A Take-Charge Guy
It’s been about ten days since we left California for this month-long Oxford visit, and when I look back from this distance upon my usual life at home, I am intrigued by the peculiar and pleasing shape of that irregular regular life. Happily retired, cautious and reclusive, and generally enchanted by the beauty of the ranch, I construct routines, none of them rigid, apply myself to tasks, and indulge in distractions. I work on projects whose deadlines are soft, walk with friends, putter, plan, and ponder—and the days go by. It’s an arbitrary structure, this invented life at home, but it contains and comforts me, and now, faraway, I am surprised at how free I am of roles and parameters, and how tentative and disconnected I feel.
Felix helps me figure it out sometimes. Among other things, he is an extraordinary rescue worker, fire-fighter, and ambulance guy, readily discerning emergencies, determining strategies, and leaping into action, often recruiting me as his assistant because, he says, “Nonna is an expert”, and I don’t know where he got that idea, but I’m flattered and thrilled. Last night the green couch was a fire engine—he drove, of course, and I sat on the passenger seat. A wooden chair was a ladder he had to climb up and down repeatedly, and a big roll of wrapping paper was a hose, and it’s a good thing he had all this equipment and ingenuity, because a combine harvester was burning in the field of the orange couch across the room, and a farmer was trapped inside. Engines roared, sirens screamed, hoses gushed, and Felix was a veritable super-hero, handling it all. Talk about inventing a reality. Objects are effortlessly declared to be other than what they are. Nor is scale an issue. Tiny plastic men coexist with large plush animals, and a full-size human boy can maneuver a miniature ambulance with his deft giant hands.
“This area is dangerous,” he informs me as I step into the living room. Outside, a chilly rain is falling, and sidewalks are slippery, but there is no respite in here. What with chemical spills, vehicle crashes, and vital equipment gone missing, a rescue worker has barely enough time for a much-needed nappy change, and moments after that is somehow accomplished, a bunny is shouting from the uppermost window of a burning building and only Felix knows what to do. He steps up, time and again. I like to think that the confidence and sense of responsibility he exhibits in these situations are character traits that will endure, and that his breathtaking capacity for imagination will lead someday into wonderful real world possibilities, pleasures, and contributions. Above all, I hope that the love that is so lavishly poured into him becomes a reservoir from which he can draw for the rest of his life. It’s a tricky world, but he’s a fortunate child. I take a permanent stance of hope with Felix, and I’m buoyed in the meantime by the joy he brings me.
In solitary moments of reflection, though, I have been thinking about home, now cloaked in predawn darkness. I think about the newly flowing creek, and the muddy cows slumbering in the hills, and our little house, silent and still at this very moment, perhaps a gray-silver sliver of morning light just beginning to enter. I feel a tenderness for it, and I miss it, but I carry it in my heart, and maybe that’s the proof of having found a true home. It still strikes me as amazing that I can travel this far and spend so much time on the other side of the world. (I’m very 19th century in that way.) And when I think about my back-home life from here, it’s as though I’m viewing it from above. It shimmers and shifts, as illusory as a magic spell, and yet it holds me together, even now.
I’m out of context in this place. I’m a vessel that’s adrift, spun about by currents of emotion that I don’t know what to do with, heavy with a cargo of worries that are not for me to fix, bumping into boundaries. I find solace in the usual things: sunlight through the trees, long walks, and time with my loved ones, even when the dynamics are stressful and complicated. I believe in love, friendship, and trying my best, probably to the point of annoyance. And I’m becoming an aspiring adherent to the doctrines of Felix: appreciative observation, theatrical engagement, savoring it all. He points out the twilight sky and a yellow tractor and the wonder in a thousand things I might have overlooked, and although he is sometimes irrational, stubborn, and even obnoxious, he moves very quickly into sweetness and snuggles, believes in himself, and takes on each new moment with exuberance. It seems like an excellent approach to life. As a matter of fact, I think I was inclined this way already, although I probably nurse hurts and hold grudges longer than he does.
Meanwhile, I’m sleeping well, and that’s a gift. Someone read a poem to me in a dream last night, and my sister and I warmed our mittens on the radiator in the lobby of our childhood house on Coney Island Avenue, and the parks and graveyards were filling up with snow, and a little fox left footprints in the Indian cave, and all of this is happening always. I step across the streams on myths and dreams, and there is truth on the other side.
On this particular afternoon in England, everyone around us is sick, the Christmas songs seem dissonant, and most of the news is discouraging. Monte and Miranda took Felix to the Museum of Natural History, a very compelling destination, but I chose to stay in this apartment tapping out words in the warmth, although I realize now, a little late, that I don’t have much of anything to say. So I guess this is just an update on our travels, and a Felix report. I can hear the rain against the window, and that 4 o’clock darkness is beginning to descend, and I recognize the little knot of fear and grief in me that never goes away, but I’m still feeling sort of Felix-y, ready to figure it out, step up, and keep trying, ‘cause it’s clear the disasters will never stop coming.