Today, before practice, our 7 year old daughter stood before me on our carpeted floor, one foot fidgeting on the other and her hands clasped in front of her. She looked embarrassed, or worried. I waited.
“We have to do butterfly in the meet,” she said.
She started swimming yesterday with the Blacksburg Orcas, our local parks and recreation summer swim team, and she has her first meet on Thursday. I stopped packing my poolside bag of reading material. “You don’t want to race butterfly, do you.”
She looked at the floor. “Not really.” She swung her shoulders, her little face serious. She fretted her thumbs, flapped her knee. Then she stopped. She dropped her hands to her sides and planted her bare feet on the soft carpet. She looked up at me and said, “I’ll have to swim butterfly if I go to the Olympics.” And her mind was made.
She walked across the room to her swim bag and talked to herself. She gestured with her right hand, palm up, as if explaining something to someone. “I need to watch more swim meets. I’ve got to see how they do butterfly. And I need to watch more Olympics.” She bent over and rifled through her bag. Towel: check. Goggles: check. Swim cap: check.
Over her shoulder she said, “Mom, isn’t there a summer Olympics? Is it soon?”
I smiled, thrilled by her determination, wondering if this is how Olympians begin. “Not til 2016, sweetie.” I put my hand on her back and nudged her towards the door. As I locked up she continued her self-chatter, swinging her swim bag, gesturing persuasively, pumping herself up to swim butterfly.
Egg casings, shells, and turtle grass: storm surge deposits on beach after Tropical Storm Andrea
The morning after Tropical Storm Andrea blew through, we rushed out to see what the Gulf of Mexico had deposited on the beach where we are vacationing. An ecological disturbance like that provides a rare, fleeting opportunity to find a bounty of sea life and new shells washed ashore. We got out early because we knew the beach would be crawling with other explorers picking over the seashells, just like we planned to do.
Mother of pearl inside pen shell
Dead Man’s Finger (orange sponge) washed ashore on Anna Maria Island after Tropical Storm Andrea
Variegated sea urchin on Holmes beach after Tropical Storm Andrea
Shells and waves on Anna Maria Island Gulf beach after Tropical Storm Andrea
Sea star washed ashore on Anna Maria Island after Tropical Storm Andrea
Lightning Whelk egg casing and purple sea urchin on Gulf beach after Tropical Storm Andrea
Horse conch egg casing on Gulf beach at Anna Maria Island after Tropical Storm Andrea
Sea pork (orange speckled blob) washed ashore on Southwest Florida beach after Tropical Storm Andrea
Sea pens, shells, and turtle grass on Gulf beach after Tropical Storm Andrea
Sea weed and shells on Anna Maria Island Florida Gulf beach after Tropical Storm Andrea
Tiny white starfish on pen shell, found on beach after Tropical Storm Andrea
Yesterday, and most days here at Anna Maria, the beach is a smooth expanse of white sand dotted with coquina shells, calico scallops, jingles, and venus clams. But this morning when we stepped onto the wet sand, purple plastic beach bucket in hand, the shells on the beach were so abundant, they hurt our feet to walk on them. They glistened, wet with sea water, like pale pink pearls and polished ivory. Barnacle-encrusted pen shells – intact bivalve husks eight inches long and shaped like mussels, brown on the outside, but deep pearly purple on the inside where the mollusk once lived – were as plentiful as calico scallops usually are. Racks of turtle grass clumped in piles where the Gulf pushed them ashore. We saw a family, each child with a starfish in one hand and a stick in the other. They squatted on their haunches and used the sticks to pull piles of turtle grass apart, searching for tiny treasures in the rich mats. We followed their lead and grabbed pen shells to pick through the grass. We found sea urchins, sea whips (soft corals in purple and red), Sargassum weed, seas sponges, sea pork, tiny crabs, and egg casings of whelks and conchs. And scallop,s and cockles, and hermit crabs, and some kind of lavender-gray blob that looked like a snail who had lost her shell.
