The Joel Train

I wonder if there's a way to convey what having infant twins and an almost 5 year old is like?  Picture two cars crammed into a one car carwash.  The carwash is on.  You and 4 other people are inside one of the cars and everyone is talking at once.  Someone starts to cry.  Water is spraying against the car and the thunderous slapping of those chammy flappy things makes it sound like a tornado is overhead, but you have to understand every word that is spoken, so you screw your face up and listen very hard.  "What?  What are you SAYING? What?" Now every few minutes you have to get out and run through the jets and soapy brushes to the other car where the same 4 people are staring at you.  Sometimes you have to physically carry someone from one car to the other.  Someone poops.  No.  too easy.  There's a raccoon in one of the cars that you don't know about.  No.  still too easy.

Ana started working from home in April.  The twins arrived on May 4th.  Everyone left for their respective jobs and daycare on July 31st.  Micah started big boy school.  PreK at a montesori charter school.  4 months of exciting chaos.

Micah learned how to ride a bike.  Have I mentioned that?  Just lost a tooth.  Have I mentioned THAT!?

The babies hung out until week 36 and then we decided it was enough of a wait.  but while there were still on the inside we noticed how different they were.  One baby (Baby B) was a tumbling, flip flopping dynamo, constantly on the move.  The other baby (Baby A) seemed almost driven into a corner of the womb by Baby B and sat quietly, waiting to be delivered both literally and also the other way people say that where it means to be rescued.  We were nervous about Baby A.

Ana had lots of tests during that time.  One of them was a chromosome test to give us a hint at the gender.  An XY meant one or both babies were boys.  We rolled double x's which was mostly a relief.  Gender is tricky.  I have a perhaps naive belief that toddler girls are less rambunctious, physically destructive, and more obedient than boys of the same age. I think our girls will learn faster and be more empathetic and thoughtful and have more impulse control than boys their age.   As I type this I realize I should probably relax.  Too late now I suppose.

Baby A was a uterine wall flower and baby B was hogging up all the space.  Also, Baby A wasn't growing as fast as Baby B.  Still on track for healthy development, and within acceptable blah blah blah, but by week 30 we began to worry that each additional day on the inside was a danger to her health.  We wanted her out so we could make sure she was ok.  So that was a constant source of anxiety.  And why was baby B so active all the time?  what made her so wiggly?  Was that normal?  Not enough movement, too much movement, all of it was a source of stress, which just starts to ramp up and up and up.

Naming a baby is stressful too.  Naming one baby is hard because of all the options.  Do you go biblical?  Familial?  Some folks shake free from the bonds of convention and go phonetic.  One shot at a name that they get to love or hate forever.  But two names.  two good ass names.  How do you do that?

Ana had Ruby Lee picked out before she met me.  Some strong Norse woman on her Mom's side named Rubylee all one word.  There was also Dorkus in the pool of available family names.  I fear young Dorkus would have found Savannah to be a hard place.  Harder on a Dorkus than a Ruby for sure.  Ruby Lee felt vivacious and fun.  A singer in the 20s.  A sparkly thing.  It made sense to give that name to the thing making loop de loops inside Ana's body.   Baby A took some thinking.

I wanted to honor my sweet dead mother Nancy.  But you can't name a baby Dead Nancy these days.   I googled it and wikipedia says the name means Grace (thus we get Nancy Grace).  For a while I thought Baby A might be a Grace.  I also thought it might be nice to remember my sweet dead grandmother Beryl.  So that was on the table too.  Beryl is a gem, Ruby is a gem.  You get the idea.    Then I found out my grandmother's middle name was Lorraine (A name I've always loved, coincidentally).  And when I googled Lorraine I learned it was a region in France.  The largest city in the Lorraine region of France?  Nancy.  Voila as the people of Nancy might say.  We settled on Rose Lorraine.  A name that could be sweet and gentle like a grandma, but I like to think has depth of meaning if you take the time to see it.

Quick Blurt,

Clearly that didn't work.

