Running With My Eyes Closed

I am a bit of a “noticer”. That is the name I’ve given myself- a noticer of the little teeny pieces of life that get lost with each sunset. A Life Spy. Detail Scientist. I’m passionate about details-specific colors in somebody’s eyes when they are moody, the hollowed dip at the bottom of a neck, the way people turn their heads or don’t when somebody calls their name, how puppy legs have a funny rhythm when they run beside their owner, the way a couple holds hands or the twitchy, blinking eyes of a squirrel resting on my fence. As a kid, I would obsessively write details like this down. I would fold them into the pages of my notebook before they got lost- like an odd little shopkeeper trying to hurriedly restock canned thoughts on shelves before closing. I cut out descriptive newspaper articles and carried them around, creased and soft, in the pockets of my Lee jeans. I was so scared about these juicy little gems being tossed away to the darkness of night.

Now as a mother, this skill of “noticing” is not only innate, it is quite useful. I can tell by the way my teenage son grabs the Oat Squares from the pantry what kind of day we might have. Crap- he rushed it, prepare for sarcasm and moodiness. I hear the particular foot falls of my 5-year-old as she comes down the stairs, and I have already determined whether or not I should say an instant “good morning” or give her a minute before engaging. Let me just add here, should you ever find yourself in my home, always give her a minute if you want to stay alive. My oldest chews her avocado toast with extra vigor when she is about to share a secret. And Bodey, well, if you ever need a case study in the way someone’s eyes twinkle and dance when they are mischievous and happy, he’s your Santa Claus.

As an adult human in the world, detail-obsession maybe has a few drawbacks. I’m not always so great with the bigger picture. (Could this be the reason I’m so very terrible with meal planning?) In fact, I inwardly cringe when somebody says “well, let’s look at the big picture!” Uuuuuuuuugh- does this mean we have to talk about finances and retirement accounts and pretend these newspaper articles in my pockets aren’t important? Yawn. I often feel like the “bigger picture” just means not really getting to know one another and glossing over the best parts of the story. Like living in a movie preview- we get the catchy highlights but never really fully understand WHY she chose to leave her job as a stockbroker in the city and buy the cottage in the country and become an organic cookie baker. Another symptom of my detail disease is I often pretend I exist inside a movie musical. Yep. It’s true. It is why one can often find me dancing when I think no one is looking. I put my headphones on and my favorite Broadway show soundtrack and walk the street noticing every single delicious bit I can find- like how many creases are in that gorgeous homeless man’s face, and the way that lady lifts the cigarette to her mouth with the sadness of 10,000 lives lived and how that slip of a woman walks down the street in her white dress with the shiniest black hair I’ve ever seen, how the little cherub boy in the back of the double buggy reaches his chubby hand to his Mama for just a moment, the color of the gum wrapper under the outdoor patio table. All of these little melodies make the best kind of life to me.

A few weeks ago, my family was driving home from a short stay at a lake cottage (it’s a Canada thing). Now, typically, a road trip with 4 kids, a dog and a spouse is when my detail-brain shuts down and the simple survival mode kicks in. Self-preservation. We made a stop in a little town at a gas station and the back seat flew down, car doors swung open and heads got stepped on so my entourage could run inside for Skittles and a bathroom break. I let them all go in without me so I could actually take a full breath without needing to say “please stop hitting each other”. And as I unfolded my legs out of our overly-packed car I glanced across the street and saw them and I could not take my eyes away……

A man and woman each slowly brought their motorcycles to a halt in front of the low, brick restaurant. I think you could play bingo there and drink cheap beer. She got off her bike first- glorious with black leather boots- and shook her thick tangled brown hair free from the helmet exactly like I would want to shake my hair free if I rode motorcycles. She steadied herself against her monstrous padded seat for a few moments before slowly slipping the straps of her black top down to mid-shoulder to expose her collar bones. She was slightly sunburned but radiating freedom. Her beau, well in my story he was definitely her man, was sweaty and worn with thin, grey hair and a grizzly, unshaven face and intensely dark sunglasses. He was angry I think. He kept pacing back and forth with his helmet jammed under his arm and his face twisted in confusion. They might have just had a disagreement about when and where they needed to stop or about whether or not they should even continue on at all. She was a badass- soft and hard at the same time, and she just stood with her legs slightly apart waiting for him to look at her. I could not wait for that man to lift his sunglasses from his eyes and when he finally did and stopped his leather-booted pacing, it was like electric bolts flew in the air and crisscrossed through the universe. I think I audibly gasped and was glad a huge truck was passing through the intersection to cover me. He stood directly in front of her and reached up with a tattooed hand to touch her freckled shoulder. Oh my. One touch told me exactly why those two are “ride or die”. Good god, I could have stared at them, sucking in their details, for the rest of my days.

Then my little skittles came bounding out to the car while punching each other on the back, and we were off again.

Life is just better in the weird little, jean-pocket details. Creativity and the stories that save us and the connection of humanity is all in the little bits of light tossed around between us, I think. So, I’ll keep dancing and noticing and jotting things down to never forget- one little piece at a time, let the big picture just sort of settle in around me.

I see you and I hear you and I love your details.

Ride or die, babes. xoxoxoxoxoxox

 

Back in my college theatre days, I was in this 1970s Sondheim musical “Company”. It centers around a single man named Bobby and his 35th birthday (Bobby, Bobby, Bobby Baby, Robert, darling)- I can hear every lyric in my head today- and his friends who both wonder why he’s single and are yet so jealous of his perceived “exciting single life”. Honestly, I could write my next 15 blog pieces about each song. They always want him to come over and visit (Bobby come on over for dinner, we’ll be so glad to see you) and in turn, question their own relationships and marriages in his presence. It’s kind of a complicated and fantastic show and strangely, though written in the 70s, represents so much of what I see in my own life as an adult. I played Jenny- a stay-at-home mom who smokes pot in one scene and feels her freedom with a string of curse words. I was 21. Hahahahahahahahahahahaha

Company. Having people over. (Phone rings, door chimes, in comes company) Let’s have a dinner party! How about we all get together at my house and watch the game? (I don’t watch games.) Or the worst one- you get home from the grocery store and they are already there (drop by anytime). Now, I’ve mentioned before I’m an introvert. A little like the hide-in-a-hole-and-sometimes-forget-to-wash-my-hair kind of introvert. Sometimes texts feel invasive. But I am also a lover and sharer (obviously) and finally, the last one I’m working on, a pleaser. Uuuuuugh- so not a trait I’m proud of, and I’m trying to shake that shit right out of me. It’s the whole cheap suit thing, and it’s useless and boring as hell. I love listening to people (that is kind of my favorite), but “small talk” makes me sweaty and panicky. If you start talking about what kind of tortilla chips are on sale or skincare trends, my heart gets pound-y, the kids suddenly need me and then I have to go deep breathe in a paper bag upstairs in my closet. But I love you and you are welcome anytime! (With love filling the days, with love 70 ways, to Bobby with love!) 

It’s definitely not you, it’s me. It has just taken me a bit longer than most to remember who I am. Or rather to actually be who I am. For a long while, I could do “company” easily. It was how I met people when I was continuously living in new cities and towns. Come over! I will make dessert! (I used to watch the Food Network obsessively trying to figure out how to be a perfect chef/host/entertainer). We will drink expensive-ish wine and talk about the kids and then you will have to go home at some point (usually when I start yawning) and then I’ll move in 6 months anyway so I can drop the act and start over again with a new company of people. It’s why I would get “itchy” when I lived in one place for too long.

