"Hold my hand," I say to Nate softly. It's awkward to drive with my right arm bent backwards around the seat and my fingers clutched in his drool-slick hand, but he quiets. His mind-piercing shrieks calm to snuffling sobs and he takes a shaky, stuttering breath. In a few minutes, he is asleep and I pull my aching arm back around to the front, turn up the music, sip my coffee and place my hand back on the wheel.
A flash of memory cuts through me and it hurts. I remember an afternoon driving Saige and Garrett and a newborn Quinn to some destination. Toddler class? The store? Quinn screamed in that five-alarm-fire newborn squawk that induces a fight or flight response in every mother. Garrett threw an epic fit about a shoe, I think, that he wanted off or on or backwards and Saige, ever the opportunistic tantrum thrower, sensed weakness. Or possibly safety in numbers.
I briefly lost my mind. I reached around from the front seat and swatted at my two toddlers' feet. Hard. And then, I pulled over and cried. This is not one of those confession posts. "I swatted her hand and curled up into a little ball under the table and died a thousand deaths from grief and guilt and misery." No. I was positive that, having given up a child that I couldn't parent a mere month before, some black-clad government official was going to leap out at me at the slightest mistake and snarl about unfit mothers while taking away the rest of my children. I was positive that losing my temper was "not okay" in the grandest of senses. In truth, it happens. It's not the best reaction; but under normal circumstances, I think most parents repair the relationship and move on.
I don't know when it started with Nate, this hand holding, but he must have been quite young. I can't remember when it didn't work to soothe him and let me focus my (one-handed) attention to a task. It probably began at story time when we are all tired and his demanding baby antics wreaked mayhem on my bedtime routine. He would plop himself in my lap, pull at the pages, block views until every single person in the room screeched manically including me.
I can't see. Stop it now, it's okay. He's in my WAY. No, Nate. I can't see the pictures. No! Don't hit him. Nate, sit beside me. Nooooooooo. One night, I met his eyes and said, sit here, baby, hold my hand. It worked, but not because holding hands is some magical solution to parenting temper tantrums. It worked because I am a calmer mother now than I once was. I am more regulated.
"Be with your child in his emotional storm," my favorite attachment psychologist advises. "Be with whenever you can, take charge whenever you must."
Being with, for me, especially for the hard emotions, anger and fear, is a skill that has grown with experience.
I have changed so much as a mother and as a person in the last six years. I am steadier. More centered. I understand (though I don't always remember) that being with a child in an emotion is a function of staying out of the storm yourself. Every time I handle Nate with ease and patience that I didn't possess four years ago, I am grateful for the wisdom that comes from practice and time and heartbroken just a bit for my first babies.
I was a good mother then, but I'm a better mother now. But then again, I'm a better mother to all of them.
If you throw a fit about leaving the park, you will not get to play tomorrow. You will sit on the bench, I tell her. Saige scrunches up her mouth and chokes down the scream in her throat. Will you hold my hand to the car? she asks me. I will. / Quinn crumples to the ground in toddler agony over a moth that is. not. coming. inside. my. house. I'm sorry, bubba. I want to hold your hand, he sobs. / Nate shrieks for the red Candy Land man because only the red one will do, but Garrett will not give it up, possibly because he likes to see me die of pierced, bleeding eardrums. I'm fed up, impatient and short, ready to put the entire game away. Nate, Saige coos, seated beside him on the dog-haired covered carpet. Nater, Nater, do you want to hold my hand? He takes her fingers with his sweaty little paw and lays his head in her lap while I sit at the table and cry fat, disbelieving tears into my steaming coffee cup.
I think it's going to be okay. I think maybe I'm doing alright. After all, she never swats at his feet.
It's scary. I'm reminded daily that one person's story about personal growth is another person's story about their crazy bitch of a mother. That's generationally required, right? Tell me it is. They have to have something to blame it all on, don't they? How have you grown as a mother?
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Window shopping
It was dark and that made it infinitely more frightening. The taxi driver dropped us off at the end of street so narrow that the small car could not go any further and pointed forward with a wave of his slim brown hand into ever more narrow and less well lit alleyways. The stores were open, crowded places honeycombed into every crack and crevice, jammed so full of merchandise that removing one thing might bring the whole city down like a delicately balanced grocery store display. Lights were on. People walked. But there seemed more men than woman and more shadows than lights.