Every two steps on our walk one of us would exclaim, “Look at that shell!” or “What is that thing?” Our daughter counted 41 sea urchins on our quarter mile walk, and she was too overwhelmed by the abundance of sea shells to pick many out for collection. Vibrant orange shards of calico crab shell, spotted like leopard skin, jumped out in the sea of soft pink, and so she collected several crab carapaces. The beach crawled with curious collectors and kids with fists full of shells.
A field of seashells on Anna Maria Island after Tropical Storm Andrea
Ripples and bubbles in tidal pool on Anna Maria Island
Little girl shelling under blue sky on Anna Maria Island after Tropical Storm Andrea
Blue Sky over Anna Maria Island after Tropical Storm Andrea
Blue sky over Gulf of Mexico after Tropical Storm Andrea
Lightning whelk and silver-white jingle shell on Anna Maria Island after Tropical Storm Andrea
Our shell haul. Includes calico crab carapace, skate egg case (“devil’s purse), pen shell with barnacles, cockles, whelk, jingles, scallops
I’m not sure what the beach will look like tomorrow. The waves have gone down. Whereas the landscape yesterday was painted in gray and whiteand jade green, with hardly a shell to be found because waves washed all the way up to the dunes, the scene today is one of a sunny, subtropical, Florida Gulf beach. The sky is cornflower blue, the clouds are cotton white. The Gulf is a milky jade, the land is palm green, and the beach stretches in white, tan, sea grass, and a thousand shades of shell pink. Tomorrow, the scene may be completely different. The Gulf may recapture all its treasures with the next high tide, or shore birds may devour the urchins and sea stars and crabs, or perhaps there will be a fresh crop of sea life tossed ashore. Whatever tomorrow brings, we will be there with our buckets to explore it, in all its fleeting glory.
This is my entry for the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge: Fleeting. I apologize if the photo quality is lower than usual. I forgot my real camera, so these photos were taken with my phone. My laptop screen is also not great, so I couldn’t see the color very well when I edited. Hopefully I don’t get home and see that these are terrible.
Surfers at Anna Maria Island during Tropical Storm Andrea
We are visiting family on the Gulf coast of Florida, on Anna Maria Island, just north of Sarasota. Even though we are only six days into hurricane season, there is already a named storm churning 150 miles west of us in the Gulf of Mexico: Tropical Storm Andrea. It is surreal to watch the Weather Channel and hear them say my name over and over again, watching the storm track towards my former homes of Tampa and Savannah.
To be honest, it is thrilling.
I’ve always loved hurricane season. There is something about the massive storms that is intoxicating. I grew up on the Atlantic coast, and we dodged a lot of storms in my lifetime. I never looked forward to a direct hit – that was never what I wanted – but I loved being on the edge of the storms. I loved eating peanuts and watching the storm tracks, wondering if we’d get any weather from each new storm. I loved the walls of rain, the bent palm trees, the roar of wind. The rumble of thunder, like the one I just heard as I typed that sentence.
This morning, I awoke to palm fronds rustling against my window. I moved out on the covered porch of our condo to feel the storm and thought, “It’s not so bad.” I sipped coffee and listened to rain spatter on a cement patio below. Wind rippled the surface of puddles in the parking lot. Andrea pushed pounding surf ashore, and I heard waves crashing on the beach a block away. The wind was constant, but not fierce. Leaves swooshed as loudly as the Gulf’s waves – it was difficult to distinguish the two sounds – but when I looked at the cabbage tops of palms, the fronds only swayed. There was no whipping of leaves or bending of trunks.
Now, though. Now, it’s getting real. Rain is not falling – it is racing inland in white puffs on a horizontal plane at eye level with our second floor window. Seven foot fronds on the Royal Palm beyond our porch whip and snap in the wind that blasts off the Gulf of Mexico.
