Good-bye 182

In 2001 my husband and I purchased our first home. We had a patient real estate agent that took us through so many homes we said no to I half expected her to fire us. She didn’t. She paid attention to the things we did like and what made us say, “Are you kidding me?” Thankfully she had a good sense of humor. And her patience paid off for all of us. She found a perfect cape, yellow and sun filled with a small yard in a cul-de-sac neighborhood. I did a drive by when she gave me the address and I was smitten even with the over grown bushes and peeling paint. It looked like an antique home with its center chimney and eight over eight windows but was only a little older than me. I was in love.


We moved in on a warm day in May. Friends and family turned out to help us. The kitchen had no dishwasher and the stove was a behemoth of white enamel, original to the home. The walls needed paint but we had Dutch doors in the kitchen and a corner toilet in the small bathroom, which was quaint and a great conversation piece. The full bath had pale yellow tile on the walls and smaller yellow tile on the floor. The vanity ran almost the full length of the wall with a place for a chair. The living room was one large room with a fireplace in the middle. There was a screen porch with stone tile and large windows bathing the large room with sun and warmth. We had struck gold on our first home.

A few months after we settled in our neighbor came over while I was in the yard and began chatting about how nice it was to see the house with some life in it. She gave me the history. An older couple bought the land and had the house built in the late 60’s and by older she meant a couple in their 30’s with no children. She looked at my apologetically, realizing I was in my 30’s. She explained the couple lived in the house for a few years when the woman became ill and then passed away. The husband lived alone for a short time. The house stood empty for many years until it was purchased by a young couple. The couple we purchased it from, according to my neighbor, was never home. They were both executives with Nordstrom’s. It didn’t surprise me because the house barely looked lived in and the stove was immaculate. We had wondered because although the house was clean, it hadn’t been given much love.

Two weeks ago my childhood home sold. My father had it on the market for quite some time. It was outdated, as was the charming cape. I tried to see it through the eyes of someone who would walk in, looking for perhaps their first home. I suppose there isn’t much that is charming about a raised ranch with a brown tiled bathroom and shiny off white wall paper but then my vision is blurry from the moments chiseled into my memory along with the tile and the wall paper. Perhaps charm can be over-rated. Wall paper covers every wall and the downstairs has wood paneling. My pink rug is still there along with the dainty rose wall paper I picked out. The trees in the yard, pine trees from various Christmases, over growing and crowding out the yard I ran through as a child, jumping into leaf piles and playing tag with friends.

The new couple is probably moved in now. The wall paper being stripped and the paneling pulled down. The walls will be freshly painted and new voices will pepper the rooms. Perhaps they are as excited as my husband and I were when we moved into our little cape and painted the walls and planted new shrubs. It feels wonderful to give a home a fresh beginning and decorate it with your life. I hope my childhood home gets the same revival.





When my father first put the house on the market he did offer to sell it to us. I won’t say my immediate response was no. I am too sentimental to just wave the offer away as though it were a fly trying to land. I did give it some thought and the more I thought the more I realized I would have lived perpetually in the 70’s or worse in the 80’s. No one should have to re-live the 80’s. The past is something I am all too good at retrieving but not very good at letting go of. And retrieving too far into the past doesn’t leave room for the present. I also realized as my father moved much of his house into my house; coolers, Tupperware, furniture, that it is not the walls that hold the memories. The memories follow us and shape us and comfort us. It is not necessary to live in the past to appreciate it and retrieve it …once in awhile.

Summer Memories

As a child I spent many summers at a small beach community on the Connecticut shore. It has been years since I have done anything more than visit for a day. My husband, preferring the Cape was never convinced that a piece of heaven could exist along Connecticut’s shoreline. I managed to convince him last summer that a week would be all it would take to make him a believer; it took less than a few hours.


I suppose there are a few communities left that have playgrounds and tennis courts and activities for kids that don’t require a mom to lug everyone back and forth all day long. But this community holds a sweet spot in my heart. My kids can do what I did, ride bikes, swim, go crabbing, play on the playground and I can see them at all these activities from my front porch. Of course I don’t think they fully grasp what a gift this is. I am sure I didn’t grasp how lucky I was to spend lazy summers bike riding , playing in the sand and eating a diet of corn on the cob and ice cream. Now as I bike around the years slip from my body, dropping a decade here and a decade there until I am freckle faced, toe headed and not to mention quite a few pounds lighter. I ride past cottages we rented, some updated, some not and can see through the windows and find myself playing “war” with my patient mother and two decks of cards, eating ice cream with my cousins and washing sand and salt off my tanned skin in the outdoor shower.

