's got on his navy blue Crocs and a white tee shirt. Ollie is wearing red and white trunks, a blue polo shirt and tiny Crocs like Tripp's.

We drift toward the edge of the Sound, poking at seaweed and shells with sticks, picking up and discarding stones, then wade in up to our knees.

I show them how to rub special sienna colored stones together to make Indian paint.

"Cock," Ollie says, offering me two large shiny black rocks. "Big cock!"

"He wants you to throw them," Tripp explains.

"Do horseshoe crabs bite?" he asks after a moment.

"I don't think so," I say, "and they are older than dinosaurs."

"Whoa."

A wavelet topples Ollie, who is hunkered down splashing with his hands.

We whisk off his shirt and I hurry to put on a dry one before his mother sees.

When Ollie starts to pull down his bathing suit, Tripp admonishes, "No, Ollie, Mommy says we can't be naked at the beach."

"How about going on the slide?" I say hastily. "Ollie, slide?"

"Yeh, side," Ollie agrees in the voice of a pint-sized mafioso. "Over dere." 

Two lithe young women with long brown hair and matching red one-piece suits stroll by.

"Hey, Tripp!" they say. "Going swimming?"

Tripp drops to the sand.

"Are they your counselors?" I whisper. Tripp is a Minnow.

Tripp stiffens, and I remember when his mother was four, and a certain blonde lifeguard named John Ames captured her heart. Side by side on the throne of the lifeguard chair they perched, twirling their silver whistles. Katherine's feisty, salty, sandy body wrapped in a beach towel, her hot tears at summer's end.

Ollie walks the perimeter of the play area in the shade cooled sand. "A, B, C," he chants. "1, 2, 3. Q."

"I don't go on the monkey bars," Tripp tells me. He climbs to the top of the play structure where I am to catch him as he jumps, flip him upside down and swing him to the top of the slide.

Ollie places one bare foot on the trunk of the shade tree and looks up. 

"Tree," he says, pointing.

"I think he's looking for his family," I say to Tripp.

We have croissants and blueberry muffins and lemonade for breakfast, seated at white picnic tables in the children's area.

"Let's go watch Mommy, " I say.

Ollie makes for the dock and open water but Tripp herds him back toward the tennis courts. "Buh!" cries Ollie, when he spies the neon yellow tennis balls blanketing the court. "BUH!" 

His mother throws a few over the fence to us.

"I'm thirsty," Tripp says. "I need some water."

"Beauma can get you some water," Katherine says pointedly. 

Ollie heaves both tennis balls into the Sound.

"Uh, oh," he says.

"Let's go back to the play area," Tripp says.

"Okey doke."

"Beauma! Is this a big boogie?" Tripp asks, halting to investigate the inside of his nose with a forefinger. He shows me a small crusty speck.

"No, it's not a big boogie."

"Good, because a big boogie means I might get a bloody nose."

"Well, that is definitely not a big boogie. No worries."

"EEEEEeeee," screeches Ollie. I grab him under the belly and we streak across the lawn away from the men's doubles tournament, past the "Adults Only" porch, leaving their mom a few minutes of peace.

"How about a pop, Ollie?" I pant.

Mid-screech, Ollie stops kicking. "Pop?" "POP?" 

"Yes," Tripp and I say. "POP!"

"Yeh, pop," Ollie agrees. "Over dere."

Gossamer

Mom and I are taking a slow turn around the neighborhood. She's wearing navy blue slacks, beige shoes that close with velcro, and a pink shirt with black dots. Her pale blue eyes are skyward, focused on another reality just beyond this one, peopled with shadowy figures. She traces the shapes, shops, and shoes she sees there in the air with her fingers.

A  trim, petite, perfectly coiffed elderly woman makes her way to us slowly on her walking stick. 

"Hello!" she says brightly, "It's so wonderful to see you, Helene." She pats my mother's hand, and Mom slips briefly into autopilot: "Wonderful to see you," she responds.

I spy an errant silver hair on my mother's slacks and pluck it off surreptitiously. 

The woman, Mrs. McBean, has a tiny perky terrier named Pablo, also perfectly coiffed. I'm suddenly ashamed of my hiking shorts and flip flops, the traces of recently tinted eyebrows that make me look - I'm convinced - like Eddie Munster.

Liz, Mom's nurse, says, "Oh, look, Mrs. Victor, it's Pablo."

"Volka?" Mom frowns, scanning the skies.

"Pablo," we repeat.

"Well, dear, I'm off to play bridge," Mrs. McBean says.

