Examples of My Art Direction

CONNECTI ONS

Sisters From Different Planets

M

y sister’s evolution into Orthodox Judaism was gradual.

First she refused to eat hamburgers in non-kosher restaurants; next, no turning on lights on the Sabbath.

From there, she was just a hop, skip, and a wig away from marrying a man she met at the college Hillel organization. We’re the kind of sisters who make other people say, “You two are sisters?”

The question doesn’t arise often.

We grew up in Chicago. I moved to New York. Janis has lived in Massachusetts all of her adult life.

She recently spent a day with me while she was between buses while heading home from a wedding in Monsey, New York.

Over lunch in a kosher restaurant, I told her about my neighborhood and how Riverside Park is a popular place for dead bodies to turn up on Law & Order.

“I don’t watch Law & Order,” she said.

“You’re kidding?” I didn’t think it was possible to avoid Law & Order.

“I like Star Trek.”

Who knew my sister was a Trekkie?

I asked Janis about her friends. I realized that I didn’t know anything about them.

“My best friends?” She chewed on her lip, an old childhood habit. “My husband,” she said. “My children.” She smiled at me. “And you.”

But I hardly see you, I wanted to say. We only talk a handful of times a year. But then I remembered that my sister knows how to maintain a strong emotional connection even without a physical presence.

She talked about the babies she works with as an occupational therapist. She talked about

her children. We ordered green tea and sipped it from Chinese cups. We each insisted on paying the check, then agreed to split it.

After lunch, we walked to the Hayden Planetarium. Sitting side by side in the dark, crouched down in our seats, our necks resting on the backs of our chairs, we stared up at the dome and its computer-generated universe.

“Nice starry night,” I said.

“How can anyone see this and not believe in God?” Janis said in a soft, reverent whisper.

I would have asked, “What about quantum physics or existential random chaos?” But I envied her certainty, her lack of angst. Neil deGrasse Tyson narrated the show, pointing out

constellations and black holes. “I hate all of this ‘vast universe,’ ‘speck of dust in time’ talk,” I said. “It makes me feel finite.”

“You aren’t finite,” Janis said, her voice free of any doubt.

We watched a pretend doomsday asteroid on a collision course with Earth.

I said, “This is why I never come here.”

The lights came up. Janis checked her watch. “It’s late,” she said. “I want to get to the bus station in plenty of time.”

Back in my apartment, I waited for her while she rearranged the few items in her suitcase: her dress from the wedding, some books for the bus.

I asked if she’d like another cup of tea before she left, but she didn’t want to take the time; what if traffic to the bus station was bad?

I went downstairs with her to find a cab. She looked sweet and vulnerable with her scarf tied beneath her chin, pulling her little overnight bag on wheels. I stepped into the street and waved for a taxi. When one pulled up, she opened the door and slid her luggage across the seat, then turned to me. “Relax,” she said. “That doomsday asteroid isn’t happening anytime soon.”

She was still my big sister, reassuring me, saying, “Don’t be scared” while holding her arms open for a hug. “I’d like to come back,” she said.

“Soon.”

I hugged her and said, “I’d like that,” realizing how much I meant it.

She stepped into the cab, and as she closed the door I heard her say, “God willing.”

Linda Yellin is a New York-based novelist.

Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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J A N U A R Y 7, 2 0 1 8

39

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y I R E N E R I N A L D I F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

BY LINDA YELLIN

CONNECTI ONS

From Paper to Pixels, Love

BY KATE FUSSNER

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y K AV E L R A F F E R T Y F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

M

y father texts me a single word, “magnificent,” and my screen fills with violet

lasers.

He sends an emoji, a yellow smiley wearing black shades, and my screen fills with balloons.

The last time I visited, I taught him how to create whimsical texts using the latest iPhone flair. Ever since, every text — no matter the topic — fills my screen like magic.

On hard days, when I need a smile, I click “replay” and watch as my father’s words explode with fireworks. Although I’m the one who showed him how to use this feature, he’s the reason I find wonder in our exchanges.

As a kid, I never liked to leave my parents for long. I struggled to sleep in a room by myself. I hated to be alone. But at the suggestion of a friend, at age 11 I asked my parents to send me to camp in Maine for two weeks. I wanted the adventure and the outdoors, but almost as soon as my parents agreed, I feared the distance and could not believe what I had asked for. I cried the moment we left the house, and again when we arrived at the camp.

But the very next day, when I was homesick to my core, the postcards began to arrive. My father had started to send them before we even left the Philadelphia area. Each postcard contained no more than two sentences — our dog had eaten an entire pizza, a neighbor had told him a terrible joke — but it was a glance at life back home, a reminder that I was loved.

The postcards fueled me, and the daily arrival of their often hilarious and sometimes strange messages became a source of excitement not just for me but also for my cabinmates, who wondered at this father who would send so little so often.

As I returned to the camp, as a camper and then a counselor, and eventually found the courage to attend college out of state, the postcards contin-

ued and the drawings began. I’d open an envelope containing a stickfigure rendering of me, in crayon, on my father’s professional stationery, sitting in what he imagined was a freshman writing class. One summer, he assembled photographs of my car, parked at my usual haunts (the high school, Starbucks, my best friend’s house), and mailed them without any words at all. They were a reminder of what I knew, of what I’d always have waiting.

So when I fell in love with a classmate weeks before our college graduation, and I had already accepted jobs at my summer camp and then in Paris, I looked at the example of expressing love that had been set for me.

The day before I left for Maine, I went to the post office and bought 35 blank, prestamped postcards.

Clare, my first girlfriend, received all of them that summer: crudely drawn comics of me worrying about homesick campers, tiny Sharpie visions of childhood memories, sketches of the two of us as stick figures sharing adventures. Although I could not be with her, I kept myself close by filling her mailbox and her heart. She hung the postcards around her bedroom; years later, after we moved in together and then married, she stored them in a photo album.

“You don’t have to keep them,” I said, but I understood the urge. I have a box of my father’s postcards I cannot part with either.

These days, my father has mostly switched to texting but continues to send love, news, and encouragement. And I’ve learned to do the same, because even an ordinary hello can burst with confetti. Clare has taken to it, too; some mornings, I find a stick figure taped to the coffeemaker, wishing me a good day. We both know, however, who the real artist is.

Kate Fussner teaches high school English in Boston. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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JANUARY 14, 2018

35

CONNECTIONS

The Way We Were

BY SARA MANNING PESKIN

ILL US TRATI ON BY ROSA NNA TAS KER FOR THE B OSTON GLOB E

I

n case we forget, amidst the diapers and bottles, this is how we were before you were born.

We were “Sara” and “Jeremy,” not “Mom” and “Dad.” We ate takeout sushi once a week, the cheap kind from the restaurant around the corner where they knew our names and orders and noticed when we tried something new. At home, away from judgment, I snuck pieces of raw salmon while I was pregnant with you, then became soggy with guilt as I imagined losing you over a piece of pro­ tein.

We traveled. Not the planned, comfortable travel we think of doing with you, but the sweaty, unpre­ dictable type where you rely on the kindness of strangers and the extremes of what your body can tolerate. If you decide to travel the way we did, tell us only when you get home, and promise you won’t do it again. Even if you are lying.

We were romantic. I imagine your face redden­ ing in my uterus already. Your father will explain the basics to you one day, and the rest you can learn from your friends. Or the Internet.

We fought sometimes, so when you hear us fight, know that it’s not your fault. It was usually about one or two issues, ones I’m sure you can rat­ tle off by the time you can read this. “It’s like my parents have been fighting about the same thing for decades,” you’ll complain to your friends, and you’ll imagine finding someone with whom you agree on everything. Good luck.

We first talked about you on a rainy night in November 2012, seated at an Ikea table I’d found on Craigslist. The matching chair tilted forward and backward under my shifting weight.

“I’d like to have kids with you one day,” I said.

“I’d like that, too,” said your dad.

So we carried the idea of you with us through the jungles of Peru and the small towns of Portu­ gal. We imagined what you’d look like, whether you’d have your father’s musical intuition or my ability to find an anxiety­laden scenario in every decision.

Then, with the help of a fertility specialist (a story for another day), we saw you for the first time when you were only 6 weeks developed. You were a worm on the screen, a thin line of white surrounded by black. “It’s showing off,” the ultra­ sound tech said, and I laughed, knowing she said

that to everyone.

At 21 weeks, we saw you in a way we’ll never see you again. As a doctor, I’ve scrolled through numerous scans, but nothing compared to watching your de­ veloping brain inside of me. On ultrasound, we took a live tour inside your skull, from your round thalami, which will help you stay awake, to your corpus callosum, which connects the two sides of your brain. Your frontal lobes, which will mediate restraint and organization, will not develop fully for at least 20 years. We will eagerly await this.

