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We just got back from Arizona yesterday, where we met up with my parents on the kids' spring break. There were idyllic moments. There were times when the tension between J. and me squealed like a too-tight violin string. Mostly there are sweet memories, though.

I know I'm lucky to have experienced such a trip. Such trips.

I married a traveler, you see. And my own (somewhat restrained) wanderlust had been latent until I met J. and we started to go places.

I'm planning a solo trip to China in October (perhaps I've mentioned that--I'm a little excited) to reconnect with my college roommate and best friend from those years. How fortunate! Such bounty of experience I'm accruing.

But it does take work. The planning and packing and childcare arranging.

Yesterday, after pulling into our driveway and dragging the suitcases inside, I fell catatonic and was barely able to lift clothes to hangers, toss laundry into machines. I was so tired I couldn't drink! Not even one glass of wine.

I sipped tea and went to bed. Though I stayed awake 'til midnight reading.

At 6:40, Claire called me and was shaken and teary. Another nightmare. I laid down next to her until she calmed. Then staggered back to bed where J. let me stay until 9:30(!)

Today, the kids played outside with neighbors all afternoon. Fabulous!

Meanwhile, I whipped in circles like a weathervane in a hurricane. Undone projects everywhere, most of them on my computer. Finish the photo book for Claire's class! Work on the posters for the school fundraiser! Send promised copies of Spectacle to readers on LibraryThing! Go over the manuscript again before uploading the next revision to Amazon! Format for hard copies even though the CreateSpace instructions are vexing and Lightning Source makes me want to shove my head in the coffeepot! Log onto work and catch up!

We live on a fairly quiet street, but cars do pass by, some of them not so slowly. Still, I let Max and Claire play there with the 11 and 13 year-old boys next door. They are watchful, but kids. I was uneasy. I was also trying to get things done.

I made corndogs for lunch and thought, None of this accomplishment will mean a damn thing if I hear the screech of brakes and the yell of kids and one of them is left broken on the asphalt. I think about how, in the 70s, I used to ride my bike all over the neighborhood without my parents knowing where I was.

I predict I will writhe around in bed tonight, worst-case scenarios flickering through my brain.

Where is my leisure suit?

I took this with my phone, so please don't judge.

Just a quick post tonight, because I traveled 12 hours today to get from my front door in Seattle to my parents' house in Northern Michigan and I'm beyond tired.

A few weeks ago, with J.'s encouragement, I used miles to get myself a plane ticket. I was badly missing my mom, dad, and sister.

Tonight, all three of them met me at the world's most adorable airport. And when we drove back to my parents', without planning it, we fell into our old car seats. Me behind my mom, Carrie behind my dad.

That might sound kind of corny, but with my sister and I having our own families and my living 2,000 miles away, the four of us driving anywhere together just doesn't happen.

Until tonight. And I was...well, I was verklempt. It was cool.

Being here without the kids is something I haven't experienced in a long time, either. I'm planning lots of reading, sipping of hot beverages, and several naps. I might even squeeze in a little writing.

Normal, Washington

In some ways, my last post was B.S. I did go to Portland and have the time of my life, but I was hardly "stepping out of my usual existence". Especially considering I've had no usual for the past three months.

This summer, J. was on sabbatical and, at the beginning of it, he announced that he didn't want to "waste" his time off at home, so away we went.

1. First, the kids and I traveled to Michigan for three weeks. During our visit, I left Max and Claire with my parents, met J. in Detroit and we flew to France for 8 days.

2. When we arrived home in Seattle, we took two days to unpack and repack, then drove South to Yosemite, stopping in Bend, Oregon, Reno, and San Francisco among other less illustrious towns. (Fortuna, California anyone? Shudder.)

3. After that, we spent another week and a half back in Seattle before jetting off to the Big Island of Hawaii for 2 weeks.

Kids threw up in Ziploc bags, we played road trip games, we ate at Subway more times than I care to admit, we kayaked and watched sunsets and stood in the crooks of redwoods. We rode mules and hiked and I cried because my feet hurt and it was all too much.

I realized I'm a princess whose idea of camping has its roots in childhood when my sister and I slept in the yard in our dad's musty pup tent, opening a cooler for breakfast and served ourselves cereal and milk. Then trooped inside to watch cartoons. It had nothing to do with fecund, grimy bathrooms, locking everything with a possible scent, including lip balm, in a bear locker, or counting down the hours until I'd arrive at an Oakland Holiday Inn.

The summer was deliriously spectacular. It was fun. It was hard. It was messy. It's something, given a another six months or so, I'll grow nostalgic for.

Now the kids are back in school, J. is back at the office, and I am back to my usual of food prep, laundry, and going into work a few hours a week. I have been sneaking in a little writing most days, which fills me to the brim with satisfaction.

So yeah, life is just settling back down again. But when I wrote my last post from the train zipping between Portland and Seattle, there was no normal at all.

