It's nine nineteen on a Tuesday morning.  I sit at the table, big mug of coffee, glasses, gray sweatshirt, slippers.  The children are still quiet in their beds after a night of raging fevers for Sol, nightmares that send Elie from the bed in a dazed discontent.  I should be at work right now, another sick day surrendered to my babies.

I spent the past few hours awake reading books about how to write poems, exercises, examples.  I devoured page after page.  When I sat down to write in my little journal, the images felt flat, lifeleless, like this white mush outside my window, the absolute gray of the trees, the still of this kitchen table, the strange haze of night after sleepless night. I open this instead.

Last night I took Eliana to church, the MLK service the only one we find ourselves at year after year.  The room was filled with so many different kinds of people -- more color, shapes, sexualities than I'm graced with normally in my Missoula day to day.  While she fidgeted during the key note, disinterested in the LGBT community in Montana, the voice of the other that some are working so hard to hear, she came alive when the fancy dancers from St. Ignatius found their way towards the front.  Eagle feathers and buffalo teeth, golds and blues spinning, stomping to the percussive wail.  Children and elders, strong young boys, each person moving in his or her exact and perfect way.  I'm smoothing her curls out one by one, I'm gently holding her perfect shoulder, her neck craning this way and that to get a better glimpse. When my students names were read, their poems chosen and awarded and recognized, we cheered loudly together.  "That's Ava," she squealed, "She won!"   The children's folk choir began their first bars of, "This Land is Your Land" and invited us to join.  Eliana looked up at me with those tremendous, true eyes, and I felt flooded with absolute contentment.  I felt the power of community, the sacred and collective breath of filling space with our voices, our hopes, our strength.  I smiled as I looked around, so many faces I recognized, so many I'd never seen.  I felt so proud to be the mama of that beautiful girl beside me, her mismatched socks, snow boots on the floor of the pew because she'd decided to make herself comfortable, knees tucked to chin or spilled over to the side, cozy-ing in to her mama. 

This mountain community, my family, my students, my friends, they all continues to astound me. Even in the sleepless wonder that is this morning.  Even if the sun has yet to shine.  

Saturdays with Sol and the sweet surrender...

The rainbow disco is rocking in the sunshine.  The prism spins, rainbows fly, the children sing and jump.  We watch the icicles melt from the roof, Frosty finally a lumpy triangle on the terrace.  Sunshine is my salvation.  For twenty eight years I took her for granted.  Then I encountered my first January in the valley.  The inversion thick, icy windshields, hats an actual necessity, long hours on the sofa reading while my man met his glee on the ski hill.  When she graces us, it's a true and simple celebration. 

I'm finding myself in a similar situation lately.  Except that Eliana and her dad go up to ski, leaving Soli and I at home for some Saturday silliness.  And while Soli was kinda driving us all a little bonky at the end of the holiday vacation, being back in school has seemed to stimulated him back into his old self.  And his old self is a little creative maniac.  A snuggly dreamboat.  A Wiggles singing, guitar slinging fool.  Who can find endless uses for laundry baskets and empty cardboard boxes.  Ideally while wearing basketball shorts. 

Soli's starting point seems to always revolve around The Wiggles.  He's Murry and I'm Anthony.  And anything we do is fun as long as I say, "How does that sound, Murry?"  He eagerly replies, "Sounds great, Anthony!"  And we're off.  These games can take many directions.  At any point we can spontaneously break out into song.  Sol has learned how to move his guitar, his banjo, his yukelele, just like a rock and roll king.  His rhythm and moves have always impressed me.  They just keep getting better. 

The best part about the sunshine is we can take our act on the road.  While walking around downtown on a freezing cold, gray, socked in day sounds awful, walking around in the sunshine, even if it's still cold, actually is satisfying.  Yesterday Mury and Anthony went to Bernice's for a bowl of soup and a piece of poppyseed poundcake.  We then meandered, hand in hand, into Upcycled where we talked about what all the goods used to be.  Murry, what do you think this bracelet used to be?  Um, I don't know, Anthony.  It used to be the tops from a tin can.  Oh, yeah Anthony!  We walked into Betty's where Murry was able to practice his tunes on the plastic piano that waits for kiddos like him while their mamas quickly peruse the dresses and coats, take a breath of their former lives before the banging gets too loud and the mamas feel self-conscious and quickly smile and move on.  We mailed Nana her mail and Murry marveled at the enormous bags of packing popcorn.  Which made him think of actual popcorn so we decided to go into Ace where he could score a bag and look at the tractors.  He's so easily satisfied when all the attention is on him.  Aren't we all. 

