Category — Kid A

Dear Kid A,

You are so totally yourself.

It has been eight years since that one first siren cry and the stunned silence afterward. You took stock, sucked on your fists, and deigned to stay with us.

I don’t really know how to write about your unwavering ferocity toward life, the way you barrel forward, with your list of the top ten countries you want to visit, your wide eyes, your exuberance. Your melancholy. You are a boy of opposites, quick to laugh and get a joke, quick to notice the discrepancy between want and fulfillment. Even at eight, you get it.

Your attitude toward travel inflames all of us with love for it, I’m thankful to travel with you. I love your kindness and your thirst for knowledge.

Since we moved to India, you mythologized your best friend, the kid you’d known since you were born. And then when you saw him again, he turned out to be what you were hoping for. I don’t know how you do that. It’s like you hoped the old fighting away, there were no more arguments, only understanding, and anything less than desirable you shrugged off. It didn’t matter. I love your loyalty.

You love your dad beyond anything else. He is everything you want to be. You are two peas in a pod.

Today we sat down and I pulled you into my lap and asked how it felt to be eight. You were pleased. We hung out there for a while, my arms slung over your shoulders like a jacket, and when I went to move, you scooted so you were still with me, shifted my arms back over your shoulders.

You haven’t done that in a long time. I think I like eight already.

Happy Birthday, firstborn son.

I love you.

Kid A is fine after being bitten on the face by a dachshund, completely fine. The only way that he seems to be reacting is with a sudden wish to see into the future. Like, if he could have seen the future, he would have known not to go to San Francisco that day. (“But then it wouldn’t have been the future,” said Chinua, prompting furrowed brows on all of the kids’ faces.)

Trust me, if I had been feeling anywhere close to the way he LOOKS, I would have been complaining a whole lot. The whole left side of his top lip droops over the bottom lip. He looks like he has half of a duck lip. He has to tilt his head waaaaaay back, just to put food in, otherwise it just falls out of his mouth. Sometimes he can’t be bothered, and he gets careless, like today when he was eating cereal and milk was dribbling out of his mouth, all around his chin, and he was too sleepy to care.

But really, the only time he seems to think about his injury is when I pull him aside and gritch about when am I going to get my little boy’s face back?

He  couldn’t joke about it at first. But tonight while we were getting ready for bed, we were discussing the races that Chinua was setting for them, right before the dog bite. He was telling the kids, “two times around the park, on one foot,” or something like that.  Leafy always trailed in last, proudly. Kid A said, “We were just getting too tired of races, and we couldn’t think of anything,” and then I got silly and I said, “But last was the ‘Let’s see who can get bitten by a dog first’ race.” And Kid A smiled at the ceiling.

“And I won,” he said, laughing.

“Well, I’m going to win next time,” I said.  And all the kids sat up and put out their hands to stop me. They were laughing too, but kinda serious, at the same time.

“You can’t ever, Mama!” YaYa said.

“Everyone wants to lose at that race,” Kid A informed me.

“Yeah,” Leafy said. “Nobody ever wants to win.”

*

It was a long night tonight, putting the kids to bed.  It’s never been my favorite part. My Superstar Husband really hurt his back recently, and so I’ve been covering the part of the day when I’m not at the top of my game.  I’ve been trying to slow it down, not rush it. Not dive into a bag of chocolates and a book, only to be interrupted by bathroom checkers and water demands.

On Friday we had this beautiful Shabbat dinner with the Jewish friends that we are staying with. My favorite part of the Shabbat night is the time when the fathers bless their children. It’s a beautiful thing, to see the dads putting their hands on their childrens’ heads and giving them words of blessing.

I’m trying to bring words of blessing into bedtime. “God, bless my boy with love and peace. Bless my daughter with courage. Show her that you made her because you wanted a friend just like her…” And it’s working.  I think that it may have been the best part of my day today.

It was just all so weird.

That’s what we kept thinking, anyways.

Two days ago we went to San Francisco. We were getting ready to see our friend Amy, the famous Amy who taught me how to knit (the first time: ring the soldier’s neck and throw him off the cliff, or something equally violent) and taught me how to make fudge the old-fashioned way, and taught dozens of people at the land about good coffee in a mason jar, and fudge, and fresh cranberry sauce, and how to tell if a turkey is done (shake the turkey’s hand) and in the middle of all that: living life.