 

Time off for good behavior

I wake up early and lift my head from the pillow. My brain swirls, like a current reversing. I drank a little too much the night before.

My friend Tricia and I are on vacation from our regular lives.

It is only seven a.m. Six hours of sleep. I can work with that.

I dress as quickly and quietly as I can, pack my computer into my backpack and leave the hotel. The late summer morning is extraordinarily warm for Portland. The streets are quiet, sun slanting between buildings.

On every block a homeless person who’s been out all night asks me for change. Guiltily, I walk past them, looking for a coffee shop with comfy chairs. I find only Starbucks full of hard tables or indie cafes with tall stools along counters.

It is September 11^th, and I know every airwave will be full of remembrances and tributes. As they should be, I suppose. Still, like Tricia and I discussed, 9-11 has infiltrated every American's lives in so many ways already. I don’t feel the need for an anniversary to ponder all that happened. But then, maybe it’s important for people who’ve lost someone they know to commemorate the day.

My rejection of big 9-11 memorials could also be apathy. We are in the midst of an eating/drinking/shopping/photo-snapping orgy in Portland and are trying not to think too much.

The night before we went to a club. An actual, cheesy-ass bar where the music blew my eardrums and people shimmied around and music videos flickered across massive screens. It was ridiculous. I danced. I did. I felt stupid. But the experience was so different than my normal life that I had fun.

I’m getting old though. Case in point: watching Beyonce writhing around in a sparkly, gold bikini and Rhianna straddling tigers bugged me. Really? I thought. What kind of message is this sending? Yeah, I know. It’s having a daughter that does this to me.

The one decent looking guy in the place tried to chat me up and bugged me, too. Besides being physically there, I did nothing to encourage him and edged away from his air grinding. By the time we left, I saw that he’d found someone willing and, presumably, unmarried.

I wondered how skanky that willing someone, if she hooked up with him, would feel in the morning.

I never find a café with the soft chairs I crave or open my computer to write. Instead I get a coffee and take it back to the hotel lobby where I read my library book on a velour couch, feeling dirty (literally) and exhausted and refreshed.

Luckily I don’t yet know when I get home I’ll find an equally exhausted husband, one child with a migraine and another who sits sulking in the car for an hour after we pull into the garage.

I only know that I still have it in me to step out of my usual existence, at least for a day.

Let's look at photos from my trip to France!

Yes, I went to France! Yes, I loved it! Here are some photos:

Paris

 

Provence

Me being happy

Intentional tourist

Last week J. turned 50. He's not thrilled about the large-ish number. And, truthfully, it's taking some getting used to for me, as well. It seems as though I've just hit the 40s, but my husband has breached that other decade. The next notch up.

So, to help us adjust, my parents watched Max and Claire for a night (they were here on their annual visit to Seattle) and J. and I roadtripped to Cave B, an awesome winery/Inn in Quincy, Washington. I went berserk and scheduled us for an expensive room, massages, and a fancy dinner (bleu cheese potatoes, you all!). We also wine tasted.

Even though I'm a much bigger wine drinker than J., he knows more about wine than I. Hearing him throw around words that weren't "bitey" and "non-bitey" was no small turn on for This American Life loving, bookish, lushy me.

While there, we were surrounded by severely pruned grape vines, beautiful in a craggy way, and acres upon acres of fragrant wild sage. Our room had a view of the Columbia River, and across it, layers of gorgeous brown and orange rock.

It was good to get out of the city and see such a radically different landscape. Even better that it was only three hours away.

While my mom and dad were in town, we did some touristy stuff, including the Theo Chocolate tour and visiting Skagit Valley Tulips, which seems to be something one does with visiting parents, as the last time we went was with J.'s parents when his dad was alive.

A fun but exhausting week.

I'm ready to spend time inside my head again. Which means more angst for you to read about sooner rather than later.

Weekend

 

Early Friday there was an appendicitis scare. To the extent that Claire's pediatrician advised we not feed her anything but clear liquids in case she needed surgery that afternoon or evening. She didn't. Her stomach pain subsided and I ended up going on my weekend trip to Chelan as planned.

Driving alone. Four hours. Listening to my Imogen loud. Stopping whenever I wanted to take photos. Eating baby carrots and fun-size Twix. Calling home to check Claire. Zooming through central Washington, past vineyards and orchards just as the sun was setting coppery over the mountains.

Lots of sleeping. Friends jumping on my bed, singing the Rolling Stones song Angie over and over. And over. Cashews, because I can't have them at home. A glacial lake I didn't jump into.

 

Beautiful, ripe vineyards. Fruit trees heavy with apples and pears. Wine. Lots and lots of wine. This American Life Podcasts on the way home. A family who was happy to see me.