And even when sister gets home, hair matted from the helmet, body and spirit tuckered, they are so dang happy to see each other after some good time apart.  They morph into some other weird game, Baby/Big Brother or performance.  Eliana is really into performances.  She dances and Soli plays one of his instruments.  They always involve flying leaps and floor work, costumes and scarves, demand their parents attention.  And we are more than happy to oblige, our little living transformed into a theatre of the absurd, littered with loot, exhausted smiles exchanged. 

Which is just about perfect for me.  My week was a big one.  Something about that book unlocked something deep and dark from within.  These Saturdays in this valley, these ten years so far from the world I knew, the world of history and timelines and dings...and family and warmth and all I ever knew for so long...they have created a strange disconnect between then and now.  I think it was a disconnect that I needed.  My face stopped twitching.  Something slowed inside me.  I made new friends, planned a wedding, bought a house, had some babies.  But the past is such a huge part of who I am.  And I'm beginning to feel ready to dig back in a bit. 

My mom sent me a box of poems and papers, letters and memories she unearthed from her stash.  I was hesitant at first to go there.  I was having such a lovely, mellow, simple time with my family over the break.  I didn't feel in the head space to read what I wrote a lifetime ago. 

But the other night after I finished the book, I dug out the box.  I wanted to find a particular poem I'd written at twenty, a poem about a lecherous teacher, a theme unearthed in Susanna's book.  I performed the poem in my senior acting recital, loud and raw, a single chair in the center of the black box, spotlight on me.  I felt so proud as I re-read it in the quiet darkness, my children asleep on the other side of the wall.  I began to dig through the others.  Heavy duty themes fell from the lines.  My honesty astounded me.  I was absolutely unafraid.  I wrote it all down.  Like everything.  And then made twenty copies for the other students in my class to workshop, to tear apart, to circle images they liked, put big question marks around things that they didn't get, write 'trite' or 'awesome' or 'overused' whenever they felt moved.  My poetry professor was big on exclamation points.  I loved it when one of my wild lines would earn one of his signature exclamation marks in the margin. 

Jeff came home and found me in bed, poems scattered around my tired frame.  Dude, look at this one!  Can you believe I let anyone read this shit?  He smiled.  He didn't know me then, but knows me well enough to know that I probably did.  We read through a few more.  The one where I fantasize about my hearing aid wires strangling my loser boyfriend.  The one when I was lost up Angeles Crest.  The one about genital mutilation in Africa.  The one about my favorite teacher who died of AIDS.  I was all over the map.  All over the map that is me.  The map that I'm slowly spreading before me, folding and unfolding, folding and unfolding again.  It gathers wrinkles and tears, each journey a mark on a blue line, a mark of understanding and unearthing the depths, processing the now.  The snowy trail in the sunshine, another solo journey to the highest point, then back down again. 

honesty

I've been reading a pretty incredible book lately - She Matters:  A Life In Friendships.  And this book has done everything that incredible art is supposed to do.  It's made me stop.  Made me think.  Made me reflect and dig and feel and associate and empathize.  Made me shake my head, breathe deep and say, Yes.  Yes I know that.  I've felt that.  I can't believe that even happened.  Where did that go? 

The wilder part still of my little reading journey is that a friend of mine,  this, "life in friendships" wrote this book.  An incredibly brave, bright and brutally honest friend.  I had the good fortune of being cozy-ed up in my favorite bookstore when I first heard a chapter from this book.  Even then I was shaking my head inside.  Felt extra there.  Felt it.

