It’s been raining all day.\u00a0 During a break in the wet, Ned, Nat and I went outside to fix the arbors that hold (held) up our gargantuan wisteria vine.\u00a0 The arbors, once glorious arches, were crushed into M’s during the winter, from snow sliding off our roof.\u00a0 I wanted to wait until the blossoms were over before dealing with them; today was the day.<\/p>\n
Nat held the screwdriver and he and Ned got a few of the rungs off, while I waded into the trunks that were wrapped like boa constrictors around the iron legs of the arches.\u00a0 The leaves slapped wet fingers at me as I wrestled with branches.\u00a0 My arms ached as I squeezed the jaws of the pruning sheers, forcing their teeth into the rain-softened bark.\u00a0 “This is what it’s like being in the Amazon Rain Forest,” I said to Ned, ridiculously happy.\u00a0 It was probably because I love working in the garden with him — it is a rare occurrence.\u00a0 I doubly love it when Nat helps.<\/p>\n
At one point, Nat was holding up the semi-detached arch, and as Ned stepped down the boulder steps, I saw the arch slip.\u00a0 To my horror, and before I could reach it or get any words out, it hit Nat right in the neck.\u00a0 “GO INSIDE, GO INSIDE,” Nat screamed, the very same cry he made as a two-year-old whenever he got upset.\u00a0 Or maybe it was “go outside.”\u00a0 Nat jumped up and down on the driveway gravel, jackhammering the stones into deep bowls under his feet.<\/p>\n
“Oh, Natty,” I said, trying to soothe him.\u00a0 But I also realized it must have hurt so much and, God dammit, it makes you mad when you hurt your head.\u00a0 Who doesn’t scream and swear and want to punch something.\u00a0 “It hurts, I know,” I said, “Just let it out.”\u00a0 I did not tell him to calm down and stop screaming; I think that was the first time I ever just completely felt that the tantrum he was having was exactly right<\/em>.\u00a0 He jumped more, screamed more, his legs like pistons; his fists seemed to be waving him higher.<\/p>\n I led him inside when he was ready and he let me ice it.\u00a0 It seemed fine, once I looked at it carefully.\u00a0 When we were done, he sprung up and put his shoes back on, my brave young man, getting back on that horse.\u00a0 Ned and I worked for a while longer, and then the rain came down in fat droplets.\u00a0 “I guess we can’t take our walk, Nat,” Ned said.<\/p>\n “Take walk.”<\/p>\n “We can drive, Nat.\u00a0 Where should we go?”\u00a0 Ned asked.<\/p>\n “Drive to Starbucks.”<\/p>\n “Yeah, Nat, let’s do that!” I said.\u00a0 “But first, I have to nap.”<\/p>\n I lay down with my head in Ned’s lap while he read and I fell into a deep sleep.\u00a0 When I woke up, Nat was ready to go.\u00a0 We got into the car and I got the idea to see a movie.\u00a0 Ned and I decided on the new Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris.<\/em> It was playing right in town, in 15 minutes.\u00a0 I had no idea what Nat would think of it, but we figured we’d go anyway.\u00a0 Nat readily agreed to candy in the movie instead of brownie at Starbucks, and after standing in a long line, miraculously we got tickets.\u00a0 Soon we were in our seats.<\/p>\n Midnight in Paris is about serendipity.\u00a0 A young writer takes a walk at midnight down some lonely Parisian alley and finds himself literally transported back to Paris in the 1920’s, in the car of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.\u00a0 The movie was delectable as only Woody Allen can do it, making you wish you were beautiful and free in Paris.\u00a0 I wondered what Nat was thinking about it.\u00a0 Could have been a million things.\u00a0 I felt content not to know, just glad that he was sitting next to me, okay with being there, unhurt from that stupid arch, shoving Junior Mints into his mouth.\u00a0 We, too had our own bit of serendipity and luck, being transported for a while from the gray sleepy June day to the golden glory of Paris.\u00a0 Nat watched quietly, paying special attention whenever there was music or singing onscreen.<\/p>\n When we got to the car, Ned asked, “Nat what was that movie about?”<\/p>\n Nat smiled, and said, “You fall down.”<\/p>\n Ned said “No, Natty!”\u00a0 We\u00a0 laughed — even Nat did — and I said, “As good a movie review as there ever was.”\u00a0 And we went home, pleased with our own glory, of just being alive and together on a sodden gray day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It’s been raining all day.\u00a0 During a break in the wet, Ned, Nat and I went outside to fix the arbors that hold (held) up our gargantuan wisteria vine.\u00a0 The arbors, once glorious arches, were crushed into M’s during the winter, from snow sliding off our roof.\u00a0 I wanted to wait until the blossoms were […]<\/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-2057","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-xb","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2057","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=2057"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2057\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2059,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2057\/revisions\/2059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}