The Bananas

Recently we’ve been doing a child swap with the Paisleys. Max comes here one week and Sam goes to Max’s the other. It’s nice.

They get along great although they couldn’t be more different from each other: Max likes his hands clean; Sam likes to dump and spread. Dave calls them Felix and Oscar—they are the Odd Couple. Even though Max has perfect diction and a larger vocabulary than most adults, he still seeks Sam’s advice, “Can I pick my nose, Sam?”

Watching Max hop into Sam’s crib for his every-other-week bounce, paw through our CD collection, and point to the cupboard with the nutty bars has given me a dose of déjà vu.

Our childhood friendships give us that rare opportunity to be steeped in someone else’s family life.

When I was a kid, my friends’ houses were this amalgamation of mystery and familiarity. In Michele’s pantry, her mother kept a never ending supply of vanilla wafers vs. at Gaby’s house, her father served food that seemed to come from a field rather than the supermarket—wild rice and berries. At Tiffany’s house you could jump from bed to bed while her asthmatic brother tried to keep up. Some houses you could scoot down the rug covered stairs on your bottom; and hidden in the attic of one, you could page through dusty medical journals with pictures of weird skin conditions. Denise had a pool with a giant bubble over it. Dink had 3 older sisters that made every sleep over seem like the eve of a grand ball. And at Becky’s house, we’d sit on the deck, listen to Van Halen, and eat yogurt mixed with brown sugar as if we were already 20 yrs. old.

This summer while we were in Ashland, Brigid and Rex reminisced about Quale house—loud, messy, and spirited. And yet, my friends didn’t seem separate from my family life. They became so thoroughly ensconced in our daily rituals, they were players. No childhood memory is complete unless it includes Cooper coming through our kitchen window to have the last brown banana.

And so the cycle begins with Sam. When he comes home from Max’s house, he tells me where the cat hides, and how Margaret piles pillows beneath the ottoman so they can jump, and that Mary likes to pick berries but “you can’t eat them.” They eat waffles for lunch.

And here at this house, we take Max to Pinky Park to build snow castles. Sam and I immediately become engrossed. Max holds his distance and observes. I saw us through his eyes: two happy idiots trying to amass dry snow that blew away or crumbled before we could build anything, yelling at the snow, directing each other to no avail—loud, messy and spirited. Right then I wished I had a banana to give him.

There are three more new entries so scroll on down.

Autumn 08 in NY

I can’t let this season pass without mentioning Election Day. Dave gets that day off and we vote at the library at the end of our street. What a great day it was. Leaves had been raked into piles all along Whitfield. Sam hopped from one pile to the other all the way home. Jen (the next door neighbor) and I raked 3 yards full for the kids. The girls next door wore their handmade McCain/Palin t-shirts. I almost said something but whatever I said would have come out of my insecurity—in this neighborhood it was hard to believe a black man could be president. But we’d all been to the booth and allowed our children to pull the levers in our respective direction. Sometimes, it’s better to do nothing more than await results together in a pile of leaves.

Winter--Party Hardy.

Winter in Buffalo comes on strong and doesn’t let up for so long, that you become as down and out as Mickey Rourke in a comeback film. It doesn’t help that Sam’s birthday coincides with the winter solstice. Third Birthday. Three Birthday Parties. The friend party (nothing like breaking birthday celebrations into categories) was held at Dog Ear’s Bookstore. It’s a literary center in the middle of South Buffalo. How could we not support that?

On top of the birthday festivities, we had a slew of homecomings: Grandma Joyce & Joe, Brette, Scott, Bethy, Aunt Ann. And then there were the many and varied Christmas celebrations. Now Sam just assumes that his uncles will bring forth gifts.

Calendar Pages--The Great Grandmas

Every year, I make a calendar for my Nana. She really likes them and uses it throughout the year to mark occasions and appointments. She's 87 and Betty is 85. When my grandmothers reached a certain age, I started doing these yearly rituals for them--planting bulbs, spring visit to the Broadway market, making calendars. The rituals are my way of saying, "stay with me for this year, for this season".

Anyone who knows me well, knows that I'm devoted to my grandmothers. I figured for Sam, a mere sprout, their age would make them irrelevant to him: They are so passed their prime and each has such little spunk left (and both in their day but very differently were spunky broads). I should have known they would not settle for irrelevance. Sam says to me regularly, "I love Nana." (and alternatively, "I hate Nana" which means "I don't want to do whatever it is you want me to do."); and, he cries whenever it is time to leave Gamma Be-y house. Nana smothers him in kisses, gives him money from her change purse and gushes whenever he shows her a new toy or a latest dance move. And Betty, she calls him her boyfriend, bickers with him and always has soup and cookies at the ready. And I know that when they are gone, Sam may or may not have specific memories of them but their lives will have marked his.