I have many Amy-isms in my head that I pull out and sort from time to time. Like buttons.

Anyways.  We decided, while we were waiting for Amy to finish up with what she was doing, to get amazing Blue Bottle Coffee and sit in the park nearby, the Octavia Park. (I found this photo of the incredible sculpture that has recently been erected there.)

We walked into the park and ran into another friend.  Our friend Remy, whom we met in India, was sitting on a park bench, and called Chinua’s name as we strolled along. Crazy!

So there we are. In the sun, drinking Blue Bottle coffee, watching the kids climb on the great set of monkey bars, talking with an old friend.  Amy decided to just head on over to the park.

And blam and kerpow, a kerfuffle and I’m not sure what’s happening, but three kids are running toward me crying- which one’s hurt? It turns out to be Kid A.

Bitten in the face by a dog.

When I told my mom this later, she asked, “So was it a pit bull?” and I laughed, because the long emergency room stint was over, and said “No mom, it was a dachshund.”And she laughed too.

So what happened was a man was pulling a wagon with three little dogs in it, and kids were walking over to pet the dogs, and my kids asked first and then went over too.  And the owner was making conversation with them, and Kid A pet one of the dogs, and then leaned into the wagon and the dog freaked out and bit him in the face. He put a hole through his upper lip.

Oh my word. The dog owner got mad and yelled at us while we were trying to comfort our son, saying, “He put his face in the wagon!” and “What do you want me to do, I’m not a doctor!”  Meanwhile there was a fair amount of blood and Kid A was freaking out and Leafy was nearly hyperventilating in empathy.  People were trying to help us. Remy was helping with the kids and then suddenly Amy was there, and we decided to go to the hospital.  The dog owner had taken Chinua’s dismissive, “It’s alright,” when he was trying to get the man to stop reacting in anger so that he could comfort his son as, “it’s fine to just walk away from this.”

Amy decided to pursue the dog owner.  Chinua got the van so that we could drive to the nearby hospital.

At the hospital I worked at calming Leafy down while Kid A was in the room with Chinua.  Amy had called the police because the man wouldn’t give her his information, and they headed over to take a statement.  I’m not sure what we’ll do with it, but at least it’s all recorded now.  The man’s story had changed from, “He put his face in the wagon!” to “He pulled the dog’s tail!” Something that Kid A assures us he did not do.

Oh, it was all a bit of a nightmare.  And also a blessing, since it was not so bad.  One stitch and some super glue, and Kid A’s lip, which is extremely disfigured while we wait for the swelling to go down, will be okay in a few days.

He needed to be wrapped in a big white sheet and held down by one of the larger male nurses, to get the novocaine shot. And then he was surprised by how it really didn’t hurt that much.  He told us afterward that he thought the whole needle had to go in. Which would be scary, I’ll admit. Poor Kid A. His face is so swollen.

I was amazed by how good it was to have friends there, even unexpectedly, when we needed them. Popping up all over the place, wonderful, wonderful people.

The other day when I was posting photos for the cooking post, I noticed my hand in this photo.

It reminded me of something I saw when I was looking at pictures with the kids.

It reminded me of this photo of me holding Kid A as a newborn, seven and a half years ago.

Oh my word, he’s cute.  But the real point is that I never, ever change my rings.  To me, rings become a part of your body when you put them on.  They are not something to be taken off and put back on.  You just wear them.  I’ve been wearing these two for fifteen years.  FIFTEEN YEARS.  Gosh I’m a jewelry fuddy duddy.

(Although yes, Eleanor, sometimes I wear Wonder Woman bracelets.)

When I was nursing, though, I used to take one of the rings off and put it on the other hand to show which side I needed to feed from for the next feeding. Rings are also useful that way.

But really, baby Kid A is so cute in that picture.  Why can’t I just have that back for a day?  I’m sure I would appreciate him even more now, now that I know him so well and stuff.  Sigh.  I want to kiss his addictive forehead.  Maybe I’ll go sneak a kiss on his big ol’ head that is about as huge as a table now.

It is 5:00 in the evening here. The light is getting softer, the wind is picking up, like it does in the evenings at this time of year. I am on our rooftop, looking at red stones and multicolored glass panes, watching the wind move the coconut fronds.  A man in the village is getting married tomorrow, and the tape of wedding music has begun its long loop.

