a big, fat dose of perspective

We've been having one of those afternoons. One of those afternoons where Eliana and I have been wrestling through her nap for the past four hours. Where after three rounds of books, four rounds of snacks, two diaper changes, and lots of firm words, she's still yammering away in her crib and I'm still fumbling, unable to focus on a whole lot other than her precious few hours of sleep. During one of her attempts to go down she asked, once again, for me to sing the Barney song. As always, I relented and began. At which point she began inserting the lyrics, "I love Becca, Becca, Becca, Becca...".

Whatever, little silly. Go to sleep.

After that attempt I decided to go outside, even though it's horrendously hot. My theory is that when she knows I'm not lurking around outside her door to hear if she's still yammering away, she yammers more.

I put down my book and called my friend Becca. Elie, for whatever odd reason, had her on the brain and I wanted to share her elevated status with my dear, old friend in Portland.

The first thing she says, "Oh, Gillie! Did you hear the news."

Oh God, I think. It's another one of those things. The planes crashing into the towers. 8.9 on the Richter Scale. A tsunami.

One her best friends had been hit and killed by a drunk 21 year old. Actually the husband of her oldest friend, a friend who I've met a few times over the years when Becca lived in Missoula and Boo would come to visit. A husband and father to their beautiful, about to be four year old who I met a few months after his birth. A husband and father who just finished building their dream home with his hands. On a huge plot of land in Oregon, far from anyone or anything. Where he plows the roads in the winter and she grow veggies in the summer. Where they had a home birth.

Where hundreds of people from across the country will arrive tomorrow for a memorial. Where Becca will take charge for Boo who is now alone. Where people will jump in to help take care of Angus. Where Boo will have to try and sleep at night wondering how in the world she's going to tell her son that Daddy's not coming home.

Becca asked me to call a few of our other mutual Missoula friends to share the news. Jennifer's response after shock and remorse: "Well that's a big, fat dose of perspective."

We all do this. These are our lives. Our dramas. Our day to days. Eliana's sleep has been close to the top point of my day to day radar for the last two years. My ridiculous, Saturday afternoon drama, put in check. Hard.

Right before I called Becca, I had been re-reading Anne Lamott's, Bird by Bird. I've put together this little mama writing group that is meeting for the first time on Monday and I'm nervous. Who am I to think I have the clout to organize this? My poetry degree was earned in 1996 and while I hung in for a few years of extension classes and informal writing groups, I certainly haven't written a poem since I've lived here in Montana. That's going on seven years.

But instead of second guess myself some more, I'm going to quote my girl Lamott:

Writing is about learning to pay attention and to communicate what is going on. Now, if you ask me, what's going on is that we're all up to here in it, and probably the most important thing is that we not yell at one another. Otherwise we'd all just be barking away like Pekingese: "Ah! Stuck in the shit! And it's your fault, you did this..." Writing involves seeing people suffer and, as Robert Stone once put it, finding some meaning therein.

So I find myself back here at Baby Kessler, content to have a place to chronicle all this thick, intensity. This day to day. I find myself thinking about Boo and her clear, beautiful eyes, the honesty in her face, her baby as I remember him, so tiny and pale. I think of Becca and the job she has as best friend to someone who's world has just been completely shattered. I think of my own husband who, at this moment, is choosing to put little pieces of metal into rocks so that he can reach high heights. My own husband who is doing something inherently risky because he believes in living life to it's fullest. How envious I was of my husband today when I wiped the counter down for the sixteenth time, when I changed another dirty diaper.

But these are all those precious moments. The learning to pay attention. The goings on. The big, fat doses of perspective. And I don't really know how to wrap this one up neatly. There's no shiny little ribbon that's going to hold this post together. I guess I just ask myself to remember. Settle into the now. Settle into the beauty. Settle into the words, even if you've already read them hundreds of times. Settle in and focus. Each curl. Each lash. Each new, funny phrase or wacky little gesture. This is it. These are our days. All I have is now.