With her latest piece
presents a wonderful family letter/diary type piece which somehow avoids all of the pitfalls of those genres- self-indulgence, navel gazing, prattling on- while also offering all of the plus points of those genres at their very best- genuine humour, warm, insightful and candour. This is veeery difficult to do well, let alone in such as natural and seemingly effortless a style as this.I think that as well as finding her voice and her subject matter Jeanne has also found her format of expression here, which is a blessed situation for any writer to find themselves in.
A great way to eradicate the blues of January, this.
Enjoy.
TJB.
New Year’s Day 2024
Traveling in the morning, busy unpacking most of the afternoon, settled in by sunset I learned a few new things to start off the new year. They seem unrelated. But are they? Or am I finally paying attention?
The Drive
“What’s that thing called on the back of that truck?”
I’m driving south with my husband to the much needed sunshine of Florida. We’re both tired. It’s the third day of what would usually be a two day trip. We’ve been sick with winter colds so we decided to break it up into three days. I’m doing most of the driving because he is sicker than me. He has a man cold.1
“It’s a davit.”
“You’re right!” He seems surprised that I know what that thing on the back of that truck is called.
There was a time when I didn’t. He taught me the name maybe 44 or so years ago when we first met. He hasn’t asked what it’s called because he’s forgotten, he’s asked because that is how he makes conversation. He likes to talk about things he knows, concrete things.
“I taught you that didn’t I?”
“Yep.”
“I’ve taught you a lot of things, haven’t I?”
“Yep.”
“If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t know any of that stuff, would you? You’ve learned a lot from me in 40 years, haven’t you? I’ve taught you about cars, I’ve taught you about coins, I’ve taught you about golf, I’ve taught you about guns…”
“Yep.” I interrupt because I know from experience that the list is quite long. He is an accomplished, intelligent guy with a wide range of knowledge and interests, and he talks a lot. “What have you learned from me?”
“What?”
“You’ve taught me a ton of things. What have you learned from me?”
He’s silent.
I’m silent. I’m thinking. I’m stunned into silence because as lists go I can’t think of a damn thing in answer to this question at this moment.2 Is it really that bad? I’m panicking inside. Think Jeanne, surely you have an example. Think! I’m still drawing a blank and so is he.
“I don’t know. But I’ve taught you about plumbing, baseball…”, with a defensive move meant to mask his inability to come up with anything at all he pretends he hasn’t understood the question and serves up a new list of things he’s taught me .
“No,” I return the ball, “tell me what you’ve learned from me.”
“Well, help me out here,” he volleys.
“Nope, I want you to think of them.” I lob it high and over his head
“Oh, then I’m not gonna to do that.” He swings, but misses. It drops in. (love-15, my point?)
I am mad, in fact, I’m infuriated. It has hit me like a ton of bricks. He can’t think of a single thing I’ve taught him or that he has learned from me in over 44 years? The worse part of this realization is that I can’t think of anything specific at the moment either.
I submit, I’m silent. Don’t say another word, I tell myself. You’re sick, he’s sick, you can discuss it calmly later. Be reasonable. Don’t get your feathers ruffled. I seethe quietly the rest of trip with the new knowledge that he thinks that the learning in our marriage has only gone one way. I struggle to think how I will discuss this with him. We’ve been having a rough patch and my therapist suggested I bring up my concerns as they occur and not let them fester. But, he has a damn man cold. I’m not cruel.
The FaceTime
It’s evening. We’re all unpacked and moved into our vacation rental. I’m a little exhausted, still brooding, yet still too sick to start an argument. The phone rings. It’s my daughter Jenny, FaceTiming.
“So, they said they’d never seen that before…”, she began
“What? Who?” god I look awful, I move both the camera and my head around trying to get an angle that doesn’t make me look pasty and crinkled. I give up. There is no flattering angle.
“Roto Rooter, they said I’d have to call the plumbers who installed it. I did they’re coming tomorrow to take a look.”
“Good.”
My daughter looks tired and peckish. The new drainage system in her basement smells like sewage. It shouldn’t.
“It’s good they’re coming right away, that’s a good thing.” I try to sound encouraging.
“Yeah, but I hate dealing with tradesmen, they assume women don’t know anything. I know there isn’t supposed to be sewage in the storm drainage system. The two should never meet.3 They’ll treat me like I’m stupid4. They won’t believe me.”
“Well, be patient and explain it to them. They need to fix it, it was guaranteed.”
“Oh, I won’t be there, I’ve gotta work. Gail’s gonna come over.”
“Ask her to record what they say. Don’t worry about it. How was the New Year’s Eve party?”
“It was great the girls had a lot of fun. So did we!”
My nine year old granddaughter Josie pops into the picture bopping her head up and down with her hands in that ‘party on dude’ configuration. (Or is it an LA gang sign? Can’t remember.)
“Yeah, totally!”, she laughs.
“How about Bellie? Did she party too?”
“No, she’s shy. She only parties at home.”
My daughter turns the camera towards Belle, her publically shy, secretly wild six year old. She looks up from her coloring, sees the camera and immediately starts rocking it like an eighties extra. My granddaughters are a joy. It’s not because they are whip- smart, active, polite, and well spoken young ladies. It is because they like to have fun. When we play, they think of the silliest games. They don’t expect to be judged by a grandmother, just loved, so they play with abandon. As for me, I no longer seek the approval of anyone, he’s in the TV room watching the iPad and TV simultaneously at the moment anyway.
