finger lakes

We've just returned from a week in and about New York's Finger Lakes, replete with visiting dear friends, lake swimming, car camping, communing with farm animals, bird watching, waterfall exploring, and many modest yet memorable adventures. I'll tell you more about it, and about other things too, soon. For now, we're unpacking a muddy car and doing outrageous amounts of laundry.

Hope this past week has been a very good one, wherever you are!

booby trap

For days, whenever there has been a lull in the conversation or activity, Gabriel will look at his sister with dancing lights in his eyes and say, Didi. Remember the booby trap...? And then she shushes him, looks at me nervously, and whispers dramatically, Not now.

Yesterday, now arrived. We were making papier mache maracas; there is something about the associative, open flow of conversation that can happen when one's hands are busy. I had been singing El Canario, from Nueva York, over and over, and for a reason I cannot fathom my children found this annoying. They told me they were going to punish me if I kept singing. I told them I would go sing somewhere else, where children appreciated my beautiful voice.

Gabriel (in a mild panic): Didi. The booby trap.
Frances: You're right. Mama, you're not going anywhere, because we're going to booby trap you.

Now the secret was out. I asked them how they were planning to trap me. They told me all the details. String, fabric, lots of knots I could never undo, and it would all go down in the kitchen. But don't worry Mama, we're going to make it so comfortable for you! They explained that they would be kind captors, and as long as I didn't sing, they'd bring me my favorite foods for dinner and make sure I had a cozy sleeping bag.

Wait, I asked. What do I need the sleeping bag for?

Apparently they planned to keep me in a string cage for "at least two days." Which isn't that long, especially when I would be treated so well! The fantasy was in full flight, and Frances especially fully believed all she was telling me. At one point she said, "Mama, it's a nice punishment. In fact, it's just like childhood. People do things for you and you can't go anywhere."

(Just like childhood! In the midst of explaining her plans to Stockholm Syndrome-ize me, she compared my imagined dependent, captive state to childhood. Fodder for parenting critiques of all sorts, be you anti-helicoptering, pro-free ranging, etc etc. Does she really feel like childhood is one long stay in a relatively pleasant booby trap??)

Well. I agreed to read the New Yorker on the couch (an awful sacrifice) while they tinkered with the trap. When they called me in to see it, they were so proud!

But conflicts emerged almost immediately. If Mama was in the trap, who would go to the store? We were out of milk! And then Gabriel was suddenly ravenous, and needed crackers in the bread box that only I could reach. The two of them debated how to handle this until I quietly slipped under some string, got the crackers down, and then walked out the other side by swinging my legs over a waist-high layer of strings.

Cruel? Maybe. Frances was devastated. Her trap didn't work. But it was okay, because she had derived boundless pleasure from the planning and construction stages. I have a feeling this isn't the last booby trap I'll be walking into.

In other news, I've been a bit depressed about our summer garden, which is thirsty, hot, and overrun with mosquitoes and weeds. The failure is mine. But then this morning, inspired by the first real bunch of gorgeous blooms on the morning glory vines, I headed out with our new camera.

And suddenly the garden didn't seem like such a bust. When you become intimately acquainted with a flower, it's extraordinary construction and saturated colors seem positively miraculous. A watermelon blossom, a maverick morning glory, the curling cucumbers...this morning, those small successes were more than enough.

the heart grows fonder

When I was nine, my family stayed at my great-aunt Mimi's elegant house in Westchester for yet another Korach family Thanksgiving. There were always lots of relatives, adult conversations I could barely follow, pieces of art we were forbidden to touch, and inevitably, my younger sister and I would find questionable parts of the house to play in. That's how she came to sprain her ankle that year: we were jumping off the marble steps in the entryway, higher and higher, until disaster struck.

Oh, how everyone fussed over her! And oh, how cute and little she was! I already felt large and unwieldy by that point, a puzzle for adult relatives who enjoyed tossing little ones in the air but didn't quite know what to do what a kid my age. Too big for tickling, too young for serious conversation. So I pouted on the periphery, resentful, and watched everyone bring ice and pillows to Rachel. I even remember standing at the top of the soft carpeted stairs, contemplating throwing myself down them. Then they'd notice me.

Since I have plenty of experience envying a younger, cuter sibling, you'd think I'd be more sympathetic when Frances complains of all the attention Gabriel gets. This summer has brought an uptick in sibling rivalry, with outbursts of fierce competition threatening to ruin a number of perfectly good times. And their insistence on equal goods (down to the number of M&Ms, or hugs, or turns with the hose, or minutes of story-reading) can be so very tiresome.

Their relationship is intense - passionate, even - and it can flare in any direction at any moment. But their roles are distinct. Gabriel, who is more of a caregiver, will insist that Didi get a popsicle too, if he gets one while she is somewhere else. Frances assumes her brother is getting all kinds of things all the time, so she will ask for two popsicles and request that I please not give Gabriel any later. She's also been reminiscing about the time before he was born, telling us how great it was to be an only child.