And the funny thing further about this friendship is that Susanna isn't a 'typical' friend.  I've known her for almost a decade, yet our relationship has been of parent to teacher, associates in our small, private school, Missoula, Montana community.  That said, in that context, it's been much more.  Susanna brought me a burrito when Eliana was first born, gave me an advance copy of her first book, on the heavy, heavy topic of mothers and daughters.   We walked around the park and talked deep.  Went there.  Over the years she's taught writing workshops with my students, me hanging on her grace with language, her knowledge and immersion in a subject so close to my heart, Neruda and William Carlos Williams, the way she held the attention of my small students' absolutely rapt.  Years later when her father passed away, she told me that she was dealing with her grief by dancing.  I joined her one night.  It wasn't my typical dance scene, the two-step and down-home bar.  But it was fun and easy.  There was always some level of connection.

And while I was excited to read her book, I had absolutely no idea what sort of breaking open of emotion it would cause in me.  I return to her honesty.  Her ability to say exactly what happened.  To be accountable.  Her path was not smooth.  I realized as I met yet another character I related to, another scene I had experienced with such intense proximity, that there was some pretty big stuff that's just been gathering dust in my emotional world.

I had the chance to tell her some of my connections.  I teach my students how to make connections: text-to-text, text-to-world, text-to-self.  Susanna's book has been one giant text-to-self.  I sat on her sofa like a pinball in the machine, my whistles and bells sending dissonant DINGS all over her living room.  There is so much.  It is all so much.  And while I can't go there just yet, certainly not here.

Though maybe one day....

Because I'm growing up.  It's been a long, long time since those dings hit the scene with their heavy discord, their heavy grip.  I've found some light, some breath.  My face stopped twitching when I found my home in this sweet town, these frigid mountains, this life I'd never imagined.  I married a kind and good man who loves me with all he has, who has shown me so much that is new and beautiful and bright in the world.  My children.  My gorgeous and precocious and wild children.  They are the lights that light this path of breath, of the new, of stability and a break from the unrelenting heartache that was those first thirty years.

Wow.  There.  I said it.  A whole lot of shit went down in my life.  And it was heavy and dark and scary and unpredictable.  I made some bad choices.  Perhaps influenced by my parents' bad choices.  There was chaos and lies and dark, dark sadness. 

Yet I've always been a happy girl.  As Caroline said after Brandon killed himself, Hilary and I chose the light.  She said that as only a sage could.  She barely knows us.  And that's why his suicide brought me so down, down, down.  It reminded me of my past.  It reminded me how far I've come.  How fortunate I am.  It flooded me with the guilt that's run my life for so long.  It was the first recent reminder of all those thick, black lines on my timeline.  Those moments that took years and years of psychoanalysis to begin to undo.  That psychoanalysis that I never told anyone about.  Driving across town in LA traffic after play practice all alone.  After a full day of high school.  Head cheerleader, lead in the play, hard-working student, girlfriend, best friend.  Sitting in traffic for sometimes hours so that I could sit in a clean room, predictable books lined neatly on the shelf, the man with the kind eyes and thick mustache, button down shirt, short sleeves, simple plaid.  I don't know how much I even said some days.  I was so damn tired.  I was always glad to have dreams to report and pull apart.  I was always glad to lie down and take a few deep breaths.  Dr. Vaquer told me year after year that I did too much.  That I needed to slow down.  Putting a whole lot into a day was never difficult for me.  I say that after a 6 am dance class, packed day of teaching, attendance at a guest speaker tonight.  "The Science of Happiness."  I've always been so game.  Game for it all. 

So now I'm game for something new.  I'm game for a bit of good, old-fashioned, dealing.  As my silver ball flew around Susanna's sofa, me talking, talking, talking, so glad to be heard, to know that it was safe, that she's been there and then some.  That there really is nothing to be ashamed of.  I know that.  Yet, I've always liked being popular.  I like being liked.  I'm sort of a public person.  Albeit in a tiny, tiny pond, I have a certain responsibility...I think...It's that same feeling as high school.  How will I be judged for my truths?  Is it better to just plow ahead, very honest smile, very true heart?