I can hear the waves lapping gently on the shore at night like a lullaby softly singing me to sleep. The thick hum of voices and laughter of the adults who came to visit my parents rings in my ears all these years later. Afternoons were spent swimming and digging in the sand until the six o’clock whistle blew and my father would have to concede that another beach day had come to an end and mom would be waiting for us. He would station me in the metal bike seat, no helmet, no belt and I would wobble behind him as he steered us home, his unbuckled sandal straps flapping all the way.

I would play with children I saw one month out of the year but we would pick up where we left off. We would make drippy sand castles and hunt for sea glass. We would wrap ourselves in towels and our feet in kelp like Roman sandals, and then parade up and down the boardwalk. Babies slept on blankets and the sweet smell of Coppertone coconut oil blew across your face with the breeze.

A group of older women sat near us each day. Their beach chairs creating a half circle facing the water and their voices chatting until the sun itself became tired. One woman had short cropped hair, white as a pale moon and silver bangle bracelets running up her arms. Her skin hung from her bones like dried kelp, brown and wrinkled, yet there was something innately attractive about her. Her whole being seemed one with the sand and the ocean as though she had been born from it. I watched for her arrival each day it signaled the completeness of my beach experience.

These women were perhaps grandmothers then. They may have been resting from their many summers of swimming, sand castle building and crabbing with their own children. I never knew their names. But I am sure their grandchildren are here somewhere. Time moves forward and although it does feel a bit like a time warp and 1975 is swirling around in my own mind, I can see the changes. Kids are now parents, parents now grandparents. The beaches are the same, the charge in the air each morning as the sun rises and the salt air blows in through the windows and the echo off the water of voices as people begin their day with a bike ride, a run or a walk with an old friend.

As I sit on the beach, my three year old perched on my lap, I am fully aware that to some young girl I am the older woman, perhaps slightly dried out by the sun but on the inside I am 5, digging in the sand and breathing in the salty sweetness of my childhood.

I have been a nurse for nearly 20 years. It is hard to believe, especially considering how many years I have lamented over what a hard job it is. I remember a few years into my career as Florence Nightingale complaining to a friend about my job. 

I said I should have picked something else. His response was, “If you weren’t a nurse, you would be a social worker, you have to help people.” That wasn’t what I was going for in the sympathy department, but he had a point. I am pretty sure I was the only kid in high school packing a First Aid kit.  

Over the years I have been yelled at, sworn at, kicked and thrown up on, the latter two being not unlike my other day job as mom. I have emptied bed pans and given bed baths. I have spent more time with other people’s bodily fluids then I have with my own.
I have measured and examined and tested stuff better left without description should you be reading this over breakfast. I have also been hugged and thanked.  I have been trusted and confided in. I have held someone’s hand as a doctor gave them bad news and cried with husbands, wives or children after their loved one passed on.

Over 20 years, I have had a cast of characters walk through my life. People I know I never would have met if I had not been assigned to care for them. Over 20 years, I have had a cast of characters walk through my life. People I know I never would have met if I had been assigned to care for them.
As I was working as a home-care nurse several years ago, I had the chance to realize how truly special my job is by walking through the door of an elderly couple’s home on a humid August day. The house was pretty beat up on the outside but that hardly prepared me for the inside.
On first inhalation, when I entered the house, I was overcome by a stale smell of mothballs and cat urine. The wife who greeted me was about 4 feet tall with white hair pulled into a tight bun at the top of her head. She was thrilled to see me and for a moment I thought perhaps she thought I was a cleaning service.

She escorted me to her small kitchen where her husband, my new patient, sat. He greeted me with as much enthusiasm. He held out a thin hand and grasped mine rather tightly and smiled broadly.
I looked around the kitchen and saw dishes piled up in the sink and stuff on the counters. I gingerly sat on the chair. I pulled out my paperwork and started my usual spiel on how home care works. They listened intently and only after they asked if I would stay and help did I realize all they cared about was having me there.

