August 13th 2022
Chapter 225
Our Celebration of Inspiration
They had to laugh every time someone went and called them 'brave,' or 'daring' when they mentioned how they would drive to and from Arkansas with all their girls. Or maybe not laugh, no. They did have to wonder exactly what alternative they would have in mind that would make travelling with five small girls between the ages of six years and eight months anything less than very noisy and very busy. It was what it was, and it really wasn't anywhere as out of control as those people seemed to infer it would be. It was their life, every day. It was the life that they had chosen, in dreaming of a large family. They knew their girls, and they never held their youth and exuberance against them. Sure, they were not perfect, neither one of them, and there would be days where the noise would get to feel that much more intrusive, but they knew how to handle it, and sooner or later, they would find the path to return everything and everyone to something like peace.
The drive on this day, with all of them going home again, was a good one, none of them feeling dragged down by the noise. They had six little girls this time around, and one big one, and between Ella and Marianne, the business of keeping Tori, Kacey, Remy, Lucy, and Mackenzie entertained for the duration of the trip was in very good hands. Lucas would be listening in with a grin all the while as he drove, while Maya would tune in and out of it all. For the better part of the trip, she had a notebook open in her lap, propped up on her bag, and she was scribbling away, showing a practiced hand at not coming off overly shaky despite being in a moving vehicle.
She didn't know what it was about this day, this drive, if it was that they were just coming off of that whole madness of the holidays and she felt good, or that they were headed home to her sisters, the dogs, everyone, or that school would be starting again in a few days, and she'd be seeing her students again… One of those things… All of those things… Whatever it was, in the span of those many hours, driving for a while, stopping for bathroom and food breaks, and driving some more, her muse had been speeding along, rocking inside her skull like a pinball and spewing out songs. Not full ones, and sometimes really just a dash of words here, or a chunk of a melody there… She'd come back to some start of something and then add to it, and it gave her the image of someone fussing with a dial, jumping back and forth between stations.
She wasn't entirely sure how many songs would be born of this game of Radio Maya; some of those ideas might never actually turn into something, or they might languish for years before she found them again. But something was definitely going to come out of all this, and it wasn't as though she would immediately rush out of the minivan and around the back of the house to lock herself off in the studio the minute they arrived, but she would definitely be heading in there as soon as she was able to.
"Okay, alright, we've got this, yeah?" Lucas dashed out of the driver's seat and over to open the door to the back so he could pick up one and then two of the triplets, who had already been unbuckled from their seats by Ella, who was grabbing the third and leading Tori along by the hand as well. The whole party headed toward the house with the collective haste that was necessary when they had four small girls with full bladders to deal with. In the meantime, Maya got out at her own pace and collected Mackenzie from her seat. Marianne was already out and waiting for her, so they went inside together.
"Think they made it?" Maya asked with a smirk. She guessed that one of them had gone upstairs and the other downstairs, while Tori had been directed to their small ground floor third bathroom, as she could take care of herself. Maya could just catch the sound of her little voice, singing to herself in there.
"Hey!" a voice greeted them from above, and Maya barely had time to look and see Eliza coming down the stairs, Ben right behind her, that Marianne had already sped off to meet them both with a happy embrace. "Did you miss me?" Eliza asked, as though it wasn't already obvious.
"Uh huh," Marianne nodded. "You, too, Ben," she affirmed, and the young man smiled, offering his hand for a good high five. He easily fell in the category of those, when high fiving a child, who would make as though they had struck with great strength beyond his imagination. It was a big hit and had Marianne laughing.
Maya was not surprised to find him here. If anything, she'd fully expected, as the rest of them left, that dear Ben Landau would be spending the better part of the week they were away getting further acclimated with the house and seeing a lot of his friend and new… Well, the relationship was very, very new, for all its starts and stops over the last couple of years, so it remained to be seen whether words like girlfriend and boyfriend had been tossed around. Either way, he was here as the family returned, and it was as much on his face as it was on Eliza's to suggest that the arrival – earlier than expected but also rushed thanks to a bit too much juice and water – had sent them both hurrying to… make themselves more presentable, and now this was them finally letting others see them, being completely normal and not at all newly dressed. If she wasn't sure on her own, then the sheepish underlayer in her little sister's gaze said it all. Oh, did she ever want to tease her about it…
Instead, once the girls had been seen to, she made her way to the Hex. As much fun as they'd had on the home stretch of their drive, they'd all been exhausted, which made putting them down for a nap a complete breeze. And after that, it had been Lucas who'd insisted that he had everything covered and she should go on ahead to the studio. It wasn't as though he hadn't been watching her all along their drive home, long as it was. He knew how much she'd been putting down, which meant that he also knew how badly she'd be itching to hit the instruments, everything, all the better to see what she could make of Radio Maya's work.
