Pokemon

   Just the words “Cancer Center” in big letters stuck to the side of the brick building made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Why so big? They should whisper things like that, not shout them so loudly at people. We know, keep it down, we’re  all trying to keep our cool. Relax. I don’t know why I go to these things alone. That’s not true, I do know. I don’t want to ask anyone to come with me, “I shan't bother nary a soul” is my moniker. It does not serve me well. But there I was and in I went, clutching my bag with my wallet, phone and book, holding my coat closed tight around me. Frightened and annoyed by the unknown and the suggestion at the possibility that things in my body have gone wrong. Reluctantly following instructions to have this and that test done.
    Nothing is clearly marked, I go in the wrong office and am directed to the elevator that will lift me one floor and set me out into another office, like a slow bundled pinball.  At the window I dutifully say my name and that I am supposed to have an ultrasound of both breasts. The woman types on her keyboard and asks if I have my script. “Oh, I’m am sorry, I do not.” Of course I do not. I am lucky I am there at all and on time. I didn’t know I needed my script. Don’t all the doctors know each other? She asks if she can call my Dr. to get it. I say yes, of course and I am instructed to sit down and wait. I sit. There are two other women sitting together, we look at each other and then look away. I wonder if they are sick, which one is sick and if they think I am sick. I want to say, “I am not sick. I am just checking to be sure. I forgot my script….”
    The receptionist comes out of her box and informs me that my primary Dr. has not written a script for any ultrasounds. “Oh no,” I say, “It was from my OBG, I’m sorry. Can you call her?” She gives me a very tight lipped smile, sighs and turns quickly away. It is enough to make something snap in me. Just a small twig but that little twig was holding back a rush of panic, fear and grief. I don’t know these offices but I remember different Dr.s offices like this one when my mom was sick. She was the woman in the waiting room with a diagnosis, I was the young woman beside her. We were the two that sat quietly waiting, gentle with each other and cocooned in a protective haze of love and worry. I start to cry. I gather my coat and bag and walk to the bathroom, not daring to look at the women sitting side by side. Now they surely think I am very sick. I am not sick. I am not dying. I am not. You are.
    I stand in the bathroom and sob. I should have brought someone, I am embarrassing myself. I hope the receptionist has to wait for me, I hope she is confused and I hope she gets diarrhea. I turn on the faucets so no-one can hear me cry. I am afraid I will upset the other two waiting. Who may actually have something to cry about. I pull out my phone and text my husband. “The receptionist is so mean. She made me cry.” “Wtf?! Who is she?? I’m going to say something.” “I don’t know, she has short black hair. Forget it.” He assures me everything is okay. Back and forth we toss words at each other from miles away, with no sound. The faucet runs and I cry. I turn off my phone then turn it back on and look at it. I open my 10 year old’s Pokemon app. He loves this game and I’ve never played it but listen to him talk about it endlessly. He asks to play it wherever we go and sometimes I give in. On this little magic screen, I can now see standing in front of me in the bathroom is a big, round purple creature. He looks pissed. He is snorting like a bull and kicking at the dirt. I throw a poke ball at him and miss. I throw a couple more. Rolling and then releasing them, aiming for his purple belly. One finally catches him up inside then shakes and trembles and he pops out again. I stand there looking at this bull creature that I cannot catch. He snorts at me, madder than before. I have no more poke balls. How strange this life is, when I am alone and get tumbled around and then right myself by entering my son’s world where I can suddenly see the angry beast in the room where before it seemed to be just me. I had felt it and now I can see it. I shut the phone down and it is black and void again and slip it into my bag. I go back outside to wait for the receptionist to tell me and my pink splotchy, red eyed face what to do next.
    I do what she says stone faced and angry and then I am on my way. I go buy myself lunch at the health food store and treat myself to a green juice at the juice bar. A large. At Home Goods I walk around touching everything soft. I find a blanket that looks like furry whipped cotton balls, the color of a sunset right where the pink touches the blue. It is as soft and gentle as it can be. It doesn’t push back at all, it just sinks where I touch it. I buy it and bring it home. When I walk through the door my 10 year old’s jaw drops. “Who’s that for?” He asks. “It’s for me,” I say. “It’s a crying blanket. And you can use it any time you need to cry.” I told him about the purple beast in the bathroom at the Dr.s office and his eyes grow huge. He puts his hands out with his fingers spread wide and asks to see my phone. He says “It’s SO rare! I can’t believe you saw one!” And he does  not care that I didn’t catch it or that I used  up all his poke balls. He is just happy to hear about it and we look at the Pokemon app together to confirm which Pokemon it was. I am glad to be home safe and sound with no beasts in our house, and no mean receptionists.  I throw my cloud blanket in the wash and resume my busy life at home that keeps me afloat and aloft with it’s breezes and gusts of love and laundry.

Eating traditions.

