Waterfront Delights

The very best part of the new Rose Fitzgerald Greenway in Boston is the ring fountain across from Fanuil Hall Marketplace. The water shoots up in patterns from the pavement and I never once saw that space empty. Terry took me along for his four day Americorps conference at the Marriot, adjacent to New England Aquarium, and located on Long Wharf on the redeveloped waterfront.

It was one of the hottest weeks of the summer and from noon 'til after dark there were people playing in the fountain. It's designed for play, with the water shifting in height and design making it a challenge to run through without getting wet. But everyone wanted to get wet, because of the weather. Moms and Dads sat on the stone benches making up the outer ring where the mist occasionally drifted, while kids of all ages scampered about trying to predict where the next spurt of water would shoot. Toddlers crawled looking totally startled by the water behaving in ways they'd never seen, while older children tried placing empty drink containers over the holes to see how far they'd rise when the water shot up. Sometimes, the calls of ,”Come on, Dad...come in,” were answered and a grown up joined the splashing crowd. This isn't the only fountain scattered around this part of the city, but it's the most popular one. Tourists in town for a week, Moms with strollers from the high-rise apartments nearby, and residents who brought their towels on the T from other sections of the city all come to enjoy this treat—better than an open fire hydrant and much safer too. At night we watched the fountain light up from below and the colored light sections shifting from red to purple to blue then green on the two-story tall sculptured posts nearby. A few kids still danced in the fountain, but left as a couple of the local homeless men came to cool off and wash away the day's grime.

This was my second trip in three years and over and over again I'm amazed that this part of the city charms me every time. I spent a day wandering the narrow streets of the North End looking into windows of restaurants with 8 tables, and window boxes full of flowers. Trying to get a straight picture on streets that never are straight is an interesting challenge.

The wharf itself looked best at sunset, with boats moored in the harbor and more along the marina.

I even found the littlest houseboat I'd ever seen—obviously custom made for someone's dog.

Parts of this part of town haven't changed in a hundred years or more, but missing now is the old central artery which bisected the waterfront from the rest of walkable Boston downtown for so many years. Gone is the noise and exhaust of so many vehicles. It's all been sent underground and now a visitor can happily walk from the water all the way to the Statehouse, along crooked streets, past historic landmarks and new steel towers, and somehow it all seems to work. I know the Big Dig wasted tons of my tax money along the way, and made the wrong people rich, but I can't help but be happy with the end result when I get a chance to go. It's the designers I really credit, for they knew how the space would be used down the road, and I and the fountain-loving children bless them for their foresight.

Mom then and now

My mother's life and perspective on the world often give me pause. I suppose it's not a surprise that we see things very differently as our experiences have been so different. With my dad she had opportunities to travel over much of the continent and even the world, but in truth she's led a fairly sheltered life. She went from being her parents' daughter to being her husband's wife in a time when women were mostly defined as wife and mother. Now, in her eighties, she is finally living on her own and, for maybe the first time, getting up each morning and deciding what she wants her day to be.

Though she's always had an open mind towards others less fortunate than herself, her life has been solidly middle class, cushioned mostly by comfortable means and a family without major long term dysfunction. I don't mean that she hasn't had troubles, but she always seems somewhat astonished by the obstacles I encounter in my own life and the fact that I cope with them without a major nervous breakdown. Maybe what astonishes her is that I've handled so much alone, when she always had my Dad to help with the heavy lifting in life. I look at her life and see a pretty normal stay-at-home mom, whose interests seemed to revolve around her husband's and didn't often diverge. Over the years I know she belonged to book clubs and had close friendships with several women who became important parts of her life, but every time any of us tried to encourage her to strike out on her own, go back to school, decide what she wanted to be when she grew up, she always deferred to my dad and they made only joint plans for their future.

She, I suspect, often wondered why I wrote about my dad and not about her, back when I had a profile of him published. I could never bring myself to tell her that though I love her dearly, I sometimes have trouble thinking of her separately, as opposed to as part of the couple—my parents. And that fact always made me sad. I know she worries about me and is grateful for the care Paul, Alicia, and I have shown since my dad died 2 ½ years ago, but she remains a bit of an enigma.