My goal was to spend 30 minutes to an hour writing something each day, Monday through Friday.  Just a daily exercise to put some thoughts together and get in the habit of writing.  I'd been trying to write at the beginning of my work day.  And that was mostly successful.  But I'd get excited about a thought or memory and then spend too much time trying to figure out how to communicate it.  It wasn't really sustainable.  I was going to get fired.  So I set it aside for a while.

Also, writing isn't easy.  I noticed that I am pretty limited.  I use the same words over and over, often just a sentence or two apart.  limited as I am by the time, (see, I used limited again!  It's like a word gets warmed up once I use it and then it's just more available than the rest.), limited as I am by the time allotted, I can't seem develop anything more complicated than a quick flit of a memory.  I fear that it's not an issue of time, but an inability to organize and articulate my thoughts.

I joke that I "came online" at age 13.  There was a moment when I began to take real notice of the things around me.  I can't say it was 13 exactly, but I wasn't a thoughtful child, and so when people say they have vivid memories of their childhood, I can't relate.  I just looked up one day and said "oh, I should start paying attention."  So maybe that's why it's important to me to capture these fliting, fleeting memories.

We moved to Atlanta from Raleigh when I was three.  There was a tension in our house between my Mother's family back in North Carolina and our little unit.  Mom was very close to her family and to my grandmother especially.  But my dad wasn't connected to his parents in the same way and disliked that the influence her family had seemed to trump his own.  To him, visits to the Coopers were beyond an inconvenience.  The Coopers thought they were better.  They put on airs.  We were somehow beholden because Mom couldn't declare her independence.  That was the sentiment that hung in the air when the time came twice a year to pack up the car and drive North.  We were all infected by it.  I'd complain and drag my feet, and invent reasons why this was torture. We'd roll up to their house, a tudor style home with the trim and everything, and I'd take a deep breath and slowly creep from the back of the car.  And every time, I'd be so charmed by the end that I hated to leave. In Raleigh I was welcomed and loved.  My grandparents told stories and held court and danced together in their kitchen with the swinging door that lead into the great room.  My Aunts and Uncles, visiting from other places would laugh and play with us, and yell when we were obnoxious.  Which we were.  We would race around the house and out in to the yard, which sloped down from the back door into what felt like acres of woods. I once fell off a rope swing into a shallow creek back there somewhere.  The neighbors had a german shepard named Shiloh and he'd tromp through the piles of leaves with us.  It was always the fall or winter when we'd visit and we'd make huge piles of crinkly brown leaves to dive into and you could submerge completely and escape the chill of the wind until the leaf crumbles got into the back of your shirt and your socks and you started thinking about the bugs that might be crawling into your ears.  You'd pop up from the pile tingling and gasping for fresh air.

My grandfather could draw anything you asked him to.  Ask him to draw a half man, half scorpion, half bear and he'd knock it out while you were still describing the furry stinger.  We wanted dinosaurs and menataurs and bat creatures with human faces.  And he'd crank them out, one after another.  And then the stories.  About his days teaching karate, or dance, or fencing.  I may have dreamed this, but he told a story about man he knew who had cut the first knuckles off one of his hands to make a better fist for punching.  He has a deep and resonant voice and he carefully enunciates around his southern accent.  He made a point to clearly pronounce each of Atlanta's two T's so that folks who don't know might be suspicious of his Florida roots.  Atlanta has, in fact, become a special word to me.  A passcode to a secret club.  I take note whenever I hear it said and am careful to always pronounce both T's especially around my son.  And so these things go on and on.

And then it was goodbye and back to the car.  Somewhere on Interstate 85 the glow of our visit would wear away and the cloud would envelope us again.

My grandfather, we call him Papoo, turned 84 yesterday.  We had dinner with him on Saturday to celebrate and Micah sang "happy birthday Papoo" instead of Happy Birthday to you.  We remembered Nana and my Mom and how they would have loved to see us all together.