 
   Christmas Eve my mother made the same lasagna every year. She would start the meat sauce in the morning and it would simmer on the stove all day, filling the house with it's aroma, warmth and promise of a delicious meal to come. Every time I make her lasagna, I think of her moving around our kitchen with care on a cold winter's day.
   On Christmas morning she made french toast and served it on a mismatched set of Christmas plates. Some of the plates were her grandmothers and some were hers from when she was little. On Christmas morning, I make french toast the way she taught me, with plenty of milk to make it moist, cinnamon and vanilla, and serve it on the same dishes. Placing the old Rudolf plate that my sister and I loved, in front of my little boy.
   For Christmas parties she made a lemon poppy seed cake and an upside down pineapple cake. I have not made them many times but I do think of them come Christmas and remember the taste of that sweet lemon filling layered with the speckled yellow lemon cake and the tiny soft crunch of the black poppy seeds. I would like to make this one again. Maybe this year.
   On Easter morning there was always an Easter basket outside my bedroom door when I woke. Little trinkets circling a chocolate bunny in the center. When I had grown old enough, I would leave her a basket outside her door too. And when she was gone, I would exchange baskets with boyfriends. Even my Jewish ones. Now I have two little boys to make Easter baskets for and I let my husband off the hook. We don't exchange baskets anymore.
   Thanksgivings at her brother's house, my Aunt would place one foil wrapped chocolate turkey on each plate. I thought they were so pretty and such a special thing. A dessert before dinner. Amazing. Any time I have made a Thanksgiving dinner at home, I have searched to find foil covered chocolate turkeys to put on each plate. I wonder if my mom brought a specific thing for Thanksgiving every year. If she did, I was not aware or can't remember now.
   My favorite baking traditions were for my birthday. Every year she made me a pink lemonade ice cream cake and moon cookies. The cake had a pale pink, frozen, lemonade whipped frosting, yellow cake and layer of pink lemonade ice cream in the center. Even when I went off to college, she made this cake and put in a cooler packed with ice and drove it from Long Island into the city to my dorm. I think she may have been a little superstitious about it.
   The moon cookies were crescent moon sugar cookies. When I was in elementary school, she would make vanilla cupcakes and dye vanilla frosting a light blue. Each cupcake would have a moon cookie and those pastel flower, almost star shaped sprinkles. When I was born I had a big round face and she said, "Ohhhh, you look like the moon...." and I looked back at her and made a little O with my mouth. And so she called me moon.
   I have made the cake a few times. I think I had made the cookies and then for a long time I could not as I had lost the recipe. Until an old and dear friend told me she had saved it for me just in case. And so I made them again. And there they were, like an old friend themselves, so happy to be reacquainted. This year another old and dear friend held out my mother's moon cookie cutter and said, "Is this yours?" I recognized it right away. I must have given it to her to hold or for some other reason. I can't remember. But had forgotten. I was so glad to see it.
   My birthday is in a few days. I am going to make the cake and maybe even some cookies. I have already made a home made organic lemonade concentrate. Imagine?
   I have been a little off kilter lately. In need of parenting. Wishing for supportive words, encouragement, guidance, a true and loyal fan. I find ways to parent myself. To take good care. I try to celebrate and encourage myself. And I find that keeping a tradition like baking a well loved and remembered cake on a birthday or preparing a meal from an old stained and familiar recipe card in my mom's handwriting is a peaceful respite.
   I was lying in bed this morning thinking about baking this cake and making the time and why it was important. How keeping traditions is like a bird flying a great distance and each repeated tradition is like the bird alighting in a tree to rest for a moment. Or a needle and thread moving into and out of fabric, keeping even stitches to hold a seam or create a pretty, even boarder. Each time we repeat a tradition, the needle touches the fabric and sends it's string through to hold time in place, to mark the days in an even pattern.
  I am the keeper of traditions in our house now. I guess most mothers are. Maybe because we feel the passage of time so deeply, watching our children grow and change before our eyes. Wanting to remind them to alight on this tree for a minute. Rest. Celebrate this life we have together. Acknowledge each other and the love we share every day through our comings and goings, moving from one thing to the next, day by day. Here. Here we are. It is a special day again. The earth has moved around the sun and we barely noticed. It says so right here on the calendar. This day has a flavor and a taste and color. And like little magnets, this cake, this dish, binds us with the day with pleasure, reminding us of all the days like it that came before.
  

Home Town Memorial

   Yesterday I went to a memorial service in my home town. The town on Long Island where I grew up and made my first friends. A place I miss and a place that feels like a dream when I return, parts of it so familiar and parts of it transformed and new, thinner in places and lusher in others. 

   Yesterday, I returned to be with one of my first friends. To stand watch like a knight on a chess board, to protect the air around her and see, hear and feel the day at her side. We were there for her mother's memorial.

   It felt important to be solid. I felt like I was willing my cells to hold tighter to each other, not to let any space move between them. Hold still and hold fast, do not melt, do not flit, or dissipate. Do not weep.

   Her family was so beautiful, wild and funny, and linked like golden chain. Each of them a gold loop bound to the other that wound around the room. Her mother's childhood friends were like a witches coven that sat in a tight circle of twelve after the service, their knees touching, taking notes, backs straight, listening to each other talk. They looked like they were planning a revolution, probably having more to do with literature and gardening.

   My mother died in the same town. In her own home. From cancer too. It was a long time ago. When she died, I drifted out into my life, my line cut, grasping at branches, searching for a path in a wood that seemed too overgrown and not the one I was prepared for. And I find myself now in what feels like a place very far from home. Like I have fallen through a portal into another time and space. But sometimes, the portal opens back up and I can step gently through for a little while and see where I came from and sometimes I am even met by friends who knew me then. Friends who knew me and somehow, magically, still do. Time travelers,  dream walkers, all of them.

   I have gone back to my childhood home, where I lived with my mother. It belongs to someone else now and everything in it has changed. The walls have moved. The colors, the light, the smells, the trees, all different. It seems smaller. And ruined. I cannot go home, after all. That home is gone.

   I stayed with my friend at the memorial and I waited. Wanting to be there as long as she needed me, as long as she'd let me be there to hold the space around her. Just to wait. To be and to wait. To be ready for anything or nothing. Whatever she needed.

   When most everyone had gone home, some of us went back with her to her childhood home, still her Father's place. The same one I had spent so much time in as a little girl and a young woman. It was as I remembered it. It was as I remembered it.... It is still there. Like a capsule, also like a dream, the same and different at the same time. It's an incredible thing to me.

   Her father walked past me with purpose, through the house, asking loudly, "What does everyone want?" We could have all been children at a sleepover. We had been a minute ago. And there stood my friend's younger sister with a menu from Gino's. The same place they ordered from when we were kids. 

  Her younger brother and sister are adults now but I could still see the little kids they were. Like looking at small children in adult costumes. Age progression holograms.

   We stood around the table, I beside my good and dear friend, listening to her talk. Pulling daisies out of a vase, splitting the stems, turning my fingernails green and lacing flower after flower together. I placed a daisy crown on her head. My beautiful friend, with her joy in place, her heart full and tender, sipping white wine, debating with her sister at her side, who was the favored child. The wine buoying her like a float in a pool. Glad she did not have to tread water, let her float. And I rest my arms on the side of her float and look up at her, my legs moving through the water. She tells me about me, like she's gazing into a crystal ball, finding me there.  She is love and she has always been there and vows to always be. I am lifted.

    She is so smart. She is strong and confident. She is whole and capable. And she loves me anyway. Before I go, she tells me, with tears in her eyes, how proud my mother would be of me. And it is all I can do to hold my cells together at all. Not to fall through the floor into the basement and disperse, soaked up by concrete, fizzling into it's pores. We sit on her mother's white couch, in her mother's beautiful living room, surrounded by books and her mother's beautiful things. Our Mother's daughters. Both of us now mothers of our own sons. Looking into each other's eyes, holding hands. I came to take care of her and she took care of me right back.

   There are few things as magical and valuable as old friends. People who can look at you and see you as you are and at the same time, see you as you were. All of the you in between.

