When I Look

When I look at my mother, I see strength. I see the battle wounds of past arguments and the surging bright light of passionate beliefs. I see the love of a soldier fighting for her world-- her family and the beat of a woman's heart that has been shared 12 times over.

When I look at my father, I see unshaken foundation. I see the brimming love he possesses for my mother and the hardworking back he throws into his job for his family. I see the passion he applies to every weekend project, every farmland duty, every carpentry job, every handyman labor.

When I look at my brother Michael, I see leadership. I see a man who has carved the way, the way into a full life of love and family. I see the misgivings of the past washed eternally away into the promises of the future.

When I look at my sister Mary, I see valor. I see the courage that spouts from her actions through her daily duties as a mother and as a servant of social work. I see her eyes alit with a happiness that is sought for years by strangers, obtained by few.

When I look at my brother Bill, I see unbending work ethic. I see a man who has always seemed to understand the value of hard work and commitment. A man of the law, a man of his two strong hands and capable mind.

When I look at my brother Rob, I see freed passion. I see an artist, a businessman, a preacher of sorts and a believer of life. A man of unsurpassed intuition and never-ceasing longing. An eclectic soul with a brilliant future ahead of him.

When I look at my sister Evelyn, I see a beautiful desire for balance. I see her heart passed along in eagerness, a book that lays open yet with invisible ink, readable to only those who possess the blacklight. I see a heart that bursts for those she loves.

When I look at my brother Joe, I see great faith and fortitude. The only person in the world that I know who has stuck to his 12 year-old self word. A person who always surprises me with his knowledge, his foresight and his understanding of the world around him.

When I look at my sister Sarah, I see acceptance and heartfelt understanding. I see a woman who opens her eyes each morning with positivity and embraces the sunlight, and even the passing storms, with her heart.

When I look at my sister Christina, I see a heart swollen with the art of giving. I see a young woman who has taken great pride in her life, her relationships and her abilities. I see a person who holds onto the key of life and guards it for those who truly need it.

When I look at my sister Nell, I see compassion. I see someone who rarely thinks of herself before others, a young woman who truly appreciates the world around her and wants great things to happen not just to herself, but to others.

When I look at my brother Sam, I see fiery conviction. I see a young man who wants more for the world he lives in, and more for the world around him. I see an unmet desire to grow into a person of not personal value, but worldwide value.

And when I look at my sister Gabrielle, I see wisdom. I see the final building block of the Powell family; she has absorbed the pasts of her older siblings and has taken part in the final growth. I see soft giggles that carry the tribe of 12.

2014

2014. The New Year has passed with its charmless confetti. The frozen Massachusetts ground, with the green hair of summer browning with the chilled scrape of winter's comb, welcomed half-heartedly the passing snow showers. Christmas, as it were, was teased and tousled with the notion of a white coating. The snow soon melted and aptly fled when the lit tree twinkled in the early morning of the 25th.

I knew the flakes would fall again.

There is great faith that comes with the weather. As a child looks to the night's sky, the flickering stars like candles in the dark windows of their only known home,  I know that the winter's blackened slate held hope and wonder. If you squeeze your eyes tightly enough and the world can transform.

Transform it did.

7 years in the making and the family has reunited. All 12 siblings fell back into the world together, tumbling from their current stations in life and celebrated the holiday together once again. Families forming, new additions and happy children. Laughter and love filled our little country town, the snow  softly skirting the Powell Home, nudging the family back together again.

December 2014
Bottom Row, Left to Right, sitting: Adriana (Mike's wife), Mike holding onto daughter Lily, Sam, Robert, Joseph, Gabe the Dog
Middle Row, Left to Right, sitting: Zachary (Mary's son) on Mama's lap, Papa, Ava (Mike's daughter)
Back Row,  Left to Right, standing: Sarah, Nina, Nell, Bill, Marlena (Bill's wife), Barbara (me), Don (Mary's husband) holding Jaymes (Mary's son), Mary, Brian (Evelyn's husband), Evelyn and Gabrielle. 

The Wallaces Visit, Part I

    Dad told us the news as we were coming back from Church.

    "Oh, Kids," he said from the driver's seat of the van, steering the blue behemoth around the curving Granby roads, "we're having guests over tonight."

   Bill paused from trying to poke a rolled-up Bulletin into Rob's ear. "Who?" he asked. "The Sagaris'?"

    "No, not the Sagaris'," said Dad, "guess again."

    "Uncle Barney?" Evelyn guessed from front row center, where she had her arms around the twins, Nell on her right, Nina on her left.