We liked feeling your joints jut out from my belly and watch­ ing you calm as we rubbed what we thought was your back. Although it could have been your legs. Or just amniotic fluid. We were never very good at guessing your position.

And now you are nearly here. We await you like a plane landing with a long­lost relative. I imagine resting your head in the nook just below my clavicle, kissing your forehead, and watching your dad clutch you to his chest in love, the way he does to me.

If you can, forgive us for the mistakes we are about to make. Love us with our imperfections.

When you need to, you can talk about us on a couch somewhere.

Sara Manning Peskin is a writer and a neurology resident at the University of Pennsylvania. JJ Peskin arrived in January. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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67

CONNECTIONS

A Striking Match

BY KAREN BROWN

ILL US TRATI ON BY A NNA GODEASSI FOR THE BOSTON GL OBE

I

can’t remember exactly which middle­age chore I was con­ fronting when the e­mail came in. Perhaps coordinating a car pool for my daughter or scheduling a routine mammogram.

“Hello from a long­lost friend,” it said. “Is this your e­mail?”

At that point, in my mid­40s, Chris had long been relegated to the wistful annals of unrequited college crushes. Was this destiny delayed?

In the 1980s, when we were both students at Berkeley, I was fairly nerdy and low in the romantic pecking order. Chris was a musician and an engineer — a swoon­worthy combination. With floppy blond hair and scruffy stubble, he looked you in the eyes throughout a con­ versation and always remembered the awkward personal detail you’d told him the previous week. When he moved in with his gorgeous bohemian girl­ friend, I moved on.

Around the same time, I met Laura. We were baristas at the same coffeehouse. She had a dry sense of humor and a sailor’s mouth. We watched This Is Spinal Tap on repeat and made regular tempura dinners in our group houses.

After graduation, Chris and I lost touch, but Laura and I stayed close. We helped each other lick professional and personal wounds and rejoice in milestones, including my wedding and her ac­ ceptance to medical school. Laura has remained beautiful — fit, lightly freckled, with long, wispy red hair — and yet, after several long­term rela­ tionships that ended painfully, she started to won­ der if she’d ever find a life partner.

I will admit that Laura was not immediately on my mind when Chris’s e­mail arrived. Turns out he’d recently been through a wrenching di­ vorce and was trying to reconnect with his previ­ ous, confident self (your basic midlife crisis in the age of Google). I was married with two teenage children. I’ll confess that I had a few moments of “hmm, he’s single now?” — but mostly, I was con­ tent in the realization that we were on separate trajectories that would cross only at occasional coffee catch­ups. My husband, bless his heart, once helped me pick a nice outfit for one of those.

However . . . what about Laura? She was be­ coming resigned to life as an accomplished single woman with good friends and a beloved terrier.

She was ready to retire her Match.com account.

They both agreed to a setup. After their first date — just outside the Berkeley cof­ feehouse where we used to work — Laura texted to make sure I really didn’t mind if she pursued a relationship with my one­ time crush. I could imagine being irratio­ nally jealous; you don’t forget those early­ 20s feelings. Yet I had to respect the slow burn of divine intervention that had brought all three of us to this juncture.

Clearly I was meant to meet and fall for Chris, and to vet him during our formative years, for the express purpose of reserving him, decades later, for my dear friend.

If I was jealous of anything, it would be the quickening heartbeat that comes with new love, a flutter that tends to stretch out to a shallow wave after years of marriage.

But heck, I feel that kind of jealousy every time I go out for a rom­com night and watch Colin Firth wind up with some other woman.

Sure, a part of me wonders where things might have gone if Chris had fallen for me in 1987. We probably would have broken up after a few months. He probably would not have con­ tacted me during his midlife crisis. Laura would never have met him. And who knows — maybe I wouldn’t have my much­loved family. This is how it was supposed to work out all along.

Now, more than a year into their relationship, Laura and Chris spend most of their free time with each other. They feel “eerily” — Chris’s word — connected and compatible. They definitely owe me a drink.

Karen Brown is a public radio reporter and freelance writer in Western Massachusetts. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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MARCH 25, 2018

35

ILLUSTRATION BY MASHA MANAPOV FOR THE BOSTON GLOBE

M

y mother had been saying “I need to get out of here” for hours. The night before, she had called out in­ to the darkness from her recliner, lost in the woods and needing help finding her way home. The only time we had left the house during my visit to Connecticut was for a doctor’s appointment two days earlier, to get more bad news she couldn’t understand. It was time, no matter the approaching storm nor the fact that she wasn’t able to walk.

I got her into the wheelchair, laboriously pivoted her into the car, closed the door. We drove downtown to get her watchband fixed.

She was so worried about her watch, the only concrete item on her mental list. She sat in the car as I ran into the jeweler’s, and the rain was almost impenetrable when I returned. Mom­ my was so glad to put her watch on, although she couldn’t remember which wrist. We drove on. Getting out had been so much work, and it seemed to be doing her some good.

She had a urinary tract infection, adding restlessness to her disorientation and the tremor in her arm, but she wanted to keep go­ ing past the point where we could have turned for home. On an impulse, I headed toward a famously rough, steep road, and the tires ground over wet gravel. Had we been listening to the radio, we would have heard flash flood warnings.

CONNECTIONS

The Last Drive B Y V I V I A N M O N TG O M E R Y

The road was washing out from under­ neath us, a chunk of it falling away down a steep slope as we struggled upward, the car bolting like a startled animal. I swore and gasped, Mommy laughed, and we rounded the bend at the crest of the hill, clearing the dan­ ger. She said, “I’ve never felt so much agony and so much thrill at the same time.” The brush with disaster had caused me to forget about her discomfort. “Do you want to go home?” I asked, and she replied, “Oh, no, never.”

Rain still pouring down, we returned to paved road, and she said, “Daddy will want to marry someone else when I die, someone who moves quickly and who’s fun to walk next to.”

I feebly attempted to reassure her, but she shrugged and said, “I know, I know.” Then the sun emerged, and we found ourselves on a stretch of road lined with the most brilliant red maples. “This’ll be the last of them,” she said. “The leaves will all be washed away.” I

pulled over, and we stared at the color as though it would be gone in less than a minute.

The rain started again, and she grew anx­ ious. We were just a few minutes from home, but our arrival felt like a return from very far away. My sister couldn’t believe we had gone out. It wasn’t the time to say I was sure the ex­ cursion would make things better.

We were dripping when we got inside, but Mommy’s face was bright as I toweled her off, and she said, “That was the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me.” Daddy and Jennifer stared silently when we told them where we had been. Maybe they thought we were making too much out of a small adven­ ture, or maybe they could see that we were washed clean, filled with a sense of having done what we set out to do.

The next day was my husband’s birthday, so I left for Boston early to take him to lunch.

The leaves had, indeed, blown away. I noticed how briskly we walked to the neighborhood seafood joint, how I kept up with him under the cloudless sky, how nothing hurt but there wasn’t much to say.

Three weeks later she was gone. Like the leaves, the rain, the road beneath our wheels.

Vivian Montgomery is a musician in Medford. Send comments to connections @globe.com.

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MARCH 18, 2018

35

CO N N EC T I ON S

Shelter From the Storm

BY JESSICA LEE

didn’t dare. A child of divorced parents, I didn’t want to overstep boundaries or impose myself.

I didn’t want the boys to feel that I was stealing their father’s attention or competing with them in any way. They were already dealing with their parents’ divorce, bouncing between two homes.

That’s a lot for anyone, and they were only 6 and 9. I wanted to make sure that they never viewed me as an obstacle — or, worse, a threat.

For the first year that I lived with them, I always asked if I could hug them good night.

Eventually, I asked if I could give them a kiss.

Now, I hug and kiss them without asking, and even manage to give them a little squeeze before they go to school.

Stitching together a new family is never easy, and there are always awkward moments. Once, at a funeral, someone mistook me for Theo’s mother, causing us both to fall silent. I knew such awkwardness was sure to happen again. I looked him in the eyes and whispered, “Sometimes people are going to think I’m your mother, because I am a woman and you are a child, but

please don’t let it bother you. You have a mother, and I am not trying to take her place. No one can take her place.” He nodded. Later, he gave me a Mother’s Day card — my first — thanking me for “what you do and what you don’t do.”

I recently turned 48; I am unlikely to ever have a child of my own. I had always hoped to be a mother, especially after having finally found someone I loved enough to make that happen.