To this day I don't always feel like I know who she is inside. I know she still enjoys playing tennis with her friends, and chatting with her building mates on Sunday afternoons. I know her quirks and preferences in clothing and jewelry, but I don't know what shows she watches on TV when she's alone. I know some of her favorite recipes, but absent medical restrictions, I'm not sure what her favorite foods would be—except for ice cream. I don't know what kind of books she likes to read when no one is watching—or does she still read what she thinks is “nutritious literature,” because Dad and his friends would've read it? If she wrote in a journal along the way I've never even had a hint of what would be in it. I still wonder sometimes about the past, too—why she never seemed to react to my children like most grandparents do (even before the serious problems surfaced with each) and why she has never seemed to truly understand that I love them all. I long ago grieved the loss of the children I imagined I would raise and tried very hard to learn to love the ones I had. She's always kept a sort of emotional distance from it all, and I never knew why. Dad's reaction, mirrored in Mom? Not knowing how to react to disabilities she'd never faced before? Embarrassment trying to describe it to her friends? Emotional self-preservation? I have no doubt she's attached to me, and more recently to my husband, but to my kids??? I just don't think so. Strange. Most of my friends have parents who changed their lives to be nearer to grandchildren. She prefers them at a distance and always has.

Families are always a bit of a mystery. We are connected in such intimate ways and yet so separate. Perhaps her greatest gift to me has been her encouragement and praise for whatever new venture I stepped into. I know my own inner strength comes from my upbringing, and that my strong will and stubborn streak probably didn't make me a particularly easy child to raise. I was critiquing and debating the grownups as far back as I can remember. I know when I succeed, I make her proud, and I know that even when she doesn't understand my choices, she tries to support ME. Not all families can say that. It's a lesson that has helped me love my own children even when I don't always approve of or understand the choices they make either. Theirs may have more drastic results than mine, but the principal is still the same.

And my mom never expected my life to mirror hers—another gift. From the time I was young, I was expected to BE something (besides a wife and mother) and to create my own path. I certainly have done that. Making her proud of me always mattered and she always wanted me to think for myself.

I'd venture that she knows me very well, having seen me grow over my whole life. She's seen my values expressed through my choices and actions, values I developed at home. Along the way, I've shared my poetry and my other writing with her, but I just have never really known what she thought about so many things. My parents presented a united front for so many years that I find it hard now to think of them as separate individuals, as other than a unit of two. Once or twice in the past two years, she and I have had really deep and heart to heart talks. But now sometimes Irefrain from expressing my own concerns because I want to protect her from worry. Without Dad, she seems more fragile. Maybe it's age related, maybe it's an mistaken impression, but the roles do seem to be reversing more of late.

My mother is a big part of my life, even now, even though we're geographically apart, but her inner life remains always a bit of a puzzle to me.

Scudder's Lane, Barnstable

I have no idea why they changed the name from Scudder Lane to Scudder's Lane when the new blue street signs were installed in Barnstable Village. Probably someone whose home on the winding street had been in their family for generations had complained that the sign didn't match the old documents in the Sturgis Library, where some records go back to the 1600's. Certainly the Scudder family has been around a long time. I have no idea if they still own property there on this little northside lane; the properties there are appropriately sized for the setting (no McMansions here) though surely pricey this close to the water.

I do know that Scudder's Lane dead-ends at a town landing, open to all residents, where there's a boat ramp and access to a bayside beach known for its glorious views of the barrier beach, Sandy Neck, on the horizon. The town harbor's boats bob off to the right across acres of marsh, while the rocky beach and more marsh wend their way to the west as well. Aquaculturists and kayakers alike delight in this little landing, and everyone talks to visitors who find their way here.

I go to photograph, mostly, and enjoy the sun setting over the water. Once in a while I get a spectacular shot; mostly I just keep practicing. On my last visit, the tide was slowly inching its way in and my tripod kept sinking into the wet sand and muck. This time I walked a bit west and noticed the size of the rocks scattered around. Good chance they were erratics from a long ago glacier, the same one which carved out the kettle ponds of the cape before receding into history. One or two of the boulders were larger than anything I've seen on the shore. They caught the golden light just right. Some were piled together in what might have been an old jetty—not to interrupt waves, on this quiet shallow spot, but perhaps to mark a boundary line.
Soft ripples of shallow water lapped around the marsh grasses and I was reminded just how precious this ecosystem is to the health of our shore and the bay itself. Here the marshes go on for miles. Tall sharp-leaved grasses point to the sky while in some sunny areas, the sea lavender is getting ready to bloom, its frothy heads of tiny pink flowers, still closed into pinpoint buds.

