birthday for real

Today she is six for real.  They woke early, so, very early.  Early and eager.  For whatever reason I've been bone tired in the evenings lately.  Single mama-ing takes a different level of concentration perhaps.  Or maybe it's the heat.  I feel like I did when I lived abroad in Spain at seventeen.  Come three o'clock, I'm ready to siesta with the best of them.  Unlike those days in Spain, I don't exactly rally at ten to hit the discoteque.  Alas.  My girl is six.  And we had a heck of a day. 

Somehow presents were done before seven thirty a.m. or so.  Which left a whole lot of time for celebrating.  Auntie Alison sent a Target gift card, so that was a first must stop.  The Ariel bath doll was the first to speak to Els and, at long last, the prize for the basket.  Soli had to have a big, red bouncy ball because the birthday envy was running pretty deep.  We'd had lots of tears.  Thanks, mama, for sending him a wrapped present for the first round of gifts.  I think I've got it all figured out and then I remember how little I really know. 

The day moved quickly from there.  There was a stop for baby burritos before we headed to Splash.  I was so dang thankful for our local water park, for our friends who were there to meet us, for the ease that is water and children in the summer sun.  When we were finally waterlogged, it was the Big Dipper for green tea rolled in sprinkles, on the house. 

When we finally got Soli down, Eliana and I were wiped.  I have this new bad-summertime-mama habit which is Eliana asks to watch Arthur on the ipad and I say yes and read my book beside her.  I just can't help it.  I suggest that we write stories or do art or read books.  Sometimes we do some of those things.  Sometimes we bake or play outside.  And sometimes, like today, we just chill the heck out.  Am I just getting old?  Lazy?  Is it the heat?  Why do I need to absolutely stop moving in the afternoons?  I'm trying to let it go.  I'm trying to say, dang girl, you're a great mama.  So the kid watches a bit of TV.  Go easy.

After siesta, Eliana requested sushi.  High class tastes, like her mama.  Sixty dollars and another scoop of green tea later (this time fried in tempura batter, topped with chocolate sauce and berries), we were heading back up the hill.  Eliana's Ariel bath doll had been on her mind all afternoon and she was dying to watch her in her natural habitat.  I love that girl.  I love that she still loves Disney princesses.  I have a hunch next year Ariel will not exactly jump off the shelf the same way she did today. 

Oh these days.  They are so very full.  Full of feelings and ideas, frustrations and messes, stops and starts.  Full of the love between a brother and a sister, a mother and her six year old.  I was so missing Jeff today.  Miss him more than ever.  The air tonight resembled the air six years ago, the six twenty four pm that the girl flew from my body.  The sudden storm and clean heat.  The red sheets and the sleigh bed.  The way we hesitated in the parking lot hours later, wondering how the heck to put this small creature in a carseat and drive home.  A group of bikers revved their engines and it seemed so cruel to bring this tiny being into the loud, scary world.  So began the extreme vulnerability. 

Tonight as we walked back to our car through downtown, we ran into person after person that we knew.  Eliana was able to hear happy birthday from a few more people.  They asked her kind questions, engaged her, laughed.  We headed up the hill and I exhaled a giant breath of gratitude for this valley that has helped raise my child.  For the kindness of community and grace of open space.  For the mamas who have modeled for me how to be, encouraged my best self, listened to all the moments of raw frustration. 

They are finally quiet and I write in a new space.  In a new living room.  Candles burn low, my ladies shine on the mantle, my radio plays softly.  Sometimes I can hardly believe it.  How far I've come.  How far we've all come. 

almost six

 I need a moment to write on this overcast, July morning.  Blues and grays streak the sky like something I wish I could inhale, bottle, frame and mount above my bed.  It's that lovely.  The north hills still show hints of green, recall yesterday's lightning storm, keep the air light.  In a few hours I'll arrive at the park with my bushels full of party supplies, like I've done so many other July days.  My girl will be six on Tuesday.  We celebrate her today while her daddy is still in town, while the hills still shine barely green.  Ani's, "Swan Dive" is on my Pandora and I'm filled with memories and longing thinking about how this birthday party thing has, somehow, become old hat.  How we know this drill because, somehow, she is six.  She is six and she exudes kindness, sensitivity, an amazing ear for language and music and the wacky sense of humor that comes with almost-first-grade. She's been in drama camp from nine to four every day this week and walks out a little taller, a little stronger, and a little more one with the world every single day.  Tremendous, this girl.  Tremendous.

