MindSpinner

(Saturday night)

At home in the mountains, at my mother’s, my son and daughter insisted today on taking the big canoe out on the lake. Never mind that the weather is cold and the lake mostly a thin sheet of ice. They broke the ice with their paddles and forged a passageway across from the nearest shore to a stretch of open water on the other side and then back again.

I could see from the top of the hill that the going was not easy, even on the way back. They huddled a little against the cold and brought the boat slowly to shore.

Tonight it has begun to snow, and late from my bedroom window at the top of the hill among the oaks, I can look out across the white expanse of ice to see a trail of dark water zigzagging out from shore into the far darkness, as if water itself remembers the small heroism of two teenagers setting off in a green canoe across an icy lake.

I will remember when the water forgets.

I am Lucy and this is the chocolate factory and the line manager has just yelled “Speed it up!” That will do for an account of life in general just now.

What has mattered this week more than anything else is that another young person, a young man I have known and cared about for years, has been in an accident (ice/telephone pole) and sustained a brain injury. He has, however, begun responding three days after his accident and has even managed to give his last name. That seems hugely promising. Prayers continue, especially concerning his high fever.

My student Miracle Girl, who was in a similar accident on Christmas Day (ice/tree), has worked her way up to coma level four thus far. That means she can be taught to sit up in rehab, or she may do something automatic such as putting a phone to her ear, or follow a simple instruction to raise three fingers, or she may cry, or follow people around the room with her eyes, but she’s not all with us yet. Doctors believe she will recover, but the process takes much time.

On the parental front, I and the National Guard, it is found, have certain conflicts of interest. Of course I had anticipated these, but hadn’t expected moments fraught with concern to arise quite so soon. Fact is, I have spent the last eighteen years trying to keep my kid warm and safe from harm, and now the National Guard wants him out in the field all weekend when the weather hasn’t been above freezing for days, with nightly lows in the single digits, and only the feeblest of warming trends expected for the weekend. Our new recruit does not yet have all the army paraphernalia one should have in order to keep from freezing to death. I have talked him into calling his commanding officer this morning to see what will be supplied to him by Friday, so that we can address the deficits. We may be shopping for a parka tonight. His own jackets are, needless to say, selected to impress girls, not sustain life for days in sub-freezing weather.

I should write something reflective about how the maternal instincts that would nurture and protect a world are quite overmatched these days, but I’ve got to get back to the tyrannical chocolates - at least just for now.