Longing

February 28, 2025March 7, 2025 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

I wish I could have you back, Mom. The little one inside of me wasn’t ready to let go, even though I did let go in my teens. It was different then. I was different then, but this part has remained much the same.

I want you back for myself though. I was always your needy one, but I learned to shut down and stop having needs as best I could.

You did show up for the practical things, and I love you for that. School clothes, pencils, erasers, and a pencil case. A notebook, and a ruler.

I hold onto those things because they were your love, and the most that I got, but I wish I had had more of you.

I wasn’t alone, there were others around, but none of them were you. They focused on their children, and told me to go to bed when they put their children to bed, and then to get up, to go to school, to brush my hair and my teeth. and to do the dishes, or sweep and mop the kitchen floor.

Sometimes you were there, and I liked those times the best.

You were so indignant when my best friend’s parents wanted to adopt me because I was there all the time and no one took much notice that I was gone. The commune was dispersed over several towns and houses then, but I lived there, where most of the other children were, and my sisters were, and it was during the school year.

It didn’t bother me that I was on my own a lot because I had my friend, and connection with the other kids there often, but I could stay at my friend’s house whenever I wanted.

I didn’t know that it was unusual that no one knew where I was, and no one was relieved when I came back. Maybe they would have known after a week? I never stayed there that long, but it was my home away from where I lived.

One woman who had a daughter several years younger than me once read me and her daughter a book out on the porch steps on a sunny summer day. She pointed out aspects of the illustrations to us, and laughed at the idea of a cat catching a robber by meowing loudly and waking up the family. The picture showed everyone downstairs when the police got there, and they all had a cup of tea – even the robber.

It’s now that I can voice why that has remained a seminal time and memory for me. I was included, I mattered, and a fun and loving moment was shared with me – on purpose. Her daughter was too young to really appreciate the irony of the tea-drinking robber, but I wasn’t.

My friend’s mom and dad were good and I liked them (more her mom because my friend’s dad intimidated me as he was a tall and stocky man whose presence resembled my violent father). They weren’t my people though, and I never thought of them as surrogate parents.

I knew my mother had abdicated her responsibilities when I was nine, after the divorce from my father, and she had a sort of mental breakdown. I didn’t blame her for that, but she never fully came back to us.

I think I’m mostly experiencing hiraeth – a Welch word that loosely means ‘longing for a home or place one has never known’.

Aww, Nuts!

August 28, 2023 / Hermionejh

https://images.fineartamerica.com/images/artworkimages/mediumlarge/1/horse-chestnut-tree-martine-murphy.jpg

The birds are quieter in the morning now, but the crickets fill the void with a steady, almost electric, hum. The frenzied morning calling and flurried activity of mating and then feeding their young has turned to the yearly southerly retreat for several bird species, while many others fly deeper into the woods to find their colder weather shelters.

Now the nut trees are burgeoning with their fruit, and the squirrels are busy harvesting them by scavenging or chewing them off of the tree branches where the nuts might crack on the street below, or at least entertain the squirrels by pinging unsuspecting walkers.

There was a huge horse chestnut tree outside the last apartment I lived in with my son, and the weekend I was driving him to college, I heard him yell out an “Ahhhh!” in mild distress a few times while he loaded the car with his belongings.

It seemed that several squirrels were chewing off a load of the nuts right over the car and onto the sidewalk next to car, and my son had been hit with several of the spiky nuts while bringing some boxes to the car.

“I think they’re targeting me,” he said.

“Maybe you look like a nutcracker,” I offered.

“Hilarious, Mom.”

Just then, another barrage beaned me on the head.

“Ow!” I called out as I took off for the shelter of the porch. Several more nuts had thudded onto the car, bouncing off onto the street.

“I told you!” he said, as though I hadn’t believed him.

After that we went around to the street side of the car to avoid any more nut bombs, but the squirrels had probably chewed them all off at that spot by then.