I’ve been on the rooftop since early morning. Sending out query letters, my self-confidence dying a little more with each click of the “send” button. Did I mention that I finished the book on my writing vacation?  And did I mention that I’ve been home for two weeks?  Just in case you’re thinking that I’m on a really really long vacation. But today is my writing day and instead of writing, I’m, well, beginning my journey to publication. I want you to read the book.

I’m writing now, and it’s feeding me. The wind in the leaves feeds me, the breath of God feeds me, hanging laundry on the line feeds me, and writing feeds me. Also, finding treasures on the shore, a scooter ride through the jungle, and cooking good food.

I’m nobody important, that’s what I feel when I look through all the agency websites. But that’s what I find to be beautiful about life, that we’re nobody important, just small, lovely people who extend a hand of welcome to one another. My book is about small, lovely people, my life is full of small, lovely people, and everyday I meet another person who is fascinating and insightful and nobody important at all.

Kid A, who barely acknowledges that he missed me when I went away, had his own way of letting me know he was glad I was back. Almost as soon as he saw me, he asked if I would like to help him and YaYa build their new invention.

It’s a bacteria smasher.  The big stick person is Chinua, and the little stick person is Kid A.  They’re there to show the scale.

Inviting me to help him build it was his way of welcoming me home. Of telling me that I was important. Every little frond, every little brick, every pane of glass. Every small trouble, every word, every little blogger, every one of our long, tiring, beauty-filled days.

It was Kid A’s first barber shop haircut.

His Superstar dad usually cuts his hair, but I grew impatient and his hair was getting to that point where it gathers lint and makes my life unnecessarily difficult.

So off we went to the village barber.  There was a drunk man outside of the barber shop, which made me feel like I was in a novel.

Maybe I am.

Kid A had the best flinchy faces the whole time.  Like the barber was pulling his hair out instead of using a pair of scissors.

The excitement was almost too much.  We were all in awe of the coolness of the barbershop.

And the coolness of the large face brush.  I would like one, please, for home.  Just for those moments when you want to run some soft bristles over your face, you know?

You may be surprised that we stuck with the original plan of getting Kid A a haircut, and didn’t get a massage at the Body,Face Massage counter. What the photo doesn’t show is that this is the door to a room that was approximately 1 inch x 2 inches.

I also declined a cold wax.

Though it was tempting.

Today Kid A turned seven.  I made pancakes with Nutella (a super birthday treat!) and fried eggs (the fried eggs were on special request) and we sang.  He was up long before I was, but still wanted to eat breakfast in bed.

We had an early birthday party last week, because some friends were leaving and we really wanted to include them, so today was just about pancakes and badminton and video game time and a special dinner out with Daddy.

I absolutely love Kid A.  He’s just the coolest kid.

(All photos by Chinua)

A few weeks ago, the kids and Renee and I got in our little white van with a friend and her daughters to travel in the sun to a nearby Banyan tree. A Banyan sends shoots and roots up throughout a large area, many of which look like other trees, but are in fact all part of the same tree.

My friend was from England, from Devon, with daughters so round and brown-eyed and freckled that I wanted to scoop them up and keep them forever. (Not to mention their accents: “It’s all rather muddled, isn’t it?”) She’s gone back since, so this was a special farewell trip, to a tree that another friend had told us about.

“The canopy is as big as this whole restaurant,” he said, throwing his arms out expansively.

We drove along, our directions limited to: “When you pass the petrol station and then look off and to the left, you’ll see it out there, in the middle of a big field.”

I wasn’t ready to stop driving, we reached it so quickly, so I drove a little farther and got myself into a bit of a pickle trying to turn around, while small British voices in the back called, “I want to go back to the tree!”

We parked. As we approached the tree, about 20 huge Langur monkeys departed, swinging down effortlessly and loping away to a distant spot. They watched our invasion of their perch impassively.

I thought the tree would be kinda neat, but it was not merely neat. It was majestic. It was peaceful, it was shady, it was a perfect play place in a hot field. Perfect for monkeys, perfect for people. The Banyan is quickly becoming one of my favorite trees. Like the Madrone, or the Sequoia. Or the Oak. Well, I could go on and on. I guess I just like trees. Big surprise.

After I wandered around for awhile with the camera, I handed it to Kid A, so that he could take some shots. Later, when I looked through them, I was happily surprised by what he saw and snapped.