Oops.

I think I would like to start again. Definitely not fresh, just for real. There is nothing left of freshness- that’s too close to perfect. That was a year ago. Now I am here and not afraid to tell you who I really am (again, obviously). And I want to know who you are, for real. What makes you cry in the nighttime, how scared are you of being in your 40s and not understanding life yet, tell me what you learned in rehab, did you do the thing you wanted to or should we do it now together, can you promise me you won’t run from me when I forget to wash my hair and when depression sits heavily on my chest like an unwelcome guest, do large crowds freak you out but loneliness is always palpable, do you drink too much sometimes, too, do I have to clean my house or can we just lock eyes and pretend no dust bunnies are tickling our toes? Yes? Then let me introduce myself.

That’s what it’s really about isn’t it? That’s what it’s really about, really about. Company! Company! Company! Lots of company, life is company, love is company. Company!

You genius, Sondheim. Come on over, my loves. xoxoxoxoxoxox

 

 

 

 

 

When I was a just a wee little kindergartener, my Mom, out of complete desperation, used to take me to the Sonic Drive-Thru everyday before my afternoon class with Mrs. V. One corn dog, small fry and a small Mountain Dew. Yep. Every. Single. Day. This is the ONLY thing I would eat for lunch before bopping off to play with The Letter People at Pershing Elementary School Afternoon Kindergarten. Oh now let’s not get all Judgey-McJudgeykins. My Mom was all kinds of awesome and not only had a career, but she also made home-cooked meals with vegetables and all of the good stuff. And she crushed baking and could have opened her own pie shop – skills I most certainly did not inherit. The fact of the matter is, I had some food issues. Get in line, right?

I was the pickiest eater on this side of the Rocky Mountains, and I was also the third child in a very busy family. I never drank a drop of milk- it made me erupt in eye-watering gags. I pushed every piece of meat around on my plate until it became very obvious I would rather turn to ash and dust before sawing into that thing and chewing it up. No one forced me to stay at the table and finish my plate, thank you Jesus, or I would still be sitting at that table pondering over a moldy piece of pork. I loved Pop-Tarts and Cream of Wheat and those fruit bars with cream strips running down the middle of them and sometimes I loved this cheesy rice my Mom made unless I thought too much about the chewy mushrooms, but mostly I hated everything, too. Love/hate, love/hate, love/hate. That food dynamic started very young.

Now, we can tear this all apart psychologically, and we can all know I was not anorexic or bulimic (big, scary words- a painful struggle many I love endure), but I was terrified of food. I announced, at the age of 8, my greatest wish was to have one pill a person would take in the morning to meet all nutritional requirements, no eating necessary. Food confused the hell out of me. I understood the basics of vegetables and nutrition, kind of, but I really loved gummy peaches and I was an animal fanatic and had a hard time wrapping my brain around the meat on my plate with the smell of the “rendering plant” (small town Nebraska) wafting in through the screen door. I liked steak, sometimes, but that cow’s lashy brown eye was always staring at me…….and yet I could eat a corn dog because it tasted like sweet fried bread. Food irony.

Then I became a Mom. If food was hard before the babies, now it was a f*cking nightmare. Parenthood has mostly been a traumatizing 15-year class in grocery shopping.

Which store should I go to, what are we having for dinner, who needs a diaper change in the middle of Alberston’s, please don’t judge the Oreos in my cart, stop crying-please, please, here, just watch Dora on my phone and no I don’t think you should have that kind of cereal but considering you ate sand once, sure, throw it in, yes, we need lettuce and batteries, wait, Daddy eats Paleo and you don’t like meat or vegetables and that girl on Facebook says we should eat kale and the baby likes only crackers and the other two eat only chicken strips and hahahahaha, “oh yes, I will enjoy every moment with them”—she says with wild eyes and then throws herself to the cold, tile floor in a weeping heap as a can of Spaghetti-O’s falls on her head to remind her to be grateful for what she has. 

That pill I mentioned earlier sounds like a pretty damn good idea, doesn’t it?

Good grief, I do not have this completely figured out even now. I have a family of 6-each eat differently and the mixed messages from social media make me want to scream most days. Keto, Paleo, Gluten-free, vegan, raw vegan, vegetarian, “I grow my own food”, “I eat only bacon”, “my kids are smarter than yours because I make my own bread”, sugar-free, soy-free, joy-free……you know the list. However, at the ripe age of 40, I did finally became a vegan. I think my little childhood animal-loving heart had always been trying to whisper to me. This is not a recommendation I would give to many- it is not for the faint of heart particularly when one has non-vegan members of the family. But for the first time in my entire existence, food makes a teeny bit more sense to me because I trusted my own instincts. That lashy brown cow eye sits peacefully on my heart and food tastes good, like really good. I’m paying a little less attention to the 29 different kinds of diets on Facebook and the supplements and the “shoulds” and the “cautionary words”. I pay attention to my own body and, mostly, where my food comes from until the nights I need to order pizza (cheese-free, we call it “depression pizza”) then I hug the delivery man with tears in my eyes and whispers of undying love. I get it- you eat better, you feel better, your beautiful brain works better, you don’t scream as much and your spirit thanks you. I want my kids to get it, too. I’m trying.

Good morning, my hungry friends. Eat up. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

 

 

I had one of those nights of sleep. Chunky, interrupted and infuriating. The kind where even my trusty Melatonin failed me. I did all of the things- the hot bath, no wine, quiet, focused meditation. The kind of sleep broken up by dreams of being caught doing something naughty by my therapist and then getting sent to her office. Skull-cracking eye roll. We won’t even attempt to unpack that one. I put myself horizontal at 9pm, so I would have at least 8 hours in that position. And then, so many achey tosses and turns and finally, full-on desperate begging of the Universe to get me back to sleep:

“PLEEEEEEAAAASSSSSEEEE- I promised myself 8 hours. I wrote it down on my goals list on my phone. Look! It’s right here. No, I suppose it is not your fault, but I’m quite certain you could do something about the snores coming from the man next to me, right? No? I know violence is not the answer. Ok then let’s make a deal. You get me to sleep, and I will have SO much patience with my children tomorrow. I will get Zoey off to camp and I will get that nail out of my tire before the little “flat tire light” goes on and I will totally visit all three schools and get the registration paperwork filled out and yes, I know the dog needs a groom, I could squeeze that in by 3:00 and what? No, I haven’t forgotten the kids need new lunchboxes, and we still don’t have car insurance and yes, I remembered we have guests coming to town Wednesday, thank you very much and STOP SNORING! Oh yes, patience….phewwwwwww. I didn’t start the dishwasher, yes I did, ok moving on. YES, I meditated, well, kind of, because I actually googled meditation because I wasn’t sure I was doing it right which might have defeated the purpose and there was a picture of a monk but I closed my eyes and sat quietly which is a HUGE step for me. Dinner? Ummmmmm……..yes I went to Whole Foods but that doesn’t mean I actually bought ingredients for Monday dinner, but I bet I have enough lentils to make a soup and why must I be the one thinking about the next night’s dinner at 3AM? And, sweet Jesus, the snoring, please, please, please. How about if I promise enrichment activities instead of X-box tomorrow- we could review our Spanish and I could have them review math problems from homeschool? Did my Mom ever do that? School stuff in the summer? Definitely not. Why do I have to do that to get to sleep? That seems a bit of a stretch, but yet I’m so worried about technology and our kids and their beautiful baby brains dying because of Fortnite while I sit upstairs pretending to “work” because I don’t actually have a job here. But leaving the house with 4 kids is HARD and nobody can ever find Piper’s hairbrush and honestly, have you seen that hair? She looks mostly like a feral cat who has been living under an abandoned car for 6 years. But I WANT her to be her own woman. Oh no. Oh no. How do we all get out the door for school- oh no, where ARE all of the schools? Help. Glug, glug, glug. Should I start doing one-on-one activities with my teenagers? I mean I DO do that, sometimes, but I know they need more of that and do they have any idea how much I love them? I’m not crying, you’re crying and he’s about to be crying if we don’t find a solution to this snoring problem.”