“I saw the pictures of your egg. Your mother texted them too me. That’s fantastic! Finally, you have an egg! Way to go.”
I’m talking to Belle in that excited up voice because one of the six chickens they have been raising since late last summer has laid an egg. The first egg!
“Do you know which one laid it Belle?”
She has returned to her coloring and doesn’t hear. I ask her because she is the chicken whisperer of the family and knows all six personally. Belle is the star at catching them and returning them to their run at the end of each day. She calls them to her and they rush to gather in a circle around her. Standing in the middle of the ladies, she pauses until she senses she has their attention and with her tiny sweet sing-song voice, she tells them its time to go in and asks them “Aren’t you happy? Did you have a nice time in the yard today?” Just a little chit chat to set them at ease. She picks one up, whoever is nearest, holds them steadily in her little arms cooing their name and reassuring them until they relax. If you’re watching her, you can see the moment they give way. Then and only then, she returns them to the coop. If they start to fidget, fuss, or struggle while she’s walking, she just stops and repeats her calming words maybe with an added caress or a slight adjustment in position until the job is done. She never seems to hurry or worry. She has never been clawed. A natural.
Belle explained to me once that the key to catching them is patience.
“You have to wait until they are calm.” She told me this past fall when I first met the hens. “If they get uncalm you just wait some more. Then they get calm again and you catch them.” She shrugged as if it was the simplest most obvious thing in the world.
I caught the first one easily that day, she caught the other five.
The picture blurs. It comes back into focus. A mouth, partially open, the iPhone camera moving first from the bottom right to the bottom left of a row of teeth with two new gaps, a tongue pointing in turn to the pink slots between the white.
“Thee, Mannma. I loth thum moah theeth.”
“I know Josie, you showed me at Christmas.”
“Oh , right.” returning her tongue to it’s functional place, she continues. “It was Amelia. Amelia, laid the egg.”
“How do you know?”
But she’s laid the camera down and run out of the picture. All I see is the ceiling light.
“Did you see her lay it?” I contintue
“I was reading about it and I read that when a hen is ready to start laying she will display a submission pose, a squat, to the rooster.” My daughter has picked up the phone and is back in the picture. “You can get them to submit by pretending you’re a rooster, by holding your hand up like a stop sign right in front of their face.”
“What do you mean?” I couldn’t quite picture it.
“Like this grandma.” I hear the Josie’s voice, “Watch.”
My daughter turns the camera towards Josie and raises her hand in the stop signal.
Josie immediately squats with her hands tucked under her armpits, elbows extended, like chicken wings. Jenny lowers her hand and Josie springs back to her feet. She raises her hand again, Josie instantly squats. They do this a couple more times. Josie’s enjoying being a chicken, and Jenny the rare control. After a few times Josie tumbles over laughing
Jenny laughs. I laugh.
“Anyway, I tried that with all the chickens and Amelia did that right away. She was the only one. Besides we have another egg today and we saw her lay it.”
I did not know that. I did not know that hens squatted in submission to a rooster’s close approach when they were sexually mature and able to lay eggs.
The Confluence of the Two Three New Rivers of Knowledge
After the FaceTime, I’m back to wondering why my relationship with my husband is so lopsided. I know that he has taught me about lots of things I never would have taken up on my own. I genuinely enjoy two of them. I know several of the things he takes credit for teaching me, I already knew, but no sense ruffling feathers. I have such a hard time talking to him about most anything he isn’t interested in. Because, well, he simply isn’t interested.
But this is important to me. We have been discussing separation. After our last big fight we set a goal of being thoughtful to one another for the next few months while we’re in Florida, to see if we can do better living together.
Wait!
Change of direction. I’d planned to write about our discussion and how that turned out. I saw a connection between the hen submitting to the rooster and the way I shrink when I need to assert myself. The fact is, I haven’t brought it up again. He’s still a little under the weather, but he’s cheerful and has been considerate. I’ve thought of many not so concrete things I’ve taught him, so I’m not quite as angry. I wrote an imaginary ending about me squawking at him, but it wasn’t satisfying because it didn’t have a ring of truth.
Then, while searching for the pictures to illustrate my story, the strangest thing happened.
That thing on the back of that truck? It is not a davit! He was wrong! All these years, I thought I knew what that thing on the back of that truck is called and I didn’t. Even more mind blowing, he didn’t! That thing on the back of that truck is called a piggyback forklift, or a TMFL (truck mounted forklift). A davit is a type of hoist for lifting boats and such in and out of the water. A davit can be mounted on the back of a truck, but it was not that thing on the back of that truck.
I have a lot to think about. Do you? I could wrap this up by using a series of truisms, like, you’re never too old to learn and trust but verify and well, you get the idea, (I hope) but the one I know that applies to most any situation is one I learned from my husband.
Right or wrong?
“You might as well eat white sugar.”
Think about it.5
J.
The Man Cold
I have thought of many things since then. Like, you can’t leave toddlers alone in another room when you pee you have to take them in the bathroom with you or at least keep them in the line of sight. Seems obvious, but he had no idea. Luckily no one was hurt when he heard the bang in the next room and in his rush to pullup his pants, he stumbled getting back to the living room quickly and bumped his knee. The bang was just an end table being knocked over. The lamp didn’t break, but the juice box spilled and well…
It was a broken sewer pipe leaking into a trench that contained the slotted drainage pipes. They fixed it since they had accidentally cracked the pipe breaking up the floor to install the drain.
This is an undisputed FACT. no citations necessary.
Unironically, this is Phineas’s favorite way to end a story or joke.