The dark changes everything. It might have been a friendly scene in the sweaty daylight. It might have been enchanting.
We wandered forward, our white faces and heavy packs marking us "other" if not "targets." There wasn't any turning back. It was one of those precipice points of travel. If we found the little hostel tucked back here in the ancient, labyrinth streets of Marrakesh, this was a grand adventure. If we had to spend the night on the stifling street in the questionable dark, it was a dangerous disaster.
We found it. A tiny, arabesque arched door tucked into a niche gray with grime led to a tiled white entry hall too narrow to turn around in. We bumped each other aside with our bulky packs and laughed, glad to be inside. A winding tile stairway spiraled up, up, four floors with our packs brushing the walls on each side and the sweat running down our soaking backs beneath the heavy load. And then through another arch and we were on the roof. A cool breeze kissed us on the cheek. Lights and arches and minarets spread out in every direction, a fantastical rooftop city. A fountain sang softly. Moroccan tile paved the roof with blue and red detail.
Our room was to the left, behind a painted wooden door with an old fashion skeleton key. Four bunks, but we had it to ourselves tonight. Other young travelers lounged on embroidered cushions in the common space, smoking or drinking, writing in journals.
We ventured down and out again into the now friendly winding alleyway. No longer alien, but home base, our street, the key tight in my sister's palm. We found a tiny convenience store. One row of shelves stocked with batteries and toiletries rose to the ceiling above the proprietor's head and a cooler full of coke sat at his feet. Cold cokes in hand, we retreated to the rooftop oasis to sip and laugh and congratulate ourselves on braving the travel gauntlet to this tiled gem tucked high above the market alleys of Marrakesh.
The next day, we window shopped, gaping for hours at stunning Moroccan tile and textiles, spices, gold and silver work. It was a bustling shopping district, not at all intimidating when the bright, unrelenting sun banished the sinister dark.
************************
Yesterday, thanks to a fabulously dear friend, Matt and I had an entire day to ourselves to shop for our addition. We looked at tile and flooring options and fixtures, but in my secret, fabulous sunny day to ourselves heart, I was window shopping. I wanted to find the perfect antique leaded window to set as an architectural detail in an interior wall between the shower and our new master bath.
The whole day, wandering through a few antique and "upcycled" furniture shops, flipping idly through tile sample boards, sipping a glass of wine in the intimate garden of a local restaurant that is only open for these brief three months of summer a year, reminded me of days past. When we parked in front of Brown's Building supply, I saw row after row of outdoor bays stacked with windows pulled from demolished 1920s houses. Patience, I thought, it's here. It could be here. There were lots of leaded glass windows. They were broken or bent or too large or too small. Except for this one, covered in cobwebs and poorly painted white many years ago. Matt had to balance six or seven huge windows upright in the bay so that I could slide it out and fall in love.
For no reason at all, or maybe for many reasons, tile and sunshine and free time, I've been thinking of Marrakesh ever since we wrapped our treasure in a blanket and loaded it in the car. There is nothing like finding the perfect gem, hidden out of sight under the grime.
Speaking of gems, have you discovered pinterest.com? It's sort of a social media sharing site except that you're sharing digital inspiration boards. I'm just getting started, but I am head over heels in love. This is my master bath board. My home page with all of my boards is here. But I'm new at it and my boards are sparse; go and get lost in other people's inspiration.
The dark changes everything. It might have been a friendly scene in the sweaty daylight. It might have been enchanting.
We wandered forward, our white faces and heavy packs marking us "other" if not "targets." There wasn't any turning back. It was one of those precipice points of travel. If we found the little hostel tucked back here in the ancient, labyrinth streets of Marrakesh, this was a grand adventure. If we had to spend the night on the stifling street in the questionable dark, it was a dangerous disaster.
