The Crooked Steeple

sometimes things need to be just so before you move on

January 17th, 2015

I want to write about the bitter cold and how pretty the snow looks over everything. I want to write about the twenty-three brown apples hanging from the tree in our backyard and how my five-year-old daughter noticed them.

“There are more apples that won’t let go than there were last year,” she said to me as I mixed together chopped pickles, mayo, garlic powder, salt and pepper, and tuna for sandwiches.

“I know, buddy. Last year there were eleven. The year before that nine. Now, there’s twenty-three.”

“Why are so many hanging on?”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

“I bet it’s because they don’t want to die,” she said. And she ran away down the hallway to play cops and robbers with her brother. Something they started doing over Christmas break that really has a hold on them and has surprisingly brought them closer together.

I spent a long time mixing together the ingredients for my lunch. My wife thinks I’m crazy with many things and one of them is the amount of time I put into the preparation of food. Whatever I make—breakfast, a simple sandwich, dinner, or even BBQ—I have to start early because the process is like a ritual to me. Sometimes things need to be just so before you can move on.

Maybe that’s what the apples are waiting for.

Maybe my daughter needed that break in her day—looking out the big kitchen window when she was supposed to be arresting her brother for burglary. And maybe I needed her. To stop and remind me that time is running out and that there’s nothing we can do, but hang on and hope, even after the last bit of sunshine is gone, the nutrients are no longer working their way up the roots toward us, and all we can do is wait it out—the bitter, wintry cold that is inevitable and keeps coming, working us toward the end by way of snowdrifts that sparkle like diamonds, lopsided snowmen with crooked smiles, and a soft white blanket that covers the world.

(for B.K.: enjoy the otherside, big guy…we’ll miss you)
his boy takes a perfect swing at a piñata

January 17th, 2015

My son is eight, but looking like he’s twelve. He’s grown four inches since April. He is lean and strong and already getting too old for things like piñatas at holiday parties. Last night, my wife and I watched as he lined up with the other kids—there must have been ten of them—and he took his turn swinging a wiffle ball bat at a Minion from Despicable Me that none of the other kids could crack. He was not the oldest or the biggest. He does not play baseball, but has a natural feel for all things athletic, so when he gripped that bat like Ty Cobb it took some parents by surprise. With two swats he freed the treats locked inside and for forty-five seconds, as the other kids crawled around on the garage floor snatching candy up and putting it in paper bags, my boy was King.

These are the things I remember. The moments I want to bottle, save, and sip during later days when S.B. and I have the house to ourselves, more padding in the nest, and we’re living a life without kids. I will be writing. She’ll be painting. We’ll travel, socialize, be active in the community, but nothing will replace being Mom and Dad. And even though the path of parenthood is not lined with accolades, roses, and opportunities for rest, I’ll miss it.

I will stand at the big front window one Christmas Day waiting in silent excitement because he and his wife and kids are coming home for the holidays. It will have been months since I’ve seen him, hugged him, heard him say, “Dad.” And the wait will almost be too much. I’ll pour wine or mix myself a drink and pace the long living room keeping my ear tuned to the quiet street so as soon as I hear tires crunching snow in the driveway and car doors slamming, I’ll shout to S.B., “They’re here!” And as he walks up the steps onto the porch I’ll remember.

Pushing him on the swings, teaching him how to move his little arms and feet. Back-and-forth. Back-and-forth. So he knew what it was like to be free. Just a boy in the world in mid-air. Smiling.

Training wheels off and holding the back of his bicycle seat as we travelled up and down the sidewalk in the hot sun. Sweat pouring out of me. Running and running alongside of him as he tried again and again to master the art of balancing on two wheels.

My unstoppable smile as I watched him cast and reel at the break wall of the boat harbor. His practice making perfect as the sun set and bass surfaced and he threw lures with confidence and accuracy and told me he never wanted to go home, that he wanted to just be there with me. Fishing.

The shot of warmth deep in my gut after he spent two hours trick or treating in blowing snow and cold only to come home, turn on our front porch light, and pass the candy he earned out to kids still brave enough to be making the rounds that night.

