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Something to believe in

I want to believe that Deja Vu (an overwhelming sense of familiarity with something that shouldn't be familiar at all) is some throw back to a past life. Not that it's a mismatching of the brain. A glitch.

I want to believe in God. It seems so comforting. 

I want to believe that nighttime dreams have meaning, that my subconscious is working hard, trying to send messages to my conscious brain.

I want to believe some things last forever.

I want to believe I'm not just filling a gasping, empty void.

I want to believe that I'm here. Really here. But...

I want to believe in parallel universes.

I want to believe in life on other planets.

I want to believe that I'm good.

I want to believe all of it.

The burn

Seattle is sweltering. Oddly, bizarrely, uncharacteristically hot. But I refuse to complain. I will not join the ranks of heat haters. Because this only happens for a few days once a year (if we're lucky).

Bring it on.

Chicago sustained

On Wednesday, Fruit Bat followed me all around the house, playing his kazoo while I cleaned bathrooms and packed for the BlogHer conference. Kitty Cat sat on the floor dressing her dolls, her long toes wiggling. She can do this contentedly for close to an hour before she bores of it.

In Chicago, I rode the blue line bus from O'Hare to downtown, through a hot tunnel, sitting in front of two girls who talked about their brothers Victor and George. Every other phrase out of their mouths was "I don't give a fuck" or "What do I fucking care?" said with the spin only two city girls can give. The line wouldn't sound so perfectly rounded coming from my suburban mouth.

Then there I was. Spent paper coffee cups and juice bottles littering the small round table to the left of my hotel bed. A peek-a-boo view of Lake Michigan from our room, Bossy's and mine.

There was a lot of sitting around and listening to speakers speak, most of it interesting, to me anyway. There was a lot of blog pimping, product placement and keynotes. There was a lot of talent, a lot of knowledge zipping around the place.

I went to a party Saturday night, sponsored by Nikon, because most everything there was sponsored. I sat in a bar on the river, alone on my little ottoman, taking a break from the hoopla. I was situated directly beneath the seam of two canopies and, if I looked up, I could see a lantern and tree branches swaying with the mild storm whipping up around us. Rain lightly sprinkled my bare shoulders, but spared the rest of me. I was warm and comfortable, enjoying the sensation of a hundred small fingers tapping my skin.

Then, as suddenly as the conference arrived, it ended. Sunday morning I put on my tennis shoes and trolled the city by foot. I was in the nicer part of Chicago (not that I'm complaining) and found very little grit to shoot. Still, there was the architecture: the great, ornate spires set against gleaming glass highrises.

I met people this weekend that I never would've otherwise run across. People who were wide open and hungry to connect, others who'd only give polite hellos, or cursory glances.

I'll be absorbing and processing for a while, trying to decide where I want my little corner of the internet to go and where it has the potential to go. How I want to spend the next phase of my professional life, most of it left behind in a cloud of stay-at-home-parenting exhaust.

I actually had moments this weekend where I thought, "Yes! That's it!" and I scribbled madly in my notebook. We'll see what I can sustain, but I feel clearer. 

Inspired, too.

Feeling trucky

I have a crush on old, run down pick-ups. Not that I especially want to own a truck (because, in fact, I do not). But, if I see one parked along the side of the road, I'll slam on my brakes, jump out and snap a pic.

I blame my dad. Who used to possess the world's crappiest truck. It was four (or more) different colors, rusted out all over the place and, whenever he cut the engine, the thing would buck and snort for several seconds before coming to a standstill.

My sixteen-year-old self was mortified.

But now, of course, I look back on it sort of fondly.

It wasn't that my dad loved owning a jalopy either. But, on a teacher's salary, that was what he could afford. Also, he drove his trucks into the woods, where he loaded the beds with logs that we burned to heat our house. (Yes, I am from the backcountry, why do you ask?) 

He didn't want anything too nice, nothing he couldn't rough up a little.

Hence my preoccupation with old trucks. They kind of remind me of what my parents were willing to do for our family and how hard they worked.

Now, when I start whining because I've been entertaining the kids for three straight days, or because I must wash a Mt. Baker of dishes, I think about the steaming heaps my dad drove. And how he used to chop down actual trees and split them up so we could be warm every winter.