They weren’t listening to all the mumbo jumbo I was spewing out at them. The husband did need my help and I realized as the visit progressed how scared he was and how scared she was for him.
They had been married for nearly 60 years, which seemed then and even now a wildly unobtainable goal. They were gentle and loving toward one another and found humor in almost anything. After my second visit, the wife dubbed me “Hollywood.”

At the time, I wore sunglasses that were tinted blue and my hair was very long and blonde. I guess I was as close to Hollywood as they were going to get. I had to make several visits with them before they were both comfortable with what they had to do. I always saved their visit for last. The smell seemed to stay with me and although I never really enjoyed being in their home, I truly enjoyed their company.

They were always happy to see me. They never complained about a late-day visit.  They were never angry and they only did what I asked of them and never ran to their computer to show me what they found on WebMD that made my visit nearly obsolete. The wife was forever dusting off a knickknack from one her shelves and trying to give them to me. Thankfully we were not allowed to accept gifts. She whispered once she wouldn’t tell anyone and tried to put a glass cat in my bag.
I blocked her like a lineman and explained I could get into trouble. She backed off. She certainly didn’t want to get me into trouble. 

On my last visit, I started to explain to them that I didn’t need to come any more. The wife looked rather shocked and the husband started ringing his hands. I was pretty sure I had explained in the beginning I wouldn’t be around long. Medicare doesn’t like you to overstay your welcome.
I came to understand that my first visit where I explained I wouldn’t be around long had gone completely over their heads. They had been too worried and all they wanted at that moment was someone to help them, show them what they needed and reassure them it was going to be OK.
Eventually the look of shock left them and the wife ran into the living room to dust off a glass elephant the size of my nursing bag. The husband grabbed my hand and gave me a long look with watery blue eyes. He told me I was wonderful and that he would miss my visits. They both hugged me goodbye and I closed the door, leaving behind the stale smell and the glass elephant.
I will always remember that couple and the smell in the house and the way the husband held my hand. It made me realize that even though I don’t always love certain tasks that come with my job, I do love being able to help someone. I had judged them by the contents of their house when I first met them.

I almost lost sight of what I was there for. That couple wasn’t worried about how I looked or how I dressed.They just needed me to be a kind soul and help them. I understood as I closed the door behind me it didn’t matter what was inside the home, what mattered was what I brought through the door and what I left behind.

I

Spring in our house means flowers blooming, a mad rush to turn over the garden and seeds bought on the hope that this summer our tomatoes might outshine our sisters’.
My husband, being of a somewhat competitve nature, likes to talk a little trash and each year one of our sisters seems to outshine him. One year my sister’s carrots came in large and sweet, while ours were so scrawny the rabbits didn’t even bother to dig them up.

My husband’s sister has a large garden, that is not only full of all things yummy like asparagus, Swiss chard, onions and beets but it is also a visual delight.  Perennials surround the outer edge dotting the area with blues and greens, violet and yellow. I would tell you what is in her garden but sadly I cannot recall. 

My thumb is not exactly green. It is not gangrenous, there is some circulation and a pulse is palpable, but what I have learned so far about gardening is I am best at planting and that is where my talent ends. I love to dig in the dirt. I love to chop up the grass and pull up mounds of fresh sweet-smelling earth. I enjoy pulling at the roots of a plant and setting it in the ground, covering it, watering it and letting it take its time to do what it is meant to do; grow and be beautiful.
I do not like to weed. I am not a good planner. Both my sister and my sister-in-law have a talent for seeing the way a garden can look and implementing it.  They have a connection to the mound of grass that allows them to pull away and create something that draws your eye from color to color. They also have the ability to name all the things they have planted and for that matter all the things I have planted.