Closer to the ramp a couple arrived with a cooler full of dinner, chairs and two fishing poles. An idyllic spot to spend time, but I wondered why they needed the boombox, though they thoughtfully kept the music low. To me the call of the various terns and seabirds, the rhythmic “blip-blip” lap of the water and far away clink of a boat's rigging was music enough for this evening.
And all this in the midst of peak tourist season—you just need to know where to look.

It's places like this one that make the Cape still special.

Losing One More Time

I heard an author on NPR today discussing his book about his second son's health crisis, after having lost the first to drugs and suicide. He commented, as did his host, about feeling like lightning was NOT supposed to hit the same place twice and, despite all odds, it did, forcing him and his wife through a second agonizing and difficult journey. While intrigued, I couldn't help but feel, “only twice?” That's not bad; I'm on my fourth—or is it 5th-- agonizing slow loss of a family member, who's still here, but gone all the same.

A phone call yesterday from a long lost friend, whose daughter is about the same age as Janai, has me thinking about her and my granddaughter Janelle. The rumor mill has Janai back in Malden, living with her old boyfriend. Brian, and his family, while pregnant again by another guy. Her Facebook page says we hate her, but I fully expect her to call the next time she's in a crisis and wants rescuing again. Twice we (my granddaughter Erin, daughter in law Carol, and I) brought her to the Cape when the verbal, physical and emotional abuse was more than she could take, and both times she ran wild almost immediately making decisions based on her own impulses, not what was best for her infant, Janelle. She behaved in some of the same ways that got her placed in residential school four years ago, and made it impossible for Erin to continue to offer help, too.

She left , claiming I didn't help her, but what really happened is that I gave her the help she needed and not what she wanted....she wanted someone to take care of her and let her have her old life back, despite having a child. When we got her services and supports, lined up multiple resources and she was placed in a shelter for young moms, she only felt trapped having to be with Janelle, 24/7. So, instead of making a plan, she abandoned her daughter to social services, claiming that that was the only way to take care of her...Janelle is in foster care, now, nearly 200 miles away, and legally I have no rights unless I offer to parent her myself, something I just can't do.

Janai's actions continue to be attributable to her mental health problems. The research I've done on bi-polar girls says that it's a really difficult disease to treat successfully and then only if the person wants to defeat it and struggles mightily with both medication and therapy. Janai will do neither. Sexual acting out is very common and the complication of reactive attachment disorder means that since puberty, my bubbly happy little bundle of energy has been slipping away from me. Janai flits from relationship to relationship, and everyone is her “best friend” or the “love of her life.” She truly believes it in the moment, which is so sad. She doesn't stick around long enough to overcome obstacles and build her own confidence and esteem; she runs away, emotionally or geographically. And always she tells the people around her what she thinks they want to hear—her truth remains hidden, even to her.

The constant drama of mental illness takes a toll on the entire family. Everyone else seems angry with Janai, except me. I'm the one who seems to take it all in, and get up each day without a lot of emotional baggage. That's probably because I'm getting to be a pro at this after losing --in one way or another--Andy (adoption disruption), Kayla (autism), Mark (Multiple Sclerosis) and more recently Aunt Adele (dementia). Janai is sick, and I can't control the future for her.

When I do cry, it's for Janelle, who's now 9 months old, and hasn't seen any of her family down here since February. I made the mistake of getting attached to her while I was driving Janai around to services and babysitting a time or two. Infants are so precious and innocent and it was a joy to be around Janelle and try to engage her attention with words and music and colors. I only hope that the social workers, who certainly chose their profession from noble instincts, will do justice by Janelle in their choice and supervision of her placement. Maybe I can convince them to let me visit or receive photos and letters as the years progress.

Empty Houses, Lush Gardens

Long Beach Road in Centerville is labeled as a dead end, but it always brings my contemplative side to life.

