All Adither

The good it does

The top three headlines on my homepage this morning:

Bomb hits Baghdad hotels, killing 37

Ethiopian jet catches fire; crashes into sea with 90 aboard

Haiti quake survivors: 'We live like dogs'

And I thought, Shit. And I thought, I'm so lucky. I'm so lucky. I'm so lucky. Which, is, of course true. Then I thought, how are we supposed to process all this tragedy? We can give some money. We can email and call our lawmakers. We can pray or send positive vibes or whatever it is we do.

But, seriously. This world.

I'm prone to sitting in my cozy, coffee shop or house and musing my good fortune and wondering what horrific things are going on in the condos across the street or across the city or across the world. It's a worthwhile thing to do, from time to time. To keep me grounded. To keep me grateful.

I also, though, have to pack lunches and help with math homework and teach kids how to zip zippers and load the washing machine. Thus, I occasionally have to close my eyes and shake the images away. I sometimes just have to think about two girls dancing in my rainy driveway.

 

 
 

Shhh

People are peculiar. And narcissistic.

I know this because I am a person. And a watcher. 

Though I am not the listener I strive to be. 

I see myself in conversation and I am absorbing what you're saying. But then I'm jumping in with my own thing. With my own spin.

And I think, God, just hush. Let the other person talk. Let them emote.

Part of it is a desire to keep the conversation going, the fear of the lull. Part of it is a crushing need to relate with a shared experience. And yet another part is this itch to talk about me. To validate my existence by telling you about it.

And that? I don't want. I want to be someone who makes eye contact and listens and nods and lets you dribble words until they fail you.

I think I'll be working for it until the day I die.

Fragility

 

I lose it this weekend. It doesn't happen often. But when it does it is ugly and sad and I weep and bury my head in my hands and insist that everything is too much. The kids! The chaos. The someone always needing something.

The animalness of Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat. The curious, babblyness of them. And I start to cry and have to go upstairs. But guilt sets in and I come down too soon and I am still not right. And am I scaring the children? I am scaring J., I know.

Fresh, hot tears and tension and anxiety.

Finally, I agree to drive around Seattle looking at ovens (we need one).

Talking to appliance sales people, one who is insufferable and one who tells me I don't look like I eat much fried chicken (if only she knew), but that if I ever DO want to make some, she has the perfect hood for the job. I feel better. More human. I almost, almost enjoy myself.

Back at home my throat closes in again. I try conversing with J. but have to stop because both kids are all over us. Talking and shrieking and laughing loudly. They're healthy, I think. They're fine. They're just boisterous. They're just 4 and 6. Why am I so ungrateful? Why can't I just enjoy this? Sometimes I do. Sometimes I look at Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat and think I made them. In my body. And I love them. And I'm so proud of who they are and what they've accomplished so far.

I clean bathrooms and we roast pumpkin seeds and this should be enough. But where is my serotonin? and please let this be hormonal and let it go away soon. Because I am not doing this very well and I am scaring everyone. Including myself.

Poetic foolishness

Her yellow hair blows forward and back like the long petals of a sunflower. She twirls and bobs, her thin frame dancing to its own music. Music that is the breeze and school children playing and distant wind chimes. Birds peck at her. Ants skitter up her legs. But still she smiles. Sunny and swaying.

Slacker

Supposed to be:

~Packing for our Thursday flight to Newark

~Working on Greener Grass

~Working on my short story collection (which I'm having so much fun writing that my faith in my fiction is slowly restoring itself...still, I get distracted)

~Buying school supplies

~Grocery shopping

~Clearing the heavy load of photos off my laptop to make room for more

~NOT spending time on Facebook

~NOT baking oatmeal, chocolate chip pies

~NOT sitting in coffee shops with my feet up

Puppyness

Only a pathetic non-pet owner like me would post about her neighbors' new puppy. I mean, he isn't even mine. And if he were, I probably wouldn't be so ga-ga. But, good grief. I can't get enough. His name is Griffey (the family next door are Mariners fans). He's 12 weeks old. He's soft and bouncy and he looks into you with those button brown eyes.

I've always had a soft spot for dogs. Growing up, we had them. But I've since become much more of a cat person. I'll make an exception for this little guy though. He almost, almost makes me want a puppy. And that's coming from someone who can't handle another crumb of chaos, who never wants to get up in the middle of the night to tend to anyone or anything ever again.

Someday maybe. When the kids are in their twenties.

