Funerals and fires.

   Living across the street from a funeral parlor is a strange and interesting thing. It forces you to contemplate death maybe more often than you normally would. Most of the time it is just a big, old, beautiful gray house on the corner with a very manicured lawn. And then there are times when there are cars lining the street and you know there is a funeral going on. People in black walk in and out and to and from their cars. They stand in small groups outside and talk quietly. Sometimes they laugh, sometimes they smoke. And I always wonder who died. 
   I am never quite sure how to act when there is a funeral. Can I rake my leaves? Is it wrong to have Styrofoam tomb stones on the lawn on Halloween? Can my 6 year old play in the yard and make noise? Should I smile when I walk past a cluster of people dressed in black smoking cigarettes just outside the home? Or should I go the other way around the block and not walk past at all?  Should I unplug my Christmas lights? Is there a funeral parlor neighbor etiquette pamphlet somewhere that I could get a hold of?
   Once I saw a fight break out outside the house. Sometimes there are bagpipes and sometimes gun salutes and men in uniforms.  And my little boy and I are lured outside to watch discretely, standing still, with concerned faces, on our lawn. 
   Today they are holding the funeral for a 19 year old Captain of his volunteer fire department. They have the road closed off, no parking signs have been staked in the ground all day, flood lights, and a fire truck with it's ladder extended, waving a huge American flag outside of the funeral home.There have been a hundred or so firemen in black uniforms standing outside for hours. First in a line, then in some kind of formation, then a crowd, then a line again. Every time I look out the window, they seem to be doing something else. I can't tell if it is the same crowd or a new one. They seem to be arriving in large groups, in buses. Where are they coming from? 
   For a few hours this afternoon and again hours this evening, the line and flow of people going in and out of the funeral home has been long and steady. I wonder if his parents are inside. I wonder if they have to receive all of these people and if this is all comforting to them or just exhausting. 
   I heard he died fighting a fire in a basement when his mask came off and no-one is sure how it happened.  I think his name was Jack Rose. 
   There are electric signs coming in and out of town to expect delays tomorrow because of his service. Every time I see a sign or see the flood lights out the window, I think, nineteen.... only nineteen. 
   I was watching Joseph standing outside tonight next to Desmond, our 6 year old boy and holding Sonny, our 3 month old boy, and thinking about Jack Rose's parents. Losing a child is more than I think I could bear. I feel like I've done my time with grief in this life, losing my mother so young, but I'm sure I will have plenty more grieving to do. Few of us escape loss and grief. How very painful it is. 
   As I walked Desmond up to bed tonight, watching his small, shirtless back and his overgrown blond head of hair, climb the stairs in front of me, I wanted to tell him he was not allowed to become a fireman. Just you know, get a desk job. But I didn't say anything. I just ran my finger over his freckle on his smooth shoulder blade. My little boy. I do hope he grows to be an old man. That he gets to fall in love, maybe to marry and to have his own children if he wants them. To have adventures, to get gray hair and wrinkles. I hope I get to be around for a lot of it. 
   And my little baby boy. My fat, luscious, smiling, drooling, baby boy with his wispy hair and chubby fists. Please grow. Thrive and be well and safe. I am so nervous something will happen to him. Just live, please live. Past nineteen. Oh God, please oh please. 
   I can't think about it.
   But the line outside. The enormous flag waving in the flood lights. Forces me to think. Nineteen. 
   Also, I wonder how many people have the lyrics, "Captain Jack will get you high tonight...." floating through their minds. It drifts into my mind like music in a scary movie. The tune playing tinny like a music box. 
   It's 9:45 and they are just lowering the ladder on their truck. The engine is running and I can hear it from inside. I suppose they will be back tomorrow. We should expect delays. I have no-where to go. I plan on being home with my two boys, safe and sound. And reveling in their company, for all that it's worth. 
  

32 weeks pregnant.

   Not for nothin, but things are really happening over here. A new person is using my body to make it's own. Super sci-fi, super ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. Happens all the time. It's  the second time it's happened to me. I wasn't sure there'd be a second time. The first time left me speechless.