Initially, I had hoped for a little person to sew us all together, to really make me part of the family, not just “Dad’s wife.”

The night Antoine’s little form slipped into bed beside me was a turning point. His having chosen my side of the bed as a safe place, having chosen me to be his protector during that storm, is one of the biggest compliments I can imagine.

Maybe it’s time for me to accept myself and my new role. They have.

Former Bostonian Jessica Lee writes and teaches French in Ottawa. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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26

T H E B O STO N G LO B E M AGA Z I N E

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y A LY S S A G O N Z A L E Z F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

T

he crack of thunder woke me out of a deep sleep. The night sky flashed like daylight; rain slapped violently against the roof. My husband started briefly, but I could tell that any consciousness was temporary.

I have always loved storms. After all, I am a New Englander, now transplanted to Canada’s capital. Here, thunderstorms aren’t as frequent.

I welcomed the interruption, the drama outside, the sound of the wind, the hissing leaves, and imagining the ocean tumbling onto beaches far away.

Suddenly, almost imperceptibly, someone slipped into bed beside me before the next flash of lightning could strike. He pressed his little body against mine and pulled the covers over his head. It was 9-year-old Antoine, my younger stepson. The storm had quite a different effect on him. Here he was, looking for shelter and comfort, but most extraordinary was that he had come to me.

For most children, parents are like gods. My husband’s two boys regularly fix him in their gaze, like benevolent snipers tracking a target. At dinner, they look at their food, and they look at him. The most desirable spot is at his side, and when he is out of sight, chants of “Papa?” ring through the house, sometimes in quick succession: “Papa? Papa?” Because they call for him so frequently, their absolute reverence mostly goes unnoticed.

As a relatively new stepmother, I am often unsure of my role. Since marrying their father three years ago, I have taken a hands-off approach toward the boys, choosing to stay in the background. I’ve never hesitated to grab my friends’ children and twirl them around or give them a hug, but with Theo and Antoine, I

CONNECTI ONS

My Son, the Rock Star

‘O

h, your son’s autistic?” people ask me. I wait a beat for the predictable next question: “Have you tried . . . ?” Always the implication that he needs help, poor thing.

All of my son Nat’s life, people — wellmeaning, of course — have sent me articles about the therapy of the month, the one thing that cured so-and-so.

Nat’s now 28, and I have looked into so much that eventually I stopped looking.

Nothing worked. I didn’t even know what “worked” meant. By the time Nat was a teen, all I wanted was to find something he liked to do.

The answer turned out to be sports, much to the surprise of our previously all-nerd family. But Special Olympics had it all for him — physical activity, adulation, and something new: friends. Many of the athletes were far older than Nat, and higherfunctioning. They took him under their wings and shouted encouragement. The people and routines were the same year after year, and this eventually made him understand the concept and point of friendship — quite the revelation for my autistic young man.

The friend who meant the most to him was a young man named Sri. In addition to sports, Sri played the violin — in a rock band. Of developmentally delayed adults. Sri’s violin teacher, Elaine, and her wife, Miyabe, were the force behind the group, through a nonprofit they cofounded called the MUSE (Music, Unity, and Social Expansion) Foundation. I was intrigued, and envious of what Sri was doing. Nat had tried music therapy when he was younger. Like all of the other supposedly enriching, beneficial activities for autism, it was not for him. He would either space out or act out. So I’d closed the door on music.

But one night Sri’s family hosted a concert in their home. The parents were all in a great mood. The colorful living room filled with music, songs everyone knew: “Sweet Caroline,” “Let It Be,”

“I’m a Believer.” The crisp — and loud — but poised and tuneful lead singer looked like a young Bob Dylan. A beautiful young woman played the keyboard. A friend from Special Olympics rocked out on the drums. But it was Sri who stole my heart. I was nearly moved to tears by his violin music, but even more so by his face, the way he stood. He looked so different. Confident. Deeply absorbed.

And Nat was riveted. I’d never seen him pay such close attention to other people. Afterward, during group pictures, Nat joined in as if he were one of them.

That was all Elaine needed to see; she asked Nat to try a drum right then and there. And just like that, he found a whole new universe. For the rest of the year, Nat played in the rhythm section — cowbell, which he handled with Will Ferrell-like enthusiasm, clunking away even during the solemn “Let It Be.” In August, the band actually had a gig, at the Special Olympics Tournament of Champions. And Elaine was trying out a new singer: Nat. The sky that evening never seemed to get dark, as if it, too, were holding its breath in anticipation. The band began playing, and Nat leaned into the microphone, his smile as big as his head. He didn’t sing, exactly. It was more like a rap — with a lot of arm flapping. But you could really hear him.

And to me, he was as charismatic as Mick Jagger.

To the rest of the audience, he was Nat, their Nat. His teammates sang along and filmed him with their phones. And I felt the tingling wonder of seeing my autistic son aware of the admiration of others.

On that magical evening, Nat’s worlds collided, exploded. And from that, a (rock) star was born. And a stage mother.

Susan Senator, a writer in Brookline, is about to join the MUSE Foundation board. Nat’s band, the Brookline Buds, performs in the Adrian McElwee Memorial Concert at the Brookline Teen Center on December 17 at 3 p.m. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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30

T H E B O STO N G LO B E M AGA Z I N E

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y A L E X C A M P B E L L F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

BY SUSAN SENATOR

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y S A M I A A H M E D F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

M

y Sunday morning ritual is simple: coffee on the deck with my Globe. I absorb the news like a responsible adult, then turn to Dinner With Cupid to finish on a lighter note. Most of the matches seem to be between adventurous, well-intentioned young people who enjoy each other’s company but let go because they didn’t feel “the spark.”

Like many middle-aged readers, I think back to a first date of my own. It was a first blind date for us both. I had met his mother and sisters at a party, a loving, good-humored, welcoming crew. A family consensus emerged that I should meet Drew.

We met for dinner in the North End. He was tall and fit, with piercing green eyes. I had heard comparisons to Harrison Ford. Yes, I see it, I thought. Dinner was pleasant, nothing more. I had never appreciated the term “painfully shy,” but I got it that night. Conversation felt labored. Eye contact was minimal.

I wanted so much to feel something, but by the end of the night it was clear that there would be no spark. I suspected the feeling was mutual. This man would be a lot of work. Too shy, too quiet, and not inclined toward what I then considered fun. I was professionally ambitious; he was content with modest pay counseling the homeless. Too bad, but this was not going anywhere.

Then he called and invited me to a play. I

CONNECTI ONS

Spark Notes

BY BRENDA WELCH agreed, anticipating a mellow, pleasant night.

We traversed the city, heading through a dark passage under the old expressway. We stopped in our tracks when a homeless man sitting in the shadows called, “Hey, Drew!”

The man’s face lit up, as did Drew’s. The man approached and shook his hand, and they chatted for a few minutes. I was surprised by their genuine affection, the ease of their banter after conversation with me had been such a struggle.

As we turned to leave, the man declared, “You’ve got a good man there. A really good man.”

Drew shared more during that evening. I grasped more fully the depth of his compassion for his clients, most grappling with mental illness and addiction. I admired his authenticity, his commitment to doing good in the world.

He opened up about mistakes he had made, motivations for his altruistic work. He worried about his father, who would soon undergo risky surgery. We had a real conversation about weighty subjects. Better than small talk, undoubtedly. Quiet but deep, I remember think-

ing. But still, sadly, no definitive spark.

I heard from him weeks later. His father had undergone surgery and was in the hospital, doing well. Drew invited me for a bite to eat nearby. Afterward, he walked me toward the train.

A kiss ensued. What’s that, a spark? I thought.

His brother interrupted us after searching the streets around MGH. “Come to the hospital,” he said. Drew flagged a cab instantaneously. He handed cash to the driver and said, “Get her home safely.” Squeezing my hand, he said, “I really love that guy.” And he was gone.

Days later, I watched him eulogize his father. As I witnessed him shoring up his grieving mother and siblings with quiet strength, I saw beyond his earning potential and smalltalk prowess. I saw him.

We celebrated 20 years of marriage in September. We have endured the things most married couples do. Sickness (the stress, the debt) and health (the joy of children, travel, adventure). Better and worse. Until death do us part, as eventually it will.

In the meantime, I cherish this strong, quiet, handsome, really good man and thank Cupid, the universe, or whatever force it was that gave enduring love a chance to take hold before sending us those oh-so-wonderful sparks.