    "Nope. You guys are batting bad today. Three strikes you're out."

    "The Wallaces," Mary, third row right, said with utter confidence. She usually knew what was going on. Oldest sisters have to be on the ball.

    "AHB-solutely. Home run for you. So nobody go off this afternoon to the neighbors or friends or wherever you guys run off on Sundays. I want us all to be there. We'll have a nice dinner together with the Wallaces. Got it?"

      "Yeah-yeah-yeah," Rob said, Beatles-style, and grabbed the Bulletin from Bill's hands and jabbed at his brother's ribs with it. Bill wrestled silently for the Bulletin. He knew that too much noise from the back of the van could bring --

      "Boys, don't roughhouse, and be careful for your Church clothes!" Mom's blond head appeared above the passenger's seat. "And change when we get back home. You've got enough grass-stains and ketchup-stains to last you the rest of summer."

      The van rumbled into the gravel driveway. It was an August Sunday, and at that noon-time hour our white colonial house sprawled lazily in the sun like some gigantic cat enjoying his fourteen acres of yard, field, and woods. The barn stood solidly at attention at the end of the driveway. Lilac bushes clung to the low walls of the Red Shed, heavy with purple clumps and green leaves. Bees buzzed over the pool. It was everything a post-Church summer day should be.

    "Don't forget to change!" Mom said to the ten backs of her children who were rushing up the deck to the back door. "Evelyn, could you make the twins some sandwiches, please! I've got to clean the house for tonight!"

    "Can't the girls do that? Aren't they supposed to be training for marriage or something?" Dad banged the van door jovially and went over to the pool. He inspected the water with a critical eye. "Got to add some chlorine to this bad boy. Not blue enough, it's got to be blue, blue. Blue skies, its gonna be Blue skies, mmm mm mmm -- do we have plenty of chicken for tonight,Debbie? I can grill if you can make the potato salad. Make a big one. Those Wallaces can eat."

    "So can we. I better go make sure they're not emptying the fridge."

    The kitchen was full of people between four and sixteen years old. Mike was pouring his third cup of coffee -- sixteen-year-olds need at least that much to remain conscious -- and Joe and Barbara, the ten and nine-year old, respectively, were laughing heartily together as they drowned their bananas in their cereal. The twins waited for their sandwiches in the only way six-year-olds can wait, wrapping the plastic place-mats on their heads and growling, "We're hungry!"

   "Hold on, hold on -- where's the mayonnaise?" Evelyn slapped meat onto bread. She was eleven and fifth-oldest, a staff sergeant in the Powell army, high-ranking enough to make sandwiches for the younger privates and specialists. Mike and Mary, as captain and first lieutenant, kept a firm hand on their subordinate officers. Which usually meant a pinch or a kick, judiciously applied.

     "You want the MAYO?" Rob yelled from across the room.

    "Who wants the MAYO?" Bill answered, becoming the straight-man like clockwork. "Who wants the MAYO, Bert?"

      "Evvie wants the MAYO, Ernie! Should we give her the MAYO?"

      "Gee, Bert --"

      "Shut up and give me the mayonnaise!" Evelyn made a grab for the open jar in Rob's hand. He danced to one side and ducked behind Mike, who was glowering at everything over the rim of his mug.

     "Give her the mayonnaise, you jerk," said Mike, but the captain's stern words were lost on his erring warrant officer. Rob leaped over the tiles, made a feint at Evelyn, scrambled over Sally the Golden Retriever who had just entered the scene, handed the mayonnaise jar over to Bill and strummed air guitar victoriously at his furious sister.

    "Duh! Duh! Duh! WEEEE ARE THE CHAAAMPIONS, MY FRIEEEENDS --"

    Evelyn pushed him onto the floor. Then she whirled and glared ice-picks at Bill. Bill gave her the mayonnaise jar. He liked verbal comedy better than physical.     

    "Why did you give her the MAYO, Ernie?" Rob complained from the floor.

    "Well, Bert," said Bill, stepping over his brother, "I can't eat the stuff myself."

    Mom came in, bearing a load of toys which she had picked up off the deck, and put them into a basket where the dining room merged with the family room. She looked around.

     "Good! Everybody doing what they should be -- thanks, Evelyn, maybe use a little less mayonnaise next time. I've got to get the kitchen ready, so if everyone is finished -- what do you need, Sarah?"

     Sarah, eight, two years older than the twins, making her a corporal, handed Mom a dandelion and said, "A flower for the woman of the house." After this flattering speech she ran over to join Barbara and Joe, who had finished drowning their bananas and were now destroying under-milk submarines with spoon missiles.

