"Marco!"

I already missed a day this week with writing.  It wasn’t on purpose, and it wasn’t because I didn’t have anything to write about, but time, baby, time gets away a lot these days. 

Last night, the kids and I swam for a couple hours.  We do our exercises (jumping jacks, arm circles, bicycle kicks, etc.), then we get on the basketballs and play a fun version of chicken (first one to lose the ball, loses that match), and yet another game where I think of a color and they try to guess what it is.  I cradle them in my arms, and for every wrong answer, I get to dunk them.  When they get it right, I flip them over.  Last night the color I picked was “wheat.”  Poor Tony got dunked for twenty minutes before I started reciting lines from Little Red Hen, “Who will help me take this______ to the mill?”  “Not I,” said the dog.  “Not I,” said the duck.  “Not I,” said the cat.   He finally got it.

This transcended into one of our favorite games to play, usually when we’re eating dinner.  It’s called, “What’s my Favorite?”

I started it.

“What’s my favorite book?” 

Tony screamed it out, “To Kill a Mockingbird!”  He’s been paying attention.

“What’s my favorite Bruce song?”  They guessed ‘em all  - Thunder Road, Glory Days, My City of Ruins, American Land. . . Nope, nope, nope, nope.  Finally, Paige really concentrated, I could almost hear the music playing in her head.  She closed her eyes for a second, and then yelled, “Racing in the Street!”  I gave it to her, it was a good guess.  (For the record, I go back and forth between a lot of his songs - - - Backstreets, Maria’s Bed, Further On Up the Road. . .)

“What’s my favorite beverage?” Tony screamed, “Wine!”  Paige screamed, “Coffee!”

It went on for a short time.  Then it was Tony’s turn.

“What’s my favorite tree of all these trees?”  He asked this, pointing to about fifty trees.  I got it right on the second guess.  Next question, “Which is my favorite blade of grass?”  When Paige and I rolled our eyes, he changed it to “What’s my favorite block on MineCraft?”  Paige got it within seconds.  (Butter)

Then it was Paige’s turn.

“What is my favorite natural resource?”  I giggled and said, “You are so very different from your brother.”  We guessed all the natural resources.  When we finally gave up, she looked at us like we were so stupid.  “Flint rock, duh.”

How could I have missed that one?

Her next question puzzled me.

“What’s my favorite phrase that Mommy says?”

“I love you?”  I asked.  She shook her head.

“Mama. . .”  Tony said whenever he’s checked out.

I made a few guesses, like, “Get your butt over here and clean your room,” or “Enzo, you little bastard. . .”

When I gave up, she said her favorite phrase that I say is, “I’ve gotta fix my face.”  I didn’t even know I said it, but apparently I say it nearly every morning while I put my makeup on.

Not much to write about today, but a simple way of checking in, and keeping account, I guess. . .

"Polo!"

Back at It

It’s a lot different trying to write at home after returning from vacation. 

The room that houses my desk also houses the “dog couch” and it smells like dog. More specifically, it smells like the little bastard, Enzo.  I clean the cover every weekend, and for reasons known to all, I was not able to do so this weekend because I was on a mini-vacation.

I put the dog couch in the same room as my desk so that Gracie can adore me while I balance my checking account or check my emails. Gracie is ten years old.  She smiles when I walk in the door, and her whole body wags with joy.  I am her girl.  While I mow, she follows me up one row, down the other, up another row, down the other until I point to the house and tell her to go.  She sits in the center of the lawn, and watches me.  If I stop mowing to pick up a branch or a ball in my way, she’s up and at my side.  To see a ten year old dog with a suspected torn ACL trotting to meet me, well, you can imagine how it makes me feel. . .  If you can’t, it’s a combination of heartbreaking and tender, guilty and proud.  I get tears in my eyes just thinking about it.  She's my girl.

Anyway, I am writing in a different space.  With the headphones on, it’s almost like I’m in the cabin on the mountaintop surrounded by nothing, and I feel like I had another day of vacation.  Today, rather than get up whenever, linger over coffee and conversation, stretch my arms to the bright sun and test my writing fingers: 

·         I went into work straight from the return trip, had a quick meeting, and then finished the vacation day.

·         I picked the kids up from their Dad's.

·         I returned license plates to the MVA because I received the third notice that if I didn’t return them, my license would be suspended.

