No It All

The boys and I are home from our two week jaunt to Santa Cruz for a change of quarantine scenery, and the deceptively easy process of transfiguring zombies back into boys.

This summer was supposed to be our very first week of overnight camp with cabins and campfires and crooning.  But given the global pandemic and the fact that all of those things involve being covered in other people’s spit, we settled for a two-week session of day camp.

Those two weeks in the redwoods of my childhood were unequivocally deemed “Amazing” and “The best.”

Nate’s counselors for the blue group were Zack and Leah, just like our neighbors.  Zack was British and might have been 6’6″.  Jacob’s counselors for the silver group were Conner and Simeran, similar to Cinnamon.

There was swimming, axe throwing, riflery (with bee-bee guns), archery, outdoor cooking, something called Monkey Palace, ball sports, and lip-syncing.  They built forts during “Outdoor Adventure”– which has a special place in my heart as a former counselor specializing in Outdoor Adventure.

The boys did the Thursday night Outpost where they made foil stew and s’mores.  They excitedly declared they’d made new friends– Cole and Raymond (or Raymonde) as Jacob brought me up to speed on his nickname.  And Nate’s friend Logan, who I’m told, “Has blond hair and an older brother.  And he likes sports like me.  He’s almost as good as me at soccer,” he adds oh so modestly.  Jake came home with a riflery badge and a number of stories about the antics of baby foxes.  Nate came home with a spot of poison oak and a lot of stories about Zack.  We safely avoided the Coronavirus.  Morning temperature checks, regular mask-wearing, hand-washing, and sunshine all made for a successfully adapted summer experience.  The kids easily forget they’re even wearing masks.  No different than wearing seat belts and bike helmets.

When they weren’t at camp, there was evening swimming.  Brownie-making with Grandma.  Sneaking the pointers dog cookies.  Marianne’s green tea ice cream.  A crawlspace-filled train wonderland.  Peanut butter mice from Mackenzie’s (Jacob has requested a subscription).  Lamb chops and pie for Grandma’s birthday.  And a morning billiards lesson.  Bry Bry declared the emphatic shunning of his baby name for the regal and all powerful: Bryan.  I’m going with Jefe.  And a final night with pizza and a pirate ship kite at the beach.  All-in-all, two weeks was a long time away from home for the boys, but they powered through after a mid-trip visit from Dad.

At Kennolyn, things deemed kid-friendly are “k-rated.”  This blog does not aim to be kid-friendly— our first almost overnight camp was kickass.

Yesterday the boys and I drove up to Santa Cruz for a much needed change in scenery.  Today marks four months since we went into lockdown and well, things don’t look to be turning around anytime soon.  That said, we’re several weeks into the multi-week process of transitioning the zombies… back into boys.

This morning over breakfast we talked about all the things the boys might get to do at Kennolyn day camp.  Besides swimming and archery and other activities, the one that stood out to me was axe throwing.  Both Jake and Nate weren’t convinced.  Not something they wanted to do.  Sounds like a bad idea.  Now, in normal circumstances, I can’t say I’d disagree.  Raising children who have the common sense not to embrace the idea of axe throwing sounds like parental success in my book.  But this is Kennolyn.  Forty-five years of raising adventurous, outdoor campers in the redwood forests of my youth.  If they say it’s OK, then pass me an axe.

Granddad and the dogs shuttled the boys to pandemic drop-off while I got ready for a partner webinar.  We took temperatures.  We labeled our belongings.  We packed their swimsuits, sunscreen, and masks.  “This is my pandemic pocket, Mom” Jake instructs me this morning as we check his backpack.  “It’s where I keep my sunscreen, hand sanitizer, and face mask.”

I pick-up the boys this afternoon and day one was a clear success.  They leap into the car, buzzing from the day.  “It was great!” Jake proclaims.  “The best!” Nate agrees.  Even though they don’t get to spend the night, there was swimming and s’mores and fort building with sticks and mud.  Jacob saw three baby foxes that were just balls of fur.  They got “the best lookout” and are going to do outdoor cooking tomorrow.  They played hockey.  They shot archery.

And they’re now game for trying axe throwing.

ish.  On June eighth, the boys started soccer camp in Arroyo Grande.  Our first taste of normalcy in months.  The boys had turned pale after weeks spent mostly indoors.  Possibly translucent.  Honestly, Nate looked vaguely green.

The boys had a great week of soccer.  There were some aches and pains, but otherwise it seemed to be a seamless transition back to mobility.