     Mom held the dandelion to her nose, laughed, and put it in an empty jelly jar over the sink, along with the lilacs, rocks, and sea-shells.

    

  

Dad: A Tribute

This month on the 18th my Dad turns 60. SIXTY! That is an incredible amount of years to be alive. And that makes him the oldest person I closely know. I want to take a moment and honor who he was and who he is.

My Dad made a point to take me fishing almost every summer I was alive (and willing) to go. My strange love for canoes and the water and lakes and seashores is attributed to him.

My Dad once dragged a 50 ton (note: exaggeration) fishing net off the beach and (to my mother's lovable dismay) into our 14 passenger van and used it to rig a ladder up to the best tree house in the world. Yep, the best. It looked out over the field and backwoods and also well into the neighbor's yard. And let me please remind you that it had a FISH NET LADDER! I don't care what you had as a kid, mine was the best.

Us kids are making up a little surprise for him. I don't think he reads this blog Dad, if you are, please stop now! But the following is my addition to that surprise.

We all grow older, both kids and parents, and evolve in our own very different ways. I mean, I am living in Manhattan, the busiest place in the world (arguably, I know) and I could not be any more different from my father. I am a mid-20 year old woman with a job working for the Man, earning my corporate paycheck and obsessed with shoes. But I am similar to him in the way that I have a hard time backing down. And that I really don't like people offering their opinions at inopportune times. And we both are very very privy to onions. They're really good. Especially with sausage.

What I am trying to say is that regardless of where I am now or what I am doing with my life, my Dad really is responsible for sculpting me into this strange lady I am becoming. Strange in a beautiful kind of way.

So please, enjoy the following birthday note to my Dad and realize that the Powell brood would be nothing in character if it weren't for the Leader of the Flock. Dad.

My Dad

A game of checkers on Dad’s belly, fireplace crackling in the background. One hearty laugh and the gameboard tilted and bounced. Dad always let me choose black. Red was his favorite color, anyway.

---

A short lesson in how to cast and reel at a pond in the middle of nowhere. He knew I would get it. “It’s easy, Barbara. Just don’t hook my line or Joe’s.”

---

A truck bed filled with beautiful, new sand backing up into the yard. Dad then handed off shovels to Mike and Bill and Rob and a kingdom was born. Summer was never complete until the sandpile was re-stocked.

---

A monstrous tickle fight in the middle of the living room. Tears rolling down my cheeks, laughing harder than I ever had before. There was never an escape!

---

The first time I received Holy Communion with just the family. Dad walked behind me down the aisle with his hand on my shoulder. I turned to look at him after I received the wine, just in time to catch a smile.

---

Snuggled up against Dad’s side as he read out loud on the cream-colored leather couch. My eyes drooped drowsily as Dad’s deep voice lulled me to sleep.

---

My memories with Dad are always us doing something together, whether outside on the farm, in his work shop, at the beach or a trip to the dump. Dad made being a kid exciting and adventurous, with no time to be bored.

But my favorite memories, without fail, are the nights when dad would put us kids to bed. There were 4 of us girls in one room and 2 of the boys in the room across the hall. Dad would stand between both rooms and tell us stories and sing to us. Sometimes he brought out his harmonica. Sometimes he told stories about the animals he captured as a kid. He would sing “You Can’t Get to Heaven on Roller Skates” and make up silly verses as we went along: “You can’t get to heaven in a mini skirt, ‘cos the Lord will think you’re a great big flirt! Ain’t gonna try my Lord no more!” He would spend what felt like an hour or more talking to us and singing with us and making bedtime more exciting to us kids.

And you know what? I brag about my childhood all the time. Because we had it made with our Dad. He knows his stuff, doesn’t he?

A very happy and early 60th birthday to my Dad, who does not have a Facebook, nor does he have access (that I know of) to my blog. Only Mama does and she's pretty good at secrets. 

Through the Zoo: The Monkeys

At last we were inside the Land of Wonders. Long avenues of gravel walkways stretched this way and that, leading past Plexiglas cubicles and fences which housed the creatures of the Unknown. Whoah.

Dad led the way, still waving the tickets commandingly. Mike strolled along with his hands in his jacket pockets and his head in his earphones. This left Mary the task of herding the rest of us into a more or less cohesive unit. Probably less cohesive on the whole, although she tried her best.

"Rob!" she called over half-a-dozen heads. "Get back here! We're going to the Monkey House."

