Author: cecilysmith13@gmail.com

I am the person you see as you drive to work, school pickup, wherever you might be headed, that makes you wonder what is actually going on in that poor person’s head. In my car, I direct musical numbers-envisioning a chorus of high schoolers singing Some Nights (by Fun) with the guest drummer and electric guitar player.  The one who bops her head to every song and belts them all out like Broadway musical numbers and has complete conversations with the people in the backseat. My kids are not with me.

I have always thought of my imagination like a Tyrannosauras Rex- angry, wild, desperate for food, fixated on prey (creating) with insane ideas as palm trees come down around my footfalls and smaller creatures shudder and sprint in my presence. Saliva dripping from my thoughts and bloody, beautiful ideas waiting to pounce. Then, I realize my damn arms are too short, and I can’t even reach that delicious little dino snack right in front of me.  Sigh…..I guess I’ll have a yogurt. Yogurt makes me sad.

I love very, very hard. I see and feel sadness and pain with crystal clear perception- a unique skill I had as a child. I try to take it all- I don’t want others to feel it. I’m sad Spongebob. I soak it all in and try to make it better or sometimes I just try to hold it all in and build a Trump-sized wall around my heart so nothing bitter leaks out to anyone else. It’s a gift and a source of pride and great sorrow.

Once upon a time (10,000 years ago, yes) I was going to be a doctor. I had a full- ride scholarship to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and I was a biology major on the pre-med track because that’s exactly what I wanted to do. Except that I didn’t. I was a science whiz and am not and was never daunted by blood and guts. I love(d) the idea of healing people, taking their pain away (theme) but instead, I changed majors three times and eventually after much mental anguish, I left that school. My full-ride scholarship gone, poof, the end. Three years later I was graduating with a BFA in Theatre Performance from Miami University while my steadfast, proud parents sagged under the weight of debt. I guess what I really wanted to be was a TV doctor. Ooph.

But now, here I am and it makes a great party icebreaker, “Hey get to know the Fergusons! This is Cecily! She was smart enough to be a doctor but hey, she got a degree in theatre instead! Hahahahahaha Isn’t that hilarious??? Excuse me I have to put on more lipstick- would you like a refill on that drink?”

Sad Spongebob-ish, perceptive people with little outlet for creativity due to life situations, do not do so well, you see. They tend to get wide-eyed and panicky, most of the time they can be found hiding within oversized, dingy hoodies and the other bit of time, they can be found having life-altering, clutch-hugging conversations with strangers (named Linda) in random grocery store aisles because they have to wring out at some point. They get defensive and make New Year resolutions to become more grateful, less irritable, better parents, better spouses, and bring those they love closer all the while pushing their spongey, tired hearts to the back of their crappy, black hoodies while cooking dinner for 6 with their right hand, training the dog and reading Harry Potter to 7-year-olds with their left hand, watching Morning Joe and cringing with desperation and anger for what could lie ahead and planning their own women’s march over the entire state of Georgia, and all the while the inner-T-Rex is maybe dying or getting stronger- hard to tell- and they get all people-pleasey, boring……….wrung-out the wrong way.

But when an exquisite, lifelong heroine stands on a stage and accepts the award and speaks the words they know to be an absolute truth:  “Take your broken heart, make it into art.”, and their beautifully-broken yet somehow perfectly-put-together friend from home texts them and says, “Ok, girlfriend, you need to start up again.” (writing). Well, they (I) tuck away all of the “ah, it’s not good enough”, “nobody cares”, “it’s pathetic”, “I made a resolution not to complain anymore” and they fall to their knees on the kitchen floor, scrape up their heart pieces and burnt chicken teriyaki (the whole vegan thing is hard) and tired-ass creativity, and they……..create. A bit of not-good-enough, nobody-cares, I’ll-complain-if-I-want-to, this-hoodie-is-starting-to-smell writing.  Because what you may not know about these creative, T-Rex types is they are resilient as fuck.

Back it up Spongebob, She-Rex is ready to play.

xoxoxoxoxoxo Happy 2017

I went on a bit of a writer’s holiday.  Yes, let’s call it that, shall we?  It was a rather low-buck holiday with bad, watery cocktails, slightly moldy-smelling bedsheets and several loud children playing outside my window all day and night…..but it was most definitely a holiday.  However, I forgot to pack my bikini or even my one sexy-ish dress.  I just sat there stunned, in my tired black sweatshirt with a hole on the right shoulder which I always hope makes me look like I workout too hard to care.  It doesn’t.  My laptop was there with me.  Terrible holiday companion, that one.  She was lying on the only pool lounger that had good sun with her new friends, Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram.  They each wore shiny, tight bikinis with giant, striped sun hats and clucked their tongues and giggled with each other over their latest fitness challenges-astronomical totals of inches and cellulite lost, their organic, vegan Thanksgiving feasts spread out like some famous painting in the Louvre and their warm, balmy trips to islands so very far away from this cloudy, algaed Georgia pool.  I just glared at her, at all of them, and drunkenly raised my warm glass of cheap Chardonnay.   “Cheers to you, Laptop.  Pst…your battery is getting low.”  hahahahahahahaha….sniff.

Ok fine.

Call it writer’s block.  Call it turning 40 or hosting 12 additional people alongside my 6 for Thanksgiving or call it being a mom to 4 god-they-never-stop-kids or call it depression or maybe loneliness or heck, call it Trump (my kids have nothing on him- that dude is exhausting).  I couldn’t write anything.  I felt slightly nauseous every time I walked by my office and worse than that, inadequate.  I have so very much to say or maybe in reality, I have nothing to say at all.  I’m still debating that with my girl, Laptop.  (Skull-cracking eye roll)

And just as I was wrapping up my lame writer’s holiday and sitting down to write my Pulitzer-prize winning piece two days ago, entitled Blood and Wine (I mean, seriously, who doesn’t want to read something with that title???), here comes f’ing Christmas to join me on my nearly-over holiday.  I was getting up from my shady, broken lounger, wrestling Laptop away from Facebook and crew, when Christmas opened the rusty gate to the pool and entered.  Christmas.  Oh my word, does Christmas have her shit together.

Facebook lost her mind and fell all over herself offering up her delicious, sunny chair and snapping her fingers for Instagram to hand over a bubbly pomegranate mimosa while Pinterest fell to her knees giving Christmas a mani/pedi.  Laptop laughed with glee knowing Christmas had arrived just in time to make this mommy-writer stay on holiday just a few weeks longer.  I sat judge-y and quietly, watching from across the pool with my $10 Target sunglasses pulled down my nose, my calves dangling in the shaded, algae water, bopping my messy bun to the Chainsmokers “Closer”:

“Hey, I was doing just fine before I met you,

I drink too much and that’s an issue, but I’m ok.”

