Day 6

A long time ago, while I was between lives, I worked at a large book retailer. For $6.00 an hour I could stand for eight hours and point breathless housewives to the giant shelf of Oprah Book Club books that they had just walked past in order to demand that they hadn't seen it anywhere. I also got to clean the restrooms.

One day, someone did something unspeakable to one of the restrooms and we were all back in the break room fighting about who would have to clean it up. A very cute boy with whom I had never had a shift before, finally sighed and said: "You all are useless. I'll just do it," and walked off with rubber gloves and a mop. I sat and watched him leave and wondered at this boy who would calmly step up to take responsibility for a vile and disgusting task that no one else would touch. I wondered at this boy as I watched him in the days to come, flirt with the middle-aged ladies who ran the office and make them blush. I watched him draw customers in conspiratorially to find the title of a book. I watched him dress up as Waldo from the Where's Waldo book series and entertain a room full of screaming children. I just watched for a while, though, remaining mute and trying to melt into the background.

I watched him save me a seat on a bench for my lunch break, with a cup of hot coffee waiting for me. I watched him dance to Birdhouse In Your Soul in a deserted parking lot in the middle of the night and tell me I was the only bee in his bonnet. I watched him ask my dad important philosophical questions and listen carefully to the answers. I watched him make my mom laugh. I watched him hand over money to my sister so she would quit the job where her boss sexually harassed her. I watched him while he drove us in midnight circles, listening to music and talking about all the world. I watched him introduce me to his friends and family. I watched him leave work to go and sit with his mom at the hospital when she had an emergency hysterectomy. I watched him take his little sister to dance lessons and pick her up again, turning the music up loud and laughing at her junior high silliness.

And then one day I watched him through a plate glass window after the store had closed, as he got down on one knee in the cold and showed me a picture of a ring.

I have watched this boy over the last fourteen and a half years grow into a man - become a husband, a father, a lawyer, a leader. I have watched him get up every day and shoulder responsibilities that the people around him have refused to do. I have watched him walk boldly into unspeakable messes and try to clean them up because it had to be done and no one else was willing. I have watched him work as many hours as were necessary to support us. I have watched him study long into the night for finals with a newborn baby on his shoulder. I have watched him take care, take action, take part, take responsibility. I have watched him bestow fatherly gentleness and affection that he has never received. I have watched him smile just for me. I have watched him dance, I have watched him cry, I have watched him survive, I have watched him live, I have watched him give and give and give.

I sat in a crowded room last night and watched him tell a group of people that his marriage is a tiny piece of the divine. I have watched this man over so many years and I hope for many more. I renew my vows every morning with such humbling gratitude that this man has let me watch him all these years and that he shares his magic with me. 

Remembering My Lines

"Honey! Time to get up. You don't want to be late for your last day of school!"

A few months ago, the jBird and I were lying on the floor reading together. In the book she was reading, the main character's mother said this to her daughter. jBird read it to me in that sing-song voice that denotes a friendly and warm adult.

"Can you say this to me when it's my last day of school?" she asked me.
"Sure," I said. "You want me to remind you it's the last day of school?"
"No, I want you to say it to me just like that," and she repeated the line in the same sing-song Mother voice.
"No problem," I said.
"You have to remember to do it."

The mothers in the books she reads are either perfect or absent. The perfect ones are attorneys, astrophysicists, veterinarians. But they always seem to be on vacation. They always have the correct words to say to their daughters. They are warm and loving when they need to be, but stay out of the way most of the time. They are these benign, flat characters who serve a certain purpose and then fade into the background. The absent ones are another sort of wish-fulfillment, I suppose. My jBird is intrigued by orphans. Some of the mother characters are so horrible that it is a relief they are gone. Others are an ephemeral snapshot of beautiful perfection kept close to the child's heart, but not interfering all that much when they want to go chase fairies or something. These things fascinate my independent little girl.

Her books never say things like:

 Daisy's mother was a complicated woman. Her jeans never seemed to stay up. One of Daisy's favorite games to play with her mother was to yell 'Coin slot!' and stick her finger in the spot where her mother's jeans had slipped down. Mother sometimes drifted off in the middle of sentences and left Daisy wondering what she was even talking about. She was by turns dreamy and disconnected, crabby and blunt, present and attentive; but she was always loving. Daisy was never exactly sure what her mother did. She would sometimes spend hours at the computer or writing in a journal and then she would suddenly get up and go on a mad cleaning spree or take Daisy and her brother to the park. Mother could talk for what seemed like forever about certain things, but then other times answered with a distracted 'Mmm-hmm.'