And the alarm goes. And I slog my way downstairs to find coffee. And a laptop. And sunshine. And my favorite mug.

Until next time….rest well, my loves. xoxoxoxoxoxo

 

Moving.

I hear the word and a deluge of vivid adjectives and fierce emotions course through my veins. Most of the words I’m not allowed to say in front of my children, but I do anyway and that’s a different blog on “parenting advice” I will never write. I’ve moved a lot. Oh no, not as a child. My parents still live in the house I grew up in. The same childhood bedroom (less the Bon Jovi posters) is mine when I go “home” to visit. That house represents 20 kinds of an awesome childhood with the ghost of Christmas past haunting the two attics and the same sharp smell of Dad’s oily “shop” where the entire world could be fixed with one can of WD-40.

As an adult, I have lived, shall we say, a bit of a less “stable” life. As a married woman (almost 18 years), I have moved 16 times. Combining both single girl and married girl moves, my grand total bumps to 25. Now, we can go into detail about each of those moves. We can talk about the times I moved alone with one suitcase and a lot of hope or when I was pregnant with two toddlers in tow or when I had to leave a job I loved or had to leave friends I loved even more or when I had to leave an ocean for a city or a city for an ocean or had to leave hot to cold or cold to hot or withdraw kids from schools or withdraw my heart from the clutches of comfort. We can know I did all of this with nobody dragging me by my blonde ponytail- I’m a grown-ass woman who made choices. We can also distinctly note a majority of these moves were made with financial stability and the privileges of being a white woman with resources.

So with disclaimers noted, we are not going to talk about any of the above items. I would simply like to impart some truth to those women (and I know you are out there) who may be facing a similar soul-crushing pattern of moving with a family or even just facing one really big awful, juicy move. Ready?

No, you aren’t. Because that is truth #1…….

1. You will never be ready. And, breathe, my darling, because here is where we get real.  EVERY SINGLE FRIEND OR RELATIVE YOU KNOW will ask with toothy smiles and hopeful eyes and a weird, tinny quality to their voice which will make you want to throw hard things at them: “So, are you ready for the big move?”

Are you kidding me? I have slept 2.5 hours in the last 7 weeks, my teenage daughter won’t stop crying, my husband is texting wondering if I have filled out the inventory sheets yet (sure, honey, let me get right on that just after I make a hearty dinner of 1 can of kidney beans and stale Vanilla Oreos since I’m trying not to fill our half-packed kitchen with too many groceries), 3 of the 4 kids have turned into some post-apocalyptic iPad zombies whose greatest fear in life is what hour the internet will be disconnected, I haven’t changed our address yet via the United States Postal Service because I don’t actually want to, the dog is stressed out and therefore eating weird shit outside and barfing it up in the kitchen, the “good-bye” hugs and stopovers are sending me into some form of twitchy depression, the gaping holes in the walls need to be filled so I don’t lose my deposit and my car needs servicing before I load the children and the dog into it and drive them 20 hours to their new home.

So, no. I’m not ready. You are not ready. You won’t ever be ready. Just know that, surrender to it and keep doing one more little thing to shift you, even just the teeniest little bit, in the direction of “ready”. I love you. Life is a journey. Hahahaha- they will say that, too. Don’t throw a roll of packing paper at their head because all they meant to say was they love you, too.

2. “It takes a village!” Yep. It does. But guess what? You won’t have one. For a long time. You will be alone, in a new house or condo or RV or whatever with 8 giant baby eyes staring at you wondering what on God’s green Earth they are supposed to do today because you chose to move in the middle of summer when all of the “local kids” seem to have evaporated into thin air. And now you have to act like a camp counselor who wants to go to the zoo even though you hate zoos but you are a pillar of positivity and the zoo would be fun! So you chug as much coffee as possible, leave behind the anxiety-inducing disorganized rooms in your new home, load up your kids into the car you never had serviced and drive them through hot city traffic to the zoo. And once there, you notice your entire family is dressed like circus folk (I actually love circus people and potentially may be joining one) because no one knows where their actual clothes are. All of the animals have disappeared, too, because it’s 90 degrees and they are smarter than you and have slunk into the shade and told their cubs to chill out and leave Mommy alone before she does something she regrets with her claws.

Then you look a little closer at Mama Lion, in the corner, in the shade with her monstrous paws cushioning her giant, heavy tired Mama head and her tail whisking away the toad-sized flies of the North (she’s multitasking, of course, because she’s a WOMAN) and she cracks an eye and you just know she is looking directly at you like she’s been waiting for you to arrive. She’s wise and strong and bored and slightly resentful, just like you. But she whispers with her steely lioness eye a little message of motherly love: “It’s all right, babe, you showed up anyway, albeit in circus clothes, you showed up. I’ll be your village for today. Now get out of this sun and into some shade.”

And, once back at ground zero (new house), as you are unloading your sweaty, cranky 5-year-old from your clown car and checking your email on your phone at the same time (multitasking), you receive an email from a new neighbor asking you and your troupe of freaks over for Friday night.

Your village will show up, too. They’ve been waiting for you. Promise.

3. Everything you ever thought you knew about relationships, spouses, parenting, your own personal vices, and simply “living” will be unpacked in a giant steaming pile of sh*t on your brand new living room floor. You can throw those dishes into the cupboards at record speed, organize those 4,000 stuffed animals (you swore you had donated those little jerks) into a cozy pile in the play area and hang each shirt on a black, velvet Costco hanger (color-coded, of course) like a freaking HGTV organization specialist. Yep. You can do that, and that is commendable. Well done. But then……..

Booze pour very easily. Careful there, my love. Call me if you need me. The kids fall apart and stop eating everything they once ate, and you can’t find the grocery store anyway at which point I recommend prayer and pizza and 8 episodes straight of Queer Eye on Netflix. You need new car insurance and a new dentist and your spouse doesn’t think of these things because he/she is trying to find the forks as he/she has not eaten real food in two weeks and brain cells have started to die. Your best friend doesn’t live 2 miles away anymore. I’m so sorry. I mean that more than you could ever know. And worse than all of the issues laid bare on your floor is the weight of knowing you MUST find a “way” here, a new way, a different way, maybe better, maybe not, it doesn’t matter, you just have to find a “way”.  For yourself. For your family. And you will. Me saying it won’t make it easier. People asking “how are you liking it?” will bring you to gasping, throat-clenching tears. But you will find your way. Time, more patience than you’ve ever known and self-care (the bubble bath kind, not the booze kind). This is your only way “home”.

