Nothing

I'm not going to lie.
I'm tired.

It has been a long week personally and professionally.

I learned something this week.

I learned that if my classroom is under fire, no one is going to come help me.

Well, not necessarily true.

If I want help during a school shooting, I need the Border Patrol.

Trained officers may sit and do nothing.

Nothing.

Thank God I wasn't there, and may God have mercy on those who were.

The fact remains:

The police did nothing.

Nothing.

It astounds me that children and teachers are required to be braver than the police.

It astounds me that unarmed children and teachers will be left with a gunman.

Victims were abandoned by police for fifty minutes.

Nearly an hour of doing nothing.

Nothing.

Fifty minutes or more until Border Patrol refused to stand down any longer.

You can make this political.

You can make this about lobbies and money and rights.

You can stand on your soap boxes all day, but you cannot deny:

Those sworn to protect did nothing.
Nothing.

Please don't say that guns are the only problem.

Complacency is the problem.

Those who can affect change do nothing.

Those who could have provided those teachers and children with protection did nothing.

Nothing.

If you remember nothing else, remember this:

While children and teachers died, those trained did nothing.

Those with consciences did something.

The gun lobby and the police chief can retrospectively admit chagrin.

Their hollow words mean

Nothing.

LITERARY SIGNIFICANCE

I cannot remember the first time I visited the historic part of Sudbury that lies along Marlborough's Boston Post Road. Mere miles from my first house, my grandparents and parents often took us to the Grist Mill, Martha-Mary Chapel, and the Redstone School (home of Mary's Little Lamb). We'd shop for candy and toys at the Wayside Country Store and visit the Wayside Inn, one of the oldest and longest running inns in America.

In all of the times I've visited the Wayside Inn, I was always fascinated by the two front rooms where the bar and fireplace were located. These rooms were like shrines, never to be entered. Sometime early on as a toddler, someone must've told me that those rooms were strictly off limits, a directive engrained into my psyche because, even as an adult, I've avoided the sacred rooms.

Recently, I visited again, and, despite the seemingly private event happening, I walked right into the inn, dragging my semi-shocked chaperones with me. One of them ducked into a forbidden room, and we were caught by the bartender. I instantly went into childhood mode and started apologizing. After all, I had been instructed never to enter those rooms . . . hadn't I? Even as an adult, I felt unworthy to enter that portion of the shrine of the Wayside Inn, where famous literary and political Americans had visited and stayed through history since its opening as the How Tavern in the early 1700s. 

The bartender didn't admonish us nor say anything like, "Only guests and paying dinner patrons may enter this sacred room!" Instead, he simply said, "Let me know when you're ready for a drink. I'm happy to serve you."

Wait . . . what? But . . . I'm nobody.

I'm not Washington nor Adams nor Longfellow nor Lafayette. I'm just a semi-proficient writer with a lifelong awe of this place. 

People passed us, people obviously meant to be there, on their way to a private event in a different part of the inn. We snuck into the small front room, rebuilt with many original timbers after a devastating fire in the mid-1900s, and stood in amazement. I'm not sure my companions understood the significance of this for me. My god, I was touching the bar at the Wayside Inn! I was sitting at a table by a fireplace at the Wayside Inn! I was drinking amid the hallowed ground where perhaps several famous Americans also sat and drank.

It was amazingly cool, truly one of the coolest things that I have ever done. And I intend to do it again. Maybe I'll even take my laptop with me and do some writing. Or, perhaps I'll go old-school with paper and pens. It may seem silly and insignificant and even trivial, but to someone whose early roots involved visiting (but never touching) this hallowed ground, the literary significance is palpable. 

CAKE, WONDERFUL CAKE

 I know what you're going to say when you see this cake. Who could create such a masterful concoction? 

Well, I wish I could take credit for it. I provided the mix, the strawberries, and a half-full container of whipped cream. I don't know how or why I thought it might make something useful, but I just couldn't stop myself any more than I could stop myself from spending money at Stonewall Kitchen shortly after crossing the Maine border.