   For some, it's nothing but miraculous and delightful and wonder filled. That's lovely. But it's not so for everyone. I checked. Lots of women have a hard time being pregnant. There's so much going on in your body when someone else's body starts to grow inside of yours. Physical things, hormonal things, emotional and mental things, spiritual things, all the things. Ultimately it is grand, when it's over and you get your baby, your new person to love and to raise. I know this now because like I said, I've done this once before. But before you get to that baby part, there's a whole lot of mysterious, mystical, radical, confounding things happening to you.
   My belly has stretched to hold my new person. Like someone has attached a tire pump to my belly button and has filled me with too much air. My body feels heavy, like I am wearing soaking wet clothes, extra pounds to carry.  When I move, things pull and when I am still, things push. My breath leaves me and I have to stop to catch it, like I have been running after a cab, flailing my arms wildly, stopping to catch my breath, still trying to waive it down. Come back, breath. Even though I have not been running, maybe I just carried a pair of shoes upstairs, or maybe I just walked from the dining room into the kitchen.
   I am itchy. My breasts and belly are itchy, the varicose veins that have sprouted all along the back of my left leg like the trail left by a manic slug, itch and are hot to the touch. They ache and pulse and I place a hand on them to sooth them. I have a compression stocking to wear too, when I have enough breath and flexibility to put it on. I have two small spots of poison ivy that I shouldn't scratch, not pregnancy related, but there they are. I should not mention the hemorrhoids.
   I cannot see what is below my waist. I cannot reach the kitchen faucet unless I turn sideways and stretch over. I cannot lean close to the bathroom mirror to see my face, I can only look from a distance. I cannot sit on the floor for long, or bend over easily. Getting dressed is difficult, balancing and getting my feet into my shorts, so uncomfortable to stand this way. My hips ache and my back is unhappy with me.
   When I sit, I feel a great upward and downward pressure, compacting what, I don't know. When I lie down, there is pulling and then there is movement from inside, adjusting, shuddering, rolling, pushing with hands and feet, head and rump. Sometimes I gasp and have to push back, afraid something will break free, will tear, will fall apart if I don't hold down the rising tide of baby that swells so suddenly.
    I am tired, slowed down to meander through my days, stopping to sit, stopping to breathe, stopping to close my eyes, stopping to look for a moment at something I can't do that I'd like to.
    I am self conscious. When I go out to run errands, cashiers ask me when I am due. They think I am due in a couple of weeks, but I am due in a couple of months. Their eyes grow wide and they say, "You must be having twins!" This adds to my anxiety, wondering how much bigger and uncomfortable I will become, how much less I will be able to do, how much more difficult it will become to navigate my body around my days and nights. And I feel shamed. I am "too big", my  belly is "too fat" for how pregnant I am. And it is so obvious and it is so shameful, that it is acceptable for a stranger to tell me they think so.
    And I am lucky. Of course I am. I am blessed. This is my second baby. I am 40 years old. I needed no fertility treatments, no shots, no drugs, no big expense. It took only a few months of trying, not even feeling 100% sure that I should have another baby, to do it all again, for me to get pregnant.
   Some women want desperately to get pregnant and can't. Some women get pregnant and don't want to be. And some try even though they are not exactly sure they want to be and then they are. Along with so many other jumping off places in between. There is no perfect formula or moment or way to get pregnant. It happens. Or it doesn't.
   I am grateful. I am amazed. I am in awe. I am excited. I am pregnant. I already love the little boy that is growing inside of me. More than I had the first time I was pregnant, I understand who this baby will be to me. Even though I haven't met him yet, now I know how it feels to care for a baby, to watch him grow, see him smile and laugh, crawl, walk, talk, and turn into the little alien full of questions about Earth, guiding him through everything, loving him, and him loving me back.
   All of the good, the very, very big goodness of it, the miraculous being, growing, becoming, bringing forth into the worldness of it, does not make it simple. Or easy. Or comfortable. And for me, that is real. That is my experience. This is wonderful and it is uncomfortable. One does not negate the other. Both things exist.
