exhale

since arriving home mid-august, i haven’t let myself really stop to think about things i’m holding in my heart. i keep myself going going going running the mouse wheel til it sparks and threatens combustion on my sorry ass. maybe it’s how i’m processing things, handling life, juggling torches.

i am doing. i am being.
i am not always breathing as deeply as i should be.

that nagging voice in my head, the one that sounds just like me but a bit more nasal-y (and definitely more annoying) keeps telling me to stop… to slow down… to sit and write. that writing might actually help my health and my sleep and my worries. but i brush her off because i’m a know-it-all and she’s a control freak so we do our inner battle to see who’s going to win. i’m stubborn, but she’s smarter… and deep deep down i know it’s going to hit me like a ton of fucking bricks. like a stereotypical cartoon buffoon with stars and tweety birds around her head. what i’m doing is ginormous. that’s not even a word, because the weight of what i’m doing doesn’t even have a word.

i am my mothers daughter. she taught me in ways i never knew she was teaching me. now, only now, can i see it. all of it as lessons. and all that i am remembering. all that i am forgetting. it makes me laugh or cry on good or bad days. it makes me eat ice cream with chocolate covered gummy bears. (yes, those do actually exist. and yes, they are terrible and oh-so-good)

sometimes i watch myself from the outside of me, and it becomes clear what i am doing. and what i’m doing right now is gathering mothers to me. all the women she  gathered to herself. i have found them, and they have found me and deemed themselves honorary “aunties”. these are the women pushed together in strollers by the grandmother i never knew. these are the women who went to kindergarten with my mom, elementary school, high school, college. they were in each others weddings. and they will be at her funeral when that day arrives. fuck. i’m going to need all the mothers i can get.

let’s not get ahead of ourselves. i must say, it’s easy to do.
it’s the sidetrack that leads me right back to death.
when instead i should be looking out the window at the scenery.
i should be catching wind in my hair and bugs in my teeth from smiling at this life i have right now.
today. this very moment.

which is exactly why i’ve been hibernating this week.

this week, we came through the first five days of kindergarten. this week my art was up for auction (via blogher and kirtsy) to benefit the nature conservancy. this week my photography was over on designmom, and a favorite photo of mine was on exhibit in Vermont. it’s been a busy week.

but right now? it’s time to exhale.

dear world, please be kind.

we woke in the darkness of morning today. he mumbles with bedhead before his brain is fully awake, “momma, is i going to school today?” i smile at the sleepy grammar and kiss his soft cheek. “no babe, the first day of school is tomorrow.”

instead, we take our breakfast and our swim suits and watch the sun burn off the morning mist at barton springs. in my head it’s the last day of summer (although it’ll remain near to 100 degrees well into september) and i can think of no better place to spend this last special day with my boy.

we spread out our towel and he begins drawing. i lay down on my back and watch the clouds. there is a peace between us. almost as if there had been no time that passed this month of august. yet we have come so far. and here we are right now, on the cusp of a big milestone and i wonder how we got here. specifically. i mean, yes i know i gave birth to him. i know i stayed at home with him for the first three years. i know i then became a single momma. i know we endured many transitions. i know we have loved deeply through all of it. and somehow life has deposited us here, firmly planted in the most common of childhood memories: the first day of kindergarten.

tomorrow we will rise in the darkness of yet another morning. you will dress yourself in your favorite new lego shirt (at bedtime tonight you told me “tomorrow i will show the kids in my class how legos evolved”) in the rearview mirror, we will chat as the sun bursts through the clouds on our 4 minute drive to school. i will kiss you goodbye at your classroom door and will whisper i love you into your hair. you will be the bravest strongest most gentlest soul i know.

then i will turn and walk into this life we have created, with one silent prayer on my heart, “dear world, please be kind.”

rewind

so, i flew directly from NYC back in time to 1976.

fresh off the plane, one foot in each world.  i am your grown daughter, a 35 year old woman that stands before you smiling.  and simultaneously in your dementia, i am your one year old baby in your arms smiling up at you.

“i keep telling him i have three children,” you say with a smile.
you hop around in time.
i never know where i’ll meet you.
but it doesn’t really matter, as long as i meet you there.

