A grandmother's Mother's Day (oridinal title)

A grandma celebrates Mother's Day

Published May 08. 2014 4:00AM   Updated May 08. 2014 11:18AM

 

They were right, all those mothers of children, who have children, when they said, being a grandmother is different. That's why this Mother's Day has taken on a deeper and more expanded meaning. I am a grandmother.
Since the first time I held our new little grand-girl in my arms a connection sparked which simply seared my soul. At first I found it hard to explain why the depth of feeling was so immeasurable. She was just a baby, someone else's baby at that, with a wobbly head and an early personality consisting only of the basics: eat, sleep and poop. But my feelings were different, very different. That her mother was my baby may have stretched the bond, but it is no less strong, and is in fact unbreakable.
I thought this special connection was because I don't have to deal with the day to day new-mom-dilemma of feeding schedules, diapers and sleeplessness; I can simply love her and hand her back. But it's more than that.
As a young mother I got caught up in the enormity of the task which required that I raise my children to be loving and capable human beings and good citizens of the world. My interactions with my daughters always seemed to have a learning agenda or one of consequences and boundaries. Sometimes it was all love, and silliness, and fun, and sometimes there were moments, many times actually, which grayed my hair and overfilled my cup. I can honestly say that on the face of this earth, there are no two children who were more wanted. But what I felt for them is not the same as what I feel for my granddaughter. One love is not greater than the other, they are just profoundly different.
I take care of my granddaughter one day a week. I would love to spend more time with her but I work a full time job. And maybe that's it; my time with her is want-to, not have-to time. Just past three months old, when she looks into my eyes, I know, she - sees - me. When she smiles in response to my smile, or my voice, there is no greater pleasure. I am a voracious word-saver of all things emotional and yet I do not remember acknowledging the eye to eye, heart to heart, connection when my kids were little. Bench marks, like the first solid food, words, haircuts and steps were written in their books. I'm thinking that because I am older, and wiser, and see our relationship as shorter, than what fits in a whole lifetime, maybe that's why my moments with her are so deeply felt.
She is an angel, this little one who has stolen my heart. She is the new baby fragrance of hope. On a planet so crowded with calamity and fear, to see this little one approach it with such curiosity gives me faith that our world will be a better place because she is in it. New babies do that, they give us another chance to get it right.
Her parents are good people, who come from a long line of good people. The tasks of life ahead for her will be great and yet, those eyes looking toward the future and that tiny little heart will, with each wink and beat, change the world. After all, at not yet four months old and she has already changed ours.
As mothers, my daughter and I can share the sentiments of her first Mother's Day; I get to chant the grandmother's mantra, "paybacks." And, about those paybacks, enough said.

CAROLYNN CHANGES DIAPERS ON WEDNESDAYS; YOU CAN REACH HER AT CP.ENOUGHSAID@AOL.COM.

Men and their machines (original title)

