What did Smartmom and family do on their summer vacation? She and the kids swam in a brand new swimming pool and Hepcat had to confront his past and accept change. That’s a tall order for anyone, but especially for Hepcat, who’s a stickler for times gone by.
Every August, Smartmom spends a couple weeks at Hepcat’s family’s farm in Northern California, a place about as far from Brownstone Brooklyn as you can get.
For Hepcat, visiting the farm where he grew up — land that his family has been tilling since 1928 — stirs up a mix of emotions.
Two years ago, his grandparents’ house next door was sold along with the family swimming pool.
And in the past year, much of the farm land was sold to a farmer who chopped down 300 acres of walnut trees, that were planted the year Hepcat was born.
That hit Hepcat right in the … well … nuts. He could barely look at the orchard without a bitter smirk.
Still, for the Oh So Feisty One and Teen Spirit, vacations on the farm are a fun-filled time in the country — a novelty for these uber-urban kids, whose idea of the great outdoors is the Long Meadow. The closest these kids get to a farm is a trip to the Farmer’s Market on Saturday in Grand Army Plaza (and that’s just to buy donuts and cider).
A chance to reconnect with their California grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins, the twice-yearly trips to the farm are an opportunity to explore their country bumpkin side.
OSFO, who wishes more than anything that she could have a dog in her “No Dogs Allowed” Park Slope building, gets a chance to mother her grandmother’s many cats, kittens and goat.
This year, there are two new white kittens — a brother and sister — to adore. But even that furry duo did not bring a smile to Hepcat’s face.
“We need to give them names,” OSFO said immediately. Everyone tried to think up two names that went together like ham and cheese.
“Since one of them has different-colored eyes, how about ‘Queer Eye’ and ‘Straight Guy?’” Teen Spirit suggested. Hepcat didn’t even laugh.
Despite Hepcat’s mood, Smartmom has enjoyed herself and found plenty of much-needed time for reading and writing. She even gets to drive, something she never does in New York, and shop in supermarkets practically the size of the Atlantic Yards.
For the past two summer visits, there’s been no pool, as Artsy Granny’s old swimming hole was abandoned and the new one not yet finished.
But this year, the family was thrilled to find that the new pool was ready.
“Let’s jump in,” OSFO screamed out just minutes after their arrival. “Where’s my suit?” Teen Spirit yelled.
Soon everyone was diving into the pool and cooling off in the 100-degree heat. Everyone except Hepcat. He seemed to be having a hard time adjusting to the new pool, feeling that if he even acknowledged it, he was betraying the old pool.
“You guys swim,” he said. “I’m going to walk the farm.”
He wasn’t being anti-social; he was just trying to make peace with the fact that much of the farm doesn’t belong to his family anymore.
“I can’t believe the new owners are going to turn the old pool into a basketball court,” he told Smartmom after one of his walks near the old pool, its hull empty, the floor cracked and filled with putrid green water. “Who needs a basketball court?”
After everyone went to sleep, Hepcat took long walks with his camera — his way of taking stock, coming to terms, assuaging his anxiety about the changes that life brings.
On these late-night photo explorations, the San Joaquin Valley sky is filled with stars — the Dipper, the Milky Way, the North star and Orion’s Belt are easy to see (just like Brooklyn, right?).
Every morning after breakfast, the new swimming pool beckoned with its promise of refreshment, recreation, water fights, naked swimming, even calm moments for staring at its bewitching water patterns. But Hepcat refused to acknowledge how nice the new pool is.
Fifty feet long and 12 feet wide, the pool is a marvel of liquid ingenuity with underwater illumination and an automatic filtering and cleaning system.
While Hepcat tinkered around what is left of the farm, OSFO and Teen Spirit spent their days perfecting pool tricks: comic dives; falls that looked accidental; play fighting that ended with a convincing one-two punch that sent one or the other into the drink.
Finally, Hepcat surprised us by coming over to the new pool while the kids were clowning around. He then pretended to accidentally fall into the pool (a well-honed pool pratfall).
Everyone jumped in after him and the family swam together for the first time since they’ve been in California. Smartmom could see that Hepcat’s dark mood had lifted.
He was ready to swim in the new pool because he was beginning to accept the loss of the old one.
As the family splashed about, Smartmom watched him swim a lap underwater. Swimming through the past, he was able to accept something new.
Not bad for a simple summer vacation.