We found it. A tiny, arabesque arched door tucked into a niche gray with grime led to a tiled white entry hall too narrow to turn around in. We bumped each other aside with our bulky packs and laughed, glad to be inside. A winding tile stairway spiraled up, up, four floors with our packs brushing the walls on each side and the sweat running down our soaking backs beneath the heavy load. And then through another arch and we were on the roof. A cool breeze kissed us on the cheek. Lights and arches and minarets spread out in every direction, a fantastical rooftop city. A fountain sang softly. Moroccan tile paved the roof with blue and red detail.
Our room was to the left, behind a painted wooden door with an old fashion skeleton key. Four bunks, but we had it to ourselves tonight. Other young travelers lounged on embroidered cushions in the common space, smoking or drinking, writing in journals.
We ventured down and out again into the now friendly winding alleyway. No longer alien, but home base, our street, the key tight in my sister's palm. We found a tiny convenience store. One row of shelves stocked with batteries and toiletries rose to the ceiling above the proprietor's head and a cooler full of coke sat at his feet. Cold cokes in hand, we retreated to the rooftop oasis to sip and laugh and congratulate ourselves on braving the travel gauntlet to this tiled gem tucked high above the market alleys of Marrakesh.
The next day, we window shopped, gaping for hours at stunning Moroccan tile and textiles, spices, gold and silver work. It was a bustling shopping district, not at all intimidating when the bright, unrelenting sun banished the sinister dark.
************************
Yesterday, thanks to a fabulously dear friend, Matt and I had an entire day to ourselves to shop for our addition. We looked at tile and flooring options and fixtures, but in my secret, fabulous sunny day to ourselves heart, I was window shopping. I wanted to find the perfect antique leaded window to set as an architectural detail in an interior wall between the shower and our new master bath.
The whole day, wandering through a few antique and "upcycled" furniture shops, flipping idly through tile sample boards, sipping a glass of wine in the intimate garden of a local restaurant that is only open for these brief three months of summer a year, reminded me of days past. When we parked in front of Brown's Building supply, I saw row after row of outdoor bays stacked with windows pulled from demolished 1920s houses. Patience, I thought, it's here. It could be here. There were lots of leaded glass windows. They were broken or bent or too large or too small. Except for this one, covered in cobwebs and poorly painted white many years ago. Matt had to balance six or seven huge windows upright in the bay so that I could slide it out and fall in love.
For no reason at all, or maybe for many reasons, tile and sunshine and free time, I've been thinking of Marrakesh ever since we wrapped our treasure in a blanket and loaded it in the car. There is nothing like finding the perfect gem, hidden out of sight under the grime.
Speaking of gems, have you discovered pinterest.com? It's sort of a social media sharing site except that you're sharing digital inspiration boards. I'm just getting started, but I am head over heels in love. This is my master bath board. My home page with all of my boards is here. But I'm new at it and my boards are sparse; go and get lost in other people's inspiration.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Sip locusts
You know how your mom told you that you'd understand some day and you thought, no, no I won't because you're mean and I'm not going to be mean, so there? Because you were twelve and kind of horrid?
Well, when I was little, long, long ago in a kingdom far, far away ... . No. Seriously. When I was a kid, my mom drank a diet soda almost every day and the musical pop of that can opening and that sweet, forbidden liquid fizzing into a glass of ice was like a homing call for my sisters and I. We'd crawl out of the woodwork and beg and whine and plead.
A siiiiiiiiippppppp? Just one siiiip? Pleeeaaaaasseeee? Moooooo-oooooom? Just one?
And she was all, no. Like it was nothing. Just no. Go away, even.
I thought my mom was mean. I still remember feeling, deep in my soul, how mean and selfish she was. She had that whole beautiful glass of fizzy pop all to herself - and not even just one - oooohhhh no, she could go and get another one out of the fridge any time she wanted - and she wouldn't give us a teensy, weency, tiny, little sip.
Mean.
Mom. Here you go. You waited almost forty years, but here it is. Sit down. I was wrong and I now understand. I'm so sorry I judged you.
I like icy cold ice water. I like it crystal clear with an unsullied straw. My favorite is from Starbucks because it's triple distilled and as clear as clear can be. But I swear on all that is holy and pure, the minute that green-aproned barista hands me the glass of icy cold goodness, it starts.
I dirsty.
No, I'm thirsty.
Momma, I'm thirsty. No, me.
I sip. I sip! I SIP!!