Listen, my gorgeous gypsy friends, moving is pretty much the Hunger Games. Do you remember the scene where the tributes from each district are sent into the arena via moving glass tube? They leave finger kisses on the glass to the people they love as they slowly ascend into a completely unknown (and horrifying) new world designed to kill them. In the movie, there is a moment, a breathless pause before the starting fog horn sounds (this would be the moment your car pulls into the driveway of your new home), where each tribute is frozen except for the blinking and adjusting of their eyes to the sun. Each is desperately deciphering friend, foe, weaponry, exit plans and winning strategy. Once the horn sounds, everybody runs. They full-on dead sprint to slaughter each other with machetes and grab supply packs just as an arrow pierces one of their backs. Some high-tail it to the woods in terror (that’s your introvert kid) and others clammer together in a sort of sloppy group of five in hopes to find connection before they meet their death (that’s your extrovert kid).

But here is the best news, that scene only lasts for 2 minutes of that 2 hour 22 minute movie, and no one in your family is going to get an arrow to the back (unless you’ve moved back in time to medieval days in which case I can’t help you). The babies calm down and find their flow, mundane details get sorted, meals get made, school registration papers get filed and therapists can be visited if you need them. Most importantly, nobody dies, promise.

You will be ready when you are ready. It might be two years after you arrive, but no one is holding a stopwatch.

Find the shade and rest, you beautiful clown. Your people are out there.

Watch out for the nasty voice in your head. Trust me, she will show up. Hear her and acknowledge her and then smother her with un-donated stuffies. Don’t machete yourself before you even get started.

I love you.

And may the odds be ever in your favor………xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

 

I have a lot of experience with birth. To start, I was born. So there’s that. I came out of my mother- of course I don’t remember. Maybe there is an old man in a cardigan smoking a pipe who could put me in a trance and lead me to believe I was visualizing my own birth. But I do not have a deep desire to witness the folds of my mother as I make my way down and out. I have birthed four children of my own and lost one in an early shattering of dreams and thick blood on a bathroom floor, alone. I have woken up to slick sheets drenched in amniotic fluid and pains so deep the earth shook. I have soaked so many blankets with breastmilk and tears and the swollen sadness of a “being” leaving my body. I (almost) broke my body to bring my children here, to me, to us. I wanted to break my body and keep breaking if it meant I could continue finding this ecstasy of love. And, my oh my, this love is a vast, deep endless gorge of beautiful rhythms and mysteries and clammy, tiny hands in the nighttime.

My second child, my son, he cried. So much. It hurt. I was bleary and lost and wandering around England with a pram, a one-year-old and my screaming gorgeous boy. He shot out of me desperately fast, a burning, searing deep pain of 9lbs. 8oz. with my resilient British midwife telling me to slow down. My animalistic voice rising up to anyone who would listen:  “I need him out now, NO….put him back in, I’m bursting, I’m exploding, I can’t do this, where is my husband, “Jesus loves me this I know”, it huuuuuurrrrttttts, I’m bleeding, I’m dying, stop, stop, stop, now, now, now, now”. And he arrived. Squinting and blinking, huge and chubby with a head of hair like a mini Greek god. Bliss.

Until he cried and wouldn’t stop for one year. Until I sat in my mesh underwear on a stupid, hard bench matching my screams to his. Until the day I fell down the stairs in an exhausted heap, and he flew out of my arms in a comedic, slow-motion kind of way and then landed back in my arms with a sickening thud. He was fine. I was not. Until I would plug my ears and rock back and forth begging the angels to make him stop. Country music sometimes calmed him. And a gaudy blue and yellow swing. I would put him in there and tip-toe backwards with slow, methodical footsteps and stretch my pinky finger towards the kitchen-I’m almost there, there is food in there and coffee and I can almost reeeaaaaaccccchhhhh, nope. My husband and I took him, upon suggestion, to an osteopath- a calm, striking British gentleman who manipulated his head and neck to “guide him back through the birth canal.” I guess so he could be re-born? I didn’t get it. And neither did my son. He just couldn’t “be” in the world quite yet.

He needed a minute.

I rode the subway today- 4 times actually. I love the subway more than I should. It is a cozy moving tube of colorful characters all with the exact same goal- to get somewhere in one piece with as much ease as possible. We all offer seats (Canadians really are so very nice) and sway with each other and (god forbid) wink with relief. “I got you, sit here, my love, your legs look more tired than mine, I get off at the next stop.” Thank you, sir, with the slick black hair and white tee. I love you. And I love you strange man oddly dancing and contorting along the connector plates. You got this, buddy.

As I sat on the thinly-upholstered subway seat with my earbuds and delicious book and cool girl glasses, I thought I might stay for the entire day. I might just never get off and ride from end to end until they make me leave. Until I’m forced by the calm robot lady to exit the train, and I have to stumble into the sunlight above, blinded and rushed and panicked and faced with the reality of a new city, parenting, sadness, bank accounts and lost connection. Oh my tube of beautiful people, hold steady, the next station is approaching. We are getting shot straight into the real stuff. Straight into a life we may or may not be ready for.

As I heaved myself up the stale grey stairs that definitely smelled like spilled coffee and pee, I got teary. My tears have no filter. They never “mind the gap” but instead leap right through with great gusto in any situation. I emerged onto the busy, loud sidewalk adjusting my backpack and squinting at my Google maps and fumbling with an untied shoelace. I wanted to run back to my tube, my people that understood my tired legs. Instead I stood in my shaky ready-position on the city concrete as a belly-deep silent sob escaped from my insides.

Oh, my precious son, being born into the world is so very hard.

I might need a minute.

I left you again, didn’t I? Yes. I did. Apologies. I have a history of this. Starting things then being so terrified of the “me” within it I run at top speed to the closest clothing store, buy the sleekest, cheapest suit I can find, walk out of the changing room wearing it with the price tag still attached and smooth those wrinkles out as I wink at the lady behind the checkout counter. I hate winking. It is so not me. I moved again. Ha. That is starting to just sound like a cosmic joke, isn’t it? I could go on and on about that, but today it isn’t about moving. It is about cheap suits, running (away), bad decisions, winking or not winking and me. Today it is about me. The real me. Let’s have story time. The cuddle-up kind of story time with blankies and pop-up books and slightly-scary caterpillars awaiting that butterfly transformation and husky, tired parent voices. Let’s have that story time. Come snuggle with me. Shhhh….rest your tired, winking eyes here, my darlings. I want to tell you all about Broadway, baby.

The sky was always so grey and the air smelled like car fumes and desperation. There was no rain yet, but I remember the entire 10 days felt like an impending downpour. I was just a 20-year-old girl from Nebraska alone on the corner of 61^ststreet in the Upper West Side of Manhattan trying to remember the best way to hail a taxi. My giant, overstuffed roller bag was in the way of every single person in the city, apparently, as it kept getting kicked and shoved. Pulling it as closely to myself as I could with one arm, I managed to choke down the tears and tentatively do the “I need a cab, I think, though I might be wrong and please don’t go out of your way if you are busy” motion with my arm. I caught the eye of a taxi driver in a turban who spoke not a word to me as he got out and hefted my bag into his trunk. He pointed at the door meaning:

“Get in, kid, and you don’t even have to tell me where to take you. I can make a good guess.”

I said it anyway.

“Grand Central Station, please,” I whispered before I had to grab a tissue for my running nose. Taxis always make me cry. So does running away. I caught his eye in the rearview mirror, and maybe he had run away, too, once.