·         The lawn looked like a field, and so had to be mowed.

·         The new pool filter came in (because the other one was shot), so that had to be assembled and hooked to the pool.

·         The mower ran out of gas a quarter of the way through the mow, and so Tony and I ran to the gas station to fill it.

·         My truck was empty too.

·         Gracie finally ate something.  She gets depressed and distressed when I’m gone, and opts not to eat but to howl the entire time.

·         Paige had me call her friend’s mom, to set up a play date.

·         I brought the garbage can up from the curb, and emptied the stuffed mailbox, sorting through the garbage I would keep and the garbage I would track.

·         Got chased out of the kitchen by Tony because I was singing a Taylor Swift song very loudly, and he’s not a fan.

·         Made dinner.

·         Ate dinner.

·         Answered a phone call, and laughed with a good friend.

And now, I sit writing at the kitchen table, overlooking Gracie and two kids who are already in their pajamas (the kids, not Gracie) and watching yet another episode of Malcolm in the Middle. 

As much as I enjoyed the trip, I look over the laptop screen and I see Tony on the sofa, concentrating hard on his game of MineCraft (soon to be disappointed when I take away the iPod to cuddle) and Paige curled up on the chair, snug in a blanket and holding her Eeyore, and Gracie in her chair, sleepy but attentive to every stroke I make on this keyboard (and I know the instant I close the top, she’ll be at my side).

Enzo is sitting in the other room, on the stinky couch, barking at squirrels.

So, I guess I’m writing to say that a cabin in the woods for two days without the noise of the daily intake and uptake is great and the view is fantastic.

And I think I am also writing to say that the daily intake and uptake is here and mine, and the view is fantastic.

It’s good to be home.

 

Take it In, It's Free

Not much to this picture, I suppose.  I snapped it while taking a walk along the mountain top.  It's a State Route.  Around the bend, it dips, and if it was snowing and I was on a sled, it would be a hell of a ride.  At the bottom of the dip, it goes back up.

I had my headphones on and I walked it.  Up and down, and around the bend.  I stripped off a layer and wrapped it around my waist.  I wiped the sweat from my lip.  I looked up and over, where a hillside of cattle grazed lazily.  I glanced to the left when I turned around that bend, and I saw a woman working in a garden the size of my backyard, her husband tending to the lawn beside their house.  When they saw me, they waved.  I waved back, and thought about how easy it was to find goodness.

It was there that I stopped to take it all in.

As I sat on the hillside and gazed at the cows, I could only think one thing: the insignificance of the “things” in my life. There's no meaning in clothes and SUVs, no significance in cell phones, computers or shoes.

 It all purports to nothing.

I stared at the golden hillside, one white cow strewn with the black, and started to dream. My eyes scanned the horizon and life moved in slow motion for the first time in a long time.  The unhurried movement gave great meaning to the pace we all live when we have jobs and responsibilities that interrupt the simple act of gratitude for having lived. Thoughts of my toothless children in diapers gave way to full sets of teeth and underpants that gave way to big beds and iPods, and somehow, despite their growth being a reality, it didn’t feel real in that moment.  And I realized, with some dismay, that had I not come to this hillside and gazed into the endless sky, another year might have passed without recognizing just how quickly it passes; I might have allowed another year to slip by without the brief visit into nostalgia, without the replay of how far I’ve come, how high I’ve climbed. 

Breathing mountain air has a way of leaving you breathless.

And the ultimate truth I found was that clothes and SUVs, cell phones, computers and shoes can never compete with what we get to experience for free - - the scent of a flower, the curve in a road, the fog on a mountain top in the distance, a wave coming into shore, snowflakes falling, the vision of laughter on your child’s face, sharing in the smile, the warmth of a hug from someone you’ve been missing, the memory of love, of love, of love. . .

And the dreaming and reality give way to the desire for something simpler.  I could sell the car, sell the house, quit the job - - - live more simply.  I could live so that I’m not living to pay out, but to take in all the expansive beauty offered to me.

It was nice to slow down and to dream, and to recognize that there are choices out there, even if it’s impossible for me to take them.  Selling the house, selling the car, quitting the job. . . not so simple.

And that’s okay.  It’s really okay.