I suppose I wish we lived our lives in reverse.  The end is so hard.  It makes all the fighting and hurt feelings and misunderstandings seem so petty and foolish.  We disappear.  We disappear.  Don't waste it.

Today we celebrate a new anniversary.  One year ago today Nancy Halena Cole passed away.  She was my Mother.

Ok.  How do I tell this story?

I was in Show Choir.

We sang and danced.  I liked singing.  I didn't mind dancing.  I liked the attention I got from the girls in the class.  One semester in my junior year, show choir was the only class I didn't fail.

In show choir we'd travel a little bit.  To Disney, to a retreat in the north Georgia mountains.  And we traveled to a show choir festival near Macon.

The festival was a proper affair.  There were schools from all over Georgia and Florida bused in to compete in the group and solo performance categories.  The Middle Georgia College show choir would close out the festival supported by a full orchestra.

There was never a chance we were in contention.  These were big crews with 20 members and fancy costumes, they had kick lines and raz mataz!  We were small and lopsided, all tenors and sopranos.   Our jazz hands were meek and we sang quietly over canned music with backing vocals.  I couldn't wait to get off the stage and hunker down to watch the other schools.

The group that won must have had 30 kids, stacked on risers.  They wore black sequined hats and white gloves that popped in the bright stage lights .  They moved as a single organism on stage.  Every box step was perfect.  Every bladed hand was at the same gorgeous 45 degree angle.

It was the end of the day.  They'd announced the group winners and we'd watched each school rush the stage for their trophy.  And we cheered for them.  Then it was time for the final three singers in the solo category to perform.  The first two vocalists had the misfortune of selecting the same song.  It was the year of Shania Twain.  And boots. And jean skirts.  One of them wore a cowboy hat and we all thought that might put her over the top.

We were tired by the time the last solo singer walked on stage.  It had been a long day.  Some of the sparkle was beginning to fade in the grand auditorium.  The college show choir would perform next and then we'd pile back into our buses and head home.  The orchestra was setting up in the pit as quietly as they could.

From where we were sitting in the balcony the last soloist seemed very small.   He must have been a freshman, but looked even younger and he fidgeted nervously waiting for his music.  He waited.  And waited.  The whole room started to buzz. The silence was painful.  The poor kid, we thought, and watched his eyes searching the crowd for help. He looked to the sound booth.  The student at the controls put his hand up in a gesture to please wait, and we all held our breath. He pointed to the singer and the first melodic lines of The Colors of the Wind filled the hall.  He began to sing, but he was off to a bad start.  His voice was shakey, unsure.  In mid verse the backing CD made a squaking sound and abruptly stopped.  His voice trailed off.

Collectively we all looked between the sound engineer who was shaking his head, and the blond hair boy on stage.  He'd begun pacing.  Looking for a way off the stage.  The room began to buzz again with a mix of empathy and nervous energy.  After a confused moment the boy turned to leave the stage and a reached up from the orchestra pit and waved.  "Excuse me" said the voice, quietly, "but is this your song?" And all at once the members of the Middle Georgia College orchestra began to play.
For a moment we were all stunned.  What was happening?  But they were playing the intro to The Colors of the Wind.  It was perfect!  And we erupted! Clapping and whistling and hooting our pleasure.  And the boy began to sing.  Feeding on the energy of the crowd he sang clear and true.  No note misplaced.  The boy with his new found confidence and 30 piece backing orchestra slayed the crowd and tore the roof off the building.  We couldn't believe what had happened.

When he finished singing, and the audience finally quieted down, they brought the other 2 singers back on stage.  Poor Shania with the hat knew she'd lost.  They named the boy the winner and the crowd exploded all over again.

And then it was time for the college show choir to perform.  A few people laughed, but we all cheered as they began their opening number, The Colors of the Wind.

I think what I'm really doing is image transfer.  I'm basically taking all my old 8mm home movies and dumping them onto VHS.  And because they pass through the filter of my mouth brain, the images get distorted or the focus shifts away from what was important.