pull up a chair

if not for the culinary peculiarities of the little one, who demands them shamefully often, they would live on a shelf with all the emergency supplies–the flashlight, the batteries, the coil of rope.
and the nuggets. dehydrated, faux breaded chicken parts, cut in coy little legs to make you think you’re eating the very real thing. they too would be off with the back-ups. banned from public consumption. except in the case of a hurricane.
reserved for nights like last night. sad, pathetic, make-your-heart-pound nights like last night.
nights when dinner pulls every trick in the book in its wily attempt to escape.
ah, but it knows not who it’s up against.
i am fierce, i am nuts, when it comes to defending the dinner hour. i am, admittedly, a kook about gathering all of us, sitting us ’round the same maple slab, holding hands even, saying grace, digging in.
in to the occasional whining and actual snippets of real conversation. into the boy who’s been known to sink under the table. or the long stringy pastas that slide faster than he does in a race to the floor. it must be a game, see who gets there first.
oh, some nights it’s not pretty. but it is dinner, and it’s the knot in the cloth of our life where all the very loose threads come together. we twist. and we talk. and we tell all our stories.
given the age span, given as we dig into peas we are hearing who called whom “stupid” in kickball, and as we move on to noodles, what horror is being targeted by the global activist club, it can make your head whirl, boing like a little white ball, from one side of the plate to the other.
sometimes even the grownups get a chance to jump in. we might hear how the donald hung up on the daddy. or how mommy forgot, once again, to cancel the milkman because the global activist does not like the dairy man’s politics.
no matter the madness, there is a method. a crux of the matter. it dates back over a decade.
long ago, for my day job, i spent a very long time talking and listening to a truly fine family. i spent months, actually. i was there to record the emptying of their once very full nest; four children, busy lives, and then suddenly, two grownups alone in a very big house.
in the midst of reporting that story, the father once told me the single most fundamental thread of their incredibly tugged-apart life, a life that remained as entwined as any french knot, was their religious commitment to dinner, family dinner. if it was 9 o’clock before all stumbled in from wherever they’d been, they still made it happen.
the non-negotiables were these: a meal, a table, a carved-out hour at the end of the day. full attendance.
i had only one very young boy at the time. already, most every night we pushed that high chair up to the table, ate all together. it made as much sense to me as turning a spigot to fill a glass full of water.
but sometimes, even when you already know, the teacher speaks and the lesson is sealed. mr. grabowski, that was his name, is my muse for the coming together at the end of the day.
he didn’t let baseball or debate or that godawful soccer that seems to think it owns the hour from 6 until 7 get in the way of whatever was slopped on the plate, and spooned down besides.
and neither will i.
darn thing is, it’s not getting easier. the forces, it seems, are gathering. doing all they can to pull me and the dinner apart, into so many nuggets sucked down so many throats.
i’ll be damned.
last night it was the school newspaper. layout stretches right through the dinner hour, or so we’d been told. the budding young journalists move headlines, crop pictures, chomp pizza.
i had made a swift but lovely dinner for the rest of us. had stopped my workday with time to chop madly, saute, and let simmer. i even steamed up the broccoli, a famously ridiculed stand-by in this house. we managed to walk to the train to meet the commuter, sauntered home for a short respite before i dashed off to a book circle.
that’s when the phone rang. it was the manchild who’d been editing stories. he was ready for pickup, he informed. i looked at the stove, the pots and pans bright with so many colors. i looked at my husband, grabbing his keys.
that’s when my jaw dropped. that’s when i thought, no way, not now. can’t he wait? i mean i’ve gone to this trouble. can’t we sit down? can’t we at least shovel the food, pretend that we’re dining?
but i said not a word. he was gone before i could manage to banish some nagging counter-thought that of course we needed to pick up the child who’d gone off to school with three measly hours of sleep, a biology test and a 20-page paper to boot.
but then the phone rang again. it was the boy journalist. seems his eagerness to get home, to climb into bed perhaps, was a bit premature. he’d just been advised by the teacher in charge that it would be at least one more hour.
oops.
well, this is a world where we are all cellularly connected. except when we’re not. except when i dial the cell of my mate, and i hear it singing its song in the drawer in the desk in the kitchen.
oops. and oh no.
i had two choices: let the man wait by the curb at the school, wondering, not knowing, not having the means to call for a clue.
or i could haul the little one, hop in the other car, and drive like a madwoman to cut him off at the pass.
that’s where the nuggets came in.
the bright colored foods in the pot were not portable dinner. surely would slosh from the plate to the lap to the seat there in the back of a car being steered by a madwoman, a crazed woman, a woman who just wanted one thing from the day: a nice quiet meal before all of us spun our own ways.
alas, i zapped a few lumps of phony poulet, tossed the plate to the boy, and took off after the wagon.
so there’s me, the one who believes with every cell in her body, that dinner together is a very good thing. and i’m driving past one high school on the way to the other. i am passing very long lines there at the school, all these supersized vans filled with supersized carryouts, i wonder. given that it’s their dinner hour as well. and i am amazed at how many folks are not at their homes, at their tables, but there at the curb of the school, waiting.
but as i am thinking, i’m zooming. i too am clicking the clicker, turning the wheel at the hour that’s supposed to be sacred. the whole ride i am listening to a voice in my head, telling me, loudly, that i really have lost it. why not, it practically shouts, wave a white flag? why not let the dinner dissemble? why chase the man from the other side of the table back to the table? why the insistence on sitting, as many as we can possibly manage, together in that very fine circle?
because i am stubborn is why. because i will not let the world take away the one thing i deeply believe in, the sacred communion of slowing, of passing the bread, of pouring more milk. of asking, quite simply, so what was the best part of your day? what was the hard part?
i won’t give up listening. asking for seconds. or thirds, when it comes to the stories that simmered all day. that stewed. that are ripe, as we gather, for plucking.
we got home, yes we did. all three of us sat and we supped (the nuggets were starters for the backseat rider, who when we got home wanted more, i am sad to report).
the colors weren’t bright anymore. the sausage not terribly warm. but it was good. and it filled us, it did.
i might put in a call to mr. grabowski. ask him how in the world he so managed.

