The Gal Who's Got Everything

What to get for the gal who's got everything? My Aunt Josie, this is her with my grandmother in a photo from '95, is celebrating her 70th birthday today. For weeks, I've been wondering what I could get for a person who'd probably had their fill of scented soaps and costume jewelry years ago. And it came to me - I love her, of course - and the one thing I've never given my aunt is the one thing she ought to have and only I can give her. So here it is:

I Love My Aunt Josie by Carmen Rodriguez

I love my aunt because she's so bright and cheery. As an adult, I've grown to know when the smile is a little forced and the laugh is a little weary. But I've also grown to admire, greatly, how often she's willing to set aside whatever ails her so she can be happy. What a gift!

I love my aunt because she married and stayed married even though being married is not the easiest thing in the world. When I was little, and long before I was married, I thought maybe she was just married to someone who drove her nuts. Now, as a married person myself, I realize all people who are married drive each other nuts and the trick is to love each other anyway. She and my uncle have weathered a million storms together and should be proud and joyful that they've arrived at this place together.

I love my aunt because she was a devoted mother to my three cousins, Michael, Debbie and Jeff, and because no matter what the three of them cooked up - and there were some doozies over the years - she handled all of it with good grace and humor and strength. She has been an even better grandmother and, now, great-grandmother.

There's a certain positivity about her, a phenomenal resiliance, which I try hard to emulate but can never quite match.

When people talk about a person who is a force to be reckoned with, I reckon they're talking about my aunt. Wary the soul who faces her when she is irate and weary the traveler who treads where she forbids trespass. In our family there's much dither about whether or not we're Italian or Sicilian. When my aunt is on a path, there's no question.

She has been a caretaker to all our family since she was born, and long since an old soul. She has been counselor, aide, nurse, kitchen consultant and gardener-in-chief for all of us and has willingly carried each of us when we were falling, at whatever hour, no matter what else she had in her arms. And she never let you feel you were being carried, you just knew you were being held.

It may be my greatest sin that when my aunt was gravely ill some years ago I did not hold her. I barely called. When the worst of it had passed, I tried to apologize but it was lame and I didn't say then what I'll intimate now. I couldn't go. I was afraid. Bone-deep, I was afraid. My aunt had never been weak a day in my life. I couldn't even wrap my mind around the idea that she might be sick or pale or frail. So I stayed away like a child scrunching eyes shut hoping that if I couldn't see the hurt it couldn't see me either.

Ultimately, my aunt prevailed. Silly sickness. It had no idea what it was up against. I'm certain it was her own will, her own positive soul blessed by a good and forgiving God, that brought her through all of that. She never said a word about how I wasn't there to comfort her, never missed a beat in showing good cheer and great faith during the whole thing and now. I love her for that, too.

She continues to be a force, a go-getter and a rummage sale fanatic. She is always a great help to me at 7 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning when I forget what I need to do with the turkey and she is a tireless dance partner at family weddings. She's always looking for a laugh and ready to share a story. She's fun and smart and makes me feel good even when I don't mean to.

She really has got everything and so all I can add is this: Humbled by my own lacking in your shadow, I am always grateful to have you in my life. I think you're a phenomenal woman, genuine and deserving and good. I think you're a great cook, which matters, because your soul speaks through your food and it is awesome. I think you're beautiful inside and out and I hope you know it. I love your garden, soft and alive and secreting scent and color. It reminds me of you. You have been a good mom, it's not easy, and your love for your children and grand children shows every day, all the time. Your dogged pursuit of good cheer and the smile in every situation is a life lesson I've carried with me all of my days, and it's served me well, so I thank you.

I love you, Aunt Jo, and I wish you every happiness on your birthday and always.

He's a Little Nuts

And Other Attributes of a Great Dad

For many years, this was a weird holiday for me. I felt compelled to celebrate with my mom, who did the work of my dad, albeit dressed in flowery housecoats and wearing soft perfume. I also felt the need to thank and recognize the men in my life who filled in the gaps where a well-intentioned mom really couldn't. I was as warm as I could be with this conglomerate of men - uncles, friends, neighbors - the village that Hillary was talking about - who raised me. But the truth was they were busy with their 'real' families on this day and I was an add-on. The older I got - although it was always true - this day made me so uncomfortable, at odds with my own self, because I really didn't want to celebrate with my mom and my uncles and friends' husbands. I wanted a dad. And I didn't have one of those.

