fishy

"In seven years of going to these fairs, we haven't once brought home a fish," I said to Fran, bragging a little.

We were watching the first children leaving the Fall Fair, loading onto the shuttle with fists wrapped tightly around the tops of leaky plastic bags, hapless little fish invariably named "Goldie" circumnavigating their watery interiors.

I commented on how their hours in plastic bags had to shorten their life spans. Fran said she knew some whose fair fish lasted years. I said that while that may be true, I never planned to let my own children in on that possibility.

An hour later, I broke away from my shuttle post to join Agatha briefly at karaoke, where AB was onstage, and pPod was in queue. There, on the bench next to her, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon.. an afternoon not really due to end much sooner than 4... were fish. Two. In baggies.

She looked at me, saw my skepticism, and dared me to deny Patrick this small victory. "See Mama? Now Annabeth has her cat and Sebastian has his cat and I have my FISH! Lightning and Bolt! Lightning is the bright one." He beamed.

I had no room to argue with either of them - Patrick, SO pleased to imagine sharing his home with his new finny friends, and Agatha, tethered out of kindness and necessity to my hyped-up, sticky-fingered five-year-old for what would be some ten hours of the day.

Agatha stopped at the pet store post-fair and helped Patrick select, and then purchased, extravagant accommodations. No stranger to sociological studies, and a caregiver to all, she would ensure these particular young ones were afforded every opportunity for success. Tank, filter, goldfish conditioner, gravel, a castle.

Shuttle-duty complete, I collected fish and tank and son and spent an exhausted hour setting up their tank (no fishbowl for these fair fish!) cursing under my breath all the while. Patrick said, quietly, "they're mine, right Mama? All mine?" and I melted a little. We filled it, added drops to the water, floated the bags to acclimate. Patrick was uncharacteristically still, mesmerized.

It didn't register when Patrick, at 6:15 Sunday morning, woke me to say "Mama! I fed them! Just one flake each like you said. Lightning is still sleeping but Bolt ate his!" It did later, though. Hours later, church and errands later, I approached the aquarium with knowing dread. And there he was, bobbing in the filter flow. Dead.

We buried him, said fishy prayers, sprinkled water over his grave. I reassured Patrick that the living fish was Lightning, not Bolt. That in fact, his 'favorite' was still fine. Sebastian, the ten-year-old skeptic, positioned himself in front of the tank later saying, "this is so depressing, Mom. You know I'm just sitting here watching this other fish die."

Lightning (formerly known as Bolt), swimming along just fine, and chewing on another flake, looked hale and hardy. I tsked at Bass for his pessimistic outlook.

Gav had gotten home from his trip in time to take the Littles all to Annabeth's lacrosse game, to give me time and space for a leisurely lunch with a traveling friend. After delivering Tarra to her Phoenix-bound plane, I came home to an empty house and went straight to the tank.

There he was. At the bottom of the tank. Twisted sideways in the plastic foliage. Bobbing in that telling way.

I flushed him. And I went to the pet store, hoping to find his doppelganger. On the way I called Gavin and urged him to stay away from home. Stall somewhere. Keep Patrick out of the house. I would buy two, pretend I had brought home a new 'friend.'

It was blatant hypocrisy, since I can vividly remember hearing of friends' parents doing both such things when I was a child, and being horrified at the dishonesty, the betrayal. In this role, years later, it seemed the only obvious option.

At the pet store, I stood in front of the tank stocked with hundreds of 30-cent fish, all looking exactly like Lightning (and somehow not at all). Phil talked me out of them. They die, Phil-the-professional said. They all die. They pee through their skin, he said. And you can't keep up with the ammonia. Better you take two female bettas. Something that will live. Males would kill each other, and you don't want dead fish again. And look! They have bright colors. Even the females. And they still have fluttery fins, even though they are the less showy of the genders. They come with a two-week warranty, even. If they die, reassured Phil, just bring back the receipt. We'll replace them.

I bought a bluish betta and a reddish betta and betta conditioner and betta food, and a net - just in case.

I stopped by the bookstore where the stalling was happening and broke the news to Patrick. I brought him to the car and showed him the new fish. His adjustment was immediate. Names were a setback, since he wanted super heroes, and the fish were girl fish. But he puzzled through it.

Violet and Lava (Violet from the Incredibles, and Lava from Shark Boy and Lava Girl) appear to be thriving. They flutter and they sooth. And we think we'll make it past the warranty. Either way, I bet it's not the last we see of Phil.

Roar

Something tells me that to be disciplined, and to have meaning here - to be followed, to be watched to be read...I have to write something.

Mostly, I write what moves me, I write "what matters," and the topics are things that flood in at some point - idle thoughts that I hear myself shape into something else - so I add them here.

Right now, today, these days of late - nothing is striking me. And I know it isn't that nothing matters - it's that my vision is a little clouded with the one-two punch of unknowns and niggling fears.

In the scheme of things - the grander scheme - I know I am being shaken awake.

I took on, in my work, things so grossly not suited to me that they overshadowed the parts I did well, and enjoyed. The wrong bits accelerated the inevitable, and I lost my job.

I am certain I am learning from this. And I am certain there is work out there to be done that I will do better.

It is my responsibility right now to stay positive. To perk up, to take the steps I need for the Next Thing and to make home life, and writing life work.

I need to be nicer to my Littles, to engage sooner and more fully. I need to look for a job, certainly, but the search can be far less stress-inducing than was the job, if I let it.

As Pollyanna-ish as it sounds, I know for certain-sure that rolling around in the muck of it will not improve one itty bitty thing.