Oh my darling, Christmas.  Your mossy-scented, perfect pine candles and mischievous Elves on Shelves (uuuuuuuuuuugh) and Amazon commercials that make me cry (and buy EVERYTHING), your gorgeous sweaters with highlighted hair flowing down your back and manger scenes with a glorious, swathed baby who might be a little lost behind that magnificent fake tree from Frontgate and your lists, the lists of to-do’s, I-want’s, I-need, donate-to’s, I-forgot, bake-for, check, check, check, fail, fail, fail.  And your cards.   Your perfectly-brilliant cards that both absolutely delight me and leave me feeling sweaty and breathless with panic.  They are already coming.  In droves.  They are on my refrigerator, and I am stunned by the beauty and love and innocence and humor and wittiness of the people we love and who love us.  Christmas has her shit together.  Yes she does.  I do not.  There will not be a Ferguson Christmas card this year.  It’s not necessary, actually, I think it’s impossible.  If I called Shutterfly, the conversation would go like this:

Shutterfly:  Merry Christmas from Shutterfly, how can I help you?

Me:  Quick question as I know Christmas is a demanding taskmaster and you must have so much to do!  Do you offer a card I can design online, or rather have someone do it for me (for free) which has the option to include 1 billion pictures?  You see, it’s been a heck of a year and your limit of 8 photos just won’t work for my family.  I need to include everything- a map photo of Argentina, a picture of our house in California with all of my children busy on homeschool lessons, Kai surfing and skateboarding until he hit dry land in Georgia and started playing golf, Zoey playing soccer with the LNYSA Hot Shots, Zoey playing soccer with the Augusta Arsenal, Bodey turning into a man child I hardly recognize, Lolo tugging Pipers’s leggings off like the tiny cartoon photo on the front of the Coppertone baby sunscreen bottle, me crying in a corner in Georgia and then laughing like a maniac as we dance to rap music in the kitchen, 10 nieces and nephews playing outside at Thanksgiving, the lady who whacked my car with an umbrella the other day, my children at Halloween protecting me with their fake swords and general bad-ass-ness, one thousand stops from coast to coast, a palmetto bug.  Shall I go on?

Shutterfly:  silence

See?  It’s impossible.

So this year, I will write my card.  I will write my thoughts and wishes and dreams and hopes instead of sending the one perfect (imperfect) picture.

Have yourself a merry little Christmas.  Happy Holidays!  Don’t spill your drink!  Would you like another frosted cookie?

Nope.  Not this year.  That was me-before I came undone in Georgia.  How about this:

To my tired friend finishing finals, may you find a few teeny seconds of joy and a luscious glass of wine (or two) to celebrate your awesome-ness.

To my beauties in Ireland, may 10,000 Celtic fairies carry your hearts gently and kindly through the holiday season.

To my one who is scared out of her mind, may the caring hands of warrior women who have gone before, wrap your hurting body in silken, golden sheets while singing gangster rap and scaring away the bad guys.

To my one still traumatized from her unthinkable 2016, 2017 is coming.  She’s coming like a goddess on a dazzling white horse, I just know it.

To my children, you don’t need all of that on your list, I do promise you that.  Look how freaking lucky we are.  And I love you, make good choices!

To my husband, it’s been hard.  Really, fucking hard.  I still love you, too.

To my family, good lord Thanksgiving was seriously fun but next time it’s at your house.

To my puppy, let’s try to find obedience classes in 2017.  You absolutely have to learn the command “come”.

To those who came back to me, I am so happy you did.  I missed you.  Very much.

To all of my beachy, lovely friends (family) and even those far from the beach, I think of you every….single……day.   I miss you every…..single……day.  May the dolphins and seals splash you with every holiday joy and blessing there is.

To Georgia…….ummmmm……..sorry, I’m not ready yet.

To our country…..please hold it together and remember how far we’ve come.  Or maybe it’s how far we have left to go.  Either way, keep it together.

To Orion……thank you for helping me keep my footing.

Happy Holiday(s), my babes.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

 

 

 

I have been wearing a bracelet with this exact saying on it:  My Story Is Not Over Yet:  I guess I needed to boss myself around a bit because I ordered several bands with motivating, kind phrases on them.  The type of phrases that remind a girl to stop and breathe, take care of herself, keep searching, keep finding all of the good and to keep running.  I needed some bossing because I was spending way too much time coming undone in my rabbit hole.  A girl can get stuck down there if the roots keep breaking off every time she grabs one.  So, a little bossing of myself was in order.  Boss, Baby, Boss.  Boss babe.  I dislike (notice the lack of the h**e word) the second phrase- it makes me feel like I forgot to take the class on how to be the boss of my own babe.  So I’ll go with Boss, Baby, Boss.  Rise up and out.  Get on with it.  I’m tired of looking at my trash down here-it’s starting to stink and get very, very sad.  Hunky Orion is waiting- I’m coming up.  Or I might go back down.  I haven’t officially decided yet.  It’s a very personal decision- which moment to choose ascension from the rabbit hole.  And I’ll come up when I’m ready.  Stop bossing me.  Ugh.

It’s been a big week.  Can we all just say that?  Can we all just collectively sigh and raise our eyebrows at each other, smile tired smiles, maybe pat each other on the back and say, “Well, geesh, my friend, it’s been a doozy.  Want to grab a coffee?”.  I want to invite all of our country for a sigh and a coffee and a little discussion on the best parts of life, “coffee with the people”, all of the people.  We can all wear our personal bossy bands and show each other and laugh at what little phrase keeps each of us grinding through the minutiae and onwards and upwards.  Because, come on, we are going onwards and upwards.  We will close our eyes and boss ourselves right through it.  Won’t we?  We will take the puppies outside to potty, we will take the kids to school, we will go to work to the post office to the library and to the doctor’s office and we will hold the door for strangers and wave at the UPS delivery guy and be grateful for our soldiers and hold vigil for our sick babies and see our families and laugh with our calvary of people that ride beside us no matter what.

Yes.  Won’t we?

But it is all a little scary.  At least I think it is at the moment, and I’m ok with feeling that way.  That is often the nature of change.  Scary and so very confusing- we want change, we don’t want change, we want to change back.  It feels divisive instead of drawing together under the great umbrella of democracy and keeping each other dry from the rain.  I’m not full of hate or non-inclusive thoughts.  I’m full of love and compassion- I really try to fill up with that everyday.  Don’t we all do that?  Please, God, do that.  Everyone.  It is long past time for that.  I spent yesterday crying off and on realizing fear makes me cry- fear of palmetto bugs, fear of being insignificant, fear of scary, judge-y people who might hurt me or some members of my calvary.  I turned to social media (skull-cracking eye roll) and found a couple of articles by two of my very favorite authors and both suggested in difficult times such as these focus on your own heart, focus on self-care so you can help those around you.  “Change comes from within.”  I’ve definitely heard that one before.  So here I go- self-care it is.  Boss, Baby, Boss.

