Photo credit: Anne Taintor
“Well, the motel lobby smells like Indian food and I’m not sure why.” This was the first warning I gave my sensory sensitive/picky eater kids about our stay for the week. “Why??” they asked me. “I don’t know, I think it doubles as an Indian food take-out restaurant.” Clearly I hadn’t read all the reviews; I don’t have time for such scrutiny. It looked pretty in the pictures. Investigation: complete. “Well, it’s a niceish view” J.D. said as he looked out the glass door of our room with a squashed fly on the inside. It was raining and I tried to make light of the immediate dankness I felt. “It is a nice view. This is an ocean view room.” I reminded him. I began to dread the days ahead of us. My god, what have I gotten myself into?
The next morning was gorgeous. It began with a curry-scented breakfast in the lobby (DIY waffles!) and an hour-long dip in the pool. The pool the night before was sprinkled with insects and a little debris and I wondered if it had been cleaned. What a difference bright sunshine, a little skimmer, and a dose of chlorine will make! Even I went in and it was lovely. I had no idea just how much tension I had been holding all over my body until I had floated in the deep end. I need to swim more. As we prepped our stuff for the hike that I had loosely planned, I told the kids that it would be “easy” and “quick”. Flash forward to Isaac sitting and hugging his knees mid-summit. “Today I learned that I am afraid of heights” he said as I panted past him on our ascent. “Yes, but you’ve also learned that when you have a fear you can face it!” I told him, trying to be his motivational coach. “So if I’m afraid of falling I should face falling?” Touché. The further up we got, J.D. showed more and more signs of distress. “Maire, follow my every footstep. Isaac! You need to pay attention! Mama! Are you sure that backpack is ok??” He sounded like a 13-year-old alpha version of Woody Allen. For the record, I wasn’t sure my backpack was ok but I sure did find that it was helpful to hold all of the kids’ stuff as they gradually discarded their belongings along the hike. By the end, I was carrying the weight of a small child on my back. As we neared the top (or what we thought was the top), I told my kids how proud I was of them. This was an activity that I most certainly would have avoided several years ago out of fear. Fear is great at keeping us alive and all but really horrible for enjoying all that life has to offer.
The views from atop the mountain were exquisite and we all agreed that it was worth confronting the fear. “I’m really worried about going back down, though” J.D. admitted, afraid of our impending descent. “Well, we’ve seen lots of people on their way out and none of them looked injured. We can do this.” And do it we did. Was it a huge climb? Nope. Was it a big climb for us? Yup. Go us, go me. “I am SO PROUD of you guys today.” I told these kids at lunch after the hike. “You have gone through A LOT in the last 15 months and you should be proud of you too.” It’s the truth. These kids have managed shared parenting, living in a multigenerational home, online school, hybrid school, in person school, more craziness in our multigenerational home, the death of our beloved dog, and crazy old me. I added “I haven’t even looked at your report cards yet and I’m proud of how you did no matter what.” They deserved this trip more than anyone.
The rest of our trip was uneventful. That is, of course, until the dead body showed up. Keep reading. I’ll explain soon. We argued, the kids fought, I sang “Bohemian Rhapsody” at the top of my lungs in the car, and I embarrassed all of them with my weirdness in public. Most importantly, I said “yes” more than “no” all week. Root beer? Yes. Candy? Yes. Pool in the rain? Yes. Root beer again? Yes. Flatbread pizza again? Yes. Can I get this? Yes. I wanted them to remember this trip as the time that more was allowed than denied, especially after a year of denying ourselves so much. A sunset sail out of Camden was apparently their highlight though they all complained about how cold it was. I guess they enjoy things even when they have nothing but wahwahwah to say while doing them.
Ok, the dead body and meaning behind “Renascence” in the title. Let me get to that now so as to not leave you in suspense. Returning home from our less than perfect rainy day adventure in Belfast, Maine, we took a left into our motel parking lot right behind a black Kia Sedona with West Virginia plates and a bumper sticker that said FUNERAL SERVICE CAR. “What the???” J.D. said, looking to me for explanation. “I have no idea but I feel like we just jumped into an episode of Schitt’s Creek.” I said, giving him a little backstory explanation of the exact episode I was referring to (“Dead Guy in Room 4” - Season 4, Episode 1). The car parked right near our room and all I wanted to do was investigate. I was dying, pun intended. We all speculated on what could possibly be the situation and I sure as shootin’ hoped it wasn’t because a guest had expired in the room next to us. As I sat on the balcony of our room, the woman in the room next to us emerged onto her balcony chatting away, on speaker, on her cell phone. Of course I listened, hell yes I did. “I always make sure I go through the car wash after I get one. I’ve just been spraying some rose spray. But I had to compliment the lady. She got the body lookin’ real nice.” she said with a thick southern accent. “You won’t believe it, though. I can’t see nothin’ from this balcony. The fog is so thick. I’ll send you a picture.” I had SO. MANY. QUESTIONS.