Telling myself I had that in mind, I skipped a dinner last night with a steady, gentle group of friends who would have asked questions and added kind support. I wasn't in the mood. I didn't want to talk about me - because I say too much. And it bores me right now.

And in retrospect, I know - of course I know - that I traded on the good bits of the evening, and the wine, the perfect mashed potatoes, and the laughter that also would have come. Because I wanted a little wallow and some navel-gazing. Alone.

Enough of that.

People around me help. And I will let them. And I will leave my belly-button as often as possible to glean knowledge and reach for different perspectives.

So. As Agatha (the glue of the aforementioned group) says, quoting a friend of hers (who's prominent husband had died) - no pats, please.

As Doris advised, I will take my occasional medicinal tequila shots. Only the good stuff. And I will find room and reason to laugh with my littles while no work to-do list looms.

As Ali advised, I will take the funded trip to Florida and I will breathe in salt and sun.

As Monsignor advised, I will send my resume far and wide.

And as pPod would advise - it is time to paint on my tiger face and try my hand at conquering.

I welcome - and request - any advice you may also have to add.

Patchwork

I welcome rain. The cleanse, the built-in excuse to rent a movie. The sound of it, the smell. The green of grass after the film of dry days has been rinsed.

I love obtrusive weather, in fact - when it's destructive and interesting. High winds, rain, snowstorms, hurricanes. The aftermath, the mess - changes to the landscape, alterations to expectations - sad -yes- and also fascinating. This sense of control we have, this false security - these plans we continue to make - outside. Knowing, as we do, that Weather might come and render those plans null, irrelevant.

Storms this week in Atlanta. Nonsensical storms, rain for days. Flooding. Ponds and lakes and rivers where there were puddles and gutters and trenches. Schools closed, businesses claimed. The flooding at once terrible but, again, interesting. I was afforded the luxury of watching it from a removed place - where the only affect on me is some mildly stir-crazy kids, a wet and confused cat, and some driving detours.

Until Agatha called today. Godmother to my first, Agatha is a motivator. She calls others to action. Through tears she told me that another friend, Dee, had her basement wall collapse yesterday. No flooding per se, but saturated ground that couldn't take it, a wall that couldn't take it, and suddenly her basement was rubble and georgia clay.

Dee quilts. I know her from years ago when I would do Habitat with some regularity - I was single and could offset my selfishness and mild debauchery with committed Saturdays with reliable friends and paint, hammers, laughter, and a little sweat. Dee was close to our chosen house leader, the one professional on the crew.

Through this connection, I knew her peripherally. I tried to know her better when several of my Habitat friends started spending their after-Habitat time quilting. I wanted to join them, and after asking many times, in various ways, finally figured out they didn't want me at their bee.

I was a little wounded. They were an inclusive group, but they had their reasons.

I thought I could quilt. I wanted to try. I was pregnant, and worried a little that if I didn't learn then, I may not get a chance.

My mother and grandmother quilted - and I loved the process - selecting fabric, patterns, laying them out. When I was sixteen they made me one at my grandmother's initial impulse to make them for all grandchildren starting with me. I picked it all - Laura Ashley pinks and greens and burgundy. Very eighties colors. Very considered. (Grandchildren after me got log cabin, no questions asked...)

Then, at the baby shower for my first born, the Habitat friends and quilters presented me with - a quilt.

They had been working for my baby.

A big, beautiful twin+ sized quilt. Too big for a crib. In watermelon and apple green and yellow - the colors of my nursery in our then loft. I was touched, and stunned, that people, some of whom I only knew tangentially, would make this for me. For my baby - not yet arrived.

I learned, much later, that Dee had joined "the quilting aunties" (as I referenced them to my toddler son, during prayers, under that same quilt) when she lost her son. The quilting became her therapy. Her tears, I thought, strengthened the threads, ensured that love worked all the way into the batting.

Flash ahead ten years: Agatha's call today was that, in the disaster that was the collapse of the basement wall, rubble claimed many of Dee's grandmother's quilts. Quilts that were now sopping wet and tinged clay-orange. Dee needed to find, she said, a laundromat with front loaders, to try to salvage them. To get them rinsed and spun out and air dried and rid of clay and water.

Not yet home, I turned my car around. I drove to Dee's. I took the bags of quilts. I went home. And I washed them (on delicate, in my front-loading washer) all day.

As each one (12 of them) came out of the dryer (on air dry) I touched them. I laid them out. I felt the piecework, and the stitches on top. The patterns of color, of shape, and then the shadow patterns on top - geometric and organic, colorful and white, patterned and solid. Quilts of many sizes. I laid one, fresh from the dryer, on pPod, at nap time.

Each quilt made by someone for someone. Each one stitched with love, with thought. Over the course of year, or two. While babies were born and grown ups died. Prayers and laughter and tears worked into the fabric. Each one. Decades ago, all of them.

Picnics had been eaten on these quilts. Love made, tears dried, babies warmed. Wrapped around some small person's shoulders to be capes. Draped over chairs as forts. Revered, now, as treasures. In the rubble that covered a lifetime's treasures - the quilts were the thing that needed saving.

I never have quilted. Never made, with my hands, something so lasting or so deliberate. Utilitarian beauty - scraps transformed. Bright happy crafted from the ordinary. Made to be taken for granted. To be relied upon.

Washing them seemed the least I could do - I had to do. It felt good to repay, in some small way, Dee, other quilters I have known, the quilts that have warmed me, and the rain.