Stuck in the Middle

In the "olden days" as we used to say when I was a kid, I would be far beyond the middle of my life. Forty or even twenty years ago, not that many people lived into their 90s. So, at 51, my expiration date would be fast approaching. At best I might have 25 or 30 years left. And I think about that all the time now, as I struggle with the changes that menopause throws me, much as my children both struggle with puberty. I think: if Annie doesn't get married until she's 30, like I did, and she doesn't have a baby until she's 35, then I will be a grandmother at 73.

That's not so old, right? I come from hearty German stock on both sides. My paternal grandparents died within a year of one another, my grandmother still so in love with my grandfather that she literally wasted away from grief after he was felled by heart disease; they were both in their early 90s. And my mother's mother outlived my mom who died at 71 from emphysema brought about by years and years of smoking. Grandmother died at 96, sharp, as they say, as a tack, at the end. So, by all rights if I'm a grandma at 73, I might get to see that grandchild graduate from high school at least, if not college.

If I'm going to live into my 90s, then 51 is more than halfway through, but not by much. And most of the time I don't feel "middle aged." I work and work out and take care of my family, and laugh with my husband, and yeah, I forget why I went to the garage and come back up with Kleenex when I meant to get a can of nuts, but it doesn't matter much. It's when I look in the mirror at this nice older lady with boobs down to their and a big, puffy tummy despite my daily sweat that I realize that yes, I am too middle aged, maybe even pushing the edge of old, chronologically at least, and you know what? Since I don't consider plastic surgery an option, and I'm too much of a pleasure hog to forgo wine and brownies forever, there's not a whole hell of a lot I can do. So, I'm working on acceptance. I think it's a valid lesson for anyone to learn. I tell my kids that when they complain about their hair or their inability to do a headstand or why they aren't taller. We are who we are, and we all have to love ourselves, at least some of the time.

My Son, the Football Player

The thing I dreaded, prayed wouldn't happen, tried to deny its reality, is here.

My 15-year-old son, the high school freshman, is playing football. Actually, he hasn't played yet, but he has been to practice every day save one since school started last week, and today, Labor Day, while the rest of his classmates are hanging out and chilling, Matt is spending five (!) hours at the practice field because today not only will he run and do drills and sweat like a pig, but he will get his practice pads and jersey. Let the games begin.

I guess you may have figured out I'm not the biggest football fan. In truth, I'd be hard put to say I really liked any sport Well, maybe the girly ones like ice skating and gymnastics. But since I've had a son I've been to t-ball, baseball, soccer, basketball, and lacrosse games over the past ten years, and I've learned if not to exactly enjoy but endure. And I find watching both basketball and lacrosse, probably because they're fast, to be quite exhilarating. Not that I really understand anything about staying too long in the key or offsides or anything else technical about the games, but watching Matt run down a court or up a field with possession of the ball, cheering gleefully when he scores, watching his self confidence soar, now that I can get excited about. I've stood on the sidelines of chilled, foggy fields early on Saturday mornings and rested my butt on hard-as-rock bleachers in remote, stinky gyms on weeknights to watch my boy play, and I wouldn't have missed a minute.

But football. In high school I pretty much avoided going to football games as not only was I a nerd, but I was a theater nerd, and my various chorus, dance, and musical rehearsals seemed to coincide with the games so I was spared. My father watched the occasional game on TV, but I could tell it was more background noise than something he cared about. My parents were baseball fans, but not me. I stayed within my arty boundaries and let others be the cheerleaders.

In college, football games were the big social events on the weekends, and I took them for what they were. The tailgate parties beforehand were spectacular, and if I spent the game watching the crowd not the field, scoping out the boys, well, who knew? Downs and rushes, linebackers versus fullbacks—it was all Greek to me. I knew enough to cheer when our team made a touchdown, and the band played the winning song (at Stanford it was and is "All Right Now"), and I had a great time. Beer helped.

Then I married a jock who played high school and college football, and football was on the television or the radio all fall until Super Bowl parties where I hung out in the kitchen and chatted with the other wives. But now I will have to actually go to football games. I will have to listen to my husband and my son endlessly dissect plays and players afterwards, and I will pray that my poor boy (my muscled, stocky football guy) doesn't get trampled or broken or concussed or worse.