   Mothers are this way. They see you wholly. And when that sight is gone, you can find it in an old friend's eyes and return it with a full heart. It is a treasure to hold onto. For as long as you can.

   When I left, she walked me to the door and leaned out into the night. I walked down her parent's front walk in the dark. "You're a good one," she called out to me. "So are you," I answered. And we are. We are good and our mother's would be proud.

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.
 

My dog.

   I am sitting on my kitchen floor, on Spidey's hang out. Spidey is my old dog and his hang out is two 3' x 5' rugs pushed together and covered with a sheet with his dog bed that's wrapped in a contractor bag and duct tape, with a zipper furry cover, a water proof crib mattress cover and a towel on top. A dog equivalent to the hospital bed in your living room for your elderly family member.
   Wheaten's are supposed to live to be about 12 or 13, so his 14 years is a long time. This year he got suddenly old, slow and messy.
   An hour from now, a vet is coming to the house to euthanize him. Joseph and I will be with him and he'll be in his home, on his bed. When we pick our five year old son up from kindergarten, we'll walk him home and then tell him that our old dog has died. We've talked about it a lot. I've tried to prepare him for the day I knew was getting closer.  He talks about how sad he'll be. I talk about how Spidey will be free of his body and his spirit will be like a puppy again and he will be so happy.
   I have been telling Spidey we are going to free him of his body. I have been asking my mom to meet him on the other side and my grandmother too. I'm imagining them walking up to Spidey and welcoming him with hugs, rubbing his ears, saying hello. Showing him how he can still see us even though we can't see him.
   I wonder if I will hear his ghost feet walking in the house at night.
   I wonder if our little boy will be okay with it all. We'll have Spidey in the house until Desmond is home from school. Joseph has dug a hole in the yard. We'll bury him all together, the three of us. I have a pink sheet picked out to wrap him in and I think I will write some love notes to Spidey on the sheet with marker. We have candles lit. We have flowers. I am terrified.
   I am scared I am making the wrong decision. I hate that he is still alive and that I am making a decision to end his life.
   He can still get around, although he is very wobbly on his feet and if he falls in the right way on the hard floors, he can't get himself up because he slips. He ends up like a fish out of water, flopping around until someone comes to pick him up. He can barely see. He walks into walls and doors and doesn't always see what's happening. He can hardly hear anything, he doesn't react when I walk into a room or when I call his name.  He can't find things with his nose very well anymore. But he still likes food. And he loves to be pet and hugged and kissed. He has lost control over his bowels and for what seems like the better part of the last year we have been cleaning and cleaning and cleaning up after him, daily, now several times a day. I always said I was okay until he started peeing all over the place, which has begun now too.
   I don't know. He is old, he is wobbly, is he in pain? Probably. He is skin and bones. And fur. His skin allergies are bad, he is scabby and probably itchy. That used to happen in the summer time but it's still happening now. He has chronic eye infections and one ear that is prone to infection as well. Some days he has a sty on his eye that bleeds. Some days, the growth on his lip bleeds.
   But he is always happy to see us. Always looking for his food. Always grateful for attention. He has been a super sweet, over sized lap dog.
   I feel guilty for not having been a better dog parent. I should have walked him more. Taken him more places. We used to take him on hikes and swimming. Then we had Desmond. It was so hard for me to walk the two of them together, I didn't do it enough. I think Spidey had 9 decent years and then 5 years just hanging out. Tolerating Desmond's rough attempts at play or torture.
   Spidey drives me crazy. He has a way of blocking my path as you move through the house. Getting in step with me and then stepping right in front of me and stopping so I almost fall over him. He has peed and pooped on everything this past year. He didn't like other dogs after he had a fight with a dog at a friend's house. The dog was a black Portuguese water dog. For a while, Spidey was aggressive towards black dogs and was pretty racist, than it was all dogs. He is the kind of dog that would not run away but he might wander off if you're not watching. He loves kids, he loves all people. He barks like crazy at the mailman though, even though they always give him cookies, or maybe because they do. He loves a ride in the car and sticking his head out the window to feel the wind. He used to know peoples names. We used to go to Long Island together to visit our friends a lot and I would say, "Where's Maureen?!" and he would look at Maureen and jump up and put his paws in her lap and kiss her. He new a lot of names.
   He was born on August 19th of 2000 and I bought him for myself as a birthday gift when I turned 26. I found him a few days before but waited to pick him up on my birthday, Nov 19. He was 3 months old and was a brown and black bear cub. So cottony soft and fluffy and for a few days he seemed sad. But he warmed up to living with me in Long Beach, Long Island and we would go for walks on the beach, even in the snow. When I gave him his first hair cut, all of the baby brown fur cut away to a creamy white fur and he was a new dog! I put a red bandanna on him. He was so handsome.
   I thought, when I got him, I was going to take him cross country with me in an RV. But I chickened out and moved to the Hudson Valley instead and here we still are.
   This is hard. This is so hard. This is much harder than I thought it would be. It's been so difficult to care for him this year and after I had Desmond he really went from being more like a person in my mind to being more like a dog. I thought this would be easier. But it is just terribly sad.
   I had a pug that I got when I was 12. I had him put down when I was 24. I lived alone, he was my dog, I made the decision and I took him to the vet by myself and it was not horrible. It was sad but it was okay. This feels much harder. I think it's because there are more people involved. Joseph and Desmond. Joseph loves this dog as much as I do and Desmond hasn't known life without him, even though I don't know how much he has added to his life other than being a constant furry presence. One that made Desmond whine and cry if his breath or his farts were too stinky or if he was in the way of his games or sitting on his toys. We had to keep Spidey away from Desmond when he was a newborn and Desmond away from Spidey because he was too old for rough-housing. They have co-existed and tolerated each other but still, Desmond loves Spidey. And I think, Desmond worries about death. He knows my mother died and that it is sad for me. My uncle just died this Fall. Another woman he knew died this past year. I think he worries about me dying. He is always asking me if I'm young. Reassuring himself that I am not old and dying. Not yet. I tell him I am young. I think I am. I hope I live to be very old.
   The vet is coming soon.
   After she puts the dog down, he will be here with us until school is out. What will we do with him? Keep him in the kitchen? Wrap him in a blanket and put him outside? What will I do with myself? How do you wait for your kid to come home from school so that you can tell him our dog has died and now it is time to bury him? How will we bury him? What will it feel like? What will it feel like tomorrow? What will it feel like this summer, walking over his buried body in the ground?
   I feel scared. And anxious. I want it to be tomorrow already.
   I will miss Spidey's warm furry body and face, his cataract eyes, his smelly old dog kisses.
   Powers that be, give me strength to walk through this day for Spidey, for myself, for Joseph and for Desmond. Let me get to the other side with some sort of grace and ease. I am going to try to remind myself to just float with the current today. I don't like this. Not at all.