Being that I picked one hell of a week, actually one hell of a year, to turn 40, my self-care begins with the choice of the Un-Birthday.  How fitting considering I am just finishing up on the Undoing.  I’m feeling a bit stripped-down and naked running around out here in my Georgia forest, so there will not be a lot of celebrating on the particular day I turn 40.  But, wait, how perfect.  My birthday suit.  I guess that’s what a girl should be wearing by the time she turns 40. Comfortable in her skin, in her body, her vessel that carries her cherished soul.  Ha.  I’m working on it- somedays it feels good in this body, and other days I let bad things slip out of my mouth about my butt, my legs, how I need to scotch tape my forehead up or my weird, flappy arms that seem to have stopped responding to gym time.  But oh baby, I’m starting to care a whole lot less.  Don’t get me wrong, I still have my Sandra Dee dreams of the black catsuit, stilettos and knocking Jay over with a beautifully-painted red tippy-toe.  The sweaty workout clothes feel comfy, though, and make me proud of the strength of this body that birthed four kids- a body I work with everyday so I can stay strong, mobile and agile because I have so much running left to do.  So many stories left to tell.

So as my 40th Un-Birthday nears, I have also decided to admit and fully claim and be proud of my birthday anxiety.  I am a perfectionist at sabotaging my own birthdays.  I get scared they won’t ever be what I thought they would, I cry, people look at me strangely wondering why I can’t just celebrate, Jay rolls his eyes, the kids over-compensate with 39 handmade birthday cards each…….it’s a disaster.  I have seen friends and their fabulous I’m-40-and-owning-it birthday parties with a gaggle of friends, drinks, food, event-ready T’s and surfer hats embroidered with “Fuck You I’m 40”.  And I love it.  Good for you!  It’s amazing to me the ease in which these people glide into this new decade.  But, no.  Not me.  I’m eliminating the birthday anxiety and taking a sick day on my 40th birthday.  I don’t need a party nor do I want one nor do I have the time to stop doing laundry to attend one.  I celebrate quietly- with a happy moment every morning my un-pedicured feet hit the floor.  Yay- I’m here, I’m still running, perfectly-undone me.  A little birthday celebration every single day.

I always thought 40 would feel “old”.  I remember my Dad’s 40th party with the black balloons and paper plates proclaiming “Lordy, Lordy, Look Who’s 40!”.  I thought that was simply hysterical as a child, and I remember running around for days afterwards chanting “lordy, lordy, look who’s 40!” and thinking, oh my goodness my Dad is so old and I’m never going to be that old, well I might be, but I will definitely have piles of grey hair and be shuffling around happily chatting to my friends at the Grand Generation Center eating little cookies with my coffee in a styrofoam cup.  In reality, I feel quite young, slightly newborn-ish actually, raw and ready with my overly-sensitive skin feeling every tiny movement of air.  Somedays I feel light-like I could rocket ship right off of this planet and freely float around the Earth watching the tiny people and other days I’m pretty heavy, sinking into my greasy, Georgia rabbit hole.  But on my great Un-Birthday, I am focusing on my exact weight and the gravity that holds me right here- in a place where I trust the goodness of the people I love and the freedom I know will prevail in my country, where I get to spend my days filling up the hearts of the four best little people on the planet and trotting along in my sweaty clothes trying to find time for a shower, writing words that make me feel a little better-words that help me hold the truth tightly down on paper.  Boss, Baby, Boss.  That’s right, I’m still running, I’m still hoping and loving and giving and praying and falling to my knees in laughter and sadness (when necessary) and guarding my calvary with ferocity and welcoming everyone in who can love me and my people as they deserve and my eyes are closed.

Happy Un-Birthday, baby, because guess what, my friends………

My Story Is Not Over Yet:

When I was little I sat in church pews with my legs dangling, my tights sticking to my knees and dresses fluffed out around me.  I grew up in a small town in Nebraska, and church was part of the fabric of that town.  You lived there, you went.  You became a part of the church.  It was not always a place of exact shared beliefs, maybe, but it was a place of community, divine prayer, singing, Bible stories, laughing, friends in joyful celebration, shuddering shoulders of the bereaved, long-robed pastors and candles.  It was the place where I got to hear both my Mom and Dad sing, my Mom in her high, airy voice and my Dad in his rich, deep tones.  The hymnal pages smelled like holy paper, and the cookies and apple juice afterwards were the very best thing in the world.  People held hands and baked pies and casseroles and played love on the guitar and rose together in forgiveness “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”.  Church was comfort.  Church was sanctuary.  For awhile.  Then as I grew up my definition of sanctuary changed.

I do not debate religion. I have strong beliefs, and what I consider the Divine is mine and mine alone. Partaking in the spiritual rite and believing what is felt and known in the heart is an un-judged gift (unless your belief system involves terror upon others, then I judge you, amen).  That is the gift of free choice and free thinking. Sanctuary, for me, evolved into a beautiful, loving, family and a strong network of people full of the divine, no matter what they do on Sundays. They love each other, help each other, bring the pies and casseroles and hold the shuddering shoulders and cradle the babies and scoot the monsters out from under the bed.  Prayers come from yoga mats, from churches, from meetings in basements, from around the dinner table, from lonely hearts, sitting quietly in nature.

When my life was uprooted- oh wait- what happened? Anyone? Oh that’s right I had to move to Georgia (how hard are your eyes rolling now?). It’s just a move.  Everyone, everywhere, in the world moves. Some are forced out in the most terrifying circumstances- pushed to unsurvivable limits (please, may they find sanctuary, please). I simply packed some boxes, loaded my family into a shiny new SUV and drove, unpacked these boxes into a lovely home (with a swimming pool) and a refrigerator full of food and hope and comfy beds and great schools and a providing spouse and boom- how hard is that??? It shouldn’t be that hard.  It is laughably simple. I am not a refugee. We are not refugees. I am a stay-at-home mom. A privileged one. (Thank you, universe.)

But I’m angry.

My sanctuary is gone (or maybe really far away), and I’m running around here in a deep, fucking spooky forest full of palmetto bugs with my eyes closed, and I can’t find one damn piece of sanctuary.  The wine bottle is not my safe place, that had to be put away, and the blog is maybe becoming a cliche and the kids are feeling Mommy’s wavering hope in this place and Jay is working too hard and I’m starting to run down deep into the tunnel. Tunnels lead underground, to rabbit holes.  And rabbit holes are not pretty. They are full of so many ugly roots and dense heaps of black, dank earth, where the “undoing” happens. The undoing of everything you knew about yourself and what you could withstand (or pretend to withstand), who you so saucily thought you might have been, what you hold dear and true. Rabbit holes are not protection, they are not sanctuary.  They are simply where a person must reside while they come undone, piece by piece, layer after layer, pain after pain. Shedding the snakeskin, crying out in anguish, tossing aside the trash- never burying anything, all of it stays there for you to see, to contemplate. Until the quiet becomes too much and you shut your eyes so very tightly because when you do that, you can hear a few tiny, distant trumpet notes from the cavalry.  It might take a month, a year, several years, but eventually you find a twisted root and grab on, tightly, like how you hold onto a lover, and you pull up, you pull up, up, up and your feet start to kick off the rotten earth and your dirty shoes fall off as you rise and you start to squeeze through the opening of that rabbit hole. First into the black of night with Orion standing guard o’er the rabbit hole- arrow aimed toward the sun on the other side of the Earth, pointing you onwards. Keep pulling, kiddo, keep pulling up.   And as you rise, you howl at the moon with a giant exhale because you have been holding your breath just as you held vigil for your trash down there. Your hair is wild and dirty and upended roots are tangled in it. Up you go, praying to your divinity, your body unimportant and so much lighter, it’s just a vessel for your soul. You go until you are lifted fully off the ground to give that rabbit hole one final over-the-shoulder look, and then you place yourself softly back down, barefoot onto velvet leaves and the warmth of the rising sun is there. You can feel it on your cheeks. The undoing is done and you have never wanted to run so fast and so free in your life.

