"Who Killed the Electric Car."

When trying to find an age appropriate movie for kids ranging in age at the time of 5-15, I thought I had found a winner in Who Killed the Electric Car.  Selected as the older boys were interested in alternative energy, and Porter had just built a solar power car, I was proud of my selection.   Will and I were going out leaving pizza and the video from the library.

That darn electric car seemed benign.

However, I was foolish.  Knowing Porter would be in tears anytime Sarah McLachan's Animal Cruelty video came on, maybe William and I should have been more aware the fourth time around the block. 

We were not smarter.  That darn electric car was not benign.

Houlder called us after Porter had been crying for 45 minutes; Porter was inconsolable that people did not save the electric cars and just were wrecking them.  Houlder had to turn of the video.

Maybe this extreme reaction should have been harbinger of Porter's sensitivity or fears.  But, this kid was independent and doing his own thing.  Putting the two together was not immediate.

Again, fourth time around.  The charm escapes us.

By kindergarten, the ugly little fear monster jumped out by the third week of school.  Two weeks later at carpool, he threw himself in front of my minivan to stop me from leaving.  Torn between gratitude for his life and killing him for scaring me, I began a life of walking him in every morning.

Finding a prompt or rational explanation felt pointless as there was none.

First grade, same thing.  Sometimes worse.  By the spring we knew the experience of Houlder's and Frazer's health issues were weighing on his sweet mind despite our best attempts.  Porter went to school after Houlder's first trip home form Mayo telling his classmates that his brother was not going to die.

Okay, he was learning lots of fear management not a lot of school.  By repeating 1st grade, we thought we would build him up, and it did.

Sort of.

Second grade rolls around.  Teacher is awesome.  First three weeks awesome.

Bam!  Tears!

Bam! Houlder cannot get him out of the car. 

A month earlier, he unintentionally had observed a three day fast when Dell left for boarding school because Porter had not been able to discern the difference between his nerves and his hunger.  Complex emotions like longing and sadness have such similar physiological responses.

Taking Porter out of Collegiate made sense except he loved Collegiate.  Yep.  Yes.  Paradox.  I get it.  He is 8.  How much rational thinking can there be?

After a talking with his teacher, we did what we gleaned best -- not easiest -- and brought him home.  Of course the stinker loves the academic part of our day and wants to head to Collegiate for lunch and recess. 

He is easy to teach.  Responsive.  Learning.  Improving.  Wants a blow torch for his birthday to bend metal -- so super sensitive new age is not his thing.  He has been working with someone to learn strategies to help him when he is anxious.  These strategies are helping as I watched Porter manage his sadness when we dropped Dell back at school after a long weekend.  Yes, there were tears, but there was deep breathing and understanding that his tummy was not going to throw up.

Parenting is mysterious. 


Porter will find his rhythm and manage his fears.  For now, we are giving him a chance to learn how.  I will manage too.  Frazer enjoys the company as do the dogs and cats.

Onward.

"Do you realize?" The Flaming Lips

"It's been a long time that I've wondered" Nick Drake

Will remembered that Robin and Mark Bunster first introduced us to ND in Corrolla in 2000.  We shared a house with three toddler boys and two infants. 

Music binds.  Hymns glorify.  Rock revolutionized. 

I am stating the obvious.

How does one person long for another?

The gifts of life are often most luminous in their absence.  Vulnerable and raw our souls supplicate for a last understanding, a final I love you.

It brings me great solace to know that Robin's spirit left her while she was in Mark's arms.  Mark, Max and Ann's loss has only begun.  Loss is confusing and a clarion cry to be more present, more healthy, more loving.  But, it is not a switch.  It is a the never ending approach to landing after the red-eye foggily trying to figure out what day of the week it is and in what time zone I am.

My time in Oregon was a gift.  To be Bunstered up.  To be with Lori and Michelle.  Time to reflect.  Time to pray.  Time to experience. 

A night of laughter with old and new friends was medicinal.

Today I see Robin smiling.  I hear the songs she loved.  I wonder why.  Why do we have to say goodbye?  Existential, esoteric, exasperated thoughts married with faith, acceptance and gratitude are potent cocktails.  Do I dare to sip or gulp?  Is there satiation?

Getting to wash dishes after her life celebration was a pleasure.  To handle her dishes doing something mundane in a place she stood.  Doing the regular stuff makes meaning for me.  Fanciful elixirs or mystical incantations elude me, but music soothes.  Music speaks.  It is heart talk.

There is little we can leave behind that is worth much other than the gift of love.  Trite almost to the point of meaningless, but without it what is there?