After the kids got up, I checked the tide tables. I wanted to see the waves at high tide, and was filled with glee when I saw that we would be able to catch the only high tide of the day: 9:50 am. We pulled on our swim suits and ran out into the storm to see the raging sea.
“We’re not getting in – it will be too dangerous,” I said as we trotted down the stairs.
Our nine year old groaned.
“The waves are going to be bigger than you, buddy. You are not getting in.”
Our bare feet splashed puddles on the sidewalk as we raced out of the condo complex. Rain pelted us and wind stung our eyes, and we could barely see the waves for the sea spray and driving deluge. The kids hugged their shoulders, and shivered, and shouted over the wind, “We’re going back in!”
“Okay!” I yelled. I watched six foot surf crash onto itself. The Gulf here at Anna Maria Island is normally as calm as a swimming pool. In the tropical storm, though, rain scoured its surface, sea spray lifted in saline clouds, waves frothed like rabid mouths, and white foam blew from their crests. I looked up the beach. “Oh my God! There are surfers out in this!”
I chased the kids back to the condo. “I’m getting my camera!”
Unfortunately, I forgot our real camera, so I wrapped my phone in a hand towel and ran back down to the beach. I headed up the beach toward the surfers, snapping rain-drenched pictures as I went. The wind didn’t feel too bad and I thought maybe the storm was calming. I watched sheets of rain pour down on those boys and men who bobbed like corks in the wild sea. I thought Mom-thoughts like, “It’s so dangerous!” and “There are no life guards!” and “Aren’t they cold?” Then a wave of Gulf water washed over my feet and it was warm as bath water, and I knew they were alright. I watched the surfers a moment longer, then, cold myself, I turned back.
It was then I felt the ferocity of Andrea. The wind had been at my back before, but now it blew full force into my face. The stinging rain felt like hail on my bare skin, and I tipped my body forward at 30 degrees to force my way into the gale. I had to shield my eyes with my hands. The rain felt like paper cuts on my eyeballs if I didn’t. Superfine sand blasted my shins as it blew unobstructed across the long expanse of beach, like the storm was rubbing my skin with sandpaper. It took me twice as long to stagger back to the condo as it took to race to the mad surfers.
Surfers on beach at Anna Maria Island during Tropical Storm Andrea
Sea Spray and dark sky from Tropical Storm Andrea at Anna Maria Island
Surf at Anna Maria in Tropical Storm Andrea
Now I am safely indoors and the winds of Andrea roar outside. She’s out there stirring things up. The sea churns beneath the storm, and tomorrow, we will walk down the beach and find treasures the Gulf has spit from its belly out on the shore.
Until then, we will watch Tom & Jerry while the wind blows. Maybe we’ll go see a movie. And if I’m feeling penned in tonight, and like I need my own stirring up, I might have to celebrate the thrill of the first named storm of the season – Andrea! – with a Hurricane.
One morning, when the kids were 5 and 7, and I was standing at the chopping block cutting crusts off sandwiches, I heard our son say to his little sister, “Do you know the ‘D’ word?”
He and our daughter slurped cereal at the kitchen table a few feet behind me. I paused imperceptibly, remained facing forward, and wrestled gently with a plastic sandwich bag, taming it into quiet, unrustling submission. Where was he going with this? I tried to remain silent so I could hear our daughter’s response.
“D-U-M?” She said.
I relaxed, smiled to myself, and stuffed the bagged sandwiches into lunch boxes. I pulled the rinsed strawberries towards me from the far corner of the board and patted them dry.
“What about the ’S’ word?” he asked. I stiffened.
“Umm. S-T-U-P-I-D.”
My shoulders softened. How precious that she was spelling the “bad words” out instead of saying them. I sliced berries and pretended I wasn’t listening.
Our son was quiet a moment, probably chewing his mini-wheats. I dared not look lest I give myself away. “What about the ‘H’ word?” he asked.
“H-A-T-E.”