this here’s fightin’ words. anyone else fierce about guarding that hour? how do you do it? what grace do you find at the table? where and how did you learn that what unfolds as a family at dinner is, perhaps, the single most essential nutrient?

the reason my heart skipped, twirled, did a jig ’round the curb, is, i’d been waiting. holding my breath. praying. beckoning guardian angels to please get him home.
not ’cause i’m some sappy ol’ wife with nothing to do but wait by the curb in my curlers with bonbons.
heck, there were children to tuck into bed. and dishes to scrub in the sink.
but after the phone call, none of that mattered. not so much anymore.
you might recall–it was yesterday only–that the man who i love, the man we’ll call mr. parallel life, had grabbed the keys off the ring, hopped in the ol’ wagon, taken off for parts 200 miles away.
well, mr. parallel, late in the day, had wrapped it all up, was minding his business, steering for home. when all of a sudden there sounded a rather loud boom. that boom, he soon realized, had just come from him. or his left rear tire, that is.
thing was, he was out on the interstate where 18-wheel rigs think nothing of rolling by at, oh, 800 miles an hour. or so it felt. tucked off to the side, just after a bend, where the road starts to come up what we in the middle parts of the country call a hill. really, it was the slightest of slopes.
or so i know because i grilled him for every last detail.
but that wasn’t till later, when he and the tire in shreds had come through the fog, into my jiggety arms.
the hours between were, like the cumulus clouds of mist that rolled in, sifted through trees, settled on lawns, made of the street a scene from an old hitchcock movie, eery and quite rather scary.
he called right away, just before dinner. called to say, well, all is fine except that i’ve just blown a tire, and i’m out in the middle of nowhere, and the darkness is just ’round the bend. the trucks barreling by seem to think this is that stretch of ol’ indiana where the 500 revs up its engines.
and then maybe he stuck the phone out the window, ’cause all the way here, i could hear how those semis shimmied and shook down the highway.
let me just say, a girl with barely an ounce of imagination might see pictures of very big trucks veering awfully close to that shoulder. not me. i have imagination overdrive. i pictured right on to the front page of the newspaper, gathering the kiddies, draping my sorrowful self all in black.
oh, lord. time started ticking in very slow motion. here i was, scared and basically helpless. there he was, on the side of the interstate, in the dim-turning-to-dark, waiting for a tow truck to rumble out of the blackness.
i called here and there. tried to be helpful. offered to go buy a tire, drive it down there. called my friends at the gas station, who assured me the measly round object in the back of the volvo–the thing that looks like a make-believe tire–could actually safely hobble him home. thing was, he’d have to get off of the interstate. drive home straight through gary. which, if you were from this part of the world, you might know is not exactly a traipse through the candyland forest.
and so began the vigil for someone you love. that close encounter with what might go wrong that reminds us how essential is their breath in our ear.
we have, i imagine, all waited. and worried. not known how or when a drama would end. we have, some of us, seen dramas end achingly bad. we have stood in hospital hallways. heard doctors summon unspeakable words.
“i’m so sorry,” is all the doctor once said. i had to ask, “is he dead?” spell it out, tell me, because at this moment there’s fog and i am finding it terribly hard to wrap my head around what you are saying.
i have not yet–but i know it’s coming, can feel it too breathing right down my neck–waited for a child with keys and a car and a curfew that’s blown. maybe i’ll be lucky. maybe mine–the older one, at least–won’t blow a curfew. but still there will be minutes that turn into hours, where i am waiting. remembering news headlines. imagining.