They're like locusts. Viscous, water-hungry locusts who are incapable of taking a sip from a straw without back-blowing gag-inducing crumbs of everything they've eaten for the last three hours into it. Why is there always spittle that hangs between their nasty little lips and the straw? Why can't they just drink with a constant upward pull, why must they snort shit back down?
Why can't they drink from their own damn water bottles that I packed carefully so that I could keep my water separate and pure and unclouded by demonic backwash?
Why, mom? Why? Is my own glass of water too much to ask? The floaties. They ruin it. I'm so sorry for every drink I sullied.
And they're sneaky. I looked away for like a second and one of them has darted in for the sip like a buzzard. You see Nate. I see a harbinger of clear water doom.
Oh, I know. Cute baby saying "cheeeeessse." Look closely. I'll make it very large for you. Uh huh. Snot. Also, granola bar, on his left cheek. BOTH OF WHICH ARE NOW IN MY WATER.
Ew. Dammit.
Well, when I was little, long, long ago in a kingdom far, far away ... . No. Seriously. When I was a kid, my mom drank a diet soda almost every day and the musical pop of that can opening and that sweet, forbidden liquid fizzing into a glass of ice was like a homing call for my sisters and I. We'd crawl out of the woodwork and beg and whine and plead.
A siiiiiiiiippppppp? Just one siiiip? Pleeeaaaaasseeee? Moooooo-oooooom? Just one?
And she was all, no. Like it was nothing. Just no. Go away, even.
I thought my mom was mean. I still remember feeling, deep in my soul, how mean and selfish she was. She had that whole beautiful glass of fizzy pop all to herself - and not even just one - oooohhhh no, she could go and get another one out of the fridge any time she wanted - and she wouldn't give us a teensy, weency, tiny, little sip.
Mean.
Mom. Here you go. You waited almost forty years, but here it is. Sit down. I was wrong and I now understand. I'm so sorry I judged you.
I like icy cold ice water. I like it crystal clear with an unsullied straw. My favorite is from Starbucks because it's triple distilled and as clear as clear can be. But I swear on all that is holy and pure, the minute that green-aproned barista hands me the glass of icy cold goodness, it starts.
I dirsty.
No, I'm thirsty.
Momma, I'm thirsty. No, me.
I sip. I sip! I SIP!!
They're like locusts. Viscous, water-hungry locusts who are incapable of taking a sip from a straw without back-blowing gag-inducing crumbs of everything they've eaten for the last three hours into it. Why is there always spittle that hangs between their nasty little lips and the straw? Why can't they just drink with a constant upward pull, why must they snort shit back down?
Why can't they drink from their own damn water bottles that I packed carefully so that I could keep my water separate and pure and unclouded by demonic backwash?
Why, mom? Why? Is my own glass of water too much to ask? The floaties. They ruin it. I'm so sorry for every drink I sullied.
And they're sneaky. I looked away for like a second and one of them has darted in for the sip like a buzzard. You see Nate. I see a harbinger of clear water doom.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Restraint
Hampton Noodle has a whiffle ball addiction. It's all well and good and I certainly don't mind keeping him in whiffle balls, but unfortunately, Nate and Quinn are also partial to the damn things. I have probably purchased three hundred whiffle balls in the last year. Hampton can crunch them in one exhuberant crunch, which never fails to cause ceaseless wailing from the toddler set unless I can produce an uncrunched whiffle ball, pronto.
I'm very strict with the children about taking balls from the dog and vice versa. Nate is well aware that if he gets his hands on the ball first, the power lies in his corner. Hampton can track a whiffle ball for hours. He's a passionate whiffle ball hunter.
The hunter stalks its prey. (The ball is under Nate's hand.)
"What this? You want this?" Nate feels powerful, but our fearless dane has more patience and a longer attention span than a two-year-old. Oh, I will get that, small one of the no touchy-touchy, and when I do I will CRUNCH it and MUNCH it.
You are kidding me right? I know you're watching me, yelly woman with treats, but technically he put it down. I didn't take it from him. Crunching it would be fully within the rules at this point. I call foul. I want a line judge.
It's not even looking now. The small screechy one that can not be knocked over is finished with it. It is playing with a PENGUIN.
I'm whiffle crunching with my eyes.