Brenda Welch is a recruiter in Boston. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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O C TO B E R 1 5 , 2 0 1 7

27

CON N EC T I ON S

Changing Places

BY MARTHA HURWITZ

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y E L E A N O R D O U G H T Y F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

M

y aging mother lived in a small upstairs apartment in our family home, where her presence was both a joy and a burden. She was an old-school Yankee from Vermont, and pride and self-reliance were an unofficial religion where she was raised. Any favor she asked of me, her first child and only daughter — or, in a real pinch, of SIL (pronounced “sill”), as she called my husband, her son-in-law — was the result of absolute necessity and came with a heartfelt apology for imposing.

Because she was well organized and lived simply, it was easy to overlook the signs that she was not managing her daily tasks in the same quiet, efficient way she always had. I saw her numerous times every day, and she seemed to be doing well. Perhaps there were a few more cobwebs in the corners, or she was willing to let the dishes soak overnight rather than leaving the kitchen spotless before she went to bed. But her bed was made.

She was washed and dressed. She made regular meals for herself and never missed her afternoon cheese and crackers with a small glass of Wild Turkey.

It shames me now to admit that some of my inattention to the signs of that inevitable slide toward dependence came from fear of what the ultimate burden might look like and how it would affect

my already stressful and busy life.

One evening she called me on the phone and tearfully begged, “Please come up right away.” As I flew up the stairs, I knew in my heart that this was a defining moment in the relationship between my mother and me, that the lines between being the mother and being the child would be blurred forever in that gray area where roles shift and ultimate responsibility for all of life’s important decisions changes hands.

Last November, my first child and only daughter came back home to live in my mother’s old apartment, empty since she died in 2004. Coincidentally, Rachel returned several weeks after I had ruptured a disk and done nerve and muscle damage to my right knee. Another medical issue required day surgery and a slow recovery.

Although she had not lived at home for over 10 years, Rachel and I had remained close in the immediate and easy ways made possible by the Internet and social media. But her daily physical presence and her cheerful willingness to sit with me in the hospital were a spiritual balm, as I hope my presence was for my mother when she was growing older.

Several weeks after Rachel came home, I was sitting on the sofa, cane at my side, and she was bringing me a drink, or retrieving my orthopedic cushion, or performing some other task that was proof of my inability to be independent and self-reliant.

Noting her stressed demeanor, and experiencing a small window of clarity despite the still necessary pain medication, I remembered the moment when I ran upstairs to answer my mother’s call.

“You know,” I said, “I remember how difficult it was for me when I first realized that Grandma Avis was struggling to manage her daily life. I’m sure it’s hard for you to see me with a cane, having trouble walking and being in pain.”

Her face softened and she said, “Yes. That’s true. It is sad and hard for me.”

It is sad and hard for me, too.

Now I am the aging parent, and we are entering that blurred, gray area, where sometimes she will be the mother and I the child. I know it is the nature of human life, this decline and the passing on of responsibility, and it is not ultimately under our control. For each of us, though, it is both a joy and a burden.

Martha Hurwitz is a writer in Barre. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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NOVEMBER 5, 2017

31

CONNECTI ONS

35 Years With Sue Grafton

I

was waiting until after the publication of Sue Grafton’s final alphabet mystery, Z Is for Zero, to write about what it was like to work for more than 30 years on her Kinsey Millhone mysteries for audiobooks. So I was caught up short by an e-mail from a friend that began, “Sue Grafton, Whose Detective Novels Spanned the Alpha­­­‑ bet …” I didn’t need to read further.

There would be no Z; the end would forever be 2017’s Y Is for Yesterday, a fitting title.

As sorrowful as I felt about her death, I had an additional regret: I’d wanted to write about my Midwestern affiliation with Grafton (she was born in Kentucky, I in Ohio) and my bond with Kinsey, her savvy private investigator with a taste for justice.

I don’t know where a book abridger like me sits in the automobile of publishing — perhaps in the trunk. Still, it remains an intimate connection, and abridging (as I did for every Kinsey book except B Is for Burglar) is a ruthless process that has to be done with respect and some measure of love. It requires reading a book multiple times to condense it in a way that retains its integrity without sounding choppy.

It was a dream job for a book lover like me, who’d migrated east with no real skills except reading and writing. This had led to many dismal corners: cosmetology textbooks, field artillery manuals, and finally a position with World’s Greatest Romances magazine, which bundled five fluffy novels that I boiled down to their syrupy essence.

With their florid sex and formulaic plots, romances were a breeze to abridge. And within a few years, I shifted from Candles and Caviar to freelancing for Random House, which published A Is for Alibi, Grafton’s first Kinsey novel, in 1982. The series coincided with the rise of audiobooks and the popularity of audio abridgments, which often had me juggling authors as disparate as Oliver Sacks and Donald Trump. Abridgments were usually three to six hours, no matter the length of the original. Z would likely have

been my last, since digital downloads have taken the place of audiobooks that were abridged to fit on CDs. While romances had given me a taste for compression, that experience was almost useless when approaching Grafton’s plots, with their multiple clues and subplots that twined in and out of the story. Now I had to keep track of more than moans and rapturous sighs; I had to tackle a world of alibis, gunshots, and dead bodies.

Unlike romances, all frothy negligees and oddly boneless heroines, Grafton’s cozy details were part of what made her books so beloved. I worked hard to preserve the homey particulars: Kinsey’s hardboiled-egg sandwiches with mayonnaise, adoration of her dashing 85-year-old landlord, and ease at long stakeouts in her VW. And her affection for the bombastic Rosie, owner of the local Hungarian restaurant and neighborhood haunt. I left in my wake a trail of excised pages — minor characters, superfluous dialogue, and piles of red herrings, dead and glassy-eyed.

I looked forward to receiving a Grafton book every few years; it was like an old friend knocking on the door. After the author approved my version of Y, I received a note from her editor, the first formal message Grafton had ever sent me: “Just wanted to pass along the good news that Sue Grafton loves the abridgment. She called it deft and excellent and really couldn’t say enough about it.”

Now I wonder whether she knew she wouldn’t be finishing Z, and if this was her way of acknowledging me while she had the chance.

I wish I had replied then, to thank her for the long pleasure of the work and the memories — of lock picks and all-night surveillance, and peanut butter sandwiches with pickles. And the enduring image of Kinsey reading herself to sleep with a paperback, not a Kindle. Just like me.

Lynn Lauber is the author of Listen to Me: Writing Life into Meaning.

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T H E B O STO N G LO B E M AGA Z I N E

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y J A M E S G R O V E R F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

BY LYNN LAUBER

CONNECTI ONS

Waiting for the Call

BY PETER COCOTAS

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y R YA N S N O O K F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

‘T

he Red Sox brought up the kid, 20 years old,” I say. “The youth movement again.” Some 20-year-old gets promoted to play third base, and here I am withering on the vine watching PBS. “You’re over 70 years old,” my wife replies. “What would bringing up a 70-year-old be called — the ‘we’ve lost our minds’ movement?”

Sure, I’ve slowed down a step, but I’ve compensated. Know the hitters, position yourself correctly, shorten your stroke — don’t swing for the fences. Here I am, a linedrive-hitting third baseman with minimal salary demands watching some PBS mystery while waiting for the call. What is with these British mysteries anyway? Doesn’t anyone realize that the entire rural population has been murdered? And by vicars! The guys in the dugout would have a good laugh at that one. (Note to self: Don’t bring NPR tote bag into the clubhouse.)

“Sid says a September call-up is not out of the question,” I say.

“What’s on the table?” I’m beginning to wonder what’s worse: having a fake agent named Sid or my wife encouraging it.

“The club has some concern about a long-term contract for a 70-year-old, so it’ll be winter ball in Venezuela,” I tell her. “High three figures. You’ll like Caracas — if we’re not murdered or kidnapped.”

My fictitious record speaks for itself: lifetime .283 hitter, always hit lefties well (.323), 28th all-time in doubles, which surprises a lot of people — ahead of Ted Williams and

Babe Ruth, though you’d never pick that up from the talking heads on ESPN. One time my wife invited a colleague from the university, a psychology professor, over for dinner with her spouse — seemingly a nice guy but actually a Yankees fan. My wife mentioned my “lively imagination,” and her colleague responded that there was a whole psychological field devoted to the study of individuals who are overwhelmed by sports fantasies to the point that they lose touch with reality. “But I’m 28th all-time in doubles,” I replied.

We never saw them again.

The British mystery has given way to an oldies folk band. If I were

in The Show, I’d be dancing to Lady Gaga while celebrating a walk-off home run, but here I am listening to a bunch of moldering geriatrics singing “Leaving on a Jet Plane.” I feel like spitting my sunflower seeds on the dugout floor. It’s an expensive rug, so I refrain.

