in a day

I'm sitting here, exhausted, settled, listening to the steady hum of the dishwasher. I keep contemplating putting music on, but there's something strangely meditative about the noise. Music might make me indecisive, I might move from one thing to the next too quickly. And that's not what I need.

I think back on this full, full Monday and all the bits and pieces that compose a day. The wild conversations I have with Eliana when she replies to my ideas with a, "That sounds great!" (with the same enthusiasm as Tony the Tiger on the Frosted Flakes commercials) or a, "That's a good idea, mom!" She is such a conversationalist, with a memory or song or reference to go with every occasion. "Remember Amy and the pinata? Pinatas are a game. With prizes. And treats. Not scary. Fun!" (This monologue comes up often, as Eliana continues to make peace with the pinata she saw when we were on the coast in August. It was shaped like a little girl. It was decapitated. It was mildly traumatic -- but we're working through it.)

Her vast bank is open and accessible, everything a connection to something else, a continuous piecing together of the puzzle of her life.

I'm attempting to see things this same way. The key to maintaining this nutty schedule of mine is to stay open to each moment. Each question or need from my students or colleagues or husband or daughter. Each request or discomfort I have in my changing body, this new yet familiar state of growing another human being. Every anxiety or ache or frustration or craving, something that has to be met head on, or else they'll all snowball and I'll end up annoyed and hungry, whiny and bitter. It's certainly a challenge. But it seems to be getting easier and easier.

That's not to say there isn't extreme exhaustion or longing. Like when my daughter wakes up at my in-laws again because we've been taking care of PopPop while Nana takes a much deserved break back east and says, "Elie wanna go home." And I can't take her home because we have to race out the door to the daycare because it's Grandparent's Day and I have to be totally on my game, looking my best, shaking hands and sharing accomplishments. My heart screams with frustration when she asks her simple, honest request, all guilt ridden and heavy. But then I explain it to her. "No, Els, today you get to go to Caroline's. You get to see Fiona and Joaquin and paint pictures and play playdoh. And mama has to go to the school to teach the kids and read books." She didn't protest, didn't affirm, just willingly got in her big girl sneakers and hoodie, ready to roll with it.

Like we roll with our busiest season, our family's reentry into the working, scheduled world.

Fall has finally settled into the valley and the days are growing chillier and shorter. We enjoyed one of our last farmer's markets last weekend and my sister-in-law managed to capture my daughter in all her clown around glory. Again, always one to savor the moment and not get too caught up in ridiculous expectations.

How do they continually manage to teach us so much?

back at it

I look at that last dreamy, August post. We were so mellow then. So together. Didn't pay attention to clocks or bells or calendars. But September is almost over. And we've changed the game.

September rocks my world every year. This year it seemed more challenging than most. Lots of unexpected, big events, a packed schedule, visitors and birthdays and concerts and plans. Of course, all those things are good things. The challenge is just having the energy to enjoy them all. Because still, even with the work and motion, Eliana is the top of my to-do list. To enjoy. To behold. To marvel. To laugh. And somedays, it just doesn't feel like we get the time together that we deserve.

Today she broke down when I went to work, and I imagined myself leaving the babysitter and mac and cheese in the kitchen, and whisking her away with me. She'd just hang while I taught the class about haiku and imagery, would just calmly color in the corner, and I wouldn't have to make any choices or feel any guilt. That, of course, is not how it went. I crumbled and put Barney in for her, knowing that her familiar purple friend would ease the pain of our separation. Cuz I feel it too. By Friday we are both done. It's been too many in's and outs, too many drop-offs and pick-ups. We're ready to hunker down, stay in our cozies, and just be.

Thank goodness we have the weekend together.

The challenge for me is what to give up. I love my job during the day. I love my job at night. I love my husband and friends and social life. But my chicken needs me and I want to be here for her. And then there's all the other things. The dishes and crumbs and laundry and maintenance of day to day. That's the part that ends up really wearing me in. Because I have a precious hour with my peach and instead of reading books with her or playing legos, I'm frantically washing the same coffee mug that, I swear, I washed that morning. And her sippy cup smells like yucky old milk again. And there are crumbs on the counter. And as much as I don't want to care about it all, the mere existence of mess seems to be adding to my exhaustion.

Gosh it feels good to get all that angst down. I missed this ol' bloggy buddy. But I've been too overwhelmed and exhausted for extra articulation lately. Maybe I'm accepting my new groove and ready to plunge ahead. I haven't even taken a picture of my child since the last post. How pathetic is that. We've just been too busy being in the thick of it all. Now it's time to embrace the chaos and figure out how to move through it with grace.

three weeks

Three weeks away from this computer, this home, this town and I'm having a hard time figuring it all out again. What I do know is, we had a tremendous journey. The trip encompassed all that I require out of travels: relaxation, comfort, beauty, introspection, balance. And, as I've noticed before after long forays away, I have a hard time capturing the essence of something so big too far after the fact. Instead I'll try for highlights:

• Eliana spending seven blissed out nights in her own tent, sleeping splendidly to the sounds of the sea.

• Long sola walks and sandy yoga sessions.

• The way Eliana "made cakes" or "made soup" with her posse of new friends and trusty bucket and shovel.
  

• Hiking out to the tip of the peninsula, Cape Flattery, and looking at the insane view.

• Snuggling with my little family.
  

• Long, delicious dinner with friends (perhaps most notably the night the fishing crew brought back massive amounts of salmon that was then cooked in foil over the fire).
• Loving the way other people appreciate my kid (Burns calls her the "floor model" -- gotta love that).
• 

• Eliana getting splashed by seals and getting touchy feely with anemones at the aquarium in Seaside (since the seal incident, when asked what she just dreamt about, she replies, "Seals splashin' me!"
  