It's only freshman football. Maybe he won't go out for JV next year. Or maybe he'll love it, and by then, maybe I'll understand the game. Here's hoping.

Seasonal Gloom

The summer is waning, although here in San Francisco it's hard to tell. August is always the foggiest month, and this year seems worse than ever. Especially as we live near the ocean--we can walk to the beach, although we rarely do--the days are swathed in damp white whirls of moisture that pushes into houses and cars and people and dogs by a biting wind.

The other day I realized that this was the first summer of my life that I stayed in the state where I live for the entire summer. Now, I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure that even as a baby my parents swaddled me up and whisked me off from our home in upstate New York to visit my grandparents in Berkeley and Los Angeles. And later there are pictures of me grinning toothlessly from a portable crib under an umbrella on the beach on Cape Cod. Then there are the summer-after-summer memories of that drive, my sister and me rolling freely on the bench seat of the station wagon, knowing we were getting closer when we saw sand on the edges of the road. Later on, when I was in high school, we started going to Nantucket from our new home outside Baltimore, adding miles and a ferry trip to the journey. But I never minded because Nantucket was nirvana, with its adorable shops, delectable ice cream shops and restaurants, and best of all, the freedom to walk downtown at night to meet boys.

But this year, our family elected to spend one week together in the Sierras, four hours away, and then Matt and his dad went backpacking in the high country in an even more remote spot. I whipped down to Orange County for a day-and-a-half with my best, dearest and still closest friend from college, Wendy, and 13-year-old Annie and I had a two-day respite in Napa while the boys were gone. All of these mini-trips were fun, but here it is, still more than a week until September, and I've had it with summer. Every day that dawns foggy, I feel grumpy, relishing the warmth of the yoga studio and wishing for the sun. I've looked into going back to Napa, but since we spent most of our "staycation" redoing our living room, having the windows washed, and other expensive house projects, there's no way we can afford a resort. I've given serious thought to begging my acquaintance with the second home in St. Helen to let us camp out in her pool house (I'm not too picky at this point), but my pride would suffer. I've hinted to Annie that if she gets invited to stay with her friend in Napa, I'd be happy to drive up and spend the day, but instead the friend's mother wanted us to keep her daughter with us in the city. Talk about plans backfiring.

So here I am, gazing out my office window at the gray sky and the green leaves quivering in the breeze, the tan on my forearms fading more each day, waiting for sunny September which always happens, forcing the kids back to school to sweat in their uniform blazers, allowing me to sit on the back deck off the bedroom resurrecting that unhealthy tan for just a few more weeks, eating the last of the heirloom tomatoes and nectarines, and buying boots and cashmere sweaters that I won't be able to wear until November, by which I will surely be ready for fall.

One Here, One There: The Summer of Coming and Going

Summer is half over, and its been a weird one so far. My two teenagers were around for the first couple of weeks after school let out, lounging languidly on the couch, fighting over the remote; the rest of time plugged into their cell phones, iPods, or computers, texting and IMing until I forced them off to sports camp in the afternoons. Then, three weeks ago, we left for a week at a family camp in the Sierras.

The camp is couched amongst pine and oak trees surrounded by flowering meadows, immense mountains, rivers with waterfalls to play in; nature truly at its finest, with sunny warm days and gently chilled nights. Once there, you settle into your rustic cabin with its creaky beds and ancient wooden dressers and commence to do a whole lot of nothing. There is a lake, an unheated pool, tennis courts, a basketball court, ping-pong tables, a horseshoe pit, a playground for the little ones, and loosely scheduled activities such as tie-dye, lanyards, nature hikes, and star gazing. Meals are served cafeteria-style in the huge, old dining hall with its spacious deck, and the food is a plentiful, calorie-laden joy. Where else are you going to eat pancakes and bacon for breakfast, grilled cheese or Thai chicken wraps and onion rings for lunch, and lasagna, veggies, garlic bread and homemade chocolate cake for dinner? Without grocery shopping, cooking or washing dishes for seven days. Heaven on many levels. Everyone brings plenty of wine, beer, or their beverage of choice, and no one has to be the designated driver. We read, swim, bike, and hike to burn off those immense meals. I think it's the only place where I pretty much forgo makeup.