I visit a Red Sox site on my phone. Twenty-year-old third baseman Rafael Devers just hit a home run.

“Devers has a flaw in his swing,” I say authoritatively.

“Who is Devers?”

“The kid they just brought up.

The one who’s taking food out of your family’s mouth. He hits the fastball, but wait until they discover

he can’t handle the slower stuff. I can adjust.”

“Because they’ll pitch underhand to you, like in T-ball?”

The walking corpses of folk music give way to an animal show.

The announcers always sound as if they are delivering a funeral oration: “The carpenter beetle emerges from his winter hole in the ground, seeking the bounty of spring.” Here I am, a righthanded pull hitter who can tattoo the wall at Fenway, watching a beetle head out of a dung hole instead of spraying champagne over everyone in the clubhouse as we clinch the pennant. OK, they might spray me with camomile tea instead.

Now I go to one of those sabermetric baseball sites. Like beer, baseball has been nerdified. Instead of “Give me a Bud,” it has to be an 8.4 percent ABV IPA made with artisan barley malt and toasted Czech hops. Being 28th in doubles no longer cuts it. I quickly use advanced statistics to customize my numbers — WAR, OPS+. They boost me from fake major leaguer to fake borderline Hall of Famer.

I’m up. Adjust the hat. The game is 80 percent mental and 20 percent sartorial. Who said that? Yogi? Sid? I check my phone again. Devers struck out — probably on the offspeed stuff.

“Don’t make plans for October,’’ I say to my wife. “I’m waiting for the call.”

“The vicar did it.”

Massachusetts native Peter Cocotas lives in San Jose, California.

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63

CO N N EC T I ON S

Teaching Superheroes

BY JANET DAMASKE

on hibernation involved building a cave for the children’s teddy bears. Imagination prevailed, and the miniature became larger, more important.

She set limits that made sense to kids. When the energy level at lunch grew too high, she dimmed the lights, put on classical music, and told her students they were in a restaurant. Legos simply went on vacation when sharing became too challenging. There was no need for demands or timeouts.

I took her lessons home. I began to kneel down. At 3 feet high, I saw things differently.

Magna-Tiles can create actual skyscrapers. Glue is for exploring. Sharing is sometimes painful. Mrs. Dee taught me that nearly all the problems in this world can be worked through with the help of the right picture book. She reminded me that a bit of creativity can turn a problem on its head.

This past spring, my daughter brought home a life-sized paper gorilla and tapir from Mrs. Dee’s

class and asked that we convert the house into a rain forest, as she had done at school. After five years of Mrs. Dee’s mentorship, it was easy to recognize that our front hall ceiling could double as a tropical canopy.

Now the landscape of our lives is changing once again. In a transition possibly scarier than any other, we’ve said goodbye to Mrs. Dee, and my little one is headed to kindergarten. I’m afraid of the silence that will follow, the stillness of home without chaos. But I’ve attended preschool long enough to realize my daughter’s opinion matters now far more than my own. She is ready.

And when I kneel to meet her eye level, a “big kid” school stretches out in front of us. It feels larger than a rain forest, but we move toward it hand in hand, my daughter leading us forward.

Janet Damaske is a writer and blogger in Winchester. Send comments to connections@ globe.com.

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T H E B O STO N G LO B E M AGA Z I N E

I L LU ST R AT I O N B Y S H AW N I E LS E N F O R T H E B O STO N G LO B E

T

he first time I served as a parent helper in my son’s cooperative preschool class, I watched in silent horror as the 4-year-olds discovered their shared passion for glue.

As pools of white gushed across the table, I cautioned the kids against wasting their supply. When that got no response, I stood there, stumped, yanking handfuls of Clorox wipes out of the package, preparing to clean.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Dee, the teacher, noticed that the children were running low on glue and asked me to pour more. Did I hear her correctly?

I thought, incredulous, as she knelt down and asked them about their artwork.

I hadn’t considered that point of view.

My perspective on close to everything I once knew had shifted in the previous year. The school was new, as were our town, our house, my job as a stay-at-home mom, and my status as a motherless mother. I was flailing, trying to figure out how I could possibly parent without my mother’s guidance. In place of daily calls to her, I had a pile of dog-eared advice books, but I was too overwhelmed to practice what I read. I was a loving and mostly patient mother, but that was my entire bag of tricks. Connecting with a 4-year-old required something more.

We met Mrs. Dee right around the time the concept of superheroes swooped into our lives.

My son and his classmates wore tiny capes to school, and she welcomed their Batman personas, reminding them of their superhero responsibilities when cleanup time came. As the children stacked blocks from their fallen buildings, I considered whether Mrs. Dee’s superprowess was inborn or acquired over her 25 years of teaching.

In time, I understood that the magic of Mrs. Dee lay in the respect she accorded the children and the world as they saw it. One day, a child spotted a leprechaun running up a wall. Mrs. Dee stepped aside and let the child lead the class on an animated hunt around the room. Her lesson

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y L A U R A K I N G F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

I

t is said that Mark Twain tacked up handwritten notes on the trees outside his beloved wife’s bedroom window as she lay ailing inside the house. The short missives were his tender requests to the birds to be quiet so his wife could rest peacefully.

Whether the birds in fact read Mark Twain’s personal pleas was not documented. In any event, the great author’s wife slipped away.

With all due respect to Samuel Clemens, I say bring on the birds for as long as you can.

As a generation of our family bows out, my husband and I keep putting up feeders in our yearning to hear the birds’ songs. Recently we hung one outside my 92-year-old mother’s window at the senior residence where she now lives an increasingly silent life.

When we visit, we play “Singin’ in the Rain” on our phones and retell quirky conversations from a long-ago kitchen with a linoleum floor. Even with my mother’s loss of hearing, the music makes her smile, and I am aware more than ever that it is sounds, whether heard or remembered, that help carry us all through.

My mother had a friend who fled Germany with her new husband in 1939. She was convinced that music saved them from losing their minds. That first year in America, when she and her husband had wild dance parties in their tworoom apartment, they and their friends cranked up phonograph records of Ella Fitzgerald and Benny Goodman as their baby girl slept on a mattress of towels in the bathtub.

When World War II ended and my father-inlaw’s ship landed at long last in New York, he called home from a pay phone to tell his family in South Carolina that he was safe. The call

CONNECTI ONS

The Bird Feeder

BY PATTY DANN

proceeded from operator to operator, each with a more familiar drawl. He told me that the sound of those women’s voices made him really believe the war was over.

Years ago, I had a student, Louise, whose mother had been a “doughnut girl” in France during World War I, baking sweets for our troops at the front. When Louise was a child, she once got a firm talking-to from her mother, because

their neighbor called to say that Louise had been extremely rude. She had said, “Hi, Mrs. Charworth,” instead of “Hello, Mrs. Charworth,” like a proper young lady. My student wrote those words when she was 88, but she could remember the tone of her mother’s voice and the thrill of saying “hi” to a grownup for the first time.

I can still hear the cadence of my first husband’s voice. On our first date, he said, “Do you want to get children?” in his staccato Dutch accent, and I had to inform him that the correct expression was “have a baby.”

Although he is gone now, I often summon the rhythm of his laughter and the chatter of the older children in the orphanage where, in fact, we did adopt a child, rather than have one, as my husband would say, the “regular way.”

And when our son was young and could not sleep, he would stand in my bedroom doorway and announce, “I want to do weather.”

He climbed onto my lap and deftly logged on to check the weather in Ghana, where his classmate Belvis had recently moved from; in Iceland, where another kindergartner had been born; and in Lithuania, his own homeland. The sounds of the different languages announcing the weather helped calm him in the dark.

It is not my place to question Mark Twain’s judgment on anything. But outside my mother’s window, as the finches dart to the feeder, singing their song, I will not make a request, written or otherwise, asking that they quiet down.

Patty Dann’s most recent book is The Butterfly Hours: Transforming Memories Into Memoir.

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O C TO B E R 8 , 2 0 1 7

39

CONNECTI ONS

This Old Spouse

M

y husband, Charles, and I agree on many things, but aging is not one of them.

While I’m self-conscious about our status as later-in-life lovers, he’s blissfully unaware.

On our wedding day last year, I thought we’d curated our lovefest’s soundtrack perfectly. We’d walk down the aisle to “The Best Is Yet to Come.’’

Our first dance would begin with a newer song by Jill Barber, “Never Quit Loving You,’’ morphing into Ella Fitzgerald singing the Jerome Kern classic “All the Things You Are.’’ The millennial guests would bop to Pitbull; our cohorts would shake their gravitationally compromised booties to “Love Shack.’’