So in my young life, I began to design the ideal dad, who would some day appear in my life and make everything good again. This man was tall and strong and had calloused hands because he worked hard to take care of me and my mom. He smelled faintly of soap but most often he was sporting eau de motor oil and bore the scent of work and a long day. He had a bright smile which was quick to flash around me - I was the light of his life. My dad was smart, but quiet about it - he didn't need to show off his intellect, it was just understood. He was intuitive and warm and a little clumsy in his affection because he had to trip over his manliness to get to his softer side. He was charming and funny and had a way of drawing a crowd even when he didn't mean to. He kept us comfortable and safe and even if we didn't have the best of everything it felt like it because he made us feel so grateful to be together that everything else was cake. My dad was a little nuts, he'd have to be to get along with me, but it was a funny sort of nutty and we laughed together about our quirks and oddities. Sometimes he was hard, mad and unreasonable, but that just made him human and real and all the more mine - I can be a little unreasonable too! Above all my dad loved me, loved me, loved me and never left me. Never would. Couldn't live without me anymore than I could without him. He was constant and good and sincere and I could count on him.

I waited for this dad for many, many years and - oddly - never lost hope.

On August 5 1995 I married the man of my dreams.

And on April 28, 1998 (and again on August 17 2000) he became the dad of my dreams. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

The World Has Gone Mad and other observations

I was preparing lunch this morning and went to vaporize my 'healthy' lean pockets and was the victim of an involuntary snort/guffaw when the nuke-pack exhorted me to "FIND US ON FACEBOOK!!" Find 'us'. Lean Pockets. On Facebook. In what alternate universe would I be finding myself 'friending' a microwaveable sandwich?

I'll tell you which one.

The one in which I've been educated in a public school system that is shockingly, SHOCKINGLY, distressed, dysfunctional and de-funded. What in God's name (or anyone else's) do we think we gain by cutting funding for education? Cut the God-blessed electricity so the kids can get off the damn idiot box and read a book for crissakes. Cut the bloated budgets that allow my state senator's assistant to receive a pretty decent wage while she sits around a room with three other state senators' assistants chewing the fat when I come in to the office. Cut the moronic free lunches that force our kids to waste time playing Star Wars with cheese sticks instead of learning. Cut breaks for irresponsible businesses, cut interest deductions, cut waste and for crissakes, cut the CRAP. That is, if you care.

If you don't care about our future, keep cutting eduction. Keep dumbing down the society and pretty soon you'll find history books that write-up complete morons as geniuses because by the standards we're creating, they will be!

And speaking of standards, we might still have some if we stopped making every idiot's idiotic move news. Men are cheating on their wives and/or sending lewd photos of themselves in an attempt to lure some hapless gal into an affair? Folks, that's not news. It's not new, either. I don't care what Arnold does with his free time, what I care about is what he does with MY time. I don't care how Anthony handles his wiener, I care how he handles MY... uh, wait.

The point is this: stop pandering to the lowest common denominator. I'm out here! I'm starving for some class, some dignity, some decorum - even if that means you have to hide half of society from me. I prefer it! I like the fact that we don't have tawdry photos of JFK getting it on with Marilyn Monroe. I prefer the notion that he flirted with Marilyn but he was true to his wife. I know it's not real, but not knowing what I know is better than knowing what I know about what Clinton does with his cigars. It's better.

Also, stop pretending you care that politicians are playing politics with our lives. Newsflash: they are P O L I T I C I A N S. That's what they do. Baseball players play - you guessed it! Baseball. (Although I have my sad days when this is not entirely true... sigh... #cubsfanforlife) Politicians play politics. If you wanted people to stop playing games you'd hire more serious, intelligent, responsible people. Then, when we hire serious intelligent people, ElizabethWarrenSayWhat?, we'd give them the tools and support they need to get done the serious job that needs to get done. But we don't. We don't even do half of that. So it's our fault they're playing and we've nothing to do but take the hits.

Also, stop being a sore loser. Obama wins. He wins because he got BinLaden and nobody else did. Suck it. Obama may be too cerebral in many situations. He may be frustrating the crap out of Boehner, turning him more an orangey-red than his normal tangerine. He may be interested in social justice (GASP!) more than some would like. He may be a lot of things but he made the call, he got BinLaden and that's it. He wins. If you keep blustering about how it wasn't him you're really only making yourself look like a sniveling, sore loser. Stop it. Have some dignity.

