Twenty-Seven

Less than,

More than,

Rather than

Go on about

What it has

Or hasn’t been,

I’d like to

Count that on which

I can count.

Twenty-seven times one.

One is about the first year before round-a-bouts and little ones and paychecks,

A time of bus rides and mustard yellow Volvo and food stamps and Safeway a couple blocks away. A time before green felt. Taking the bus to the university. First Christmas together in our own house, our lights, our stockings.

First Floods.

I’m a teacher. Where’s Lake Arrowhead? Neither of us knew, and neither of us (newly married) knew much more. We didn’t know the sides of the lake—this side’s much better, that side’s too cold—or this side’s just right, ‘cause the snow won’t melt. But it didn’t really matter which side we were on, as long as you were there on my side with

me. From moving into rentals with mice and raccoons, to forests and lakefront, sunsets and hemlock, blue jay, and cedar creek inn. PO Box and Laundromat, stories of cops and snow and packing it all up each summer to go back to order feathers, make routes, honor some campers, and sleep in the blue room and another Christmas.

III

There we were sitting in the cabin watching Monday Night Football (at least I was watching) and the announcement comes on that John Lennon had been shot...then, later, that he had died. And there you were for me. The next day I skip school and go into San Bernardino to buy Double Fantasy. Those songs hold a special meaning for me that has less to do with Lennon as they do with our early days and what would so become our early family days. Somewhere in there above a garage we decided to change everything although we could never really know how. But it happened. First love, then made love into a little boy to join us in our packing and coming and going and driving down two-mile road to get this or that with that little blonde face looking out the window from his car seat in the front—shotgun and nobody called because there was nobody else. Just me and him, him and me. “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful Boy.” Another Christmas—first with our little boy.

Years don’t mean much in some ways—they are more like a basket full (more or less) with what we can remember; sometimes they’re just baskets, just years. Other times they are overflowing like maybe the loaves and fishes—you have to believe in what’s there in those years in order to remember them. And sometimes we don’t see them because we’re looking for something else. The multitude would have starved if they had been looking for beef that day. And this basket here is full of so much it sometimes appears empty. If we look for all those things we did not do—the basket will give us the things we did not do as things not done, or undone. And the basket will yield nothing. No thing. No purchased house. No wise financial investment. No great retirement plan. Beef.

However,

I see some fish and a few loaves. Another Christmas together.

Fish and chips. Remember? Fish and chips. What a simple thing. Here’s another. Dinner and a movie. OR

Dinner and an hourglass (later)

An hourglass and a movie. (still later)

No, too hot…

too tired.

Here’s a burger and fries.

Here’s parking with a view.

Here’s your hand on my thigh. Let’s stay here for a minute.

Here’s more: you in black.

Here’s you in less, but still in black.

Mmmmm.

Here’s the morning when there is nothing on the schedule and I’m with you in a soft, warm bed.

Somewhere in this year came (or was it the last) came the Bensons to become transformed from flatlanders into mountain folk. Jon and I out in the back country with little chains and big dreams of provisions for the women back home where the beer awaited. And back to us, the three together—I remember going into Blue Jay with Ben to pick out our Christmas Tree—not just another Christmas.

Here we are back when the changes began.

There I am with that little boy having breakfast at the Country Store. He is about to meet his little brother. All of that is fish and loaves overflowing. Nobody takes that away. There we are in the room with you and number two. Toe head little guy he’ll become. Two beautiful boys. And I didn’t even really know how beautiful they were…even as beautiful as they were. I was young, you were young, they were young, and there we were—a family. Ben and Josh. Two names, one thing; a brotherhood found in each other, and bond melded together earlier than even they could know. Here is early family and dreams of happily ever after. Manzanita. Visits from family to our many mountain homes. Here are wonderful years in Arrowhead and eventually the last months in the mountain with little Josh and big brother Ben, last times around the block. Christmas came again.

Changes again. Dark against light. Josh just into this world to be held by his grandmother, and then she leaves and doesn’t come back. Won’t be coming back. And Josh would never know—except through pictures that can capture and recreate life in some mysterious way—and Ben would need to know that she was gone. And then we were gone. Back to Santa Barbara. From the mountantains to the sea. And though we would return, from time to time, the mountains would soon become a part of our history (two lovers, two sons, two-mile road, and too many memories to count). Lost Christmas.

