Dog talk, for my family, is a generational legacy. Those moments when my mother floods my memory most commonly are when I call out or chat affectionately with my dogs. There’s a particular sing-song tonality – “Did you do your bounden duty?” I ask as they come in after a bedtime pee. My mother’s phrase. I speak it without thinking, and there is Mom, coming out of my mouth. Now that I have a daughter with more than one dog, I hear Anna summon her canine charges with a familiar call – “Doggies!” There it is, that musical melodic minor third, coming from my daughter’s mouth, just as I sing it virtually every day. I hear it pop up with variations in all four of my children. It makes me wonder if my Grandma used the same dog talk voice, and her mother before her. Perhaps it is a distinctive, tying thread that extends through the ages, multigenerational, a musical oral tradition, passed down and down. I like to think so. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 138: 169 words, TOTAL = 22,543; 37,457 remaining
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Today I thought about little interactions I have with people in passing: the woman collecting carts in the parking lot at the grocery store, the librarian who handed me my stack of biographies about American women authors, the lifeguard at the pool, women in the locker room whom I kind of recognize, the new administrator at church, when I called about my piano pieces for this Sunday. It doesn’t take much to say a friendly word, elicit a smile. Who knows what might happen to them or to me, or what’s going on in their lives? My 60th year in 60,000 words Day137: 96 words, TOTAL = 22,374; 37,626 remaining I’ve written volumes about demystifying death, embracing it as a natural part of life. And yet, when it stumbles into my path, death surprises me. Ray was a protégée of my favorite yoga instructor. He subbed for her when she was off at a training. Fifty-two years old, war veteran, bushy gray beard, twinkling eyes, straight-shooting, yet gentle in his teaching. I liked his class a lot. I thanked him for his pigeon poses and suggested his music might be too loud. His response was serenely gracious. Six days later, he died. I almost wrote “death came out of the blue,” but no, death is always here on the ground, right next to us. We are just highly skilled at pretending otherwise. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 136: 122 words, TOTAL = 22,278; 37,722 remaining A lobster trap Christmas tree welcomes Mainers back home in the Portland, Maine airport. Maine’s wonderful Governor Mills placed a new sign where I-95 enters our state. “Maine – welcome home.” I like this gentler, humbler version of the old motto, “the way life should be.”
I’ve been coming home to Maine since 2002, and its charm only increases with the years. I felt inexplicably delighted with the world today as my Detroit flight descended over Portland’s rocky coast. Back in Maine, a weight melts from my shoulders; I breathe the frosty air and relax; the world feels sensible, dependable, manageable…welcoming. The 2-hour drive up to Bangor is nothing, just a long winding driveway back up to home. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 135: 103 words, TOTAL = 22,156; 37,844 remaining At last I can say, “my book will be published next year.” Sitting at Anna and Robert’s guest desk and at their kitchen counter, I’ve spent hours constructing answers for the “book summary” and “cover design” information sheets from She Writes Press, due soon. It’s hard. “What’s your book about?” “Describe your protagonist.” Might as well ask, “Summarize your mother,” or “Tell me who you are.” You have to translate a deeply rooted, emotional experience into a few, pithy catchphrases. This blog’s exercises in brevity are useful. The good news is that I continue to feel a rush of elation each time I re-read my manuscript about Rachel Field’s life. There’s always this lurking fear that I’ll open the book one day and realize it’s terrible, but so far so good. I think you’ll like it! (Anna and Robert’s chickens have no relevance; they are simply stunning in their freshly post-molt feathers.) My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 133: 152 words, TOTAL = 22,051; 37,949 remaining At a diner in Rochester, NY in 1989, I experienced an epiphany. Two-and-a-half-year-old Anna and I were there for lunch (someone must have been with baby twins). I’d been feeling intellectually numbed by full time motherhood, but during our meal, I suddenly realized we were engaged in lively conversation. Oh my gosh. Here is a person, rich with ideas, and she is my friend! Last night, my friend and I ate at Mani’s in Ann Arbor, Michigan. We had lively conversation. We were also enraptured by a heavenly series of shared plate cuisine. First - gin cocktails innovatively flavored with rosemary and citrus. Second – roasted cauliflower, shallots, pickled chilis, bacon jam. I had to close my eyes and savor the dancing explosion of flavors. Third – risotto croquettes on a bed of romesco puree. Crispy, creamy, cheesy, a journey home in food. Fourth – carmelized brussel sprouts, roasted garlic, almonds. The perfect balance of crisp-dark and bright green leafy bits. Fifth – arugula salad, tantalizingly, delicately seasoned, with crispy shallots and mushrooms. Sixth – mushroom ravioli with arugula pesto and walnuts. With every new dish, I