An Overnight with Eleanor

Casey and PJ have gone to a show in New Haven to celebrate Casey’s birthday, and Eleanor is spending the night with us. It has been mild lately, and the paths in the yard are spongy and green with moss. For Eleanor, that mossy carpet is both invitation and inspiration. “Let’s build a family home!” she cries as she scurries about, brushing through brambles at the border of the woods searching for materials. 

At her command, Dave and I drag over stumps and sawn logs and arrange them under the magnolia’s sheltering boughs. With these as table and chairs, Eleanor, now our self-proclaimed mother, begins to prepare “hazelnut soup.” 

I am sent off to forage.

Mild as it is, I‘m chilly and don’t want to stay out for long, but to my surprise, I take pleasure in the hunt for potential ingredients. Few plants are growing, but I find textured acorn caps and sprigs of pale onion grass. Winter-dry shrubs and spent plants offer empty seed pods. Brittle leaves crushed between my fingers make a fine powder perfect to season Eleanor’s soup. I’d been deceived by the March-gray nakedness, for there is bounty hidden in the litter of dead leaves.

While I’ve been assigned the role of good daughter out “shopping” for Mom, Dave has proven talented as the bad kid, dubbed  “Williams” a while back by this demanding six-year-old mother. The name, so butler-esque, cracks us up, and we wonder how she thought of it. When Dave acts out, as he always does, Eleanor bellows “WILLIAMS!” her tone imperious and not to be defied. Although, of course, he does.

The first time Dave played Williams, he rolled up his shirt sleeves, his expression surly, eyes slitted, and shoulders slouched. He leaned against a door jamb in the living room and pretended to smoke a cigarette. Eleanor looked to me, confused, and asked, “What is he doing?” I loved her innocence: she had no idea what smoking was. 

Back at our woodland home, Eleanor has grown ambitious. She points to logs as long as I am tall and asks us to haul them to the magnolia to make walls. Not going to happen. And it’s about time to head inside anyway.  

*   

When my kids were little, an outdoors excursion or sojourn at the library was followed by cozy time with a pile of books. The Brambly Hedge series, Karen Gundersheimer’s Happy Winter, and anything by Steven Kellogg would keep Tucker and Casey content to sit and snuggle. If compelled, Eleanor will settle in for one book only, and then she is off to some imaginative play, be it hotel, grocery store, or veterinarian. She takes the lead as receptionist or cashier, efficient and welcoming. I strive to be an enthusiastic patient or pet owner, but given my druthers, would prefer to take a seat with Kellogg’s Island of the Skog.  

Beyond boundless energy, Eleanor holds within her a well of joy, ever ready to spill. While preparing to demonstrate her greatly improved cartwheels – for we are now doing gymnastics in the living room - she dances in place, jumping with excitement and pride. “Are you ready? Watch.”

If her knees are bent or she stumbles in landing, she says, “That wasn’t good. Wait.” She shakes it off. Flips her hair back. Takes a deep breath. “Okay. Now. Watch this one.” She continues practicing until her legs are straight and she can stick the landing. She ends with a flourish of graceful hands and clamors for video documentation so she can review her performance.  

*

Soon, PJ and Casey will arrive for a birthday brunch, and Eleanor is sprawled on the floor making her dad’s place card. She has written “PJ” in bold capital letters and decorated the card with a purple border. 

“You know what?” I say. “We can cut the card out with a flap at the top and bend it over like a tent.”

Her green eyes widen, eyebrows arched high. “So it will stand up!” she exclaims. She sits back on her knees, claps her hands, and bounces with glee. 

Oh! It is a gift to share in the delight she takes in the simplest discovery. Even while brushing her teeth this morning, she eyed the blue toothpaste gel and remarked, “Look! Sparkles in the paste! I love that!” 

We gather up her place cards, now tented, and set the table. I’ve purchased paper napkins, pale green with soft pink accents, and Eleanor carefully tucks one next to every plate. I’ve decided to use my mom’s china which I rarely do because I’m afraid to run it through the dishwasher, but Casey loves it which makes me happy; hopefully she’ll want the set when the time comes. Dave has purchased a pot of daffodils and that serves as the centerpiece. 

When Casey and PJ arrive, Eleanor flies outside to greet them, but has no time for hugs. She simply cannot wait. She grabs her mom’s hand and tugs her into the dining room and stands aside, so proud of it all, so thrilled in anticipating her mom’s happiness. 

Casey scoops her up, wraps her close, and nuzzles her cheek. Eleanor giggles, feigns fighting her off, and then smothers her with kisses.

How it fills my heart to see my little girl, now 42 (!) loving her Eleanor so. 

  

Shadow and Light

Dave and I pull over yet again.  Why even bother to re-mount my bike?  A murky pond, its brown water choked with lily pads graced by the occasional white blossom, stops us.  A flock of gulls hovering over the water, rising as one, then sweeping low with a wave of speckled wings, catches our eye. Spires of yellow goldenrod arching from green thickets bid us pause.  A simple clapboard church, stark against blue sky, beckons us to brake for a closer look.  We pass the camera between us, each not convinced the other sees just what we see, exactly the rock, ripple, or wildflower we want to include in the picture.  With the camera in tow, we perceive the wonder that is always there in lichens, crisp chestnut leaves, or a clutch of Queen Anne’s lace.

Our artist friend, Peter Hussey, often paints details, a full canvas devoted to a roof gable or porch railing.  And when our kids were little, Dave would draw a mystifying close-up and challenge Tucker and Casey to identify it.  “A stone wall?  A cave?  A bridge?’  They would guess.

“My nostril.”  Dave would reply.

