spring re-cap

Somehow I missed the whole spring.  I actually didn't miss anything, but I missed stopping and writing it all down.  So here I am with a computer full of pictures, looking at how much they've grown in just the few months feeling mildly overwhelmed with it all.  How fast the seasons run, how the green turns back to gold, how my love stops me in my tracks again and again.  Here are some highlights:

Missoula spring means rain and Arrowleaf Balsam Root and lots of adventures outside...

Spring means a roadtrip to Southern Cali, to the homeland, to the sea and family...

 Spring means a conference in NYC, reconnecting with old friends and family, loving on theatre and long, wild walks, taking it all in...

 Spring is a little boy who is suddenly six, his huge smile and life loving ways, the way he tried to hop in the Clark Fork on his birthday and was so bummed I wouldn't let him swim in the freezing cold water, his sushi dinner, his party with his class, our special walk in Greenough...

 Spring is another Mother's Day and this year the kids can do the long hike, don't hold us back, everyday precious and full of adventure...

 Spring is a spontaneous Memorial Day weekend in Yellowstone, the geysers and trails, the new discoveries so close to this place we call home.

another year

I turn on the computer quickly, try to catch the last moments of daylight, the sky painted grays and blues and golds, a quick steal.  Tomorrow I turn 42.  I like it already.  I'm settling into all that I am, forgiving the haste and letting things mellow.  Over the weekend I dug into sulfuric earth, the heat rising from the hot springs, dirt beneath my nails.  My hearing aids were dead and I sank into the quiet world I was born into, all mossy, wet beards of spring evergreens, swathes of ice and thick, dark mud.

It had been harder than usual for me to settle into being away from my crew.  We've been extra tight lately, bound by basketball games and homework folders, loud dinners and opening hikes on Bear Trail.  One of my best bits of each day is slipping into bed next to my man, my body finally clean from the evening shower, the children finally quiet.  We watch our Mad Men and look at houses in Mexico, the flannel sheets mixed with the Tiger Balm on my knee, all aging and comforts melded into one.  I certainly have settled into this role of mother of two, wife of one, believer in many in my old age.

I finally had my knee looked at and after the xrays came back okay (like I knew they would), I felt a lift, a lightness that I haven't had since all this began in October.  I am aging.  I am healing.  My legs still carry me over hills and down snowy trails, connect me to my core, hold my gratitude.  Last night I led my class through jumps for joy.  My boyfriend Michael Franti sang, "I'm alive!" and we jumped and jumped, arms pushed towards the sky.  We wrote about our most loveable through-line qualities, the things that we can hang onto when all else fails.  I identified my creativity, my kindness, my optimism and thanked them all for serving me so well over the years.  I don't want to live darkly.  I don't want to be slow and scared, hurt and afraid.  I want to celebrate each moment of each day, the children and the man, the mom and the dad, the students and sisters and girlfriends.  Time is moving so swiftly yet so much stays the same.  And nothing too.  The beauteous juxtaposition.  Eliana and I writing poetry by candlelight on my yoga mat last night, Tina Malia spilling from my little speaker, tarot cards splayed on the hardwood floor.  The roller rink and "Let's Hear it for the Boy" pulsing in the weak speakers, my boy and I holding hands as he takes his wheels around the loop again.  Laughter with my girls on the xxski trail, the way we can laugh so hard at ourselves, our foibles, our ridiculous and raw selves.  Jeff and I trying to figure out what to talk about on our first date in months, how we feel so aimless without the kids in the car -- by the time we settle into the evening, it's time to return home.

So for 42 I say, let's go!  Each day there is light and music and words and honest faces and big hearts.  There is no reason to hold back, no reason to hold too tight.  This is our great blessing and the time is right about now. 

where the hell's baby bucket

 

Eliana called me over to the sofa tonight.  She was stretched out, arms overhead, ballet leotard and tights still on, listening to A Diary of a Wimpy Kid on audiobooks. 

Come here mom, look.

The expression on her face was a hard read.  She looked exhausted, confused, sort of out of it.

Mom, it's scratchy.

I came closer.

Mom, it's hair.

I was sure she was wrong.  I was sure her underarm was just chapped from the cold or a scratch from rock climbing yesterday or a weird rash.  But, alas.  There it was.  A little splay of fine, blonde fur with one long guy stretching his awkward limbs as if to say, "Surprise, sistah!  Here we go!"

Eliana has been growing a ton lately.  She's hungry all the time, looks strong and sturdy, her belly warm and soft.  Her hair seems to shine a bit more, it's longer than ever before.  Her reading is soaring, she recently had her first legit sleepover and on Sunday, she and her buddy walked from our house down the hill to said buddy's casa, crossing through the snowy field, traversing the tricky curves, holding hands while buddy's dad and I texted back and forth, making sure they were safe.  This is not the baby bucket that I once blogged about, her every move a marvel, her every sigh a celebration. 