I processed our conversations on my skis, far back in the Rattlesnake wilderness.  I saw the black lines, the DINGS rising from my past as I dug deeper into my toes, lowering into lunge after lunge.  Each ding reminded me of another ding that I hadn't even spoken of, hadn't thought of in years and years and years.  Each ding brought a sort of gut-wrenching joy.  Made me feel how hard I've lived, how hard I've loved, how much I've thrown whole self into. 

I usually prefer skiing up the main trailhead.  I know it well.  It's predictable.  I worry less about mountain lions because it's more heavily populated, the tracks smooth.  Wide, open trails with vistas of the frozen creek. 

But I turned at Spring Gulch and went up the quiet way, through the thick, dark trees, the bumpier terrain.  I felt a heaviness in my chest.  I wanted to cry loud.  I wanted to smile huge.  I wanted to shout out.  And then cry a bit more. 

Not because it was sad.  Not because I am sad. 

I say it again. 

Not because I am sad.

Gratitude runs thick and heavy through my veins.  I watch the clouds move, welcome my children to the "rainbow disco" each time sunlight hits the prism in our kitchen window.  We have a song for gratitude!  For light!  I smile big!  I make eye contact!  I feel and feel and feel. 

So even if the pinball of associations made me step outside the rainbow disco for a bit, it's because it's all part of the precarious package.  The timeline. 

I've been mentioning the Boho revolution for a while here on this bloggy.  And the gratitude.  It's all coming together.  I am connecting with my whole space.  I finally have a few, fresh breaths from the depths of being a "new mom."  I think I can safely say that I am no longer new at this.  True my children are very young and there's a whole heck of a lot I know nothing about.  But the feeling that there is so much more to love, so very much more beyond me?  That's certainly clear. 

But I'm beginning to take a bit more shape.  It's beyond having a night away with my girlfriends at the hot springs, my cares laid to rest for a precious day or two, our deep talks and our revelry in not being needed.  I'm standing on the precipice of yet another new thing.  And I'm trying damn hard to articulate it.  Perhaps it makes a bit of sense. 

five and a half

 

There are people who say it just keeps getting better.  I think I agree.  I know I like being older, wiser, more comfortable in my skin, more confident in my choices.  I'm certianly also feeling that way about my first born.  I seem to be in a constant state of marvel with her and I just declared, "Creativity time!" (I've never called out that one before, but she went with it, and is sitting at my feet wiht a pile of stickers and crayons and paper scraps, busy making a crown...) and opened up this page real quick so I can get some of it down. 

She's just fun to be around.  All the time.  She does what we ask with a spring in her step.  She takes risks and tries new things.  This week Jeff and I enjoyed three full days with her alone while Soli was back at school.  It was so awesome.  We went up to the ski hill and she and Jeffy went up to the "tippy top" of the mountain together.  I hung out in the lodge and read my book waiting, waiting to see them making their way down Sunrise Bowl.  Finally there she was, purple butterfly outfit and pink helmet clad, power pizza-ing her way down the icy ridge.  I was practically clapping my hands with excitement to see them both.  I was so dang proud of her.  They'd been gone for over an hour and I could feel myself beginning to get anxious.  Maybe she freaked out.  Or fell.  Or was really cold.  Or cranky.  But no.  She was perfect. 

The next day we took her to the local pool.  She practiced her swimming, chatted with us in the hot tub, had a great attitude.  It was actually relaxing. While one of us swam with her, the other one could soak in the hot bubbles, look out at the frigid landscape, the January sun a welcome after too many days of gray.  Jeff looked at me with a smile and said, "Imagine if we'd only had one."  I smiled and nodded.  And then sweet Eliana jumped in with, "But that wouldn't be as much fun, you guys.  And besides, who would I play with?"  Sweet child.

And the espanol.  We can hang out and speak Spanish with our child.  And her accent is gorgeous.  And she knows all sorts of words I've never heard of.  Pegatina is sticker.  I learned that one today.  And just out of the blue just this very second she looked up at me and asked:
Okay, mama.  If you speak Spanish but you don't live in a Spanish speaking country but your parents don't speak Spanish, is that okay?  Can everyone still communicate?  Because you and daddy, well you speak both Spanish and English and so do I, so that's okay.  But some of my friends, they speak Spanish and their parents, Don't speak Spanish so how can they even understand?  
Deep thoughts from such a goofy little ragamuffin. 