Obsession

A couple months ago, I read the book titled Bruce (aka my best friend, Bruce Springsteen).  It’s kind of weird to read a book about your best friend, and not know the full story of his growth and success.  Like anyone else, his eccentricities affected those that were closest to him.  Some people were offended by him, while others became the offspring of his success.  In the end, though Bruce could be a jerk, judged against the standards I’ve encountered as a “nice girl”, it was his obsession to perfect his talent that made him a success.  This is my humble opinion, and Bruce might disagree.  He might say that he wasn’t trying to perfect his talent as much as he was trying to live with his eccentricities in a world that wasn’t quite fair.

If I were to read the headlines or listen to the news that permeates our U.S. as “top stories”, I’d hear about husbands killing their pregnant wives, mothers smothering their children, or millionaire athletes - - - supposed heroes - - - attempting to get away with murder.

As a woman who has her own quirkiness to contain, and who knows people who harbor a condition that many might diagnose as obsessive-compulsive disorder, and who has had Bruce as her best friend since she was around 8 years old, might know that these headlines hurt at the core sometimes.

Don’t we all think that our standards and norms are the right ones?  I know a few people who can lie without remorse, cheat with justification and simply mold what I might define as “wrong” into something they justify as “right”.  Who hasn’t been a victim of that? And who hasn’t judged the actions of that kind of person?

Sometimes I think that I might be the one that is clearly effed up.  I mean, why does it hurt so much sometimes when I come across people who vehemently disagree that there is a higher power at play somewhere?  Why does it hurt so much to know that men and women around the world choose to walk away from their spouses and their children, and never look back?

I guess it goes back to that “justification” argument.  I can freely acknowledge that when I am unable to see beyond myself, I insist that my moral compass points to the right way all the time.  Yet, when I acknowledge the actions of people around the world - - good and evil, alike - - I sometimes feel like I am off-kilter.

I have been told by my friends, family and bosses at work that I am “too” nice.  My therapist, shortly after the split-up of my marriage, labeled me the same way.  Too nice.

BECAUSE NICE MATTERS

That’s my obsession.  Because quite honestly, when I lose my cool (mostly at work and when dealing with tired children), I often go on a diatribe of why I’m right and they’re wrong, and it makes me feel lousy about myself.  I finish the diatribe and I am instantaneously filled with remorse.

I don’t like that feeling at all, at all, at all.

So I obsess about being nice, and by doing so, I end up aggravating the people who think I should have a stronger back-bone, and that I should at least stay angry for more than ten minutes.

And you know what else I do?  I get aggravated by people who aren’t like me.  I get annoyed at people who offer love in different ways - - who, instead of being obsessed about being nice, are obsessed with being honest, or hard-workers, or gift-givers.

I think I need a different obsession, honestly.

How about I become obsessed with exercise?  Or writing? Or keeping in touch with my friends and siblings? Or cleaning my house? Or spending every extra moment with my babies? Or focus solely on my needs and wants, without regard for anyone else? Or, like Bruce, seek perfection to the point of scrapping hours of work?

I don’t know what is right and what is effed up anymore.

Maybe my obsession should be trying to figure that out.  Or maybe I should just turn off the headlines, ignore the idiots and put on my headphones, search for the product of Bruce’s obsession for perfection on my iPod and listen to the live version of Racing in the Street for the thousandth time, and not worry about it anymore.

Yes, that would be nice.  So I shall do just that.

Enchanted

There was a time when I would sit in front of the laptop with a feeling of joy and exuberance.  Finally!  My escape was waiting.  The day would begin and end with writing.  I recall sitting and not thinking about what topic I would get to, and not worrying about it either because it would just come to me, like a snappy comeback that I didn’t even know was funny until everyone who heard it, laughed.

Today, I took the day off from work.  Drove to a quiet cottage in the mountains, in the middle of nowhere to find the snappy comeback, because I no longer feel joy and exuberance when I sit down to write.  I feel dread, and guilt, and fat and ugly and stupid.  I feel like a wannabe, a has-been-who-never-was, a failure and a cheat - - - not at all like the girl who often wrote without judgment, and with the sole purpose of maybe, just maybe, making someone laugh or cry, think or get angry. 

The cottage sits a half mile off the main road, at the end of a dirt road.  It sits nestled on a plateau in the lower part of the mountain.  The furniture on the front porch is made of untouched wood - - - thin and thick branches, and twisted limbs, measured and corded together to form the porch, the rails and railing, the chairs, the tables. The worn chair cushions are the only parts that God didn’t create on the first or second day.