Good art.

  I just watched this video of a woman dancing around her home, draped in a sheer bit of fabric. Watch it and come back to me.

http://www.nowness.com/day/2013/11/27/3501/wild-rose

   As I watched, I thought, how beautiful.... how lovely she is, how lovely the light is, how smooth that bit of sheer fabric would feel on my skin, how it would feel to dance like that, almost like a child, with no insecurity, just in the pleasure and appreciation of my body, of the fabric, of the light and the air.
   I also thought, how self indulgent, she's too proud, she's being too provocative, people won't like it. Men will like it, women will not like it. Someone, I would say, some collective, has taught me to think that way. Has taught me to judge myself, to find my faults, to be ashamed of them, to hide them away. Not to be proud, or celebrate myself. To keep pleasure private. Especially the pleasure of celebrating my self. And to judge other women in the same way.
   I love that this made me think so much. It was filmed and I suppose edited by a woman. And I am glad these two women took the time to play. To make this little film. Like a window to gaze through. Just a few moments, both strange and lovely.
   It made me think about how I have cinched in my spirit over the years. How I have chipped away at rough edges and fluffed up the parts of me that I thought you'd like better. I have a sculpted personality now. I guess it is always in progress but so much has been done already. So many bits of me have been shaped. I imagine it is the same for all of us. We are taught how to behave. To sing quietly, to sit still, to be modest, to be humble, to be civilized. To go to sleep when everyone else goes to sleep at the sleep-over and not keep laughing deliriously. Because those girls won't talk to you again if you do. To wear what everyone else is wearing. Not to ask the wrong questions or say the wrong thing. Or misbehave.
   I was disappointed that I cringed at all at that film. Why? Why should I? It's nonsense. Any cringe I felt was put there by someone else. I think it was lovely. And why not. Why shouldn't she (we) be lovely and proud and share those moments. Just like a child saying, "Look at me!" With my child, I respond, "Yes! Look at you! You are so wonderful!" Because he is. And I am. And you are. And everyone else can just get over it.
   And that's good art.

Desicions

    I was thinking today, about how I've done a lot of accepting in my life. Which is a good thing. I don't mean settling. I mean accepting things that have already happened or people in my life for being who they are, no more, no less. I can look back and say, yes, that happened, it's okay. So and so will always be so and so and no-one else. And from all the things I have had to work to accept, I have learned something and grown in some way.
    I have tried to make decisions along the way, as we all do, that will make us happy in the end. Like a game of Othello, move by move, I am trying to flip the chips on the board, white or black. Flip them all over to happy, or as many as I can. And I get nervous that I will not make the right moves. Especially as I get older, as the game goes on, I have less time and less moves I can make. The board is filling up. I am afraid I will end up with more sad chips face-up than happy. For now, I feel like I am doing well, but seem to be at a pivotal point. I want to make a big decision. One that could flip a lot of chips one way or the other.
    I was thinking about how I have gotten good at accepting things that are done but could use some work on accepting the risk involved in making choices for the future. Especially big ones. I wish someone would tell me what to do. I wish my mother were alive so I could ask her what she thinks. I wish I had a crystal ball I could gaze into and see all outcomes and choose the best one.
    It is hard to want a lot of things, to be afraid of most of them and having to choose only a few.
    Next year Desmond goes to kindergarten. From 9 am to 3 pm, I will be free, five days a week. This, my friends, is an opportunity. What will I do with this opportunity? This is the question.
    I could keep doing what I've been doing, outside of mothering. Work on house projects, art projects, writing projects and other projects more wholeheartedly. That sounds really good. I could also give myself a little time to re-coup. Take a breather. Take some time to think about making a big change or continuing on as I have been.  This seems like the safest bet. The gentlest and the easiest.
   I  have been thinking about a Master's Degree in Social Work. To be a therapist down the line. To go to school and get a "real" job and work with other adults in the adult world. To be helpful, to be useful outside of my home. To be able to say at a party when someone asks, "What do you do?" "Oh, I work at such and such a place, with such and such people and I do such and such." Actually, I should just start saying exactly that at parties.  Can I get a Master's in Such and Such? Because I would be really good at that.
   I have often thought of being a therapist, doing some sort social work.  I think I would enjoy it. But I might not. No guarantees. So, that's risky. Also, it costs money! Oh, and time! Money and time. Valuable things. It would take years. But it could happen.
   Another major big, and even more life-altering option is having another baby. I must be mad. I can only think to blame my cave-woman brain for this. Some biological clock that should have run out of batteries by now. Why do you torment me? Should I have a second child? Will I go insane? Will I be a terrible, mean, depressed mother if I do this? What if the second child is autistic? What if we have another child and then we all get cancer from GMOs at the same time? What kind of world is this? What if the two kids hate each other? What if they fight all the time? Would he be mean to a little sibling? Would I resent him for it? What if I love the second one more? Or less? What if my boobs end up 6" lower than they are now? What if my body can't bounce back after being stretched so far a second time? What if I age even more rapidly than the president with a second child? Will my puffy eyes become even more pronounced? Like two big croissants on my face? Puffy and wrinkly and flaky.... like chocolate croissants with the dark circles. I'll have chocolate croissant eyes. What if something happens to Desmond, shouldn't I have a back-up kid? Would a sibling make Desmond a better person? Would it be fun? Would it be too hard? Would it be easier? Am I too old?
    It would be harder to travel. More expensive in every way. We could do more for and with Desmond if it is just him. But I'd have a better chance of my children keeping in touch with me, right? Maybe at least one would. Maybe one would take care of me in my old age. Because I will be old pretty soon. Or dead. My mother died when she was 48. What if I die young? Do I want to leave two children behind instead of one? Would that be better or worse? If I were 48 when I died, a baby I have now would only be 10 years old. That won't happen though. That won't happen.
  With Desmond I knew I wanted to be a mom, there was not much else to think about. I was so curious about being pregnant, giving birth, nursing, caring for a baby, raising a child, creating a family. I had no idea each of these things were going to be such hard work. And so painful. Sleep training was beyond challenging.  Doing all of that again, knowing what I would be in for would be a very different thing. I would have to be crazy, I think. I feel like I'd be scared the whole time. That wouldn't be good. Still, I am considering it. I would do things differently if I did it again. I would not eat EVERYTHING I wanted to this time while I was pregnant. I would give birth in a hospital, so I could have some drugs. Not much I could do different nursing but at least I know what pump works now. Sigh.
    It's exhausting just thinking about it. I am afraid. I don't want to do any of that. But there is a nagging feeling that someone is missing in the house. Someone is tugging at me.
    I don't want to stay home another five years. I don't want to put a baby in child-care either. Maybe I could go to school part time? Is that even possible?
    So, I sit in front of this Othello game of life. And I stare at the board. I am not sure what move to make. It may seem like I am over-analyzing this. But, I guess I feel like I should think about it. You know, before I make a human. Or decide not to. Send a "request denied" back into the ether. Sorry, baby in waiting, or cave-woman brain, or biological clock. Mamma wants a pay-check.
   