It was a scene straight from so many of those good Broadway musicals. A small-town girl with a dream and a bag and a cute hat. That touching opening number that starts under a streetlight with a tiny melody and 12 measures later, she is dancing with the guy from the newsstand and a chorus of locals is welcoming that zippy starlet to the Big Apple. This was that. But the opposite. No one was singing, and I was leaving.

The NYC gig had lasted ten days. I think. Though sometimes I wonder if my subconscious adds a day or five to that. I had left my full ride scholarship to a university in Nebraska, dumped it all and packed my suitcase to go to a performing arts school in the city. I had never been to New York City, but I knew that anyone taking any form of performance seriously should go. I was going to be an actor. A dancer. A singer. Triple threat, baby. Best way to be.

There was an audition in a hotel in Kansas City. My best friend and I snuck away to attend, and she sat outside the conference room with her fingers, legs, ankles and eyebrows crossed while I sang a song and did my favorite monologue for a man who looked like he really did care. I am pretty sure he did. He cared enough to send me a letter a few weeks later with the best words a girl might ever read. We are pleased to inform you……….Amen. Hallelujah. May the saints be praised. Somebody finally saw me. Broadway. New York City. I’m coming for you hard and fast.

Speaking of saints, my parents went with me. Our taxi from La Guardia rolled to a stop in front of my new home. An old building in the not-so-glamorous part of Manhattan with trash piled in front of it. I will never forget my Dad’s whisper of “Oh no, dammit.” He was already panicked. I was near death. I might have died, but instead I jumped out of my cab and a gloriously colorful character named (I don’t joke about people like this because they are my absolute favorite people) Creation swept me up and showed me to my room. “Hi Creation, I see we put our trash on the sidewalk here, correct? And can I be guaranteed a cockroach-free room?” Wink, wink.

It was A Chorus Line, it was everything sweaty and angst-ridden most young performers could ever dream of. We spent the first few days in “orientation”, or we could call it a terrifying ordeal of dancing, singing, and acting in front of the judgiest judgers of all time. I remember my body not working correctly. I was a cardboard cutout of myself- stiff, clumsy and uncoordinated arms and legs replaced my usually graceful dancer’s limbs. We were immediately given the statistics of what it took to make it there. I remember nothing except most didn’t make it. I was mortified. I was horrified. My saintly parents had cashed in everything they could think of to pay my way, and I was already failing. I went to bed every night in my cement-walled room with socks on and my toes curled up under me as tight as they would go. I didn’t get the cockroach-free room.

B was across the hall from me. She was a gorgeous, wide-smiled beauty with the soul of an angel. But even B couldn’t save me. I was done before I ever got there. My parents left me to make my own decision- see? Saints. I whispered good-bye to B, crawled on my bloody hands and knees to the admissions office, ok, I walked, but I might as well have slid on my belly and licked the dirty pavement down Broadway for all I was tossing away. The guy with the black hair, I’ll never remember anything about him except for his black hair, wanted to know my plan, then, if I was actually leaving. “I beg your pardon, sir, I’m fresh out of plans, never really had one to begin with and I believe that’s why I’m cracking in half right now while I sit in your fake leather chair. Let’s just sign the withdrawal paperwork, shall we?”

I took my shame train to go live with my brother and his wife in Washington D.C. Homeless and lost and burnt. I would take a year and “sort myself out”. Oh, NYC, you sure got me, didn’t you? I understand why New Yorkers always seem to speak in clipped tones. There is no time for poetry or the city will swoop down and swallow you whole like a starving monster who has been hiding behind trash piles. Get your game face on, babe, or go home.

Twenty-one years later or 824 years, all pretty much the same, my favorite play of all time was auditioning on Broadway (Burn This by Lanford Wilson). What if I just hopped on a Greyhound for a three-hour bus ride, left my four children in the care of, yep once again big bro to the rescue, their uncle, and went into that audition “Mother of Dragons-style” and let all of my bruised and battered soul pieces shine out? Ok, yes, now that might be the best plan I’ve had in my life. So, I did that. It was not a chippy musical, it was a necessary explosion of well-executed grit that needed to happen. I had an appointment. I was prepared. I was horribly nervous and yet more clear and calm than I was on any opening night ever. Bless your little heart, NYC, I see you lurking behind those trash piles and I’ve spent enough time deep down in rabbit holes far filthier and scarier than any of your nonsense. I walked in like a lady and read my 18 lines and left as if I had just accepted the Tony award.

Nothing came of it. It wasn’t meant to. Most of these types of auditions are, frankly, already cast before a girl exits her bus and gets her heels on. It was just me. Just me needing to put her flag back on the moon. I was here, too. I was somebody who listens to her gut and holds her truth out there for the world to see. I never winked once. I didn’t need to. I told them who I was, very plainly, and left with the swagger of a movie star in my crappy black pants. Bye, babes, good luck with your little show. I have to move my four children to a new country. Thinking of you as you work through those tough casting decisions!

So, my darlings, the moral of our cozy, caterpillar-time story of the day is sometimes you take a leap. It might be whimsical nonsense to the smelly dude next to you on the bus, but you do it anyway. Don’t fight it, just surrender because how delightful is that story to tell to your babies in the nighttime? How lovely to spend 24 hours walking in your absolute self-confidence and truth and knowing. Anna, the female character in Burn This, has a final line of “I don’t want this…….Oh, Lord, I didn’t want this………”

Oh, Anna, we always want this. We always know exactly what we want. It’s why you lean over and snuggle into that guy’s chest in 3….2…..1…..

Night-night, my friends. Rest. Because tomorrow is another chance, another day to burn this.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

 

Okay, my friends, things might be a little bit of a mess here. I quite possibly, maybe, just maybe, sat on the kitchen floor last night with a tub of cookie dough (it was vegan) talking to my dishwasher. I asked the kids to talk only in quiet voices to the dishwasher as they brought in their dirty bowls and plates and to please use only kind words towards it. Mommy was refraining from spewing her prized collection of curse words and was instead creating a soulful, Tony-award winning song for the dishwasher about trusty appliances and how they always see us through even in the darkest of times. Skull-cracking eye roll. That little jerk pretended to work for 30 seconds and then quit again. Time for the curse words, you evil, non-deserving-of-my-beautiful-song appliance. I put my cookie dough away- ok let’s be real, I recycled the EMPTY container and stood my tired ass up and did the dishes.

Pretty much everything in this house is broken. Not everyone would have chosen this 1970’s beach house. I did. Honestly, if you look hard enough you can pretty much see those boozy late 70’s pool parties with women in gauzy caftans and that guy on the diving board sporting his tightest banana-hammock Speedo. Cigarettes dangling from fingertips and melty ice cubes in maraschino cherry-laden cocktails. I totally want to go to that party. The front door barely shuts, and I recently had to wear work gloves and pull out shards of glass from one of the tempered glass panes. Everything smells faintly of mildew, including our clothes now. The kitchen faucet leaks constantly and sports a towel wrapped around it to direct the floodwater into the sink. The air conditioner is questionable, and tiny nails stick out of the well-loved floorboards-Bodey runs around with a hammer tamping them back down. The stove kind of works- we only speak gentle words around the stove, as well. The wallpaper is holding strong though- all 15 walls of it. Shiny, silver palm frond wallpaper. We live in a swingers’ museum.