thought nothing could possibly match the last – wrong! Seventh – white chocolate pistachio mousse with dark chocolate whipped cream. Oh. my. God. Surely this gustatory experience was made even more unforgettable by my dinner companion, who continues to illuminate and delight my world. Here is a person, rich with ideas, and she is my friend! My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 132: 236 words, TOTAL = 21,899; 38,101 remaining I’m taking German lessons on Duolingo. I’ve always loved language, maybe because my nursery school taught French. On my first day of Kindergarten (the story goes), the teacher asked if I could count to ten, and I asked, “In French or in English?” My French and Spanish are passable. I tried Russian once, but I had a one-and-a-half-year-old and was pregnant with twins, and my brain said “uhh…no.” I haven’t surmounted the Latin alphabet…yet. I am drawn to German. There are Germans in my life who mean a lot to me, two of whom lived with us as teens. We visited once, and I was tantalized by the country. I casually mentioned to Tessa that I’ve wanted to learn German for years, and she said, “so learn it. Get Duolingo and start,” and she sent me the link. These kids of mine. If I forget to STRETCH on my own, they’ll see to it. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 131: 154 words, TOTAL = 21,663; 38,337 remaining Just completed a 2-day long-haul trip with Anna, my firstborn daughter, a deep-thinking dual PhD candidate in Sociology and Social Work. We had long, challenging conversations about race, class, politics, identity, relationships. She shakes my complacent foundations; it’s not all easy. But she makes me think and laugh, and holds my hand, and listens. We also ate fried food at Cracker Barrel, oohed at baby clothes in the gift shop, and listened to our favorite music on Spotify for hours.
Nellie said the other day that it was hard to imagine her 7-week-old Fiona would ever teach her things. “She’s already taught you things,” I said. “Think of how differently you see the world now. A lot of what they teach, they teach inadvertently.” And then they grow, and they teach you things on purpose, and they become your dear friend, and you cry inadvertently, just because there you are with this person you met in a hospital room almost 33 years ago, and isn’t it all miraculous? My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 130: 168 words, TOTAL = 21,509; 38,491 remaining I had a brief but satisfying Fiona infusion before this morning’s departure with Anna and her dogs. I’m celebrating the start of my free semester as her driving buddy, Maine to Michigan. Fiona and I spent 45 minutes alone last night while her mom and auntie went to do errands. Nellie and Anna were worried that I might get stuck with a screaming baby since it was past mealtime, but we were fine. We cuddled quietly in a darkening room and rocked, and rocked. The side of her tiny, loose fist, held in front of her face, made a question mark, just the size of my thumb. What will be, Fiona? How will your life unfold? What adventures and misadventures lie ahead? Who will you become? What will I be in your life, and you in mine? Right now, I am fully your Grandma, sitting here, loving you; nothing else exists in the world. But there’s the door opening downstairs. There are my daughters’ voices, my little girls, two grown women, close friends in deep conversation. How differently you will see my daughters, strong women, bulwarks of fortification for your growing self. What will that look like? I try to imagine what my little girls will be to you, little one, with your little question mark hand, a curled young sprout, a fiddlehead fern, just beginning its great unfurling. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 129: 229 words, TOTAL = 21,341; 38,659 remaining We had a couple of nice audio messages from Pakistan over the holidays. In August of 2012, Jonathan and I agreed to host a 15-year-old Pakistani girl for a few weeks, until AFS could find her a full-time family. She ended up living with us until the following June. Aqsa evolved from dog fear to dog affection, learned to sleep under the bedcovers (after we finally figured out why she was so cold at night), called us Mom and Dad, shrieked hilariously over her first experience with snow, danced in the kitchen while she cooked her favorite foods, and generally won us over. She thoroughly humanized our cardboard image of what it is to be Pakistani, and we did the same for her vision of Americans. Another thing Aqsa did for me was decelerate my entry into the empty nest. I adored being a full-time, homemaker Mom. As much as I love being a writer and teacher, neither of those identities filled my soul quite as thoroughly as at-home motherhood. Maybe that’s why I have left Aqsa’s hand-drawn sign on my bedroom wall, with messages in Urdu around her “Welcome home, Mom!” I still feel a flush of warmth when I come home to that particular identity on my wall, no matter who else I have become. My 60th year in 60,000 words Day 128: 217 words, TOTAL = 21,112; 38,888 remaining |
AuthorRobin Clifford Wood is an award-winning author, poet, and writing teacher. She lives in central Maine with her husband, loves to be outdoors, and enjoys ever-expanding horizons through her children, grandchildren, and granddogs. Archives
January 2024
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