Touch

   You know, it's funny. So many things are funny. I have had an urge to write so many times this past week. About all the things that are funny. And strange. And confusing.
   I had an interesting day today. I kept my cool in a way I have not been able to before with my four year old. For almost two hours, I stayed calm while he flailed around, feeling his way through his life, through his experience, his day, his emotions. Directing his frustration at me. And I stood like a polished marble wall, let is all slide right off. Instead of like the velcro ball I can  be so often, holding onto his fit. Or like a spider web, catching his tantrum and holding it up. At the same time, I was able to love him and be patient and walk through it beside him and we both came out the other end, calm and exhausted. I lay next to him in his bed as he settled himself for a nap. Moving my hand over his hair, remembering the way my mom used to move her hand over my hair, so gently. Placing my hand on his little shoulder. Sending him love and healing thoughts through my palms. Then we both slept.
   I read somewhere recently, something about how a hug can express things we cannot say. I felt today, when I was hugging my husband, like my heart was speaking to his heart. I have a feeling that my heart has been very careful since my mom died. When I was in college, I had a boyfriend. We used to stare into each others eyes. Just very much in love, looking into each others eyes, smiling, for minutes at a time, quietly being in love and settling into each other. For some reason, that memory of that feeling stands out to me as a feeling of abandon. Being in love. That falling feeling, the falling in love, letting yourself fall and drifting, following it completely.
   After my mom died, that boyfriend and I broke up. And I don't think I ever looked at anyone that way again. It is only recently in my life, that I have been able to spend time gazing into my husband's eyes, before I have to look away. I think after my mom died, I suddenly understood something. There are no guarantees and everything ends. You can love someone but you should also be prepared to lose them. And I think, I lost the desire to lose myself in love that way. I sort of ended up loving in a way that was a bit guarded. A careful kind of love.
   But every once in a while, that veil slips away. Today, holding onto my husband, I felt a great, full, whole sort of love, including the conscious awareness that someday he will be gone. I felt the great sadness of missing him in his future absence. A wild and clutching sort of "don't leave me" feeling, welling up and taking hold of me and in turn, him. My heart reached out and held onto his for dear life. I don't know. The funny thing is, it doesn't sound like a good feeling, but it felt honest. It felt like the truth and I felt grateful for the feeling and for this person in my life. Love is a scary thing sometimes. Because it feels so important, and necessary, and big, and at the same time, so fragile.
   Later, we stood in the kitchen and talked about that hug. I told him, I had felt sad that some day he would be gone. He smiled at me and said he was not going anywhere. That's what my mom said, I told him. Before she died, when she knew she was dying, I told her how much I would miss her and that I didn't want her to go. She said, "Where would I go?" And maybe she is still here, beside me. But her physical presence is what my heart and my body misses. Two of my husband's fingertips rested on my hand as he spoke to me, grinning about his immortal self. I could weep thinking of those two fingertips not existing anymore. But this is life. Life ends. And until you experience losing someone you love, it may seem.... like a light and airy idea. But oh, the body, and all of the love it holds, the energy it radiates, the way a body feels, it's warm skin, it's soft hair, the lines and creases, the moles and freckles, the tiny hairs, the fuzz, the eyes, the teeth, their breath, their hair, their scent, the weight of them, the gravity, their feet planted on the earth, their hand in your hand, their voice, their laughter, their fingertips on your hand.... these things are golden, precious in every way. And when they are gone, they are gone. The love I feel, includes the knowledge of how fleeting these things are. How temporary. How lovely. How missed they will be. And my heart is bigger for it. I love you now. I miss you already. I am grateful for this moment of feeling you here with me and at the same time, a little sad that it will be gone some day.
    I was driving in my car tonight, by myself, listening to a David Sedaris audio book. I laughed out loud and it sounded so much like my mother's laugh. But it wasn't her laugh, it was mine. Still, things like that can take my breath away and make my heart skip a beat. Maybe a little bit of my mother lives in my laugh. Certainly some of my mother lives on in me, in my body. It's funny. And sad at the same time. And I suppose some of my mom, and me, and my husband live on in my little boy. I hope they both outlive me. I hope we all grow to be very old. And I hope, by the time I die, I am less attached to this physical world and it's warm bodies. And it's ice cream. And pizza. I already miss pizza.