"That's where you all belong," Rob called back, chortling at his own wittiness, and slapped Bill on the back, who fell over into a potted Rhododendron. It was a harmless plant, but Bill took offense anyway and chased Rob to the other side of the xanthu cage. The xanthu chewed its cud impassively. Nothing seemed to impress the Bronx Zoo animals very much.

"Come on, boys! Let's go, girls! Onetwo threefour fivesixseven eight -- where's Sam -- ah -- nineteneleven," Dad counted rapidly, "that's everyone. Nobody eaten yet? All right. Let's go see the monkeys."

Barbara took Sarah's hand and squeezed it. "I hope they don't scare us," she whispered in Sarah's ear, or the probable spot on Sarah's well-wrapped head where her ear would be. "I hate scary monkeys. Like the flying monkeys in Wizard of Oz -- whooo!"

"Stop it," Sarah said as they climbed the steps into the big white building. "Don't make me think about it."

"Do you remember the part when they ripped apart the Scarecrow? And then they stole Dorothy and --"

"Stop it! Stop it! Evelyn, Barbara's scaring me."

Evelyn took Sarah's other hand and smiled wisely on her little sister. "There's nothing to be scared of, stupid. The monkeys can't get out -- they're behind huge windows ten feet thick, or something, and they're chained to the floor and, besides, they don't eat people. I don't think. Monkeys eat -- well, bananas and mixed fruit. Right, Joe? Don't they eat fruit?"

"And bugs," said Joe, jostling with Sam to get into the Monkey House door. "Bugs and coconuts. Only the big ones eat meat. Gorillas. King Kong ate people."

"No, he didn't!" Barbara protested hotly. She loved King Kong, which was inconsistent with her fear of monkeys, but nobody told her that. "He killed those bad dinosaurs and saved the woman. I remember the movie. They chained him in the movie theater and he got out and -- and -- I don't want to talk about it."

The inside of the Monkey house was dimly lit, a single long hallway with the glass show-windows lining either side. A few people were lingering next to one or two of the windows.

"Here we go!" Dad rumbled happily, gathering his flock around the first window. "Look at that one -- he's a big boy, look at him climb that tree! Wow! See how he uses his tail to grab onto the branch? That's a prehensile limb, everyone, prehensile. It can grab trees and other objects, just like a hand can. This one is a . . . what's the plaque say ?. . .striped spider monkey from Oceanus. They are indigenous to semi-tropical and heliotropical tropes. Many of the spider-monkeys habits are environmentally conditioned to compensate for the egregious variations in the ionosphere -- the rest of the print's too small to read -- well, that's the spider-monkey, everyone! What's this next one over here?"

Rob and Bill stayed to watch the spider-monkey as Dad led the rest of us past the miniature lemur, the spotted catamaran, the wide-toed bibiscus and the truncated yellow-eyed snootch. Dad's booming commentary rolled through the hallway.

"And this one's a snootch -- look at him -- lazy boy, isn't he? He'll break that tire swing if he gets any bigger . . . a rare species native to Southern Hypatia and the Indigo Islands, the snootch must not be confused with his more well-known cousin, the snitch, native to Fizharmonica and the suburbs of Poughkeepsie . . . why do they use such tiny letters on these placards . . . ah well, anyway, those are the monkeys, everyone! Let's get to the Big Cats before twelve."

The gang began to evacuate from the back door.

"What's the big deal about monkeys?" Bill asked Rob, tapping the spider-monkey's window in an attempt to make the animal do more than swing its prehensile tail. The monkey paid no attention to the brothers whatsoever and swung its tail in a prehensile way back and forth.

"They're just like people," said Rob, "only they can't talk."

"And they have tails," Bill pointed out.

Rob shrugged.

"And they have fur, and no clothes," Bill went on.

Rob headed for the door.

Bill followed close behind.

"And they live in the jungle. And they don't have houses. And they don't go to school or the doctors or pay taxes. Or eat chocolate cake or gummy worms or become veterinarians or  write books or play for the Red Sox or -- or -- or --"

Rob planted his hands over his ears and sprinted to join the rest of the group making with all speed to the House of the Big Cats.

Bronx Zoo, Joe's part II: Crossing the Threshold

At last we had reached the Zoo, and not just any Zoo, but the Bronx Zoo -- one of the biggest, bestest, and beastiest Zoos in the world. We piled out of the van and stood agape in the parking lot as the winter fog swirled around us, around the rows of cars, and around the tall entryway to the Zoo itself. It was an historic moment. Like the great explorers, Columbus, Magellan, Marco Polo, we too were about to enter the Land of the Unknown and see its wonders and hear its deepest secrets whispered in our ears. Except that we had string cheese for our journey, which makes all the difference.