But as Charles and I danced between the appetizers and the main course, we heard the one song that would have topped our do-not-play list, if we’d remembered to create one: “When I’m Sixty-Four’’ — a beautiful Beatles tune, but also the age Charles was turning in one month.

I was ready to perform a quick intervention, embarrassed by the limited commitment implied, never mind the low bar of “need me” and “feed me.” But Charles just smiled and dipped me deeply, confirming that he still had it.

Given his herniated disks, I prayed he’d get me back up.

Charles’s carefree attitude was similarly evident on our honeymoon in Panama, when he enthusiastically deployed his high school Spanish, telling everyone we were on our “luna de miel.”

This old hombre a newlywed? Best case, locals thought his language skills were poor; worst case, they suspected memory issues.

My man even remained unfazed when, back home, a young woman on a scavenger hunt asked if we’d lock lips for a photo. She needed a picture of an old couple kissing. I was discon-

certed that we qualified; Charles simply gave me a big smooch.

During a recent dinner, as a friend described her search for a couples therapist, I found I wasn’t the only one experiencing the land mines associated with August-September relationships.

One candidate had excellent reviews, but my pal, noticing that the therapist had written extensively on parenting, worried that her specialty might not be right. An unforgettable phone conversation ensued.

Friend: “I wanted to confirm you’re experienced with more mature couples.”

Therapist: “No problem. I now specialize in end-of-life relationships.”

Well, that was a kick in the stretch pants!

Back home, I asked Charles what he thought

of the concept of an end-of-life relationship therapist. Consistent with his age obliviousness, he assumed “endof-life” referred to the partnership itself — like relationship hospice — and not the couple.

After I clarified, Charles said he sees our ages as an opportunity. We’re smarter, we’re more experienced, and we know who we are.

“I see us as a second chance for a first great marriage.”

He took “The Best Is Yet to Come’’ literally. I decided that I should, too.

Which brings me to our latest agerelated experience.

Charles saw that Jill Barber, whose song had launched our first dance, would be appearing nearby. He got tickets and sent an e-mail requesting that she perform it.

At the show, she introduced our song and asked us — and another couple who also inaugurated their marriage to the tune — to come up and dance. They were young and stunning.

We were, well, us.

I felt like the last two pairs in a dance marathon. All eyes upon us, I backslid and was ready to simply sway. But Charles’s muscles tensed like a matador’s, and he began his two moves — swirl and dip — and repeated them with increasing frenzy.

Amazingly, the young couple did the basic sway, and the crowd roared as Charles and I left the stage. We had our moment in the sun, which we older folk love.

No matter how hard you try to curate your life’s soundtrack, there’s not much you can control at any age. How you respond is the trick — and Charles’s response was one more reason to need and feed my Medicare-eligible, age-impervious man.

Jill Lipton is a writer in New York. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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T H E B O STO N G LO B E M AGA Z I N E

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y D O N O U G H O ’ M A L L E Y F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

BY JILL LIPTON

CONNECTI ONS

The Parent Gap

BY RACHEL RABKIN PEACHMAN

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y K E V I N W H I P P L E F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

‘I

want Mommy to do it! She does it better,” my 9-year-old daughter announced one recent Saturday morning.

“Move over,” I said, shooing my husband away from the kitchen counter. We didn’t have time to debate the absurdity of the situation, which was that apparently I had superior skills when it came to pouring a glass of milk and adding a dash of vanilla.

To be clear, I’m not a former bartender or even a good cook. But in the eyes of my daughters (the second is 5), I am uniquely capable of handling their domestic needs. I’m the one who untangles hair, cuts the tops off yogurt squeezies, and wrestles doll clothes onto tiny plastic bodies. It doesn’t matter that I sometimes wield a brush unenthusiastically, dispense snacks unceremoniously, or curse at the inflexible toys that resist costume changes.

What matters is that I usually do these things because I work from home, while my husband

commutes to the office and gets home late.

The upshot is that the girls frequently object when their dad tries to step in — and sometimes I do, too. It’s a lot easier to just untangle hair than to explain the process to someone else. So my husband has found other ways to be there. He coached the softball team, reads bedtime stories, hangs with the kids on weekends when I’m working, and goes into the ocean with them even if it’s too cold.

And yet I haven’t protested my daughters’ perception of my prowess, because let’s face it: I’m the showrunner of this production. I oversee daily operations, make sure favorite foods are on hand, book dental appointments, remember to pack jazz shoes, and know where the snow pants are stored.

This disparity between partners is hardly unique to my family. Research shows that mothers handle the majority of household chores and child care — and the mental burden of organizing it all — even when they work the same hours as their husbands at a job.

So if I sometimes get props from my kids for holding down the metaphorical fort, I figure that’s payback for the fact that my husband gets to be the “fun parent” who builds literal forts with the kids in the basement while I’m upstairs sorting through hand-me-downs. But it’s not exactly fair to either of us.

That Saturday night, as I thought about the vanilla milk, something clicked. Though that incident had cast me as the preferred parent, it left a bitter aftertaste, flavored with my own resentment, because it devalued my husband’s abilities. Co-parenting isn’t a competition. At best it’s a tag-team effort, and my partner and I are supposed to be on the same team. But it hadn’t always worked out that way — and the kids were keeping score.

The next morning, I got in the car with my younger daughter and saw that the gas tank was nearly empty. My husband had driven last, and because it was Sunday, the gas stations

near us were closed. As I searched for an open station, I grew increasingly irritated that basic maintenance was falling to me again. Just as I was about to grumble, “Daddy didn’t fill up the tank,” I caught myself. It wouldn’t serve anyone to blame my co-parent.

What was important was for my daughters to adore their dad for his goofiness, patience, kindness, intelligence, and other attributes. I didn’t want to alert them to his imperfections any more than I wanted him to alert them to mine. I did, though, want us to rethink the model we were presenting to them, and figure out a way to switch up our roles now and then.

With that in mind, I didn’t say another word. I found an open gas station, rejoiced that we were still running, fueled up, and started again.

Rachel Rabkin Peachman is a journalist specializing in health and family.

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42

T H E B O STO N G LO B E M AGA Z I N E

CONNECTI ONS

Turning for Home

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y D AV I D H U A N G F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

‘I

t’s actually snowing.” Charlie holds his phone up to the plane window to take a photo once we’ve landed.

He sends the image of icy shards clinging to the glass porthole to his friends back in California.

The first time I saw Boston was also in the snow. Tall buildings, a world dusted with white — in 1978, it seemed the most alien place in the world compared with the rolling golden hills and wide highways of my native California. Slumped in the back seat of the family car, hurtling along I-95 on the way to a new life in Woburn, I was sure Massachusetts would never feel like home.

Of course I quickly fell in love with all the things a West Coast kid couldn’t have imagined: the magic of ice skating on a flooded Arlington soccer field, navigating North End cobblestones in high heels, swimming out to the cold, still heart of Walden Pond. I planned to show it all to my own children, but we moved back west when they were still little.

I loved our Massachusetts life. If not for the dot-com bust, we’d likely never have left. But we’re happy where we are now, with bodies of water that never freeze over, redwood groves, and not turning on the heat for nine months of the

BY BARBARA CARD ATKINSON year. We ended our Boston chapter, I thought, as I dropped our snow boots off at our beach town’s Goodwill and bought sunblock in bulk. I was a Californian again, and now so were my kids.

Still, we’re back east once more, spending my son’s spring break on a college reconnaissance mission. Charlie left Massachusetts at age 5, young enough that it easily could have faded into hazy childhood memory. But his well-worn collection of Red Sox hats shows that he’s planned to come back for the past 12 years. That we’re making this trip shouldn’t surprise me, yet somehow it still does.

Now it’s snowing. I can’t imagine how this week will unfold. Can this California kid love the city in the way that early spring in Boston — moody, prickly, changeable — demands?

“This might not be your thing,” I warn. I am afraid he’ll love it here, and I’m afraid he won’t.

We hit the freezing ground running. I trail behind on tours — Northeastern, Tufts, BU, BC — gathering pamphlets and discreetly hyperventilating over financial aid packages. We eat touristy lobster rolls, drink lots of Dunkin’s, and walk from Charlestown to the Hynes. I point out meager spots of green as we cut through the Public Garden, attempt to show him everything from Acorn Street to the Zakim Bridge. He’s attentive

but quiet.

“Is this what you expected?” I ask.

“It’s still winter,” he says with a shrug.

