House & Home

“I had this dream of showing my kids the house where I grew up,” my sister said. I never thought of showing my kids the house where I grew up; I never thought of having kids. “Yeah,” I said, as if I had this thought.

“It's such a magical place, with the woods and the old fort and everything,” She said, then sighed. “But why would my kids care? I hope mom and dad get a good price for it.”

Megan called. Megan doesn’t like the phone because you can’t read facial expressions, whereas I like it for the same reason. So when Megan calls, it's because she has to. I said bye to my sister and switched over. “Hello?”

“Hi,” she blurted above background noise that was becoming foreground. “Some kids just came over and asked to stay awhile. Would you mind coming down? Ben’s not home yet.”

My eyebrows pressed together like WWE stars and a wrinkle refereed between them. “Yes,” I said, manipulating my inflection into that of a cheerful giver, “I’ll be right down.”

Megan greeted me as I walked in. “They just rang the doorbell and said the police are at their house,” she whispered, “so I said come in. What else could I do?”

At the table, two sisters had opened the older one’s birthday present: a princess crown-making kit, complete with tiny sequins and beads and glitter and other girlie debris. “Wow,” I said, “that’s pretty cool.” The older one looked up at me. “You want to play?” She asked. “No thanks,” I said.

Their 10-year-old brother was in front of the TV, watching Phineas and Ferb and holding Megan’s baby. “Look at you,” I said, “you hold a baby better than I do.” He shrugged and responded, “I always hold my baby sister.” I smiled and shook my head.

At the end of the episode a casual messenger came to the door and said, “the police are gone, ma said come back now,” and left before I could ask for their credentials. I scanned the street. The police were gone and the crowd was going too. “OK guys,” I said, “you can go home now.”

The brother stared at me like he didn’t understand.

“Come on,” I said to the sisters, picking up the princess paraphernalia. “Do you want to keep the box?” I asked. “Yes,” the older one clutched it. On the front there was a picture of a beautiful castle. It looked as though it were built of sand and clouds and glass.

From Infant's Lips

The pitch and intensity were consistent.

MWAAAH! ah.. ah.. ah.. WAAH! ah.. ah.. ah..

The clock was closing in on forty minutes, and I held in my arms an inconsolable child who had been screaming for each of the 2400 times the hand had ticked.

I threw my head back against the rocker in exasperation. She was fed, changed, burped and swaddled. She had rejected the pacifier with all the gusto a five-week-old can muster.

I kind of wanted to leaver her on someone else’s porch steps. Like you see in the movies, it’s a dreary, damp night and a desperate mother scampers up to a respectable looking front porch, places a Moses-basket containing a squalling baby on the steps, and ding-dong ditches the poor unsuspecting homeowners who are then left to raise the child as their own. It’s terrible, and I would never actually do it, but I wanted to in that moment.

The clock was inching in on forty-five minutes.

She has to stop sometime…

I started to pray, because, let’s face it, that seemed like a more viable option than the Little Orphan Annie scenario I had played out in my head five minutes earlier.

Lord, give this child peace…and rest…and…just…make her stop please.

My child’s emphatic dirge wailed on.

MWAAAH! ah.. ah.. ah.. WAAH! ah.. ah.. ah..

It never ceased. Never changed. The consistency (while frustrating) was impeccable.

Pray like this..

Mother Teresa once said “Our greatest work is prayer;” if such is the case, it’s a wonder the Creator hasn’t fired me yet.

I can program and plan, pour out and serve all day long. But prayer, that greatest work, that’s tough.

Scripture says “Pray without ceasing.”

I pray when I think about it.

When I’m “not too busy.”

When I’m desperate.

It’s getting close to an hour, and she is still crying. Unceasing, unaltered. The same cry she’s been belting for the last hour.

Pray like this.

Recycling

“Does Milwaukee recycle in winter?” I snapped at Kevin, who was about to throw a wrapper in the trash. He paused.

“Yeah?” He murmured, still holding the wrapper.

“Then why,” I tromped over to the window and jerked a finger downward at the driveway, “Have they not emptied our recycling bins? It’s been weeks. No, months. The bins are overflowing. They’re foaming at the mouth. Haven’t you noticed?”

“Um, I guess I didn’t notice,” he blushed, “But then, you always take out the recycling.” He lowered the wrapper into the trash, set it there, and stared at it.

“Not always,” I smiled.

But almost always. He hangs out with kids, I take out the recycling. If we reversed roles, I would probably end up putting the kids in the recycling bin and he would just let the cardboard and cans accumulate around him until he couldn’t move anything except his tongue.

“I’m calling the city,” I declared, drawing my phone and spinning through contacts.

A representative at the Department of Public Works had several interesting theories for the lapse in recycling pickup, one of which was holidays. This was compellingly plausible until I remembered that the only holidays in the last two months were New Year’s, Martin Luther King Jr. and George Washington’s Birthday, none of which were 8-week jubilee celebrations necessitating the shutdown of all local government.

Finally, I had to contribute: “I don’t mean this to be pretentious…” We always say we don’t mean before we say what we mean, so we can be mean without being seen as mean.

“I don’t mean this to be pretentious, but we do tend to recycle more than most people in our neighborhood,” I paused. “We recycle more than we throw away,” I laughed. Yes, I’m good-humored about my goodness. Really, I don’t even think of it as goodness, it’s just a little habit I have, being good.

“Oh yes,” the representative laughed. “You know what? I’ll put a note here to have them do a pick up a week before they were going to. Also,” she said, “once it’s warmer the schedule will be more regular.”

“Thank you,” I said, thinking. “Good bye.”

Once it’s warmer. Last spring and summer, the neighborhood kids had a favorite game, which confused me for a while. Standing about 15 feet from one another, they threw the ball back and forth, but didn’t catch it; they tried to hit some flat shiny objects on the walk. I couldn’t figure out what they were, so I got closer. They were crushed empty soda cans.

After The First Snowfall

The face in the window looked like a ghost robbing a bank.
It was a neighbor kid
With a white doorag
Stretched over his features.
He was asking for salt –
Not for the table, but for the sidewalk.
Somewhere in the sky there had been a pillow fight,
And someone’s pillow had exploded,
And now the fluffy feathers were falling
Filling the mouth and ears of the world.
I filled an ice cream bucket for him
And told him a little goes a long way,
And told him make it last.
He nodded and left.
I went back to whatever I was doing
I can’t remember what it was
But I didn’t do it for long
And the ghost was at the window again
Asking for more salt.
“Are you just throwing it around?”
I accused,
“Because you don’t need to use that much.”
His eyes stayed on mine
And he mimed little handfuls.
“That’s how I’m doing it,”
He apologized.
“Okay,”
I interrupted,
“But this is the last bucket.”
After awhile he brought it back,
Empty.
And what I didn’t remember at the time
What I didn’t remember until days later
Was that he was the oldest man
In his house.
He was trying to assemble himself into something
For which there were no instructions
No one to call
No one to ask
Except someone
Who measured charity.