My heart aches for Mom, who played duplicate bridge regularly with her pals. Now her pals are mostly gone. There's faithful Winnie, 98, who comes for lunch on occasion, and Nancy from the church, who comes Sundays to give communion. Mom frets over reading her part of the lesson, and if her anxiety persists, she watches Frank (Sinatra) on utube, gently tapping her fingers in time to Fly Me to the Moon. A private concert.

Rosie calls occasionally from Florida, her frail voice whispery soft. It's a privilege to witness the tenderness between them, the gossamer connection of 70 years.  

We go as far as the mailbox and turn slowly toward home. Liz is careful, patiently pushing the wheelchair ever so slowly, so Mom doesn't get disoriented and think she's pitching forward.

I cut a big bunch of vivid blue and violet hydrangeas and put them right before her eyes, but she doesn't register them. At least not today. I resist the urge to say, "They're right here, Mom. See? See?"

First They Took My Hippopotamus

I lead Ollie, clutching a small bag of Pirate Booty up the steps of the smallest slide in the park, seat him and give him a bit of a push to start him off.

"Whee!" I say.

"Whee?" His mother's eyes swivel toward us. "Mom, Ollie has never been on a slide, and he has food in his mouth."

We have spent the morning playing naked hide-and-seek (Tripp being the only one without clothes,)  dashing through my living room, hiding, then jumping out and shrieking BOO! until we are breathless. We have had an Exploration Walk around the neighborhood, Ollie splashing through puddles in his tiny Crocs, and discovering the flag pole, and learning to say "grass." Tripp bears arms: tiny plastic nunchucks ("Not numchucks, Beauma,") and sais. 

Tripp is heavily into Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and has at least one turtle and its accompanying weapon on his person wherever we go. (Michaelangelo hitched a ride on the tram when we went to feed the goats at Hildene.) It is constantly "GO TIME" for the heroes in a half shell and a certain four-year-old. I find myself exclaiming "TURTLE POWER!" throughout the day.

Back at the park, Tripp has rediscovered the slide he christened "the waterspout" last summer, while Ollie explores sand.

"Do you remember how you made me sing "Itsy Bitsy Spider" while you went up and down?" I reminisce.

"Yeah," says Tripp. "Do it now."

"Now?"

"Yes." He points to the opening of the waterspout. "Lean down there and start singing as I climb up."

"Okay," I sigh.

We rehearse until I get the timing just right: I must sing the part about the spider going up slowly, pause while the spider rights itself within the waterspout, raise the volume of my voice for "DOWN came the rain," and raise my arms in a circle for the sun.

Then it's time for the bigger slides and joining other children.

"I ate my hotdog already," Tripp informs a little girl by way of introduction.

Ollie practices climbing up and down the stairs and shouts, "Go! and Yay!" with full body quivering ecstasy each time someone slides down. 

"You got this, Beauma," his mother directs from the picnic towel.

Ollie rides astride my lap, his tiny face crinkly with joy. WHEE!

"Go FI!" Ollie yells. "Go!"

"Slide," corrects his mother.

"Yeah, FI!"

Tripp is sitting in a disconsolate heap on the wood chips.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"First they took my hippopotamus," he points at two small children, one with mayonnaise at the corner of his mouth. "Now, they're on my triceratops."

"First, it's not your hippopotamus," I explain. "It belongs to everyone who plays at the park."

"Well, can you get the bug off when it's my turn?"

"Sure."

Later, while Ollie naps, Tripp and I zip to the bookstore for a treat.

"Do you remember coming here last summer?" I ask as we walk inside. Tripp has my hand in his right hand, and a transformer version of Donatello in his left.

"At what age was I?" 

"You were three."

After conversations with Erik, Jess and Fran, we emerge with a Lego Turtle Van Takedown.

"Oh, only 6 to 12 pieces," Tripp reads on the front of the box.

"Actually, that means this is for 6-12 year-olds. There are 368 pieces," I say, envisioning a long afternoon poring over Lego schematics.

"Well, actually I'm a big boy, so we can do it, Beauma."

*

Speaking of the Cold

  "How are you, Mom?" I ask.

  I've made a fire, I've made lemony lentil soup from Thug Kitchen. I've trained for an hour lifting a round 25 pound weight over my head as I lunged my way across the gym floor. I've done dead lifts, a variety of planks with and without twists, tricep dips, oblique twists, squats. I've pushed 450 pounds up into the air with my legs. I've walked/jogged 3.1 miles, made a smoothie with powdered whey and fruit. I've drunk water, ginger tea. My Blueprint Cleanse organic juices are lined up in my fridge. This is my fortress, these are my momentary assurances of power and invulnerability. 

My mother's voice, frail today, makes me wilt like a yellowed celery stalk, my belly soften, my heart judder. No matter the weights lifted, the cleanses taken, I can't prevent the thought: What will I do without her? How will I survive?

