Pat the Bunny


Indulge me in a moment of motherly nostalgia: I just came across this old picture of Schuyler and Willem, ages 5 and 2 (if memory serves), in an Eastertime pose with a real bunny. (I remember that it took all of my powers of persuasion to get Willem to stop crying, put his hand on the bunny and look reasonably happy about it.) They were, and still are, so darn cute.



Before the skinny-yet-saggy jeans
(sound impossible? It’s not),
long legs, knobby knees
and size eleven shoes

there were sailor suits and sweaters
(albeit worn unwillingly),
round rosy cheeks,
hair freshly combed after the bath
and also the somehow always-sticky little hands

Small Saturday

Tonight was a mellow, rainy Saturday night, which is a thing of beauty in my book. David and I watched the classic 70s surf film “Big Wednesday”—a must-see, with some excellent surfing by our friend Ian Cairns, Gary Busey's stunt double. Before that, we caught a few scenes of “Caddy Shack” while flipping through the channels, and afterward, a few minutes of “Saturday Night Fever.” I don't normally spend this much time lying on the couch, but I have to say, it was pretty nice.

Country club hijinks,
Malibu surf, hot disco:
Ahhh…guilty pleasures.

Car Wash

At the car wash
a man well-past the mid-century mark
and a little thicker than he probably used to be
(though of course
there is nothing wrong
with being either of those things;
I mention them only
to set the scene)
says to the attendant, with a lewd chuckle
“What kinds of air freshener do you have?
Do you have the one called
Brazilian supermodel bait?”

I turn to watch him go,
thinking, well this had better be
quite a car.

But he walks up to a tiny red VW Beetle
(is it redundant to call a Beetle tiny?
Perhaps) and folds his big self inside.

I can’t resist:
“Good luck with that!”

Ruby's Diner

We took Schuyler and Willem to Ruby's for dinner tonight; they love the red pleather booths and the giant shakes and all that gut-busting diner food. Yes, I know it's very bad for you (the food, not the booths), and it's not how we usually eat, but there's only so much lean-this and whole-grain-that that I can sell to these kids before they just want burgers and fries. I can't believe the amount of food they can put away, and no matter how much we feed them they still have that hungry, stretched look that is characteristic of growing boys. So bring it on, Ruby's!


Skinny boys devour
burgers, shakes and onion rings.
Where do they put it?

The Bad-Mommy Method


When you’re trying to quiet
a fussy toddler in the back seat,
long overdue for a nap
and hanging onto wakefulness
by a frayed thread,
and you're stuck in traffic
a long way from home,
listening to the screams escalate,
wondering why you timed your outing
to Train Town
or the zoo
so badly,
and you’ve exhausted all
the good-mommy options
like singing lullabies
and passing back the sippy cup,
baggy of Cheerios,
or even
the contraband binky that he’s trying to quit,
then proceed to the bad-mommy method:
Turn up the AC/DC real loud.

You’ll feel much better, I promise,
and your baby will be just fine.

And one day,
maybe twelve years or so in the future,
you might experience a moment
like the one
that is currently warming
the bad-mommy chamber of my heart:
from the room down the hall,
where my son is practicing his guitar,
come the unmistakable strains
of “Back in Black.”

Diospyros


Last night I dreamed
that a friend who died nearly two years ago
walked into the dingy, brown-boothed restaurant
where I was sitting at a table
with some people I knew and some I didn’t.
He strolled up in a rumpled plaid shirt, smiling,
hands in his pockets (as he would)
as if to join us, as if he’d never been gone.
Then he said,
I think my parents might be at that table in the back;
I want to go say hello,
and kept walking.

I knew he was a ghost
but I was so happy and amazed
to see him in any form
that I dropped my sticky, faded menu
and jumped out of my seat.
I said to his wife, who had walked up with him,
When did he come back? And how?
And what did he say to you first?
Are we the only ones who can see him?
At a loss for words,
she just shrugged her shoulders, laughing
and I kept asking questions:
Should we follow him to make sure he doesn’t disappear again?
(as if we could)

I woke up with the word how on my tongue,
with a mixture of joy and confusion
and the dizzying sensation that past, present and future
had collided
and which, if I had to describe as a flavor, would be that of
a not-quite-ripe persimmon
I once tasted as a child:
sharp and sweet with a strange fuzzy bitterness