The Message

   It has been over a month since my last post. I have not forgotten you. In fact, I think of you often. I think a lot about what I could write about. Some things feel too personal or too preachy or too boring. But one thing I have been thinking a lot about this month feels just right.
   If you know me.....  I think I just found a tiny dead worm in my salad.
   If you know me, you probably know my mom died a while back. It seems to come up eventually. It's something I carry with me and sometimes I take it out to show other people. Look, see? I had a mom. She died. Breast cancer. I was 21. I am still sad about it. Then I put it back in my pocket.
   You may also know, that I have been to a few mediums. I have always had an interest in psychics, mediums, ghosts, the paranormal, all that stuff, since I was a little girl. When I was a kid, I only wanted books from the library that were ghost stories, and I watched tons of Scooby Doo episodes. Forever disappointed that it was never really a ghost or a monster, just someone in a costume.
   Long story short, recently, a friend of mine urged me to go with him to see a medium. He had seen the medium before and said she had changed his life. She is in New Jersey, my friend is in Beacon. So he made an appointment for each of us on November 4th. I drove the hour down to Beacon and jumped in his car and he drove us to New Jersey.
  This friend of mine is a friend from college. We lived in the same dorm, the only dorm at our small school. He always listened to great music. We were not close friends but thanks to Facebook we have been in touch and have come to know each other a little better. He has a brother who passed in a tragic boating accident. This brother is who he had gone to try to connect with when he first found this medium. And it changed things for him.
   I don't remember the medium's name. Lynn something? I don't know what town we were in. I didn't much care for the details. I just wanted to spend the day with a new, old friend and go somewhere I had never been and maybe have my life changed, maybe not. Even more than I love going someplace new, I love to be taken someplace new.
   My friend is a mystical kind of guy. I didn't know this before. And I was so thoroughly intrigued and entertained by him. Talking with him in the car there and back and over dim sum, made all things seem possible. Because he believes in some pretty far out things. And I believe in him. All in all, that day was a perfect adventure.
   This medium, she was legit, I think. She told me a lot about my mom, a lot about how she died. She told me my mom is always with me, that she is always talking to me, comforting me or advising me. She said that my mom rests her hand on my right shoulder a lot. She also said that my mom likes to sit at my kitchen table, which I translated to my kitchen desk. We do have a desk with a chair in our kitchen but no table. It seems like an appropriate place to sit to observe things in my house. And whether this is true or not, I like to imagine her there now, keeping me company. I wish she would fold some laundry while she is sitting there.
   But, here's the thing. I guess my big wish, every time I see a medium, is that they will say, "Your mom is with you. She wants to tell you how much she loves you, that she knows you miss her, that she is so proud of you, what a wonderful mother you are, how much she loves your son, that she is watching over him, and what a wonderful man you've married and the home you've created is so lovely. And you will see her again when it is your time to pass on. And she's never appeared as a ghost to you because..... And the person you should talk to about publishing your book is......." But that never happens. But this time, was the worst. She did not relay any of those messages, other than "your mother is with you". What she did say was, "Your mother says you're very uptight. You worry too much. Stop avoiding stressful situations, it's creating more stress in your life." What? Really? That's what she wants to tell me from beyond the grave? That I'm uptight? I know I'm uptight! And that I worry too much.
   When I left, I felt annoyed. It is ultimately aggravating to sit down across from someone who may actually be talking to my dead mother, for only an hour and then hand them money and walk away. It is hard to walk away from someone who can talk to my dead mother. I want to talk to her. And I don't want to hear this bullshit about how uptight I am.
   But, here's the other thing. I heard what she said. She the medium, or she, my  mother, it doesn't matter really where the message came from, I heard it. And it was true. And it was important to hear and to take it in. She was right. And it was not news to me. But maybe, if that was what my mother felt it was most important to say in that moment, not that she was proud of me, but that I should chill out? Then maybe that was what would she thought would help me most. And maybe it was.
   Since that day, I have thought a lot about how uptight I am, how worried, how caught up I am in all the things I can't figure out, that I have not accomplished, all the things that I am doing wrong, or not doing at all, should be doing, or shouldn't be doing. I am missing out on the moment. Which is also not a new thought, but one I forget. To be in the moment. This is where it's at. In this moment, I have an awesome life. I have this little boy who is four years old in this moment and he will not be four forever. Every day, he is older and is growing and changing. And HE is the very best thing I've done so far and the very thing I've wanted most in my life. And I am so proud of him. I love my husband, he is a great man. I love our  house. I love this life. I am healthy. We are all, the three of us, healthy. These are amazing things and they can also change at any moment. But, in this moment, they are here, they are true and I am paying attention to them. Experiencing joy. I am allowed. It is important.
   I have been letting go, and letting go, and letting go some more. There is no rush, there is no pressure, there is no deadline. I have been thinking about being led. Letting the Universe guide me and seeing where it is it will take me. I am open to the adventure and the experience. It feels good to step out of my head and into my shoes and walk, or sit, or lay flat on the floor and breathe. Just be.
   For however long this lasts, I hope to be able to just let go and float with the tide. Trust that all is well. And if it doesn't seem quite right, it is just a bend in the road that will take me where I am meant to go. All the while, expecting joy and letting it in.
   Deep breath.
   And another.
   Good job.

Morning

   I think it's unfortunate that I should wake up in a bad mood, ever. I think there should be a reset button and when I wake in the morning, I should at the very least, feel neutral. I  have had a string of days that I have felt extra tired, and have had extra aggravations. Some are my own doing, some are not.  I can't control the spot stealer at the gym, although I can change how I look at it, I suppose. I left my interior light on in my car once again this week, killing the battery. I don't even know how this is possible, as I was not IN the car in the dark and would not need that light on. You would think the car would beep when  I turn off the ignition if a light is on. It beeps incessantly for everything else. The one thing I'd want a beep for, it's not into. I  hate beeping. I had an unpleasant Facebook event a couple of days ago. Last night, determined to cook the dinner I had planned, frantically cooking at 7:30, I dumped half of my peeled, cubed and marinated eggplant into the hot oven, the oven drawer beneath the oven and the floor. I keep having aggravating dreams.
   Sometimes, I wake up in the morning with a feeling of worry. Wondering what will happen today. A general grumpy, cloudy, feeling. And I think, oh man, you are setting yourself up. Do not step a foot out of this bed until you are happy. That doesn't work. Most of the time I have all of 30 seconds to wake up and get out of bed. I must teach my four year old to call for me in a nicer way. His morning, "MAHMMEHHHhhhhhhhhhh......." is so whiny. I have to get quickly out of bed or else I have to hear it repeatedly.
   I am in bed right now. I got to sleep in today. And woke from dreams about my dead mother being alive and not calling me on my birthday. I have a ton of things to do today and feel a bit overwhelmed and worried. I have a sense that my feelings in the morning call the day to me. I am ordering off a menu and I am choosing events that will fit my mood. This makes me more nervous.
   Writing is making me feel better though.
   The more I focus on that spot stealer at the gym, the more she's gonna drive me crazy. I know it. I guess I'll be shopping for a new spot. I love the gym. I love the classes I take and the child care, the hour I get to move my body and feel strong, follow instructions and not worry about anything else. I love the people there. I love that it is only a four minute drive from my house. I love that we can afford the $25 a month membership, worth every penny. I would not give up the gym for anything. I would give up my spot for my happiness though.
   Shitty dreams are just shitty dreams. My dead mother didn't call me in my dream but when she was alive, she never missed my birthday. She made me the same pink lemonade ice cream cake from scratch every year. She was always, always, happy to see me.
   When my car battery died yet again in one week, my husband, yet again, jumped it for me and let it run in the driveway. When I dumped all that eggplant into the oven and stood there staring at it and said, "I don't even know what to do with that!", my husband said, "I got it." And he cleaned it up. When Facebook slapped me in the face, I had friends that said, it's okay, we love you. And my husband offered me a massage. I knew what he really meant though and I said no thank you, I just wanted to go to sleep.
   The point is, my life has got my back. I am loved. The morning after the Facebook debacle, I went into my son's room to get him up and he held my face in his little hands and kissed me all over for my face while I laughed. Life is predominantly good. I am very lucky. I am very blessed. I try very hard to keep it that way. I wish I could wake up happy every day. But I suppose, I am human and human nature says differently. Especially in America. What a strange world we live in. So much abundance, so much worry. So much safety, so much fear. But, I love my little town. The freshly painted red bridge, the chocolate shop. I love my friends here. I love this amazingly warm Fall weather we're having, the trees leaves changing and falling, the light changing. Halloween coming.
    The window curtain at the head of my bed is a vintage cream and blue grey flowery thing. It has a hole in it that I keep thinking I have to mend, and I will. Right now, through that little hole, I can see some leaves blowing in the breeze, in the sun, on a tree in my yard. Just a tiny window into the the day outside. It looks so beautiful. For this moment, I am glad that hole is there. It's like a little floating, shimmering, morning jewel. Good morning.
   I think I can get up now. Did I mention I got to sleep in? Today is going to be okay.

