lately 2

Thanks, sweet friends, for the emails and calls saying to put this back up. It's pretty pathetic that I let one person's comment derail me so, but I'm a pleaser and I certainly never want to hurt anyone. I took out a few of the f-bombs and added a few more disclaimers. I love being home. I love where I came from. Where I choose to be is a struggle I've dealt with since I moved away. And, of course, far beyond color versus nature, the crux of the family is my choice to raise my children far from their flesh and blood. I love my parents and my sisters more than anything in the world. I want them to know my children as well as they know me. That's why I spend most of my cash on plane tickets. It's what we do.

It's been a month since I've written on this here blog. Most of that time has seen me and my crew on the road. And after all that time, all those experiences, memories, moments, feelings, frustrations, exhilaration, it feels pretty damn overwhelming to attempt to document. Overwhelming and unnecessary. Because if this is for me, I've been too caught up in it all to stop and write anything down. It makes me a bit edgy and twitchy. A bit like I take myself too seriously. Why do I write it all down at all?

So this isn't about memories. Or maybe it is. I don't know what I'm doing right now. Just moving. Moving, moving, moving. Loving. In it to win it.

Elie turns four on Saturday. The past four years have seen all things Eliana, all things Solomon, sorta all things Kessler fam, sorta all things me. But lately I feel like paying attention to a lot more me. And as tremendous as their milestones are (Elie does Manhattan! Solomon loves the beach! Planes, trains, subways and freeways! Family is fabulous!) it's all feeling pretty overwhelming. I've been so tightly wound by it all for so long. I hit this place lately where I just want to cruise again. Want to not care so much about every morsel of food that enters our collective systems. Want to stay out late and dance. Want to not care about the next morning. Want to be honest and real and raw and fabulous.

My friend Mooney rocks silver glitter eyeliner (top and bottom) every day. I love it. She gave me a glitter stick so that I'll remember to add some sparkle to my life when I saw her in L.A. It lingers in my medicine cabinet as a little reminder. I dotted a few flecks around my laugh lines before I taught my yoga class. It got the job done. I want to line my eyes with silver. I want to not care what other people think.

I came from a land of diversity. I only knew myself, my family, in relation to the other. The others. And we were all in it together. When Donna got to go to Japanese school every Saturday in elementary school, I pretended to be half so I could go to the annual carnival and eat azuki beans on shaved ice. When I spent the night at Alicia's house, we'd eat menudo for Sunday breakfast. When we went out with Emily for dim sum, I learned how a real woman fights with her friends to pay the bill, all those little Aunties shouting and grabbing. I like music with loud, strong bass lines, the way they shake the house windows, let you hear someone whose coming from far.

While we're at it, I kinda hate bluegrass. Please don't tell all my friends here. I love the music they make. But it just doesn't move me the same way. Lower my rims, baby. Pump my bass.

So I've been readjusting to life in the glorious valley. Did my heart skip a beat when we hovered over the green, the majesty of the Clark Fork winding her way through our town like something from a freakin' postcard? Indeed. Did I gasp just a bit when I smelled the clean air of early summer? Of course. But did it feel a bit looney when I pulled up to Bonner Park the next night to go to Elie's BFF's birthday and everyone was shiny, happy, outdoorsy, fit, white with exactly two perfect kids? Hell yes. It all felt a little, ahem, gag me with a Chaco. Where I'm from, no one, no one, knows what those mother's are. If they do, they hide it. If they do, they only wore them on a river trip because that's what they were told to get.

But please dismiss my high horse. I have Chacos. I wear Chacos! I need my damn Chacos in the summer. My friends don't really all wear them...(we all just have them!) Any one who really knows me knows that I don't mean to be so malevolent and judge-y. And of course all my friends are tremendous individuals with their own passions and idiosyncrasies . We can define diversity in myriad ways. Screw the mountains. It's my friends, it's the people, who keep me here. My best friends know that.

So what kind of flaming hypocrite am I? Not so sure.

So there. I've said it. I love Missoula. Adore it. But it feels a teeny tiny bit barfy after I've got three weeks of city on. Three weeks with my people. With anonymity. With that added ballsy edge. Where people look each other in the eye and don't smile. And my laid back coast, it really is a big part of who I am. That said, it also felt really exhausting. And foreign. And style-y. So maybe I'm just a big ass contradiction who wants it all. Probably. Or maybe I'm just trying to feel my feelings so I can move on and go back to writing about my kids and their phenomenal milestones. God knows I'm good at that. And I love them. More than anything.

But how can I give them everything? How can I show them all there is in this big, beautiful world? How can I have my ying with my yang? My Wong and my Fang? My Gutierrez, my Apiphany, Destiny and Denisia. It's all so clean and shiny and white and perfect. And easy. And beautiful. And spirited. And loving. Embracing. Nurturing. Cured me of my ailments. Rooted and ground me. Moved me in ways I never imagined. A bear crosses my path in the park a block from my house. I marvel at the cherries as they go from blossom to green knob to red burst. And my garden! Me! It's wild and unabashed and disorganized. But it blooms. The flowers return. They smile back up at me as if to say, see, you love it here! Remember us? We always find our way from out beneath the frozen, white earth. Embrace us. All of it.