  
 

Escape

As I trudged from my house to the bus stop Friday afternoon, I thought, If you saw a woman walking down a suburban road pulling a suitcase behind her, would you assume the worst? I wasn’t running away, though, so much as taking a two-night break.

Early as usual, I waited for the Metro. Rain pattered the top of my umbrella like static. I could see the Sound from where I stood. I felt silly there, on that patch of grass in the middle of nowhere. But I liked it too. The damp air, fresh and salty. The beginning of a small adventure.

I took the bus to the train to my friend Stacy’s Honda Civic and we roamed Portland. Pork tenderloin, goat cheese, scones, red velvet cake, thick coffee, low, gray skies, more rain, little shops. Soft cats, impossibly supple and comforting. A big, sweet, black dog, drugged, recovering from surgery.

I found my parents, who had come into town for a wedding. Their presence was part of the reason I picked that particular weekend to visit. We met at the Farmer’s Market, sprawling and lovely and misty with flowers and nuts and vegetables. I bought 20 dollars worth of morel mushrooms. I remember hunting them as a kid in Michigan.

I’ve hardly spent time with my mom and dad in the last seven years that didn't involve Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat, that had nothing to do with soothing crying babies, discipline, food prep, and constant entertaining. It was nice. More than nice. It was comfortable and lively. I didn’t want Saturday to end.

And Stacy. Sweet Stacy, who drove me over the bridges a million times without complaint. She’s one of the easiest people I know. With the barest refrigerator. We can talk forever. Just not about cooking. Which I didn’t want to discuss anyway.

On the way home I wrote, wrote, wrote. A man with yellow nails and yellow teeth and a greasy smell sat next to me. He was friendly. But I didn't much want to talk.

Home now. Games of dominoes, which I keep losing. Morels waiting. Squirming happy kids. Splitting a bag of chocolate chip/sea salt cookies with J.

Seattle, even darker and rainier than Portland had been.

Home.

Out of the city and into the desert

From Seattle, you fly over San Francisco mudflats and orange cabs that run like snakes through the streets and tennis courts that look like green matchbox cars and you almost wish you'd stayed there. The demographic is more robust, more what you like to think of as your people, which is to say, not seventy- and eighty-year- old, rich, white folks, the men wearing golf pants, the women in coral lipstick and violently styled hair.

But then you would've missed this:

 

And this:

   

You never would have seen the funky, mid-century architecture that makes Palm Springs look a little tired, but amusing at the same time. (Your husband commented that he expected to see Dean Martin with a martini around every bend). You wouldn't have been able to feast your eyes on so many red-tile roofs and palm trees and yucca plants (and Sonny Bono statues!). You never would've been surrounded by Joshua Trees and monstrous mountains of red boulders, some balanced so precariously you swear a small breeze could send them tumbling to the ground with a thundering roar and rising cloud of orange dust.

You were on a short vacation with your husband. Your parents, who are sweet and kind and good, took care of your kids. Your mom choked up on the phone when she described how compassionate and lovely your son has been. And your daughter, she said, is right on track. Willful and overly talkative, but wonderful all the same.

You had an amazing iceberg/bleu cheese wedge salad two nights in a row, dragging your husband through dark, winding streets under a starlit sky, back to the restaurant you'd already been so you can have that salad a second time. 

 

The weather was uncharacteristically cold and it snowed on you in Joshua Tree National Park. You never once put on your shorts or swim suit. But you still are so grateful for the trip, for the new scenery, for the shops full of sequins and sunglasses, the fireplace tucked in the corner of your room (though on the last day huge gusts of wind blew ash all over your things), the quiet, Spanishy hotel where you stayed, the stretches of white desert.

And you are happy to be home, with your family: your children and your mom and dad, too, who are staying on a while longer. You wish they would come more often, but you will take the ten days that you get. 

 

 

Back from Portland

I spent the weekend in Portland, the land of Quirk, hanging with one of my best friends as she turned 40. Which essentially means we walked around the city eating copious amounts of food, taking pictures (mostly me), ordering expensive bottles of wine (mostly her boyfriend) and buying clothes (mostly her).

At the end of my trip, as I left the train station, I heard an overpowering rush. A massive waterfall or jet screaming down a runway for takeoff, yet laced with something metallic, something human. I looked behind me and saw that Quest Field was full, to the third tier, of fans.

They were cheering. But, God, it was eerie–-the rise and fall of so many voices. It reminded me of the Nazi propaganda movies we used to watch in history class. Which is not to say that I'm comparing football to Nazi Germany, but just that the ethereal emission of so many people's approval had the same sound it did in those little films. Those creepy little films.

I'm home now. Back to real life. Back to two kids who threw their arms around me before I could even get out of the car. Back to pawing through Fruit Bat's packed lunch box and taking his dessert because he's been awful one too many times in the morning. Back to a refrigerator that actually contains food. Back to sunlight playing across the concrete floor of the coffee shop where I like to work.

Back.