Every day, little surprises. Hope and faith. A building up of belief in the midst of all the hard work of raising a son in a world that I know will not be as kind to him as he deserves. And when it’s all said and done and he has gone off into the world to succeed and fail and do all those things I’ve done, as selfish as it seems, I just want him to remember me as his Dad. The guy sitting in a metal folding chair at the back of the crowd getting a little teary-eyed—filled with joy—as his boy takes a perfect swing at a piñata.

~ K.J.
one arm, a dead cat, cancer

January 17th, 2015

It’s hard to give up when you think of someone else. It’s not as easy to pity yourself when you consider your kids and parents, your siblings and strangers. All too often we exaggerate the severity of our aches and pains, misfortune and loss because we’re focused on our own desires—our so-called needs and wants.

If we could just remember the others.

The smiling young man working the cash register at Wal-Mart. Scanning groceries, tallying totals, bagging everything up, as he talks with my wife, jokes with my kids, and I put full bags into the cart. When he hands me the receipt and wishes me Happy Holidays, I finally notice he’s got only one arm. My kids and wife have not let on as if they’ve noticed anything, so as I load groceries into the backseat and everyone buckles in, I look long and hard at my fingers and hands and I ask my family, “Was that kid missing an arm?” All of them groan and roll their eyes and wonder at my lack of perception.

The woman in the rusted out minivan with the half-flat rear left tire. She stops suddenly and parks across both lanes of traffic on Washington Street so she can pick a dying, big fluffy cat from the pavement and walk—tears streaming down her face—from door to door, asking each person she meets, “Is this kitty yours?” Cars buzz around her van and honk and people shout out their windows, but she does not hear them. She wraps the cat into her coat, sets it on her lap and drives to the vet to have it put down.

A four-year old girl up before the sun on Christmas morning. She walks across the cold, dirty floor, down the hallway toward the living room. Mom’s told her that she doesn’t think Santa’s coming this year, but she knows better and has hope even as she walks past her Mom, passed out and snoring, cigarette still burning in an ashtray balancing on the arm of the couch. The small plastic tree is lit. The red and blue lights twinkle and warm her and she sits down quietly to pray—not for gifts or candy or for a cure for the cancer that’s eating away her bones—but just to capture a glimpse of Saint Nick coming to her home.
wonder and worry and making ends meet

January 17th, 2015

To Goodwill tonight

For a kid’s Christmas sweater and

just to get out of the house

And be together and breathe a little better

In a big space filled with clothes and books,

Toys, lamps, skis, pots and pans,

And furniture.

Everything so beautifully worn,

Full of life,

Imperfect.

And calling to me.

S.B. and Oogie found a tiny, warm vest

Covered in cheetah print.

A pair of pink leggings.

A birdbath.

Little Man found a hockey stick,

A plastic dagger, a stuffed horse.

I found a NITE STAND for $9.99

That I’m sure was hers—

The elderly lady I sensed in House Wares—

That led me away

From a $4 yellow pressure cooker,

Past an end cap of coffee mugs and

To the wooden, 1940-something charmer

With dark finish, smooth round edges,

And a drawer lined with yellow, flowery wall paper.

Something like this—

Just an object saved from a thrift store—

Tells stories

Or holds secrets that draw us in.

These items somehow have always been ours.

Waiting

And whispering

In basements and attics and behind garage doors.

And as soon as we see them, we know it,

Feel reconnected, and we take them home.

