The long summer days before we left to live in South Korea (five years ago now) was a repetitive sting of nostalgia for a place we hadn’t even left yet.  With just a few days until we boarded our plane to Daegu, I felt vividly that we would never return to the exact place and the exact people that we were leaving. This turned out to be right.

I remember sitting by the harbor at the final “Belfast Summer Nights” free music concert, astounded by the beauty of the boats and the water, and the land and the sky — things I’d seen every day for fifteen years, and never properly appreciated. I remember having a glass of wine with my closest friends, them comforting me and telling me that things wouldn’t change, and me crying because things already had. And I remember gathering with my brother and his family in Island Falls for one last weekend together at the lake, with that scourging pit in my stomach (the one that makes you long for things) unceasing. I missed everything — and I was still here.

I miss my son Garrett.  He’s still here, too, living with us and sharing meals and some family time once in awhile.  But his head and shoulders are already out the door, eyes looking forward to all the amazing things yet to come.  He’s a senior in high school now, and while we’ve been loving him and helping him reach his potential for seventeen years, it seems clearer now than at any other time that with every fleeting moment, we will never pass this way again.

In that same summer, pre-South Korea five years ago, all three of our children, along my brother’s three beautiful daughters, discovered what I think is a weed on the border of the road into camp in Island Falls.  I don’t know it’s name, but the bush is four feet tall or so and has orange blossoms as well as pods that explode in your hand when you pinch them (and if they’re full enough, even when you barely touch them.)  It’s such a delight, it makes us laugh out loud.

It looks like this.

One day, the six of them came running into the camp asking for glass jars to collect the pods in. When I asked Garrett why they didn’t want to just pop them right away, he said, “To share them with you, mom. We have to save the best stuff if we can.”

My boy. We do.

Senior year has just begun and my heart is breaking over all the things I can’t save. I want to put him in a glass jar and keep him on a shelf.  I want to hold on to him, just the exact way he is right now…his perfect imperfect self.

And I know I can’t, and I know I’m whining, and I know I’m melodramatic, and that everyone and his mother has been through this before, and  I know, I know, I KNOW. But this one is mine.  And it’s the first time I’ve been through it.  And it makes me long for every second of this human being’s life all over again.

I hope, even though it’s not possible to suspend or control his nature, that it’s not too much to ask that when he bursts out into the world, I will be there to witness it. That he’ll put in a jar all the things that mean the most to him. That he’ll share it with me still.

It would make a great story to say I earned my MFA for my children, to show them a thing or two about being a Badass, unfuckwithable, gettin’-it-done Mother: to give them an example of what can be accomplished when you set your mind to it. And maybe that happened, but it was ancillary. Lovely, but not the point.

Proud of Mom 1 – Making the Snapchat/Instagram cutoff.

Proud of Mom 2 – LOOK. AT. HIS. FACE.

The truth is my reasoning may not fit with any typical notion people have about why a person with a lot of other responsibilities would spend two years doing this work. Because if it’s not for my kids, and it’s not for money, and it’s not for recognition (none of which it is) – then why do it?  I was asked this two days ago. I’m still reeling, but only because I wasn’t certain of my answer.

If I say it’s for them or for money, or for recognition – well-meaning people nod, smile and pat me on the back or hug me sweetly. It’s really easy, sometimes, to just pick one. Any of these answers quickly appeases.  All of these answers seem to make sense to people who aren’t me.

So I’m trying to get at the actual truth here:

It’s more than chasing and fulfilling a dream.

It’s bigger than exploring whether it could even be done.

It’s outside the desire to create, with words, something out of nothing.

It’s even greater than wanting to communicate clearly in a way I just can’t in every day interactions.

All of these are good reasons, true-ish reasons, floating around in my heart and brain. But it’s more, and it’s different, and it’s a driving torrent of cleansing rain:

It’s about earning it. 