Near the end of our stay, we take a behind-thescenes tour of Fenway Park. I booked it a month ago from a sunny place 3,000 miles away, and now it’s 39 degrees with driving rain; not ideal ballpark weather. But 17 years a Red Sox fan, and Fenway’s right there? Of course we go.

We’re standing atop the Green Monster with a small handful of diehards. My umbrella has flipped inside out and back again three times. We don’t have gloves, hats, or the right coats. We’re Californians.

I sneak a look at my kid. He is finally at Fenway, but surely he never imagined it like this. The piercing rain is assaulting us not only sideways but upward, driving slivers of pain into ears, under theoretically protective glasses, down collars.

Charlie, raw-faced, drenched to his socks, violently shivering, catches me watching him and shoots me a positively huge grin. It says everything he hasn’t, everything he doesn’t need to.

He’s about as happy as I’ve ever seen him.

He looks like he’s home.

Barbara Card Atkinson is a writer in the Bay Area. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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NOVEMBER 12, 2017

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CON N EC T I ON S

Christmas Present

BY LAURA LONG

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y M A R TA S E V I L L A F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

T

he Thanksgiving dishes and autumn decor are finally put away.

Holiday chatter has dissipated now that guests have bidden farewell.

For the moment, I’m thankful that the onslaught of Black Friday commercials has finally wound down. Wilting chrysanthemums join shriveled pumpkins in the compost.

With December around the corner, my senses shift toward savoring the scent of pine and the sounds of Mannheim Steamroller, Vince Guaraldi, and Nat King Cole. I begin to envision the tree, the twinkling lights, and the joy of making the house feel festive. Overhead, a clatter arises — the rustle of boxes and my husband’s voice ringing down from the attic.

“Honey, do we really need to haul all this crap out every year?”

The red and green plastic bins under the eaves hold a lifetime of holiday history. It began decades ago, when a UPS box appeared on my doorstep just after I was married. Inside was a tangible declaration that my mother deemed me resettled as an adult. As I unpacked the Christmas stocking sewn by my grandmother, childhood memories returned in a flurry. Within the folded layers of colored tissue paper were glimpses of phases, crazes, and remembrances reflected in decorations collected through the years.

“What’s this?” one of my sons asked last year, pulling out a chain of drinking-straw pieces threaded between green cardboard squares.

“I made it in preschool,” I said, beaming. He giggled, unimpressed.

There’s the Holly Hobbie ornament, a piano, a peace symbol, and my favorite, Mr. Jingeling. Few people in my adult life appreciate the bald guy in green from Santa’s workshop, but anyone who grew up in northeast Ohio knows who held the keys to the seventh floor of Halle’s department store in the 1970s.

When our boys were young, the holiday village I set up was overrun by Hot Wheels in traffic jams, the tiny streets clogged with Matchbox police cars and fire trucks. Plastic snow mysteriously blanketed the village school. But in recent years, no snow has fallen; the village sits idle, frozen. Last year no one even noticed that it didn’t appear.

Our youngest is 13, well beyond snow globes and Rudolph. So why haul it all out?

Now it’s mostly for me, still relishing the stories triggered by decorations, the anecdotes only our family knows. Some ornaments, like the Martha’s Vineyard buoy and the bear from Colorado, mark family vacations; others recall sentimental and significant memories such as the new millennium, the 2004 Red Sox victory, and Boston Strong.

Our oldest is nearly 30. Last year I mailed him a box containing the stocking I’d sewn for his first Christmas. Tucked among the ornaments I handed down to him are reflections of the era when the Lion King ruled, Beanie Babies multiplied, and he played the violin.

I still get some groans from my other sons over ornaments linked to their childhoods — a reluctance to admit they ever loved Barney, Thomas, or SpongeBob. But after a few sugar cookies, they trim the tree together, and Christmas magic glows on their faces.

I’ve begun to wonder what will be left after all the kids are grown and gone. Fragile things can adorn the tree, and the village lights can shine on fake snow that never moves. But I don’t look forward to it. After my parents handed down our holiday ornaments, they didn’t bother putting up a tree.

“We’ll enjoy the decorations at your house,” Mom said. She did, and brought along her family stories. The day will come when I’ll let someone else fuss over leveling the tree, untangling the web of lights, and making sure the ornaments are beyond the dogs’ reach. Like my mom, I look forward to sharing the holidays wherever the family gathers. But we aren’t there yet.

“Haul it all out,” I call up to Jim. It’s still our turn, and for now I plan to savor the nostalgia that illuminates our house at Christmas.

Laura Long is a writer in Needham. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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NOVEMBBER 26, 2017

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CONNECTI ONS

Near and Dear

BY BILL MITCHELL

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y R O B E R T N E U B E C K E R F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

F

or most of our 47 years together, spending time with extended family has required my wife and me to plan ahead, climb on a plane, and treasure whatever time our loved ones’ challenging geography might allow us to squeeze in.

For the past couple of years, though, Carol and I have tried something new. Instead of hurtling across the country in a metal tube, we open our front door and wander across the hall. Over there live our younger daughter, Kate, her husband, Marton, and their kids, Leila, 4, and Mateo, 2.

Although we considered a three-decker, happenstance delivered us to our new address in a courtyard building near Coolidge Corner. When friends alerted Kate that they were moving, they mentioned that their neighbors across the hall were, too.

Before we relocated, friends warned that we were about to become built-in baby sitters for neighbors who happen to be our grandchildren. Some friends of Kate and Marton said a built-in like that sounded pretty good.

Others raised concerns about too much advice from parents too close for comfort. One of our blunter friends asked, “Are you sure Kate and Marton really want you across the hall?”

In the spirit of good fences making good neighbors, we bought a $5 OPEN sign that, for the first year or so, we hung on our door indicating when visitors were welcome. Over time, we learned enough about one another’s clocks that no sign was needed.

For a while, the earlyrising Mateo would end up in the care of his early-rising grandfather.

Now he marches across the hall to announce that he’s ready for a snack, a book, or maybe a trip to the playground.

As some of the novelty of our arrangement wore off, we extended a bit of across-the-hall hospitality to neighbors we’re not even related to. It’s amazing how much community a few plastic Adirondack chairs in the courtyard can build.

Dinner continues to unfold as a joint venture

mostly at our place, with cooking and cleanup shared by both households. Although we have no set duties, Carol and I often engage one of the kids when the other needs particular parental attention.

For two summers now, when the time came to haul the airconditioning units from the basement, I have hesitated not a moment in crossing the hall in search of Marton. I don’t hesitate as much as I should when it comes to advice, but I’m trying.

With each family spending $2,350 a month for rent, this setup cannot be called frugal. Carol and I sold our eight-year-old Volvo and rely on the T, Hubway, car services, and occasionally the SUV registered to the people across the hall. Sharing our wireless account is easier, because it’s simultaneously usable in ways that even late-model Hondas are not.

But the heart of this arrangement is not about logistics or the occasional efficiency. It’s more a matter of enriching the ups and downs of everyday life with the gritty love and affection of family. Discovering Carol and Leila at work with a mixing bowl in our kitchen, Kate paused for a moment and said, “Sometimes this across-the-hall thing really makes me emotional.”

With much of the family still at a distance, we’re always hunting for ways of pulling them closer. Most mornings, Marton sets the breakfast table with a Skype connection seating his parents in Budapest directly across from their Hungarian-American grandchildren in Brookline.

Navigating family geography is all a matter of perspective.

“Amma and Papa live too far away,” Leila told her mom shortly after we moved in. “I’m not going to walk.” Whereupon she buckled on her orange helmet and rode her scooter the 12 feet from her front door to ours.

Bill Mitchell is a writer and blogger in Brookline. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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DECEMBER 3, 2017

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CONNECTI ONS

An American Christmas

I

t was an ordinary tabletop Christmas tree, the kind favored by renters in cramped apartments, like the one I was visiting.

Green and symmetrical, threaded with a strand of blinking white lights, the little tree lent a cheerful air to the drab living room.

But when I spotted it, I stared, perplexed.

I was at the modest housing complex near Portland, Oregon, that December day to visit Buthainah, a refugee from Iraq.

We’d known each other since her arrival in the United States, when her resettlement agency made me her family’s volunteer “cultural navigator,” to ease their adjustment to American life. Five months and countless cups of tea later, our relationship, once tentative and awkward, had transformed into a close bond.

Short and plump, with a ready smile, Buthainah (boo-thane-ah) projected a cheerful, motherly authority. She rarely allowed the losses she had suffered — her husband, her homeland, her extended family — to impede her twin goals of making a new life for her four children and ensuring their academic excellence.

But I couldn’t help being aware of the sorrow she tried to suppress, and the ache of displacement.

