Fuel Cell

Another week on Joanne Drive and another few stories have been born. Last week came with it the excitement of a boy turning 14 and all went well with our loosely planned celebration. My brood is growing up and this house now hosts ages 9 to 90. I am in a state of frequent dizziness from all the turning about here and I get tired sometimes, completely drained. My kin don’t like to admit defeat and certainly don’t like to succumb to rest but I am learning that my kin is not always right and I have embraced, finally, the practice of taking a load or two off now and again. It is an act more radical than just putting on my oxygen mask first, it is about treating my body like a fuel cell that gets drained and replenished on a weekly basis and I have to be careful with how that’s done. I keep telling myself “energy is expensive these days!” and my crew here, in this home, has a million places to be all at once. I love this crew despite all the crazy, I am beyond content.

I don’t even know where to begin with all that has gone down this week and doubt that I can remember all of it. All I know is that Wednesday and Thursday were the climax and the weekend has been a gradual denouement. On the same day I lost my cool with my tantruming third-grader (she forgave me and said “I know, I know. You still love me.”), I discovered a local shamanic healer right here in Hanson. “Shamanic Healer” the sign said now Ace of Base’s “I Saw the Sign” has been stuck in my head. I have begun to ask this healer questions. You all should know by now that I believe in no religion but the overall goodness of humans in a weird universe and my ears perk up when I hear about anything metaphysical. Anywho, I might be going to a drum circle around a fire pit next month because yolo and I don’t go to church which makes this lapsed Irish Catholic girl feel guilty. Sounds woowoo but, hey, I don’t care. What else am I doing for my spiritual health?

Wednesday’s drama (which included me testing Mom for Covid because she was not feeling well—she’s fine and it was not Covid and, as Meg says, when she admits to not feeling well “it’s like seeing a horse lie down”), was soon followed by even more developments on Thursday as divulged by my two boys in the throes of spring and all that comes with that season in the land of middle school life that we all have gone through. I realized as I coached them through this week that we humans are always in the middle of something no matter your age and I think middle school just may be the very pinnacle of our existence as we learn to fling ourselves awkwardly from our nests. My boys, my beautiful boys, are handling it with as much grace as they can; I do not envy their age or position. All that with the added pressure of technology at their fingertips. Ugh. No gracias. As I dropped them both off to see the school play on Friday, their frames now towering over mine, I couldn’t help but get a little choked up by just how well they’ve turned out. Then, of course, they fart on one another and my pride gets a little diminished for a minute or two but you get the point.

Saturday came with it an opportunity to have “brunch” with my sisters (including our Fitzgibbons sister!), a trip to the movies to see Downton Abbey (so good), a brutal soccer game (sorry boys, you played your hearts out), and a visit from Thomas. As we sat by the fire, we recounted the drama of our very different weeks and I felt that all of the events that transpired were finally punctuated. To sit beside another beautiful human and share stories of exhaustion, humor, and triumph is one of the finest joys in life. It is the kind of joy that replenishes your fuel cell fully and makes you feel capable to spar and dance with life all over again for another week.

Today it is hot, very hot. We will pause in between a soccer game and Sunday dinner for a burial for Snip who passed a year ago today. I have decided that he will be buried under the silver maple in our side yard where he spent his last full day resting as the samaras drifted down from above. His ashes have sat on my dresser all year and I have never wanted to part with them. My kids, however, are insisting and they are right. Tomorrow I will begin my week with a rise before dawn and listen to the morning chorus of birds in order to start my day in peace. I was blessed last week with a deer sighting and ringside seats to a tussle between a hawk and a robin. Life beats on here in our little slice of heaven and my heart will, god willing, keep on beating in rhythm with all that surround me. My fuel cell will run dry by Friday and somehow, some way, I will find myself full again. What more can I ask for than that? Funny how we stumble on the meaning of life when we finally stop searching.