Swinging Friends

With Kanha home from camp -- hurray!, and unscheduled for an entire week -- amazing!, I took her and a friend -- a "guy" friend, as she would say -- to Monkey C Monkey Do, the zip-line and ropes course about an hour away in Wiscasset, Maine.  Kanha and I have noticed this jungle of hanging strings and wooden towers on our occasional trips up Route 1 North as it bears a  resemblance to a similar adventure park we visited in Switzerland four years ago.  She remembers it fondly, as if it was a return to her natural habitat where she could take flight and bounce lightly among the tall trees;  I remember it, in contrast, with immeasurable relief, having survived a couple of hours clinging to the lifelines they provide as my body violently swung from one hanging log to the next, my knees wobbling, my teeth chattering, my swear count rising by the second. 

So, as you can imagine, when the prospect of trying the park's US version arose, I was going to be sure Kanha had someone other than me to climb into Tarzan's territory with her.  So we picked up her guy friend, a twelve year old that a "girl" friend's mother could love -- a slim, red-headed, lacrosse player who says please and thank you and talks to adults -- and we headed north.  When we pulled into the lot, the deficiencies of the Maine monkey spot vs. our Swiss adventureland came more clearly into focus -- the towers and ropes were just feet away from the Route 1 traffic and there were very few actual trees in sight.  But the kids were excited so off they went -- through their safety video, harness acquisition, "ground school," and on up the wooden towers.

Kanha, once again, took to it immediately.  I watched a middle-aged guy, like me, precariously, and very slowly, cross a tightrope wire twenty feet in the air, dearly hanging onto the guide rope provided;  two minutes later it was Kanha's turn -- she literally danced across the line, her oversized Osiris sneakers as light as ballet slippers.  

But her guy friend -- not so much.  He handled the lower level sections with fortitude, following not too too far behind Kanha, trying to imitate her ease.  And he seemed to love the zipline as much as she -- gravity sliding them both quickly above the gravel "forest" floor to the other side of the park.  But I noticed from my sideline perch that he skipped the super oscillating swing that Kanha waited in line for twice, her kinetic body splaying through the air as the rope threw her from side to side, a giant grin on her face.  And he looked even more tentative on the middle level of challenges, his leg wobbles looking entirely familiar to this mom sitting, quite happily, down below.

So I wasn't altogether surprised when they bounded up to me, on terra firma, harness-free, with one hour still left in their two and a half hour adventure.  "Time to go," Kanha said, and her friend, as polite as ever, admitted, "I don't like heights."  So we went, off for ice cream by the harbor in Wiscasset center and then back home.  I was impressed by my daughter as I often am -- from what I could see, she had thought of her friend and his fear more than herself and the fun she had missed and had done what she could to minimize the embarrassment he might have felt.  

Yet, later, she played her cards more openly.  That night, when I asked her about the day, she asked if we could go again sometime, with someone more like her.  And the next day, when I said something about her monkey park partner, she reminded me that he was JUST a friend.  I entirely understood, yet, imagining an age when they will actually be looking for real girl- and boyfriends, I felt a bit wistful for them both.  If he liked her as more than a "girl" friend, would he have lost his shot just because he couldn't match her preternaturally fearless form?  And if she crossed him off her list because he couldn't climb a tower as high as she, would she never discover the other heights he could possibly reach -- perhaps in laughter, kindness, and love?

Ridiculous questions to be asking about two pre-teen friends, I know, but a mom can't help but wonder.

Not Cloistered But Connected One Summer Day

I spent last weekend in Massachusetts, first joining my brother and his wife's extended family to celebrate the life of her dad, Ed McHugh, who passed away last summer, and then driving further west -- further and further and further it felt -- in Massachusetts, to drop Kanha off at the Rowe Camp and Conference Center for her two week summer adventure.  To be expected, a bit of sadness twinged both days.  Saying goodbye to Ed stirred up emotions around my own dad -- they had been great friends for two in-laws, bonding over politics, books, and a good laugh.  My fondest memories of Ed also evoke Big Chip -- I enjoyed thoughtful, often wandering and fascinating conversations with both of them, typically spiced with a glass of wine (me), a tumbler of scotch (Ed) or a Pabst Blue Ribbon (Big Chip).  

On the other hand, the trip to Kanha's camp was mostly upbeat -- she was excited to have two weeks away from home, plus her school and church buddy Selena was sharing her cabin -- what could be more fun?  I was honestly happy for her, yet a bit sad for me.  The rhythms of the house change so much when she's not around -- the only thing calling me out of bed in the morning is my desk, the only one to feed at night is Theo, and there's no one around to say, "Good night, I love you."  Even in the lovely (not!) pre-teeny, just-about-everything-is-about-me phase she's in, I love my life with her.

Yet I felt not sad, but joyous, on the long drive home as I experienced an incredible moment of grace during the trip, at Ed's memorial service in fact.  Eileen, his loquacious, loving and still very Irish wife, even after more than 50 years in the US, had befriended the monks at the Spencer Abbey, a Roman Catholic monastery down the road from her home, during Ed's illness.  She would visit their gift shop regularly to buy presents for friends and to receive the gifts she herself needed so much at that time -- an open ear and an empathetic word.  Therefore, it made perfect sense to her to return to the abbey when planning Ed's service and ask a monk to lead the celebration.  This, it turns out, was a nearly once-in-a-lifetime request -- the Spencer Abbey monks are cloistered and live most of the time in silence and prayer.   Leading religious services of any type is not part of their job description, nor is leaving the abbey's premises.

However, incredibly, they agreed, although those of us who know Eileen weren't that surprised -- she's a hard woman to deny when she has something to say.  On Saturday morning, the monk arrived just on time in the Abbey's Prius -- one bow they've made to the modern world -- and took his place before the open grave.  It was an exceedingly simple service, as Ed would have wanted it, not a church-goer himself -- the monk read a prayer or two mixed in with family remembrances and responsive readings, and he assisted Ed's two grandchildren, Griffin and Meriwether, as they placed the box of ashes in the open hole.  

Then, before he closed the service and the bagpiper blew out the final tune, he paused and looked out at us, the thirty or so people who surrounded him.  With eyes wet and voice cracking, he told us how impossible it was that he was standing there, having never left the abbey before, and simply how nice it was for him.  An awkward silence fell over us all -- such a raw personal moment from a man we didn't know.  Yet what an incredible gift, I felt.   His feelings rippled out as a prayer -- of thanks for his chance to be in the world, among others, among us, to appreciate a man's life, to appreciate being alive, to experience connection, if even so briefly, on a warm summer's day in a green field that remembers so many who have lived.  While we were acknowledging a death, I felt I'd witnessed a birth, of spoken love and gratitude, from an elderly man who lived his life in silence.  It made me happy, not sad, and grateful for all the connections, all the love, I have myself.