catching up

Been away a lot lately. Spent a week at Ocean Isles Beach, NC, with A’s family. The peak experience there was the night A’s brother set off a roman candle in his house. (We were in two houses, and happily I was in the other one). I spent a lot of time on the deck of my house, which looked out over a pretty estuary, knitting and reading. On the last night, when I surprised everyone by showing up for a family karoake expedition, Jippy told me they ought to name me “Unicorn” because I am a mythical creature no one ever sees.

When I got back, I hit the road again to take Ben’s passport to him in Canada. He had forgotten it, and was under the impression, confirmed by the US gov web site, that you have to have either a passport or a driver’s licence and birth certificate. All he had was the licence. I couldn’t get it fedexed in time, so I gave myself a little New England vacation–took 3 days, pricelining hotel rooms. Met Ben and his friends in Woodstock, Canada, where we passed a couple of cheery hours in a tiny hippy luncheonette where you could get a martini with your curry chicken soup if you were so inclined.

On the way back I visited Sturbridge Village, which I’d never seen. I went in just after they opened, before many tourists had arrived, and it was strangely convincing. I felt as though I were in 1830. Pretty place, pretty day.

Lady K. is in Seattle, staying with a friend, working in a bagel shop, and avoiding her father. After receiving a couple letters from her on the subject, I mused and mused about whether I could talk to him and advise him to do two simple things, take a moratorium on giving her advice, particularly about school and careers, and use the time instead being interested, in a non judgmental way, about the kind of person she is. The other day Ben was heading off to have dinner with his father, and I asked him to pass the message on if the subject came up. Ben, who gets along fine with his father usually, said drily to my comment that these were just two things for H. to do, “sure it’s simple. It just means that he has to completely reconstruct how he deals with people.” This morning, as I was driving Ben to the train station, I asked how his dinner went. “I didn’t get a change to tell him the thing you wanted me to tell him. The conversation never got around to deep emotional relationship issues.” I laughed hysterically then went back to wondering whether I could talk to H. I’ve stopped giving him advice about the kids because he thinks I’m an idiot, but if he could do this thing it would save him a lot of money–he’s agreed to help pay for Lady K. to see a therapist during the upcoming school year. (After her grades tanked and she told me about the 6 week periods of depression when she stays in bed and doesn’t turn work in). Meanwhile, I advise her to try to accept him as he is and tell her it does her no good to injure herself in response to her father’s way of dealing with the world. But she wants his love so much, and even when you know that this is his way of expressing love (fixing what’s wrong with you), it doesn’t create that warm and fuzzy confidence. So it would save a lot of time, agony, and $$ if H. could try. Ben is certain that this is impossible, though.

Sigh.