Upon entering the premises, the air is saturated with the resonating sound of a waterfall that fills a pond filled with Koi fish, built into the side of a steep hill that is brandished with flowers.  There is no perfection in the structure of the hillside, which makes it perfect for the senses - - the dreams, the hopes, the wishes, the truth and the purity of what is real.  It touches those other senses too.

The stone chimney, built up the entire wall of the cottage stands over a fully living roof - - 3 ½ tons of living sod, growing wild flowers and various plants indigenous to the mountain.  The flies are leaving me alone; and I haven’t seen the bear that is known to make its appearance around these parts.

Jackson Browne begins one of his songs with these lines:  “What with all my expectations long abandoned and a future I no longer saw my hand in, how I found you is beyond my understanding. . .”

This cottage makes me think of those lines; and it makes me smile when I think of my companion on this trip.  For the past year and a half, he is the closest I’ve had to a best friend in quite a long time.  Though he doesn’t quite understand my need to be writing in the mountains, he has a sense of how it makes me part whole.  He has a sense that if I write, even that sucky, crappy writing I envision myself writing lately, I will somehow find another piece of myself that will send me back into a motion that propels me forward, toward a more mature growth and understanding of whatever it is I need to understand. 

Sometimes I get the sense that those who love me the most, know me better than even I know myself.

They pull me out of myself too; like pulling a rabbit out of a hat.  The rabbit often stares in awe after being drawn into the light.    The rabbit remembers being a baby, entertaining glee and giddiness, facing challenges, trapping hope, enduring pain.  The rabbit stares and remembers, and sometimes chooses to jump back into the hat until he his pulled out again and again and again.

I feel like that rabbit.  Lately, my uniqueness will become fastened to the hand of a loved one, and sadly, with the first hint of light, it often retreats back inside.

Despite the constant breeze rolling from the mountain, the sun, unaccompanied by the bank of gray clouds that sits on the horizon line, radiates a sweltering heat as it hangs high above me.

I’ve decided to retreat back inside.

There is a scent of a recent fire in the chimney that brings to mind a dying campfire, red embers that look soft enough to touch.  The sound of the waterfall resonates through the pine walls of the cottage, and through the headphones I have in my ears.  I just noticed, and I have no idea how it took me so long to see it, but a brown bear rug is lying across a worn leather sofa.

And I sense it again - - that feeling of knowing myself even less than others know me.

 During the week, I told everyone who would listen that I wouldn’t be available on Friday.  I told them that I was taking the day off, and that I would not be checking email or answering my phone, or returning texts.  I told them that I was off to write.

“What do you write?”  One person asked.

“Nothing.”  I answered.

Imagine the curious look.

“That’s why I’m going.”  I left it at that.

Others didn’t believe it.  Generally, a day off for me equals at least four hours of work anyway.  So, of course, I was invited to join meetings and conference calls - - - my cell phone alerting me to every invitation.  About halfway through the trip, I went to my settings and turned off my alert status.

Even if it’s just for this weekend, I want to be a rabbit that hops with glee and pain, hope and fear, tenderness and regret.  The rabbit that decides to glow in the senses - - - the dreams, the hopes, the wishes, the truth and the purity of what is real.

The rabbit who appreciates that she is loved.

The rabbit who finds gratitude that she is truly known by those she loves in return.

Insanity Makes Me Crazy Happy

Good morning to you all!  Happy Wednesday!  Happy May 1st!  Happy Birthday to my nephew, James! (I love you a lot, a lot).

This morning, as I struggled to follow two bladder-filled dogs down the stairs, I was reminded of my newest habit.  With every step, my hamstrings yelped, my ass cheeks screamed (who knew there was muscle under them?) and my calf muscles tightened up.  Yet, with every step, my smile grew bigger.

And I was reminded of one of my brother's favorite jokes:  "No pain, no pain."

Of course with that thought, I laughed.  Why wouldn't I laugh and be merry after eight solid hours of sleep for the thirteenth day in a row?  Why wouldn't I laugh and be merry with the thought that work awaits and I am no longer stressed and looking like a zombie every morning?  And looky here, I have enough energy to both sip my coffee and write a little diddy.