I think about that day this time of year on my daily walk when the squirrels – or gravity – start unloading the horse chestnuts, black walnuts, or acorns from the trees that line our country roadside. I’m more careful to give those trees a wider berth this time of year.

Summer Evening, Six Years Old

June 19, 2021June 20, 2021 / Hermionejh / 1 Comment

I am about six years old, and just finished my bath. My mother dries me off and tells me to get into my pajamas and wait for her while she finishes bathing my three year old brother.

She will braid my hair, like she has my older sisters who have already had their bath, but unlike them, I will have to go to bed right after my hair is braided and my teeth are brushed.

Those were the best times with my mother. Her love was fully present, and in those few moments her attention was all mine.

I stand looking at the rectangle of sky out of the window in the steamy bathroom, a soft breeze cooling my face as it carries in the evening songbirds’ chirping.

The open kitchen window is full of the dimming sky as I write this, the night birds singing me back to six years old – feeling my mother’s touch and love – the current ache of missing her lessened by this time travel.

Are the birds singing to their broods, hushing them to sleep? Are they, too, happy in their mother’s attention?

My oldest brother rushes into the bathroom: “Mom, look!”

He has a lightning bug in a jar. It’s buzzing against the glass, looking for a way out.

“That’s a special bug. You can look at it for a while, but I want you to let it go outside before bed.”

“Oh, alright,” my brother groans, ruing his decision to show her his prize.

My next oldest brother comes in with a lightning bug he smeared on his arm just as it had lit up. His experiment a proud success.

She tells him to go wash it off as my little brother and I start to cry at his seeming cruelty.

“It’s just a bug,” he sneers, and then they’re off, clomping back downstairs.

“You boys stay in now – and clean up,” my mother calls after them.

The darkening sky has quieted the birds, the light in my kitchen seeming brighter now.

I imagine a mother bird having fed her brood, and cleaned their feathers before bed – their crowded nest all cozy and warm.

A few late birds call out, and then all is quiet again.

The earth is turning from the sun for another night.

The fireflies are lighting up in the dimness, and perhaps my mother is right here, enjoying this moment with me.

Things Remembered

February 24, 2014February 25, 2014 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

When he was a boy

101 Dalmatian pajamas, 4T. I breathe into the fabric, trying to catch the scent of my little boy, but I forgot that I washed them before packing them away in the box of baby remembrances when he had outgrown them. The box also contained his cloth Madeleine doll, which showed where the scar was from her appendectomy, and the yellow rubber duck received at his baby shower that he had to have at every bath time. I say ‘contained’ because when his sister, my nearly step-daughter, had her first child four years ago, I sent the rubber duck, after sterilizing it, with a letter, saying that I hoped her daughter would like it, and if she remembered how her brother had loved it when he was a baby.

His sister emailed me after she got the package, telling me how sweet that was, and her daughter liked it too. When we went to visit them a few years ago, it was gratifying to see the rubber duck in among the bathtub toy collection.

She mentioned in a post how her daughter was enjoying the Madeleine books, and I knew it was time to send along the Madeleine doll, so beloved by my son at her daughter’s age, along with a little monkey puppet for her latest family addition, who is now a year old, and I haven’t yet met. I got a note the other day telling me they received the package, and her daughter asked if she could keep the doll forever.

It seemed overly sentimental and silly to keep those few things from my son’s childhood, but I have no keepsakes, and no pictures from mine, so it was important to me, and I thought my son would one day appreciate the link back to his youth. He thought it was cool that I had sent his niece the Madeleine doll, and we spoke about how he used to watch the Madeleine cartoon, and have me read the books over and over. Rather than merely keeping useless things that only had meaning to me, the items became an heirloom of sorts, and re-connected my son and I with a happy memory from the past, as well as furthering my son and his sister’s bond, with her children too.

Keeping sentimental things just adds to my pile of stuff, so I’ve done my best to pare down, taking pictures of things before giving them away or recycling them. Having some tactile link to the past is important to me though, so the 101 Dalmatian pajamas will remain in the (now smaller) keepsake box.

