Jan 8 2014
Bug fell apart again this evening. Had I been thinking properly, I should have expected it, but I just didn’t put two and two together.
We secured our loan and started demo on the patio today. Scott wanted to go see the “excitement” of the destruction after we got back from the gym this morning, so we drove by, but I couldn’t watch and asked to leave right away. Why wouldn’t I expect Ara to have the same visceral reaction?
I’m not sure what makes me so sad, because, in theory, what will be built in place of our (currently looking-like-crap patio) will be much, much better. It’ll be gorgeous, and all new-fangled, and sparkly. It’ll have the newest technologies and be more than we ever could have imagined for a little neighborhood hole in the wall like the Argonaut.
But it will also be different.
—
It took years (and many attempts!) to get approval from the city to get that patio in the first place. It was empty for so long and I remember sitting with Scott, on a table-less and chair-less outdoor space, while he was crying because he found out that we didn’t get approval. Yet again. We were probably drunk at the time, or, certainly he was, but that didn’t change the desire for the patio. Or the disappointment in not getting approval.
The patio was our hope!
And then, finally, we were approved.
We had a couple great years of the patio. I remember sitting on it pregnant, and then with a baby, and then a toddler… And then the fire.
In our naiveté, we somehow thought the answer to this disaster was going to be our patio, that we could sustain our business by the mere fact of its existence. Of course, this proved untrue, but, the optimism of that patio stayed with us.
—
After the reopen we spent days -months- building structures to house the plants and materialize the vision that my father (the landscape architect consultant) had given us for this space. We’d build a little, and then we’d wait, weekend by weekend, earning enough, slowly, piece by piece, to expand our plans.
First, we made the planters for the grapes. (Thankfully, the patio was too cold then for customers to be sitting on it at the same time as we were building.) Then we moved on to the beds for the figs. It was a warm year so even though it was early on in 2011, we had dozens of full tables watching us construct. Just me and Scott and so much wood and soil; and Ara (“helping” in that way that only three year olds can do).
And so it went, piece by piece, as a family, first, but then just Ara and I, devoting days out of our week to the plants and patio upkeep, while Scott got sicker and sicker. Not to say he didn’t help. Sometimes he did. Occasionally, he’d even spend the whole day with us, but, for the most part, the patio was mine, and hers.
Now, thinking back on the things I expected her to do in the throes of Scott’s illness, I am floored. I can’t believe I expected a three year old to pick up the slack of him being so sick. I’d spend Friday and Saturday night hosting, and then I’d Food Run and Manage during the days on Saturday and Sunday. With her in tow. Because he was too busy, but also because he was too unstable and I wouldn’t let him care for her.
And so, too, it went with the patio.
What three year old wants to spend an entire day, sometimes in extreme heat, gardening or being confined to our table? Not a one. And yet, she did it. And with so much grace it’s hard to imagine. And, God forgive me, how horrible was I? I never yell at her and I have never hit her, but I would make her, in her exhaustion, after hours of gardening, ask Noris, with manners, for a grilled cheese sandwich and fries for lunch! Why couldn’t I see that I was asking too much of her? Why couldn’t I just fucking ask Noris myself?!
For some reason, I had lowered my expectations with Scott but put them all on her.
Maybe that is just the nature of addiction in families.
We gardened, every week, for years, in the spring, summer and fall. Even when Scott was away in treatment, we’d spend all day there and we’d come home and jump in the shower together because we’d both be so tired and so dirty, and it was quicker that way, with both of us.
I’m not sure why the patio was so important to me. If I had been sane I probably would have said “Fuck. This. Shit.” But I didn’t. I love gardening. I like growing things. And, again, the patio represented this rebirth, or second chance, or something. Even if Ara and I weren’t lucky enough for it to be a second chance for our family, I could still hope.
—
And then came today. When they tore everything down. And it should be exciting! And it is, in many ways.
Maybe it should be cathartic? If I believed it could possibly be so, perhaps the pain of that time is now being erased, leaving us no visual reminders whenever we approach or depart on the Maryland side door.
But I know that is untrue.
I am constantly shocked by what she remembers, so of course if it’s hard for me, it’s probably hard for her. She was so little when all of this happened, and yet, I know better. Pain is not negated by the young age of the survivor.
So, for both of Ara and I, the removal of our patio is a reminder of everything we went through those years: of our hard work, of our devotion to the Argonaut despite Scott’s crazy (and my own), and of the fabulous early childhood Ara missed out on.
shaaren pine 