"Everybody here?" Dad asked, counting wool-capped heads. "Michael?"

Mike was bobbing up and down to the Beatles bursting through his headphones. He pulled the 'phones off for a second and raised a thumb. "Here," he said, and went back to Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

"Barbara's missing!" Mary exclaimed. "She was here a second ag -- oh, here she is. What are you eating?"

Barbara shoved the candy packet in her thick pink coat and muttered, "Memntosh."

"What?"

"Memntosh. Der ull gun."

"She said mentos, and they're all gone," Sarah piped up, peering like a turtle out of her winter jacket. "She ate all of them, right now, I saw her. Put them all in her mouth."

"Sharrup," Barbara mumbled through six different flavors.

"Come on, everybody!" Dad shouted. We moved in a single mass towards the gate. Joe and Sam lingered in the rear, each trying to stomp on the others boot toe in a beautiful show of brotherly playfulness. The contest could have gone on forever, if Bill hadn't solved the problem by stomping on both their toes simultaneously and pushing them in the direction of the gate. The gate keeper leaned out of his booth.

"School trip?" he asked Dad.

Dad was used to this sort of question.

"Well, actually, we're a traveling circus -- Mike here is the acrobat, and Mary is our high-wire act, and Rob here wants to be a lion-tamer so we came here to practice. No, really, these are my kids. We have twelve in all."

"Twelve kids?! My Gosh. They all yours?"

"Every one. Do we get a group discount?"

As they haggled Mary took up her previous disagreement with Rob and Bill, who had wandered over to the glass display next to the gate where a fat and wide-eyed lemur monkey watched them from a branch. Rob had discovered that nodding his head vigorously would make the monkey nod in reply. Bill promptly began a conversation with the lemur.

"Aren't you a fat little monkey?" he asked, and the monkey nodded. The boys nearly exploded in silent mirth.

"Aren't you the fattest little monkey in the world?" Bill continued. The monkey nodded enthusiastically.

"Do you want chocolate cake and donuts?" asked Bill, almost choking on his laughter as Rob snorted.

The monkey nodded, stood up, and leaped off the branch towards the glass, screeching. The boys fell over backwards in their surprise.

"There, you see?" Mary stormed at them, "you bothered him, now he's mad. Poor little monkey."

"Maybe he just wanted donuts," Rob said, and he and Bill held one another and staggered around the parking lot, laughing.

"Come on, guys, let's go!" Dad waved the tickets, the magic signal, and we poured through the gates into the Land of the Unknown, clutching our string cheese, ready to meet . . . whatever.

Bronx Zoo, Barb's Part 1: String Cheese and Mentos

Dad gave us string cheese in the van. We were driving past what Dad was calling Harlem, as he recalled a non-detailed account of one of his inmates. I had never in my life tasted string cheese before. 

I twisted the cheese free from the clear packaging and simultaneously thought of last winter. Of the smoky wooden cabin of a bookstore, with the little bear carve-out knocking back and forth in the wind, his splintered paw slung over the top of the shop's sign where he was nailed onto crookedly, hugging his own books to his chipped painted chest.

I clenched my mittens tightly onto the slim packet of candy my father had handed to me as he pulled into the pebble-splashed lot. The light from a lamp post spilled out across the setting, a powdering of snow slipping out of the clouds. The thin strands of winter-wary bangs stuck defiantly to my forehead as my knitted cap and the heat of dad's truck teased them.

I pulled back the folded foil, ripping the colored paper that hugged it ever so softly. I didn't want Dad to know.

Pink.

I turned the packet to the side, reading aloud in the softest of whispers, "Mentos."

I crept silently into the quieted bookstore, stepping strategically over the piles of musty hardcovers. Dad walked straight to the counter. With my left eye on his back, I popped out the the small candy-coated soft mint.

It fell onto the eager explorers of my tongue and I was immediately delighted.

Orange.

Yellow.

Yellow.

Pink!

Dad's voice pulled me back to the finger greased van windows.

"There's the Zoo!"

I didn't yet care. I was pre-occupied.

The cheese was meant to be eaten in a pulled fashion. Strand by strand. My siblings' noses were pressed up against the glass, their fingers wiping the fog away as quickly as it appeared. I went on nibbling, my tastebuds clapping and cheering, my mouth fighting between a smile and a chew.