Visitation

I wake twice in the night to find my boy silhouetted in the dim light of the doorway. His voice quivers. "Mommy, I'm scared." The reason does not concern me. I will leave archaeology to the lover who will whisper him open in the next lifetime. I rise. My hand alights between his shoulder blades, fluttering him back towards bed. My body curls around his and I drape a blanket of breath over his head. He slips like a stone down to the bottom of sleep's dark spring. When the ripples left by his fleeting fear finally still, I press my lips once more to the steady pulse at his temple and make my way back to my own unquiet sheets.

Lapping

The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas

-Alfred Noyes, "The Highwayman"

Bug unfolds the telescoping poles and gasps in delight as they pop into place. The shock cord is missing from one, but we shove the pieces together and manage to jam them into the corner grommets before they collapse. Bug is better at helping with this than I expected. His development surges ahead under the powers of a mysterious momentum.  When we attempted this task a few months back, I had to guide his hands and grit my teeth through the whole exercise. Now, my son takes my multi-step directions in stride, snapping everything into its proper order. Within a few minutes, a dome tent is occupying the majority of the real estate in our back yard.

I had hoped to take Bug to the beach this summer. Alas, the stars did not align. For now, a suburban campout will have to stand in for the ocean. Bug does not seem to mind, even though he tells me far too often these days, “I hate your house, Mommy. I want to sleep at Daddy’s house forever.” It should sting, I suppose. Instead, his statement rolls off. I know he wants more of me, not less. At his dad’s, Bug shares quarters with Tee. At our house, he has to suffer the torture of having his very own room.

For all his cognitive headway, Bug is still just a little guy. He likes nothing more than to position himself squarely in the center of his parents’ gaze. Of course, he is also growing like swamp grass. I’m not so foolish as to believe a shared bed with Mom will be my son’s greatest delight in summers to come. This is a chapter quickly drawing to a close. It is becoming harder to call Bug’s attention back from its outward pull. For this brief moment, though, he still presses himself into my embrace. My son seems to want to disappear into me, even if only to have a safe harbor from which to launch his next voyage.

On this one unseasonably mild weekend, the least I could do in the absence of a sea is to give my boy a night with me.

We pile the nylon floor with two dozen blankets. In come the flashlights, books, pillows, water bottles, and stuffed animals.  I issue a firm edict against all electronic toys. The blackberry and portable games are all relegated to the house.

As night falls, we crawl in and zip up the screens. Then down. Then up. Bug climbs around on me, giggling. He splays his body out across mine, sighing, rocking ever so slightly from side to side. He twists into my limbs, pressing his chin into my shoulder.

Once he has drunk his fill of me, I help Bug strap a light to his forehead. We attempt to read about insect-eating plants. Bug turns in the direction of every new noise. “Listen to that!” A cricket. A critter. A flutter of wings. The lighthouse beam sweeps in arcs across the choppy surface of the night. Our story disappears and re-emerges between swells.  

Even after four books and the steady approach of the wee hours, Bug is still bouncing. I confiscate both torches, but his excitement is bright enough to light Times Square. Into the sleeping bag. Zipper up, too hot. Zipper half down. Shirt tag itching. Shirt off. Too cold. Zip the bag back up.

“Oh, baby, am I ever sleepy.”

Wiggle, press, hug, twist. “I’m not sleepy! Let’s stay up all night!”

“I wish I could. But my toes are too sleepy.”

“Your toes can’t be sleepy. Toes don’t go to sleep!”

“Mine sure are about to. You know what else is sleepy? My ankles.” I yawn big. “And my knees. Boy, are my knees ever so sleepy.”

I take a lazy stroll up my body. Bug giggles when I talk about how drowsy my bottom is. He thinks sleepy hair and sleepy earlobes are hilarious. A low tide is lapping at the edge of the tent. It begins to spill in. I let it roll on down my skin as I follow it back towards the outer reaches. “I have the sleepiest spine,” I drawl.

Bug is very insistent. “MY spine isn’t sleepy.” His voice is sinking under the weight of the deep.” My (ya-a-awn) legs aren’t sleepy at all.”

I bid goodnight to my toenails. Bug’s feet have beaten me to the punch. His breathing comes slow and deep. He snuffles, turns, throws a naked arm across my belly. Winged insects plead for mates through the dim moonlight. Their song calls up another wave. My feet give way, and I follow my son under.