“what do you remember from 1976?” my brother asked me. “nothing,”  i reply, “i was only one.” he, being eight years older than me remembers the stress and the parents fighting and being dragged down the street by our spry husky puppy.

when cornered, she seems to go back to a time of great transition. these times in her mind are not always happy places, although she is genuinely happy right now. it makes me happy to see her happy. i’m glad it’s no longer 1970. now i am born.  we are are about to move from san diego to napa valley. now my memories are about to start with the apple green carpet and the holes in the fence and the splinters on the deck and the brown plaid curtains in the orange VW bus that shaped who i was to become as i grew into myself.

this confusion has no road map other than the heart.  the emotion connected to milestones or stressors pop you back in and out of time. “let this be a lesson to you,” i tease my brother although we know the brutal truth that this is no joke. this, watching her deal with the unpleasantries of early marriage and early motherhood and postpartum anxiety while left alone in chicago will shape how i process everything from here on out. nothing can be shoved down forever… if you don’t deal with the emotions when they arise, you’ll have to deal with them when they conquer your mind at age 68.

and this is why i write.

even though i am grounded here firmly in 2010. my story is woven into yours and you carry me with you back to my childhood and i watch it all again with grown eyes and all i can say is that i learn of you. who you were then, as a woman my age.  when i was one, you were 34. you are my peer. you are in my shoes and it makes me miss you as a woman.

back-to-school

also known as How I Spent My Summer Vacation

i’m over at shutter sisters today with my back to school assignment,
join me there and share a memorable moment from your summer!

a new york minute

i don’t know the words yet to describe the feeling.
the texture, smell, people, curiosity, intrigue and beauty that is new york.
i kept saying ‘everything is beautiful’ like i was a broken record.
it’s true.
everything.
everything is beautiful.

at first i was all mouth hung open head out the cab window like a dog gulping air.
… smitten …
and all i can say is that the feeling never left me.  it just grew and morphed and intensified.

within the first 8 hours the day had become 2 planes, 1 cab, penn station, 2 subways, 2 NJ transit trains, and countless city blocks. my feet carried me through time into the world of memories and short streets and childhood homes.

the same the same the same.
nothing and everything changes over 23 years.

a life of bliss is a hot dog eaten while looking at radio city music hall, spilling relish on my shirt with the biggest grin spread across my face.  i love it here.

there is something about coming back to the buildings of your childhood.  the front stoops.  the fire escapes, the dirty brick, and hidden crooken cobblestone.  over time it unknowingly becomes you, and everywhere you go and live never quiet feels like the home that was your first impression of what is real.

this new york, this time around was the best laughter ever.  the friendships, the tears at goodbye, the hearts shared. i have no words yet for the conversations spoken and shared over italian food, over ice cream cones, over korean food.  the truths spilled givingly wantingly into reflections of elevator mirrors and lobby windows.

this is real life.

the curiosity, the intrigue, the love i have for my surroundings here is intoxicating.  {the inspiration it brings and those creations swirling around you} this NY energy feels most alive and i visualize it in feminine form. the creativity, the power, the amazing strength of women brought together through art and words.  it’s a power.  a force of beauty to be reckoned with.  it’s a reflection of you and me.  forward and backward simultaneously teetering always on the edge of forward momentum unable to see anything but the path ahead and feeling the strength and beauty that guides.

this, this NYC, was  a well that i filled through time and experience. a well that i will dip into from time to time when life is life.  this place is one to carry me when my legs are sore from walking.

there is no way around it, but through it.

freedom fighter

love over anger

light over dark

truth over lies

peace over aggression

bravery over fear

the self that is selfless

we are all one mind

freedom fighter

being present

objects are often placed in our path. gifts, they are. we may not notice them though, we may step around them many many times until something finally opens our eyes to the treasure that was not a treasure until the very moment we were ready to see it.

we shake the rocks out of our shoes
and realize what it should have felt like all along.
* when i say “we” i mean me *

i am trying to become more aware of what is given to me. on this path. maybe aware isn’t the right word. i’ve most always been able to see things clearly but i’ve just never much acted upon these gifts. often my response was one that resounded from a place of fear, a polite ‘no thank you’ instead of the self confidence overflowing into ‘yes, indeed!’

i’m chickenshit.
socially awkward.
and often a flounderer of words.

i can type faster than i can speak. and that is a problem in the real world, you know, face to face, where there is no keyboard on which to type. so this, apparently, is the year of getting over that. this is the year of me voicing up. putting on the heels that make me 6’3 and being present. this is the year of being real in real life.

remember my concerns of being seen?
and remember my revelation of real life?

i’m on a maddening cycle. it plays on repeat until i get it right. the good thing is that there is plenty of practice. looking into another set of eyes, feeling that flutter, the words fly out my ears but the smile stays on my lips. this year i’ve come to see clearly that i am not the sum of my past relationships, but i am something new every day.

i’m taking an adventure (a literal one that requires a plane to deposit me on the streets of NYC) i’m taking a leap into my life. i feel it’s about time.

here at home
there on the east coast
but also in an alternate universe.

if you’re in NYC or going to NYC later this week, look for my smiling eyes, and my art on exhibit friday night at the art auction. and if you’re looking for me here in austin, well, i’ll be home in a few weeks.