This is a young girl.  Dare I say, a young lady.  A developing lady. 

I just want to put my hand straight out Diana Ross style and stop it all.  After I'd taken a few deep, holy shit style breaths and pretended to refill my water glass, I returned to the living room and took a seat next to her, asked her how she was feeling.  She said she it felt funny.  It felt weird.  She wasn't exactly excited.  I think we kinda met in that same place of disbelief, of change, of time passing way too quickly. 

My girl is changing.  She will never again be a bald, hairless, helpless little squirmy worm sleeping next to me in a bucket.  Now she's confident and quirky, crafty and considerate and loyal.  She has little hips and a gorgeous collarbone that streaks across her regal chest. 

And from that calm of water gently swaying in the bath, I hear her start at her brother.

Soli, no!

Soli!

MOM!  He's saying I'm in love with Bob.

I wonder who Bob is.  And then the sliding glass door to the shower hurls open and she steps out of the tub, all legs and soft angles, golden curls piled on top of her head in a fuzzy halo just like mine. 

She comes to me and gives me the lowdown, the latest thing that her beloved brother has done that shows just how much younger than her he really is.  And by the time her story is over, he's out of the shower too and they are laughing together and retelling the story.  Soli tries on my old red slippers and slides across the hard

woord floor.  Eliana gently eases her way into her nightgown and I have to keep myself from looking too closely at her, trying to hold on to this image before it changes.

creative fervor

A creative fervor is upon me.  I feel it in everything I do, need it with an intensity, a voraciousness.  Without it, nothing feels quite right.  Without it, I need to scrap everything and come up with a new plan.  With it, the plans continue to show themselves in all their platinum sparkle, all of their loud beats and perfect harmonies and my hips know how to sway just right.  I'm pretty certain that creativity is my main superpower, my main source of inspiration and purpose.  It helps me problem solve, stay psyched in the classroom, in the kitchen, in the closet when I greet a new day.  It drives me to craft dance classes, write poems, find new music, look closely at the natural world.

Last night my girlfriend invited me to see, "Stomp" kinda last minute.  I watched myself get swept further and further into the percussive beats, the innovative ways to make sound.  As I became more immersed in the show, my brain began to subconsciously problem solve.  I began to shift through the issues of my day, of my week, and create unexpected ways to move through the stuck.  My brain was firing and gliding, gracefully navigating the muck of the day and creating something that was fluid, that could shine.  This fluid shine is what I want to bring into my life as I approach 42.  I want my creative self to guide all that I do, right next to my heart, alongside my empathy, in line with my rhythm and hard work.

At the start of the new year, I went to a friend's cabin with five other women.  We were committed to spending the weekend writing, each one of us at various points on creative projects.  When I arrived, all of my ladies were already tucked into their various corners of the cabin, scribbling and typing away.  There was a calm in the house, a settled sense of determination, of cracking open.  Without asking a whole lot of questions, I found my spot by the large window overlooking the lake and I unrolled my yoga mat.  The first step was moving my body, stretching her open, preparing her to go deep and go hard.  Before I knew it pages were strewn all around me, drafts of poems, piles of poems, sections of poems waiting to be organized, revised, rehashed.

The night was divine food and conversations about how much truth we tell, what the magazines don't want us to say, why our story matters.  Each one drifted back to her area when the time was right, heeded the call of the muse, of space, of purpose.  Morning caught hold of me like a torrential and unexpected storm and the first draft of the poem book, all 70 pages of her, gently fluttered together.  When I finally flew from the room, it was like I had been flung from a great cave, a great and glorious cave full of drive, of purpose, of clarity.  I devoured my breakfast, added extra spice to my eggs and avocado, experienced that hunger that only comes from a deep and heady place.

That afternoon, I skied across a frozen lake watching the Montana clouds shift in the January sky.  The air was soft and the novelty of my cross country skis gliding across the same water I had dove into months before felt surreal to my California sensibilities.  My girlfriends were beautiful and graceful in the sea of white, their voices drifting across docks and driftwood, across boundaries and borders.  We were swept up in it all together, the sacred space of creation, the divine surrender to our stories. 

golden glow

I'm thinking back to our two weeks of sunshine, two weeks of sea, two weeks of mellow togetherness.  I haven't felt quite settled since we've been home, haven't felt like we've all been back on the same page, like the us that was then is very far away.  I'm trying to figure out what that's all about.  Is it that our real lives are too full to feel that sort of continuous connection?  Is it that I'm always a bit on edge when it's cold and snowy?  Is it that there are just too many in's and out's, too much racing out the door, too much movement to feel settled and still as an us?  Whatever it is, it certainly makes me full of gratitude for these photographs from a mere two weeks ago.

Feeling gratitude for the sunshine, for the chance to get away, for my sweet, sweet family and our enthusiasm for adventures.