{"id":1298,"date":"2006-08-07T20:44:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-07T20:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2006\/08\/fresh-dirt\/"},"modified":"2006-08-07T20:44:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-07T20:44:00","slug":"fresh-dirt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2006\/08\/fresh-dirt\/","title":{"rendered":"Fresh Dirt"},"content":{"rendered":"

My novel<\/a> is just about ready to shop around. The main character’s name is now Emmy, the estranged husband is Eric, the love interest is Will, and the son’s speech therapist is Tom. I am calling the book, “Dirt: A Story of Gardening, Mothering, and a Midlife Crisis.” In this scene, which I wrote today, Eric goes to meet with Nick’s speech therapist for the first time and is surprised by what he finds.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really glad to meet you,\u201d Tom said, holding out his beefy hand.
\u201cYeah, same,\u201d said Eric, grasping Tom\u2019s hand firmly. They were standing in the therapy room, with floor-to-ceiling games, puzzles, books, art supplies, stacked messily on all the shelves. Instead of the customary fluorescent lighting trays that flickered with strobe-like consistency in most offices, there were tiny recessed lights positioned at regular intervals in the sky-blue ceiling. New jade green carpeting underfoot; Eric could tell it was that expensive non-allergenic stuff. Gave a nice soft and solid feeling wherever he stepped. There were sheets of paper masking-taped up on the wall behind Tom\u2019s head, obviously done by kids, with the predominant theme of orange houses. Eric smiled graciously, trying to show Tom that he could appreciate the things kids did. God knew what Emmy had told him about him.
Tom narrowed his eyes just the slightest bit and said, \u201cNick\u2019s work.\u201d His voice dipped low, full of pride.
Eric\u2019s eyebrows shot up. \u201cReally!\u201d He walked over to have a closer look. Bold brushstrokes, slanted, thick lines. So much orange. \u201cOrange,\u201d he murmured.
\u201cYes, he loves orange.\u201d
\u201cNever knew that. But I suppose Emmy\u2019s told you all about me.\u201d He did not look at Tom, but continued to take in Nick\u2019s work: sheet after sheet of painstaking attempts to capture the most basic shapes: houses, stick-figure people, a cat. All in orange. He felt both disturbed and happy at the same time.
\u201cNot really, no,\u201d Tom said. \u201cWe just talk about the boys.\u201d
\u201cAll of them?\u201d Eric turned to look at Tom, to get a read on him. Warm brown eyes met his with self-assurance, curiosity, but also kindness.
\u201cWell, yes. Treat one kid, you kind of end up treating the whole family, you know?\u201d
\u201cI guess.\u201d Eric shrugged. He hadn\u2019t thought of this before but he liked it. He couldn\u2019t imagine hapless Jackie, the last speech therapist they had endured, \u201ctreating the whole family,\u201d however, and this image made him smile.
\u201cYou\u2019ve got great kids. All so different. Want to sit down?\u201d
They sat at the worktable. The chairs were surprisingly comfortable, yet supportive. Tom waited for Eric to begin; it was his hour, after all.
\u201cSo what do you do with Nick for that hour? Or fifty minutes,\u201d Eric added under his breath, with a smirk. He knew all about the abbreviated therapy-hour from when Emmy had gone to therapy, back when Nick was first diagnosed. Eric hadn\u2019t gone, of course, but Em had told him all about it, to try to bring him into it, he supposed. But he just wasn\u2019t the therapy type. All that sitting around and crying to a stranger. It wasn\u2019t for him.
\u201cActually I do go the whole hour. I just schedule my clients with good-size breaks in between. Works out better for everyone.\u201d Tom sat back and folded his arms behind his head, showing two yellow sweat circles in his armpits.
Eric raised an eyebrow. This guy was alright; clearly did his own laundry. It made him like him more. \u201cSo what do you guys do? Besides paint?\u201d
\u201cThese days,\u201d Tom said, \u201cNot much else!” They both laughed. \u201cI think Nick has finally found a hobby others can relate to.\u201d
\u201cYou mean other than twiddling string?\u201d Eric was immediately ashamed after he said it and he felt his face reddening.
But Tom waved a hand dismissively. \u201cOf course, twiddling string is highly underrated in these parts. Don\u2019t knock it till you\u2019ve tried it.\u201d
Eric grinned appreciatively. He suddenly felt his body soften and settle into the chair and a sigh escaped him before he knew it. \u201cI guess \u2013 \u201c he ventured, a little at a loss, \u201cI came here to find out more about what I can do. You know, for Nick. Living apart from him, and all.\u201d
Tom thought for a while. The pause went on for so long that Eric began to think he wasn\u2019t even going to answer him. Finally, Tom said, throwing his hands down to his lap, \u201cThat\u2019s tough. For all of you. I guess the main thing is, don\u2019t try to do too much, but try to make it good, whatever you do. You know, you don\u2019t have to take them to the circus and museums for it to be a good thing. Sometimes just sitting, guy time.\u201d
\u201cAre we still talking about Nick?\u201d
\u201cI think this applies to all your boys. They just need to enjoy you, don\u2019t you think? They probably miss that, in your situation.\u201d
Eric nodded. This made sense. It also made him feel better, and yet, also wistful. \u201cMy situation, yes.\u201d
Tom shook his head. \u201cNot a judgment. Just an observation. The truth. It is a situation, and it can\u2019t be easy. So you\u2019ve got to try to connect with them. And that\u2019s really it. Nick is probably the easiest of the three of them right now, in terms of connecting.\u201d
Eric\u2019s eyes widened in surprise. \u201cNick!\u201d
Tom went on, \u201cBecause you can do the painting with him and make him so happy, so easily. You\u2019ll see. But the other two \u2013 well, especially Henry. He\u2019s at a tough age.\u201d
Eric thought, Nick is at nearly the same age, but no one ever remembered that. He leaned forward and said, \u201cI think I see what you mean.\u201d
They didn\u2019t talk about Henry or Dan after that, because Eric felt he needed to use the time to learn more about Nick, which is what he had come there for. Tom gave Eric a few ideas of how to set things up in his apartment for arts and crafts, and talked about Nick\u2019s sensory issues, tactile sensitivities, noise problems. So many things Eric had known but had never really attended to before. But now \u2013 he had a concrete task to go with his new knowledge, and that felt good. When he walked out of Tom\u2019s building he was whistling Queen again, and drove right over to Pearl Paint Store in Cambridge, tapping away happily on the steering wheel as he drove.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My novel is just about ready to shop around. The main character’s name is now Emmy, the estranged husband is Eric, the love interest is Will, and the son’s speech therapist is Tom. I am calling the book, “Dirt: A Story of Gardening, Mothering, and a Midlife Crisis.” In this scene, which I wrote today, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-kW","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1298\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}