Evolution Of A Boy

February 6, 2013February 7, 2013 / Hermionejh / 8 Comments

I found this letter/ode I had written to my son in a bunch of old papers I was going through to recycle today. I wrote it when he was twelve, and pulling further and further away from me – right on schedule! But just because biology dictates a thing so, doesn’t mean it wasn’t terrible for me…

Evolution Of A Boy

When you were born I held you close, rocked you, walked you back and forth while you screamed with colic – or was it protest at being out in this cold, drafty world from the temperature controlled, fluid womb?

You stayed in a crib until you were two and a half and began crying to me of your needs in the night, or in the morning, coaxing me with “Up, Mommy? Up, Mommy – peas. Peas, Mommy?” How could I ignore that? You asked so politely, so pleadingly.

As a toddler, and ever since you were born, I read to you day and night. It became the bedtime routine: books and a back rub until you fell asleep. Often you would play with my ear – a throw back from your nursing days – a comfort habit that never bothered me. Whoever held you until you were four or five would have their ear manipulated by you.

Nighttime was our time. It was sometimes the only peace in the day. I was really present most of the time for you then, and we both knew it wouldn’t be a struggle of wills; it was a time any outside observer wouldn’t question my parenting skills.

That nighttime routine when you wanted me to lay down with you after reading and rubbing your back until you fell asleep – or nearly – lasted until you were eight or nine. I would sing Mockingbird – replacing Papa with Mama, of course – and Lily Of The Valley, three or four times each, and sometimes you would sing along. Then we would always play the ‘I love you more than’ game. “More than chocolate cream pie with ice cream and marshmallows, and a ton of whipped cream” – or whatever we would dream up. A phrase we had read: “I love you to the moon and back”, began a long tradition of sometimes jokingly arguing over who loved the other more – “I love you the most – eternity, infinity!”

The mornings nearly always had me picking you up and carrying you into the kitchen for breakfast until you were about seven years old. It seemed to help you wake up just that little bit more.

Sometimes you would jump up into my arms for a hug and you did that until you got too heavy for me to grab you up into a hug like that.

Now you’re twelve. You are on that precipice between knowing you are not a dependent child to knowing you are not quite grown-up either. It can be confusing, frustrating, and scary – but exciting too.

You are, at times and often, so much more than you think you are. You have so much to offer this suffering world. She needs boys and men who care, as you do. Societies may seem indifferent or hostile to boys and men who care, but that is because societies are not grown-up either. They don’t know how to accept the whole boy or the whole man – but they are learning. Just as I am learning to let go – but I have built a path from my heart to yours – and there is a path from your heart to mine too – so that we’ll always know there is a home for us, especially when you find the need, or just to be reassured that it’s there.

I love you my dear child.

September 26th, 2012

September 26, 2012September 26, 2012 / Hermionejh / 8 Comments

Happy Birthday to my beautiful son. He is the best thing I have ever done, although I take no credit for his amazing capacities and talents. He is his own person; I just ate well while he was growing inside me, and then made sure I fed him good food, gave him as many opportunities as I could afford, or could imagine, and taught him to appreciate reading, which he now loves. His cognitive intelligence exceeded mine when he was about twelve, but my emotional intelligence stills beats his – hah!

He is bound to fare better in his life than I did in mine, and that is the best a parent can ask for. I love you, my dear boy/man.

Through The Years

April 27, 2012April 30, 2012 / Hermionejh / 12 Comments

My son is getting his first apartment with college friends. I’m pretending it’s not a big deal. I mean, he’s been away at college for two years now, so, it’s basically the same thing. Except it isn’t. He’s had his bed and most of his stuff here, and in three days and several hours, it will all be gone. I’m trying to stay in the moment, and not trouble trouble until trouble troubles me, as the saying goes.