Here’s the day through Kid A’s eyes.

Then YaYa took the camera for a while. Here’s some of the day in her eyes.

At the end of our time we all joined hands and wove in and out of the branches singing, “The Banyan tree, the Banyan tree, God made the Banyan tree, the Banyan tree, the Banyan tree, lots of shade for you and me…”  And there were other verses, but I won’t trouble you with them here.

The good news is that it’s a baby tooth.

The bad news is that it will be three to five years before it grows back in.

The good news is that he’s cuter than ever.

But still… I have this wistfulness that comes from knowing that his appearance is changed permanently, now that there was pushing going on in the shower and he slipped and fell and he cried for about five minutes and then was better, now he will never look the same.  I wasn’t ready for that baby tooth to be gone yet.  Sigh.

***

I have added new layers of BUSY to busy.  We are beginning a meditation center in the Christian tradition, here in our village, and construction is commencing right now on our rooftop.  (Eventually we may get a building, but, as they say here in India, slowly slowly.)   The construction has nothing to do with me- Cate is designing and overseeing the building, but what DOES have to do with me is the week of teaching and workshops taking place right now.

Our friend has come to do some lectures and expand our knowledge of meditation: Eastern, Western, and all the middle bits.  He leads a monastic life with his wife, the type of life where one prays in a cell and builds buildings with rocks that one has quarried, and one bakes bread with wheat that one has not only ground, but grown, harvested, and threshed.  And one has no electricity.

His knowledge is of the doctorate variety, and his presence with us is of the fun and fresh variety.  We’re enjoying the lectures, the meditations, and the conversation.

(Kid A:  I had a conversation with Evan the other night.

Me: I noticed.  What did you talk about?

Kid A: Oh… almost grownup things.)

But we have been busy, meeting until almost eleven every night, and then starting over in the morning.  Yesterday everyone drove off to look at churches and ruins in Old Goa, and I stayed home because, as I told everyone, it wouldn’t be fun for them or us, to drag the kids around for the day.

Staying home looked like this:

Watering the garden. (I’m obsessed.  I touch and whisper to the new growth on our plants everyday.)

*

Walking to the painting for kids workshop.

(Me: If you can’t behave, Kid A, I won’t bring you back.

Kid A: That’s okay- I don’t really like painting.

It’s true- he never has.

Me: Sigh.

Kid A:  Do you know what my real job is? (Announcing to the class.)

Elaborate pause.

Kid A: STUDYING DOLPHINS.)

I refrained from telling the teacher that once upon a time I was a painter too.  I just let her tell me about colors and mixing and sat with my baby, laughing into his face, in my new life.

*

Bringing a friend home for the afternoon.  There is a coffee house here which is run by the friend of a friend, a man from Manali.  His daughter came to the painting workshop with us and then spent the day at our house, braving socially inept attempts to impress her by the boys.  (Kid A, painting on his face and spraying others with the spray bottle while at the workshop.)

*

Having a Belgian friend who is here studying massage give me a free TWO HOUR MASSAGE.  Wow.  It was the nicest thing that has happened to me in a long time.  What was happening with the kids?  Ratatouille.  The movie, not the food.

*

Eating the kimchi that our Korean friend made.  He is going to teach Chinua how to make it, and then I will be in heaven, sitting on the floor cross-legged, throwing it into my mouth.  I LOVE KIMCHI.

*

Having the surprise delight of Cate volunteering to sit with the kids after I put them to bed so that I could go to one of Chinua’s concerts.

I sat and dreamed of the day that I first heard those songs.  I watched his every move from the front row, singing along, clapping loudly.  His biggest fan.  It was wonderful.

I had no idea when Matty and I left the house with Kid A’s hand wrapped up in a bloody clean cloth diaper, his arm held up with a tournequet tied around it, that we would be gone for almost twenty-four hours.

It explains why I didn’t bring a book, my phone charger, a change of clothes, a toothbrush, or enough diapers for sleeping Solo, coming with us because he always needs to be with me.

I had no idea that we would be sent from one hospital to another.  No idea that I would wear a labyrinth into the floor with my aching feet, there in the trauma ward with people in varying degrees of pain all around me.  Broken leg, broken arm, someone hurt enough to need oxygen.  All on small hard hospital cots.  I was thankful that Kid A’s hand was only cut, not broken.