To sit, not by my bed, as it did for her so many years ago—

Holding her Bible, her rings, her hairpins and teeth—

But to sit by the couch I come to at night

So my vodka tonic is not far from reach

And I can unwind,

Relax, and revel in the rest that arrives

After another long day of wonder and worry and making ends meet.
A little wine, A Charlie Brown Christmas, and the four of us…

January 17th, 2015

A little wine. A Charlie Brown Christmas. The four of us—S.B., Oogie, and Little Man—putting together the tree we got for free from The Salvation Army six years ago when we lived in Garden City. Things have changed. We’re north now. Living three blocks from Lake Huron, just a few ticks from the 45^th parallel. We’re comfortable. The stretch to make ends meet week to week is not as long and painful as it used to be. We wake with thanks and push through the days with hope, determination, and faith. At night—after something as simple as assembling a six-and-a-half foot tall fake Balsam tree—me and S.B. hug the kids, say prayers and finally get a chance to decompress. Slowly unwind and breathe and remember what it’s like to be ourselves again.

She is drinking wine and sketching or drawing or painting or reading or playing a game or listening to music or watching TV. Finally, she is free from Mommy and Honey and where are my shoes and where is the remote and did you pay the bills and how does my hair look and can you put toothpaste on my toothbrush and I can’t find my keys and everything that makes being a wife and Mom so great but so excruciating.

I am drinking wine and writing and thinking and realizing that the older I get the more I love people but the more apt I am to leave them alone and let them be and have them find out one day that they’ve waited too long. Time is up and they did not reach out or call or remember to do those things that put more good into the world than bad. Sometimes it’s just best to leave the ball in someone else’s court and move on with your wife and kids and fake tree and silent prayers and believe that in the end all of us will be together again.

In less than an hour, I’ll be with S.B. I’ll walk into the living room smiling. Shining a bit because I drink too much sometimes and because I had moments to myself to click the keys, make my marks, and string together—not words—but sounds and I will hum a little a song and hug her and we will stand and sway slowly back and forth, round and round, and I’ll feel that feeling I get, the one that tells me we’ve loved each other all along. Before today. After tomorrow. And everywhere in between.

~ K.J.
the benefit of the doubt

January 17th, 2015

You can never know what’s going on inside another person. Sometimes, the surface cracks. We see small tears, a biting of the lip, restlessness and moaning when they sleep. Other times it’s red cheeks, blood-shot eyes, a furrowed brow. But most of the time, people with guts and good sense and hope just keep on keepin’ on. They plug away through the days no matter what ails them. They may have been beaten. Molested as a child. They could be broke. Frightened. Sad. Their Dad may have just died. And you would never know it. And that’s why it’s important to give people the benefit of the doubt. That’s why we should be nice to each other and reach out and give. That’s why we’re here, folks. To live and help others thrive and to put goodness into the world. It’s not always easy. We snap at our kids because we’re tired. We give our wives headaches with our selfishness. But the chance we’re given every day is to recognize it—our grand lot of faults—and make sure that we’re allowing that in others. Nobody’s perfect. Not anyone here on earth. And that’s why we must keep trying to make the decisions that will build our spirit and the spirits of others so all of us make it to the other side.
the December surf is frightening

January 17th, 2015

A big wind moves Lake Huron wave after wave. They roll and crest white and break in the bay and push ice against ice so there is a constant roar. Our inland sea is angry with the way Mother Nature threatens its freedom.

“Hear that?” I ask Oogie. She is five and tiny and I am her everything.

“Yes, Daddy,” she says and holds my hand as we walk the bi-path at Bay View Park.

My wife, S.B., looks at us and smiles. She’s pretty and bright-eyed and put together so well and so naturally that she looks like she belongs everywhere. Times Square. Navy Pier. Northern California. Iowa. Portland, Oregon. And here—our hometown—Alpena, Michigan. She is the sun, the moon, the stars I cannot see as we walk under the orange lights and I wish for all of us to keep this time. This moment. So we never part.

The lake howls.

“Sounds a little scary, doesn’t it?” I say to her.

“Not really,” she says, but that’s my S.B. She’s unafraid and graceful and somehow loves me unconditionally. At my best and my worst. In my past and into the days we’ve yet to know. Sometimes, I’m sure we’ve done this all before.

The air is cold as it blows over the big rocks along the shoreline. And the sound of the December surf is frightening.