Speaking of pegatinas, we made her a little chore chart.  Things like, hang up my coat and tidy my room and wipe down the table after dinner.  Jeff added, "Ski strong."  She's so into it!  She comes in and looks at the chart and then declares, It's time to hang up my coat now!  Alright, now I'll just check that one off my chart.  Hmmm, let's see, maybe I should brush my hair.  Can I have a pen, mama?  And she's off to earn her little checks.  All the while her brother is trying to grab the chart, rip the page, write on the kitchen table.  

Not to say her brother isn't getting better with age.  He's certainly funnier.  More articulate.  More able. But also...more prone to frustratoin.  More temperamental.  Louder.  More aggressive.  And demmanding.  I so see myself in both of them.  When Eliana gets dreamy and creative, I like to think I see bits of my best self.  When Solomon is super annoyed and frustrated, I also so see the self I try so hard to keep in check.  Yesterday I woke up super anxious.  Bad luck day fo sho.  The last Friday of our sweet vacation.  I imagined our normal school days.  I thought about how much has to happen before I even begin teaching at nine.  It's extra cold and icy and January-ish out.  The car takes forever to warm up.  We need gloves and hats.  How the hell do I do it?  After two weeks of taking our time, of having Jeff and I on a totally even playing field in terms of how much time we spend with the kiddos, it seems so absurd.  Absurd and super difficult. 

But Anxiety likes to play glass is half empty.  So I brought my crabby self to yoga.  Brian began by talking about, believe it or not, anxiety.  He reminded us how we can choose how we can choose to worry or choose to be present.  I thought about rushing around in the morning.  Then I imagined having enough time to do everything somewhat decently. My early morning exercise classes have helped bring that kind of clarity.  Because I walk back in the door at 7:15 and I've already had an hour of time to be completely present.  Totally for myself.  It makes cooking breakfast and wrangling socks and coats seem so much simplier because I'm feeling whole. 

As I anticipate Monday morning, I anticipate trying out a new vinyasa class.  It starts at six.  It will be  a cold, dark traverse to get there on time.  And I'll probably have some anxiety about it the night before.  If I'm having a good luck day, I'll sleep well and the kids won't wake in the night (Eliana's been having nightmares...that's another story, but it can be super disturbing...)  If I'm having a bad luck day, Eliana will sweat and howl, wake her brother, we'll all end up in our little bed, wide awake and mildly grumpy.  And then I'll decide to bag the class and know that there are always, always, more Mondays.  Or I'll go balls to the wall and do it anyway.  And the fact that I'm even writing about the possible outcomes shows that I've slipped out of the present and am on the wheel of unknowing. 

Thankfully, Eliana just brought me back.  She's rigging this rad crown out of jewels and scrap paper and a glue stick and she needs me to measure it on her head.  Her eyes are big and bright and she has the focus (and hair) of a wild chemist on a late night in the lab.  I think I'll push, "publish" and bring my creativity time back to this sunny kitchen Saturday.  To the oven beep that tells me our banana/carrot/coconut/oat loaf is done (because our creativity is limitless).  Sol will be up soon and this vibe will shift.  But we'll both be so excited to see him, we'll run into his room like lovetorn fools.  Jeffy will come home from his ski day and we'll make California rolls (Eliana's pick).  And the next time I open this blog, after school is back in session and these long, lazy days a wild blur, I'll remember this moment and the blessing that's been this time together. 

new year's eve

It's 9:20 on New Year's Eve.  The children are asleep.  I have my special candles going, some mellow tunes, a glass of wine.  I just made Jeffy play literatti reflection with me.  Then we did new year tarot.  It was awesome.  It was great.  I feel with my whole self that this is exactly where I want to be at this very moment. 

