Damon watches the boys on the weekends, when I’m at the gym or running errands. He curls around his guitar, playing the slide to paint the background blue, while the boys tear up the house and yard (little satellites of destruction that they are). Most of the time, they hang outside. But the rainy days have caught up with us, and lately the boys have amused themselves indoors, heating up frozen pizzas, devouring bulk bags of pita chips and watching sci-fi flicks together.

Chas, who can hardly follow movie plots, has begun dressing himself in my clothes while I am away. The other morning he was wearing a diaper and an orange tie-dye tee, when he found my pink and yellow Donna Karan camisole. Quietly, he negotiated the cami over his tee, until he was able to prance around proudly with the new sheer layer, grazing the pink rickrack hem along the floor. This morning, while I was brushing my teeth, I watched him dig through my unmentionables until he found a pair of calvins, and squeeze his head and arm through on of the leg holes. So pleased! He paraded around the house with a sideways smile, and when we caught each other’s grin, he exploded in laughter, straight from the belly. I chased him down the stairs, giggling, and lifted him up the the table for breakfast. And then I grabbed the camera, so I could get a few pictures for his wedding reception.

We meet our friends every afternoon to play at a playground. It’s a standing date: around 4pm every day. By that time, at least one of the toddlers has taken a nap, and the big boys have built up considerable steam. They scamper, laugh, and shout potty talk like nobody’s business. Polly and I stand, exasperated, torn between roles of shadowing the little ones as they teeter on the edge of tall perches and jumping into the storm to interrupt the trashy talk. We wonder why they can’t just use other words, when quiet time at home consists of lengthy discourse on subatomic particles and static electricity. Why Ford can’t make any word substitutions when he’s so clever to point out that “I don’t like to snuggle in the bed like a pack of batteries.” Instead, we hear endless “BUTT-HEAD!” and “BOOTY BUTT-HEAD!” and “PENIS HEAD!” in the drone of play combat that orbits around the playscape following a stampede of little feet.

To make matters worse, Chas loves to follow them around the playground, bouncing and roaring, tumbling every now and then as he tries to keep up, but occasionally shouting, “BUTT!!!!” He bends forth with a red face to proclaim the profanity as loudly as possible. It’s hard enough trying to get him to say normal words, like “sock” and “help” and “horse,” but I get so irate when I catch Ford leaning into Chas’ face, to teach him to properly pronounce “BUTT.” At the playground, when people hear “BUTT-HEAD” coming from Chas, they turn to me, surprised and amused. At these times, my eyes try rolling back into the nether region of my skull, to a place where fading dreams linger: where my house would always be tidy, where I’d ride horses while the kids napped, and where my boys would grow up perfect.

Into the relentless sunny wind, Chas ran towards the distant airplane as it lifted off the tarmac. “DET! DET!” he shouted, pointing, and Ford translated it for me: JET, JET! HE reached the end of the berm and stopped still, apprehensive, as the jet loomed closer. But the roaring became intense, and Chas turned round and trotted back to me, quietly frowning to the ground, pink cheeks bouncing. I scooped him up and together we tracked the gleaming silver jet as it thundered over us.

Ford is into jet turbine engines. He likes to describe their operation, and tell stories involving turbines. He will pick up a gall off the curb and tell me, “Mom, do you know why this gall is so fast? It’s because it’s a jet TURBINE-powered gall that shoots through the sky and into your eyeball!” or “I’m so fast because I have two jet turbine engines, spinning like huge atoms, on my sides.” He has been into jet turbines for while, but I can’t remember what set it off, this fiery interest. These days, he’s all about atoms, particles, molecules, jet turbines, and electromagnetic forces. I’m not cut out for this.

We left the house on Sunday at noon.

The fog loafed through the canyon without much hurry,

and in our own haste I thought breathlessly about 101,

driving into town just before the tunnel above sausalito,

before hitting the traffic awaiting the Golden Gate bridge,

around 5 o’clock.

I was sad for a while after that, missing the eucalyptus,

thinking of how ridiculous is was that we had to move away from that place,

where Ford was born and where I enjoyed salty air in my lungs

simply because housing was too expensive.

The thought was fleeting, though, because the quality of life is good here.

And I like the smell of juniper about equally.

Around midafternoon we ran into thicker rain, to explain the mounting traffic.

When we arrived in DFW, cars were swimming in feeder lanes,

and flashing lights from towtrucks, fire trucks and squad cars reflected in the flood.

The following day, we spent much of out time in the car.

Why? Because I forgot how big DFW really is. In fact, we lived out of the car,

collecting disposable stuff and growing stinky.

Chas would go to bed later that night exuding that patented

deep-fried Twinky chimichanga funk, still in his day shirt, but too tired from

a fatty dinner to take a simple bath. Which is okay, because we were tired, too.

Damon had two exhausting days of training. A difficult thing for an introvert.

On the way home, I picked up my needles

and a skein of Peruvian kettle-dyed wool.

I smiled as we passed Willie’s Bio Diesel truck stop, in the middle of nowhere,

happily having left that muddled maze of people-clutter behind us.

While the kids were awake the ENTIRE trip back to Austin,

Chas occasionally would point to my needles and frown, reminding me to be careful,

by saying, “ow. ow. ow.”

SPT

I return to the exhibit on impulse, after viewing the installation of Eva Hess’ drawings. I know the corridors by heart: the oak floors creak in the east wing, but enough to surprise me every time; I am always arrested in front of the Ernst frottages, three paces north and an immediate left lead to the painting of the pipe, Leger on the diagonal wall across the room. This time, there is something different (after all, things usually change after ten years). An alcove off the Surrealism exhibit with its own security guard outside.

It’s like walking into a jazzy vacuum chamber. A dark room, painted blue the color of Chas’ eyes, the sky on a full moon. It is a wonder-room filled with tribal masks, katchinas, headdresses and totems. In the center, a sculpture of a human being, with pins radiating from all surfaces. The opposite wall, above my head, hangs a charming sculpture of a man riding a whale, the two of them casting animated shadows on the wall. It is a collection, tribal and oceanic, curious and natural. Things collected by the Surreallists. I stand in this dark room, awestruck, wondering why this feels like home.

In a corner I notice Dominique De Menil’s provincial desk, filled with ephemera: keys, marbles, blue butterflies, feathers, coins, seashells, buttons. “For the children who visited her home.” It’s a Darwinian duplicate of my dad’s roll-top desk. I stand in front of the desk for a good five minutes, examining treasure. Wealthy couples circulate in camel coats and leather shoes, fresh out of the box. The men are distinguished and chiselled, the women have long, glossy hair and everyone smells of ambigously scented soaps. They speak softly of travels to Fiji, and smile at certain masks. They feel at home, too.

I exit the museum onto the wide open expanse of green lawn and sunshine. Down the block, behind a rambling old white oak tree, the boys run circles around Damon. As he waves at me from the void between branches, Chas stumbles onto the grass. Ford is laughing, calling me. I take the children into my charge and urge Damon to go see for himself. We are playing gallery tennis, allowing the kids to be kids while we struggle to be grownups.

He’s so miserable in the other room, with his flu. I feel horrible about not being able to comfort him. So while he rests now in his bedroom I thought I’d share a few moments of Ford (over the past couple of months) with Linda, my mother-in-law, who remarked that she’s only been able to see the back of his head.