Tuesday Morning with Mike

I awoke very early this morning, my head full of thoughts about the month just past. I was missing my dear friend Dale, feeling that loss anew with the realization that her friends in New York City gathered to remember her yesterday. As tears fell again, I reminded myself that she would want me to be happy with those memories rather than sad. I could hear her voice once again, saying as she so often did: “Are you okay? Are you sure? I want to know you’re okay.”

When Mike woke up, we had that first cup of tea and headed to the park along the lake for our morning walk. That was what my soul needed. With few sounds other than the occasional honking of geese and the rattle of Mike’s cart on the boardwalk, I was enveloped in the peace of this place.

Above and around the lake, the lush green cloak that spring rains have brought to the mountains lends a softness to their rocky sides. The sun, still low in the sky, gleams and glistens on the lake’s surface. We pass a neighbor’s garden where deep blue hydrangea blossoms cascade down a slope.

As we follow the path through the park, we see a wood duck with her ducklings on the far side of the pond. She seems to be tucking them into the foliage along the bank, perhaps hiding them from our view until she is sure we aren’t there to harm them. A couple of mallards share the path with us briefly, keeping up an incessant quacking. We dub them “the bachelors in search of girlfriends” and leave them to their quest.

An evergreen along the path catches our eyes with its dark green branches liberally tipped with new yellow-green growth. Most things here are thriving, drawing up the abundant rains from recent storms into branches and leaves.

A flock of geese is noshing on the grass, more than a dozen adults watching over six or eight young ones. These goslings still have some of their baby yellow, but are more a fuzzy brown now, wobbling around on legs than seem too long for them.  Just a couple of weeks ago the babies were still yellow, practicing swimming with their parents.

It’s the first morning in a week or so that we haven’t seen fishing boats heading out into the lake, but we do spot the fellow who brings his single skull here to skim across the water many mornings. Along the river’s edge, chairs on the docks await those who will come today or tomorrow to sit for a spell and enjoy the water and the wildlife as we do. Here and there canoes are on their racks, their red and green sides still now, but we know they will be in the water when Memorial Day weekend fills them with vacationers.

We pass the gazebo, quiet now, but I can almost imagine a time-lapse film of the weddings that have taken place here on the lakeshore. A few days ago, there were rose petals in the grass nearby, left from weekend nuptials. It’s a beautiful spot for happy ceremonies.

As we leave the park after making our circuit around the path, we see again the wood duck and her babies on our side of the pond, counting six. As they swim out into the middle of the water, five little ones stay close to Mama’s right side, but one ventures out on his own from the left until she gathers him back closer. It’s wonderful to watch how the waterfowl care for their little ones. They know the dangers of predators and attempt to hold their young close and safe for as long as possible.

Back along the boardwalk we find our way to the car again, now noticing how the traffic has picked up. It’s almost time for school and kids are being ferried to schoolyard or bus. Others are headed for work. The Lake Lure Arcade, built in the mid-1920's, centers the town, overlooking the beach and settled into the curve of the mountains rising behind it.  

Our day starts with this panorama of life and nature, blended into something that seems almost magical .  There’s that great sense of beginnings that each morning brings, somehow made oh-so-special in this little mountain lake enclave we love.

All photographs by Mike Lumpkin

The Madness of Mommies

Why, you ask, would I associate madness with motherhood? Ask any mother and she can probably offer an answer unique to her experience in attempting to nurture, guide and advise offspring. Give her time to bring out the album and she’ll have the pictures to prove it.

For me, the madness occurred without warning at the birth of my son, just over 33 years ago. I had no idea that the moment I heard his first cry, I would instantly be so unconditionally mad about him. He re-centered my universe, taking my heart outside my body to beat with his forevermore.

In anticipation of motherhood, whether by birth or adoption, we expect to be caretakers, sure. What we don’t know is that we are to be emotionally committed beyond any capacity before understood.

How could I have known that I could be made to weep so easily when his elementary school teacher told me what a good student he was? No one told me how hard it would be to remain quietly in the stands when a coach benched him, even when reason told me the coach was right. I wept again as he crossed the stage to receive his college diploma and burst with pride as his grandparents congratulated him after the ceremony.

When I was blissfully coasting on the hormones of pregnancy, how could I know that I had a life ahead of me so full of fear and pride, second-hand pain and utter joy? There were the “boo-boo’s” of the toddler years, the more serious injuries and illnesses of later years. Though none was life-threatening, there was always in me the wish that I could kiss away the hurt, soothe the angst, and make it all better.

And, as my mother wisely told me, “your child will be your child all your life, even when he is an adult.” And so it is, each disappointment and heartache he knows sets my nerves tingling. Each achievement and happiness he gains warms my heart with that glow I felt the first time I saw him. I revel in seeing the man he has become, the woman he has found to share his life and be his children’s mother. I anticipate happily the fatherhood that is to come for him when the time is right.

Being his mom has taught me, I believe, more than I’ve taught him. I had to learn more patience, less vanity. While I have imparted some of my “neatness mania” to him, I did adjust my standards so that I could merely sigh when I felt swamped by the diapers, the toys, the playpen, the car seat and the never-ending laundry chores. Small children have to be changed more than runway models at a Paris fashion show. It’s not just about keeping them clean, it’s a sanitary issue. Those “oops” moments are odoriferous!

My history is all wound up with his. I was fortunate to have a wonderful career that I remember with pleasure and pride. One of my favorite memories of those years was reaching into my purse during a meeting and finding that I had stuck my hand into the gooey remains of a peanut butter and banana sandwich that had been discarded there. The initial “yuck” response was almost immediately followed with laughter. Wherever I went, he went, too, sometimes in the most unexpected ways.

He came, this child, with a sense of humor that has broadened my own, not just because it included the potty humor for which little boys are infamous, but because his blue eyes see the world in their own special way and I’ve been allowed to share that perspective. He can still make me laugh despite any attempt I might make to remain serious. One of our games when he was little was trying to see who could be cracked up first. Although I was occasionally the victor, he won more often. How could he lose when his very presence could make me smile?

This Mother’s Day I celebrate the great fortune that allowed me to know this “madness of mommies.” I will relish the best gift I get each year on this day (and the days in-between), the pleasure of that big bear hug and that sweet voice, saying, “I love you, Mom.”