It's a pretty simple story. 

I didn't bring my sister anything for her birthday. It wasn't intentional, and yet it was. I thought about a gift card, but it seemed . . . I don't know . . . normally it's fine, but we've both had a bit of a rough go of it. All of my siblings have.

So, instead I brought her a homemade letter-card and a promise of future shenanigans on my dime.

You have to understand -- I am the Queen of Shenanigans.

Don't listen to my friends or co-workers who say I'm a rule-follower. I won't deny that, as a middle child, I am all about justice and fairness. Equity? I call bullshit! Give us all equal and we'll barter from there. That's life. That's ingenuity. But, within the scope of these parameters, I am always willing to pull some stunt of minor proportions. 

You won't see me competing with Johnny Knoxville. But you might see me tease a rodeo clown -- or an NHL referee, which is pretty much the same thing. I might not steal a stapler off your desk, but I will dance for the security cameras in the hallways. I might not make very good small talk, but quote me some lines from Blazing Saddles and we can have a two-hour conversation without ever saying anything original.

Therefore, my sister gets for her birthday that wonderful letter-card, a promise of future shenanigans, and a boxed cake with too little whipped cream to make actual frosting. However, the chef in charge did an excellent job with the meager supplies I tossed on the counter. I threw in a small jar of Stonewall Kitchen jam just to sweeten the deal, but, honestly, the cake was pretty tasty and looked marvelous even without the added incentive.

MOTHERS' DAY 2022

 I recently had occasion to return to my mother's grave for the first time since we buried her. 

It's a terrible thing for some of us to realize as we grow up that there is very little love to lose between ourselves and our parents because there's very little there from the start. We can make tons of excuses as to why that is, but it doesn't solve nor resolve anything. 

I don't recall when exactly my mother gave up on herself and, subsequently, the rest of us. Eventually my father followed suit. Or maybe he turned first. I cannot remember it clearly. I just know that somewhere around my ninth or tenth birthday, everything just kind of "wasn't" anymore.

My mother died while I was pregnant with my second child, my only daughter. That meant a good fifteen years of maternal disinterest on her part. My mother was gravely ill at the end. Putting her in the ground may have been the only peace that woman found. 

Being a mom is a tough job, but, once you're in, you simply must commit. This is no part-time job. This is no side business. Being a parent is the single most important job you can ever do. I've given it a pretty decent shot. Despite my incredibly short apprenticeship, I feel like I've made some solid choices.

I'm not perfect. But, to be honest, where's the challenge in that?

Several people have asked why it has taken me thirty-six years to return to my mother's grave, despite several times being mere streets from the cemetery south of Boston. I don't know the answer to that. If we hadn't gone there to bury another family member, I'm not sure I would've gone yet, either. 

But, while we are there, we plant flowers, clear the dirt from my mother's grave marker, and are pleased to see the beautiful tree that provides summer shade. The grounds are meticulous. The grounds staff is taking very good care of my mother, and I am, as are my remaining siblings, glad for it. 

For those of you with mothers, living or past, that you hold near and dear to your heart, I truly envy you. I don't remember what that feels like, but I believe my own children do. My toughest yet most rewarding job ever for which becoming and being a grandparent is the ultimate reward.

To you moms and moms-to-be fighting that good fight and doing that great job every day, even on days when you falter, enjoy the blessings. Mothers' Day belongs to all of you.  

COME ON, BEACH DAYS

 

We are now officially a month into spring and the temperatures continue to tease and torture us. Afternoons are temperate and bordering on warm; mornings and evenings are near freezing. But one sure sign of the approaching summer is the return of beach people. Even in our winter coats, we are out in full force

along Maine's southern shoreline. Although I nearly froze my face and ears off getting these shots, I have to remember warmer days are coming. Until then, like the other icicle people, I will pretend it's around the corner. It may be a looooong corner,  but it's closer now than it was last week. That alone is a positive sign!