Estate Sale

   There is really nothing else like an estate sale. Have you ever been? It is like a yard sale except it is always indoors. Sometimes it happens when people are moving. But most often it is when someone has died. Someone old. People are hired to run a sale out of the house. Some doors are closed and have signs that say "keep door closed".
   It occurs to me now, it also happens when someone old has had to leave their home. They just had one at my grandpa's house. My grandpa has not died, he has gone to live with my uncle.
   Last week, I went to an estate sale. It was at a house around the corner from me. I had some free time one day and there were signs and I followed them there. It was a small house and in ways it was caught in a time warp as old people's homes often are. I love old people's homes. I love when most everything they own, the have owned for a long time. Old people don't redecorate or renovate, they are comfortable. Things are "outdated" but well cared for.
   I am making great generalizations here, I realize. Let me say, in my experience at estate sales in the Hudson Valley in NY, this seems to be the case. I am sure it varies as all things do.
   At the sale, the books were still on their shelves, there were no personal photographs or items around, but there were clothes still on their hangers in the closets, the kitchen was closed off and the dishes were laid out on a table. I have gone to estate sales where the dishes are still in the cabinets, the sliver ware in the drawers and it is all for sale. It is all for the buying and the looking. It feels strange to delight in such a thing. I wonder if the former owner of these things has died, if they are annoyed with people picking through their things. I guess if I were old and had passed away and there was an estate sale in my house it might bug me. And make me glad, depending on who took what. I also suppose if I were dead, I would not care about such things because everything would finally make sense and none of it would have to do with "things". But our things in this life bring us comfort or anxiety or pleasure. We attach ourselves to things and we "love" them. Or we don't want them anymore but can't seem to let go of them. Things are funny like that. For me anyway.
   There was a room in the house that had a walk in closet. It was full of baskets. Maybe 100 or more baskets. And in the back of the closet there were some boxes that looked like they had not been opened. I opened them and found stationary and old wedding cards and a wedding program from what I assumed was the owners wedding. There was a composition notebook filled with a child's writing, just lists and lists of names. There was a photograph of two women standing inside the house, downstairs, smiling together. One was an older woman and she looked familiar. I decided it was her house, her things and I had probably seen her around town. I put the photograph back where I found it.
   She made hooked rugs. While I was there, the woman running the sale pulled them out and laid them on the floor. There were about 10 or so, maybe a dozen. I picked out four of them. They were $5.00 each. Hand made. Three with flowers and one with an eagle. I also found a pile of white cotton curtains with white pom pom trim. Many windows worth, maybe the whole house, so many of them. $10.00 for all of them. I bought those too. I found a box in another room and opened it. Inside were ladies gloves. Leather and that Isotoner sort of glove, in browns, reds, black and tan. I tried them all on. I bought two pairs, $1.00 each.
   There were other people milling around the whole time I was there. Some old people too and I wondered if they were thinking about their own things and their own estate sales that might happen some day. If they bought anything, maybe those things would end up in their estate sale. Maybe the things I bought there will end up in my estate sale some day too.
   There were christmas decorations, old paper plates, christmas and thanksgiving themed. I thought about the entertaining she had done. And wondered if anyone would take these plates and napkins. I almost did.
   I asked the woman running the sale if the house would be sold. She said she thought the son of the owner was moving in. I wondered what he was like.
   I left with my treasures. It was a Saturday and a sign told me that everything would be half off on Sunday.
   I brought the rugs and curtains and gloves home. I found a spot for each rug. One is under my desk in my studio and keeps my feet warm, one is in the kitchen in front of the kitchen sink and cushions my feet when I stand there and will keep them warm this winter, one I gave to Joseph, the one with the eagle, to put under his desk in his studio to keep his feet warm. The fourth and most beautiful, is white with a colorful bunch of flowers in the center, I put in the living room on the other side of my four year old's train table. When he came home with his father, he walked in the front door, kicked off his sneakers and walked right up to the rug, clasped his hands in front of his chest and said, "Oh Mommy! Thank you for this cozy rug!" He pulled a pillow and a blanket off of the couch and laid down on the rug. I think he has played on it every day since.
   A few months ago, before my uncle arranged the estate sale at my grandfather's house, he let me come to the house while he was there with my aunt, clearing our their childhood things and taking things that were important to them, after he had packed away all the things that were still important to my grandpa. It was very much like an estate sale except it was before all of the personal things had been removed. I found amazing black and white photographs of my grandparents when they were teenagers with their friends, playing baseball, having picnics and on vacation. I found a box of glasses that had been my great grandfather's. A tin full of my mother's dancing shoes from when she was very small. An old Halloween decoration, a paper skeleton shade for a lamp. I took a bunch of old thread bare towels. Pretty old dishes, Christmas cloth napkins. Random things. I also ended up with my great grandfather's desk and my grandfathers scroll saw. I filled my car. Blankets, a pair of overalls, magnets, drinking glasses, a sewing box.

   My grandfather was there but I don't know if he knew exactly what we were doing there and I don't think he was crazy about it all. These were his things and he was not gone. Maybe he thought we were just packing them up for him. I am not sure. I love having my grandparents things. I love the connection these things have to them and to my great grandparents. It is amazing to me that I can put my great grandfather's glasses on my face and look through the same lenses he did. These objects are connected to another time and other people. And these people, unlike the people whose homes I have been in for estate sales, are my people. People who made me, people I love. And I love their old towels. I probably used those towels to dry off at their old house in Valley Stream after swimming in their backyard pool when I was very small. 