For all my bitching, he's a very, very good eighteen month old puppy. (Yes, I let him have the ball.)
(We found the dog park. Great suggestion. He loves it and so do the kids. It's usually deserted too, which is a bonus.)
(He still sucks ass on any kind of leash, although he's an angel and stays right with me if he's loose. We tried the head lead thing. He is, um, very good at walking, well hopping, on his hind legs while wildly tearing at the evil contraption on his head. We'll keep working on it.)
Soon they are going to start asking me about tile and color and shower design. Scary and exciting. Scariting. I managed to move the children temporarily into the nursery-that-is-not-going-to-be-a-nursery-any-more and to take down all the gorgeous artwork that made the Snow White room special to me. All, that is, except for the photo border. I will do it, but there will be crying, both over the fifty adorable photos of them in their baby glory and because you have no idea how hard it was to get the damn thing up there!@!
Matt thinks it looks like a scary face. I think it didn't look like a scary face until Matt said that and now I will be afraid of our house growing teeth and eating me, Amityville Horror style, at night. As if I were not already scared of the dark.
I'm very strict with the children about taking balls from the dog and vice versa. Nate is well aware that if he gets his hands on the ball first, the power lies in his corner. Hampton can track a whiffle ball for hours. He's a passionate whiffle ball hunter.
The hunter stalks its prey. (The ball is under Nate's hand.)
"What this? You want this?" Nate feels powerful, but our fearless dane has more patience and a longer attention span than a two-year-old. Oh, I will get that, small one of the no touchy-touchy, and when I do I will CRUNCH it and MUNCH it.
You are kidding me right? I know you're watching me, yelly woman with treats, but technically he put it down. I didn't take it from him. Crunching it would be fully within the rules at this point. I call foul. I want a line judge.
It's not even looking now. The small screechy one that can not be knocked over is finished with it. It is playing with a PENGUIN.
I'm whiffle crunching with my eyes.
For all my bitching, he's a very, very good eighteen month old puppy. (Yes, I let him have the ball.)
(We found the dog park. Great suggestion. He loves it and so do the kids. It's usually deserted too, which is a bonus.)
(He still sucks ass on any kind of leash, although he's an angel and stays right with me if he's loose. We tried the head lead thing. He is, um, very good at walking, well hopping, on his hind legs while wildly tearing at the evil contraption on his head. We'll keep working on it.)
********
Soon they are going to start asking me about tile and color and shower design. Scary and exciting. Scariting. I managed to move the children temporarily into the nursery-that-is-not-going-to-be-a-nursery-any-more and to take down all the gorgeous artwork that made the Snow White room special to me. All, that is, except for the photo border. I will do it, but there will be crying, both over the fifty adorable photos of them in their baby glory and because you have no idea how hard it was to get the damn thing up there!@!
Matt thinks it looks like a scary face. I think it didn't look like a scary face until Matt said that and now I will be afraid of our house growing teeth and eating me, Amityville Horror style, at night. As if I were not already scared of the dark.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Together you and I
Stop! everything! Vague, annoying angst forgotten. Attempt at beautiful imagery and examination of self bumped down.
My children and the children of my closest friends in this crazy motherhood ride are in Dolly Parton's new music video. Dolly Parton! For a total of .00001 seconds at about 2:42 so do not blink, I kid you not.
The glory belongs to Amy. The story, because I know you are all on pins and needles, is that she adores Dolly. Their relationship has reached a very personal basis, though I'm not sure Dolly knows it yet, and when Dolly called for home video of people holding hands to be considered for inclusion in her new music video, Amy leaped to action. The rest of us, Elise, Kristina, Meggan and I, (A lovely circle of women and support and friendship that I consider the biggest treasure of my childbearing and young children raising years, excepting, of course, my actual children. Sometimes, actually, it's a tie.) rolled our eyes and griped. Get them all together? All thirteen of them? Naps! Schedules! Chaos!
But Amy nagged and moaned and bitched, ah, I mean persisted, and so we gathered in the boulevard one cranky afternoon and yelled at them until they stood in a marginal line for five seconds and I actually captured it with my mediocre filming skills. (Oh yes, that's my videography in a Dolly Parton video thank you very much.)