Oh my goodness, be still my heart. Did I teach them this, that “hate” is a bad word? If so, major mom kudos to me. I tucked the strawberries next to the sandwiches and smiled smugly to myself about my parenting skills. Our son asked, just as I was about to zip up a lunch box, “Do you know the ‘F’ word?” I busied myself with wiping the board instead of securing the noisy zipper.
“F-A-T?” our daughter asked.
“Nooooo…”
“F-A-R-T?”
I could feel our son smiling. I chuckled, too. “Nooooo…”
Wait. What could it be if not “fat” or “fart?” Well, obviously you and I know what it could be, but if the kids didn’t know the “D,” “S,” or “H” words, how on earth would they know the “F” word?
“I don’t know,” our daughter said. “What is it?”
“F-U-K,” our 7 year old son said.
Oh my God. He knows. He knows! How does he know this?!
Okay, act casual. I folded my cloth, picked up a lunch box, and took a deep breath.
“Hey baby,” I said, turning my body toward them at last, nonchalantly sealing the lunch box, not freaking out. Not correcting his spelling. “Where did you hear that word?” We don’t say that word around the kids. Maybe he heard it on the bus. There were fifth graders on the bus, and he was only in second grade. The big kids must have talked about it. That’s how he knew it was a bad word. Surely second graders weren’t talking about it. Surely.
His sister lost interest and cleaned up her bowl. He shrugged and said, “I dunno.”
This conversation could go anywhere. Why it’s a bad word, why kids shouldn’t say it, who is offended by it, why some people use it, whether their dad and I ever use it. How much do I say? I decided: as little as possible. “You know not to use that word, right?”
“I know,” he said, and slurped the last spoonful of cereal milk. “I don’t even know what it means.”
Well, that’s good. “Okay, if you have any questions, you can ask me. For now I’ll just tell you it’s a word that is very offensive to a lot of people, and children should not use it, especially since you don’t know what it means.”
“Okay Mom.” He got up and brought his bowl to the sink.
“Here’s your lunch box, buddy.” I kissed him on the top of his head, patted his back, and sent him off to brush his teeth. I collapsed in a kitchen chair and realized the baby years, which I’d thought were awfully trying, were hard in a physically demanding, bone exhausting, I’m-responsible-for-this-baby’s-every-need kind of way. But the elementary school years? Those are hard in a completely different way. They are demanding in an intellectual, emotional, I’m-responsible-for-helping-this-child-navigate-the-weirdness-of-life-and-become-a-decent-human-being kind of way.
With the kids’ births I thought, Now it begins. We navigated sleep deprivation and the endless repetition of diapering, feeding, clothing, cleaning. But after that morning’s dialogue – “Do you know the ‘F’ word?” – and facing the strain of trying to know the right thing to do, to react swiftly and intelligently, to be a responsible adult even when I thought the whole exchange was funny, I knew this stage of parenting was different than simply keeping our kids alive. As I’ve thought with countless turning points that came before (walking, talking) and will come after (puberty, rebelling), that morning after our “F-U-K” conversation, when I realized our kids would one day lose their innocence, I thought, Now this wild ride really begins.
“Oh my God, a lady’s slipper!” I pulled the camera out of my pack as I raced to the side of the road. I crouched down and snapped pictures as our nine year old son giggled.
“I guess Mom likes lady slippers,” he said.
I looked up and saw two more lady’s slippers, and then another one across the street. I zigzagged back and forth and shot 20 frames in the first five minutes of our hike. We hadn’t even made it to the trailhead yet.
Pink Lady’s Slipper on Old Rag Mountain, Shenandoah National Forest, Virginia
Bridge over Broken Back Run at trailhead of Old Rag Mountain, Shenandoah National Park
White wildflowers on Old Rag Mountain, Shenandoah National Park
The forest at the bottom of Old Rag Mountain was lush with the apple green of spring. Every shrub, every tree, had leafed out, and in their newness, no matter the species – oak, birch, maple – the leaves were identical shades of peridot. It was mid May, and we had hit Shenandoah at the peak of spring’s grandeur. Everywhere we looked, the forest floor was sprinkled with wildflowers.