Mowing the lawn

Published 04/03/2014 12:00 AM

Updated 03/31/2014 04:59 PM

What is it with men and their tractors?
My husband has a familiar yellow-seated green tractor he bought well over 20 years ago. That tractor has mowed, cut, mulched and plowed so many times, it's like another member of the family. He brings it inside when it gets really cold - we have a walk-out basement.
Years ago when my husband started fertilizing our front lawn, we had the greenest, lushest and fastest growing turf on the street. It looked like the Augusta National Fairway at the Masters. I was convinced the man was out of his mind. He had to mow twice as often. You are making more work for yourself, I told him.
The kids were little, so each time he mowed I had to make sure they stayed out of daddy's way while he drove that tractor around the yard, hour after hour. One time I decided I'd drive it; I figured that getting checked out on it was a good thing in case there was an emergency. Like if the car broke down and I had to drive to the mailbox.
I got on the tractor, fired it up and began to NASCAR around the front lawn. Enveloped in a cacophony of engine noise and machine vibration I found doing lawn-ovals comforting. No one could come near me and as long as I concentrated on where I was going, to the exclusion of all others, like a husband and two daughters waving their arms and shouting, no one could get my attention. I suddenly realized why he wanted to cut the lawn so often; it was his 'loud' quiet time.
Not long after we got the tractor it became my husband's bright idea to pull down a dead branch from a very tall tree in the front yard. It was too high to chain saw, so he threw a rope over the branch and tied it to the back of the tractor. The branch almost snapped off but the leverage was all wrong so he had to drive the tractor to set up a different angle. Our safety measures ... the kids were inside the house standing at the storm door and watching. I got to walk behind the tractor and hold up the rope so it wouldn't tangle as he drove to the other side of a large spruce which was in the way. As my husband drove, with me carrying the limp rope behind, I fell; the rope wrapped around my thigh. With me out of sight behind the Rockefeller Plaza size spruce, he was driving up hill, towing me by my thigh. When the girls saw me being dragged they started to laugh. I got mad. Suppose the rope had wrapped around my neck; my husband wouldn't have had to listen to me recall how stupid we were, even now, 20 years later.
Last fall my husband decided it was time to have the green machine taken in for repair. It was spitting and sputtering like an old man with a pack-a-day habit.
After a week in the shop, the lawn took over. After two weeks my husband became morose, thinking it might be time to replace his beloved little workhorse. But alas, his tractor came home again. One month, and over a grand later, the green machine was purring like a kitten and running like a Deere. It got me to thinking: I've been around longer than that tractor. If I got a month off, and my husband spent a thousand dollars on me, maybe I'd do the same. Enough said.

CAROLYNN DOES NOT RUN LIKE A DEERE, SHE WALKS A LOT AND FAST. YOU CAN REACH HER AT CP.ENOUGHSAID@AOL.COM.

Hardy nutmeggers on slippery slopes (original title)

Hardy Nutmeggers on slippery slopes

Published 03/13/2014 12:00 AM

Updated 03/10/2014 04:48 PM

New Englanders are hardy folk, even southern Nutmeggers here in Connecticut. We pride ourselves in being able to weather whatever Mother Nature throws at us. To paraphrase the familiar motto, neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night, can prevent us from the swift completion of our deed, we can always make it to the mall.
I don't know about the "gloom of night" thing - my husband and I doze during final Jeopardy - but from Gloria to Sandy my daughters and I could make it to a store during a deluge for a Snicker's and box of Q-Tips, if need be.
Because the recent weather went from a simple New England winter to that Arctic Vortex thing, my daughter's four walls became a bit confining; new babies have a tendency to stifle outside risk when the wind chill reaches minus-too-damn-cold. So she and I decided to attempt a special kind of foolishness, shopping with a one month old. Actually the shopping wasn't the foolish part, getting to the mall was. But it was a perfect day to stroller a four-week-old up and down the indoor Main Street of the Crystal Mall.
I should have known that making it to the end of our 1,000-foot ice glazed driveway would be a challenge. I should have known that attempting to drive up the incline at the end, in anything other than a Snow Cat, like the one driven by Scatman Crothers in The Shining, might leave us spinning our Goodyears.
We packed my daughter's car. The stroller, which transforms from a baby transporter to a mid-size SUV, filled the trunk. Inside with us, and baby in a car seat, were so many diaper bags and colorful totes filled with baby accoutrements, it looked like a Vera Bradley Trunk Show.
My daughter decided to drive; I sat in back with the baby. I should have told her to build forward momentum at the up-hill end of the driveway and under no circumstances brake, unless of course there was traffic, which was unlikely because we live on a dead end country road. I should have told her that if, because of deer, turkeys or the neighbor's dog, she had to brake, we'd never make the climb. She would have politely told me there was no steering wheel or pedals for a driver in the backseat.
The Zamboni smooth driveway was clear, no traffic on the road, and yet just before we reached asphalt, my ever cautious daughter decided to slow down. Our forward momentum became a perfect slow motion slide backwards. Never in danger, the snow banks acted like bumpers at a bowling alley for preschoolers. We came to a halt half-way down the hill in fits of laughter. As the self-described more accomplished winter driver, I took over the wheel. Within 30 seconds we were against a snowbank going nowhere. I tried several times to back us down and my daughter even offered to push. I figured that was not a good idea for a lactating new mother.
I called my husband who was on his way home. My other son-in-law was with him. The young guy pushed and rocked until the car straightened out. The old guy sat in his truck to keep warm. Once my son-in-law got behind the wheel and achieved forward momentum, the car made it to the top. I stood on the road to stop traffic. There was no traffic. I was useless.
We got to the mall, walked off a little winter and drove back in a downpour. The ride down the slippery slope to home was uneventful. Enough said.
EMAIL CAROLYNN PIANTA AT CPIANTA@COMCAST.NET.