I also have failed to find the time to write, and when writing doesn’t happen, I am like the Mentos/Coke bottle experiment. (That experiment makes me want to cry. I can’t tell you how many times my back patio has been covered in sticky soda spots. A mess.) Ready to explode. So here is my explosion of truth. Our homeschool days are disastrously-beautiful (and chaotic) hours filled with math, writing, history lessons, robotics experiments, Piper frowning at all of us as we try to teach her letters and numbers, spelling contests, mid-afternoon meltdowns, then wild animal shrieks as we run to the beach, rulers and lined paper flying out behind us. The beach allows us to forget we are a little bit lonely here. I’m a little bit lonely. Isolated island days of going against the grain can make a girl question if she is doing right by her children. Another undercurrent of change is coming for our family, too. That is a story for another post I will share another time- promise.

And once again, Cecily’s random running playlist to the rescue. I must absolutely look insane running with these monologues of mish-mashed songs in my head, delivering much-needed sweat therapy to my soul.

“Bring me to your house and tell me sorry for the mess….. Hey I don’t mind. You’re talking in your sleep, out of time. Well, you still make sense to me, your mess is mine.”

Thanks, Vance.

Macklemore played before him. Glorious.

This glorious mess is all mine.

xoxoxoxoxo

 

I have no idea what I am doing. Truly. I mean it. I really do not have a clue. Here I am living in this strange, little place, just me. I’m staring at the giant Rand McNally U.S. map I hung on our homeschool room wall (to make us look smart), staring at my island. Geesh, I’m really out here, aren’t I? The northern tip of a remote place on the east coast. I don’t know anyone- a few people I’m starting to know but no one really knows me or my children (except for the mosquitoes, they love and know every inch of us). I have pulled them from public school and am now a homeschooling Mom. That usually generates a tight-lipped smile and eyes filled both with doubt and pity from whomever I might be speaking with- terrified, judge-y whispers as I walk away wondering how on earth my babes will ever be able to take a standardized test again. I don’t know. Maybe they will suck at those. Maybe they won’t. Maybe they will be thinkers and dreamers and inventors and soulful citizens of the Earth. They will be kind, though. I promise you that. Kindness and compassion first at the Ferguson Academy of Excellence. Jay made that up. We are, in actuality, more like the Ferguson University of Chaotic Kindness.  (F.U.C.K.)

It is a bit of chaos here. I am the only adult in the household during the week. (I fall to my knees in humility and admiration for single parents. They deserve beautiful massages and energetic pixies at their beck and call. You are awesome. I love you.) I am learning new curriculum and trying to make lesson plans, cooking healthy meals (latest tally is 2 vegetarians, 1 vegan and 2 people who eat air, watermelon and Oreos, sigh), being an adult, doing laundry, attempting to stay engaged in the world and creating my own at the same time. Phew.

There is this beautiful song I know but haven’t heard in awhile. It popped up on my playlist while I was walking the beach today, and it struck me in one sweet, poetic rush.

“Neverland is home to lost boys like me, and lost boys like me are free.”  (Ruth B.- Lost Boy)

Ah, now Peter Pan. There’s a guy I can get behind- someone a bit reluctant to conform. I love that. Maybe I do know what I’m doing- a little bit, sometimes, only on Tuesdays. I do feel pretty free. We are reading Swiss Family Robinson and To Kill A Mockingbird and stopping for joke breaks and yoga breaks and beach walks and the bigs are teaching the littles and the littles are listening, enraptured by algebra and new words. We are all finding a fresh, invigorated love for the dusty, inky books at the library. There is too much iPad and there are too many weird Minecraft videos, but I try to balance all of it with seashell-collecting walks, chores and careful conversations about the world we live in and the world we want to live in.

“He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe.”

Well, now.

I’ll be here- tripping over lesson plans, laughing, maybe crying a bit, wondering if I’m doing it “right”, yelling every now and then, in my cloud of pixie dust, screwing it up at every turn- believing in the very best.

“Soon enough we reach Neverland. Peacefully, my feet hit the sand.”

 

 

I did it. I took off my precious California license plate from my gas-guzzling SUV and replaced it with the necessary South Carolina plate. I skipped over Georgia entirely. I truly waited until August 1 as my tags expired July 31. Because, come on, who needs a trip to the DMV- the forms, the exasperated, blow-dried woman behind the counter definitely judging my sweaty clothes and surfer hat. It wasn’t easy. I called Jay 8 times, I yelled at the children to make their own lunch as Mommy would be standing in line for the next 72 hours, I politely (with gritted teeth) called the DMV 3 times- have you ever called a DMV?  Don’t. It’s a black hole of “on hold” music of no description. Hell, I even texted my Mom. A girl needs her Mom in times such as these. But I persevered (skull-cracking eye roll) and brought all 198 forms, signed and filled out, with my checkbook and sold my soul to the DMV woman with lime green nails. I complimented her nails. I didn’t really like them at all but thought it might help compensate for the pre-judged workout clothes and surfer hat. It didn’t.

I was presented with two choices for the official state license plate of glorious South Carolina. They were as follows:

Option 1: In God We Trust (with an American flag next to the state flag, I think, I don’t know my flags)

Option 2: While I breathe, I hope.  (with a palm tree, maybe, but I couldn’t be sure but definitely the state tree)

Come on South Carolina, neither of these are great choices. I’m a license plate-reader. I find their representation of each state to be charming and quirky (sometimes). It’s fun on a road trip, and dammit my life is one giant road trip! I trust in many things, like the kindness of my neighbors, the creative minds of my children, the fragility of life and the love and joy I fully embrace in this world. #1 was not for me. Well, as far as #2, I had to ask my new, slow-to-warm-up-to-me, lime-green-nailed friend:  “What does that even mean?”

She clicked her shiny nails on the chipped, laminated counter and said, “It’s our state motto.”

Oh. Well, that’s lame. Except those words actually slipped out of my mouth, and I had to hastily rip out my check to the DMV (who still writes checks?????) and mutter my apologies and grab my new SC plates and fast-walk out of that joint. I could hear the lime-green nails clicking their way to the next DMV victim.

While I breathe, I hope. UUUUUUUUUGH

It’s time to start doing better than just breathing and hoping and clutching our pearls in disbelief. It’s time to stand up together, speak out and most importantly, listen and actually talk plainly about the thread of hate and racism buried deep in our country’s veins. We each get one little life squeezed into this great big, ebbing and flowing world, and there is simply no more room to hurt people, or spew scary-ass hate (I’m so sorry, Charlottesville, so damn sorry) in the name of some deity or ridiculous cause or support anyone who does. I might be typing from my tiny, little island of white privilege, but I am listening and learning and trying to raise my babies to understand and reach across tired, thick invisible lines drawn across a country. I’ll start with my dinky blog piece and keep going from there. And I will let you know what I learn and discover along the way.

So breathe, I guess. We kind of have to, South Carolina. Have your hope. Hope is a good thing when put into some act of kindness and compassion. But I’m a little angry right now- the good kind of angry that makes a girl want something better for our world. So here is my new license plate motto and the one my family will pretend is stuck to the back of our car while we get to drive to the places we are so very lucky to be:

“If you are reading this, you are obviously breathing, so come on now, let’s all drop the bullshit and open our hearts and minds.  Love you!  Make good choices!”

I’ll check with my lime-green-nailed friend to see if we can fit all of that.