I was in my son’s room packing up what I can until he gets here and pares down what he wants to get rid of. He already told me he’s not sentimental and doesn’t want his old school year books, or photos, or other keepsakes, but I am sentimental, so I’m keeping most of it. He may have a wife and/or children some day who will actually enjoy seeing some of the things from his youth. It isn’t exactly archeology, but it is history, and I loved seeing my ex-boyfriends’ childhood pictures. It’s a way to connect the past to the present and beyond. I so enjoy looking at my Mom and Dad’s pictures of their youth and childhood. Ever since my Dad died several years ago, those pictures have taken on more meaning. Even though I often rail against life, I also revel in life’s complexity and variety. I embrace change as much as I loathe it. I may not like changing all the time, but as long as I have company, it’s really not too bad.

I’ll be fine with this new life passage, I’m just not overjoyed. I also know that many people are overjoyed to have their personal time back when their children get older and leave home, and maybe I’ll feel that way, eventually.

2011 Christmas Day

December 25, 2011May 19, 2015 / Hermionejh / 4 Comments

It was such a lovely morning. My son gave me a beautiful sweater, and he liked the few gifts I got him as well. He really enjoyed his stuffed stocking, and it makes me so happy to see his happiness. That’s the best aspect of parenting. I don’t care how old your child/ren is/are: wanting for, and taking pleasure in, their happiness, and success, is paramount.

We had a scrambled eggs and bacon breakfast, and then we made our Gingerbread house. We don’t have a good track record at that activity. We’ve only made two of them before, both of which came out awful. We didn’t name the first one, but we dubbed the second one: “Sucky, the Gingerbread House”, and this one my son named: “Mediocre, the Gingerbread House”. We did have a lot of fun making it, and maybe any future attempts will give better results.

My son’s feeling mostly himself again, although he still has a cough, and he told me he woke up drenched in sweat in the middle of the night so he left his room and slept on the couch, where I found him this morning.

He left a little while ago to hang out with friends, and while I want him to stay well, it was really nice to have him home and wanting my help and company for the last few days.

Merry Christmas every one!

Christmas Eves

December 24, 2011December 25, 2011 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

1989: I spent the evening with Joe; I moved in with him here in Vernon, Vermont, a few weeks ago. I’m happy that there’s snow on the ground so it will be a white Christmas. My brother, Scott, died in October, and I’m sad for my mom this holiday season. I still feel nothing. I don’t know why death doesn’t affect me directly, I guess that’s a coping mechanism.

1990: Our son’s first Christmas. He’s only two months old, so it’s not really a big deal for him, but Joe’s daughter is spending Christmas morning with us, and she’ll be happy to get the Super Nintendo game system with, The Mario Brothers/Duck Hunt, and, Donkey Kong, games, and spend time with her brother. Things have not been good between Joe and I, but we’re trying to work it out.

1991: My father and step-mother are visiting from Florida. I’m happy that my father is getting to spend some time with his grandson, although it’s been kind of awkward when they’re here because my mom is spending Christmas here in my new apartment.

1992: I’m in my new apartment in South Portland, Maine. My mom is here with me, and there is a lot of snow this winter, which Austen loves to play in. My car broke down a few weeks after moving in here, and I can’t afford another one, but there’s a bus stop down at the end of the street, and a few of the Bahá’í‘s here in South Portland bring me to run errands once a week. Joe is visiting over the holidays, and it’s been horrible and stressful – as usual.

1994: San Diego Christmas is quite different from what I’m used to. It’s not really warm, about the mid-50°F’s, and rainy, but the air feels different, and I’m not sure I like it. I’m at a 10-day program because I don’t want to live anymore but Tammy convinced me to see if this will help me. I’ll get a counselor, and start an antidepressant, and I know it’s what I need to do, but I feel horrible being away for Christmas.

1996: Back in Massachusetts. My mother is spending Christmas with me and Austen in our tiny apartment. Things have been awful. I’m still not getting child support, so that just makes everything tougher.

1999: It’s been a strange year. I’m wondering if the Y2K thing is really going to screw up computers worldwide – I doubt it. I told Austen that Santa was a real person a long time ago, and his spirit still lives on through all of us. The other kids at school were picking on him for still believing in Santa. He refused to believe me when I told him Santa isn’t still alive. I don’t know if I did the right thing.