VII

SB: The Return

First stop—Summerland

I’ll forget the beach and ocean air so drastically different from the five years in Arrowhead—yes, it was still Summer, like all those Summers before when we would (you would) pack up the truck or Volvo wagon (or both) and we would move into a temporary dwelling—transients, nomads, but this was different. Not like the Summer at Auhay and rusting sculpture in the backyard, and 9 holes of golf at Swingers; not like the one room cottage on Park Lane while you were rotund and waiting; not like the trailer out in the woods with Ben’s bed in the middle; not like any of those stops, even though each of them seemed so full and lived in—were the days longer, the weeks too?

Unlike any of those, we were back for good (or bad, or whatever the days, weeks, months, and years held out ahead of us. But the most important part was the us. First stop, Summerland. The house at the bottom, on top of the hill. Josh’s first steps… chasing a beer bottle. The we were off to Anacapa and stroller walks around the block and wiffle ball in the backyard and first Thanksgiving without Peg and you are the host (and you know that was my favorite Thanksgiving of all because you were so great and somehow we all fit, and later we walked to the park where Ron pitched to Ben—early connections between them. Walks to town. The upper east side. Great house. Josh’s first birthday. And that new tv show I liked called “The Cosby Show.” Bishop Days. Christmas Parade down State. Then to pack and move again. A moving Christmas—one tree in the back of the truck and another, all white with red balls and two presents. I’m dreaming of a strange Christmas. And then, the East Wing—a new foundation (and new plumbing),

VIII

So much happened during the East Wing (it is not so much a place, a part of the large “red” house, as much as it is a TIME in which we lived). One thing about our moving around is that no matter where we lived, as soon as we unpacked and arranged our stuff, the house became our own. This has continued up through today, except we haven’t been moving, so we keep unpacking and arranging our stuff—we’d need a train if we had to move again. Or a bonfire. The East Wing is many things, events, promises, disappointments, but will forever be a place of celebrations. The biggest being the arrival of Matt and Eli. Twins. Twinercise, your called it. Sometimes I still can’t quite believe we added two at once, I mean the jump was huge, and yet, so right, and of course because of it everything that has followed, has followed, or led and we, you and I , have followed our four boys through many adventures, trails, trials, and triumphs, and of course the Meandyounights would anticipate many duets in the future. And speaking of duets, this wing, this time, is also where Ben and Josh would wait so patiently to ambush their mother who would innocently (or not so innocently) walk home from work each day. This is where their father unwittingly created a tradition of spaghetti and one special table cloth; where birthdays were celebrated (twins turn one!), others keep growing, The BenandJosh bond grows tighter, Ben starts school and friendships take root, some will go quite deep into the earth…and resurface many years later, intertwined in ways impossible to foresee. Josh climbs a tree and the firemen get him down. Matt and Eli discover everything. Matt has big eyes of wonder, and Eli drools continuously. Both are hauled around to older brothers’ events. Both love books at bedtime. Everyone is exhausted. “Only cried three times today,” she says. Sad times keep showing up—Eistein in the middle of the night, Larry saying, “I’m so sorry” and then helping me dig a grave in the hardest clay late into the evening. I go underground and start writing again. I record Promised Land on a cheap cassette tape recorder in the “fix-it shop” underneath our bedroom while children (ours and their friends) play outside. Their laughter can be heard in the background—a nive accident for a song titled Promised Land. I write words. They get filed—collect dust. What am I? What is my job? When everything else doesn’t add up, my children say I’m a father; you say I’m a husband. We say we are a family…and we are. First Christmas in the East Wing. One of many best Christmases.

More Bishop and blessings from Father Higgins at mass, and you are at Westmont? Part-time? And is this San Marcos Parent-Child Workshop? Or are at The Oaks? Number 9, number 9, numb…

This is so confusing. There were so many things covered in IX that didn’t happen then but create that thing called the East Wing. Around this time we’re running the Dolphin Center, you’re knee-deep in Ben and Josh and I’m teaching at Westmont and City College…or am I working at UCSB? I’m even tutoring Eric Peterson. Crazy. We are planning an addition to our family. And this was the year Ben ran out of the living room to get that baseball card of a player he didn’t know, but had just got as a party favor at Taylor’s birthday party that day---he jumped up and ran to his room he recognized the announced name of the player coming out of the dugout to pinch-hit in the bottom of the ninth with two out. Ben held the card with two hands as Kirk Gibson made history, and made a lifetime fan of Ben and his brother Josh. (for me it was pure religion—restored faith, wanting to believe, and getting an answered prayer…of course, the prayer wasn’t about the game…just the ongoing prayer for moments like this to experience…and the wisdom to be grateful.