My husband paused on the trail as I shot a close up. He looked out into the sea of green, then at me, photographing yet another tiny detail – a flower, a stone, a mound of moss. “Can you get a picture of the whole forest?”
“Sure,” I said. “It’s kind of hard to get a clear shot, though.” I usually can’t see the forest for the trees.
“I don’t care.” He gazed into the green. “I just like the forest here.”
Spring green forest on Old Rag Mountain, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
We continued up, and up, and up, stepping over millipedes, pressing our palms to boulders, burying our faces in mountain azaleas to inhale their honeysuckle scent.
“Dad, can we climb this rock?” We had been on the trail for an hour, but we still had a long way to go. The hike was going to be about six miles round trip, which would be the longest distance our kids had ever done. More than that, the final ascent was going to be extremely technical, with lots of bouldering. My husband looked worried. He checked the sky for the thunderclouds that were expected to roll in. The exposed rock scramble at the top would be a treacherous place in a storm.
“I think we should keep moving,” he said. “You guys need to save your energy. This is going to be the hardest hike you’ve ever done.” He checked the sky again. “There are going to be plenty of rocks to climb at the top.”
We had gotten an early start – we woke with the sun and were out of our tent by 6:30 am, boiling water for oatmeal and coffee. At 8 o’clock we were already on Skyline Drive, on our way to the trailhead. So other than the threat of storms, I wasn’t too concerned about time. I hiked at the back and stopped frequently to snap pictures. The diversity on the trail was irresistible, and I wanted to photograph it all.
“Andrea, is it okay if we don’t wait each time you stop? I don’t want to ruin everyone’s fun, but I really think we should get to the top, and then we can take our time on the descent.”
I shot one more closeup then put my camera away, “No, you’re right. I can take pictures on the way down.” I vowed to keep my camera stowed, and started hiking at the front, a little ahead of the family so that if I wanted to stop for a photograph, they could catch up while I shot. Not ten minutes later, I had my camera out again.
“Look at these flowers! They look like bells!” My son, then husband, then daughter hiked by. I passed them a few minutes later when they stopped for water, hiked ahead, then had my camera out again. “Look at all this trillium! There’s a whole hillside of it!”
My son laughed as he passed me. “You’re not doing a very good job of keeping your camera put away, Mom.”
Bell flowers on Old Rag Mountain, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
Hillside of trillium on Old Rag Mountain, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
Violet growing out of stone on Old Rag Mountain, Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
When we arrived at (what I now realize is) the famous rock scramble, I was glad for my husband’s prodding. I was blissfully ignorant about the hike – I hadn’t looked at the map or read anything about it – and as we lowered our kids into crevasses and watched them clamber over stones that curved toward a 3000 foot drop, I realized it was probably a good thing that I hadn’t. I would have seen things like this, from the National Park Service website:
Old Rag is Shenandoah’s most popular and most dangerous hike. The number of blogs and websites about this hike attests to its popularity. The number of search and rescue missions each year attests to its danger.
Our seven year old daughter was a natural on the rocks. She found her own hand and foot holds, and her tiredness (read: boredom) from the three mile (so far) hike vanished as she scrambled over gray granite. Our son accepted our help more often, and said it was “a little freaky” as he squeezed between 8 inch cracks in mountain stone, or jumped from one car sized boulder to another. The further we climbed on the stone, the more nervous I got about our descent. Getting up the rocks was hard enough – getting down them could be perilous. My husband and son were concerned about the descent too. Yet we continued to climb.