   The discomfort and the great and demanding physical changing that leaves me feeling awkward in the way I move around, the way I feel about myself, the way people react to me, is a lonely thing. A baby adds to a family, to a community, to the world. This baby is my husband's son, my son's brother. He'll be a grandson and a nephew and loved by lots of people. But the experience of carrying him as he grows and becomes able to enter the world, is mine. If something happens to him and he does not make it, he would still be mine to birth. He is every one's baby but this part of his life, is so entwined with mine, he and I journey along together. He is silent and invisible. I am more visible than ever.
   I wish I had pregnant friends. Remembering pregnancy is quite different than being pregnant. Every pregnancy is different. This pregnancy is different from my first. Although my memories of being pregnant are fuzzy now. I remember being surprised by how much work it was, physically. How demanding it felt and how it sort of took over. If I had pregnant friends, we could talk easily about how it feels, all of the truth of it, without the guilt or worry. I stay up late reading pregnancy forums to make sure I am not crazy. To read what other women have written about the same symptoms I have. The same frustrations and fears. Every time I go out and someone comments on me being too big, I come home and do a Google image search of whatever number of weeks pregnant I am, to be sure I am not a freak of nature. I think I look the right size, but it is hard for me to know what I look like.
   With the heaviness of the extra physical weight I am carrying, I have been carrying an emotional weight lately. Feeling uncomfortable and wanting to talk about it and being met with criticism, is painful.
   I am just a human. I am having a human experience, a pretty common one at that. I am not perfect. I am not trying to be. I am certainly not looking to offend anyone by talking about my discomfort. Admitting to being uncomfortable while pregnant does not mean I am not also grateful.
   I think, when we are in pain, it is helpful to share it with the people in our lives who care about us and to feel supported. Empathy is a beautiful thing. Being real and vulnerable has brought me a lot of strength and healing in my life. The quieter I am with my sorrows, the bigger they become.
   I am scared. I am scared that I will get too big to leave the house. I am scared that I will get too big to get out of bed at night to pee. I am scared that I will be in increasing amounts of pain for the next 8 weeks.  I want to spin a cocoon and hide until the baby is born. Come back out when I can move again. When I can reach my toes and run around the block.
   And  I am sad. I am sad that I am being critiqued and judged while I am struggling.
   Maybe this is a pathetic post. Let us keep in mind, I am full of extra hormones, and that my brain is not working as well as it does when I am singular in my body and also there does not seem to be enough oxygen in my blood.
   I'll cast this out there. Because maybe, someone reading this is pregnant and uncomfortable. Or maybe you have a friend who is. And if you do have a friend who is, might I recommend you tell your friend that they look wonderful, that they are doing a great job, that it IS a lot of work and ask them how they feel and listen to what they have to say and have empathy for them. And maybe buy them some organic fruit.

Buckle up.

   I am like a kangaroo sloth. Hiding a tiny baby marsupial the size of an olive. Moving so slowly. Like I am covered in heavy, wet, draped wool. I can't catch my breath, even though I have barely moved. Everything is still. In some other dimension, another me is running up a hill, all day. And I feel her energy slipping constantly, I have to sit down, I am winded. Then she is dancing with a partner I can't see. It takes my breath away, I am dizzy, I am queasy, the dance must be too fast. And all I can do is lie down and close my eyes. Or read someone else's story, to distract me from the dancing. She and I are linked together with spider web thin, invisible strings, bridging our lives. She is wildly moving, determined and powerful. While I am linked to her, my body does not belong to me. It belongs to something else. It's slipped into the big pool. The collective. The everything.  It will live there for a while. Until this tiny body growing inside of mine has gotten all it needs from me. Then this new person and I will give each other a little bow and the tags come off. Then my body will be exclusively mine again and I can wrap my bat wings tightly around myself and exhale deeply. Mine, mine, mine. And hang upside down just for a few minutes.
   For now, I am strapped into a ride. The things I feel have little to do with what I am doing. The mystery is whole and complete. The ride has begun. I cannot get off mid-ride. I will have to wait, for a long while. I do not know what is in store.