Facebook, the great connector (original title)

Reunited after 40 years: Facebook, the great connector

Published 02/27/2014 12:00 AM

Updated 02/25/2014 01:05 PM

When my kids were in college they talked about a new social network called Facebook. They were enamored by it. To me it seemed kind of intrusive and a bit hedonistic. I thought Facebook would be a lot like an early marriage-infatuation, passion and maybe even a little obsession. And that eventually it would go the way of Myspace and recalling what's-his-name on the marriage license. But it didn't wither, it didn't die, it didn't dissolve into an online memory, it got bigger. It got so big, that the private little college system of communication expanded exponentially.

I don't think that in the beginning the kids ever thought that 10 years later they'd be Facebooking their parents and liking it. I certainly know my kids didn't think that.

My husband hates Facebook. Like other folks strapped to landlines and envelopes he thinks Facebook is like a 12-year-old jimmying the lock on his big sister's diary: What's in there is stupid, of no interest and who cares anyway? I have friends who think that going on Facebook is akin to listening at their kid's bedroom door for conversations about everything they are trying to hide from their parents.
"It's their world and I want no part of it," they say. I understand that because I used to think that way but not anymore.

A few years back, one daughter was mortified because I considered joining Facebook and the other daughter thought the whole idea was great, so I did what I had to do and signed up. I felt like a senior citizen sitting in the front row of a Pink concert. I was intimidated by the youthful process, didn't understand what was going on and felt totally out of place. I dropped out and went back to my homepage where I was comfortable looking up my daily horoscope. Fast-forward a couple of years, I got a new laptop, made the papers and gained enough courage and a little information and went back on Facebook, this time with the blessing of both my kids. Our Facebook worlds have mingled somewhat but I'm still so clueless that I'm very careful when making comments, liking and friending.

Early last year I did a search for a friend I knew 40 years ago. She was an amazing singer and I was a songwriter. We were sister-close and lost touch when I opened a small manufacturing company and she moved back to the Midwest. Her name is not unusual so searches prior to Facebook were fruitless. My friend is a few years older than me so I thought even though there's no way both of us would have the nerve to join a social network started by toddlers and run by teenagers, I'd give it a try. It took a year until I saw her name pop up in my Facebook inbox.

We messaged each other a few times but catching up became an on-the-fly sort of thing. So I called.
We talked as if there had been no 40 years between us. It was wonderful.

The Facebook connection taught me that even though we may travel different paths, the one we once shared is sustainable. Though my friend and I have lived very different lives we share a time when youth and all its promises of dreams fulfilled was real. She may never win a Grammy and I may never win a Pulitzer but years ago when we talked about such things nothing was beyond our grasp. Though now the probability wanes, the possibility does not. I found a long-ago friend. I never thought the possibility of that would happen and because of Facebook it did. Enough said.