Here is a simple tribute

"Spread the ashes around the yard."  Iron and Wine

On Loss

When my mother turned 35, two friends honored her with a hand-delivered homemade mashed potato ice cream sundae.  My mother was a dieting aficionado. Heralded through my childhood how she only weighed 104 pounds when she gave birth to me, mashed potatoes with butter could bring her to her knees despite TAB, chewing Dentyne and smoking.  Thirty-five seemed insurmountably old to her; some kind friends surprised with a delightfully caloric concoction with food colored dyed scoops.  She devoured the treat and rued each bite.

Funny how 34 years later, most my pals consider her a young mom in comparison.  She is 69.  I am 45 and in my mind's eye I still feel the soul of the 20 something.

So, 45 is too young to die.

It is not okay universe to take away a tender hearted mother and friend and wife.

How petty worrying about 35 seems by comparison.

Fucking cancer.

Click to listen and then keep reading.

My heart is crushed with the devastating news that my lovely friend Robin Garthright Bunster died on Saturday, April 20th.  Only recently diagnosed with kidney cancer, she has left our world, her loving husband Mark, sweet son Max, and darling daughter Ann.  Her son was born 9 days before Dell.  We developed a mom's morning group; Dell and Max took to each other like bees to honey.  We both suffered an early pregnancy loss, and then carried her number 2 and my number 3 to term within weeks of each other. 

Sometimes, friendships born in college and high school can survive the blessed, easiness of life which allows them to develop.  But a friendship born out of mothering which transcends the toddler years is almost miraculous because it nurtured during such transformation.  Mothering or parenting is an act of selflessness.  David Foster Wallace identified for millennials that the struggle with adulthood was looking beyond oneself, one's natural default setting set to "me" needs to go beyond the self.  Mothering is the penultimate challenge to push one's id to other and finding and maintaining a friendship that becomes a soul friend on life's journey seems almost to unreal to imagine. 

There are so many road blocks to successful friends with young children.  Parenting styles can clash.  Children can grow apart.  Women can change.  Marriages can change.  Hopes and lost dreams can change. Robin and I survived.  We shared an intense belief that family is critical.  We both had childhoods that were not "Ozzie and Harriet,"  yet we both found models of how family could be.

We both found men who adored us as we were and who liked each other.  Mark and Robin complimented one another as one only hopes to find.  Her light and laughter to his reason and deep thought.  They shared passion for music, a love of the off beat, and their kids. 

Witnessing continued love is a gift.  I was fortunate to be in Portland in October of 2012 and get to see the home they established there.  Their love and laughter still binding.  Their appetite for fun and delicious unabiding.  What makes the heart ache is the knowledge that time has ended as it was.  The self they developed is now forced to step beyond and create anew.  We, their friends, need to love and guide them through this unfolding as Robin's gift was the glue.  We, their friends, need to not mourn our loss but celebrate the beauty with which Robin greeted the day; her intense belief despite gnawings of occasional doubt we will all be okay.  We will form a family.  We will honor each other.

Her sisters Katie and Blair know.  They have lived with her loving them always.  Robin's ears and hearts listening.  Ed and Sally knew in Robin a love that would climb the mountain with them and manage coming down the other-side as well.

Max and Annie there are wonderful stories which you should ask to hear when you want to listen.  The wonder-mama whose sweetness had few bounds is someone whose greatness we want to share with you.  Wrap yourself in her memories.  Know that she loved you immediately, powerful love.  She determined that your family would be loving and just and kind.  May you at least sense that.

Mark, passion and curiosity drive much of your world view.  You are such a compassionate soul.  Let us be here in the future as you grieve. I will not be tired of talking about Robin and her beauty and gifts.

Robin was a phenomenal woman:

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Maya Angelou

2000 miles, 10 Days, 2 Teen Boys, a VW, and Mom

Having eschewed the concept of touring colleges as indulgent and ridiculous, I received an email in January from Houlder while we were in Minnesota.  In it was a link to a google map indicating about 15 colleges he hoped to visit over spring break.  He is a crafty bugger, sending this email on the heels of our Carleton College visit in which I open to this idea. proposed map

Spring break would be only ten days long and some driving would be involved.  Hopefully I would see friends and have a memorable time.

As March approached, I poked around and began to realize we needed to sign up for tours, hotels and coordinate it.  Houlder had planned to see a friend perform at Carnegie Hall so we had so time restraints.  Admissions folks burned out from reading applicants for next year's class did not haave Saturday tours.  We were limited to weekdays.

At some point, I realized the state of Maine had to go.  Will said that he would be able to take him up should he still want to later.  Bummed as I love Maine, I found it impossible to justify that much extra time for self-tours and a 17 hour drive home.

And, in the spirit of bang for your buck, we bring Dell.

We left home at 6pm, March 7th and headed to Philly. 