Because you know what living without sanctuary is. It’s been felt. Acknowledged.  Thank you for teaching me that. My feet are here now, my eyes are closed for the running, and I see everything I ever needed to see about myself.

Amen.

 

I met a man two days ago, a kind gentleman named Kokomo from Haiti who was advertising car detailing, and I took him up on it. I believe it’s clear now I spend hours a day in my car and well, cleaning this car myself is more than I can take and I’m willing to hand that piece over. As he was walking around the car and looking at it with his soulful, brown eyes, he ran his hand over the “California” still proudly displayed on my license plate. “I bet you miss that.”

Yes, sir. Yes, sir, I do.

Kokomo and I had good long chat about life in Augusta, Georgia. That’s where I live. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually said Augusta- I always generalize with “Georgia”. Both he and I had some mutual agreements on the place and decided it takes a fair amount of guts and patience to make a new life here. Let’s just say Kokomo misses home, too.

And in that one moment, I wanted to leave so badly I could taste it.  Not even necessarily to California, it didn’t really matter, just anywhere else.  Leave- running so quickly out of here that only sparks were left from my flying feet.  Leave the responsibilities, the heartache of long days without adult conversations, the tedious boredom, the heat, the humidity which has turned my hair into utter nonsense, the constant messes, the fatigue.

“Aruba, Jamaica, oooo, I wanna take ya, Bermuda, Bahama come on pretty Mama”

I’m not a quitter.  I don’t quit anything, well, most things I don’t, except for the 5 minutes I rage-quit laundry on a daily basis.  I ran cross country and track in high school.  I was so terrible, I’m very serious…..it was “my-parents-can’t-even-watch-this” terrible.  Even my own Mother told me I should quit, and my Dad tried to encourage me with inspirational books about running and he would hand them to me with determination and yet that look of “please-stop-this-nightmare”.  I became so committed to staying through each of those horrible seasons I became physically ill and had to run races while puffing on an inhaler.  I’m a runner now- an actual physical runner not just an eyes-closed kind of runner- which is hilariously ironic.  In my very humble-I-don’t-run-marathons-opinon, running is pretty much mental.  And if you can’t get your head wrapped around it and get your focus (as was the case with the younger version of me), it’s an uphill, impossible battle all the way.

But I was just having my Forrest Gump moment.  “I’m pretty tired.  I think I’ll go home now.”  He proclaims this in his quiet, steadfast Forrest way at the end of his three years, two months, 14 days and 16 hours of running.  You see, we carved pumpkins this weekend- the obligatory pumpkin carving I do not enjoy. It’s a mess, pumpkin guts are stuck everywhere for the rest of eternity, Pinterest has ruined everything in the world, somebody cries, I can’t stand using stencils and I want to stab my eyes out with the $4.99 pumpkin carving tools I bought at Target an hour ago because I was just at Target on a Friday night like a terrible, tired cliche mommy, there, still in my sweaty gym clothes from 7:45am that morning wishing I had more time to shower and wishing there was a moment to freeze time and truly enjoy the pumpkin-carving and not yell obscenities at awful Georgia drivers and I have to feed the kids frozen pizza now but it’s organic from Whole Foods which makes it better, I think, and my eyes are burning from my Georgia allergies and my husband is not home this weekend which means there will be palmetto bugs which I will have to fling things at and there could be potential burglars and my only defense against them will be my weak ninja skills and my 10-week-old puppy and my Orion has been missing for a fair bit, hiding in the clouds. Come on, man, shine for me.

And just when the last straw is about to snap, fold, crush and crumble…..onwards I go.  Moments strung together start to form a “do not cross” barrier around me- Piper skipping down the culdesac in her Princess Anna costume with her puppy running beside her, Zoey bopping her head in the car listening to her music and teaching me what trap vs. rap is, Kai walking proudly back from his golf lesson with his tall socks, glasses and golf bag flung around his back and then telling me “I just hit farther than I ever hit because I said forget it and just closed my eyes and swung” (how did he learn so young??), Lolo snuggling into my neck, the leaves starting to change and the temperature dropping oh-so-slightly, Bodey swinging on a giant tire swing with 4 new instant friends at the park, texts with a friend who needs me and so I will be there.  Because I think “I’m tired and I want to go home” for me means I’m tired of being anything other than the raw and real me.  I’ll just be me now, thank you very much.  The one who isn’t all that organized in Georgia yet, who has a short temper on occasion, who can’t get her showers in at the appropriate time but yet doesn’t really care that much anymore about being appropriate, who doesn’t always make the perfect meals but there are always fruits and vegetables and whole grains and wholesomeness (most of the time), who screams f*&k and throws shoes at palmetto bugs, who is standing bravely at the ready, open to something new and something scary and something that gets the fire burning in her gut again.  Just close your eyes and swing, close your eyes and run.

On your mark…………..get set……………..run.

“Have you found any friends yet?”

“I hope you can meet some people!”

“I think it will be better when you meet some people!  It takes time.”

Yes.  Understood.  I know why many are telling me/asking me this- it’s human nature.  We want our people to be cared for and to be social and have “community”.  My children are blowing my mind with their new community of friends (while still loving and missing their people back home), and Jay has a community of work comrades surrounding him.  It’s only natural that now it’s my turn to meet friends.  Now, I tend to lean towards the kind of people who prefer to live in caves and not come out- in other words, I am an introvert.  Very much so.  I have debated this to exhaustion with so many who don’t believe me- but introvert I am.  I energize alone, only alone, so this is why the days get hard sometimes.  So with this in mind, I have decided I will place an ad.  It’s the only reasonable thing left for a girl to do. And since I’m all about the brutal truth now, this is what it will say.

Desperately Seeking Friends (but not really because I might have other plans if you call me)!