"I was at this party," she says. "A big party, and I was trying to get home. Finally I found some people and I could leave, but it took about five hours."

Awhile ago, I would have tried to change the conversation's scope, the topic. Frightened, I would have said, "That was a dream, Mom. There was no party."

"Was it a nice party?" I ask. I can picture crowds of people in fancy dress milling about the grounds of her club. Couples sit together on a stone wall; beyond is the golf course. In the distance, a few stalwarts are heading in, bags slung over their shoulders. Early evening. Rosy sky.

"Well, it was, it was big and we all had to bring a little bit of money..."

"Oh, it sounds like a charity event," I say.

"Yes, it was, a good excuse for a party..."

The conversation is short today, no talk of the books I'm reading. We speak of the cold.

"Oh, yes, we've had a storm," Mom says. "Little clumps of snow."

Abruptly, she says, "When are you coming?"

"Next week," I say, thinking: After training, after lifting some more weights, when I'm strong.

"I love you, Dearie," Mom says.

"I love you, Mom, very, very much."

"Take good care of yourself," I say. "Stay bundled up."

*

Sepia Tones

Tripp and his mother and me tumbled outside into the gentle fall morning to play soccer. When his sneakered feet hit the grass, damp with dew, Tripp's small back stiffened and he looked down.

"In 5, 4, 3, 2, 1," his mother joked, watching for his reaction.

"Oh, it's wet, " Tripp declared, but then he was off racing in circles like a puppy, darting and weaving.

"Catch me!" he shouted.

"I'm gonna GET you!" I bellowed, chasing him, scooping up his joyous squealing body and spinning him in circles.

"Let's play in the driveway," I suggested.

Tripp ran and ran, kicking the soccer ball with either foot up the slope of the driveway and down.

"Goal!" he shouted, or "I DID it!"

"You did it!" we yelled.

He avoided a particularly treacherous looking corner of the driveway where the soccer ball inevitably rolled, where a clump of menacing yellow maple leaves had drifted, their glistening wetness posing an inexplicable threat to a boy of three.

"Get it, Beauma!" he demanded pointing to the ball centimeters away.

To demonstrate my athleticism, I trapped the ball with my feet and jumped, flipping the ball toward him.

"Okay, never do that again," said my daughter, bent at the waist and snorting.

"That hurt my feelings," Tripp said sorrowfully.

"But, why," I asked, snorting myself. "Why did it hurt your feelings?"

"They're talking about feelings at school," my daughter clarified.

"I have to go pretty soon," I said to Tripp.

"Why?" he asked.

"I have to drive all the way back to Vermont."

"But, not right now."

"No, we can play a bit more first, and then you can wave to me from the steps the way you always do."

"Okay, Beauma. Watch me!"

*

Driving along the lane to my mother's house, I come upon the small wheelchair procession. Mom is swaddled in a blanket, a brown fringed shawl wrapped around her shoulders. I roll down my window as the three women approach the car.

"It's your daughter, Mrs. Victor," Lynn says, her long blonde hair tumbling over her face as she bends down close to my mother's ear.

"It's Amy," I hear Liz the nurse prompt.

My heart lurches.

"Hi, Mom! I smile and eagerly search her eyes for a glimpse of recognition, finding confusion, vacuity.

Back at the house, Liz brings me an aluminum chair with a pink seat then disappears, while Lynn shuffles boxes in the garage.

I sit near my mother in the sun. I touch her still, soft hand. I rest my hand on her arm. I rub her back. 

"Oh, hi," she says.

Her head droops as she dozes. I weep silently, wishing to reclaim the past as it was and as I wish it had been.

"I love you, Mom," I say. I kiss the top of her head. We sit together in the warm sun. I've been asking myself to remain open and curious about this winding down of a full, full life. I want to capture this moment in the sun, the pale golden leaves fluttering down around us, the two of us.

*

Wadduh Wadduh Everywhere

It was simply poor timing that just as Tripp and I emerged from my car in front of the cavernous Long Island Children's Museum, four school busses filled with excited campers in emerald green or banana yellow tee shirts were lining up outside the door.

"I want to go back to my house," Tripp said, shrinking back from the clamor.

"Oh, no, buddy, this will be fun!" I enthused.

Once inside, however, the noise was amplified in thunderous, booming echoes. The shrieks and giggles of happy kids was deafening. As lines of wriggling giggling children snaked through the ground floor, Tripp buried his face in my shoulder.

"Too youd!"

"It is pretty loud," I agreed, hastily purchasing our tickets. "Let's go see what's outside."