The day after Christmas, life told us to settle down.  It told us to get the kids on antibiotics, get far away from our busy world, our dinner dates with friends, our proximity to school, our in and outs and all arounds.  We drove north and settled into a beauty spot, bigger and more luxurious than the one we actually live in, cable TV and multiple hot tubs, long days with just us to play with.  We bundled up the kids and gave them adventure after snowy adventure.  All sorts of skis, chair lift rides, sleds and many, many promises of hot cocoa.  It wasn't, at all, always easy.  It was far from perfect.  But it was just us, building moments, being moments, breathing moments.  There was one moment when we were all four riding up the chair lift at the little mountain (at The Big Mountain).  I felt such incredible perfection in that moment.  Such closeness.  Soli was snuggled into Jeff.  My arm was holding Elie's knee.  We were a mess of goggles and down, unnatural in our pokey skis and cold breaths.  I thought, this is one of those moments.  This is what I am giving to my children.  This time together.  This cold, mountain air.  The toughness that comes with seasons.  Solomon's absolute, natural ease as he moves on skis for the first time.  Eliana's awesome attitude through coughs and snot.  I'm not always sure how I got here, but I know it's where I am supposed to be.  For now. 

I love how no matter what Pandora station I have on, I always hear Stevie Nick's, "Landslide."  It's such a song for me and I'm pretty certain that the Pandora peeps have a good handle on what I like.  I sit here after our ceremony.  I look at my handsome husband on the sofa.  I think about the cards we drew for our relationship.  He's Friendliness.  I'm Flowering.  Together we are Possibilities.  Our composite energy...get this...We Are The World.  It really couldn't have been more perfect.  Even Jeffy's Friendliness.  Because for all his dicky attitude, he has a tremendous heart.  He always has.  He is growing into his power, into his goodness, into his patience.  He rocked his job these past few months.  Was really amazing.  Everyone saw it.  Felt it.  Me too. 

I love that about relationships that move over a long period of time.  You so know the essence of someone, see them move through it, around it, back to it. 

I am feeling the possibility of all we can be.  I am feeling us take hold of our family.  I am feeling the way our children feel us.  Feel the power that is our unit, our choices, our journeys and foibles and time.  Our challenges.  Our grace.  Our wisdom. 

There were some intense moments in the great outdoors this past week.  Sick Solomon with cold hands in the backcountry of Glacier Park is a force not to be fucked with.  It's loud and screaming and really, really sad.  Eliana as she tries to navigate her role as big sister.  Her disappointments when her bro is freaking, her frustration when he clocks her on the floor out of nowhere, for no reason.  Her absolute delight in every hysterical thing he says.  In the way he loves to run around naked.  Dance.  Talk really, really loud.  In complete and awesome sentences. 

 

 

They play Family.  Soli is always the big brother.  Eliana is always the baby sister.  I am...can you guess it...always the mama. 

I like that.  I like always being the mama.  I like escaping my mamadom.  Heading into the yoga studio, into the wine bar, on to the trail with a girlfriend, into my classroom, my book, my bath.

But I always like coming back.  Those moments that go from complete frustration and chaos to total hilarity.  The unpredictability of it all.  I could just sit here and smile, breathe in, all the beauty that we had during our little escapade.  Eliana on cross-country skis for the first time.  Eliana in the mighty, great, bounty that is Glacier park, scooting ever so gingerly, through the snow, one choppy glide at a time.

 

  I had built it up.  Now this is Mama's favorite winter sport.  Isn't it awesome, Eliana?  Breathe that beautiful air!  Feel it move through your body! So simple!

Admittedly at that goofball moment on my part, I totally got why Eliana is gonna be way more into downhill skiing.  It's fun.  It moves fast.  You can just let go and fly.  And I even had a few moments like that on the Big Mountain, a few, okay...I kinda get it....it's kinda fun....

But just seeing your little ones trying something that you so love?  It's awesome.  And when it all went to hell because Solomon was a cold and cranky little old man?  Well, dang.  And Jeff's face as he hauled their cranky asses on the sled through the snow after he gave me the time I needed to get in my special solo ski.  Dang again.

So when the hell is it the new year already?  It's only 9:50.  I don't think we'll make it.  But gosh am I glad to be here.  Glad for this time.  This little home.  The smell of my sacred candles.  My friend Pandora.  The really expensive bottle of wine that a parent at the school gave Jeff for doing such a great job running the joint.  This is a good place to be.