It seems that the Insanity workout, despite being insane and painful, provides a great deal of gains. 

I don't know if you've ever seen the infomercials for the workout, but I remember many mornings sitting in my chair, sipping my coffee while watching, and thinking, "That looks hard."

Then in one crazy moment, I decided that it looked hard enough to try.  So I got the discs from a friend, and started to move.

The first day, after about 6 minutes of warm-up, I had to rest, get back up, rest, get back up.  Both Paige and Tony watched me struggle through the entire 45 minutes, all the while giggling and saying, "Mommy, you don't look like the people doing the exercises.  They haven't fallen over eighteen times, and tripped into the wall."

The response I wanted to give, as the sweat poured down my face and into my eyes, and as my lungs screamed for mercy was, "Shut it, you little mongrels.  They are getting paid to do this, they are trained and have been doing this workout for months, they are no more perfect than me!"  But instead I said, "Ugh," and dropped to the floor in the final two minutes of stretches.

Now, nearly two weeks later, I laugh - - - ha, ha, ha! - - - and though I am still dropping to the floor with exhaustion, I am doing it with a sense of satisfaction.

I think I might have a set of abs somewhere near my stomach because I swear I can feel them, and I can see a slight change in the way my shirts fall over the mini muffin top I've baked for the past couple of years.

The odd thing is, I didn't start the workout so I could lose weight.  I started it so I could lose stress, gain sleep and find my mojo again with writing.

It seems to have worked.
I'm feeling pretty good now. 
Insanely good.

January 27th: Still Spinning

               

               The words still come once in a while, and they’ll roll toward me and away again, toward me and away.  If I have the wherewithal I will bend down and scoop them up: conglomerate, pinnacle, obeisance - - - just words.  I honor their tenacity and stubbornness, and I am flattered that they still come forth, ready to be used, given my complete disregard for them over the past few years.

                Not too long ago, as I drove into work with Springsteen as my companion, singing of Life Itself (rushing over me, life itself, in the wind and black elms, life itself in your heart and in your eyes, and I can’t make it without you), I was reminded of the world that spun when that song first came out.  It was a world filled with lush greens, a world filled with laughter and smiles, kindness and ease.  It was a world without death, a world without sorrow, a world that rotated so effortlessly. 

As I drove, I realized that on the day that I had heard that song for the very first time, my world hiccupped in its rotation, and skipped like a record that had been spearheaded. As I played the words over in my mind - - - I can’t make it without you - - - I recalled the landscape of that massive world as it torpedoed into a tunnel of darkness and fear that had housed itself into an even darker abyss of the anonymity and alienation.

Yet it still spun.  The tunnel of darkness and fear, alienation and anonymity was just a facet of the continued world.  It was a long tunnel to get through, and it is now a permanent fixture of the new world.  I recognize that as my world moved through that tunnel, desperate to reach its end, I had left some things along the way:  Drama, worry, fear.  Sleep, exercise, confidence.

I recognized that as my world moved through that tunnel, desperate to reach its end, a new president had become known, a new war had emerged on terrain that I would never see, a new celebrity died from an overdose of being a celebrity, Brad and Angelina had another kid, scientists discovered another breakthrough, more diets emerged, and alcohol, drugs, guns, hatred, abuse, and pride ran all over the world, like termites on rotten plywood, nonplussed by my hurt.  In fact, as it spun, the words - - - juxtaposition, diaphanous, lethargy - - - shot off my forehead, pierced their way into my heart, rolled from my fingertips, or hid in the recesses of my mind; and some of them of them were left in the tunnel to toil around with my writing talent, or to cry along with the discarded willpower and confidence I had gained from having made it through a painful divorce.

I also realized that the walk through that tunnel afforded me some time to understand love, and the tenacity of love, the strength of love as it expands to cushion the pain, as it expands to embrace the sorrow of others, as it expands to allow the recognition that the excruciating pain I felt was a product of the amazing love I had in my heart, and rather than take away from it, the pain actually multiplied the love threefold.  I realized the power.

And the world still spun, looping through the tunnel, out of it, back into it, and out of it again through the wind and the black elms . . . 

As I sit here, January 27^th 2013, on the four year anniversary of the day that changed my life forever, I am reminded of love’s power, and of the power of life itself; and of a world that is still spinning in your heart and in your eyes. . .