And I snap out of my self pity.

Grace in small things

1. Coffee with an old friend you know so well that you feel not one shred of nervousness and no need to plan things to talk about, because conversation will, of course, come effortlessly.

 

2. Watching your children ask the neighbors if they're "available to play" and seeing the earnest, hopeful look on their faces.

3. Warm evenings and cold beer.

4. 100% cotton sheets.

5. The gritty-smooth cover of a brand new book, just waiting to be cracked open and begun.

6. Brightly-colored paper lanterns.

7. The velvety cushions that are your daughter's cheeks.

8. The first sip of hot coffee in the morning.

9. Comfortable shoes that are not ugly.

10. The ceramic hen and rooster that used to belong to your grandmother. That now sit on top of your kitchen cupboard and watch, every day, as you move from sink to stove to refrigerator, and back again.

Bright again

You hear your kids playing in the backyard

with the neighbors

whooping, shrieking

exercising the small measure of independence

you allow

You think maybe you should be out there

coaching, watching, laughing along

But you've had enough

You tell yourself this is good for them

Playground law

The day you came back from the midwest

you painted the pink streak back into your hair

It had faded

But is bright again

When your husband saw it, he said

"I thought you were done with all that."

"No," you said. "Nope. Not even close.

Why would you think I was?"

You're reading Olive Kitteridge

It makes you sad

But also has lines like

"She had the sensation that she'd been seen,

and she had not even known she'd felt invisible"

So you keep going, of course

Because the book contains so many truths

The author gifted with the amazing ability

to convey people's deepest fears and desires

You wish you could write like that

You went out with both of your best friends 

Saturday night

You felt lucky

So lucky

to have found these two women

who let you talk about anything

who let you spew terrible thoughts

and listen

really listen

Moving through the warm July evening

a little wine in your veins

you realized that Going Out isn't

always what you imagine

You remember this

from days when you were single

The emptiness at the end

The money spent

The drinks consumed

For the last year, you'd been imagining

it as something else

Something more fulfilling

But your two girls...they are fabulous

You're down about your writing

low

blue

Sighing a lot. Wishing.

Trying new spins on old words

Wondering when

When?

When...

A confounding green

The first part of this story, Greener Grass, can be found in my right sidebar under I Like To Write.

*****

A child's voice said, "Daddy?"

Dave was lost in Megan's lips, his hands buried in her hair. But Megan vaulted away and yanked her shirt straight.

"Hey, Eli," she said, trying to sound soothing but coming across, instead, as shaky.

Eli looked at her warily. If he were Joshua, he would just ask why she'd been kissing daddy. But Eli only sidled toward the wall, where he clung to a door frame, eyes downcast. He wore cotton dinosaur pajamas with a hole in one knee.

Megan glanced at Dave, her own eyes wide. Then she crouched next to Eli. "Hey, buddy. Can't you sleep?"

He shook his head.

"Did you count the stars on your ceiling like we talked about?"

He nodded.

"Are you scared of something?" She swiped a chunk of smooth, dark hair away from her face.

Dave went to the fridge and grabbed a beer from the case he'd bought on the way home from work. "We talked about this Eli," he said. "You just have to lie there quietly and you'll conk out."

Neither Megan nor Eli responded, so Dave shrugged and sat down at the table.

Eli said, "I'm scared of fires." He still couldn't pronounce his R's, so fires came out as fi-ahs. Dave thought it was the cutest damn thing.

"Let's go tuck you in again," Megan said, standing and taking his hand. Over her shoulder, as she walked away with Eli, she looked at Dave. Her expression was flat. Maybe a little disappointed around the eyes.

When she'd settled everything and Eli was once again in bed, presumably counting the glow-in-the-dark stars Tamara had once-upon-a-time stuck over his bed, she passed back through the dining room where she grabbed her iPod and bag. At the front door, Dave stopped her, knowing he had beer on his breath, knowing he must be coming across as a lecherous old man.

"You okay?" he asked.

A shoulder jerked up and she wound one finger through a belt loop. "Yeah, I guess. Why wouldn't I be?"

"Well, after, you know, what happened."

"What do you mean 'what happened'?"

