Back at the Mall

"I saw that," I say.

"Saw what?' he says. He is all innocence.

I nod to the beautiful blond that has just breezed past us. I noticed her, I know he noticed her.



"I don't know what you're talking about." His stock answer for when I bust him for looking at other women. He has done it since the day I met him, on more than a few occasions I have had to ask him to close his mouth lest he catch flies. He still denies it....every time.


We are back at the mall again after twenty-five years. There was a time where we shopped together quite a bit. He denies this vehemently too. Especially if his friends are around. It was before we were married he says, he did a lot of things with me he didn't really want to do. He contends that he only went shopping with me because he thought he was going to get something out of it. And, he adds, I was much nicer back then.


He knows way better now.


But today we are back. Well, truthfully, we've been back before, but we are at the mall in the no kid mode and everything feels a little....different. We go to lunch and yes, still when I see the strollers, I pause. He does too. We look at each other and know what we are both thinking. Both kids away at school is an adjustment. Our house is empty and feels strange.




We adjust differently, but together. And things have kept us busy.


My husband, like a lot of people these days, has been working like a crazy person, often well into the night. I, on the other hand, have the same schedule, but my job is in jeopardy every year. I worry about my husband, because like most men, he's obsessed with our financial future. He can recite line and verse of our retirement investments in his sleep. He worries about it constantly. I am a horse with blinders on. My greatest financial achievement is when I can find the checkbook. My husband has folios and spreadsheets. I forgo buying lunch for a week to put money in my new boot stash. This is where financial planning begins and ends for me.


Anyway, back to the mall.


We sit down in our booth. He orders a beer, I order a glass of wine, and it feels fun. This is a part of the new that's kind of nice. No soccer games to go to, so why not? Of course I ruin the moment by imagining myself loaded on our front steps hollering for my long gone, grown kids to come in for lunch.

"I think you should buy something for yourself," I tell him.

"Jane, you buy enough for the both of us," he says.


Everything but a door and welcome mat; I walk right into that one.



"I'm serious," I say. "You're working your butt off and you're stressed out all the time--buy yourself something that gives you pleasure." Our pretty waitress fills his water glass, he smiles at her.

"Not that," I say.

Again with the 'what?' Some things never change.


"Honey, life can't be all work and no play, no wonder you're miserable," I say.



He reminds me for the gazillionth time that we currently have two kids in college. State colleges and no aid, still not chump change.

"No," he says. He changes the subject. "Why do you insist on using chop sticks when you are so unbelievably bad at it?" I remind him that we are at P. F. Chang's. He asks me how many Caucasians I see, then asserts no one will take offense should I cease flinging food around.

"What do you want?" I persist. "I want to not have to work so hard, I want to be more certain of our future. I want you to stay out of that temple you call The Gap," he says.

"Honey what do you really want?" I ask. "Really want?" he asks. "Yeah, really, if you could just buy yourself a gift today?" I ask, hoping.

He pauses. I have been fed and lubricated with wine, the talking will continue. Indefinitely...He knows this.

I want a new stylus," he says finally. "A stylist?" I ask. I am momentarily worried. Is this going to be one of those conversations where my life permanently changes. Upshot, I would have been right about the mall back in the day. It's always nice to be right. Maybe...

"A new cartridge for my turntable," he says. Giving me the 'I don't care if you bleach it; you are still blond to the core' look.

My husband is a true vinyl snob. Anything and everything he has ever really loved musically he hunts ravenously for in vinyl. I cannot tell you how many musty dark shops I have followed him into looking for The Who's "Who's Next?" or Dire Straits' "Brothers in Arms" in vinyl. I hate these places and annoy him relentlessly when he makes me go with him. "Oh honey, I found what you're looking for," I say. I hold up a Toni Basil "Hey Mickey!" album. He looks up, back down, shuffles through. I do not amuse him.

"Jane the stylus I want is almost five hundred bucks," he says. I try not to look shocked. If the man ever knew what I spent on art supplies, I would need a three day head start.

"You love music, you listen to it almost every day, and I know it relaxes you. Just buy it," I say. "It's a lot of money," he sighs. "But not if you truly get enjoyment from what you're buying," I say.

I'm afraid I'm losing ground. He is so practical. For the millionth time I wonder how we've lasted so long. But I know why, and that's why I am being a pain in the ass today.

Four years ago this man converted part of our house into an art studio for me. New layout, new walls, new windows, the right lighting, shelving, a work table, closets-- right down to French doors and crown molding. For an art studio. It was not cheap. All this for me to paint mediocre paintings of doe-eyed women and flowers, because painting gives me pleasure. You could drive by my modest colonial twenty times and never know the gift that is inside my house. He built this for me.