The road veers off the main drag to Craigville Beach in Centerville and runs down the barrier beach, for a mile or so. It passes the very private Beach Club and dozens of beach mansions on the ocean side with more modest but still pricey summer homes on the river side. The Yawkey family (of the Red Sox) used to own a summer home down here that one of my teacher friends looked after. The availablity of deep water dockage makes the cluster of homes even more exclusive. Walking here, I always notice

that though large and lovely in design, most of the houses are styled to fit in a New England village—peaks, cedar shingles, and weathered wood fencing and only the number

and style of windows showing their mostly 20th century construction.

Yesterday almost all the homes were empty though there was a buzz of activity all along the road....landscapers galore orchestrating the lush gardens and lawns so that the owners can exclaim over them during the upcoming holiday weekend. Violet-blue hydrangeas, pink and red roses, and golden day lilies were in abundance everywhere I glanced. In one front yard, masons worked deliberately to dry set thick rectangular stones for a new semi-circular driveway. The far end was too muddy to work after last night's downpour, but their rubber mallets pounded the rosy colored cobbles into place, one at a time, into the drier sand and dirt. They looked and sounded happy to be working on such a hot day, down where the ocean breeze kept everything cool and pleasant.

I've always

wondered about the logic of owning a house (especially a large one on avulnerable coastal dune) in which a family lives for a month or two each year. Sometimes less. Seems that was a problem for some folks this year, t

oo....six or eight of the homes are for sale, more than usual for a given year. I have a friend who, when he sees big homes like these, always enters into an internal conversation where he wonders what he did wrong in

his life that he doesn't own property like this, as if these stately houses denote success. As if their very existence calls his own value into question. Funny that. I always wonder about the people inside—what makes them cry, what makes them happy, and what they had to sacrifice to end up here. What choices did they make over the years. And why did the house on the end have wood stacked for a year outdoors, warping in the weather, during recent renovations? And why have I never seen anyone on the private tennis courts? Lots of mysteries behind these beautiful facades.

But the best part of Long beach Road comes toward the end. Here the town long ago bought parcels for parking (about 8 cars in each of two small lots) with big “Town Way to Water” signs pointing to the public access. There's a narrow walkway across a manicured lawn in one spot and then the real treasure—at the very end of the road boardwalks lead to another mile or more of untouched barrier beach curving its way into the distance, accessible only by foot.

More about that special hideaway in a different post.

Motley Crew Intro

The people in my life are truely a motley crew. My own doing, as I choose them all at one time or another. Long ago and far away, I thought it just seemed logical to adopt my childrem. Naive, perhaps. Hopeful certainly. Liberal to the bone in my belief that when I wanted to add kids to the mix, I should find kids who needed parents.

Neither Mark nor I cared much back then about whether our children were genetically ours or not. I do understand those for whom that is a huge issue, it just wasn't for us. But I never expected to get what I got.

All three have had serious issues, and none have given me the "normal" family I dreamed of having. I've dealt with all sorts of disabilities over the years, physical, and mental. Andy arrived at age 11 and the adoption distrupted at 16, when he went back out to foster care. At 45 now, he and his family are actually the ones I most enjoy spending time with (more stories to come later). Kayla was supposed to be our normal, healthy infant and she was diganosed ASD (autistic) at 3 (mucho long saga) and is now 21 and ready to tranisition from school to adult services. Lastly Janai came at 2, with minor learning issues, and at 19 is on her own, stuggling with mental health and behavior issues, and as I write this, no one is sure if she's in Holyoke or Malden, and she's not answering her phone. Her daughter, my grandbaby was taken into state custody when she was 7 mos old and I haven't seen her since.

A friend I used to work with, and excellent listener to my frequent tales of woe and distress, often said, "Susan, you should write a book....no one would believe it all!"

My frequent response was, who'd want to read it, if it's all sad?"

But over the years I guess I've learned a lot about life and human nature and what is and is not possible. I'm a firm believer that things do happen for a reason, even if I can't always see it in the midst of the drama. And most days I don't think of my life as sadder than others. But there are days when I ask, "Why me?"

Perhaps writing about it all, including what makes me smile, here in this blog will help fit the jigsaw together. Perhaps someone will want to read it... I guess that's what blogs are for.