   At first I panicked. I fumbled at the seat belt, wondering how it had gotten fastened so tight, so quickly. I had been standing in line for so long, not quite sure I wanted to go on the ride at all. Suddenly, there I was and I could feel the car jerk forward and start to move slowly on it's track, click, click, click. This is it. I am on. I am not getting off. Maybe I can still do what I was doing before I got on this ride. I can try. I tried. I couldn't. I settled into the ride. My elbow found a spot to rest on the side of the car, my face rested in my hand, I looked around. Not much to see.
   The ride is jerky and slow. So slow. You would think it was just me on the ride. A one woman car. But it is not. It is me and the whole world. It is me with everything. It is me in the everything. My me-ness is insignificant. I belong to something else. The ride has taken me. Whisked me away, snatched me up, grabbed me with a hook from the side of the stage and pulled me off scene. Then plopped me into the slow car. The sloth mobile of sharing. To ride and ride.
   When it is done... let us not think of the end of the ride. Out beyond the end, there is a chance, there is the possibility of amazing and happy things. Someone waits for me there. Someone who has been waiting a long while for their own ride to begin. A ride they desperately wanted to get on. THE ride. The one we all wanted to get on.  One I would not trade for anything. One I wish would go on forever.
   I guess, to give someone that chance, is worth whatever I have to do to get them there. To get them here. To bring that wishing, wanting, someone home. Where they want to be. And when they get here, I will be glad. And I will say, "Put your arms up when we go down the big hills. It's more fun that way."

Winter's nose.

   Winter's so nosy. Sticking it's nose into every last thing. It slips in your doors without asking, peeks through your windows, finds the smallest seam, and welcomes itself into your room. It wants to see what you smell like, what your toes are up to.
   Look out the window, all you see is Winter. Even the wooden fence looks cold. Every little thing braces itself, contracted and still, tolerating Winter's scrutiny.
   Oblivious to the wake it leaves where it wanders. Someone at a party who is talking too loud, tossing inappropriate stories around the room, like little ice grenades. The rest of us glance at each other and shiver through our layers of silk, wool, fleece and fur.
   We become like animals hiding in our dens, waiting. Stretching out a pale, bare hand to see, how cold it is. It is still very cold. We tuck our hands back under the blankets, pull them up to our chins, burrow deeper in. What month is this? What month comes next? The next month is cold too. Surely, not as cold as this one. I think this is the coldest. Then what month follows... Oh it could be spring. Maybe Spring will come when it used to, at Easter. I will eat the forsythia when it blooms. In hopes that the soft yellow bloom will replenish something I lost. Something Winter borrowed without asking, took for itself, used up and left somewhere else. I don't know exactly what it is but I can feel it's absence. I check my pockets, pat myself down, pat the table, it was here a minute ago. Distracted by the cold fingers running through my hair. I swat them away. What was I looking for? Maybe a hat. Where is my hat? I turn the thermostat up two degrees.
   My radiators keep up a steady, sweaty river dance in the corners. Tapping, clanking, hissing and snapping. A little hot rivulet of water runs up and out through a steaming metal anchor in the floor.  It puddles on the floor. Surprised by it's warmth as I wipe it up with a towel. Like blood from a fresh wound. You cannot fight winter, stay in the pipes where you belong. It will be over, eventually. We just have to wait. Move your attention to the sunlight. Look. Look here. 
   The sun is like a mother's hand, smoothing your brow. You're okay, she says. She smiles. I am here. It's only winter. I can still hear some birds song, can you? She pokes her fingers through the crystals in the window and rainbows scatter around the room.
  Inside, color reigns. Flowers stand tall on the table. Brightly patterned fabric, pillowed couch, blankets, piles of toys. We'll wait it out. Classical music plays, a sweet smell of banana pancakes hangs in the air for a few moments longer. We wade through the cold air on the floor. Where are my slippers? What else can we cook? We can leave the oven on and huddle in front of it. What's for lunch, Winter asks? I don't remember inviting you, Winter. Why don't you go into town and pick something up? We'll wait here.
  

Tidying

   I have been reading a book called The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing by Marie Kondo.  I saw it on a table at Barnes and Noble and felt like I needed it. It is a very easy, uncluttered sort of a read. Very simple, very organized, a nice sized book that feels good in my hands.