I knew, too, of the solace and strength my friend found in her faith, praying five times each day, visiting the mosque when she could find a ride, celebrating the holy days that kept her children connected to the culture they had left behind. Inside the sparsely decorated apartment, two items adorned the living room wall, emblems of family fidelity — an American flag and a framed verse from the Koran.

So what was the Christmas tree doing in her living room?

Buthainah embraced me and kissed my

cheeks in greeting. When I gestured toward the tree, she laughed at my expression of surprise.

An Iraqi friend had brought it, she told me.

“But . . . your religion?” I asked hesitantly.

Her dark eyes opened wide. “No religion, no, no!” she said, explaining that in Baghdad, Christmas trees were common, and the final week of December was a time for fireworks, feasting, and communal celebration. “Muslim, Christian, anyone,” she said. Her smile slipped as she added a single word: “Before.”

We were silent for a moment, and then she brightened. “And now, in America, the same!”

She approached the little tree and frowned.

“But I have no — ” and she mimed hanging an

ornament.

I am Jewish, but making do at Christmastime was a regular theme in my favorite historical novels from childhood, like the Little House books. I always relished descriptions of plucky families contriving decorations from humble household materials such as popcorn, apples, and scraps of cloth and ribbon.

“Do you have scissors?” I asked.

“And paper?”

Recognizing the English words for two crucial kindergarten supplies, Buthainah’s 6-year-old son jumped up to fetch them.

When he returned, I showed him how to cut strips of paper, then fashion them into chains.

“Ah!” Buthainah exclaimed, watching me drape one on the tree. She went to the closet and emerged with a bundle of used wrapping paper imprinted with golden stars.

Carefully cutting one out, she set it among the branches of the tree, where it shone among the lights.

I could almost see Ma Ingalls smiling in solidarity.

That afternoon, as we sipped milky cardamom-spiced tea and constructed homemade ornaments together, I tried to imagine the vanished Christmases of Buthainah’s Baghdad, citywide celebrations that she was conjuring today with a single tree. I thought, too, about the traditions my own ancestors brought to this country, anchoring themselves to their roots even as they started over in a new land.

The little tree glowed in the early twilight, and I smiled. A Jew and a Muslim decorating a Christmas tree: not the setup to a joke, but the beginning of an American story.

Kate Haas is a writer and freelance editor in Portland, Oregon. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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T H E B O STO N G LO B E M AGA Z I N E

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y J O S E P H I N E K Y H N F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

BY KATE HAAS

I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y J A M E S O ’ B R I E N F O R T H E B O S TO N G LO B E

W

hen two people find each other and fall in love later in the game — as my husband Jim and I did, a second marriage for both — a certain feeling may come upon them, a sense that they are almost young again. We knew how precious the days were and to make the most of every one.

So the spring after we met, Jim bought a classic motorcycle — a Triumph Bonneville. He had just turned 60; his number-one passenger was 58.

In the summer of 2012, we shipped the Bonneville from our home in Oakland, California, to New Hampshire, where I come from. I wanted to introduce the man I loved to New England. We climbed Mount Monadnock and swam in quarries and ate lobster rolls. It was the first time since graduating from law school that Jim took off more than a week from work.

One time near the end of that summer, I spotted a farm stand with a sign out front: “Silver Queen Corn, First of the Season.” We bought a baker’s dozen, and since we didn’t have saddlebags, I zipped them up into my motorcycle jacket and hopped back on the bike. That night, we polished off every ear.

Two years after that, my husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He died less than a year later, a few weeks shy of what would have

CONNECTI ONS

My Bonneville Summer

BY JOYCE MAYNARD

been our third wedding anniversary.

All that year I sorted through his possessions: cigar cutters and camera lenses and bass guitars, law books and poetry collections and the sash with Jim’s Eagle Scout merit badges, and chord books for every song the Beatles ever recorded.

Then there was the problem of the Bonneville. The sight of it brought me up short every time I walked into our garage. But I wasn’t a motorcycle driver. What I loved was sitting on the back, with my arms around Jim, flying down some two-lane road, pulling into a shack for fried clams.

Finally, a few weeks before the first anniversary of my husband’s death, I placed an ad on Craigslist.

A week or so after I listed the bike, a young man came to check it out. He took a spin of course, studied the motor and the chrome.

When he said he was going for it, I asked if his girlfriend liked to ride.

She did.

There was a place on the title to write the mileage on the Bonneville, so I went out to the garage to check.

I stood there taking the sight in one last time. When I saw the number on the odometer I thought I must be reading it wrong. I would have

sworn we’d covered 10,000 miles at least, we had so much fun on that bike. But the number was 1,826.

A memory came to me. Late August 2012. Jim and me, on a two-lane road outside Antrim, New Hampshire — goldenrod in bloom, the sun low on the horizon, the air carrying the faint promise of fall.

The farm stand. The corn.

I headed back to the house, where the new owner of my husband’s Bonneville handed me an envelope containing 47 hundreddollar bills. He got on the bike and rode away.

I stood in front of the garage till the new owner was out of sight, taking in the sound of the Bonneville’s engine — less demanding of attention than a Harley, more subtle.

It’s a sound that will always remind me of Jim, though what I liked best was the sound of that engine coming up the driveway to the house. Not driving away.

Eat that corn while it’s ripe is the lesson. It won’t be there in November. Hop on the bike, love while you can. All we know for sure that we have is today.

Joyce Maynard’s latest book, The Best of Us: A Memoir, about finding and losing her husband, came out last week. For a schedule of local appearances, visit joycemaynard.com.

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CONNECTI ONS

Living in English

BY LOUBNA EL AMINE

I L LU ST R AT I O N B Y A L I S O N S E I F F E R F O R T H E B O STO N G LO B E

I

n my first days in the United States, my jaw hurt at the end of the day. It was as if speaking English required me to open my mouth wider and more often in order to emit the sounds in all their sonority. I still have a problem with the word water. A friend taught me to ask for “ice water” — never mind that I do not like ice in my water — at loud bars; “ice” seems to do a good job of cueing “water” to bartenders.

Eleven years later, English has become second nature. And yet it is still a foreign language. I realize this when I randomly encounter someone — a bus driver, a baker, a bank teller — who, discovering I am Lebanese, says something in Arabic. That one word or sentence brings with it unexpected delight. Relief, even. It reorients the world in one quick movement, suddenly rendering us both no longer out of place and everyone else a foreigner. It is a fleeting moment, but its powers of recalibration never fail to amaze me. It also reminds me of how smooth Arabic words feel, gentle sounds that seemingly glide off my tongue, not requiring efforts of articulation.

I married an American, but — probably not accidentally — one who knows Arabic. I have made many resolutions and devised many

plans to switch to speaking to him in Arabic rather than English as a default, but I have consistently faltered. And yet I cannot even imagine what our relationship would be like if I did not have the option of resorting to Arabic when I need it. Would he really, truly know me if my first word to him in the morning, as we teasingly wake each other up, had to be in English? And would he appreciate the word I call him — hayati, or “my life” — if he did not understand the intricacies of the language?

Having lived in Cairo and Damascus, he speaks in a mix of dialects. We met in Beirut, and since then, his repertoire has gradually expanded, becoming more Lebanese and informal. When I am exasperated, I instinctively switch to speaking to him in my native tongue.

Nothing is as liberating as being able to get annoyed in a language that feels natural, without having to look for an inadequate translation of pressing, indignant exasperation.

I remember obsessing, in a previous relationship with an American, about having blond, blue-eyed children who would call me “mom.” I understood later, with the benefit of hindsight, that my fears had more to do with the relationship itself than with the language that my future children would speak. But it

is telling nonetheless that they’d coalesced around that word: mom. The Arabic mama sounds so much sweeter to my ear.

Now that I have a niece, I feel an incredible joy in calling her amto, the Arabic word for “paternal aunt.” In the Levant, it is customary, and an expression of affection, to call a younger relative the name he or she is meant to call you: Parents call their children mama and baba, and uncles and aunts call their nieces and nephews ammo and amto. Just saying amto conjures the whole world of amtos and ammos and khalos and babas and mamas and jeddos and tetas in which I grew up. The line of continuity extends from my childhood to hers, into her first steps and her first words and the huge excitement of hearing that beautiful little girl call me, one day, amto.

But I also know that it is possible that she, growing up in the United States, will choose to call me “auntie” instead. And, deep down, I know that “auntie” will fill me with the same happiness that amto would — so long as I reserve the right to call her “auntie” back.

Loubna El Amine teaches political theory at Northwestern University. Send comments to connections@globe.com.

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