One of the best things about family camp is that if your kids are old enough, like ours, they pretty much have free reign. They eat their meals with other kids, ride around in packs on their mountain bike, and play games in the lake and out with their new and old friends. The family sleeps together in the cabin, and I've been known to chase my son around with a bottle of SPF 45, but unless they get sick, hurt or need money to buy milkshakes and candy at the camp store, you see them in passing. And for city kids such as my two, heaven again.

This year my son, Matt, got invited to stay for a second week with his best friend from middle school and his family who happened to be coming up to the mountains on the day we checked out. He did this last year, and we figured it would be especially nice this time, as he and Connor will go off to different, rival high schools in August. And I relished having a week at home with just my daughter, Annie. We did "girl" things like shop, get pedicures, and watch "So You Think You Can Dance" with bated breath. I made her favorite dishes, and she roughhoused with her dad at night, something I don't think will happen much longer now that she's 13. I missed Matt but he called once to let us know he was having a great time, so the week went by.

Then, last Saturday, he called to say that Connor's family had managed to get a cabin for a second week and could he stay? He was signed up for more sports camp and Spanish tutoring, but it's the summer between 8th grade and high school, and you're only 15 once, so of course we said yes. And Annie and I continued our little routines, this time focusing on getting her ready to depart for two weeks of her own overnight camp in the mountains.

Matt got home an hour ago, taller I swear, with feet so dirty it will take a week of showers just to de-grime them and a duffle full of filthy laundry. He is reunited with his laptop, sprawled across his bed as his sister packs her own duffle in the next room for the bus that leaves at 9:00 tomorrow morning. We will have the first family dinner we've had in three weeks tonight (pizza so I won't piss anyone off--the pasta queen or the carnivore), and then she'll leave, and I'll be back to one child for two more weeks. The day Annie's bus arrives back, Matt and my husband leave for a weeklong backpacking trip, so it'll be girl time again. The four of us won't have another family dinner for another three weeks.

I'm not complaining. I actually think all this one-on-one with the kids is good for my relationship with them, and it obviously cuts down on the remote-control wars (and the shower wars and the "I don't want to watch that!" wars). But it's weird in the mornings to set out one juice glass, one cereal bowl, one vitamin. My housekeeper will clean the missing child's room, and then it will stay oddly pristine. Matt's own personal funky smell of unwashed socks and less-than-clean hair stayed for about a week, and then the room was kind of like a hotel room, tidy but impersonal. The scent of Annie's fruity conditioner will linger only so long in her room, and then it will feel the same way when I walk in: like a ghost town.

I guess this is getting me ready for when Matt goes off to college in four years, and we're down to just Annie until she too flees the nest. It doesn't feel bad. Just very, very different.

Where There's Smoke

When I wake up at dawn the sun is red. The skies are filled with white and gray, almost like the fog we normally see here in Northern California in the summertime. Maybe there is a little fog out there, but when I step out to pick up the papers from the sidewalk, I smell it. You can't smell fog. But the smoke that has drifted over the city, over the entire state for the past five days is evident the minute I take a breath.

The first day it made me nostalgic. The morning air smelled like a beach bonfire, a campfire on its way out, even the embers of a fire crackling in the fireplace. But the novelty wore off quickly as the radio and television news reporters listed all the wildfires burning in different parts of the state, many only partially contained, with new fires starting every day. When the reporters talked about unhealthy air and particulates that can lodge deep within your lungs. We've got draught conditions already this summer, and even though it's only June, the woods and the valleys and the mountains are parched and crispy, ready to go at a hint of heat lightening; humidity hardly exists.

"Smell the smoke?" I ask my sleepy teenagers already set to their new, no-school schedule as they wander toward breakfast. "See the haze," I say as I pour the orange juice. "It's not fog, it's smoke from all the fires burning!" They don't answer, they aren't listening. They aren't old enough yet to feel the guilt I feel about having inflicted so much trash, so much rubbish on the earth. Climate change and global warming, these are things they've learned about in school, and so they dutifully recycle their water bottles and compost their food scraps. But they don't take ownership of the scary, dirty place the world's become. And why should they? For all intents and purposes we're raising our kids right so they will take responsibility for their own garbage, so they will grow up to be ecologically responsible adults.

Each day when another red sun greets me, and the smokey haze obliterates the sunshine, I wonder though. I hope it's not too late.