Last spring my sister came to visit on a Sunday and I came home from work to find her and my husband happily weeding and pulling old leaves away from all the plants trying desparately to reach for the sun. We walked about my yard and, even though I had planted many of the perenials the year before I could not tell her what they were. There wasn’t enough of them visible for me to recognize them, even if I did happen to remember.
She knew. She knew even by the small amount of foliage. The size of the leaf, the color, the markings on the leaves all made perfect sense to her. To be honest, I nearly weeded a perenial because it looked like a weed. It wasn’t and thanks to my sister, the perenial’s life was spared.
For awhile, I thought there wasn’t much to gardening. I thought you could read the labels and plant stuff in the ground and then sit back and watch it grow. I understand I need to water but often forget and I do not enjoy weeding. I thought I could create the beautiful English garden like my sister or the pristine landscape like the one my sister-in-law has planted around her home.
But I do not have that talent. Last summer, I dug a large area out in our front yard, thinking how fabulous it would be to create another perenial garden. Three weeks later, my husband planted grass.
I do not have the vision or the understanding of the extensive array of annuals, perenials and shrubbery. I do not know when one thing will bloom and another will be done with that process. It is a gift, one I admire in both my sister and my sister-in-law.

It is a fact of life that we are not all good at everything. It would be absurd if we were. We would have no need for one another. We could teach ourselves to read and write and do math. We would nurse ourselves back to health. If we wanted a beautiful painting we would paint one.
If we wanted to read a book, we would write it. And sometimes even when you share the same interest with someone else, your talent within that will also be different.
My sister-in-law can build a landscape plan that blooms and blossoms for all seasons. My sister can grow sweet, beautiful carrots and her English-style garden is serene. I am glad I can look to them both for advice and seedlings when I want them.

And while I do enjoy digging up my yard, this year I will keep it to a patio project. We will put down bricks that won’t need to be weeded or watered. I will leave the true gift of gardening to my sisters and bask in their talent. And they can come sip wine on my patio.

Mother's Day

 Mother's Day

   Mother’s Day is fast approaching. When I spoke with my sister this week she asked if we had special plans. The truth is no, since I am usually the planner of most things around our house it would be up to me to plan Mother’s Day.

   If I did plan the day, it would consist of a drive and stops at various garden centers and shops and bookstores along the beautiful Connecticut River Valley.  Three kids on such an adventure does not spell relaxation. It rather sets up all three for a day of complaining which would in turn make me wonder what had ever taken hold of me enough to have these kids in the first place. So my response was, ”nothing special.”

  When my mother passed away six years ago, it took some of the steam out of Mother’s Day. There are times during the year her loss is felt more acutely and Mother's Day is one of them. After my mother had died, my cousin had described her father's death feeling like a hole left in her heart that gets smaller but never completely goes away. I understood exactly what she meant and on Mother's Day that hole expands.

  My mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis before I was born. It was a fact in our house and nothing I had to adjust myself to. For my mother, I am sure it was much more than that. I am sure her life at times seemed daunting, that as a mother she wasn't quite living up to the expectation.
But as her daughter, my mother was just who she was, nothing more, nothing less. In the fourth grade, my sister, my mother and I were at my school for a parent/ teacher night. We walked down the hall, my sister pushing my mother’s wheelchair and I was walking along beside her, holding the arm rest of her chair. We passed one of my classmates.
He slowed down, smiled at me and kept walking, glancing back once as if he wasn’t sure if he was seeing straight. The next day he approached me and said, "Your mom can’t walk?”  And I answered as any self-respecting fourth-grader would, "yeah, so?”
This encounter did not change how I saw my mother but it did make me realize that others saw her differently. That perhaps others felt sorry for her or our family. But those who knew her best did not waste their time on pity.
My mother was kind and organized, sweet and stern and she seemed to have a special part of her brain made out of a reinforced steel just for remembering things. She could recall phone numbers, dates and what I had said on the phone three years earlier to a friend about a cute guy who happened to — three years later — call me; and two years later marry me. I cannot remember to pick up milk without a reminder from my 3-year-old. Apparently, memory skips a generation.
My mother was gullible and fun and even as a teenager I often preferred her company over that of my peers. It never mattered to me that she couldn’t walk across a room, she was always present. She never missed a concert, play, banquet, graduation, wedding or baby shower. She always remembered birthdays and anniversaries. She was happy when we were happy. She worried when we were not. She tried to fix what she could and when she couldn’t she would tell us how wonderful we were and that things would get better.
I don’t remember from one Mother’s Day to the next what I gave her. I am sure in my early years there were homemade gifts, as my children bestow upon me each year. And I know in kindergarten I gave her anxiety when the gerbils I brought home from school for the weekend decided to practice some cannibalism.
And again in seventh grade when the pet rat I brought home from science class managed to escape his cage overnight. I am pretty sure I gave her some gray hair when I announced I preferred to not go to college but rather head to California like a free-loving hippie. But like all good mothers the small moments of anxiety and trauma never eclipsed the greater feelings of love and awe.
This year, I will love my homemade gifts and bask in the few moments that my children sing my praises before they move on to more important things like video games and fighting with one another. I will be thankful for the beautiful women in my life who help me steer the obstacle ridden pathway of motherhood.
I will remember my own mother who promised she would never leave me because she knew she would always be near in my children's laughter and my sister’s smile and my father's hug. I will know what a blessing motherhood is and what really matters is not what you offer physically but what you offer from your spirit.
Because that will travel with our children forever