When I stepped outside our room to get something from our car, I bumped into our new neighbor holding an ice bucket. A heavy waft of what smelled like Fabuloso cleaning liquid escaped from her room. Maybe she liked to clean the motel room, maybe this had another purpose. Like I said, SO. MANY. QUESTIONS. Did she need ice for a drink or…something else? The kids were all now as curious as I was, I hushed them as we discussed what could possibly be the situation. Hungry, we left the motel to go to dinner and discussed the matter further over pizza. When we came back from dinner, we parked right next to the car in question which had now been backed into the space so that the funeral sticker was no longer visible but the front license plate that said “Reliable Transport” was. “J.D. look in the back” I told him when we parked. “Oh yeah. There’s definitely a body in there. Yup.” he said. “What?? How do you know??” I asked. Now I had to look for myself. In the back I saw a quilt draped over a large body bag on a metal rack. No, there was no question what this car was transporting. “But how are they keeping it cold??” I asked J.D. “I don’t know!” he whisper screamed. Then I remembered….the ice bucket. SO. MANY. QUESTIONS.
The kids and I went to the pool despite the misty rain that hung over us. I thought about the situation a little more and then thought about that episode of Schitt’s Creek. This motel has had a tough year no doubt, just like the rest of us. Keeping a small business alive during a pandemic can’t be easy. I thought about Johnny Rose (Eugene Levy’s character on Schitt’s Creek) and what he would want in this situation. So I made a phone call to the lobby of the motel. “Hi. I’m staying in room 123 and I just thought I would let you know that the person staying in room 124 is transporting a dead body.” The young woman who answered was clearly stunned and blurted “Oh. Mygod. I don’t even know what to do about this. This has never happened. I need to call the owner.” I gave her my name and number and continued swimming with the kids, deciding to wait until an investigation began. When I saw two gentleman approach the car in question, I got out of the pool and came down the stairs. “Is the pool cold?” they asked me, I’m sure trying to not look suspicious. “It is. I’m the one who called by the way.” I whispered to them. “How did you know?” they asked. Well, the car says “Funeral Service Car” and my son looked and there’s no mistaking what’s in the back. “Yes, we know.” they admitted. “It just doesn’t seem above board and I thought that as a small business you wouldn’t want this kind of a….situation. I just don’t know how the body is being kept…cold.” I explained. “I know. At least it’s not a hot day.” one of the owners said with a shrug. Always look on the bright side of life or, in this case, death.
So, yes, this little family went to bed that night not knowing what was to become of our new neighbor(s). I felt bad for ratting her out but I really did feel for this place that we had called home for the past few nights. Sure it had its quirks and imperfections but don’t we all? This little gem turned out to be a comfortable place to rest our heads, had passable coffee, sported a pool that the kids loved, and boasted a kickass view of Glen Cove. So what if a dead body snuck in at the last minute? The owners had clearly listened to my concerns as the “reliable transport” had gone by dawn, never to be seen by us again. If I could turn myself into a fly, it would be to spend a day on the windshield in that woman’s car, bless her heart. So. Many. Questions.
I’ve been “single” for two years now and I have to say that I have begun to master the androgynous qualities single mom life necessitates. I put air in tires, drive like a trucker, swear like a sailor, carry band-aids and goldfish in my “Momsac” (patent pending), and whimper as I pass by vintage clothing and home accessory stores in hip coastal cities. My pedicure is chipped, my nails are all different lengths, I did manage to pluck my eyebrows just minutes before departing for this trip but only because I had a dream about having them waxed the night before. Waxing trips are few and far between. I desperately want to be my girly dress-wearing self but these amazing kids I have, these little shards of my DNA, demand otherwise and, so, I comply. Two years ago, a trip like this up to New Hampshire had me in tears on the Kancamagus Highway. The three kids and dog all wanted/needed different things at different times and I only had two hands. I fell hard on slippery rocks at some roadside swimming place, trying to be adventurous with this crew. In pain from my fall and the months of forced smiles after the breakup, I cried in front of them because I was no longer capable of holding it back. I was a broken human and had no idea what the hell I was going to do about putting myself back together. That process came later when my old job landed back in my lap, a true blessing.
After this trip, I am proud of how much I have changed. I read “Renascence” by Edna St. Vincent Millay after climbing Mt. Battie—Auntie Janice had quoted the poem after she had seen photos of the hike. I had heard St. Vincent Millay wrote it after climbing the same mountain and seeing the very same view more than 100 years ago. The poem, to me anyways, reads like a journey from deathly despair to an all-consuming thirst for life filled with hope and joy. This, to me, is exactly what these past two years (maybe five years) have been. There are still downs and difficulties every waking day, some that make me cry—especially when I can’t shop in a vintage clothing store because my kids can’t handle it. The difference now from before is that my hope and faith in myself and others have been restored; I am a stronger and better version of the person I was back then. My “renascence” has been my daily struggle and choice. The fact that rebirth was the theme of this piece long before the dead body arrived is really quite fitting for me and my family. Of course that happened because stuff like that only happens to us. May he or she rest in peace and may we continue to evolve as individuals and as a family. Proud of us, proud of myself. I’ll leave you with a link to this poem and hope that it inspires you as well: Renascence