Rock scramble with view of summit on Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park
Rock staircase with levitating stone on Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park
Cool hanging boulder on rock scramble of Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park
Rock scramble on Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park
Rock scramble on Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park
Despite our height (and my nerves), the rock scramble was a grounding experience. I was connected to the earth up there, dependent on it, with my bare hands on rough granite, my hip against a boulder, my heart pressed to stone. When we finally reached the peak, after several false summits, I was exhilarated by the mountain under my feet and the big sky above, by boulders perched at the top of the world, by gentle rain falling from a blue sky. There were no thunderclouds in sight, and we had made it to the top. I surveyed a 360 degree view of the vibrant green of Appalachia in sunlight, an unmarred view of spring’s progression up the mountain sides – a profusion of apple green in the valleys thinning to brown bare branches at 3000 feet. And there wasn’t a building in sight. Just forest and rocks and mountains.
We high-fived the kids, and hugged them, and told them, “You are the coolest kids EVER. Look what you just did!” My husband told them, “You can have as many s’mores as you want tonight. You can eat them til you puke if you want to.” Our son shouted “YEAH!” and jumped from one boulder to another at the top of the mountain, while my heart jumped into my throat.
Boulder on false summit of Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park
View from summit of Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park
View from Old Rag Mountain Rock Scramble in Shenandoah National Park
View from Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoa National Park
Their dad and I discussed our options while the kids ate granola bars and the wind whipped our windbreakers against our skin.
“Is there another way off the mountain?” I asked. “That scramble is going to be really tricky on the way back down.” Our son had been pretty freaked out on the descent off of only one rock at Dragon’s Tooth in Blacksburg. There were scores of boulders to navigate here. And to be fair, I wasn’t excited about descending the scramble either.
“There’s another way down, but it’s five miles,” he said. Crap. That would add up to nine miles. Double the distance the kids are accustomed to doing.
“I want to go the long way,” I said.
“Me too,” said our son.
And so we did.
Near the bottom, our daughter took my hand and said, “We saw a lot on this hike today.”
Pink Wild Geranium on Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park
Dandelion on Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park
Spring forest with mountain azaleas on Old Rag Mountain in Shenandoah National Park
“Yeah, we saw lady’s slippers, and mountain azaleas, a hillside of trillium, and those wild geraniums you like,” I said. She had one of those tucked into her pig tail.
“And dandelions,” she said. “And a waterfall.”
“And those cute little white flowers, and the violets, and boulders perched on mountain tops, and spring climbing the forest. It’s amazing how pretty it can be when we don’t build all over everything. When we just allow nature to be nature.”
Our son nodded, a happy smile on his face. “I like it when nature is allowed to be nature.” And after nine miles that were supposed to be five, after climbing to an elevation of 3291 feet under his own power, after five hours of hiking, he ran off down the trail.
View of Old Rag Mountain from overlook on Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National ParK
With every sock
I turn
right side in
down in the basement
sorting laundry,
Vowing I’ll make the kids turn their own socks
And knowing I won’t,
I appreciate my mother.
With every attempted paperback
on the couch
on my back
on a Saturday,
Our daughter asking questions
Interrupting
til I put the book down,
With every
“What’s for dinner?”
and the grumbles
when I answer
after hours of
brainstorming menus, shopping for food, unloading groceries,
preparing home cooked meals,
I sympathize with my mother.
With every hard question –
“What happened to the squirrel after it died?”
“Why is it mostly Moms who stay home?”
I ache for my mother
perched on the edge of my white daybed,
hands clasped as she tried to answer,
“Who wrote the Bible?”
“If Adam and Eve were the first people, where did their son’s wives come from?”
With every loud sigh I expel
or cabinet I slam
Buying time to discern the right thing to do,
With every tough punishment
that leaves our kids in tears
And the guilt I feel
for making them cry –
They trust me,
They want my approval,
They want me to see them as perfect –
I understand my mother.
With every laugh at the dinner table
That builds til I can’t stop
and tears stream down my cheeks,
and my jaw and face hurt
from smiling so hard,
I am thankful for my mother
Who taught me well. I love you Mom! Happy Mother’s Day!
Butterfly Mind 