Time After Time

I have a dishwasher to empty, laundry to fold, four kids to feed, bags to pack and a race waiting for me tomorrow morning. I am not even close to getting any of that done. In fact if these kids were smart they would ask right now for lollipops for breakfast because they would get 'em!

I spent yesterday with my sister systematically going through our childhood home sorting,chucking, taking and musing over all the things my mother held dear. The items we stored away in the attic. The items packed away when something new came along to replace them. We found crystal and glassware and strange "knickknack " items . Some things neither of us want and some things we gave to one another. Some items we looked at and wondered why our mother had them in the first place. There is a pile big enough to fill Good Will in the garage. Clothes, stuffed animals,records with the funky 60's and 70's kaleidoscope of fashion and colors. My mother's hymns and gospel records. These fascincate me. They were played on a piece of furniture we had in our living room for years when I was growing up. It was practically the size of a couch and had knobs for dialing in all kinds of fuzzy radio stations and ear splitting whines when you hit a "non station". It was half record player and half radio. And it was probably all the rage in 1970. For many years I had to stretch up on my toes just to peer inside and make the record player move. It was during this time that the room was decorated in orange and vivid green and gold. The couch and small chair had the same pattern of orange and gold flowers with green for the viney stems and the loveseat was gold. This was the "good" room. The room that was used for company, parties, special occasions. It is where the Christmas tree was for most of my childhood, sitting poised in the large Bay Window so it could be seen from the sidewalk. Where our Easter baskets were left by the Easter Bunny.

As we are moving from room to room and picking out things we would like or taking photos off the walls, I can hear this symphony of voices swelling around me. I hear the adult laughter of my parent's friends during their parties and gatherings. I hear my Uncle telling yet another story from the childhood he shared with my mother and the way it made us all laugh even if we had heard that story just months ago at our last family gathering. I can hear my mother's voice calling me when she needed me or my father's stern voice calling out for me to turn out a light or TV from the last room I was in. I feel pummeled by nearly 20 years of memories.

My father kept busy with his grandchildren and keeping them out of our way. I am sure the distraction was welcome. Who could possibly watch 40 years of their life flash before them in the crystal stem ware and Christmas decorations. To me everything held a memory, or many at once. My sister was more pragmatic about it. One of us had to be. I get very caught up in the passage of time. I am not crazy about change. I like to return to things and  have them be as I remembered and not as they are now. And going through so many things from my childhood and my mother's life and realizing how much time has moved like a swift current in a flooding river just set my teeth on edge.

As the cacophony of memories continued in my head and moments of complete meltdown over came me, there also came an understanding. A realization that time moves on because it is supposed to and change is good. That life is not meant to sit still. That we are not meant to sit still and stay the same. My mother loved her stuff and as hard as it was to say no to many things that I know she held dear. I came to understand that it was her stuff and she had her own reasons for loving it. I did take a few things that I loved about my childhood home. Things I can use now or things that remind me of growing up.

I think this is why I love photography. It takes a moment and freezes it. This works out very well for folks like me who need to grasp the past in order to understand the present. To be able to see into the eyes of someone who may not be here any longer and see life as they might have seen it. Because that's the  thing about time no matter how hard we try to measure it,hold it and tie it down it keeps moving. It only moves forward with no repeats.

