I’m
not a big fan of moving parts. Not
in real life, anyway.
I
like plans. I like on-time. I like predictable. We “joke” that our family mantra is Stay in Your Rut, because our rut (aka, “tradition”) includes good
things, like the annual trip to Bar Harbor and the seven Christmas cookies we
always bake.
So
I had more than the usual anxiety leading up to Thanksgiving this year, not
only because the spouse and I had a looooong drive ahead of us to New York
state (think: the northeast corridor on the busiest travel day of the year),
where my parents live, but because our kids were spending the holiday together
on the west coast.
This
would involve our daughter travelling from a small town in Vermont to a
small-ish airport in Vermont, flying to/changing in Philadelphia (all the
seasoned travelers reading this just groaned), landing at LAX and connecting
with her brother, who would expertly scoop her up at that busy airport in the
still-coughing-beat-up-but-beloved-blue-Subaru and transport her back to his
20-something apartment in West Hollywood.
Meanwhile,
my sister, brother-in-law and three precious nieces were driving to NY from MA,
and my brother and his wonderful brood were heading out from one location in NY
to the other, while all over the news reports of fires, protests and tear gas
in Ferguson were competing with Black Friday ads and hyperbolic weather reports
about the approaching winter storm.
Serene
I was not. Too much of my family
was on the move at the same time.
So
when the first half of it all went smoothly (kids connected safely in Los
Angeles where fun was had and turkey from Ralph’s was eaten) and at my parent’s
house we were popping yet another cork on another really nice bottle of Pinot
which someone had brought (my sibs have good wine taste) I didn’t think a thing
of it when my phone chimed, indicating a text. I happily scooped it up, anticipating a message from the
kids.
But
no, it was my friend from Maine.
Did you know, she queried, that we’ve had no power for 24 hours, none is
anticipated for another two days and the temps might dip into the teens
tonight?
My
thoughts flew to all those still-raw Thanksgiving turkeys in Brunswick. My shivering neighbors. Then: my mud room. A
poorly insulted extension of our otherwise solid house, where many pipes lead,
including conduits to the washer/dryer and a gardener’s sink.
This
is when predictable flew out the window.
Because our house was locked up tight and I had not hidden or given out
copies of our keys, so no good Samaritan could go inside and fire up the wood
stove and keep the pipes from freezing.
So with visions of water damage dancing in our heads, the spouse and I
threw our bags in the car and began the long, dark, still slightly icy drive
back to Maine.
Somewhere
along I-84 I realized I had left the house keys on the counter of that chilly
mudroom. I do that, because we
usually go in through the automatic garage doors. Which, when the power is out, don’t work. I broke this cheery news to the spouse
as we drove, and to his credit he took it all in stride, and simply asked me to
get out my iPhone and Google “How to Break Into Your Own House.”
You’d
be surprised how many interesting ways there are to break into a house. This kept us awake and entertained for
hours.
Luckily,
in addition to 1. Not hiding or distributing extra keys and 2. forgetting the
keys, we left a window unlocked (right now you’re probably thinking, These people are too stupid to live) so
I scrambled over the woodpile stacked under the eaves, climbed in through the garage, and
voila! Entry.
This
is where the story slows and gets comfortably predictable, which is reassuring
in real life but death in fiction.
Because after we got into the house we fired up the stove, snuggled into
our sleeping bags before it, and all was well. The End.
But
as my very wise daughter observed the next day, the best stories are in the
mess.
“Just
think, Mom,” she said when I was finished complaining about the interruption to
my Thanksgiving festivities, “someday we’ll be laughing about this one. ‘Remember
the Thanksgiving when you and dad had to race back to keep the pipes from
freezing, while me and Christian were hanging out on the beach in Malibu.’”
I’ve
lived through 53 Thanksgivings and the only one I clearly remember was when we
dropped the turkey, pan drippings and all, on the kitchen floor, and my abuela, hoping to be helpful, slipped in
the grease and landed on her ass right next to the hot bird. As we tried to hoist her up her legs
kept slipping out from beneath her, skittering wildly and further spattering
grease.
The
other 52 were fairly calm, organized affairs, and they all run together for
me. At the time they were lovely …
and forgettable.
The
best stories are the ones with sharp edges, the ones that go pop! They aren’t
always happy stories with happy endings, but they’re the ones worth
telling. They’re not necessarily
stories I want to live through at the time, but it’s not I’ve got a choice. Maybe the key to surviving those, is recognizing them.
The
other day I treated myself to a lovely, hardcover copy of Mary Oliver’s latest
collection of poetry, Blue Horses,
and this one surprised me. She
seems to welcome the moving parts that scare me, and I think she must be very
brave.
If I Wanted a Boat
By
Mary Oliver
I
would want a boat, if I wanted a
boat,
that bounded hard on the waves,
that
didn’t know starboard from port
and
wouldn’t learn, that welcomed
dolphins
and headed straight for the
whales,
that, when rocks were close,
would
slide in for a touch or two,
that
wouldn’t keep land in sight and
went
fast, that leaped into the spray.
What
kind of life is it always to plan
and
do, to promise and finish, to wish
for
the near and the safe? Yes, by the
heavens,
if I wanted a boat I would want
a
boat I couldn’t steer.