This is the original clusterfuck of a video. I can't imagine why Dolly didn't keep my piercing, bossy voice in her lovely video.
That night, I went, a trifle grumbly-like, to follow the instructions and upload the video and found that we had missed the submission deadline by twenty-four hours. I also found that we were supposed to be in front of an historic monument, but directions not being my strong point and Amy's deep happiness on the line, I fudged the boundaries of "historic" Manito Park a bit and hit submit.
I about died yesterday when I heard Amy screaming from ten blocks away that our kids were in a Dolly "fuck.ing" Parton video. I tried to maintain my facade of measured indifference, but it is so freaking cool! OMFG! I called my mom. She hasn't called me back. MOM. So I'm telling you.
I hope you have friends like these women. I hope my children have friends like them over the course of their lives. I laugh louder and love harder and enjoy my kids more and live my life better for having them at my side. There's always a net to fall into and a hand to hold and a smile to share. Disappointments sting less and successes taste sweeter. Humor shared is funnier and life is a blast. It's so much fun.
In the immortal words of Dolly: They stop the rain and make the sun shine.
My children and the children of my closest friends in this crazy motherhood ride are in Dolly Parton's new music video. Dolly Parton! For a total of .00001 seconds at about 2:42 so do not blink, I kid you not.
The glory belongs to Amy. The story, because I know you are all on pins and needles, is that she adores Dolly. Their relationship has reached a very personal basis, though I'm not sure Dolly knows it yet, and when Dolly called for home video of people holding hands to be considered for inclusion in her new music video, Amy leaped to action. The rest of us, Elise, Kristina, Meggan and I, (A lovely circle of women and support and friendship that I consider the biggest treasure of my childbearing and young children raising years, excepting, of course, my actual children. Sometimes, actually, it's a tie.) rolled our eyes and griped. Get them all together? All thirteen of them? Naps! Schedules! Chaos!
But Amy nagged and moaned and bitched, ah, I mean persisted, and so we gathered in the boulevard one cranky afternoon and yelled at them until they stood in a marginal line for five seconds and I actually captured it with my mediocre filming skills. (Oh yes, that's my videography in a Dolly Parton video thank you very much.)
This is the original clusterfuck of a video. I can't imagine why Dolly didn't keep my piercing, bossy voice in her lovely video.
That night, I went, a trifle grumbly-like, to follow the instructions and upload the video and found that we had missed the submission deadline by twenty-four hours. I also found that we were supposed to be in front of an historic monument, but directions not being my strong point and Amy's deep happiness on the line, I fudged the boundaries of "historic" Manito Park a bit and hit submit.
I about died yesterday when I heard Amy screaming from ten blocks away that our kids were in a Dolly "fuck.ing" Parton video. I tried to maintain my facade of measured indifference, but it is so freaking cool! OMFG! I called my mom. She hasn't called me back. MOM. So I'm telling you.
I hope you have friends like these women. I hope my children have friends like them over the course of their lives. I laugh louder and love harder and enjoy my kids more and live my life better for having them at my side. There's always a net to fall into and a hand to hold and a smile to share. Disappointments sting less and successes taste sweeter. Humor shared is funnier and life is a blast. It's so much fun.
In the immortal words of Dolly: They stop the rain and make the sun shine.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Scenes
It's a beautiful afternoon. Our six week reprieve between the capricious winds of June and the large metal key in the bolt sound of the heat thudding on in late August. Door locked. Sentence begun. Summer over.
The kind of afternoon I'll cry for the loss of someday, fingering old pictures with my spider-veined hands and wondering where it all went and why it was in such a hurry. Why I was in such hurry?
Quinn bends upside down, hanging backwards from a bike rack. He is kitsch-cool in his shades and overalls and Spiderman flip flops. He has something to him, at three years old, god help us. An innate likability and poise. An understanding of his space in the world and how his ripples affect others. It could go either way with him, there is deep goodness and cruelty.
Saige swings across the purple monkey bars still in her soccer camp shorts and yellow t-shirt. She makes it back and forth three times before she looses her grip and lands steady on bent knees. She has practiced for a year to reach level 'astonishing' in monkey bar proficiency. That is Saige. She either wants it so badly it drives us all insane or she can't be bothered. Please let her want school. It could be a nightmare if she wanted it to be. Can you major in monkey bars?