3/8 Swarthmore.  Meet swim coaches.  See pool.  Likeable even in the rain. 

 3/8 afternoon head to Easton, PA and home of Lafayette College.  Self-tour.  Visit pool.  Six lanes.  Lunch in dining hall.  Watching Houlder and Dell navigate that during a busy time was slightly entertaining.

3/9 Houlder takes SATs at Easton High School while Dell and I listen to the information session.  Dell decided to add his name to the registered and got his own private tour while I ran and picked Houlder up from Easton High School, #2 in PA for football wins and #7 in country for football wins.


After a quick lunch from the cooler and leftovers from Wegman's, we head to New York City to stay with our dear friends Elizabeth and Phineas and Matthew.  Elizabeth and Finn live in a bustling neighborhood in financial district in which there were tons of kids riding a scooter.

Skyline outside e and f's apartment

Walking along Battery Park

Statute of Liberty

Finn riding his scooter.

3/10  -- We visited Chinatown, Little Italy, Tribeca, and the the 9/11 memorial.

In front of the surivivng Pear tree

Pear Tree again

Houlder with his VGF tee shirt

3/11-- We tackle the subway and ride to Columbia.  I was blown away by the smallness and the buildings.

 After the information session and tour, we headed to the bookstore for some bling.  AND WE RUN INTO A CLASSMATE OF HOULDER'S.  Cue "It's a Small World After All."

With a delicious stop for some true New York pizza, we grab a cab and head to the The American History Museum.  Our friend Matthew works there and the boys were excited to visit the place made famous by The NIght at the Museum.

With Teddy Roosevelt

How x-rays can help trouble shoot artifacts.

 We head back to e & f's, changing into fancier clothes and Dell hangs out with e.  Houlder and I take a cab to Carnegie Hall and he listens to a friend with whom he received treatment at  Mayo last spring performs amazing deconstructed violin performances.  (No photos).

Afterwards we rush back, grab Dell and head to Norwalk, CT to just rest.

3/12 -- Up and at them and onto Amherst.  They had a wonderful gallery Beneski with archaeological finds.info on Beneski 

After lunch at Whole Foods, we hit the roads to head to Boston and a Kenyon Alumni event to honor outgoing president Georgia Nugent.  My wonderful friend Cindy took us for drinks and snacks in The Oak Room at the Fairmont Copley before the Kenyon event. Oak  I got to connect with former classmates and meet some of the wonderful staff I have gotten to know.  And, groovy enough, Houlder got to meet people.  Dell met President Nugent as she came over and introduced herself because he was dancing and singing to himself in the mirror. 

I let Houlder drive us out of town and to Providence where we crashed.

3/13 -- Up College Hill to Brown.  My grandmother went to Pembroke and had attended  may reunions.  Both my parents were born in Providence and both my grandmothers were raised there.  The campus was goregous and the tour guides here and admissions' person were fun and comedic which was such a change up and a pleasure.  It was also a gorgeous day.

After a visit to the bookstore and BBC (Better Burger Company), we walked back to our room.  Dell crashed and Houlder and I boogied to Franklin W. Olin College adjacent to the Babson College campus in Needham, MA.  Olin is an new college in which students come in doing engineering immediately.  There are 384 students on the entire campus and there are four buildings.  The students can take classes at Babson and Wellsley.  Seniors get 50K from corporations to solve a problem which becaomes their capstone project. 

Houlder and I scoot back to possibly meet up with some friends from Richmond but they are running late and we are running tired.  We have a nice meal out and crash.

3/14 A quick return to Brown to look around and then onto Tufts University right outside Boston.  A lovely tour guide form California whose older sister attends Kenyon.  Hey, we are everywhere!  We took the time to dine and were met by a recent Collegiate grad (2012) who met Houlder for an hour. 

After a full day with the Jumbs, we headed to Middlebury, VT.  We landed late, late, late and crashed.

3/15 -- Middlebury.  The info session started with a quick video which ended up featuring Dell and Houlder's Biology teacher who has spoken so highly of Middlebury.  Both boys were engaged form that moment forward.  This same teacher contacted his former advisor and Houlder snagged an invite to molecular genetics class and a talk with professor.  Dell took tour, after a visit to bookstore, meeting up with Houlder, we headed to the dining hall. 

Quickly we book through the snow to Williams in which we miss the tour but are met by friends of Houlder's history teacher.  These 3-4 guys toured Houlder and Dell and filled them in on the low-down as I read all the waiting room stuff.  It's Williams.

Late and snow still falling, we drive 3.5 hours to Exeter, NH to my brother's house and his five sons.  After catching up, we crash and have spent the day hanging up, playing football and basically vegging.  Getting ready for the big St. Paddy's Day drive home tomorrow.