maybe i’m wired with just enough fear that i am often tamping it down. putting out sparks before they turn into fires. i have a mind that takes off like a kite in a hurricane. it pitches and swirls, it crashes and splinters in pieces. it needs some sort of leash. and a short one, if you’ve got one just lying around.
to wait for someone you love is to sift through the core of your life. to realize the threads of the net that they weave, the net that keeps you from flailing, from falling.
you hold hands with your children at dinnertime prayers. you squeeze a little harder, remind them you’re there, and, while you’re at it, so is the God you are asking to bring home their papa.
you look then out the window. you see that it’s gotten all blurry. and no, it’s not you and your worry. there’s a fog, a thick one, rolled in from the lake. and it’s ratcheting up the equation.
now you have a husband hobbling home on a make-believe wheel in a fog thick as smooshed peas. and he’s taking the side roads, besides.
drawn somehow by the spine-tingling beauty, the mystery, really, of these clouds that have reshaped the landscape, this fog that has smoothed all the harsh edges, wrapped halos on each of the light posts, you step into it.
leave behind the warmth of the house. find yourself staring straight down the street, into the mouth of the darkness. you are imploring now. you think of the song you sang so long ago. “come home, daddy, come home.” you walked to the corner and waited to see his little blue falcon. the car that magically brought home your hero. every time. except for the last time. when the doctor answered, “yes, he is dead.”
you stand in the fog in the street. you know, any minute, you’ll see the lights in the distance. the little round glow, two glows actually. and the glow will come near you, will pull to the curb. and there will be someone’s daddy. someone wide-eyed upstairs in bed. ’cause his daddy was due hours ago. and he’s only just now coming in through the door.
the vigil is over. the headlights did come. they broke through the fog. they shimmered with halos the whole way down the street.
the one that you love made it home, wrapped in white light.
precisely the prayer you had prayed.

have you waited lately? or ever? do you find your mind racing into dark corners? or do you have some secret serenity, some faith that all will work out, until proven otherwise? do you remember waiting as a young child? do you recall how sweet the embrace when the vigil is over?

finally, the lazy susan is restocked with a nod to october. give it a whirl.

and now, tell me your stories of waiting…..

any minute now, in the pit-a-pat of the pitch black of a rainy morning, the man i love, the man i weave my life with, will grab the keys off the ring, walk to the curb and drive 200 miles away.

i will get boys out of bed, off to school. i will go into a classroom. work with first graders learning to read. i will see first-hand who reads and who doesn’t yet. i might well be alarmed. i might walk out of that room, thinking, hoh boy, we are sunk. or sinking.

the man with the keys and the old volvo wagon will be driving still. will be on his way to the world’s first green museum. often, by day, he fills his hours with the world’s first this. or the latest architectural that. he talks to people all day with broad sweeping visions. often, of late, he talks to that fellow from tv who builds very tall buildings, fires his minions, right there on the screen, goes by the name of “the donald.” you know, the one with the very bad hair.

sometimes i too talk to souls with incredible visions. sometimes my day job fills my hours with thoughts far, far away. but i layer my day jobs. i’ve got more than just one. oh, sure i write newspaper stories. and i care very much about every last word.