I think I’m still teaching part-time at the two colleges. UCSB is in there as well, and we’re doing the Oaks thing too. Red tag, yellow tag. Sand blocks, pass the clipboards… “I’ll just sit here and wait…” she’d tell us each Wednesday night.

Livebait: Chronicles of a substitute. I got to tell you, I was a pretty good sub, but I really hated it—the transient nature, the way it had nothing to do with teaching. I had been a “real” teacher with real responsibilities and an identity—now it was “Where is the bathroom?” “I’m teaching art today” “I’m teaching PE today. Where’s the locker room?”

But I figured it out, and we ate and had Christmas and…one day I got a call…a message from you. I called you back and we cried. And I don’t want to go there again. But I will if my children ever need to know about expectations and loss and learning how to get through another day and into a new one. We learned this and more. And we could hug Ben and Josh and feel them even more.

This is turning into more than I had bargained for. Although, maybe that’s a good thing. Isn’t that what bargains are all about?…getting more for your money? I was going to write a short piece for each year of these past twenty-seven, thinking of course about us and the evolution of us, and each year I discover something else, and then feel I need to go back and revise an earlier entry…then I’m writing a history—or a mystory (mystery?) or an ourstory…but it is so big—so many layers and I’m not ever half-way there! Okay number ten—where to begin…how old are the kids? We’ve got four and I’m working at El Puente for the wicked witch of the west in a group of portables with a guy whose New Orleans accent is so thick and mind so scattered I get lost just looking at him…then there are the two “aides”—one is nicknamed Gilligan by the other aide who’s bribing juvenile delinquents into getting him food at Wendy’s across the street—Then, of course, a house lands on the witch of the west---everyone sings and dances around the yellow brick road, and then like a smoke trail broom riding vision in comes the wicked witch of east—but more like the anti-witch because we trusted her, and before I know it I’m being shipped off to Santa Maria by a gutless boss (or else a boss whose balls are in the not so comforatable grasp of one…you guessed it— wicked witch of the east.

Where was I …?…oh yeah. Now that I think about it, this wasn’t the year of the El Puente (should be El Pointless), except that, of course it meant food on the table (same table we have now) and clothes and shelter. Just like those other jobs. The substitute teaching, the work at the university, Westmont, City College, painting on the outside of second story windows with Rich…oh…Rich, he deserves a chapter all by himself…maybe not…except to say it is funny (odd, peculiar…) how everything keeps circling back on itself. Who would have thought that the man who dislocated Josh’s elbow would years later loan him (and the others) ski gear and wire the trailers, and hire as workers, and double the square footage of our house, an build a roof, and on and on. And now have some boys of his own. Like it or not, still part of our story. And that’s important to remember about yesterday as well as today and tomorrow…we really don’t know how all the days will eventually connect…how all the players will eventually exchange lines, if you will. Not telling.

On the other hand, (both hands actually) the greatest thing that occurred in the last period was so great I couldn’t include it with that other stuff. “There’s two in there,” she said. “”Two what?” I thought. Ready or not, the twins were on the way. We’ve talked about this a lot, told others the various stories, but it is quite remarkable to think that I was subbing one day, then you’re pregnant with two, and I’m off to Oz. Lake Arrowhead with none, one, two,…then, five years later, six of us in a Honda. So many stories would overlap, cover each other up…Ben and his friends, Josh and his, Matt and Eli, Eli and Matt. And you with them all. And me with the tomorrow’s inmates. Side by side cribs in the blue room. Sssshhhh. Don’t knock, twins are sleeping.

XII

This isn’t what it started out to be…so what is? Twins one year birthday party—cake in the highchairs. Ben and Josh growing and helping and I’m glad it “isn’t what it started out to be.” Jog-a-thons and art fairs and Cold Spring Carnivals and plays and you and me on our anniversary.