Happy new year, my sweet and beautiful friends.  I think its you Melis, you mom.  Jody maybe.  Hollace?  Hilary?  I think those are my loyal fans.  Maybe Jeffy's mama? Kelli?  I am so thankful for this public space for reflection.  I am a stronger, more thoughtful person for taking this time to be with my thoughts.  My journal is all images and fragments, bits and pieces.  Thank you for giving me this space to flow.

And happy birthday, beautiful Brandon.  I've spent lots of time with your voice today.  Your words.  Our memories.  Happy birthday Gang-Gang.  I wish I knew you now.  Would love more insight into my past, my DNA.  Appreciate my propensity to over-accessorize from you.   My love of rich foods.  My delight in abundance. 

And to the living, happy birthday, beautiful sister Erin.  You are such a bright light of all that is good and love.  May I tap into more of that as I move into this new year. 

Here's to the age of the feminine, this time of 2013, this time of new.

Christmas eve

 

It's midday, Christmas eve.  Soli's sleep is wracked with deep, hacking coughs.  Elie's fever burns as she rests in my bed.  This wasn't what we had planned for the day.  We were supposed to play on the rope tow and eat pizza at Snowbowl, maybe head for a family cross-country ski, our visions sunny and perfect, far, far from fevers and coughs and all things ruinous and unpredictable.

But things have been pretty all over the place lately.

I've been pretty scared to even sit down at this computer after the school shooting a week ago.  I know I can't bring an ounce of bow-tied closure or understanding to that one.  It hit me hard.  Like I could barely read a book to my students' without crying that afternoon kinda hard. I have a kindergartener kinda hard.  I've always suffered from extreme anxiety kinda hard, but schools are my sacred place kinda hard.

So I'll take the fever and cough, a simple change of plans, a day folding laundry and celebrating the simple and mundane.  We are all here.  We are all tremendous.  There is so much love.

My daughter fills me to the brim right now.  She's so eager and spritely and creative, even when resting at 102 degrees.  She takes weird, artsy pictures with my phone and then looks at them over and over again.  She loves to draw and is learning to read.  I hear her feet pitter pattering my way, curls wild and akimbo, skin a bit paler than usual, eyes bigger, dark circles, sunken.  Now she's squeezed up next to me on the sofa and I just told her about this blog, how I started it when she was in my belly, how I don't write as much as I used to but how it's still super important to me.

****days later****

Needless to say, I didn't finish that post with the little miss next to me.  What we did do was go back and look at pictures and read tidbits and watch videos of when she was "little."  Because she's so big now.  I was filled with gratitude for this space, this forum for reflection, for memory, for keeping time. 

Christmas was a sweet, simple affair. The kids were still sick and not their best selves.  Jeff woke up early and picked up his dad so Poppy could watch the kids open their stockings and gifts.

 

   The kids loved their books and puzzles, a yukelele and cool ABC train from Gran, candy canes and barrettes and all sorts of random stocking fillers.  

 

Eliana so purely believes in Santa Claus right now.  It's awesome.  When we were at Bobby and Jo's for Xmas eve dinner, he made a brief appearance.  Eliana held her hand over her mouth and stared in shock.  After a few of her older girlfriends went up and told Santa their wants, Eliana gathered courage and went up.  She was the picture of sweet innocence.  And her brother?  Well, he had no reservations whatsoever. 

Interestingly enough though, a few days later, totally out of the blue she said, "Mom, that wasn't the real Santa Claus at JiJi and Solan's house."  When I asked her why she replied, "The real Santa wears red pants.  That Santa's pants were white." True indeed.

I had splendid ideas about cross country skiing or sledding or general nature discovery on Christmas.  With our two little sickies and the amount of time and effort it takes for us all to get out the door, especially when snow sports are involved, well...we weren't out for long.  Soli ripped it on his little skis though and the sun was out, the sky was blue, and, well, it was worth the collective effort. 

 

 

Even if little man passed out hard in the car.  And didn't sleep again that day.  He's so big these days, so insistent on not being "a baby." 

 

Christmas dinner found us hosting some of our MIS colleagues and their little families, an international and motley crew enjoying steak and wine and chatting in Spanish.  I love having people in my little home. 

