saturday afternoon

I'm sitting up at Jeff's folks gorgeous home. The sky is a dusty, silver gray. The leaves on the hill gold and red, yellow and green, any and all hues of burnt orange. Both of my children are asleep. Their 86 year old grandpa is asleep on the deck, a baseball cap pulled over his eyes. Nana is settling in after taking the old one and the young one on an adventure - first the bagel store (old one) and then the carousel (young one). Her spontaneous date with Eliana allowed me to have a much needed brunch date with a girlfriend and our two babes. So I sit here in gratitude. We are so lucky to have this time here with them.

We never guessed four years ago that Nana and PopPop would settle into our Missoula day to day. Now I can't imagine Eliana's early years without them. Nana with her generosity, the childlike energy that she greets our girl with each time they play together. PopPop and the way he remarks on her curls, her dimples, constantly concerned that she's going to take a tumble, break something. I would never have had this time to get to know my in-laws if they hadn't taken the risk and moved a million miles from everything they knew to be with our little family. We sit here on the eve of another transition; they go back to Jersey in a week. With PopPop's health in a precarious place, we don't know when they will be back.

Saturday has always been a family day. I remember my sister and I playing Fame, making up dances all day long, preparing performances for our patient older siblings. I remember how much I loved going home on the weekends when I was away at college. A Saturday at home meant lying around in my parents bed, watching cable, moving slowly, getting to eat good food out of the fridge. When I get homesick for my family, it's these sort of days I miss. The lounge-y days. A time to just be in the space with the people you love the most. A place where everything is safe.

Eliana is starting to talk a lot about her safe home:
There are no monsters here, are there Mommy?
No baby, no monsters in our home.
No monsters can even get in here, right Mommy?
No babe, you are safe here.

And I hug here a little bit tighter and think about all the anxieties I had as a child (and still struggle with as an adult). Think about how thankful I am for safe places. The comfort of family. These golden hills outside the window, how they hold and cushion us safely in this little valley. My psychoanalyst mother said something about Missoula being cushioned between the safe and warm breasts of the "L" and the "M". While I laughed pretty hard at the time, I'm holding on to her very Freud-laden analogy. This valley has held me. It has held my family. There is so much to be thankful for.