Babies are all about change and not just as in diapers (original title)

Babies are all about change 

Published 02/13/2014 12:00 AM

Updated 02/10/2014 01:06 PM

I am wandering the house fluffing pillows that don't need fluffing and straightening a stack of magazines which looks like a perfect block in the center of the coffee table. I emptied the dishwasher and stacked it full again. I'm fidgeting. I'm doing the non-important stuff because the really important life-changing future-affirming stuff is going on right now in a hospital - my daughter is in labor. I feel as if I am waiting for a houseful of guests to arrive. Everything is set, everything is in perfect order - all we need is for the birthday girl to be born.

My husband and I will be first-time grandparents and we are over the moon in love with a little girl not yet here. Everyone tells me how magical grandchildren are and I can't wait for the enchantment to begin.
I worry about my daughter and her husband and the newest member of our family traveling the path of birth. It can be rough but oh so sweet. What they are going through takes me back to my own birthing experiences. They say women forget what it is we go through when we give birth. I don't think so. Women have a way of putting things like getting married, giving birth and passing a watermelon in perspective, the reward far outweighs the effort.

What amazing things will this little girl see in her lifetime? I wonder how far into the future she will take our DNA? Looking forward to the mystery of expectation is what babies are all about. They are about change, too, not just as in diapers, but as in life. They get you to step outside of yourself.
I am hoping that the relationship I will have with this little nugget as she grows up will not be diluted by the challenges of my age. The reality of me being born during the late '40s of the last century has me realizing that there is a lot about this little girl's life I will miss. I will love her as my grandparents loved me, unconditionally, unrestrained by mom and dad rules, and with a heart filled to overflowing with adoration, simply because she exists.

I wish a lot for this little one not yet born. I wish her health, humor and prosperity. I wish her love, tons and tons of love. I want her to be strong against all forces which may choose to limit her dreams, and that includes her parents who may think they know what's best for her and me, a person still struggling with what's best for myself. This little girl has no limits, the world and time awaits her.

Sydney Francis Murphy was born about 10:26 p.m. on Jan. 17, weighing 9 pounds, 1½ ounces. She and mom are OK, just a few speed bumps. My daughter was, and continues to be amazing, my son-in-law is the model-dad of the baby-unit and little Syd is the most beautiful baby ever. Really she is, and I'm not just saying that because she is my granddaughter.

I cannot even describe the thoughts that flooded my mind when I saw my daughter's daughter for the first time. That moment connected me to all the women in my family who came before us, all the women who did exactly what I did. I looked into the tiny eyes of a newborn and saw the broad spectrum of a future I will never see and felt joy, because I know she will. Her parents gave her life, we gave her a past on which to build that life. Welcome home baby, welcome home. No way would this ever be, enough said.

Comedy night; the joke was on us (orignal title)