And while we're on the subject of dignity, Time magazine should apologize to me for not having any. Because if they had any self-respect they'd be embarrassed about the virtual cigarette they smoked as they lay under crumpled sheets after writing that, now that I know, absurd review of Jonathan Franzen's latest book, Freedom. I read the review and was compelled to read the book and feel entirely cheated. I intuited then but can now definitively tell you that using "Chardonnay splotch" as a description of a character's complexion is hardly the literary feat that was ascribed to it in Time's review. Franzen is a 'Great American Novelist?' Ok. But if he's the standard for what a great American novelist can do, I really ought to get my butt out there and write that book. The Franzen book is all ramble, self-indulgence and righteousness lost in the uninteresting pocket lint of damaged characters. If that's greatness I fear all is lost.

Write a book about a good marriage, healthy children and a happy family. Make that the "wide shot, the all-embracing, way-we-live-now novel". Because contrary to Time's declaration that Franzen's writing "has an unshowy, almost egoless perfection" I don't think "Chardonnay splotch" is all that unshowy and in any case I don't think it's all that hard to write about unsympathetic characters with dysfunctional upbringings and lust for younger women or hottie wannabe rock stars. That's not real. That's bull.

What's real is loving your spouse and caring for your children and trying every day, slowly, methodically, to do good in the world. Write that piece so that it's not boring. Make it insightful and rich with the scent and savor of your own life but the mystique of someone else's.

I've got more but I'm sure I've exhausted your patience, as I have my own, obviously. More on a day when the sun is not shining and I don't have some excuse to break away from this dastardly machine and live a little. I'm off to enjoy my FREEDOM and lunch with my husband, whom I love and am happily married to. We're having lean pockets.

The First.

My newphew, Ramsis, graduates from 8th grade today setting off a chain reaction of graduations, quincenearas, travels, adventures, jobs and - sooner than we think - marriages and babies. As of today, I'm practically a great-grandmother. (If you've ever heard me rant this to my children, it all begins with kindergarten.)

Ramsis is the oldest child of my husband's younger brother, the first grandchild, my very first nephew. He's always been the first and always will be(much to Lucy's chagrin). We are a close family as extended ones go. Ram wears his first-ness with incredible good grace, although to hear his twelve younger rivals (three sisters and nine cousins) tell it he's just this side of Darth Vadar. It comes with the territory and if there's any reward in taking on this great burden it is that for as much as they fuss and bother, all twelve of these little ones - and their attendant parents - adore Ram and admire how well he takes the beatings that come with being first.

Ramsis is smart - sometimes too much for his own good - and that smartness comes out in ways that both humor and haunt the adults in the family. That, too, has served to dilute the effect of later iterations of Rodriguezes, who learn from his mistakes when and how to keep one's little trap shut or one's little bottom in a chair. When they don't remember, Ram is often the first to correct, gently, firmly, just like a first should.

He is warm and kind and thoughtful, sometimes channeling one uncle with his understated, subtle presence and other times giving over to the other in his puppy-like enthusiasm and silliness. I'll let Joe and Alex duke it out over who's who.

You can, and always could, have a conversation with Ram. I love that about him, especially.

He's got a terrible temper. That's his mother's fault. And his father's. And mine. And assorted aunts, uncles, grandparents, a few pets. It's a family trait; let's leave it at that.

My nephew is a charmer and a genuinely good boy, and is growing into a fine young man. He sets a terrific example for all the boys in our family. If he's made his mistakes or taken long to learn some lessons he has always been the first to try harder to get it right. He never gives up. It has served as an even better path for the boys in the family to follow - you don't start out perfect, you'll never be perfect, but you keep trying to be better.

He serves as everyone's big brother and has grown into the big shoes he's had to fill with more honesty than I think any of us could have anticipated. Lucy is a second-tier parent in our household and Ram is in his. They share a bit in the heaviness of this responsibility, but also in the reward that comes from being respected. That respect, Ram, comes not from your place but from your honor in maintaining that place, through good and bad weather.

It hasn't always been easy. Our family like all others suffers its dysfunctions. But Ram is the first to know that whatever the worry, love is the number one disposition, the first priority of everyone in our family. He was the first of the babies to be loved, he's been loved the longest and won't be allowed to forget that he is loved, with warm, too-long hugs and smoochie, wet kisses before, during and well after the desperate attempt to be cool lost vigor.