"Honey, the house is so quiet now," I say. "Sometimes I think it bothers you even more than me. Let's learn how to do this. You listen to music and I'll paint. We'll go to the mall again on weekend afternoons. We'll have a glass of wine in the middle of the day. We'll do other things in the middle of the day. When the kids are done with college we'll go to Europe. Together.

The check comes, he pulls out his wallet. "The mall I could take or leave," he says. "I don't like the mall--you do."

"We had fun today," I say.

"We did," he says and smiles.

We head to the stereo store.

Mrs. Twit

There are times that I wonder where I left my marbles when I decided to teach.

One case in point, children can and will say anything to you, then swear by an oath of God that you said it to them.

Five and six year olds are the worst culprits.


Me: Hey Ashley, how are you today? "Not good, my mother's Aunt Mary died," replies Ashley. "Oh, Ashley, I'm so sorry to hear that," I reply. To which Ashley states loudly and with gusto, "My brother says she's going to be buried and then rot down to her bones, and then maybe even her bones will rot."

An alarming and far too unfamiliar silence falls over my classroom.

"Ashley, this is a conversation for home, not school, finish your pretty picture, now."

The next day, there is an email from my principal in my inbox:
Jane,
We need to meet today. Mr. and Mrs. X would like to know why you told their Ashley that her beloved great aunt is rotting in her grave. Schedule an appointment with my secretary.


Wait...wwwwhhaat????

Then, there is the all too often asked, and always dreaded question from six year old Ashley:

How old are you?


"Old enough,' I say, bracing myself. I resign myself to what comes next. "Yeah, but how old is that?" Ashley replies. "Old," I concede reluctantly. "Are you like 70? Because my Grandma is, and you could be 70!' Ashley persists. "I am not seventy, not even close, finish your work now," I grind out in the softest of tones. I wonder again how much I'd make shelving books at Barnes and Noble. "Well, I think you're seventy because your eyes are all pinched in the corners like my grandma's"

Now, I ask, to whom do I write or call, now that Ashley has pegged me as seventy, quite loudly, I might add, when I am no where near seventy, and now feel like jumping off a bridge?

Another third rail in the teaching trade; changing your hairstyle in the middle of the year.

"You look different," says Ashley. "Well," I begin, "Mrs. DeWitt needed a change." "Why?" demands Ashley. "I just felt like it," I smile as Ashley reloads and takes aim. "I don't like it--you have boys' hair now," contends Ashley. "I don't like it either," agrees Ashley's best friend. Followed by a profusion of six-year-old nods in a general consensus of their dislike of my new hairstyle. I wonder if bagging groceries at Whole Foods isn't a quiet, yet more dignified profession. I could get a discount... "Ashley," I say, silently counting to ten, "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all."

"I'd have to be quiet a lot then, wouldn't I?" Ashley says, very slowly, hoping I will grasp her concept.

Every year, for a variable amount of time,I become: Mrs. Twit.

I have on occasion been called: Mrs. Do it, Mrs. Dwith, post heinous haircut--Mr. Dwith, hey you, Mommy, art teacher lady-- but I draw the line at Mrs. Twit. It's not the child who may have speech issues calling me Mrs. Twit. It's the other child in the classroom, undoubtedly with older siblings, who knows quite well what a twit is.

"My name, is Mrs. Deewittt," I enounciate. "It's right there on my door," steadying myself for battle.

"Mrs. Twit," challenges Ashley. Preliminary negotiations begin. "Let's not be silly, now, Ashley, my name is Mrs. DeWitt." "Missess Twit!" Ashley whispers. I am momentarily distracted by Ashley's ability to whisper, albeit loudly.

Level two is launched, distract and disable: That's enough now, let's finish our work."

Let's face it, the Mrs. Twit thing is funny. My fellow teachers and I laugh about it every year. My husband calls me that on a fairly regular basis. But one cannot be called Mrs. Twit all year and have any hope of managing a classroom.


But I must forge on. Level three: Recess is on the table. "We wouldn't want to miss recess, now would we Ashley?" I ask innocently knowing I've got the big stick.

"I like Mrs. Twit better" says Ashley.

Apparently recess is not all that any more. So much for my big stick.

"Ashley you and I need to have a little conversation in the hall." I kneel down to Ashley's level, ignoring the loud crack my knees make and the blissful silence that has overcome Ashley as a result. "What was that?" Ashley demands. "Never mind, Ashley, you know my name is not Mrs. Twit, and it's not nice to call me that." "But it's funny," says Ashley, looking at me with eyes that would rival Bambi's for innocence.

I grow battle weary. I want to tell Ashley that there are times I wish I kept my maiden name, and some days, my maiden life, for that matter, but this is not a conversation I want to have with a six-year-old, much less with my principal skulking around.

"Okay Ashley, you may call me Mrs. Twit, if I may call you Lashely," I say, realizing I am now at level four of the twit negotiations with Ashley and she is still, maddingly, at an advantage. "But I don't like Lashley," says Ashley. "Well, I don't like Mrs. Twit, either," I say.