And by the way, we’re moving again…

XIII

Westmont Rd. Pretty great in some crazy ways. Matt and Eli exploring down the hill –way down there. Fencing them in, planting a garden, putting up a close-line, Ben and Josh’s room, Matt and Eli’s room, and do you remember Matt and Eli’s birthday with Harrison and Alex? Who would have thought…years later…banana?

XIV

Remember our anniversary when we were given a gift of a six-pack and baby oil (thanks Rhonda) and we put blankets in the living room. Happy Anniversary. Rope swing off the porch in back. Slugs in the living room. Party at the house that reunites that brings together some of the old friends. You and the boys buy me my first cd player and first cd: Cream’s Greatest Hits. I remember.

One of the things over the past few years that was happening was the growing importance of the Lakers and Dodgers for Ben, and by association, Josh. Espically the Lakers as Ben was playing so much ball. Josh, too, was shooting hoops. Josh and Ben (and Sean). Matt and Eli and those giant rubber cars, orange and yellow, crashed at the bottom of the hill. Oh yes, Matt’s early career in diving, passed on to Eli…off the dresser…into the dentist’s office. Emergency Rooms were like playrooms for us. And remember Pepper? Dragging little Matt around Circle Drive ?(literally). And one night I decide to watch this new show about a stand up comic I had seen a few years back on Johnny Carson. The show’s called simply Seinfeld. I tell you about it. It’s too late for Ben and Josh—they’re too young. You are reading (and falling asleep) with Matt and Eli on those beds pushed together in their room. And let’s not forget the babysitters we threw in the mix. Jennifer Crook comes to mind. Most of the others I forget by contrast. What was the name of the couch potato who was called outside by the twins to see a “spider”? The tarantula would have been a better sitter. Never a moment too dull around the Shelton (our Shelton) home. Thank God.

XVI

New beginning—but it’s always darkest before the dawn. I’m told I’m going to Santa Maria, I say no and call around and hustle together some letters and a resume and interview and I’m given a choice and decide to “go home again” to SBJH as Ben starts junior high brand new. Also coming to mind are the many road trips following the basketball exploits of Ben (and later, Josh) to fun places like Palm Springs and the Bates Motel? The near fights between Doug W and the opposing parents---we’ve come a long way. But the biggest highlight/transition this fall as I look back has to be our final return to the property. When I look at old pictures of a younger family many emotions rush through me. But one central theme that continues to permeate my memories is our perseverance. Most people, perhaps everyone, who looks at what we have don’t have any idea what it was before…but isn’t that the same with everything? Who we have been before, who are kids have been, are becoming? The weeds and little pool abandoned and full of junk, potato bugs and lizards, old chainlink fences to come down. Tent trailer and real trailer and Curt helping me plumb the bathtub (can I put this on the priority list with the toilet? I think so.) Eucalyptus trees to be removed. No driveway. Plank of wood from backdoor entrance across ditch. No driveway. Another clothesline. A complete tour of the entire house while standing in one spot. Little steps. We are really here. Six in OUR HOUSE (is a very, very, very fine house).

XVII

Ben has his greatest English teacher. I enter my second year and move into the main building. Josh is moving up at Cold Spring, and Matt and Eli are Oaksters? And they all have the greatest mom ever….she takes them to places not on the map…Who needs Disneyland when The Disney Store is free? A day at the Zoo or a few hours at the park or a hose and some dirt (mud) can be heaven. You moved to their pace, not forcing the other way around. Matt became a leader early (still, today, doesn’t completely realize it…but will) while Eli has fallen in love with everything Poo…so simple…so pure…the perfect follower to Matt’s lead.

XVIII

Jack ball in the sand and I love you and how you help continue the traditions we created if when we didn’t know we were creating them. The songs had been coming slowly, then a pause. Then again. The kids grow in spite of us or any of our plans. They catch us and pass us. We lead each other through all paths ahead. And somewhere, sometime, Dad becomes a great Dad because he put in a hot tub. So long Hourglass.

XIX

Nineteen Moons means so much to me. One of my better poems comes from this anniversary. The rocks are still on the fence posts and you are still on my arm and next to me at night. The windows open to cool off the warm bodies heated up by the rolling rocking of love.