   My home is not super cluttered. I don't think I'm a hoarder or anything like that. But, I know I have too much stuff. I have room for the stuff, which is part of the problem. Sort of. I have a small attic space and I have a pretty big unfinished basement that is sort of like the Hades of the house. Things get thrown down there and they pile up, they spill over, they spread out, they get dusty and then moldy. Those are mostly things we "might need". Sort of. I don't think I actually need any of this stuff. Besides the roof and walls and all those good basic things. So much of what I have is extra. So much of it is over-abundance. I am not complaining. But I am feeling a need to let some of it go.
   It is strange that part of what comes with the over-abundance is the guilt. I have so much, some people have so little, I have a hard time throwing anything away. I donate lots of things. Constantly. I fill bags with stuff and then I put them in my car. I wait until it's night time and I drive by the little town thrift stores in town and leave them outside the door. Afraid if I ask them to take my things they'll say no. I hand off my guilt to them. If they throw anything out, they are the ones who have to sleep at night knowing they added to the mountain at the dump. The dump. I've never been but I want to go. The dump in my mind is an enormous pile of wasted things that greedy thoughtless people have thrown away. Along with some normal waste. But mostly needless waste. I hate wasting things.
   I have moved a bunch of times and a bunch of times, I have moved things that I thought I might need, or might do something with. Old wooden frames I inherited from an artist who owned that house in Woodstock before I did. A big old drum my grandfather bought at a yard sale and gave to me. So many tools, left behind by handymen and carpenters like bread crusts and apple cores. I collected them and put them in a drawer. So many nails and screws and hooks. So many houses, so many renovations. Thinking when I am done renovating my house, I will give all that stuff away. But that day never comes.
   I grew up in a big house with my mother. When she died, I inherited all of her things and our families things. A lot of it, I was able to part with and a lot of it, I kept. When I moved from my mother's house, I moved so much. Towards the end of the move, I decided to leave a set of metal shelves in the basement and the movers actually cheered.
   Some of the things I let go of, I regretted. I think when you're young and you lose someone you love and it is the first time you've ever lost anyone like that, you don't know what you will miss and what you won't. My favorite things I kept of my  mother's are the mundane things. Her glasses in her glasses case, her wallet, a rolled up trident wrapper I found in her pocket.
   Today, on a wave of tidying that I have begun in my house, I started to sort through my studio. So many art supplies....  sewing, all kinds of painting, oil, acrylic, watercolor, egg tempera, tempera, water based oils, enamels, collage, rug hooking, knitting, crocheting, needle felting, drawing supplies like craypas, pastels, colored pencils, markers, all kinds, erasers, sharpeners, scissors, thread, fabric, yarn, hole punchers and on and on....
   In the bottom of an old tin of sewing notions, like zippers and snaps, buckles and fusion tape, I found a Chapstick. I knew right away that it was my mother's and knew that I had saved it because it was hers. I opened the cap and smelled it. It was strawberry and still smelled like a strawberry scented lip balm. A thin, white tubed Chapstick, with SPF 15 and it was used up to the bottom. Pink and small inside.
   Now, this book I'm reading, it talks a lot about letting go of the past.
   This part of the book is shifting something inside of me. Something that feels really uncomfortable and crumbly.  Something old and dry. Like a dried brittle bouquet.
   The book talks about holding each item you own and seeing how you feel. If it gives you pleasure and joy, you can keep it. If it doesn't, you should discard it. I had thought when I started to read this book, that all of the things I own, I love. That I kept these things because I do love them and care about them and it feels good to have them because they mean something to me.
   She talks about throwing out old letters and old photos! And I keep thinking about all of the letters I have in my attic. Somehow I ended up with all of these notebooks that I passed back and forth with friends in high school. Why do I still have them? I think to me, these things are like little portals to another time in my life. I don't know why I have an impulse to hold onto times in my life that are gone. To hold onto who I was then. There's no other way to go back there. I miss those times. I do. I feel like I have had a lot of loss and the only thing I have left of those people I lost are actual things. Maybe holding onto those things doesn't make me any closer to that time. I am not sure.