So, there is art and surprise in noticing details, and when I spot stacks of bowls beneath a lace curtain framed in a window, I drop my bike and ask Dave for the camera. 

In a recent issue of Yankee magazine, a photographer relayed a tip that influenced her for decades: “don’t forget shadows,” so I’ve sought to note them as well.  And this morning, after breakfast, when Dave and Nelson sat in green rockers on the porch playing guitars, it was their shadows that sent me seeking the shot.

But it was friends, not photography, that brought us to Block Island.  As we have for years, Dave and I boarded the Point Judith ferry – snapping, as we pulled out, a few photos of fog draped cottages – to meet friends, some of whom we have known for over forty years. 

Art, Janet, Nelson, Steve, and Deb figure in photos taken during muddy quad football games at Trinity College in the seventies, in wedding pictures, and long-ago summers on the Cape, when all of us had long hair past our shoulders.  Len and Joan held our kids as babies in the early eighties, and as their godparents, have been diligent in providing religious guidance… Well, maybe not.  In recent years, Ann, Moo, Mary, and Cisco have joined us, friendships stretching back decades, but newer to our annual island retreat.  

There have been times when this sojourn was an escape; when troubles were heavy, such a burdensome yoke, that we laid them down on one shore and fled to the other.  But this year, whispered sadness was rare, for babies are on the way!  Janet and Art are new grandparents. Mary is knitting for a child due in December, and Dave and I are dancing to join this club, as Tucker and his wife are also expecting in December. “Our baby,” Casey calls the unknown little one Lisa is nurturing.

So, Dave will take a trip to Milford Photo, to make sure our cameras are picture ready.  Back into our lives, feet pajamas and cozy stories!  Splashy tub times and soft, kissable cheeks.  Holidays restored to their full measure of magic.   And Dave and I will pass the camera back and forth during precious moments, not convinced the other sees just what we see. 

              

Swamp Song

An exuberant racket rises, croaks, and clatters from the swamp.  While doves nuzzle on overhanging limbs, offering a chorus of coos, their soft voices are bellowed to the background by the wood frogs’ song of seduction.  It is raucous and joyful, and in my relief and gratitude at the demise of this hard winter, I wish I, too, had an annual spring welcome to add to this swelling orchestra of Nature’s voices. 

Our fellow creatures have crept from hiding, out from under the porch floorboards, out from hollows in trees, out from clefts in the rocky ledge in the woods, and out from the sucking mud of the swamp.  To tide them over in this month still barren of food, many have turned to the bird feeder at the end of our yard.  Chipmunks, a portly raccoon, three deer, a coyote, a turkey, and a ground hog have sampled seeds shaken loose by greedy squirrels.

In my glee at these appearances, I remember snuggling with Casey and Tucker, reading Stephen Kellogg’s Tally Ho Pinkerton or Come Play with Me by Marie Hall Ets.  While over-brash hunters or impulsive little girls unsuccessfully sought elusive foxes or fawns, vigilant young readers could spot the animals hiding in the pictures.   “Where is the owl?” or “Can you see a cardinal?” I’d ask. While scanning the illustrations and hooting a triumphant “There it is!”  the kids learned to identify the creatures, and love them.

Dave, however, is muted in his enthusiasm at some of these wildlife sightings.  When lily and tulip shoots are sheared low by foraging animals at the hint of a bud, he growls, every year, his intention to get a BB gun.  This threat becomes a litany when we glimpse the groundhog’s annual litter of three soaking up sun on the large flat rock in the yard.  I beam and murmur, “they are too cute,” while Dave grumbles that it’s time for target practice.  No worries.  I know he’d never do it…although those seed-thieving squirrels might push him too far.

Rainy April nights present a particular challenge as the warm, wet roads compel swamp dwellers to creep forth onto asphalt with perilous results.  A drive home through roads cut through local bogs is a sad and frustrating obstacle course as one strives to swerve around tiny hopping bodies, some so small it’s hard to distinguish which are rain drops and which are frogs.

The other night, Dave drove and I acted as frog spotter as we neared home after dinner in Fairfield.  Dave did his best to dodge and weave as I winced at close calls and barked, “Watch it!  Careful!  There’s another one!”  In the path of the three-point back-up into our parking area, two frogs squatted, unmoving.  We waited a mite, hoping the bulge-eyed suitors would continue their pilgrimage to the sultry ladies in the pond across the street, but no.  So I climbed from the car, assuming a slight nudge would urge them along.  Again, no. 

When I was a child, I did plenty of friendly frog hunting.  In our neighborhood, there were woods and ponds to explore, and my sisters and I loved to tip toe through tickly reeds to pause, hands cupped and poised, ready to pounce on unsuspecting frogs.  Often, while swimming underwater in my aunt’s frigid spring-fed pool, we’d notice frogs swimming beside us, their bodies stretched long and sleek, thrust forward by those powerful hind legs and webbed toes. When we returned home from these forays with muddied hands and sloshing buckets, frogs, salamanders, or earthworms generally accompanied us, although their stay was brief, as Mom sent us out to free them as soon as she was aware of their presence.

But that was decades ago and I’ve not held a frog in years.  When these two travelers blocked the car and refused to budge, I slipped my hands gently under their soft bellies, one by one, and carried them to safety.  To a degree that surprised me, I was moved by the weight of those small lives, and the pulse of their heartbeats against my palms. 

How often, I wonder, do children gently hold frogs now?  Like so many other woods, those I roamed with my sisters as a child have since been bulldozed for homes and a ramp to the highway; many kids don’t have the easy exposure I did.   Phones and video games have replaced frogs in children’s hands, and I worry about the loss of connection and reverence for nature, without that sense of small bodies and the pulse of a heartbeat in one’s palm.