Graduation Blues

Today my 15-year-old son graduated from middle school. Actually in the parlance of private, Catholic schools, he graduated from elementary school because he started there in kindergarten nine years ago and just finished up 8th grade. In August, he will start high school.

Right now, at almost 8:00 p.m., I am supposed to be at a graduation party. But I have pleaded exhaustion and a stomach ache, both true, but usually not enough to keep me down. But here I am at the computer keeping company with one of my two cats, and I am still working to process what has happened.

I have a son who's in high school. I have a son who stares me down, who fights with me over personal hygiene, over personal space, who tells me how to drive my car ("Mom, go!" when I dally at a changing light). I have a son who isn't even coming home after the party but spending the night at a friend's, then flying down to Santa Monica with three other friends and a dad, to spend a wild weekend seeing the sights at Venice beach. This boy of mine who's just barely 15. Who, the other night had to show me the three long and curly hairs he's grown under his arms as if to prove to me that he is really growing up. As if I didn't know.

I didn't cry at the graduation ceremony. I was ready to, when I thought Matt would win a prize. I thought he would win for best writer, for he is a marvel, or for sportsmanship as he is an awesome athlete. But he didn't win anything. He simply marched across the stage when his name was called, his face burnt and sunburned from the school's field day--a full day of sports at a local soccer field--when he forgot or just resisted putting on the sunscreen I had begged him to before he left. He kept his head down in the light of his father's and grandparents' digital cameras glinting, hiding a smile as he shook hands with the headmaster with whom he'd never seen exactly eye to eye.

I didn't even cry at the obligatory Mass the school held last week where they showed a video of the boys (it's an all-boys Catholic school) from way back in kindergarten where they were still wearing short pants and knee socks to the hulking adolescents that they are today, complete with nostalgic music. No, tears were far from my mind. All I have been thinking for the last two weeks is: I remember 15. I remember the equal parts desire, love, anger, hatred, joy, fear, and triumph I felt every day for a million reasons and how confusing it all was. I remember wanting to be in love, wanting to be the best; I remember thinking that no one had ever or would ever understand me because I was so freaking different from everyone else in the entire world. And here alone, I want to say to Matt, hey, bud, I understand. And it just keeps getting more confusing every day. But never ever forget that even when I'm screaming my head off over a towel on the floor or a lost retainer, I love you so much my heart will burst.

Congratulations, graduate!

Family Vacations: An Oxymoron

Family vacation. The very mention sends me into a funk. Not that I don't look forward to vacations. I love to travel, to stay in new places, to eat in different restaurants and cafes, to prowl unfamiliar streets, to poke around in shops. But somehow, maybe because the stakes are too high, because all of us have different expectations, and because my two children seem to revel in the familiar comforts of home and their own beds, every time the four of us go on a vacation it's a semi-disaster!

My husband, Ted, would choose backpacking and hiking in the mountains every time if he could. Nothing better to him than getting dirty out in nature, pushing himself harder each day, sleeping in a tent, and washing his face with cold stream water. But after enough family hikes where the rest of us began whining after the first big hill and threatened never to accompany him again, he's learned that a simple day hike broken up with a gourmet picnic is our idea of a good time.

My daughter, Annie, 13, hates to fly, so she'd opt for something close to home. With a friend along. Actually she might go anywhere with a friend, but preferably someplace with a pool and henna tattoos and pizza. No fancy restaurants, no swimming in the scary ocean, no oh-so-boring museums. Fifteen-year-old Matt would also like to be with a buddy, but he would like to be on his own with his friend, checking out the girls and drinking lots of soda and eating his fill of burgers, burritos, and submarine sandwiches with a chaser of Skittles, unlimited email access and video games. Sure, he'd fit in a little boogie boarding and body surfing but lounging in front of a TV in a luxury hotel room suits him just fine.

And me? I like an urban setting, the same luxury hotel with a gym and a spa, fabulous shopping, great dining options and my husband all to myself. And on our family vacations none of us really get what we want. Someone is always complaining about the food or the long drive or the tiring terrain or the crummy food or the crappy room or the heat or the rain or their mere existence on earth. Yet, we keep forging ahead, planning to meet Ted in New York for Memorial Day weekend. I'll let you know how it goes.