The closets are almost cleared in my father's house. The walls are almost bare but the wonderful thing about my life is the memories I can pull out at any moment no matter where I am.

"Hey,Time I am Mom Enough"

So Time magazine has stirred the mommy war pot and the millions of moms who are doing their best and probably suffer from feelings of inadequacy on a good day can now look at the Time magazine cover while they place groceries on the belt, amid children screaming can now wonder if they have done something else wrong by not breastfeeding their child for three or four years.
It plays into the insecurities of moms everywhere. Moms are under enough pressure these days not to have to face a magazine cover screaming out, “Are you Mom Enough?”
I will say with all honesty I do not judge the woman on the cover. If she wants a child attached to her for that many years, good for her. And I would think it might take a bit of courage to put your face, and other body parts, to the theory of “attachment parenting.”
It is more her child I feel sorry for. If that boy child can make it through his college days without someone finding out he is that kid and blowing that photo up to a 20x30 and hanging it in a common area of his dorm, then he can count his blessings. Of course if this child were older, as I was told before seeing the article myself that he was four or five, then it might seem more offensive to some and just plain crazy to others.
Attachment parenting isn’t new. I read about it when I was pregnant more than 10 years ago and it wasn't new then. The phrase itself was penned by Dr. William Sears and what he basically states is that the more sensitive and emotionally available a parent is the better the child will develop into a socio-emotionally stable adult. The idea is to always be available for your children, handle them with kindness and compassion and a gentle hand. Most of the parents I know do this on a regular basis.
The website for Attachment Parenting International states eight components for attachment parenting. They seem like common sense to me: preparation for pregnancy, birth and parenting, feed with love and respect, respond with sensitivity, to name a few. But anyone could take any of the eight components, twist and turn and reorganize them until they look like the woman on the Time cover — extreme.
Women have enough coming at us on a daily basis. Magazine covers scream at us constantly. We shouldn’t have wrinkles or sagging skin, we shouldn’t gain weight. We should be home with our children, we should be feeding them home-cooked, organic, healthy meals three times a day. We should be teaching our children to read, write and add before they reach kindergarten all while keeping our houses organized and our marriages exciting and spontaneous.
Just thinking about all that is expected of me makes me want to crawl into bed and emerge when my kids go to college, which apparently they won’t if I don’t read to them 20 minutes a day, seven days a week beginning in utero.
If you had asked me 15 or 20 years ago what kind of mother I would be, I would have gleefully exclaimed, ”The Martha Stewart of all Mothers!” The baking, playing, cooking, smiling queen of motherhood. That was pre-sleep deprivation, pre-sore nipples, pre-baby fat (mine, not theirs) and definitely pre- “not tonight honey because it could result in another baby.”
I am not an “attachment mother” nor am I a Tiger Mom. I am not even sure I completely understand that whole concept. My own parenting style could probably be dubbed “bubble parenting.” I have decided the best way to handle motherhood is to do what works for us in our house. I no longer read articles about fabulously organized, PTO fundraising women who seem to not require any sleep at all.
I do not compare what I am doing, for better or worse, with other moms. I don’t ask about bedtime routines or feeding schedules or video game rules. I don’t read articles on how I could do what I am doing better. The information is too overwhelming and sometimes it just isn’t the right fit for our family.
We have tried some attachment parenting, mostly by accident, like letting our kids sleep in our bed, hoping just to get them to sleep only to have a terrible night ourselves being kicked or snored at. My father never let me sleep in my parents bed when I was scared or couldn't sleep. I do remind him of this particular flaw in his parenting quite regularly but despite that, I turned out pretty well-adjusted and he got plenty of sleep.
My husband and I have tried approaching our children gently when reprimanding but until they know that behind the gentleness is a parent who means business, your authority goes nowhere fast.
The truth of motherhood is it is a messy business. It is exhuasting and exhilarating and when you scrape it down to the very marrow, it is as individual as each person. No two women will come at it the same way. Some of us are shaped by what we had growing up and others by what they didn’t have. Some women have trouble letting go and some are fine with the progress of their kids and hardly look back beyond a wistful moment or two.
In the end, we all hope to raise happy, healthy children who grow into happy well-adjusted adults. So if you are wondering if I have read the Time magazine article the answer is no.
My children are way beyond being breastfed. And if you might be wondering if I consider myself “mom enough,” the answer is yes, I am mom enough on most days. And for now ignorance is bliss and I plan to stay in my parenting “bubble” and let the controversy swirl around me.
Because let’s face it, controversy sells and Time hit the motherload.