Attention!  I am new to this strange land they call Georgia, and I would like a friend (or two).  My name, well, never mind, it doesn’t matter because if you really want to be my friend we will meet in person right after school drop-off number three and we will both be slightly late because of our ever-so-cool-vibe-of-I’m-not-sure-about-you-yet or just forget the whole thing and text me.   I have four kids, so please do not judge the bags under my eyes and the slight look of crazy in my furrowed brow (the crazy can also be blamed on palmetto bugs, please give me guidance in this area).  I am married to a man, I love him and I definitely do not need another spouse- so if you can be a dude not interested in the likes of me then I suppose I’ll accept either male or female.  I’m tired, I’m very f*&king tired and I love to use the word f*%k- if this is a problem stop reading.  I am telling my stories and running with my eyes closed and if this is confusing to you, I won’t apologize-you will either have to try to understand or walk away- no harm done.  I will listen to anything you have to say unless you want to talk about what kind of cheese to buy at the store or where to get cool shoes- I am done with small talk.  I listen, I listen hard, so tell me the truth.  I laugh all of the time and squeeze as much joy as I can into my slightly-broken soul (which you just need to be ok with and try not to fix, that’s between me and the stars) so prepare to laugh while we slosh our wine down our shirts.  Which brings me to laundry- if you have any experience in that area, the help would be greatly appreciated.  I only accept honesty until it comes to the time when we discuss healthy eating choices for our families- if you are a meal-planner, good grief I respect you and wish to be you someday, but when you see me feeding my kid Pringles in the store at 5:30pm while I’m crying in the produce section, forget honesty and please just give me a hug and say “great to see you new friend.”  If you have beautiful, long, shiny Georgia hair like so many of you do here, please do not diss my funny, frizzy messy bun- it’s just recently happened to my hair and I don’t know what else to do with it.  Any hair product tips are appreciated, but keep it short and sweet, please, and let’s get back to the real stuff.  I drive all of the time- everywhere- I’m not kidding- 18 trips up and down Evans To Lock Road today- do you know that road?  It makes me bored- you can call me on my fancy new bluetooth (all hands-free like so many of you Georgians refuse to use) and we can laugh together about how driving here is exactly like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride in Disneyland.  Wait- are you from California?  Never mind- that story is too long, let’s start fresh.  And, mascara, let’s talk mascara.  You have to be the kind of friend who quietly whispers in my ear- you forgot your mascara, babe- and then wink at me and walk off like freaking Sandra Dee in Grease once she becomes completely cool.  In return for all of this, I will love and give and laugh and cry and help you heal and plan and dream and share and keep you safe if you ever go into a rabbit hole.  This I promise you, new friend.

Here is the reality.  I already have a beautiful, imperfect, perfect cavalry of friends.  I know them and I see them- dressed in their best Game of Thrones garb, standing with sword and shield at the edge of the cliff ready to form a human flying-squirrel safety net if I accidentally trip over the edge.  They are honest and compassionate and have had enough of their own hurt to understand what life feels like, and together we take turns mopping up the messes and lighting the bonfires for each other.  Friends who have graciously and kindly come back to me after a short 13-year-break while I was busy having babies.  Friends who I’ve known for less time, but instantly we smudged our mascara and laughed like maniacs and traded hearts.  Friends who don’t expect an apology when I go all “introvert-cold-give-her-a-minute-she’ll-be-back”.

So……it might take me a month or seven to “find my friends” here.  Not to worry, I have the world’s best badass army of them standing right at my back.

Run on, soldiers.

I have children who will not go upstairs alone.  Nope.  Won’t do it.  And I would like to thank the recent clown rampage across our oh-so-mature nation for making this even more of an issue in my household.  If you don’t know about the clown problem, google South Carolina/Georgia clown sightings and prepare to meet your deepest horrors when you go to bed tonight.  Enough said.

But this has been a “since-we-moved-to-Georgia” problem in this house.  There are a few of those kinds of problems to be addressed at a later date.  Today is about The Ghost Man- we take our days as they come around here.  The littles (the youngest two) are scared to go upstairs alone.  Now to be fair, it was a minor issue back home in California but since moving here, the ante has been raised and we are now at I-will-pee-my-pants-if-you-make-me-go-up-there-alone level.  Kai can be upstairs in his room doing homework or more than likely playing a computer game, Zoey can be lying up there listening to her tunes and trying to solve the dilemmas of middle school (oh sweet, Z, just keep running), and still neither of my littles will go up those stairs, without a hand to hold, for any reason whatsoever.  I have opened every window shade, turned on every light, checked the storage spaces, looked under beds, purposefully made their sleeping quarters neat and tidy with the cutest stuffies to greet them-joyful, bauble eyes and all, scoured corners, read only happy, perfectly-funny bedtime stories to make them feel calm, but no, the fear is too real to them, too dark and impenetrable to possibly walk those stairs and down that hallway alone.

Every second of my day is filled with something.  This is every mother’s day, every mother’s day in the entire universe, full, full, full.  I try to take the recommended few moments to be still, fill my heart with gratitude and focus on my breathing.  Occasionally (never) I make it through without interruption and sometimes I’m only mildly distracted by the pitter patter of puppy paws and 4-year-old feet but more often than not it’s the problem of The Ghost Man pulling me from my moments and screwing up any bit of calmness and grace.

Little Kid:  “Mommy, I need my iPad.”  (PS No kid ever actually NEEDS their iPad).

Me:  “Go get it then.”

Little Kid:  “It’s upstairs.”

“Upstairs” where some ambiguous “thing” lives and awaits my tiny child so it can swallow them whole, belch up their bones and leave them in a pile to show the next kid that dare come up there what is about to happen.  They can’t really tell me what they are scared of, they can’t put it into words, but in my mind, he is The Ghost Man.  And he’s starting to piss me off.  I have now spent so many of my days here thinking about what is actually upstairs and what might be causing them fear, I have created my own persona known as The Ghost Man.  He is some tall, lanky dude completely harmless with a serious case of the munchies and a beer in one hand, up there in ripped jeans and a Grateful Dead t-shirt laughing his ghostly-ass off to his friends.  “Dude, I’m totally freaking these kids out and it’s hilarious, man, you gotta see it, oh wait, here comes one right now, Boo!”  (insert stoned laughter)

When asked repeatedly throughout the day by one of my scared, innocent children, “can you please go upstairs with me”, I start to lose it, just a little bit.  “Ok fine, no problem, let me stop EVERYTHING and give one more piece of my soul to you as I go up and get your completely non-essential, brain-wasting electronic device and bring it down safely from the clutches of “upstairs” and you know what, in fact, forget it, I’m going to go up there and get everything:  pillows, tweezers, tampons, area rugs, underwear, canned goods, pajamas, photo albums, teddy bears, the other three kids, that stash of candy we both know is behind your bed, the tv (and remote), bottled water, a box of wine and 6 tubes of mascara (so I don’t have to look completely awful) and we are going to build a giant Anti-Monster fort in the kitchen DOWNSTAIRS and never come out and never, ever in the future of ever-dom will I have to “take you upstairs” again while dinner burns in Georgia!”

Instead, I hold their clammy hand and say “yes, my love, let’s go.”