As I placed Tripp on the floor, he swiveled instinctively toward the museum's shop. "I sink it is not too youd in there," he said.

"Let's check outside first."

Just beyond the door was a sandpile with buckets and shovels, and beyond that in a secret bower was a wooden bench surrounded by plants and flowers. On the bench was a book. The book was "The Itsy Bitsy Spider," (the long form) containing the words to Tripp's favorite song. As we sat together and read, a young male counselor strode by. "The Itsy Bitsy Spider?" he asked. "Dude, I love that story."

We explored a bit and discovered an amazing area of pumps and shower heads that released water when one tugged the end of a rope.

"Wow!" I exclaimed.

"Too wet," said Tripp, waggling a finger.

"Let's just see," I said, guiding his small body through a gate. There was a stream with gurgling water in which one could wade, a series of sluice gates that could be raised and lowered to let orange and red plastic fish and boats slide down, and wheels to turn and buttons to push to move water down spouts. There were  aluminum buckets to fill.

A small band of sopping wet toddlers splashed happily about, observed by parents.

"Too wet," Tripp said, drawn in spite of himself to a wheel like the wheel of a sailing ship which he began to spin, watching as a small trough filled with water.

"Hold my glasses," he ordered, doffing his purple shades. "There is a yot of wadduh."

"I like his look," a dad observed, "Especially the collar turned up."

My grandson was wearing his khaki shorts (over big boy space ship underpants,) a green polo shirt with the collar just so, golf socks, and brown canvas sneakers with velcro tabs.

"No, my wheel," he said as a little girl with long brown hair appeared to his right.

"Can we share?" she asked.

Tripp looked doubtful.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Lily."

"Lily, this is Tripp," I said.

Lily and Tripp shared the wheel, then turned a crank which moved a pulley to which small canvas bags were attached. The canvas bags scooped water from another trough, then released it into a bucket.

"This is how some people have to work together to get water," Lily explained.

"Why?" Tripp asked, not minding that the front of his green polo shirt was now drenched.

"Because they live in different places where it isn't so easy to find water."

"Why?"

"Because water doesn't come out of the tap."

"Why?"

"Why don't we take off your shoes and socks," I interrupted.

"No."

"If we take them off, you can splash in the stream and lift the sluice gates."

A few minutes later Tripp was standing on a block of wood lifting gates and watching as his blue plastic boat sped down the current. He returned to the wooden wheel to fill pails and empty them.

"Watch me," he said to Lily.

"Where's my number 5?" He turned to me.

"What number 5? The pails don't have numbers on them," I said.

"I need my number 5!"

Lily and I looked at each other and began to search for a pail with the number 5 on it. After examining 8 to 10 pails, we found it. A pail with a tiny 5 stamped upside down on the bottom. Lily handed it to Tripp without a word.

"What are you, Rainman?" I laughed.

"No, I'm Tripp!"

"I know you are," I said, and kissed the top of his head,

When Tripp was completely soaked I led him over to a chair and removed his shirt and sleeveless white  undershirt.

"Oh, no," he protested.

"You don't need that undershirt," I said, knowing it to be a peculiar penchant of Nora the nanny. "It's too hot." I used the undershirt to dry his feet.

We wandered back inside and into the shop where we purchased a new tee shirt, and after circling a few dozen times, and I had counted to 5 slowly, Tripp grabbed a microscope. And a ball. And a brightly colored octopus that clanked when shaken.

"How about just the microscope," I said.

"Okay, Beauma."

We ventured into the bubble room, grabbed some colorful fruit snacks from the cafeteria, called each other on phones from my childhood, entered a room with lots of drums and xylophones that could be beaten incessantly, and then into a room with SHHhhhhh written on the walls and round comfy looking cushions, which led one's grandmother to suppose it to be a quiet room.

"Let's sit here for a bit," I said.

BABABABOOOOM! WHOO! WHOO! BOOM! CHUGGA CHUGGA!! burst from unseen speakers. Purple and pink strobe lights began to flash.

For a small boy sensitive to noises, this was catastrophic. We were o-u-t  OUT of there.

"That was very scary," Tripp shuddered.

"It sure was," I said.

We wound down a suspended bridge and jumped into a pile of sand. There were sand dunes and beach grass and a table ringed in sand that could be covered and then scrupulously raked off with a small rake. Gentle lights pulsed. Tripp wore his shades.

"A few more minutes and then it will be time to go," I said.

"I'm cleaning," Tripp said. He stood between two girls who poured sand onto the table's smooth plastic surface as Tripp raked crisscrossing patterns. Crowds of children whooped and shouted around him, but my damp, sandy grandson was blissfully oblivious.

*