Keep running, my friends, and you might want to crack your eyes open just a bit for now. Some big, tangled trees have popped up along the pathway.

xoxoxoxoxo

Notes:  The tree is actually a “palmetto tree”, yes the state tree, and the state motto quote is taken from the Latin words of Marcus Tullius Cicero. 

Scene:  A windy and warm beach on a tiny, little island on the East Coast.  

Mama is sitting in a beach chair with a glass of wine (duh) and watching her little girl. Baby girl’s bleach-blonde hair is blowing in the breeze, and her tiny arm swipes sand from her forehead as she constructs an intricate sandcastle.

Mama (Me):  Baby girl, what do you want to be when you grow up?

Baby Girl:  I want to be like Mama and do NOTHING.

Mama (to herself):  Ok. Hmmmm….now what might be a rational, mature response to such a statement? She’s 4. She doesn’t know anything- I mean we are talking about a kid that can’t read yet or write the letter P in a forward-facing manner or brush her back teeth or eat anything of any nutritional value (I’m trying) or tie her shoes but oh my god she can’t do any of this stuff because I haven’t taught her properly and now she won’t ever want to be an astronaut or an engineer or an Olympic soccer player because she thinks I do nothing all day except stare at my phone and stress over laundry and cook meals for 6 eaten by none and write a stupid blog with run-on sentences and call Samsung to yell at them about a broken washer AND dryer and hey, I stand for women’s rights- I MARCHED- and I used to stand on stages and sing and become something magical and I married a man who I’m still wildly in love with even when it’s hard and we have 4 beautiful, healthy children and I birthed them all (one with no drugs, thank you) and I studied Shakespeare and Biology and Calculus and taught Pilates and children’s theatre and moved across the world with babies in tow, babies in my belly and I can write in cursive and speak terrible Spanish and I did a commercial once for dandruff shampoo and I love to dance- I used to be a ballet dancer- and I can still do a damn good cartwheel and I devour books like glasses of water in a desert and I love everything about my kids except for a few things that make me crazy but I’m real and I’m truthful and I homeschool them and I hold their hands and their hearts and their too-heavy backpacks and their dirty laundry and their beautiful moments and their painful moments and I put on lipstick and mascara and go on date nights because we all need a date night and I kiss ouchies and cry and laugh hysterically at bad jokes and sing too loudly to songs they don’t know and songs they do know and I have nearly every Hamilton lyric memorized because I’m just cool like that and I love my friends and call my friends and I borrow things and give them back and tell people when they have a green thing stuck in their teeth and I get tired but I have insane amounts of energy and I do yoga everyday and remember to be grateful…..

Mama takes a deep breath and smiles and does her best “hahaha aren’t you silly” laugh.

Mama:  Oh Baby Girl, you know Mama does things, you don’t mean that!

Baby Girl continues building sandcastle with evil grin on her face.

Mama drinks more wine.

The End.

Ok maybe not the end. This conversation did happen in pretty much those same circumstances- I may have a slight tendency for the dramatic. I could have called this piece “Stay At Home Mom Problems” or “How I Taught My 4-Year-Old To Be Nothing” or “Drinking Too Much Wine At The Beach”. But it was a quick, short-lived moment and when I asked her again later, though her response was almost the same, she added something pretty wonderful:

“I want to be like you, Mama, and take care of the babies.”

Now, I know as her little spirit grows, she will see the billion pieces of her mother and all that I am and try to be and she will multiply those pieces to infinity into something all of her own. And, yes, I may have wished for a traditional answer of “Doctor” or “Artist” or even “Decent, Contributing Member to Society”. But, I think we are doing ok for ourselves if we are the kind of people who always look out for the babies, the underdogs, the scared ones, the hurting ones, the ones who need us in this world.

So run on, my little warrior girl.

Damn straight, you and I will always take care of the babies.

 

All right, my friends. Things may not always be perfect on the island. I’m pretty tired. It is hard trying to be vegan- this is another story entirely. I have insomnia (40 maybe isn’t 29, I guess I will have to start acting my age). Just because a person begins a journey of “betterment” (whatever) doesn’t mean everything is Pinterest-perfect or an Instagram-snapshot-y moment. Old demons beckon and make you remember why you had to come to the island in the first place. To a place where you could breathe and shake the tangled roots and dirt from your hair. Now don’t get worried, I’m not going to go too Zen on you, I still know how to keep it so very real. Remember it’s me- the girl who curses and eats dinner crumbs off the floor (if it’s only been ten minutes, come on, it’s fine) and the girl who (not kidding, just this morning) stands in the driveway yelling terrible things as she hoses out a trash can full of maggots. I may or may not have flipped off a palmetto bug, too. Good Morning, Little Island! I love you! Sigh.

I had to take one of mine to the doctor today. The doctor is an island local and has stories. So many friendly, story-telling people around us, and I treasure each and every word. I’m lying. Sometimes I just want to scream and race my giant, gas-guzzling SUV down the 12-mile-stretch of this island while shouting “Get the F out of my way, I actually have to DO THINGS today!” Then I check myself, relax my ass and smile and listen because listening must never be a lost art. And, hey there now, I learned something brilliant.

Hilton Head Island is teeming with wildlife- land and sea creatures abound. So much of the island has been preserved in order to protect habitats of sea turtles, pelicans, bottle-nosed dolphins…the list goes on. The doctor explained we have large numbers of sharks in the local waters – in crazy amounts, actually. Shit. Kids, RUN, back to the house, we are never returning to that horrible beach, it’s stupid and boring and who needs it and look I put sand by the pool, that’s the same right? BUT, he told us, you rarely hear of shark attacks or shark bites here- they have everything they need to eat out in these salty waters, so a human for lunch is very much off their radar. Phew.

So, the sharks are out there. Sliding their sharp and crafty bodies through the ocean, glazing the sediment with their fins. Just like the negative thoughts on my mind, or the next terrible story on the news, or the bad day when everyone is hurting my feelings or the judge-y people or the self-judgement (which is so much worse) or the slimy taste of resentment that creeps into my mouth when I am on day 5 of my husband being in another state for work and I have to read 3 more bedtime stories while my body aches for one moment alone. Oh. Hi sharks, I feel your presence.

So shore-up the walls of your soul. Batten down the hatches, matey. All hands on deck! Keep breathing. The sharks are out there- they are very much a part of this life we get to live. But these guys have plenty to eat, they don’t need you or really even want you. Thank you, Little Island, for teaching me I’m not shark bait.

Sail on, sailors.

 

We put a light up letter board in our kitchen.  I have always wanted one but honestly, what mother has the time to sit down and get creative with quirky little inspiring quotes for the family when everyone is hungry and the dust bunnies are lining up by two’s and the dog needs a walk and Piper can’t find her swim goggles and the new vegan cookbook has arrived and needs reading. Sigh……but I’m all island-y and chill now (skull-cracking eye roll), so we did the letter board thing.