but the fact of the matter, the job that keeps me awake is the one that draws me to classrooms, to cafeteria lines. the one that has me keeping very close watch on the souls who are growing inside of this house.

that’s the one, i think, that takes every ounce of my intellect, and more of my soul than i ever imagined. that’s the one that has me sifting through sands, searching for stones on the side of the path, the ones left long long ago by the wise souls marking the trail. some days i feel lost in the woods; others, the direction is perfectly clear. even if lonely.

what amazes me is the invention of what we’ll call marriage, but really is two lives daring to buttress each other. the fact that two souls can lead such different lives by the day, yet come home, night after night, to the same table, the same couch, the same bed.

there are days, plenty, and especially of late, where our worlds just barely connect. he is off in a newsroom, battling battles. and i am at home worrying about consonant blends, how to teach that c and h sound like a train, s and h remind you to whisper and c and k echo each other.

there are days, spans of days really, when it feels as if whole chapters roll by. not a paragraph shared. oh, sure i know the essentials. what train he’ll be on. if he’ll be late.

but do i know the ins and outs of his soul?

often i do. not often enough, it might seem.

does he know mine? not unless he sits down and reads what i write here. (just a joke, just a plug for the chair, there.)

do i know at this minute, what he is thinking? how he lurched on the brakes because a car in the rain nearly collided with the one just in front? do i know the questions he’s thinking of asking, or why this museum is worth a three-hour drive?

the state of a marriage in the thick of these years, must be such that it can get by on fumes and wisps. for fairly long spells.

but then, in the unscheduled serendipitous sentence, in the sharing of a story, or hearing how deeply he listens, when really it matters, the whole deal is sealed. i remember why i, who clung to my all-alone time, gave it up. i recall how it is that he makes me more than i am, all on my own. i remember the feeling of spreading my wings. catching the updraft. some days, he is my wind.

it is, at best, an exercise in extreme empathy. putting yourself in the place of the one who you love. imagining the world as it comes crashing toward that other one’s soul. while keeping yourself as adrift as you can.

i choose–by mutual consent–not to explore here the ways it does not work. that is the subject of some other place. what amazes me though, what is worth examination, is simply the marvel of spiraling, always returning. how we find, in the dark of a cool rainy dawn, that place where we both draw our breath from the very same air.

how our keys can dangle in parallel, on two separate rings. we can go off for very long hours. and still want, very much, to come again to the same table. to intersect. to share the stories that over the years weave us together. to know there is much that pulls us apart, the drama of days, the simple equations of physics and math.

but to know, as sure as we know there is oxygen out there, that there is reason for both of our hearts to proclaim this the place where we lay down our heads and our dreams and our prayers. we’ve birthed more than two children.

we’ve birthed a path up the mountain that promises this: some days, we diverge, we climb over rocks, barely hold on in slippery places. but once in a while we meet up and look out together. what we see, it catches my breath. it holds it and draws out my lungs. but then it fills up.

then i know i am breathing the very pure air of parallel lives intersecting for one simple reason: together we climb to a place we’d not climb alone, not a chance.

marriage is not often the subject of discourse here at the table. i was simply struck, as we both stood in the dark, diving into our day, at how different are the lives that we lead for much of the daylight. yet somehow, we always find union. i think it worth putting out there because of souls who i love at various stages of union: a dear friend who after many long years has fallen in love, and has sent out a series of questions about how it is that we negotiate the deep and not-so-deep matters of this married state; another friend who seems to be circling ever closer to becoming betrothed; another dear and beloved friend who is in the depths of “un-marrying,” as she puts it. all three are souls who take nuance to heart. who mine all of life at its depths. i am groping, but the state of the union–the freedom to live parallel lives, the miracle of coming together, the negotiating and re-aligning so those paths don’t too widely diverge–is worth considering in the way that we do here…..if you can, if you care to: do you marvel, ever, at the contrast in texture and content of your day and that of your mate? is a married life one that holds virtue for you? how has yours buoyed you? or pulled you down under? what is it that reminds you of why you are there in the first place? what of the love that sustains you? what great marriages have you known, learned from, aspired toward? what seem to be the lessons worth carrying forward, taking to heart?