"If you call me Lashley, I'll tell my mother," announces Ashley with a look that all but shouts 'Who's got the big stick now?'

I wonder if I am too old to join the National Guard.

An earsplitting scream bursts from my classroom and echoes into the hallway, and I realize that the twit negotiations will be tabled, as more pressing matters present.

Wrap: Ashley calls me Mrs. Twit, I ignore her, and go back to being Mrs. DeWitt after a few days.

Oh yeah, my marbles....

I find them from time to time. They often show up when Ashley hugs me and tells me she loves me for no apparent reason. She, and many other of her height challenged kind, have no problem doing this on fairly regular basis. A six-year-old has no filter, if you have a large zit on your nose, you will be called out.

But the flip side is where you find your marbles.

Gifts...

It was one of those average nights that meander into days, into weeks, and then months. A rush of family responsibility: work, an away basketball game for our son, and a heck of trek to get there. It was before the Garmin and navigation-- mapquest gave you hope-- being female, the willingness to stop anywhere and anytime to ask for more directions, gave one providence. My daughter and I were to meet my husband in far east edge of nowhere to watch our sixteen year old son play in a basketball game. It was December in New England, dark o'clock, before the real cold, before Christmas.

And after cancer.

My husband had been diagnosed at 44 with cancer and had had surgical treatment six months prior to this night. I will never forget this night that we as a family had played out, as we had done so many nights before, as do many families all over the place. We were not special. But the night was. It was the night I realized that I had everything I wanted, and would ever want, within arms’ reach. I knew it; l felt it, and the striking clarity of the feeling I had that night will never leave me.

First, the less than heartfelt remembrances.

My son made not one, but two, flagrant fouls, missed more shots than he made, and did not return my subtle "keep trying” smile from the bench. My fourteen year old daughter spent most of the game alternating between sighing in much martyred boredom, and texting her friends. My aforementioned husband looked at me at seven o'clock and asked "What's the story on dinner?" Code for, “it doesn't matter that you worked all day, and drove all the way out here, I'm still holding out hope that you will feed me at nine o’clock.”

My husband made the heavy sound of defeat as we pulled into a nice restaurant. My kids, a rare sound of unified contentment. The place was crowded for a Thursday night, a beer, a glass of wine, two cokes, and a cozy booth later, and we were closing in on the end of a long day.

We then did not commence into meaningful family discussion. Hardly. The kids argued, albeit for once quietly, over whether my son was going to drive my daughter to the dance that coming weekend. My husband and I waxed poetic over the merits of buying a new snow blower, or fixing the one we had.

However, somewhere in the din and lull of a humming restaurant, the everyday conversation of my ordinary family; I found a startling moment of clarity about my life that took my breath away. My eyes started to well up.

My husband looked at me and said, “What’s the matter?”

“I’m happy, I’m happy and I know it,” I said.

“Do you want to clap your hands--stamp your feet?” he said, in between a long pull from his beer.

“No…maybe..” I said, and smiled.

“Well good,” he said, “Because I’m not buying a new snow blower.”

He winked at me, and my daughter put a pin in the moment by demanding to know when we were ever going to get home.

We had taken two cars. My son drove home with me, and I quickly searched for a radio station that did not scream the delights of murder and pornography. Being out in the sticks, we ended up with an oldies station playing the Everly Brothers classic: “Let it Be Me.”

I remember it from one of the many great songs my dad used to play, and began to sing along. Needless to say, my son did not join me. But rather, looked around in quick panic, as if fearing that one of his friends may have miraculously appeared in the backseat.

God bless the day I found you…

“This is a stupid, stupid song, just turn the radio off,” he groaned. “God….” Again, a glance at the back seat.

I want to stay around you…

“Ugh,” he lamented.

I looked at my son and said, “Someday you’ll know what it feels like to be in love with someone. Do you know how much I want that for you? You’ll understand the song then.”

“If I ever do love someone, I wouldn’t play them this lame song,” was his final commentary, before he plunged into a teenage sulk into which I refused to follow.

We drove home in a somewhat companionable silence. He found his ipod, and I thought again about why this night seemed so special.

Everyone has a different story about when they hear the word cancer connected to someone they love. We all react differently. When my husband was diagnosed with, what turned out, a treatable cancer, our lives changed. There was the fear, the plunge into treatment, and then, the even more fearful: a pounding awareness of the finite nature of our lives together.

Later still, came another realization. On that cold December night, a gift came in the form of a profound recognition and gratitude for the ordinary but extraordinary nature of my life. No, I was never going to paint like the next Picasso, but I had what I really needed in life, and that was the love of my family. And the stellar recognition of its value.

Without your sweet love, what would life be?

That quiet December night many months later, I realized I had it all, even if I would never paint like Picasso.