I did it because it feels good to work hard. It feels really good to get thoughts on paper, and then change them around – again, then again, again – to capture a niblet of truth, out of its entirety – its messy, imperfect, breathtaking surrounding chaos – and to say to myself, yes, that’s what I mean, exactly.

If I had gone directly to graduate school out of undergrad, I believe I’d have spent a terrible amount of time writing about whatever it was I thought, at that time, I should. I was so very busy taking others’ ideas and putting them out there as my own, anxious to prove my learning. Maybe that comes from being first generation to go to college. Maybe I’m just a jackass.

But I’m in the middle of a personal revolution now. I’m earning my place. It’s quiet, and it’s honest, and it needs nothing in the way of attention.  But that driving torrent of cleansing rain is compelling me to seek it out – and to do so with no umbrella. To get soaked in the unknown and to welcome the deluge on my face, skin and bones.

In his address to my graduating class, Martin Espada, world-renowned and Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet, said;

Today we are here to celebrate you: your vision, your courage, your integrity, your determination, your endurance, your skill, the tales you tell. Listen to Marge Piercy—novelist, poet, teacher and activist—and you will see yourself in her words:

Attention is love, what we must give
children, mothers, fathers, pets,
our friends, the news, the woes of others.
What we want to change we curse and then
pick up a tool. Bless whatever you can
with eyes and hands and tongue. If you
can’t bless it, get ready to make it new.

It’s time for me to pick up a tool.  And an umbrella is not a tool.

I’m earning a place for my voice to be heard.

That’s why I did it.

Shaking hands with Martin Espada. Go read his Vivas! To Those Who Have Failed. I’m a little star-struck here

It’s baseball season again!  You know what that means, fans.  Winter coat, wool socks, LL Bean boots and heated up coals inside the fuzzy blankets I carry up to the field day after day.  I’m kidding.  No I’m not.

Between seasons, I forget how much I love baseball – the crack of the bat, the chatter among teammates, the slightly delayed steeeeriiiiiiike three! calls of the umps. But it all comes back to me on opening day.

And that day, my friends, is today.  April 20, 2016.

Baseball, at our house, is like a long lost relative we think about all year, and are so happy to have show up on our doorstep in spring.  It’s a favorite.  I would say it’s THE favorite, but that would be a lie.  Every sports season becomes our favorite season momentarily….though I will say here that though we love all sports the kids play, baseball does have a little special magic. And since it’s baseball season, we’re going to jump up to the third base line and cheer our hearts out.

It’s been a surprise to me how much I’ve come to love baseball in the past few years. My family always watched and loved the Red Sox (and we do not speak of my father’s affinity for the Yankees) but once my boys started playing the game, I became more than just a fair weather fan.

Look at this pic on the boys’ first day of T-Ball, 2005, a few months before Natalie was born.  They’re consulting about the pitcher, I think. Luke seems displeased with his work. 

You can’t see them, but both of their hats are Red Sox hats, and Luke asked for those red sneakers because they were Red Sox colors.

This next pic is of the first game the boys ever saw the Sea Dogs play (and needed zero guidance about what was going on…they understood the game well.)  Again, the hats.

Garrett was a player for Halloween in 2006.  Those happy eyes!  No front teeth! Back when he loved Tootsie Rolls! 

Luke, age 3 here, seemed to have been born being able to hit and throw.  His laser focus here is on his brother, to whom Guy is pitching up at THMS. Luke is so very little!  

This is Luke in Little League, age 11.

This is Luke last year, pitching at Lincolnville Central School, 8th grade.  

And here he is this year, today in fact, again pitching.

Garrett, here last season, has decided he’d like to play baseball in college.  We’re seeing what we can do to make that dream come true. 

Here he is this season making a double play…

…and I don’t know what this is, but I’m sure it was safer than it looks.
I jest.  Though I would NOT want to be in front of that bullet.

This year’s Varsity crew is a friendly and determined group of young men who, so far, are having a great time playing the game they love.  What else can a fan ask for?

Except maybe a little warmer weather.