   I like to think of the lady who made the hooked rugs being happy that they have found a good home and are so loved. I like to think my great grandfather likes to see his glasses on my face. And that my grandfather is glad I will use his scroll saw. When I look at my grandmother's sewing box, I see my grandmother. Some day, someone may run an estate sale in my home when I am gone and maybe someone will buy my grandmother's sewing box and they will not know it was hers, but maybe it will delight them because it is pretty cool the way it folds up and holds so many spools of thread, sewing needles and pins. And they will know it is old and had a history and maybe they will even use my thread that is in the box, just as I have been using my grandma's. And me and my grandma will smile together and be glad.

Beautiful Days

   Today was a beautiful day. In all ways.
   Joseph kissed me goodbye this morning on the back of my head as I lay half asleep in bed. I rolled over and practiced some sleepy Reiki. I got up and made my bed. I got Desmond up. Carried my little boy downstairs and we fed Spidey together like we do every  morning. I had delicious organic oatmeal with raisins, cinnamon and milk. We got dressed for the gym and got our Halloween decorations out. We hung black paper bats in our windows. We went to the gym. A girlfriend of mine told me I have great legs. I took the Friday, no joke, kick your ass, class and I felt strong and healthy and good. Desmond played with his friends in the child care. We came home and swept the old cobwebs off the porch so we could hang fake spiderwebs in their place. We decorated the house for Halloween because we just can't wait. Desmond napped his three hour nap. I ate some organic roasted chicken and sweet potato black bean saute for lunch. Had a homemade healthy almond joy bar for dessert. I had hot tea. My good friend and neighbor came over for a haircut. We talked and we laughed. He paid me. Another friend came by and bought a big painting of Joseph's for a big price and I felt nothing but joy for Joseph. I laughed and talked with that friend too. We got Desmond up together. Des and I said goodbye to our friend and we got ready for Desmond's gymnastics class. I watched Desmond, so much more confident and comfortable than he was at his first class last week, swinging from the rings, tumbling on the mats, jumping on the trampoline, playing air guitar to klezmer music while he waited for his turn. I got to spend time with my good friend while we watched our kids roll and jump around. We gave his little friend a ride home. Made a stop at the health food store in town for some cashews, peanut butter, shredded coconut, whole wheat bread, whole wheat tortillas and a $6 pint of organic chocolate ice cream, because, why not. Came home to our Halloween house, with it's twin ghosts lit up and candy corn lights glowing in the dark. I managed to resist the urge to buy Chinese food and had home made mushroom soup and toast with Joseph's home made pesto instead. Desmond and I ate our chocolate ice cream cones together and talked about our day. Joseph's car pulled up to the house and we all went outside to greet him, Desmond, Spidey and I, and we talked about our spooooooky house. I got a kiss, a hug and a smile. Joseph got Desmond ready for bed, giggling and cuddling. I tucked Desmond in and was tickled, kissed and hugged. I made tea.
   And now, I am sitting next to my cup of hot tea, at my friendly lap top, listening to Joseph talk with his new designer contact that wants to sell his art. I am writing to you. I have an incredibly blessed life. I am OK. Today was a good day. Tomorrow is Saturday. All is well.
    And, I love you. Goodnight.

Spiderman

      My dog's name is Spiderman. Before I got him, I worked on coming up with the perfect name for a dog. It was between Spiderman and Boy Howdy. I polled my friends and Spiderman won. If I ever have another dog, I will name him Bill Murray.
      We call Spiderman, Spidey. Or Spider, or Spide. I like when Desmond calls him Spide. Spidey was 9 years old when Desmond was born and before that, the dog was my baby. I was never an over the top dog owner. I didn't buy him clothes although he did have antlers for Christmas. I have baked him dog treats a couple of times in his life.
      When Desmond was born, Spidey limped for a few days. I think he was looking for some attention. One day, while my sister was visiting. Desmond was a week old or so. Spidey was at the back door barking. My sister said, "I think the dog wants to come in." And I said, "He doesn't bark like that when he wants to come in." And she said, "He does now." My sister is very smart. From then on, he did. He needs to. Because otherwise me might forget he is out there.
      He is 13 now. He was a 2000 baby and his birthday is exactly three months before mine. I bought him for my 26th birthday. Picked him up November 19th, 2000 and he was exactly three months old. He was brown like a bear with a black face. He is a wheaten terrier and they are all dark when they are puppies and then they grow light fur. Desmond did the same thing, come to think of it. He was born with a full head of dark hair and now he is all blond.
      So Spidey had 9 good years of being the baby. When Des was born, he was demoted to dog. I could not manage walking both of them at the same time very well. I tried. The older Desmond got, the harder it got to bring Spidey on walks. Desmond tormented him. I think I have finally trained Des to leave our poor old Spide alone mostly but he still gets some over excited hits and shoves and too tight hugs.
     This year, Spidey suddenly got old. He does not see as well or hear as well or climb stairs as well. Today he seems especially troubled by getting his legs to do what he wants them to. I put some coconut oil in his food and some of Desmond's liquid vitamin C in his water. I gave him a warm gentle bath, his doggy vitamin for his joints and half an ibuprofen in a banana. Although Joseph, my nurse husband says dogs should not have ibuprofen. Oh well.
     I have had a few dogs in my life. I have never had one just die peacefully in it's sleep. Seems most dogs go according to when it's owner decides the dog or the owner has had enough. I hate to think about making this decision. And how will I tell Desmond? Oofa.
      I tell myself I will do some reiki for him. And maybe that will help. And I am afraid I won't. Because there does not seem to be enough time in the day to reiki my old dog.
      This is really depressing.
      I thought because this is what's on my mind today, I should write about it. So I did. And then you read it. And now we both feel bad about my poor old dog.
     Mostly I wanted to say that I gave him a warm bath and a banana and that felt good. I wanted to say that I love that old dog.
     I would also like to say that I hate picking up dog poop. It is one of my least favorite things to do in the whole world. Especially if it has rained recently.
     One last thing. There are moments in our lives, that remind us of past similar moments. And the memories of those past moments can make the present ones much harder. As we get older, our collection of memories grows. It's like our wing span gets so much bigger and there is ever so much more to feel. It can, at times, be a little overwhelming.