"Alright, my lucky little bean, let's see how this goes, huh?" she breathed as she walked into the Hex. Even if she could be days without stepping in here when she was just home, in Austin, somehow the fact that they had been away made returning feel like she hadn't been in here for much longer than a week.
She started off by going through the usual motions the way she did whenever she came in here, chasing to expand on something that had been working at the back of her mind. Finally, she was able to sit with her notebook, leafing through the pages she'd written out on the road, letting the pieces speak to her to decide where she'd go first.
Moments like these had always been special to her. Their meaning and their effect was not the same now as they had been in the past, whether it was like this, with music, or with art that was done on paper, or canvas… She had not forgotten all those hours she would spend with her sketchbooks, the blanket of drawings and paintings all along her bedroom walls. Back then, she was so desperate to try to grab hold of moments, of people, those things that had felt fleeting, like they might get away from her if she didn't immortalize them, didn't have this reminder.
Today… Today, her life was in great parts given over to each and every one of her daughters, to her husband, her family, her friends, her students… and rightly so. They all made her life infinitely richer and more worthwhile, and as hectic as it could all be, she wouldn't give it up. And her art, whether visual or musical, it was a time as needed as the rest for her to pause, clear her head a bit, center herself again… remember that underneath the mother, the wife, and the teacher, she was still Maya Penelope… Hart, Hunter, Friar… with an imagination that was all colors and images, words, and notes, just waiting to come out. It could be strangely comforting, to know that the flow was still there, in the middle of everything else her life had become.
The light was flashing, out by the door. The other light, outside, was on, indicating that they couldn't come in, so this one was letting her know someone was there, waiting for the all-clear. She stepped just over to where she could flick the switch, turning off the outside light, and a moment later the studio door opened to admit…
"Emma, hey!" Maya left the booth now, the better to go and hug her little sister. "Happy New Year, M&M," she grinned.
"Happy New Year," Emma returned the wish as they pulled apart. "I only saw you last week, did you get bigger?" she smiled.
"Might be a bit of a post holidays baby… on top of the… baby… baby…" Maya explained, and the sisters broke into chuckles. "How was it this week?" They both sat at the big chairs, facing the console. Maya started absently playing with what she'd recorded up to now.
"It was fine, it was good, I… mostly just tried to do as little as possible while I could, you know? Before school starts up again. Caught up on some shows, read a couple of books… It felt good." After a moment, Maya let go of the controls, the music fading to silence. Emma looked at her. "That was great," she whirled her finger around to indicate what she'd been hearing. Her sister wasn't fooled.
"What's up?" Maya asked. She'd clearly come in here for something, and it felt like something where courage gathered might float away if allowed.
"Look…" Emma started with a sigh, looking down at her hands, twisted together. A couple of her long, thin braids slipped down into her face, and she took hold of them like a new means of pulling herself together again. "I just… need you to know that this isn't because of you, or Lucas and the girls… or Eliza, none of that… It's only me, and what I need, my decision. I'm, uh… I'm going to do this semester, it'd be too complicated I think, and anyway I haven't figured out what I'm supposed to do after, so at least I can use that time and think it over, but…" She took a breath, let the braids untwist from her finger. "After this semester, I think I'm going to go back to Tucson. I'm dropping out."
She stopped, paused. She'd said her piece, and she acknowledged it with a nod that was mixed with quiet gratitude that she'd been allowed to put it all out there without interruption. Of course, now that she'd laid this revelation at her big sister's feet, there were the nerves again, over what she'd say…
Maya felt like she might just have been too stunned to speak. She wanted to say that this didn't make any sense, that she knew that Emma was doing well in school, but she could see, looking at her, that she was very serious, and it wouldn't have been her style to make a decision like that without thinking about it long and hard. She wasn't going to accomplish anything by trying to talk her out of it. Anyway, more than anything, she really just wanted her sister to be happy, and if that was what she needed to do to make it happen…
"Hey… Come here…" she pulled her chair to wheel a little closer, so they could both lean forward and hug once more. They stayed this way, saying nothing with words but plenty with their hold. "Does it have to be Tucson?" she asked with a slightly pitiful hope. "Just because you wouldn't be in school anymore, doesn't mean you can't stay here. Room's all yours, not conditioned to your being at the university…"
"I'll think about it," Emma replied.
"Good… That's good."
TO BE CONTINUED
See you tomorrow! - mooners