Well. Early this week, for the first time ever, Gabriel spent two days all by himself on a special visit with Grandma. They had a great time, but Frances suffered. One night she announced she would not be eating dinner because it was simply awful that Gabriel wasn't eating with us too. One morning she called him and when he was too involved in something to want to talk, she was crushed. It's all wrong without Gabriel!! she moaned. When her beloved brother walked in the door on Tuesday she showered him with hugs and kisses, and kept on showering him throughout the afternoon, until he had to put his foot down. Didi. NO MORE KISSES.

Now Frances is at my mom's house. She's having a great time, but I must say, Gabriel is too. We all are. Mike and I took him to the pool late yesterday afternoon, and as we walked home together, he positioned himself between us and reached up to take both of our hands. What a sunny smile on his face! What a delight to have two parents all to himself!

Frances called this morning and asked to speak to Gabriel. She asked him if he was lonely. Not really, he said. But I miss you.

And that's the truth of it. It's a real gift when my mom takes one of the kids for a special visit, not only for the kid, but for the rest of us. We get to lavish attention on the kid left behind without risking a sibling blow out, and we get to miss each other. Frances discovered our family just isn't right without Gabriel in it, and Gabriel has had the opportunity to shine his light without being overshadowed. Balm for the embattled sibling soul - and respite for weary parents, too.

p.s. The picture above is of Gabriel with our new friend Lewis. He visited us last week, along with his exquisite parents Christine and John, and we all fell for him. When Gabriel saw Lewis's Superman onesie, he ran upstairs to put on his Batman pajamas.

both hands

These past weeks I've been extra busy. I've set a goal for myself of reinstating my social work license with the state by mid-August (when we are going to see some very special people in a very beautiful place). In order to become a licensed social worker again, I needed to collect 40 credit hours of continuing education. It's been a crash course in all kinds of engaging areas of practice, a time of reacquainting myself with the profession and an old identity that had slipped onto the back burner while mothering my dear ones took center stage. The hope is to begin doing more clinical work with vulnerable populations in the fall, hopefully maintaining some modicum of the relatively flexible part-time work life I now enjoy. I recognize having it all isn't feasible. But I think having some good things some of the time and other good things at other times is a reasonable aspiration.

Yesterday I did an all-day training on trauma that included an excellent primer on how traumatic events affect the brain and can over time -- in cases of traumatic stress disorders -- impact brain structures in such a way that affects concentration, mood, and everything else you can imagine on which how well we can function, be in relationships, and live a good life depends.

Therapists can help "dislodge" the trauma that is repeatedly harming a person through something called bilateral processing. The idea is that through engaging both sides of the body while remembering a traumatic event, the information that has been stored in one area (unlike everyday information and memory that is stored throughout the brain) can be integrated into both hemispheres of the brain and thereby lose its close connection to the "limbic brain," which includes the parts associated with the fight or flight response (panic, stress, fear, anger). The idea is that eventually, through bilateral processing, the traumatic memory is separated from the flood of feelings initially experienced and made manageable.

Well. I am not sure if I got all that perfectly right. I'm sure some of you could explain this better! The takeaway is that engaging both sides of the body helps the brain to deal with terribly difficult stuff. It also helps the brain to deal with mildly difficult stuff - hence the excellent clarity and lightness of spirit we can feel after a good long walk, or the mood boost an intense twenty minutes on the elliptical machine can give me. It's interesting, right?

Here's what's even more interesting. I've been noticing that children do this bilateral processing thing all the time. They are constantly being asked to learn new skills, meet new people, figure out tacit sets of rules in different social settings, and process new information and ideas. And they are constantly in motion! I think of my children telling me a story from their day while flipping over the couch, pacing the room, and attempting headstands. It's hard to follow the story, but it is clearly all for a good reason. If you look around, you'll see that expressly bilateral movement is favored by kids. Think monkey bars, running, double dutch, bicycle riding.

Frances asked me last night if I knew any clapping games. The time has arrived! In camp she's been learning to chant and clap or chant and jump rope and some of the chants are the same as - or at least derived from - the ones I knew on the playground so many years ago. We sat on the edge of the bathtub while Gabriel splashed and she taught me. The clapping was the kind where your right hands meet, then you clap in the center, then your left hands meet.

When you get going, that singular experience of flow takes over. Our hands were flying and our eyes were locked, Cinderella-dressed-in-yellow, and as soon as we noticed that our hands were moving without our express intention we'd lose the rhythm and laugh and start all over. It was delightful, and brought back a forgotten experience of childhood so very vividly.

Nothing like a good bout of bilateral processing with your kiddo to make you feel really great: mind, body, and soul.