• The bakery in Manzanita.
• The hot tub in Manzanita.
• Jeff and I leaving Els with her devoted Auntie Kelli and Uncle Jack in Portland so we could walk up to this cool little cafe and have a drink, late night style.
  
• The writing and yoga retreat that Becca and I co-lead in Opal Creek. Absolutely perfect in every way.

• Watching the sunset over Neah Bay.
  

• Reading lots of novels on the beach.
• Exploring the intense beauty of the Pacific Northwest.

• Savoring the wild sense of humor and imagination that is developing in my big girl.

• Getting dirty.
• Feeling silly.

• Being totally relaxed.

On Monday we return to work and get swept up in the current that is Fall. I have so much to hold on to from this journey and hope that I can retrieve the lessons in balance when life gets heavy and fast again.

moving along

We're moving along again. The Kessler August summer fun train leaves tomorrow for twenty days of coastal adventure. I'm antsy to get moving, shake things up, rock it hard before school starts again and the sunny season comes to a close. We've been busy. Lots of cousin love visiting (four boys!) and my beautiful sister, Erin and her hubby, Stan have been here since Saturday. Long, leisurely dinners, a float trip on the Blackfoot, swimming holes and downtown treats, make a fully satiated Missoulian ready to explore new territory. I so love sharing where I live and embracing how to live here right. It also makes me eager to explore a new place with a fresh perspective.


Els Bells continues to explore her two year old self. We've had glorious, hilarious, independent, brilliant moments. And long screaming and crying fits that have kept us from our naps. She kinda lost her noodle in the tent on a little family camp extravaganza, and I had that moment, was that mom -- the one whose kid is keeping everyone else awake, the one who everyone is thinking, well, thank god it's not my kid, poor Gillian, poor Jeff. Woah. I'll remember that night like some of my wilder nights in college, all blurry and wild and can this really be happening. Moving on.

Our little summer in Misosula chapter is closing. These are the last August days with Eliana destroying the house, moving from one activity to the next, chaos in her wake. The last August days where she's still unsteady up the stairs, sorta jammin' instead of racing, speaking phrases instead of sentences. Her hair gets nuttier by the day, Casey likened her to the dad in the Munsters family tonight, old man crazy curls and a bit of curly comb over on top. Love her hair. Love it. Can't wait to see what happens to it with a good dose of sea air.

identity

At times I feel identityless. Times when I have not a single answer. Times like this, hours into it, you still howl from your crib. "Moooommmmmmmm!" you scream, your throat raw -- you just won't let it go. And I too am drawn into this drama with no manual, no schooling, no clue. We've read so many books. Sung all our songs. We've tucked every baby and puppy and ballerina into the crib. I've wiped down the counters with ferocity, picked up each apple littering the yard, hauled them up to the compost, my valiant attempts at distraction, at staying away.

Right now there is nothing beyond your crying. I can't pretend that anything I have to do is important. You are having some sort of yelling match with them now. Singing. Screaming.

You are suddenly two and I feel stripped of all power. "Mama!" it hits me in the gut. There is nothing beyond this voice.

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.

solo style

Els and I are hanging solo style for the next four days. And as in love as I am with my husband right now and as much as I know that I'm going to miss him to pieces, well, there's a certain simple beauty in being the one and only for your tyke. She's now been asleep for about three hours and I've picked my day's worth of pie cherries, pit every last one of those suckers, and made both savory and sweet dishes to bring to my friend's party tonight. I've watered the yard with a zen like focus, making sure to reach even the furthest points. I've talked on the phone, checked my email, made my bed, matted and framed a new print for my bedroom (I have this new found obsession with my bedroom that resembles that of a thirteen year old girl), cleaned the kitchen.

And now I just hang. Because it's always great to be lead back to the precious present. And waiting to be the one and only for my little honey is such sweet anticipation.

All the partying and shenanigans of last week landed homegirl with another ear infection. Not that we would have known if she hadn't had her two-year old "well" child visit. While she was a bit out of sorts a few days earlier, we thought she was just tired. There are, perhaps, only so many birthday parties a two year old can go to before she simply just can't be social. We blamed the heat for her sour mood and clingy ways.

The next morning we asked Eliana how she was feeling.
"I feel great!" she responded.
So we stopped worrying about it. Perhaps we're over-relying on the articulate nature of our girl.

Anyhoo, when the doctor checked out her right ear she was alarmed at how red it was.
Ugghhh.

As if we mama's don't blame ourselves enough. I am a particularly excelled guilt glutton. I've been honing my craft for thirty-five years and even have the ability to feel guilty for things completely unrelated to me.

But get your child and her health in the mix, and you can damn near make yourself feel absolutely horrible. This is her fourth ear infection since Christmas. Because I am of the hearing impaired sort, anything involving the ears of my child is of even more paramount importance to me. Jeff and I left the doctor's office feeling deflated. We began to play the blame game, mainly blaming ourselves for pushing Eliana to do too many things.

Too many terrible things like birthday parties or playdates or camping trips or hikes or river rock throwing or bike riding or any other number of beautiful day-to-days that we experience over here in these parts.

So, when you look at it like that, like a full and beautiful life, it's hard to harp for too long. But what it is forcing us to do, though, is hunker down a bit. Hang at home. Limit all the excitement that comes with hanging with the 'lil homies. Go to bed on time.

You know.
Pick a bowl of cherries.