2001: I consider this the millennium year, even though I know many people considered 2000 to be the turn of the century. I guess it’s both: 2000 because it’s no longer 19-something, but 2001 because CE started with year 1, so 2001 makes two-thousand years. We’re still here, although a bunch of freaks were trying to convince whomever they could that the world was going to end.

2011: I think my favorite aspect of Christmas Eve is filling my son’s stocking. When he was little, it was so gratifying to see his delight, and share in how fun Christmas was for him. He used to love Christmas carols and we’d sing them together, and now he can barely stand them. He’s feeling so much better tonight, but still coughing a lot. I might watch, It’s A Wonderful Life, but I’m feeling tired, so maybe I’ll just go to sleep. My throat is feeling a bit scratchy, and I hope I don’t get sick too.

This year has been so strange. As I looked back through old diaries and read so much of where I’ve been, and what my life is like now, I appreciate now so much. I don’t care if someone reads my old journals someday, but I sincerely doubt they’d read for very long. I’m just grateful that I’m not as affected by the vicissitudes of life anymore. I also did a great deal of healing work to get where I am now, and will most likely finish that work with my last breath. I’m thankful to be alive, and hope I won’t die until I accomplish most, if not all, of my goals.

Westward Ho!

November 16, 2011December 1, 2011 / Hermionejh / 2 Comments

“I just can’t take it anymore,” I complained to Tammy, cradling the phone with my neck while I finished washing the dishes. “I need a serious change and I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, why don’t you come live out here with me and Dean? That way you have a place to stay for a while until you get on your feet, and I’m happy to help out.”

I was quiet on the phone for a minute. “Wow”, I finally said through my tears. “Really, you’d do that for me? You do remember what it’s like to live with a three-year old, right?”

Tammy laughed and said: “Yes, and I miss having a little boy around. Danny wants to continue living with his father in New Hampshire, and that’s been really hard for me, but he’s thirteen, and he has good friends there, and I just have to accept that I’m only going to see him for vacations. I think it’ll be good for both of us if you come live out here.”

“Let me think about it some more, and I’ll get back to you.”

“I’m here for you, whether you stay in Maine, or come out to San Diego.”

“Thanks, Tammy. I love you.”

“Love you too. Bye.”

“Bye.”

That conversation in March of 1994 changed my life. I had a new option, and while I had friends and some support where I was, I was a single mom in poverty, with no car and only a part-time job that I was about to lose. It snowed over a hundred inches that winter in South Portland, Maine, and I was very close to giving up my son to his alcohol-addicted father, and committing suicide. I had a plan, and I was getting the courage to implement it when chance circumstances re-connected me with a friend I hadn’t talked to in nearly ten years.

Imagining a different life helped make the life I was in a bit more tolerable, and I began preparations to make the move. Several friends and relatives told me that it would be stupid to move so far away with someone I hadn’t seen in so long, even though we had been best friends through high school, and I had a young child to consider, and what was I thinking, dragging him across the country?

The other contingent, whom I sided with, saw it as an opportunity to better myself and give my son a chance at a better life too. As I went, so went my son, type of thing.

I made my decision, and Tammy, who was going to fly back East in July to stay with her father for a few weeks while spending time with her son, decided to drive out with a friend, and bring me and my son back out with them on their return trip.

She had a pick-up truck with a tall shell for the truck bed, which she furnished with a mattress, and I was to sell my beds and other large belongings because they wouldn’t fit in the small trailer we’d rent for the trip back to California. She had a guest room with a bed that my son would sleep on, and I would stay on the couch until I found work and could buy new beds. I sold all of our big furniture, and kept my son’s books and most of his toys, as well as dishes and whatever else could fit in the trailer, because we’d be taking turns driving while one of us slept in the back of the truck. I ended up paying for one night in a motel room so we could have a shower and get a decent night’s sleep.