   I have noticed that when I think about the things that I am keeping because "I can't just get rid of them" because they have some sentimental value, it is not with joy. It is with some heart ache. And maybe, just maybe, if I let go of those things, I will let go of some of that heart ache. Terrifying really. It is pretty risky. I am not sure. But I am working on being willing and seeing how that feels.
   I held my mother's 19 year old lip balm in my hands and I  knew she had held it. She had bought it, she had carried it around in her pocketbook or had it by her bed or in her pocket. She applied it to her lips and her lips smelled like strawberries. It was hers. And sadly, that is the closest I get to going back in time, to being near her.
   And I threw it away. I thought, well, it's just 19 year old lip balm. It doesn't actually bring me closer to my mom. I did not even remember that I had it, I will not miss it. I have other things of hers that are better than old lip balm. It's okay to throw it out.
   That was six hours ago. For a few hours I have been thinking about that lip balm and wishing I had kept it. How could I just throw that out? Isn't it something? Isn't it still better than nothing? I felt pangs of regret. I mulled it over. Already in the garbage. I'm not going through the garbage to get a 19 year old lip balm. I won't.
   And just now I remembered the garbage bag I put it in was actually right here. And the only other thing in it was some old sweater sleeves. Yes, old sweater sleeves. Just the sleeves. So I took the lip balm out. And now it is on my desk. I thought if I had saved it, I would have put it with her old wallet and that would be okay. To have a little collection all together of her things. That would feel alright for now. But now, with it back in my hands, my heart feels heavy.
   I guess one will be more painful than the other, the burden of keeping these things verses the letting them go. I am not sure which is worse. I think about what it would feel like to have none of these things. Would I feel freed or would I feel more lost? These objects are like little anchors. If I let them all go, I will float off and maybe that will be for the best. Maybe it will set me free to go to new places and move forward. Maybe being anchored is not the best thing. Or maybe I will be like an astronaut untethered in out space forever. With no lip balm.
   I suppose, my current life is full of it's own anchors and foot holds. If I were a friend of mine, I would say, "Let it all go! You'll be free! Who knows how these things hold you back and the only way to find out is to let them go. Be fearless."
   You be fearless. I'm keeping my dead mother's old lip balm another day.
   But still, everything in my house looks different to me now.  I am aware of how uncomfortable these things feel when I think about them or see them. Maybe it is just a matter of time before I am really sure that discarding these things is fine and feels just right. I count this new view I have of my belongings as huge progress. Quite astonishing to me, actually.
   It is one thing to have your own history but to carry your parents and grandparents history is a lot. It just is. Do you know, I have my grandmother's journals AND my mother's journals AND my journals? And I have thought, how great is that? I should DO something with these journals. Edit and combine them. Match up the days and have all three entries together, at the same age or the same date. Make it a novel. They are all sitting in boxes. How do you get rid of something like that? I don't know. That's why I haven't. Doesn't seem right.
   Do you know what else? I have my mother's brass bed frame. A bed frame that my parents bought when they were married and young at a place in Long Island. I think it was in Valley Stream. A place that you could sit and have tea and also buy antiques. If I thought about it long enough, I am sure I would come up with the name of the place. Tiffinannie's. That didn't take long.
   Full sized bed, which explains the divorce if you ask me. I could never sleep in a bed smaller than a King with anyone. I was conceived in this bed and also, my mother died in this bed. So I have it. Where is it? The only place it would fit where it wouldn't get ruined; lying flat, under my own king sized bed.  I have thought if I get rid of it, I would regret it. And I just might. But, I have just started to think, maybe it is time. I do  not feel joy when I think of that bed, under my own bed. I would like to have empty space under my bed. Maybe it is time.
   I have so many letters from old boyfriends. I was so loved. So nice. Maybe I will mail them all back to my old boyfriends. So they can remember how much they loved me. In case they forgot.
   It is time to let some of those sandbags go. Maybe a little at a time is fine. I do want to feel lighter. I don't want anything I don't love. I am finding the whole process sort of fascinating. I am impressed, surprised, confused, excited and scared.
   I am so curious to see how it will unfold. And what will be left behind.