Because I’m starting to see as enviably-adaptable as kids are, it takes them a minute, too, to feel like they are completely home.  I remember the dark and spooky as a kid, and I lived in the same house, where my parents still reside to this day, for eighteen years of my life.  As a child, I never had to discover a new home, a new terrain or sort out any new ghost men.  And while I believe in the beauty of change and the character-building efforts of finding one’s way in new territory, it can be daunting.  So, even when we may not want to keep running, up the stairs and through the woods filled with fear and monsters, up we go, because that’s what we do, baby, run through the scary stuff.

Hey, Ghost Man, I got your number, and I’m coming for you.

 

“How are you finding it?”

I’m asked that question at least once a day by very, very well-intentioned people.  This morning it was the poor, unsuspecting insurance guy.   But I don’t really understand the question.  Intellectually I know what they mean- “how do you like it here?”, “have you settled into your home and put a statue of a Georgia peach in your front yard?”, “do your kids like school?”, “have you seen the canals?” etc.   Spiritually, well, it takes on a whole new meaning.  I’m finding it strangely sad and ridiculously hot and humid with the exception of the frigid mornings which leave me paralyzed as to what a girl should wear around here.  I’m finding-even though I’m a grownup- a good one- who reads and learns and listens and gives and holds everyone she loves tightly in her heart, I might be acting a bit like a tantrum-throwing toddler about living here.  I’m finding that I’m working on this.  I’m finding that I…..can’t…..even…..the palmetto bugs- full-blown hyperventilation.  I am finding that much of what I thought and knew and had planned was all thrown out the window when we rolled into Georgia.

I am finding, however, Georgia has it nailed when it comes to the stars.  They are bright lights in a velvety, navy blue sky, and they make my heart sing.  They are deeper and more meaningful here- it is difficult to explain.  So many stories to tell in the Deep South.  They make me pop up out of my rabbit hole and breathe a little deeper, a little more evenly.  I always feel like Orion the Hunter has his eye on me- I got you, kiddo, hold steady, keep running.  And it’s always in star-gazing, I think of Charlie.

“Chaaaaarrrrrleeeeeeeee Garberstripe, get over here!”

I will never, ever forget it.  I never saw the woman or the child.  I was waiting tables being the absolute cliche of a recent college graduate with a theatre degree (skull-cracking eye roll).  But there I was, with my new degree, my new husband, a lot of non-paying acting work and the paying job at a restaurant two blocks away from our mismatched railroad track apartment.  So maybe this moment was only clear and perfectly brilliant to me because everything was SO NEW, SO PROMISING.  So there I am collecting my paltry tip from the lunch bunch, and I hear it.  The most hilarious reprimanding of a child I had ever heard and the creative time machine kicked in- when your brain goes into overdrive, the ideas flow freakishly fast and the shivery, warm feeling mixed with cold sweat sweeps down your body.  You are already writing your major award acceptance speech as you jot down that one name on your “May I Take Your Order” notepad.

Charlie Garberstripe.  I was going to make him a star- that was a character begging to come to life on the pages of a script, a book, anything.  A little boy with a secret, a little boy who was sad and the underdog and had funny sticky-up hair and a bit of magic.  Crap, that’s Harry Potter.

And that’s exactly what happened to my Charlie Garberstripe.  Nothing.  Zero.  A complete loss of focus.  Dead-end ideas that sounded like already-fully-cultivated ideas from people far better at any of this than me.  Jay asked weekly for a year when I was going to write it down.  Just start writing.  It became the talk at family gatherings- hey, how’s Charlie?  Come on, Cecily- it’s the best idea, just write something.  Then there was moving, and jobs that needed to be done to pay the bills and baby-having and the beautiful mountain range of parenthood to tackle.  Each exactly where I needed to be at the moment.  Each filled with everything good and everything hard at the same time.

I recently told my kids I had started writing. “Writing what?” If not forced to write a middle-school paper, why on earth would anyone want to write anything????? I explained I was just trying my hand at some writing, and so I was doing kind-of-a-little-blog-thing and only 7 people are reading it but that doesn’t matter because I’m doing it for me and Mommy isn’t always just sitting home watching the Pioneer Woman on the Food Network, folding laundry (ok maybe a lot of the time) and paying bills, she has a life, too, and not to judge me and no they can’t read it well maybe they can but not right now because you have to go to school and I’m tired and get in the car because it’s only 7:15am and I’m already about to lose it love you, make good choices!

And even with my new little writing gig I hired myself for, I can’t make Charlie come to life.

So maybe this is it, maybe this is Charlie’s destiny.  He’s just been tucked in my back pocket all along, leading me to this place.  To Georgia, I guess?  Where a bit of writing is tethering my soul, keeping me from floating off into space.  My little unfinished talisman who may never be anything more than that and who may never actually come to life on any page but keeps me searching, finding and growing.  I’ll take it- my silent little running buddy.

Come on, Charlie, let’s blow this popsicle stand.  We have places to be.

 

 

Last night, I was running, chasing Lolo around the backyard, and hand to God (because, yet again, how could I make this up?), I got seriously poked in the eye with a stick.  Oh, hahahahaha, aren’t you cute universe with your funny little “signs”?  I stopped running and sat down on the grass and cried.  A) because it hurt like a…..I’m not ready to completely share my rainbow of curse words I like to use, we’ll get there B) because it was dinnertime and dinnertime is hard sometimes with four kiddos and C) because I’m tired of feeling a little thin, a bit like a stick figure.

This has nothing to do with the weight of my body or my actual figure, it has to do with the weight of my soul perhaps?  It is the free-falling feeling (and not the good Tom Petty kind) where the wind could whip you away at any second and the fire truck forgot to come with its big, white safety tarp.  Weightlessness with sharp little prickles of  pain and worry and the gnawing, tiredness of my soul being munched on a bit by the people I love, the people I take care of, the lists.  Brush it off, up you go, come on now, keep running.

This morning I was walking, yes, the puppy again, and I met a neighbor.  I had the poofy, Georgia bedhead, pajamas, yep still wearing them, and I met Rick.  After a joyful greeting by Lolo and the standard introductions, he eventually asks “So what do you do?”.

In a millisecond, this is what goes through my mind:  “nothing, I do nothing, nobody notices or cares, I forgot to put on my mascara I bet you think I look old and I’m tired and I take care of 4 kids alone most of the time and I wash everything…sheets, floors, couches, faces, baby hands, dog paws, underwear, toilet seats…..I drive, all of the time, burning through fossil fuels like a person who doesn’t believe in global warming but I do but now you will think I hate the Earth because you always see me in my giant SUV I swear I have dreams and goals and I’m running with my eyes closed do you know what that is? you should get on board I drank two glasses of wine last night for no good reason and I cried three times yesterday and my head hurts and my heart hurts and this place we live in kind of sucks and what’s with the untimed stoplights? and my dog is whining so now you think I have a bad puppy and I’m worried about Syria and Trump vs. Clinton and my husband is working from home this morning but we haven’t had time to really look at each other and will you think I’m weird if I start crying right now, Rick?”

In reality, I froze and then mumbled something. I am pretty sure he saw the panic and asked, “Do you play golf or tennis?”