New Orleans and the Mississippi and we are alone in the crowds on Bourbon Street. We are finding our way, while our boys are doing the same (in their own way) back home in the care of good friends and family (we have been blessed with good friends and family). We are on vacation in a foreign location, but you are by my side and that’s all that really matters for an anniversary. A time to celebrate our beginning, middle, and ever after when two became one. And I think we became one very early…back when we were racing to movies and loved it—not because we were late, but because we were together—without all the other things that come with growing up—but that’s part of the thing that’s cool, that we have grown up together and have been one for so long, just like our adventures at Rock N Bowl and the Funky Butt were part of our upbringing. Thank you for the streetcar named desire.

XXI

Twenty-one years, over laughter and tears, surprises and fears, another twenty-one years. I’ve been writing a lot now. Jack Ball Suite a few years ago, now a host of songs that find me telling stories and otherwise throwing words together hoping that they will grow into something bigger than themselves. Like seeds in a pot that hope to survive the neglect of he or she who sowed them, hoping that the birds don’t peck them out of the shallow soil, hoping that they will be able to stand up tall and greet the sun in the morning and say goodnight to the moon at night. These are my songs unbroken for you. In a similar way, these are our sons too.

XXIII

Now Do What You Do Best and of course this is about us doing what we do best, or at least trying to do so—to paraphrase Elvis Costello, our aim is true.

XXIV

Twenty-four and their so much more…Josh graduated from high school…still a blonde and still singing…from pre-school to high school, a cherub with a beat. And all the memories of that undecided trio stopping folks on state and making us so proud and me full of caffeine on Wednesday nights. And I thought it wouldn’t end, and yet knew it would. Ben on the move, Matt and Eli, too moving on to the high school to make their own histories, their own friendships—more stories.

XXV

Some Stories are true. These stories are epic and keep growing like a landscape rising and falling in the view out a window of a car on a long trip, a roadtrip up north via 46 (or 41?) from Paso Robles to the Interstate 5 in the summer heat before a nice air conditioned car condition the ride and insulated the outside from the in. But that is not this year. This year marks Ben’s graduation from college and entrance into a new world—didn’t you and I just enter that world together down at 5 points and then on the rim of the world? Am I getting pulled back into a time warp? No, we are in a motel 6 and then with our little boy arms outstretched, tassel streaming, a lot different than graduation from the Oaks…I think…proud parents in either case. Confident young man, smiling face this time as he is ready to conquer the world.

My songs chronicle the history and the make-believe, and my family believes as we make history together everyday.

XXVI

There is so much I haven’t even peeked at because I know there is too much—like looking at the face of God—can’t do it—can’t take it in. Our years have been that face of God, that love of God. Different expressions, different floods and different fates and different mornings and four sons rising everyday. Matt is in cross country and track—soon to be diving (off boards as well as into dumpsters) and biking, while Eli challenges himself with volleyball (then track and field) and write of heroes close by, Josh plays and writes and wonders, and plays some more a north by northwest blues, and Ben is Ben no matter what he does—a substitute teacher, a boyfriend to a lovely lady, a writer, a dreamer, a story maker.

And you…you are still that girl walking up the path with wet hair—my memory still holds you there, and here with hair still beautiful, body still drawing me to its side again and again like a song I know and want to sing again and again, or a fragrance that evokes images of passion and love restored lie a great painting that has proved the test of time. A poem that is still being written, a love that is still growing…us still glowing afterward. After word and sentence and quiet dance begins. When the darkness turns on the light between us that binds us into one.

XXVII

And here we are. Twenty-seven marks in the sand. Twenty-seven on the twenty-seventh day in May like yesterday when we first began. Twenty-seven cards or poems or occasions to say I LOVE YOU over and over like listening to the Doors or the Who or Yes. You see, I’m old fashioned when I’m with you…that kiss held until the curtain draws to a close, staying for the credits, staying in bed together after love’s afterglow. I’ll hold you through tomorrow and of course, beyond, because tomorrow never ends as long as there’s another tomorrow…another year…another twenty-seven footprints in the sand…or snow…or on top of the water like that faith that holds us together closer than we can even see.

May 27, 2005