I had no idea how angry I could become, feeling trapped and marginalized in a hospital where no one was nice to me or my brother or my son.  Or how angry I would feel when too many doctors prodded (no less than eight) and hurt him, already hurting.  Matty stayed with me, and I was so grateful for him as I sat, woozy and exhausted.  Eventually one of us had to go home, and Kid A wanted me to stay.  So Matty reluctantly left.

I had no idea what love I would feel, what great shining love, as I lay with my two sons on one of the cots, finally able to rest, waiting for the operation to repair Kid A’s tendon.  Solo lay between Kid A and I, my hand rested on Kid A’s curly little boy head, and my love swelled up like a great shining bubble, golden and filling the room, blocking out the dirty ceiling, the terrible hospital smell, the hunger that I was feeling, the exhaustion.  I waited until he was asleep to cry.

(They gave him some anesthesia, and he spoke sweetly to me as he drifted off: “When you smile with your lips closed, you look like a stranger with lips… you have three eyes…”)

I padded out of the cot every half hour or so, asking when he would be operated on.  Finally, at 4:00 AM, they told me to put him on the gurney.  It had been twelve hours since he cut himself playing with a glass bottle, something that threatened to flood me with guilt every time my brain skittered back to the moment that he ran up screaming, covered in blood.

I was asked to wheel him to the place where he would be taken into the operating room, and it was not a nice place.  Unfortunately, he woke up, and he was afraid.  I kissed him and prayed for him and then they wheeled him away from me as he wailed for me. 

It was my least favorite night so far.  Give me childbirth anytime.

I returned to my labyrinth, walking quietly in circles past sleeping forms on beds who were still and quiet.  Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me.   Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me.  The Jesus prayer seemed to be all that I had brain power for, that and the occasional, Oh God, help. My boy my boy, which really means the same thing.  It was enough.

We had ended up at the wrong hospital, sent there because there might have been a plastic surgeon there who could do a better job.  I have since been told by a man who has lived here with his Indian family for ten years that he would NEVER take his children to that hospital.  The question is not of the work that they do, but the way that they treat the patients.  It is a world away from how I would suggest treating hurt people, but I was the foreigner at the hospital. It was not my place. I was lying beside the goldfish bowl, gills quivering in futility.

Eventually I lay down, again, beside Solo, and I think I drifted off a bit, because the next thing I knew was Kid A being wheeled out to me.  He was naked under a blanket, and I lifted him from the gurney to the bed.  He smelled, incredibly, like his newborn self.  We were all reborn.

The morning was old and tired, but we made it through.  I ran back and forth trying to find food, carrying Solo in my baby carrier which made everyone stare, occasionally crying which made everyone stare, sitting in silence which made everyone stare.  Staring is a way of life here, which I don’t usually mind.  But everything is different at the hospital. 

I have never hated any place as much as that hospital, with its hardness and mosquitoes, the abandoned IV next to the sink on the floor in a bathroom which smelled like the bathroom at the Delhi train station.  I don’t usually rail about hygiene here.  But this was a hospital.

He was groggy, and didn’t want to eat, and after hours and hours of sitting (trying anything to keep myself occupied, even reading the scraps of newspaper that were used to wrap my food) I decided to get us sprung.  He was coming out of the anasthesia just fine, I told the nurses.  We needed to be discharged.  It was a teary process.  They wouldn’t send for a doctor to discharge us. 

But I have children at home.  I’ve been up all night.  I’m so very tired.

You’ll just have to wait.

I’m going to pick him up and take him out of here.

I’ll call the doctor.

Finally the doctor came and we were all set free, like birds.  The taxi that we took home had carpet on the ceiling and fake fur on the dash, as well as a very glitzy queen of heaven display on the console.  It seemed heavenly, and the trees had never been so green.  I didn’t even mind the heat that pounded away all around us. 

Kid A will be fine.   He has a cast to wear for six weeks, to keep his thumb still while the tendon heals.  He has analyzed it all to little microns, and as usual, his analysis is surprisingly accurate and intuitive.  I like to see him solving problems, figuring out how to eat, whether or not he can play cricket, how to get dressed.  When to ask for help and when he would prefer to do it himself.

Chinua arrived home yesterday and got all caught up on all the news.  We spent some time just being together, and then all seven of us walked home last night along the dark beach, our feet in the water, tired and yet content.