what makes a family

Late June

Layers like vines
like family
like shifts and currents
line our lives.
We find ourselves on a plane
moving over landscapes in search
of past relics, sisters and friends,
dry, hot hills, the colors of Berkeley,
Mazzy's a warm monkey on my back and
I wear her with pride, traverse old haunts,
remember lost loves.
Djembes echo from the train station,
raw hands intersect histories,
history is new here and the train fills
with glitter and fairy wings,
piercings and pride.
We move like a wave towards the park,
spill into one another with solidarity,
sisterhood,
brotherhood,
sisters and sisters,
brothers and brothers.
Melissa moves with grace in the heat,
her pregnant belly a swollen smile.
They think the baby is mine.
We fit in all the more.

Back at home, cousins arrive,
and we watch the relations unfold.
The drama that is two three year olds
finding their way, sharing space,
Solomon equal parts
joy and frustration,
his moments passionate and resolute.
The way Eliana plays a new role,
almost six,
lost her first tooth while I was away,
milestones abound,
her leadership kind and steady until
she too feels frustrated and needs
her space.  The heat doesn't help and
we seek refuge along creek pools,
water fountains, cool basements. 
We are all trying to find our way.
Navigating as parents and children,
as uncles and aunts,
as grandmothers and grandfathers,
friends.  This now is new to all of us. 
This now has a pulse of her own,
like the palpable energy of hope and
celebration that resonated through the
voice of the Castro, smiles spilled from
shops and bars, hands clasped,
history unfolding before our eyes. 

full celebration

Summer has really only been in full swing for a week, but boy have we greeted her with ferocity.  Spent all of last week moving and organizing and purging and focusing and celebrating our little, "rainbow house", getting her ready to be enjoyed by others.  And in one wild swoop, somehow found myself sitting around a table explaining a lease to three lovely twenty-somethings, twenty-somethings that very much resembled me and Jeff and our little Missoula crew in the early days.  They cut us a check, signed their names and, boom, wild role reversal.  I'm now the landlord.  I'm making the rules that they promise to follow.  Full circle celebration.

In the midst of this tremendous burst of work and responsibility, my husband left for a week long conference.  My go-to guy was gone and I was in charge of finding answers and making executive decisions.  And I still have two little, creative, loud, loveable people to care for.  So the balance has been a bit tricky.  They have definitely enjoyed the ipad while I've shown the house and scoured the cabinets.  So when Kay suggested we take a day away with the kiddos, it seemed like very appropriate and needed family fun.

I don't know why it's taken me this long to go to the garden of 1000 Buddhas in Arlee, but it has.  Wow.  This place is amazing.

Absolutely gorgeous and wild and so other worldy right there off the highway.  A perfect place to celebrate the solstice, the full moon, the move forward, a day with my girl and our babies -- just slowing down and savoring.  The kids spanned three to ten, but somehow the dynamic worked beautifully with Kay's olders taking care of my youngers.  Hayden even managed to shower Solomon in the men's locker room after our soak at Quinn's hotsprings...Jeff and I can barely manage to shower our bath-obsessed boy.  Kids rise for their own kind.

 The children passed out after our very full, sun-soaked day, skin soft with the mineral rich waters.  I felt a deep sense of safety and calm, mama-ing in tandem, taking the time to hold this moment in our story.  Eliana is changing so fast.  I feel her six-ness coming on; the way she rolls with it, asks meaningful questions, tries to be her best self and represent us with poise.  Solomon is a bit more hit or miss, his three-ness a walking party foul replete with sweetness and soul.  I held him in the water and felt his sweet lips on my cheek, the way he finally trusted that his life jacket would, indeed, allow him to float on his back, the look of serene calm that met his face when he finally settled in.  And Eliana, her swim strokes finally settling into her body, finding her confidence and stride in deeper waters.