My boyfriend at the time and I had a rocky relationship, but we liked each other enough to work through issues. He asked me to stay in Maine, but conceded that he didn’t know where he saw our relationship going. The week before I left, he told me he would have asked me to marry him if I didn’t have a child. After he said that, I knew leaving was the right decision. So many choices in my life translated to ‘damned if I don’t, damned if I do’ propositions.

August 4th, moving day: Tammy and her friend, Ann, were to arrive around Noon. I spent the morning cleaning my apartment, and bringing whatever didn’t sell, and I didn’t want, outside to bring to the dump when my friend arrived. My son was upset that most of our things were gone, and he didn’t want to go anywhere. By the time Tammy got there, I was sweaty and irritated, and wondering if this had been such a good idea after all.

It was really good to see Tammy, and Ann and I pretty much instantly disliked one another. She made some remark about my attitude, and I was kind of stunned that this person I barely knew was openly judging me after having worked my ass off all morning, with a crabby child in tow, and no other help. “Fuck you”, I wish I had said, but having a bit more grace than her, I fluffed it off and asked Tammy if she’d bring the junk pile to the dump, while I got some lunch for my son and played with him for a while. She, being a parent herself, was completely empathetic about my state of mind, and told me to take a break, and she’d deal with the trash and help me finish whatever cleaning was left to do later.

It took several more hours than expected to finish up, rent the trailer, and make sure we were ready to hit the road. We left Maine around 5pm, with my son and I in the back of the truck for the overnight drive. Luckily the truck’s motion put my son to sleep fairly soon, but I had too much anxiety, so I slept very little.

We drove through the night, choosing a route through the Poconos, which Tammy later told me creeped her out because Ann had fallen asleep, and my son and I were out of view in the way back – the window into the cab being hidden behind boxes, blankets, and pillows – and she was thinking about the Sleepy Hollow legend, imagining seeing the Headless Horseman as she drove through the darkness, with few other travelers that late. We could have kept each other company, but I wouldn’t have been comfortable leaving my son in the back of the truck where I wouldn’t know what was going on with him, or with Ann, who wasn’t fond of children.

I drove the next morning, our route taking us through most of Ohio, and then down through Kentucky, and finally into Tennessee where we would stay on I-40 for the bulk of the trip.

We stayed in a motel in Tennessee the one night we didn’t drive through. One bane of the trip was automatic flush toilets, which seemed to be installed at every stop we made, and which my son was afraid of, along with any loud, not-easily understood noises, so we had to find rest stops with a Port-A-Potty (or a wooded area) for most of the journey.

By the third day, we were all miserable, and my son was the only one vocalizing it freely and frequently, to which Ann questioned my child-rearing style of just letting him complain. I told her I had learned to tune out most of what he said, and did my best to keep him entertained by imitating his favorite Sesame Street characters voices, while making up stories, singing songs, and playing games, which seemed to annoy Ann, and made it even more pleasurable for me. Poor Tammy was caught between trying to support her friend, but enjoying being with my son, grumpy or not.

I’m sure Ann was most happy when my son and I were riding in the back of the truck, or when she was back there sleeping. I was most happy when it was just Tammy, my son, and I, riding up front. I was driving when we neared Flagstaff, Arizona, and I saw a ‘Grand Canyon, 50 miles’ sign. Ann was riding up front with me and my son, and I asked her if it would be ok if we took a detour as I had never seen the Grand Canyon, and thought it would be a perfect opportunity. Ann said she’d rather not, but if Tammy was willing, then she’d go along with it. The hitch was that I’d have to wake Tammy up to ask her, and I didn’t want to interrupt her sleep, so we continued on into California where Ann took over the driving until we reached her apartment in Ocean Beach.

I’ve always regretted not making a unilateral decision and just driving to the Grand Canyon because I still have not been there.

I was talking to Tammy on the phone the other day, both of us amazed at how much time has gone by, and she suggested I move back out once my son is through college, and I’m seriously considering it.