Reflections on the Thirteenth Week of Spring – “I’m Gonna Tell Your Children”

Snowdrops

“I’m gonna tell your children,” my husband Spence said from close behind me.

On that chilly March morning, I lay stomach down on Creek Road and formed a tripod with my elbows and hands to hold the long camera lens steady. I aimed the lens at snowdrops growing on the bank by the blue colonial house. “There’s no other angle for a decent picture.” I adjusted the focus. “The curved stems tilt the flowers facedown.”

He chuckled. “You’re lying on the road.”

He had a point.

But I preferred he didn’t embarrass me by telling our son Charlie and daughter Ellen I’d done something wacky. They might think I’d lost my reasoning and they needed to research nursing homes for their aging parent.

For an eye-to-eye please don’t plea, I twisted and looked over my shoulder.

Spence’s posture distracted me. He stood above me with his feet straddling my knees and his head swiveling left to right.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“I’m protecting you from cars.”

Figuring he’d forget to tell the children by the time we walked three-quarters of a mile home, I turned and framed the snowdrops in my viewfinder.

The telling-the-children threat continued.

The fifth-seventh or so incident occurred several years later on a cold January morning when the temperature inside the log house dipped to 59ºF (15ºC). I carried my clothes to the wood stove. Orange flames licked crackling logs. Keeping as close to the stove as I could without singeing my full length, flannel nightgown, an accomplishment I didn’t need to repeat, I pulled my arms through the sleeves and into the narrow nightgown tent. Then I reached through the neck opening to pull my bra inside. Squirming, I maneuvered my arms through the straps and hooked the band behind me. The flannel billowed and undulated as if blown by a tree-bending wind.

Standing beside the electric range across the great room, Spence looked up from a cast iron skillet. “It’s fun being here with you. You’re so silly. You are a laugh a minute.”

Reaching out through the nightgown’s neck again, I pulled the top part of my long underwear over my head and through the opening. “Keeping warm is no laughing matter.” I shoved my arms into the underwear sleeves.

He chuckled. “I’m gonna tell your children.”

Sheesh. Would they respect a silly mother who’s a laugh a minute? “I’d rather you didn’t, Spence.”

He shrugged his shoulders and flipped an omelet.

Much later, way past his hundredth telling-your-children threat and after a Tuesday morning breakfast, I grabbed the crotch of my swimsuit that I’d hung from a Boston fern pot by the sliding glass door in the great room. The suit felt damp―too wet to wear under my clothes. I took the suit off the hanger, walked to the kitchen, and shoved the suit inside the oven.

Spence stopped tapping computer keys. “Are you baking your swimsuit?”

“No.” I closed the oven door. “Just drying it. The oven’s still warm from when you cooked breakfast while I did yoga.”

“You know your suit will get wet in the pool.”

“Yeah. But it’s more convenient to wear it under my clothes for the drive to the YMCA. It saves time and reduces butt-belly-and-breast exposure in the locker room.”

He tapped a few keys. “Most people would dry a bathing suit in the dryer.”

“Well, this is a chlorine resistant Krinkle swimsuit. The label says drip-dry only.” I headed to the bathroom to pack my shampoo and conditioner.

He chuckled. “I’m gonna tell your children.”

Sheesh. My children think I’m quirky enough. They don’t need more examples to doubt my reasoning.

You’re reasoning’s fine. You need to practice the quirky first person narrator that Catherine E. McLean says holds a reader’s attention.

Wouldn’t they rather have a normal mother?

Normal is boring. Accentuate your flaws.

But putting a bathing suit in the oven sounds daft.

Explain. They’ll understand.

Carrying a packed swim bag, I walked back to the great room. “Be sure and tell the children the oven was off―just warm.”

He typed at his computer. Composing the telling email?

“And let them know the suit didn’t drip-dry completely after Monday’s lap swim.”

Tapping keys covered his silence.

“Are you emailing the children?”

He looked up. “No. You got too excited about it. I won’t email now.”

Pile on the details, pretend his idea pleases me, and Spence gives up. Why hadn’t I’d thought of that tactic years ago?

I had this telling-your-children threat under control―until two weeks ago. On Sunday evening, a thunderstorm knocked out the power. The washing machine stopped with a nearly finished load of towels. Sigh.

When the machine had stopped mid cycle because the water pressure dropped too low, I had to reach behind the machine, disconnect the plug, then reconnect it before starting the machine at the beginning of the cycle. Would the power outage require the same remedy?

Four and a half hours later, the power hadn’t returned so I strapped on my foot wraps to calm my restless legs, pulled up the covers, and shone a flashlight on Ann Hazelwood’s Josephine’s Guest House Quilt. I read one sentence. The lights flashed on, the washing machine whirred, and my son Charlie opened the front door.

He walked down the hall and stopped in the bedroom doorway. “Hey.” He smiled ear to ear and waved.

I shut off the flashlight and patted the quilt beside me.

He sat. We chatted. And the washing machine finished its cycle.

Throwing off the covers, I lowered myself to the floor then crawled away from the bed.

Charlie followed. “What are you doing?”

“Crawling.” I pulled my nightgown away from my knees to make faster progress. “I can’t walk when I’m wearing food wraps. The directions say not to put pressure on the bottom of the foot. And I want to put the wet towels into the dryer.”

“They can wait until morning.”

“And get mildew? Not my first choice.” I turned into the bathroom and rose up on my knees to open the doors on the front of the washer and stacked-on-top dryer.

Charlie continued down the hall to the great room.

While I tossed towels into the dryer, I heard Charlie talk to Spence.

“Mom’s crawling.”

“Yeah. She does stuff like that.”

“But she’s crawling!” 

 

Spence chuckled. “Text your sister.”

Sheesh. I faced a morphed version of “I’m gonna tell your children.”

Self Portrait Bag - Portrait Made with Leftover Lace from My Wedding Dress