He definitely thinks I look old.

“No, I don’t, but my husband plays golf!”  I know I saw him breathe a sigh of relief to find some common ground with the crazy, tired woman from California who forgets her mascara and carries her puppy on walks and looks very close-ish to a breakdown of some sort.

“See you later, Rick!  Nice to meet you.”

He ran.  He might have been on a jog anyway, but it looked to me like he might be quickly trying to get home.

Ten thousand years ago, I was cast as a character named Marian in a play called The Edible Woman, a novel by Margaret Atwood beautifully-adapted for the stage by a man I greatly admire, Dave Carley.  I was almost-married, almost-graduated-from-college, and I was working in a Festival of New Works in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  I remember it as one of the fullest and happiest times of my entire life.  The character of Marian was a straight-laced consumer eventually finding she was being consumed by everyone.  Her big moment comes at the end of the play when she finally, truly sees herself and bakes a cake in the shape of herself for the people around her to eat.  She spoke in third person in these long, quirky monologues:

Marian:  Marian’s coping but she knows it won’t last.  There’s too much noise, too much laughter, too much everything.  She’s swaying and smiling and feeling like a two-dimensional thing, a paper woman from a mail-order catalogue.

Geesh, I could nail a Marian monologue right about now.

Let’s keep running, shall we?

 

 

Everything happens before 9am here.  I have lived a lifetime, tangled my hair, fallen to my knees, begged for forgiveness from the nutrition gods, yelled (I’m trying), dried tears, worked out (only on a good day), wiped at least one butt (on a bad day), hugged my kids, frowned at them, too, contemplated boys and middle school with my 13-year-old, high-fived Jay as he tries to throw me a supportive smile on his way out the door, spilled a cup of coffee, done three school drop-offs and dropped scrambled eggs 4 times between the stove and table………this before 9am.  This morning an entire bag of miniature puppy treats was spilled on the floor causing me to move a piece of furniture to clean behind it.  I love cleaning before 9am- it fills my soul (this is a lie).  So I’m falling to my knees for the fourth time before 8:42 and seeing all of the dirt and grime behind this piece of furniture.  I pullout the wet mop for a thoroughly- frustrating mopping session.  Afterwards, my youngest looks up at me, as we are standing in a corner looking at our shiny, sparkly floor realizing we are now a bit stuck, and she says the greatest thing to ever come out of a 4-year-old’s mouth (please, for your own enjoyment, carefully hear and understand she cannot say her r’s properly):  “Wuh gowing to have to pawkohw out of hew.”  Translation:

We are going to have to parkour out of here.

Genius.

Yes, my sweets, we are.

We are going to have to get creative, and perhaps, pull up our big girl panties and find our way out or in or both.  I was completely struck in that one silly, mopping moment that while l’m running along here, closing my eyes and hearing and feeling EVERYTHING- my kids are running right at my feet, right there with every footfall, every twisty minute.  I spend too much time mom-guilting my way through a day and cringing from what I said or should have said or didn’t say to them or to anyone else.  What I should be doing or cooking or trying to clean or organize.  But none of that matters to them-they simply see me trying and loving and helping and giving and adjusting.  We are climbing up boulders, laughing as we kick off the tall Georgia trees, vaulting over streams and bear-walking over anthills- together, not always perfectly, joyfully or gracefully, but we are doing it.

I watched a certain debate-like something on TV last night, and, yes, we are going to have to increase our flexibility and muscle-up and find our way right through this.  Because the babies are watching and the lizards are laughing and Bodey wants to know what might happen to people because the dinosaurs couldn’t even make it in this world.

I wish I could draw- anything.  I was not gifted in that department in any way, shape or form.  In fact, when asked to draw, I instantly get a nervous tic and within seconds am reduced to tears.  If I could draw, I have this amazing vision of a large sketch I want hanging in my kitchen…..actually, maybe in the laundry room since I spend most of my time there.  It will be of me, not the lipsticky-skirty me, but just me with my poofy-humid Georgia bedhead, a coffee mug, each of my kids attached to me in some crazy fashion, the puppy chewing my pant leg, Jay with his computer bag and his hard hat, yes, he should be in it, too, standing on top of a pile of places we have been, lived, the stuff we left behind and the crap we are figuring out today.  Like freaking superheroes.   Because we all need to find our inner-superhero right about now.

Come on, baby girl, let’s shut our eyes and parkour our way, not outta here, but right through it.  Because that’s where the people running with their eyes closed go- right through it.

Just in case you don’t have a 7-year-old constantly talking about parkour as I do.

Parkour:  the activity or sport of moving rapidly through an area, typically in an urban environment, negotiating obstacles by running, jumping, and climbing.

 

 

 

 

This morning I was chasing a certain ill-behaved puppy through the damp leaves (did you read the last post, snakes anyone????), in the dark, with slivers in my flip-flop-clad feet (I have got to get some better Georgia shoes), twigs in my hair (Bodey had to pluck them out for me) and hot coffee spilled down a certain lady-part area.  What a perfect way to start the day!  Good morning, Georgia!  I had a lot on my mind.  I have a poignantly-beautiful daughter who just became a teenager…today..right now.  I have another daughter who isn’t feeling well- I won’t get into what messes I had to clean-up yesterday, I mean, I could but it’s not necessary because you already know.  Then there is Lolo, the puppy.  YOLO, Lolo.  And she’s embracing that philosophy…fully.  Enough said.  The boys are ok at this moment, so we will make today about the girls.   I have to divvy the days up sometimes.  That’s how it is when you are raising a coed basketball team.

And this, this is on my mind, too.  I have a girlfriend who wrote something to me.  Actually, wait!  THREE girlfriends who wrote about the same thing.  Platitudes.  I looked up the precise definition because I wanted to make sure I had it correct.  Yes.  Something, a phrase usually, we say too often and lately it seems it’s to make each other feel better.  A cliche.  And we are all tired of hearing them, of saying them, of hash tagging them, of thinking them, of guilting ourselves with them.  It’s a desperate skirt-smoothing, lipstick reapplying way of making sure our lives and our family and friends’ lives don’t shatter into a million pieces.  “You ok?  Great! I’m fine, too.  You will be stronger for it!  We are so blessed.  Now, don’t spill your drink!”

But what else do I say?  Do I do?  I really have no idea.  I only know I love to listen.  (except to my 4-year-old sometimes because, well, “the days are long and the years are short”, platitude alert, skull-cracking eye roll)  I’m actually an incredible listener, but if you ask how I’m doing I get all sweaty and anxious and strange guffaws come out of me, and then I usually jump up to switch the laundry and it’s all over.

