As I sit here on the porch of the cottage, draped not in sweat as I have been for the past weeks, due to the humidity, but sheer gratitude for its absence, I watched a woman drive by in her great big Suburban, brushing hair out of her face, looking in her rear view mirror at the kids in the back seat and saying something to them, and I thought, that is me.
Or was me, but I felt that part of me drive by with her -- that harried woman on "vacation," with her children, husband to join at a later date or a weekend, and I ask myself, why did I bother? I truly don't know, perhaps we women are just hopeful that changing geography, adding a lake (or in my case an ocean) to the mix will some how change the fact that we are in charge of these willful, energetic, non-stopping, chattering small humans. But of course it does not!
I remember one year on Martha's Vineyard, Hallie was nine or ten, Charlie was three I guess, Maddie five, and we were staying at this crazy hotel in Vineyard Haven, right on the beach. The beach being the harbor of course, but it was easy for me not having to pack them into a car on a daily basis. The hotel room was dark and uninviting, so we mostly spent our days on the beach. Charlie, always a handful, downgraded day by day, until he was launching into full blown temper tantrums throughout the day. The Suburban was packed to the gills for the house that we were renting later in the week, and I had it shoe-horned into a parking space in the small lot, so just packing them into the car and driving was more or less out of the question. We just had to deal. And then it started to rain. And rain. And rain. Now the four of us were crammed into this small, dark (and dank at this point) room, and I was pretty much at the end of my rope. We were going to go out to dinner, but then Charlie went into overdrive, and through the maze of Lego's being hurled around the room, I lost it. I screamed and yelled and cried and wished that I was anywhere else but there.
Hallie took over, somehow placated the tyrant toddler, and then walked across the street to a pizza place and carried back a big box of dinner. We survived that night, as we did many after, but the woman in the Suburban triggered that memory hard for me!
In addition, as I was laying in bed this morning with the cottage windows open, I could hear children screaming out on the public dock. I checked my watch and smiled, remembering many mornings when I had to get up super early with small kids and sort of follow behind them in a semi-daze from drinking far too many cocktails the night before to drown out the sorrows of a day with small children, and as I lay there reading my book, I thought, ahhhhh, I am so glad that isn't me!
And I recalled when we were staying at the community of gingerbread houses in Oak Bluffs on the Vineyard, where houses were much like here on Blodgetts Landing, only feet apart, and Maddie and Charlie would wake up at the crack of dawn, get on their bikes, and ride around the circle. Laying in my small bed in the teeny tiny house, I would hear their voices the entire loop, and then cringe when Maddie would do something to get Charlie to yell or cry. I would go down and stop them, tell them to come inside and have breakfast, do anything I could to keep them somewhat quiet, and feel the stress just dripping off me in waves. Ahhh, vacation. That year the owner of the cottage called me and yelled at me, literally, saying that he had received phone calls from other cottage owners saying that my kids were being loud. I see. There was a grumpy old man in the Pepto Bismol cottage (the one in the brochure that the tour groups would stand and gape at on a daily basis) who clearly hated renters. Both of the kids said that he yelled at them every time they went by. Coming from a small community myself, I was somewhat sickened by their sense of entitlement overall (many of the owners would ignore you when walking by), while renter's would happily greet you and their children played with mine. So as I listened to those children early, early this morning, I was glad that my response was to just be glad it wasn't me, as opposed to following them back to whatever cottage they are renting and then calling the owner and telling them that the renter's children were loud. Good lord. I will never understand people who immerse themselves in a sea of people, then get mad that those people breathe.
Right now there are two fathers with their sons on the public dock, fishing. The dynamic is interesting, in that one father is all about taking pictures of his son, with the fishing pole, casting the line, reeling it in, and the other is clearly afraid of getting hooked by his son's pole while he casts, and keeps running away . Interestingly enough, all this boy seems to want to do is cast! He reels it in, the father helps him hold the pole behind his shoulder, then he runs, he casts, reels it in, and repeat. The picture taking duo caught a rock bass, which initiated a long round of photos, with the fish on the pole, with the fish off the pole and the father holding the fish and taking a picture of it while the little boy screamed EWWW. Interspersed with the other set doing their casting, reeling, running away dance. Quite fascinating.
I call it dock TV.
Perhaps I am innoculated from years of listening to small children yell, laugh, fight, scream, bang and crash, but community noise doesn't bother me. With one exception. There is an autistic boy who stands at the end of the dock and fishes, who makes this humming noise, which gets louder and louder and louder, and then abates a bit, then revs back up, and when he catches a fish, he gets very, very excited and screams and yells and jumps up and down. That part doesn't bother me, but that humming noise makes me bonkers. When he was little he used to stand close by where I was sitting, and push a boat in a circle, in the water, around and around accompanied by that humming noise. For hours. The good news is that he was never up for the entire summer, so it wasn't a constant. The bad news is that at 29, he still does it, but the boat has been replaced by his fishing ritual. (The humming gets louder and louder when he reels in the line) and then re-starts after he casts and begins reeling. I hyper-focus on it, I realize that, but like all of the triggers, the woman in the Suburban, small children yelling at dawn, it appears to be a part of my DNA to feel that way!
Hahaha, now the fathers are fishing and the two boys are sitting on the dock side by side, their legs swinging, completely oblivious to the fact that they are having quality father-son time! And now the dynamic has totally switched. The photo-taking duo had to return to cottage for potty break, and the other set were joined by wife and daughter. Daughter wants to fish, little boy (who had zero interest 3 seconds ago) also wants to fish. A little yelling, a little stomping by the boy, father running away when daughter casts, mother comforting boy. Every action of that little boy is Charlie. He may be all grown up now and headed to college, but his spirit lives on in every little boy to come.