“I’m not scared,” Oogie shouts. She releases my hand and takes off running after her brother, Little Man. He is older and braver and smarter and faster and stronger than all of us and he is climbing the hill near the band shell. He flops down into the snow, calls for his sister to come join him. He’s eight and on top of the world.

S.B. stops to watch. I keep walking. Move away from the sounds and my selfish wishes until I’m near my favorite tree—a twisted elm—and its stark, gnarly presence is exactly what I need to forget that I’m perpetually tired and stressed and stretched too thin and that I am fortunate to have this simple moment with my wife and kids.
focused on the now

January 17th, 2015

A morning walk. The four of us holding hands. Past our shop—closed until Spring—then down 2^nd Avenue. Sleepy Alpena. Little Man and Oogie chattering. S.B. dreaming aloud. About art, the business, what may be waiting. In five years. A few months. Maybe just over the bridge.

Things can change suddenly. Weirdly. Without warning. But I don’t let it—my writer’s mind—get the best of me. Instead of tuning into the mess of movement that plays through continuously like motion pictures somewhere up there behind my eyes, I focus on the now.

Big wooden crate in the window of the antique store—we’re into those lately.

Puddles—winter today is melting away.

Oogie—fidgeting and fidgeting with her gloves.

Little Man—getting too far ahead.

“Stop!” I say.

He is caught up in one-foot-in-front-of-the-other. On the move. And when he is moving, he is much like me. Not thinking, but feeling. The warm sunlight. Lake Huron air. Wide open space that begs a boy to run.

“See that?” I ask.

He looks at the signal.

“Don’t walk,” he says.

“Exactly. Just wait a minute and then it will change.”

“Count to sixty,” says S.B.

I look to Oogie. She smiles. I look to S.B. She smiles. I look at Little Man and he is deep in the counting. He gets to 20 and the light changes.

“Hey!” he says. “That wasn’t sixty!”

“We got lucky,” says S.B. “We didn’t have to wait a full minute.”

On the bridge, we pass a short burly man. He’s in an insulated plaid shirt. Camo baseball cap. Wearing what looks to be safety glasses. He is fishing. No bucket. No tackle box. Just a pole. Line dangling all the way down to the black Thunder BayRiver that is filled with jagged white ice floes and happy ducks. I’m not sure what he’s after. If he’s after anything at all. And I know how it is sometimes—when you just want to get out, be near the water, alone—so I don’t say a word. The four of us pass the one of him in complete silence as the river pushes into the lake. Ice melts. The world spins round and we somehow hold fast to this—our place—just a horsefeather away from the 45^th parallel.

We walk.

Little man up front.

Me and S.B. side-by-side with Oogie close behind.

Another storefront. I see us. A reflection. A family passing by. And I see furniture I like but cannot afford.

There is the great theater we need more of.

The restaurant we’ve sworn off.

And as we pass Fletcher Street Brewery, I say to the kids, “Mommy and Daddy will be dancing there tonight!”

“We will?” S.B. asks.

The kids laugh.

“Sure,” I say, “Depends on how much we drink.”

She laughs. Smiles. And it is yet again one of those moments where I wonder how on earth this woman decided to shackle herself to me. A moody, stubborn man that always seems to want more than he has. Cannot function without writing. And fights daily to maintain the balance our family needs.

“Let’s run!” I say, and me and Oogie and Little Man run and run and run. When we stop, we all kind of go our separate ways. Little Man moves up the river walk. Far ahead to where Lady Michigan sits when the weather is warm and tourists are ready to spend, spend, spend. Oogie picks up small rocks. Stones. Names the ice floes as they drift by.

“A triangle!” she says. “A house! A diamond!”

And I stand there, looking at the river. Watching my boy. My girl. Looking back at my wife as she catches up. Slowly. At her own pace. Her curly locks bouncing. That contagious smile. And as the day warms and the river lets loose and the sun brings Spring to January, our town, our life, our choices look perfect. And I am humbled by the fact that things change suddenly. Weirdly. Without warning. And I am hopeful as we move through this motion picture.

Living dreams aloud.

Focused on the now.

~ K. J.