My husband loves boats. He loves boats the way other men love football or golf.   I didn’t know when we first started dating exactly how deep his love of boating went, although it became clear pretty quickly when we went to our first boat show together. I was  ready to call it a day after an hour or two but my husband couldn’t get enough. He would point excitedly to a boat and describe how that bow sits just a little higher.
I would squint and try to make my eyes see what he was seeing.  I couldn’t but I would nod and smile and he would smile back, confident he had found the perfect woman to share his passion.
My next clue came almost a year later when we spent Memorial Day cleaning up his boat and getting her ready for the summer.  It was a lot of washing and waxing and painting. It was hot that weekend. Record heat and there we were in a boat yard, sun pounding on the tops of our heads. We talked and laughed and he occasionally corrected my somewhat misguided attempts at proper washing and waxing technique.   I am hoping we drank some cold beer but truthfully I don’t remember.
Since we got married, a few boats have come and gone. That first boat was sold and a slightly larger, newer model took her place.  He brought her home from New Jersey, one chilly October evening when I was eight months pregnant with our first child. Apparently October is the best time to buy a boat. I won't pretend that went over well with me but I think I'll blame it on the hormones.
We had that boat for a couple years and when we took our first born out on it he was about 20 months old and wanted no part of the life jacket.  He screamed for the entire tour of the Connecticut River. He cried himself into exhaustion and my husband into despair. He thought now he would not have a fishing buddy.
That boat was sold after child number two came along. We were without a boat for a summer. I htink my husband might have cried himself to sleep a couple nights but search was on.  Internet had taken hold and he could search all kinds of web sites. Ebay was a favorite but I think he also found a site called, “your wife will love this boat.com.”   
He searched and found another boat that suited his needs for fishing since taking our young children out for an adventure wasn’t in my plan just yet.  No one liked the life jacket and in our house no one sets off on a boating adventure without one.  So a smaller boat came to live with us for awhile.  
After that boat came another one that was larger and better for our growing family of five and made me happier because the sides were high enough to keep our small children from falling overboard.
While I was on that boat last summer, I commented on how it would be better to have a "potty." That is all I needed to say. The hunt was on. He looked long and hard and a few weeks ago our boat was pulled out of our driveway off to a new home and plans were made to bring home a slightly larger model with a “potty.”
Now it would seem we would have the perfect boat. It has been a bit of a journey but when someone has a passion for something it is best to give them some room.
We all have something that makes us tick. That gives us something beyond what our career may offer us and sometimes even what friends or family offer.  It is important, I believe to have a passion. My husband has lived with my passion for books and writing all these years.
He has patiently wandered through bookstores and libraries. He has listened to my endless campaigns to get to one writer retreat or another. There is one that advertised in a writing magazine for a week in Tuscany, writing and retreating while eating and drinking. I have revisted that web site many times, thoughts of delicious food and wine pushing away daily chores of laundry and cleaning.  It’s exciting just thinking about such an adventure.
I hunt out used book stores and library book sales. I go to writing workshops and author readings. He waves happily as I drive off to these various activities that mean little to him. He has also occasionally taken a back seat to a book I just couldn’t put down. He becomes a book widower and takes that in stride.
Last week when he and a good friend of ours pulled the new boat into her place in the driveway, both men stood looking at her as though she were the 8th Wonder of the World. These men share words like transom and horsepower.
They buy lures and have tackle boxes chock full of things that just look dangerous to me. These men come alive when the sun beats warm and the fish are plenty.  And I will become a boat widow for the summer.
After our friend had left I went out to the driveway to find my husband and our 3-year-old sitting together in the boat, the orange sun setting over the bow, the music playing from the stereo and two faces glowing in pure bliss. Perhaps my husband has found the perfect boat and a fisherman to share his passion.
And perhaps for me there is a trip to Tuscany in my future.