 Which brings us through the big Navidad.  I felt so glad for the quiet time at home, for Facetime with my mom, for real time with Jeff's dad.  I also felt mildly relieved to wake up on the 26th and know that it was all over.  The build up.  The chaos.  The stuff.  I'm ready for phase two which will find our family up in the mountains, our own little snowy vacay.  Until then, much love, much merry, much gratitude. 

running up that hill

We continue to crest towards the holidays.  I feel myself slow this week at work.  Feel the kiddos rev.  They finished their big show, yet they have two more full weeks until the break.  They want to chat and sing carols and count down the days.  "Only fifteen more days til Christmas, Gillian!"  That sounds so short, yet the days til then exhaust with the all the glitter and sheen that is Christmas.

And this year, Hannukah.  Jeffy seems to be owning his Jewish faith pretty hardcore this year.  I imagine it's because Morty, our favorite local Jew, may be experiencing one of his last.  On the first night of Hannukah, Jeffy was lamenting the fact that we don't own a mennorah.  "I'll just make one," he said with confidence, heading into the garage.  Hmmm.  I thought.  My husband the handy-man.  Sort of.  Not so much.

But then he returned.  Perfect piece of plywood covered in tin foil.  Foil nests to hold candles.  Sticky Tac holding the candles to the board, one a bit higher representing the Shamus.  It's rad.  So Jeffy lit the candles and sang the song, the kids flailing behind all, "Barukah, lalala....".  It was after we cut down and put up our tree.  The house was ablaze of tradition and history, of then and now.

 

 

 

Tonight is the fourth night of Hannukah and I think we're all getting the hang of it.  Eliana declared in the car on the way to visit Poppy tonight, "I LOOOVE being Jewish!  But mommy's not Jewish, right?  Just you, Dada and me and Solomon and PopPop.  But not mommy."

Sigh.  Let the games begin.

Jeffy tried like the devil to find an actual mennorah to bring his dad tonight.  He finally found himself in Target asking some chick named Nature where to find one.  Needless to say, he was sent all over the store.  And they didn't have the proper candles, so he bought birthday.  Rainbow.  And they didn't have gelt, so he bought a chocolate bar.  With some Hebrew wrapping.

PopPop seemed to sort of get it.  He was certainly glad to have us all there.  And he used the word, "Nosh," wish means he was thinking with his Jewish brain.  I loved it.

And I feel so wrapped up in this big, full, life right now.  It feels so fitting that we aren't going anywhere exotic, that we're just hunkering in our little home, the tree full of handmade ornaments, the table a pile of laundry to folk, homework to do, shirts to iron.  My husband took out the iron tonight.  That's how real life we are these days.  He's the BMOC (Big Man On Campus) and he irons.

I'm so, so proud of how hard he's worked these past few months.  Eight more days of being boss and then Julie returns and our lives can have some sense of normalcy again.  He's been awesome, though.  I can't wait to take him out on Friday to celebrate.

We did go out for a bit this past Friday.  And a weird old lady at the Union Club came up to our table with her old camera and said, "I do feet."  I think my white tights and red boots and Jeffy's white, polyester bells caught her eye.  We took off our coats and reveled our whole get-up.  Next thing we knew, we were in the girl's bathroom posing.  Jeff was mortified.  I loved every second of it.

We're figuring out how to rock this thing together.  Our eyes grow wide again and again as we listen to our daughter who seems to never stop talking, moving, singing, putting dreaded curls in her mouth.

 And Big Sol.  Who is so damn articulate and beautiful and greets me each afternoon with big lip kisses.  He's the best kisser ever. Hopefully he won't destroy all the ornaments.

I swear Elie sang Christmas songs for three hours during our tree love fest.  Jeff took a break and Soli slept and Els and I busted Pandora Holiday and talked all things heirloom and tradition.  She loves the word heirloom.  Everything is an heirloom.

When Soli was finally up and Jeffy back, we were ready to hang.  At which point all Soli wanted to do was run his wagon as fast as he could into the sofa and all Jeff wanted to do was get the tree perfectly straight which was a huge task.  Elie and I should have hung without the boys.  Because they are so not sentimental like that.

But we love them so.