Dave looked at her quizzically. Was she going to play denial? He raised his eyebrows and pointed to her, then to him and back again. "You know...I kissed you."

"No, you didn't." Her chin ticked upward.

"Ah, Megan. I think I did."

She was looking right at him as she scoffed and said, "In your dreams." She turned and left, her sixteen-year-old ass swaying the tiniest bit, her headphones going over her ears, one hand sliding into her pocket.

What the hell? Dave thought, cocking his head and polishing off the beer. What the freaking hell?

Family Misc.

We're back, finally, from our Michigan trip. Which was two weeks long. Enough time to immerse ourselves in our extended family's life, but not so much (hopefully) that people tired of us and started muttering that they wished we'd go.

Traveling with the kids was a relative breeze, compared to how it used to be. The hardest thing by far, about taking them places, is getting home. The part where I want to collapse on the couch and go through mail and eat and then fall asleep.

That's not possible, of course, because there are little ones to feed and to calm and to put to bed.

***

I left Harbor Springs with a lump in my throat. I felt like a snake that'd swallowed an egg as we drove toward the airport. Not that I want to live there again. I don't. I adore Seattle, where people don't wear coral pants dotted with tiny lobsters while taking themselves completely seriously, where I can put colored streaks in my hair without suffering many double takes from passersby and where there are always new alleys and doorways to discover.

But I do miss my parents and my sister. That part about being here is hard and, I imagine, always will be.

***

Kitty Cat's appointment with a gastroenterologist is tomorrow. I feel a little like a dead man walking. As in, I'm quite sure the specialist will instruct us that it's time to go gluten free. Which also means that our lives could drastically change in 24 hours.

I made chocolate chip pancakes this morning. I'll do cookies, brownies, cake...whatever she wants tonight.

I'm trying not to think about it too much, because if I do, my stomach will start cramping and my breath will come far too fast.

***

I've been ruminating a lot about marriage. What's good about it. What's not. How well I fit into the institution. How I can be sweet and appreciative and, within the same day, turn sulky and bitter. How tension often seems to be present and how confusing it is to know if this is something inherent in the dynamic between J. and I, or if it's something that I, alone, perceive. Maybe even generate.

Going to Michigan is always its own lesson in marriage. My mom and dad have been married 42 years. I watch them a lot, listen to them, try to figure out what makes it work. My mom often tells stories about the rockier first years, about how they stuck with it, about how wonderful it is now, like a creamy dessert after a particularly dry and chewy first few courses.

Yeah, yeah, I say. I know. I know. No one said it'd be easy.

***

My dad used to be into photography. He had a Nikon SLR and his own darkroom, where he sometimes let me help dip thick paper into shallow trays of chemicals and watch images emerge.

Here's a shot of me he took when I was about Kitty Cat's age (four).

It hung on the wall for a long time during my childhood. Then it was replaced by cows. But different versions of it float around my parents' house. I brought this one back with me. (My mom knitted that sweater.)

And now here I am, all jaded and pink haired and married and knitting, too, and developing my own interest in photography and pining and writing and getting ready to go to Chicago for a blogger's conference and drinking lots of coffee (albeit, decaf) and wine and wishing I could just let things be.

Locker room

I took Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat to the community pool in my hometown (where we're staying for two weeks). The pool is new since I lived here, but it's connected to my old high school.

After swimming and splashing around for a while, we went in the locker room to change.

I didn't really expect to see anything familiar. The whole structure, I thought, was original.

I was startled to recognize these:

So many unhappy teenage hours spent here. (Back then, I wouldn't have been surprised to find fire or poisonous gas shooting out of these spouts).

The same showers we used for PE. The same basic locker room footprint and the dreaded door to my PE teacher's office. The office where her favorites would congregate after class.

Needless to say, I was not a favorite. I hated PE. I wrung my hands over it. I worried about my lack of coordination. I hated getting slapped in the gut with a rubber ball thrown hard by a particular brutish girl. I detested that my teacher couldn't do most of the ridiculous physical tasks she set us to.

I hated it and I vowed that if a PE teacher ever concocted cruel games or forced my children to twist their bodies into shapes (while the entire ninth grade watched) that humiliated them, I would step in.

I'm going to keep my word.