Oh the embarrassment when comedian makes you his target

Published 01/30/2014 12:00 AM

Updated 01/28/2014 12:43 PM

My husband and I are not dynamic people. We don't frequent bars, although when we were younger, we closed a few. Now we barely make it through "Antiques Roadshow." So it was a pretty big deal when our neighbors gave us four tickets to comedy night at The Kate in Old Saybrook.
Over the years we have been to a few comedy nights and have enjoyed the laughs, although I always feel sorry for the poor schmoes who sit down front. We invited two of our closest friends to accompany us, a husband and wife we've known for years. We decided to make a night of it. We dined at a local restaurant and because we had some time to kill we drove around for a while; if we had been younger we would have spent the time in the bar but we wanted to stay awake.
Once we arrived at the theater, and were seated by the usher, I became a bit concerned. At The Kate, on comedy night, tables are arranged in the area directly in front of the stage. We were seated front and center. I could reach out and touch the stage.
"We're going to be targets you know," I said to our group. My husband looked a little nervous. I started to mentally list comedic comebacks.
It has always been a dream of mine (and one of my greatest fears) to do a 10-minute stand-up routine. I love to tell jokes. To get a laugh is to have a nice day. So as we were sitting there waiting for the show to begin I got ready. I prepared what I'd say if the comedian made mention of anything directly related to me.
The stage was almost entirely rimmed by senior citizens. Except for an old guy a table away I was the most mature looking. Have at me I thought when the funny man walked out. I'm ready with my zingers.
The comedian, Shaun Donnelly, was hysterical. After sizing up the front line, he went right for the table next to us. The old guy was no match for funny-man and we laughed at his duress; Donnelly's eyes swept across the rest of us. Pick me, pick me, I wanted to shout, I'm ready, I'll have your audience on their knees. Our eyes met, he zeroed in on ... my husband.
The man I have been married to for almost 34 years has two distinct traits: he hates to be the center of attention and he hates to be the center of attention. When Donnelly began to discuss, (how do I say this delicately), my husband's unmentionables, I almost fell off my chair.
The wife of the couple with us joined in a back and forth with the comedian regarding my husband and his anatomy. I was as mute as a laughing hyena with a sore throat. Donnelly expounded on the fact that the wife joining in the discussion was not my husband's. I had tears running down my cheeks. Just as I was ready to burst forth with exclamations that would have brought the house down, Donnelly was off to another table and another set of victims. Oh, he came back to us, and our eyes met again, but he never picked on me. I think he could tell I would have overshadowed his comedic talent or I look like his mother. He was really quite funny and I never got my chance.
Disappointed, sure, but I was relieved actually because when I think of what it takes to stand up there, in front of all those people and make them laugh - just thinking about it gives me a Metamucil moment. Enough said.

Old hard drive, like photos of forgotten faces (original title)

Old hard drive is like photos of forgotten faces

Published 01/16/2014 12:00 AM

Updated 01/16/2014 11:29 PM

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A few days before Christmas, my youngest daughter and her husband took over our guest bedroom. Not to sleep in, as in we're staying for the holiday, but to assemble something. I heard them up there, building they said, something for you and dad.
The room was full of wedding leftovers from a year ago, and everything else we were too lazy to heft to the attic. Building anything in that room would be like trying to put together a picnic table in a microcar (they don't have back seats.) Intrigued, I left them to their task and did not peek.
Christmas morning the guestroom was the first gift all the kids wanted us to open. Taped to the door was a big red bow. When I opened that door what I saw was the stuff of my dreams. My daughter and son-in-law had built us an office.
With a double desk down the center of the room no longer would my writing projects be piled on the kitchen table and my husband's paperwork, (he is self employed), cover the big dining room table. We wouldn't have to balance plates in front of the TV in the living room with Diane Sawyer anymore. Like a real family we could eat at the kitchen table and watch her.
For one day the office was beautiful, clean, organized and artistically decorated. A week later, it looked lived in. It took me that long to cull through my things and make my half of the room my writing place. And when the last of what had been stored there went to the landfill, I realized what a step forward that special room is.
There had been an old computer in there, which I decided I would not designate to another corner of another room or up under the eaves in the attic. It was going to the town's transfer station. I wanted to retain the hard drive though, not because there was anything compromising on it, I wanted to hold close the bits and bytes of us as a family as we had traveled the beginnings of our digital path during the last century.
Saving the hard drive was like saving a box of brittle and faded photos of forgotten faces you never look at, but you know the moment was once important enough to snap a picture of it. That's what the hard drive was like for me, a snapshot of thoughts, ideas and dreams I will never research again but want to still hold on to. When I took it out of the housing the date on it said 1996. That was our second desk-top computer, I haven't a clue where the first one is, probably in the attic with the 8 Track and VCR.
I am amazed that I felt such affection for the heart of a gray Hewlett-Packard dust collector I haven't turned on in more than five years. I was one of those people who thought the personal home computer was an evil device out to empty your wallet and twist your mind. Now I consider my laptop an invaluable tool with science fiction-like qualities of communication and research. And it looks so nice in the office the kids built us.
For me having an office is no different than a crafter having a workroom, an artist having a studio or a wood worker having a shop in the basement or garage. My office is organized, peaceful and beautiful. Did I mention half of it is my husbands? Let's not tell him. Enough said.