Now, I have 5 people in this family that can read, write and spell- littlest is still working her way there. So, you can imagine what has sprung up on the letter board when Mama wasn’t looking. After our initial agreed-upon, “Happy 4th of July”, the kids deemed the next big holiday to be Halloween, so we were all staring at Happy Halloween in July.  Bodey came on the scene and smiled his Joker-like smile after rearranging it to Happy Ween-O-Hall. Then Jay got a hold of it (after a cocktail), and I dropped my strainer of pasta as I turned around towards the sign and read the words:

“Relax Yo Ass, Brah”

Now, I think we all have knowledge of Cecily’s ability to curse with the best of them.  I’m not offended by cursing, never have been (I love words so much- all of them). Furthering my point, I sat in our car one day listing off every curse word to the kids reminding them they are just that, words. There is a certain “nuance” to curse words and one needs the ability to decipher if the person with whom they are speaking can handle them. Some can, some cannot. We use them in times of great frustration and emotion but we TRY to never direct them to people we love or really any people for that matter and don’t say them at school and never in front of grandparents or teachers or the mail person or the checkout lady at Publix. Fuck. Ok not my best parenting strategy, but I’m a work- in- progress, my friends.

So I dropped my pasta and laughed hysterically. It’s funny. I mean, seriously- that is funny and actually a wonderful reminder. Stop. Relax. The kids are all right. We are all right. We are here and now in this moment doing the very best we can. Breathe. We are lucky. We are in love. We are on this earth for a hot quick minute only, so pull up your big-girl panties and charge forth with love in your heart and wit on your brain and kindness as your guide and then take a nap. Relax.

I changed the letter board today (please forgive my google search for “short quotes”, good lord, Cecily, get creative). I found one by C.S. Lewis which just struck my dramatic heart chords and captured a strange use of words that makes sense as only C.S. Lewis can. “Courage, dear heart.” It takes great courage of the heart to be an honest, imperfect human who loves and gets hurt and tries and tries again and who keeps breathing and falling down and laughing with glee while squirming out of rabbit holes. I think Jay and C.S. Lewis have a pretty perfect life plan here.

Relax yo ass, brah.

Courage, dear heart.

Why, hello, there. Oooooooooooo, did I miss you. I’m back, beaches. That’s right, Georgia, you ran me off. Or rather, as I sit here watching Moana with my littlest (I absolutely did not belt out How Far I’ll Go, you were hearing things) I hear “the ocean chose you.” Yes. The ocean chose me, chose us. Here we are on our magical little island on the east coast:  a little freer, a little happier, a little more “us” and it feels like a snake must feel when their dead, heavy skin finally molts away and they are slick and shiny and nimble. It feels like ascension from one of my rabbit holes. Keep pulling up, kiddo. I made it out of this one. Phew.

Now let’s start fresh. I didn’t say let’s start “perfect”. Just fresh. Perfect would mean my washing machine would be working (f*ck, f$@k, f*$k, f*^kity-F*^K!) or my 4-year-old wouldn’t be wearing footie jammies and watching her iPad at 4:10 in the afternoon (I’m supposed to be crafting with her or reading books, right?????) or the dog wouldn’t be terrified of the new invisible fence and therefore peeing in the house or I wouldn’t be scratching at 28 bug bites on my legs or I would have showered by now (old habits are hard to break). Baby steps, my friends- fresh not perfect.

Fresh is running to the beach in 30 seconds, a friendly neighbor bringing delicious, hot and fluffy homemade bread to my children, my kids banding together in the pool and trying to stack 4 high (they call it “circus butts”), a glass of wine in my hand and my toes in the sand, a dear friend who I found again after 15 years apart, waving at Mr. Don and his puppy named Wrigley who is squirming to get to Lolo, smiling and meaning it. Fresh is wanting to write again, needing to write- not for the sake of painful wounds but for the sake of sharing old battle scars- “here we are, dammit, there is pain everywhere, hurt all over this world but I didn’t give up, I’m making it better for me (self-care, baby), for my family, for the underdogs, onward, sisters, the ocean called so we came.”

A few weeks before we moved to Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, I was standing in my kitchen having the most wonderful text exchange (because, yes, that is how busy moms can talk while catching flights, catching dogs, catching babies) with two deeply-loved college friends, the kind of people who ask “how are you” and really want to know, really. And throughout our hilarious exchange of words, while one was in an airport, one was navigating her life, kids, husband, a town she is still trying to love and the other (that’s me) was creating dinner for six out of limited groceries, the best of our texts came across:

“I love how we are all getting saltier with age!”

Oh, my love, you just nailed it. Salty.

I’m as salty as I’ve ever been in my life. It’s not just post-workout sweat (skull-cracking eye roll). It’s brave and loud and splashy and horribly-imperfect and loving and funny and proud. It might be a little Negan (in a nice way, of course) “we are just gettin’ started” (apologies for the zombie reference, get to know me).

Come run with me-I’m back and I’m about to homeschool four kids on my tiny little island of hope and perseverance and justice and integrity, and I have Orion on my right, Charlie on my left and my cavalry at my back.  And this time, it’s not just the lizards watching- it’s alligators, sandpipers, bottle-nosed dolphins, sea turtles and horseshoe crabs.

Fresh and salty.  I am just getting started.

I haven’t been here in awhile. While I was away,  I learned that only one space is needed after a sentence. Not two. Really? Yes. A writer should know these things. I know now. Dammit- I have backspaced eleven times since I started writing these few sentences. It doesn’t seem enough room to let words breathe, to flow, to resonate………………….to make someone pause. I’ll just add ellipsis after ellipsis.

Today I am pausing……………

A soul-sucking, life-altering, mind-numbing pause. A star just went dark- a wife, mother, friend, creative and intellectual force and warrior woman lost her spouse, her Ian, her lover, her father to her children, her world-traveler, her compass point (maybe he was North or South or West or East, doesn’t matter he was one of them or part of them all). Her axis tilted, her Earth slid off course, her body created a vacuum, her molecules broke apart and started band-aiding back together in that slow, clumsy, three-year old way.  Her chemistry vibrated and realigned into something no one else will ever know. Dammit- I backspaced again. I imagine her backspaces will be many, painfully-plenty and brilliantly- highlighted in the eyes of their dark-haired Irish boys.

He was sick. Backspace. She loved him as a woman does- holding his tired body and then sending Facebook messages to those of us a world away to courageously announce he had passed. Passed. Shattered into a million pieces of light to the sky. Gone. Noooooooo. Backspace x 10.

Please give her memories lit brightly by the love they shared and memories fueled by fights, grit, make-up sex, slow mornings with coffee and their sweet pup, head-achey nights with twin boys, strolls through foreign streets and mad dashes through airports to the next adventure. They may have had some of this- I can’t be sure as my husband and I weren’t physically there much the last few years, but I do understand the complexities of a marriage between two very strong-minded people.

They were our “firsts”.  Our first real, adult couple friends- adored the instant we met them, the first faces we knew as newlyweds, in a new location, living the frustrating, rewarding, weird life based on our husbands’ employer. He held our first baby and stared in awe, we helped them with their first puppy, we knew and understood each other, first, in a way only those living this life could. Our first couple that made us roar with laughter while serving us wine and salmon in their one-bedroom apartment. Backspace. One space will never be enough for the years we only knew them through email and pictures and second-hand stories. I want our backspaces back. I want to “renovate the ga-rage” with you, Ian, (insert thick Irish accent). Inside joke.

Those are the backspaces she will fill now in her world, her tired, love-sapped mind, her wide-eyed boys’ hearts, her aching soul……………ellipsis, oh please protect her soul. We will backtrack(space) the world for you and those boys, any moment of any day. Promise.

Rest in peace- no, rest in dark-witted, humorously-divine and riotously-adventurous love and peace, dear Ian, our friend. We will fill in your backspaces, all of us that loved you so much and love your beautiful wife and boys with the best kind of ferocity.

Until we meet again……………..