In the meantime, it's like being an aunt. I get the reward of living next to Griffey, without having to train him or buy him food or take him to the vet. It's the best, really, of both worlds.

Soaring

Sunday night I went to Trader Joes. Which means I had set about the not completely unenjoyable, but not altogether fun, task of gathering food for the family. The short drive through evening sun came toward the end of a decent weekend (ie a weekend in which the neighbor kids were around to entertain Fruit Bat and Kitty Cat). 

I wasn't all that frazzled.

So, why? Why did my trip to Trader Joes feel like I was soaring above all of Ballard with mangy wings outspread? Why did the tiny jaunt lend me the illusion of freedom?

I saw a guy walking barefoot and shirtless down the side of the road, playing a guitar and harmonica. I laughed when I spotted a kitty litter bucket strapped to the back of someone's scooter. (Why use a milk crate when a Tidy Cats' container is within reach, after all?) I had my camera next to me on the carseat, ready to use if I felt inspired.

And sometimes that is enough. A few minutes to notice things, to shoot a picture without a child throwing her body in front of the lens, to listen to your own music and think your own thoughts.

I know the day will come when I'd give everyone of my shiny teeth to hear my kids pleadingly call, "Mama! Mom! Mommy!" (For a beautifully written essay by Anna Quindlen on the importance of living in the moment with your children, read this.)

But that day was not Sunday.

Maybe it will be today.

Fire starter

Your daughter is most afraid of fire right now.

Will this start a fire? she asks, about most everything. If I touch this doll to that chair, will it start a fire?

She's trying to figure it out. She's mixed up on her spontaneous combustion.

So you try to explain. No, a spoon against a rug will not cause flames to leap forth. No, not the book on the dresser either.

Maybe a hot stovetop or an electrical outlet or a mother who simmers on medium-low.

But none of the other things. 

She fears fire like you fear disease. Like you fear loss of control. Like you fear invisibility.

And her list of concerns will grow throughout her life. They'll morph and fade and rear up again.

For now, though, it's just fire.

The good, the bad and the tiresome

The sun was out, shining at a soft, breezy angle. We passed under a row of cherry trees and, as we did, a flurry of pink petals whirled down onto our heads and shoulders. We whooped. It was one of those beautiful moments...beautiful moments that came plentifully on that day, Tuesday. Four-year-old daughter was in a feverish tangle on the couch, alternately sleeping and staring catatonically at the ceiling. Her arms and legs hot. I'd never loved her so much as I did on that day, Tuesday. J. pulled me close in the evening, and in response to daughter babbling that she was the cutest person in the family, whispered, "You're the cutest person in this family. And don't forget it." I felt lucky in that moment, on that day, Tuesday. A glass of wine on my friends' deck in the Central District, talk of the impending birth of their baby, the impending birth of their family. To have such friends. I knew it was good, on that day. Tuesday.

But now, patience does its death rattle in my throat. Beauty and appreciation trumped by sickness and shitty weather and long hours apart and long hours together.

Because it is Thursday, after all, and nothing lasts. Not the cherry blossoms or the luck. But also, not the sickness, not the rain.

Can I trade this thin skin for a shell?

You've always known yourself to be ridiculously sensitive. An introvert, mostly, and, though your husband does not believe it, you relish pleasing people. You prefer to think of it as respecting others' time and feelings, but, yeah, you love to be liked too.

You take daily medication to keep yourself from feeling too much. It works, to an extent. Once, when you were trying to get pregnant and had to quit the medicine, you spent a week crying over one-legged pigeons. You remember thinking this exact thought: The whole world is an open wound.

It seems a little melodramatic now, but, if a pigeon had to hop around without his second foot and people had to sleep in doorways covered with ratty blankets and cardboard, and babies had to die just as they were learning to take their first steps, then it also rang true.

Almost from the beginning, you've had a low tolerance for chaos. It puts you on edge instantly. It makes you want to claw and scramble your way Out. Even with your daily dose of an SSRI, it is hard to maintain your sense of self when you're surrounded by seemingly random noise.

But there are some things from which you can't get Out. Parenting being one.

You chose it. You wanted it. You went off your little, white pill to get it.

And now you have to be in it. You have to live with the very thing you spent the majority of your adult life avoiding: Loud insistence. Demanding love.

It kills you. You suppose it sustains you, in some ways too. It is warmth and its own kind of acceptance. Your thoughts, though, are only sometimes your own. Your body is rarely yours alone.

You wonder when you'll stop mourning the girl in the apartment with the cat. The girl who was you and who you can't, somehow, let go of.