This summer feels much less challenging, me home all day with the two of them.  I've had a few years of practice and now know what to expect, what I need to do to hold steady and surrender to meandering days and moment to moment goodness.  So bring it on.  Bring on this full celebration of now, of change, of shifts in light and space.

rockin' transition

We're rocking transition around here.  Rockin' hard.  We pack boxes and bags, purge and recycle.  Re-organize, re-configure, stand on stools and stepladders, scrub ceilings and deep beneath stairs.  Things, things, things -- the stuff that defines our lives.  It sits in canvas and cardboard, backpacks and suitcases.  Sits for years and years and years, still defining us. 

When we came here, we packed two cars.  Books and clothes, a few lamps perhaps?  A box of favorite mugs?  Journals and photographs.  A decade later, it's mainly the same.  Add furniture and all things baby, add cold weather goods and wedding presents.  But strip it back, and we are so the same.  Our love of words and travel.  Our passion for our friends, our family, each other, our children - it spills forth from all we do.  And we purge the rest, each bag of trash another triumph, each pile for the garage sale, another share of joy. 

I scrape the yellow ceilings and remember how we painted each and every last square inch of that little home, how gray and dilapidated she was when we first found her.  Us, so not DIY, so not crafty or country or learned like that, we made it work.  We painted, already.  We scraped and weeded and planted and sowed.  We took time.  Friends camped in the backyard, in the basement, in the spare rooms.  We cooked elaborate meals, threw big parties, birthed big babies.  We made that space ours.  Our rainbow house.  Each color a piece of me, a piece of us, a little it of story. 

The narrative unfolds. 

my mama

my mama boards a train
for days and nights
holds her stick through
another lurch
takes in the pacific,
the columbia,
snaps shots and sends them
my way
to reassure me
that she is,
of course,
fine

though it's hard to stand
on solid ground
these days and
the train jolts equilibrium
so she waits for her dinner
to arrive
on a tray
sends another sweet text
reads her fabulous books
watches the hours pass

and finds herself in a
tiny mountain town
states from where she began.
she waits for us to arrive,
walks with her Winnie
up and down the boulevard
up and down.
examines the pottery and local
photography, muses that the books
seem old
in the local bookstore,
they probably are,
nothing has the same sheen
around here,
though the mountains shine green
and the june light is
pretty remarkable.

she settles herself in
to day after day with
my strange children
their imaginations and frizz
their quick tempers and
wild songs

the week passes too quickly and
once again
the train awaits.
we circle the lake,
take in the hues of blue
the clouds and curves,
find all the ways we
are the same
the way we can talk for hours
break it down
eat every last
decadent bite,
I think my lack of worry
is refreshing,
I'd rather a perfect bite
than no bite,
the pork belly,
beets and beef tips,
languid in their splendor
and we move through
our surreal moment
in the little mountain town
where she'll await her train
a little lady with
tremendous adventure
though you might not know her
that way
beneath the control is a gal
who wants to see the world,
jumped ship from south africa
alone for weeks
to come to this country
she knew one man
for a few days
one man
oceans away

we can't not call her
brave
badass
my mama
visits
on the train.

Eliana in the backyard

The stone wall is thick with weeds,
long and light
seeped in May sun and
June rain.

I show you how to
pull from the root
and we work together
uncovering rock after rock,
a lone red tulip
shrouded in remnants
wild pink roses and
patches of lavender
their fragrant excess
and gray, gnarled roots.

There are so many moments
to hang on to:
how your long curls fall down
your back.  The way you repeat
the word, columbine,
ask for sticks of chive,
chew soft leaves of mint,
while your body hauls
life from earth.

You ground together a
pile of fairy dust:
purple sidewalk chalk
dandelion fluff
moist soil and
bits of sage and I remember
the way I haphazardly
placed it all in the earth
so long before I ever
thought of you.
Your tremendous questions,
singing yourself through
the evening.

The way you took your time,
sultry and gentle,
to find your way into the light.
On a long July day we walked
in heat, circled the loop of park,
soaked in a cool, creek pool,
hours and hours of music and
slow, grounded sway of hips,
I push the jacuzzi jets
on and off
on and off
chaos of bubbles,
cadence and swell,
bear down, seize

like the pulse
of plates,
the decades they wait
to finally come together.