I treasure my nephew. I love him more than he knows, wish the best for him, dream big dreams for him, have high hopes for him. I am proud of him and respect him and know that this day is just a beginning, a first. Because Ram is graduating today and he is the first. He always will be.

Concert Night

Tonight, my child's elementary school will put on its annual spring performance. (There are still tix available so if you want a night of really remarkable music for a measly 2 bucks, let me know.) My husband will be on stage for one of the performances, because the band conductor has invited parents to join the full intermediate and concert bands, along with some former students now in high school, to do a smashing grand finale. He's excited - the kids are - everyone's excited. It's exciting!



And here's why, as my husband so eloquently put it to me this morning when he got back from his last rehearsal:



The full performance is complex, rousing, impressive. When the audience hears it, they hear this full sound, this resonance and depth and intricacy. And they attribute all of that to each one of us on the stage. But really, each one of us is just doing one little part. We're concentrating on getting our one little part right and then when it's all put together it sounds so amazing! The end result is a real thrill! He was so flushed when he told me I just had to smile.



One little part. Everyone together. Thrilling. Think about that.

You Scared Me

I lost my temper with my babies last night, over something that seemed terribly important at the time. It wasn't, of course. I tried to make amends, apologized, tucked them in. When I leaned over to kiss Sara, she whispered 'you scared me' and my heart broke. This morning, I awoke to this-

i'm silent, your deep brown eyes are in my devil-like ones.

you yell and scream, i keep moving on, writing you notes, apologizing, saying i love you, but you never budge.

you don't hold a grudge

but this is different.

we are children. what can i say? we laugh, and play and work all day.

i love you, you should love me.

don't you?

i can't feel our love, it's faded away.

you have no fear, i like it that way.

but when it gets in your hand, like a quarter or dime

you control it and make us all fall into ashes,

turn us to rashes

that never wear off.

i still look in your eyes and see the roles that you play.

the key to life, right in your eyes,

the problem and the salvation.

i love you mommy.

And I am humbled.

Inconceivable

When I first laid eyes on my first baby all I could think was

"Inconceivable."

Other thoughts raced through my mind, of course. She had her mouth set like my grandmother, Lena. She was so fair - I was expecting a baby with a mop of black hair and dark skin like her daddy. She was breathing - thank God - so sweetly, and gave off some kind of newness perfume I'd never experienced before. (Later, the perfume turned on me in a vicious, ugly way... who knew diaper contents could be so toxic?) She was tiny, precious, delicious. I had none of the post-partum distance that others have experienced - I absolutely adored her immediately and wanted always to be touching her, holding her, taking her in.

I haven't lost any of that after thirteen years. In all my thoughts and deeds throughout every day my heart aches to be with her, see her, laugh with her and love her as much as I possibly can. So as to discourage you from any thoughts that I might be a complete loon, I should say that these feelings have learned to comfortably co-exist with thoughts of complete exhaustion, impatience, fury, disbelief and fret as my little treasure inches closer and closer to having my mouth and temperament. Who ordered that? Also, she's now got a killer figure that has not escaped the notice of most neighborhood boys, thereby rendering her father a sputtering curmudgeon and placing me in the precarious position of buffering contact between them, especially on the subject of the park and a certain young man with intentions Tony can smell from a mile away. I digress.

Since the moment I laid eyes on my Lucy, through all her trials (I DON'T YIKE PEEZ - in full 3-year-old-tantrum) and joys (I got 112 on that math test!! [[yick]]) the prevailing thought in my mind has been

"Inconceivable."

Because it's not possible that I could have such a beauty as a child, that I might have earned the privilege of parenting someone who makes me look so good when really, truly, I'm a mess and totally undeserving. It's not possible that she might be so healthy, in every way bright, sociable, warm, funny, creative - that kind of amazing belongs to other people who know what they're doing. It couldn't be true that the clumsy, uncalculated path I took to becoming an adult led me to become the lifelong mentor to this magical person - what could I possibly offer that she doesn't already possess naturally in spades? She's so smart. She's so charming. So gorgeous. It's just inconceivable, isn't it?

(Are you repeating the line in your head from The Princess Bride about that word not meaning what I think it means?)

And yet, if ever a prayer has been answered, mine was. If ever a dream came true, mine did. If ever the impossible has happened, she is. As inconceivable as she might be, my lovely Lucy reminds me every day that, with God, all things indeed are possible and even the least worthy among us is treated with treasure and precious love. And for that, I am eternally grateful.