stone walls

sometimes you don't appreciate a place until you leave it.  that for me, is new england.  i'm loving being back here- to the warmth and the salt and the granite rocks and the longness of the summer days and the old friends and the crusty sameness.  the family-owned businesses that remain after 30 years- the metal siding houses next to tiny wooden saltbox houses with plaques that say 'circ 1802' and converted barns and two lane highways and the red sox- all of it- i'm loving it.


i love driving around and seeing, just off the road, hidden slightly in the tree overgrowth-the stop and start of stone walls.  markers all over new england of a past- an example of form following function- boundaries of stone- rocks removed for field tilling- for vegetable growth- for sustenance- placed thoughtfully to define an area- an area that might be no longer- but the wall remains- the stones placed like a monument- now part of the landscape, stay.  i didn't notice them when i grew up here.  i walked on them- added to them- rearranged them- hid things in them- but never thought about them.

today i was tired of being a single parent.  i was tired of saying 'sit still and eat', tired of having to remind people to get dressed, tired of not having back up- and i hadn't even woken up zoe yet- zoe my slowest get-readier- zoe who likes to mosey- to take her time- to chitchat often at the most inappropriate and inconvenient times.  so i tried to get ready- to finish the boys and get her breakfast all laid out before waking her.  i tried to be patient when she took forever to finish her medicine- when she explained that she was just grumpy because i'd woken her up- when she asked from more bagel before even eating the one on her plate.  i explained, calmly, that after she finished she needed to go straight upstairs and get dressed- that she couldn't and shouldn't do anything else before being dressed- that i needed to trust her- that we were all trying to get out of the house in 30 minutes for church.
'okay mom!  i know!'  (said as if it's absurd that would need to spell it out- as if she usually has it under control) and i went upstairs to get dressed.

but the margarita glasses on the dining room table were too much to pass by- what if she stacked them?  what if she made a sculpture with them?  how would that look?

and it's times like this when i really wonder what- if anything- goes on in her brain?  is she thinking 'this is probably a bad idea but i want to do it anyway?'  or 'i know i'm supposed to go get dressed- but i'll just do this first'?  or is it just the simple not thinking- just being- there, in the moment- as if i never said anything- as if we're not going anywhere- as if life can just be lived that simply- that obliviously.

i only know this happened because the tower of margarita glasses came crashing down and smashed into smithereens sending glass shards into three rooms- on table, chairs, floors, rugs, everywhere.

and it wasn't that i was mad at the broken glasses, or even at the 15 minutes it took to vacuum it all up when trying to get out the door- it was, it is, the unreliability of my life- of our lives.  it is that i can't depend on her to follow simple directions- i can't depend on her to behave almost 12.  it is that reminder that her brothers at 6 and 4, are more trustworthy than she is.  and that inconsistency creates stress.

i tried to tell her that- but i was mad.  exasperated mad.  and i used too many words- words like 'i can't trust you'  and 'you're more work than your brothers combined'.  words that i hope and pray flitted out of her brain like my instructions had earlier- words that i hope and pray didn't settle in to damage a self image. because it's much easier to clean up broken glass than a broken person.

so after church and after the church picnic, i went for a run and i ran past many stone walls- all different sizes and heights and levels of care and maintenance.  i thought about the fields i ran past- now beautiful and grassy and gardened- now with out those stones.  i thought about how hard it must have been to dig them out- to lug them over to the side of the property- to stack them- to try and place the flat sides on the top.  i thought about the work involved and the time- the slowness of the process and the lack of immediate gratification.

life is full of stones. 
and what do we do? leave them?  move them? stack them?
do i make something beautiful with them?  something functional?  something significant that will stand through time- that will be a reminded of what was- of hard work- of goodness despite? 
or do i just complain?  do i trip over them and wish i had a different piece of land.

i know i do a lot of that- tripping and wishing.  but i want to settle into that place of accepting my land- my life- my girl.  i want to stay in that place of moving the stones gently- of placing them carefully- of preparing the land- of making the garden. and in the process, i want to use those stones to build a wall.