Then Nate started complaining that his heels hurt.  Both of them.  James watched him at camp and said he could hardly run.  He was hobbling like an old man.  Over the weekend I bought him new cleats, figuring the nubs of his old cleats were likely worn-out.  We soaked Nate’s feet.  We gave him Advil.  He took three days off after the fire.

And as we further diagnose his ailments, we uncover that Nate is nine years old and doesn’t know where his heels are.  He also seems iffy on identifying his ankles.  I ask him if his heels still hurt and he clarifies sheepishly, “No, my heels never actually hurt.  It was my ankles.  Now those feel fine and the here hurts” (he’s pointing to the insides of his knees).  Dare I ask him to identify this common anatomical term?

Today we had a beautiful father’s day seafood take-out lunch, overlooking Avila Bay.  Then I dropped the boys off with their buddies for an impromptu afternoon at the beach.  Chasing his buddies through the water and running while throwing sand?  Dodging and rolling like a flag-belted running back on the gridiron?

Miraculous recovery.

On Monday of this week, June fifteenth, Day 94 of lockdown, we added a new crisis to the global-health-economic-meltdown-social-justice list: wildfire.

That afternoon, I’m working in the barn, Jacob’s just finishing his last College for Kids class of the day, Nate’s at soccer camp in AG, and James is at the shop.

Earlier in the afternoon, I hear sirens and walk around the interior of the barn, scanning the sky.  I don’t see anything, assume there’s an accident on the freeway, and return to my normal daily Zoom marathon.  James calls me at 3:10.  I remember the urgency in his voice when I pick up, “Answer your phone.”  He says something about fire and getting out.  Now.  He says our neighbor Lea is headed down the hill.  I accidentally hang-up on him as I try to put him on speaker phone and run.

I open the front door of the barn and the sky is filled with brown smoke to the south.  There are helicopters and planes over the ocean.  A police SUV is stopped crookedly in my driveway as I sprint in flip-flops across the lawn.  He’s blaring that loud, deep police horn and yelling at me through a bullhorn.  I wave.  Lea’s white Tesla is headed down the hill.  Jacob and I are in my car in seconds.

Then there’s that moment where the lights come on and it won’t start.  What’s wrong?  My key fob.  I sprint back into the house and find it in my other purse.  I grab a pile of face masks.

We fly down the mountain, passing another official on his way up.  When we get down to the bottom of the hill, we stop behind a line of neighbors, next to the orchard.  Lea comes to my window and holds my hands.  I’m shaking.  I call James at 3:19.  He reminds me that someone needs to get Nate.  Normally I leave at 3:30.  He volunteers to go and so we follow Lea’s family to the Madonna Inn to get away from the chaos.  Jake is crying as we take the freeway.  I’ve said the wrong thing about the replaceability of chickens.

Jacob and I enter the Madonna dining room in a daze.  We get a socially-distanced table by the window.  We’re wearing our masks.  I hold him and close my eyes.  He’s still shaking.  We can see the smoke through the big picture window.  Our waitress, bless her, allows us to sit quietly for over two hours.  She serves us bottomless root beer and iced tea in colored, cut glass goblets.  Mine is purple.  Jake’s is green.  A big family comes in and orders 4PM pancakes.  There may be nothing stranger than being a refugee at the Madonna Inn.

I watch the infrequent media updates as the fire goes from 5 acres to 15 acres to 300 acres in minutes.  I’m blessed to receive so many concerned calls and texts at our little makeshift camp.  I find one sweatshirt in my car.

After hours on the freeway, James and Nate finally meet us at Mandarin Gourmet.  Nate only has soccer cleats on his feet.  I have a presentation first thing in the morning.  James is able to grab us a few things at home and then meet us in Los Osos for the night.  How very fortunate we are to have a safe place to stay at a moment’s notice given the evacuation isn’t lifted until 11:30pm.