My love of listening is probably what drew me to the world of theatre.  An entire art form dedicated to listening.  If you can’t listen as an actor, you are sunk. But sometimes I forgot and there were many bad scenes, auditions, heck, entire shows I performed in and forgot to listen:  look-at-me-I’m-brilliant-and-radiant-up-here kind of stuff without ever listening to my people standing with me on the stage.  Truly terrible (there were good ones too, though).  That’s another post entirely.  But, now that I’m a big girl, and I’ve shut my eyes and am running through the scary Georgia woods with snakes chasing me, I hear everything.  I hear the frog jump into the pool at 2:30 am. I hear the squirrel jump from that tree I’m looking at right now to that other one so far away, (freaking amazing, squirrel). I hear your heart breaking 20,000 miles away, friend.   I hear your tired text,  I hear your “I’m done” and I hear you putting on your shoes and running.  I’m going to listen to myself and to my people and shut down the platitudes that slip out of my mouth.

A word came to me as I was wiping the dog sh*t off my flip-flops.   It’s just a word, my word to let you know I’m listening and my heart hurts with your heart,  and I hear you and see you and the rabbit hole can fit both of us so move over, girlfriend, and it is in no way related to any platitude I ever said, ever.  And if I feel the desire to let a cliche fall out of my mouth about me or anybody else or any painful situation, then I will just say this:

Platypus.

#platypus

Keep running, darling, the lizards are watching.

xoxoxoxoxo

 

 

I screamed into the phone- “You don’t understand!  It’s like National Geographic here, and I’m going to lose it.”  That was me, to my husband, my working-his-ass- off -husband who can’t do anything to help me from the hour-long-commute-away- job we moved here for.  I know, it makes no sense to me either, we moved HERE so he could drive THERE, so we could never see each other, we could mutually, silently be tired with each other and the kids could go to good schools. Yes, the homeschool thing doesn’t work as well in Georgia.  My beautiful plan of four carefree, creative, highly-intellectual children going surfing in the Pacific with all of their free time, while gaining their amazing education through the carefully thought-out plan crafted by, you guessed it, ME, just sort of fell apart when we had to move.  When we had to move to Georgia, here, where we know nobody, and we could possibly become scary, alone homeschool people who forget to brush their teeth for a year.  That couldn’t happen.  So off to school they went.  Off to work he went.  Off to, umm, the laundry room I went?  the kitchen?  the hallway with boxes?  the front step?  California in my brand new car with the windows down and a fist raised to those who made me move here?  Sigh, it was just the laundry room.

 

Palmetto bugs (come on stop it already, Georgia, there is no fooling me with your fake name for your giant flying cockroaches), fire ants who left me with scars from the bites after week one, Argentine ants (now that’s just comedy right there, a girl can’t make that up), mosquitoes, quirky lizards climbing my porch walls, frogs in the pool!  big ones!, long, slick shiny snakes making my children afraid to take their new puppy outside and the spiders, laughably huge.  “Babe, it’s National Geographic and it’s your fault!”.  I swear I didn’t say the last part, but he heard it.  Oh don’t think for one second I am going to turn this bit of self-indulgent writing into great marriage advice.  I have nothing, nada, not one little shred of advice.  I will sit with you and hold your hand and bring you wine or kleenex or a fluffy pillow while you tell me the hurt in your heart from your own marriage, but advice-giving often turns into not really listening, so no advice here.  I might know this though.  I might be able to say this, blaming does not work (unless it is about a bad Netflix choice).  And, boy, was I blaming.  Blaming and shaming.  The worst kind of punishment for a spouse.

 

I have loved the same man for 89 years, ok not 89 (just 22)  but pretty much.  And while you are married and loving each other for 89 years and you are working and having babies, and more babies and moving, and creating “homes” and laughing and yelling curse words and hurting and loving and pushing and moving again and raising those babies and so on….you are intertwining souls (the good part) and you are slowly, secretly shaving away parts of your own soul (the bad part) to be all matchy-matchy and happy.

Something happened when we were putting back together our Fake Argentina puzzle- I found my soul pieces lying there under that SpongeBob corner piece.  Oops, excuse me, I dropped those.  I’ll just pick those up and stick them right back onto…….oh……..I can’t remember where they go.  And then they got packed into a box on a midnight train to Georgia where the palmetto bugs are flying and the giant spiders are crawling into the corners and the lizards, well, they are just watching me.  They are watching me watching my soul pieces- in that box over there in the corner on the hot, sticky porch.  See, we are daring each other to make the first move.  These particular lizards always seem to have their eyes so wide open looking for something.  Not me, suckers, I’ve got my eyes closed tightly shut, and I’m just getting warmed-up looking down deep inside myself.  So, bring it, National Geographic Georgia, I’ll take your snakes, your spiders, your giant lap-swimming bullfrogs, I’ll take all of your creepiness, if it means I get to slowly start putting myself back together.

 

 

 

 

 

I woke up today to one of those “hey, Cecily, here’s a memory for you” on Facebook.  I’m trying to get off Facebook, it really brings out the worst in me, it makes me tired and bored and jealous and self-doubtful, but man, I love the memes and the Tasty videos and the pictures of people’s amazing kids and cute pets…….so I’m not off Facebook.

The memory was from the time my family moved-to-Argentina-just-kidding-no-we-didn’t-we-are-still-here-shell-shocked-reinventing-normal-all-the-while-laughing-it-off-like a half-drunk woman at an “important” luncheon, smoothing her skirt and touching up her lipstick acting so very (not) drunk.  Yes, that was  me (the half-drunk one), that was my family, one year ago.  “Life throws you curveballs!”  “There’s a reason you are still here!”  (That one makes my eyes roll so hard my skull splits.)  “God has a plan for you.”  “I love your attitude”…….smooth skirt, reapply lipstick…..keep charging forth.  Those were the words of people who love us- all meant with great intentions, all falling on sad, deaf ears as we jumped from rental property to rental property, homeschooling our four kids, Jay and I glowering at each other from across the room too angry and frustrated to hold conversation let alone to truly look in each other’s eyes.  This was not the very worst thing that could happen to a family…..oh my no…..most definitely not.  In the past year we have been witness to close friends losing a child under the most horrific circumstances, to close friends saving their child from the most horrific circumstances, to spouses dying, jobs lost, heartache upon heartache. We were like a county fair cake walk compared to any of this pain……….but…….smooth skirt, reapply lipstick.

 

I spent the last year of my life trying to put together a puzzle that, while I wasn’t looking (I was probably doing laundry), had been mixed together.  Someone took the princess puzzle and the Spongebob puzzle- each 3 million tiny pieces and threw away half of each and mixed together the rest.  Oh.  That is why I have a headache, blurry eyes and a certain lack of positivity.  After we reclaimed parts of our SoCal life, put half of the puzzle together and actually for some crazy reason started to like homeschooling and the freedom it gave our family, we moved.  Again.  For real.  Not for “fakes”.  Smooth skirt…..reapply lipstick.

 

Because we moved to Georgia……not exotic, not even really exciting………hot, humid, strangely eery, closed-off, middle-of-nowhere, Georgia.  I took off the skirt, smeared the lipstick across my face, put on my running shoes and closed my eyes.

Hair wild, kids in tow and now well, I’m running with my eyes closed.