Silly mother worries, I scold myself. She will want something, eventually. School isn't everything.
Garrett twirls in the sparkling droplets of the splash pad fountain. He is the exact opposite of Quinn's studied awareness. He spins free and fast, unconscious of his existence in relation to others. He is uninhibited and outgoing, but in that loose, overeager way that can bring rejection's hammer crashing down hard. My heart constricts for him, watching at a distance. He'll be hurt and it will be the thing to love most about him. Quinn will stand behind his wall and watch others scrape their skin trying to scale it.
A biplane purrs overhead, drifting, almost stationary, and Nate signs at me "airplane! airplane!" His designer-bedroom-blue eyes thrill. The sticky juice of the apple he eats whole drips off of his chin and stains the front of his shirt. He even likes the cores. I have to fish the seeds and stem from behind his puppy-sharp teeth. I sit beside him in the lotus position on our perfect patchwork towel, marketed for summer in some ridiculous seasonal catalog.
If you watched from the hill on the other side of the baseball field, you might think how relaxed and serene I look. My red highlights rich in the sunlight. My eyes on the pines on the ridge behind you. You never know what you're really watching, do you? You might be surprised.
It's a lie. I'm terrified. My stomach flips and the back of my tongue goes dry in surges. I sip a tall recycled Starbucks cup of ice water at my side to force moisture down my cottony throat. There's nothing for it but to live my summer, ride the waves of adrenaline and drink my water and my children down in big, thirsty gulps.
I'm scared whether the answer is yes or no. Some day soon, I'll tell you the question.
For now, you tell me, since I need distraction, are you always as you seem?
The kind of afternoon I'll cry for the loss of someday, fingering old pictures with my spider-veined hands and wondering where it all went and why it was in such a hurry. Why I was in such hurry?
Quinn bends upside down, hanging backwards from a bike rack. He is kitsch-cool in his shades and overalls and Spiderman flip flops. He has something to him, at three years old, god help us. An innate likability and poise. An understanding of his space in the world and how his ripples affect others. It could go either way with him, there is deep goodness and cruelty.
Saige swings across the purple monkey bars still in her soccer camp shorts and yellow t-shirt. She makes it back and forth three times before she looses her grip and lands steady on bent knees. She has practiced for a year to reach level 'astonishing' in monkey bar proficiency. That is Saige. She either wants it so badly it drives us all insane or she can't be bothered. Please let her want school. It could be a nightmare if she wanted it to be. Can you major in monkey bars?
Silly mother worries, I scold myself. She will want something, eventually. School isn't everything.
Garrett twirls in the sparkling droplets of the splash pad fountain. He is the exact opposite of Quinn's studied awareness. He spins free and fast, unconscious of his existence in relation to others. He is uninhibited and outgoing, but in that loose, overeager way that can bring rejection's hammer crashing down hard. My heart constricts for him, watching at a distance. He'll be hurt and it will be the thing to love most about him. Quinn will stand behind his wall and watch others scrape their skin trying to scale it.
A biplane purrs overhead, drifting, almost stationary, and Nate signs at me "airplane! airplane!" His designer-bedroom-blue eyes thrill. The sticky juice of the apple he eats whole drips off of his chin and stains the front of his shirt. He even likes the cores. I have to fish the seeds and stem from behind his puppy-sharp teeth. I sit beside him in the lotus position on our perfect patchwork towel, marketed for summer in some ridiculous seasonal catalog.
If you watched from the hill on the other side of the baseball field, you might think how relaxed and serene I look. My red highlights rich in the sunlight. My eyes on the pines on the ridge behind you. You never know what you're really watching, do you? You might be surprised.
It's a lie. I'm terrified. My stomach flips and the back of my tongue goes dry in surges. I sip a tall recycled Starbucks cup of ice water at my side to force moisture down my cottony throat. There's nothing for it but to live my summer, ride the waves of adrenaline and drink my water and my children down in big, thirsty gulps.
I'm scared whether the answer is yes or no. Some day soon, I'll tell you the question.
For now, you tell me, since I need distraction, are you always as you seem?
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