Prone

The loneliest nights call for letting the delicate cotton gown

Whisper over skin smoothed with almond oil.
Pause for a drink of cool water from a thick, hand-blown glass

Whose blue lip lays its weight against the thirst
Before crawling, at last, between fresh linen

Folded back in welcome.

Solitude is a chosen state

They say. Blessed, even.

They also say it was supposed to storm today

But no rain came. Not one drop.

Soon, it will no longer be today

Or even tonight.

It is time to stop watching the sky.

Rainmakers and Wise Men have the right idea.

Linen, oil, vessels, prayer.

A woman stretched across a bed.

Make an offering, go home empty handed

For the long surrender to a moment

No one dares call

Waiting.

Devolution

Night is falling. So is wet snow. We turn onto our street, and my son announces he wants to walk the dog when we get home. For months, I've been wheedling and bribing him to help with this task. And now, on the night my mother is home to help with this, and slush is glopping from the sky, and it's been a wretched day, he wants to walk the dog?

"Yeah! In the far away woods!"

Of course.

This is the season of yes. I have committed to looking up, to paying attention. After a deep breath, I take notice. My very own boy has offered to walk with me. In the rain! At night! I may be tired, but I'm not a fool. I wrangle us both into the house to don rubber boots, grab mittens, leash the dog. It is already dusk, and I have no time to scrounge for either umbrella or flash light, or to remember to pack a snack. It's just us and our restless feet.

"Hop in the stroller, kiddo!" He does, and I entrust him with Fenway's lead. In my flopping wellies, I jog the rattling stroller over a mile of black neighborhood streets, through the intersection, up the cul-de-sac, into the stretch of trees that can carry us into the deeper woods. The capricious weather needles my cheeks and creeps down my neck. My blood rises to meet it, defiant.

We park the stroller upside-down and tramp down the root-veined path. Untethered, all three of us tumble through curtains of bud-tipped shrubs into the forgiving mud. Bug and the mutt take turns surging into the lead. The mist deepens around us. My boy pauses to pick up a clump of wood he claims is coal for keeping us warm.

"It is getting dark," he says to me, stopping to notice scarlet-edged night slipping around the brush. "Can you find your way in the dark, Mommy?"

"Oh, yes, baby. I am right at home in the woods. I can always find my way."

"You're not scared?"

"I love it here." I spread my arms wide. "The forest is wrapping around us, giving us a big hug. The trees keep us safe."

He walks on. "I can hear the raindrops," he tells me. Then he grins. "One just got my lip!"

We twist over the damp bridge and into the creek. Bug is wary at its edge until I remind him he is in galoshes. He stamps right into the water. "Now one-two-three of us are walking in the river!" Fenway is already splashing upstream.

Shoulders squared, the little Shackleton makes his way along the creek, up and over the thickening brush. "Be careful of the prickers, Mommy!" He calls back, not waiting for my response. He scales an eroding wall of loose rock then descends back into the water. Even when the easy bank is within reach, he favors the tangle, the splash, the slip.

Then just like that, it is night. I see it has plopped down in its big easy chair and there is no chance of rousing it. Bug sees only the next eddy, the next swirling bend, his next step. The depth is hard to gauge. He is careful until he is not. Then, down he slips into a smooth, black pool. He sinks quickly, up to the knees. Water snakes with breathtaking suddenness into his boots, down to his bones. Before he has a chance to panic, I swoop in, grab him around the chest, and swing him over to the shore.

The mighty explorer shrinks down to a quiver and a sway. Even in the blackness, I can sense tears pushing back against the rain. A small voice whimpers, "It's really cold."

He leans in. I pour the water from the boots and peel off the socks. I hunch my broad back down, heft the cub on board. Crouched, iced to the marrow, we make our way back downstream. Darkness embraces us. The creek guides my blind feet. Bug burrows in, digging his ice-seared fingers into mama bear's armpits, pressing his cheek against my damp back. The pelt may be thin but it is durable. Thorned bushes bend deep, the knuckles of trees prod me gently along. Low and sure, I make my steady way towards the place where the forest breathes open and spills us over its threshold.

A blanket, mittens, relentless rain. We leave the safe embrace of forest and wind our way back through the strange wildrerness of the neighborhood. Brick and clapboard blink at our passing, uncomprehending. Our faces are clouds of wet fog. Our faces are swallowed by the singular smile of upending routine and shaking out ancient secrets. No one can see what we smuggle from the forest in our naked arms. No one even knows we are here

We have gone native. We are jungle. We are night.