As Jake and I sat in the over-embellished pink Swiss chalet, I make a list of what I wished we had.  I’ve scanned almost all our pictures to the cloud.  Important papers are safely locked-up at work.  House videos and an inventory are in Google drive.  Attempting to distract myself during a clear moment of clarity I write:

1. Baby quilts (precious and irreplaceable)
2. Phone charger and a computer power cord (you need one electronic device for your bored, freaked-out refugee child, and one for checking Twitter)
3. Sweatshirts (it’s very cold drinking from icy purple goblets)
4. Basic toiletries (two presentations scheduled that I wasn’t particularly excited to do in yesterday’s clothes and no mascara)
5. And my grandmother’s ring (also precious and irreplaceable)

After this literal fire drill, the go-bag is packed and in my car.  We’re so fortunate to be home and safe.  We’re so fortunate the wind blew south.  We’re so fortunate the firefighters were fast and capable.  I’ve braved more natural disasters than most, and one universal truth remains:

Everything is replaceable.  Except people.  (And if you’re with Jake, add “animals, pets,” and emphasize chickens.  Trust me.  Just go with it.)

It sounds crazy town when I say the boys don’t fight.  With each other.  I have never once heard my children call each other buttface, which is something my own mother could never claim.  Now with us there is still plenty of sass, particularly Nate’s response to every request with the ol’, “OK Boomer,” spoken with a Swedish lilt.

The lack of brotherly bickering is based on our pure and unwavering parental discipline and focus, since the first moments of their babyhood, on shear luck.

One of the sweetest things about lockdown has been listening to the boys in their beds at night.  We put them to bed and then they chat it up, sometimes for almost an hour.  After thirteen weeks with just themselves as company, it’s absolutely astonishing they have anything left to say to each other.  But they do.  And we have no idea what it is.  We can just hear their little voices through the floor in our room.

Earlier this week I was in my barn office with the window open.  I saw the boys walking together across the lawn to do their chicken chores, oblivious that I was watching.

As they round the barn I hear Nate say, “How many rats do you think lived inside the treehouse?” And without a moment’s hesitation, Jake replies, “Three.  Maybe four.”

So sweet.

On Friday afternoon I got an email from UK International announcing there were still spots left in their Arroyo Grande Safe Soccer Camp.  No marketing email in the history of marketing emails has ever proven such perfect attribution and immediate behavioral action.  I started signing my children up for any week remotely located within driving distance from our house.

The zombies seemed genuinely excited.  They willingly peeled themselves from the couch, applying their deodorant and deodorant stick sunscreen.  We packed lunches and instituted rules for the lunch hour without supervision in between morning and afternoon camp sessions.  I admit I was a little worried.  What if the little vampires went out into the sunshine and their Minecraft eyes were permanently blinded?  Or their skin shriveled and crumbled into an iPad covered in bone dust?  Was it possible their little YouTube legs would no longer be able to support their weight– three crooked steps across the grass and then buckling and collapsing beneath them?

James was in charge of drop-off and I was on pick-up.  I watched from my car for a few minutes as they wrapped-up the scrimmage.  Oh what joy it is to see little kids playing in the sunshine.  And being shouted at by young men with British accents.  It was fun to recognize Coach Kieran from our hosting experience last summer.

The boys have splotchy sunburns, a few small maladies, and empty lunchboxes.  I bet they’ll sleep well tonight.

One of the coaches told James this is the first sports camp in all of California to be granted a permit to operate.  All I can say is thank goodness for the Brits.

God save the queen!

Ever since the new lawn went in I’ve been basking.  That basically looks like me stumbling out of the barn in the evening with the Zoom flu, and laying on the artificial grass, basking in the sun.  During the first week Jacob caught a lizard and then lulled it into stillness.  As I was basking I could just tell he was going to let it go and it was going to run straight up and across my chest and down the other side.  That’s exactly what happened.  Fortunately for him, nothing could pull me away from my basking.

Speaking of the lawn, the best thing ever happened yesterday morning.  We were all surrounding the breakfast table when I looked out to the front yard and saw a Mama deer and her two teeny tiny twin fawns.  They were super little with white spots, just dripping in darling.  And then as we watched, the little deer kicked-up their heels and bucked and jumped and frolicked around the new grass, taking turns testing the turf.

Bask and Frolic.

Back in the days after Friday the 13th, the emails started.  School’s closed.  Work’s closed.  Life’s closed.  The hardest ones were the Camp’s closed.  Jacob was heart-broken when I had to break the news about the new and exciting virtual Cuesta College for Kids!  He wasn’t having it… though he’s come around.

Now we’re starting to get the opening emails.  Restaurants’re quasi-open.  Shop’s open.  Mac store’s open.

Camp?  Still unclear.  We’d had an amazing summer of camp’s scheduled— College camp.  Soccer camp.  Overnight camp.

James and I had a great laugh this week— we’ll take anything.  Labor camp.  Military camp.  Prison camp.

Sign ’em up.