They just don't write moms like that for kids. I'm not even sure that they should. My voracious little reader escapes into books for hours at a time, her favorite place to read is sitting in the tree in front of our house. She absorbs these characters and scenarios and tries to fit them into her world. She is still young and doesn't quite realize that her world is richer, more textured and interesting than the formulaic stories she reads. After all, she has no real fairies that come and talk to her or clans of cats who come to her for help. I remember being eight. I remember imagining the worlds of my books while playing in the woods. I remember thinking sometimes how much easier my favorite characters had it. I remember wishing my mom would be more like the moms in the books. These were things I never would have dared ask my own mother, so it thrilled me to my very childish soul when my jBird asked me to say the lines from her book. That kind of openness and innocence in a gesture of wishing is something that brings me to my knees with gratitude. I am more than happy to oblige.

This morning we woke up on the couch. My jBird suffers from chronic insomnia and last night was a little rough. In the wee hours she had finally fallen asleep and she lay there snuggled against me, warm and safe, mouth open and breathing her little snaggle-toothed halitosis into my face. She's getting older, but when she's sleeping, she looks every bit of my baby girl still. I watched her sleep for a few minutes, trying to squeeze the last drops of silence out of the morning, trying to give her just a few more minutes to restore that whirring mind of hers. I kissed her forehead, stroked her hair and said:

"Honey... it's time to get up. You don't want to be late for your last day of school..." in that lilting voice of fictitiously perfect mothers.

She stirred and smiled a tiny jack-o-lantern for me, and snuggled closer. I often miss my cues. Sometimes I step all over other people's lines. Sometimes I burst into the scene and start reciting a soliloquy from an entirely different act. Almost always, I improvise and confuse the other players. But sometimes, sometimes... sometimes I get it right. I arrive on cue and remember my lines. My ovation is that little smile and an extra snuggle.

jBird and her real mom.

In time, she will realize that life is not like her books. That people, even people who love her with all they have to give, are fallible and messy and real. She will come to see that this drama we live is a rich story unfolding without formula, without a script. I know my daughter and I believe she will come to appreciate this. Just as I hope that she comes to appreciate that even though her mother is not the glossy perfect mother she reads about, that she is a real mother. A woman who tries and sometimes fails. A woman who loves her more than she even knows how. A woman who will say the false lines that she requested to show her how real the love is she has for her.

I'm Always Up To Something

For a few weeks when I was three or four, I drove my mom insane trying to pee standing up. I still remember the contortions that took. I would straddle the toilet bowl as best I could with my pudgy little legs and let fly, swiveling my bottom to adjust the stream. It was a messy and frustrating endeavor. I was trying to be like my dad. Thankfully, I discovered pretty quickly that my biology prevented me from emulating him in this aspect. I'm sure my mother was relieved. I moved on to other pressing things, like lodging a button in my nasal cavity and encasing my right leg in purple bubble gum.

When we were first married, the Chief Lou and I were on our way to my parents' house for dinner one summer evening when I decided that I needed to apply some of the Carmex that had been sitting in the hot glove compartment of the car all day. That went pretty much like you'd expect it would. I opened the little jar and liquid, hot, camphor scented magma poured out all over me and the seat. Since it was a time before babies, we didn't have a stash of napkins anywhere in the car for random acts of nonsense. I rode the rest of the way trying not to touch anything while my new husband shook his head in disbelief that I didn't know that was going to happen. When we arrived at my folks' house, I scuttled into the bathroom to try and clean up the greasy mess and I heard my mom in the other room: "I should tell you, she's always doing something."

She's not wrong, either. It's another way I have emulated my dad all these years. He was a preacher and a missionary by vocation, but he wrote, sculpted, painted, gardened, made stained glass, did basic carpentry, baked homemade bread, trained bonsai trees, did graphic design, desktop publishing, plumbing, wiring, and really anything else that struck his fancy. His response to art galleries, craft fairs, home improvement shows, and life in general was "I can do that." And then he would set about with intensity and passion to see if he could. Most of the time he could and he would until everyone he knew had a loaf of artisan bread or a bust of themselves or their own crooked little tree. I have inherited this trait along with his smile and his excessively hairy legs. It is one way my biology hasn't prevented me from being like him, but it can still be a messy and frustrating endeavor.

I am always up to something. Right now I'm up to something, as a matter of fact. I have an idea that is still a bit nebulous, but will take form. It will require some audience participation. Because it's no fun to be up to something if you can't make a mess and involve as many people as possible, right?

I've written here a little bit about my first love - my dad. I will write a little bit more about other loves, too, in the days to come. I want to hear about your first loves. The ones that made your heart go pitter-pat, the ones that got away, the ones you're glad are gone, the ones that never made much sense to begin with. The heart is an unwieldy and willful thing. It baffles and confounds us with its choices. Let's hear about those choices your heart has made. Blog about it, send me an email, forward this to non-bloggers even. This is part one of the plan. Stay tuned for part two. Just be glad that this particular fancy of mine doesn't get pee on the floor.

Things That Made Me Smile Today

My back yard smelled like Santa Fe this morning, thanks to pine smoke from the chimney and the fresh coffee in my cup. It took me on a cold, bright vacation to the fall of what seems like a hundred years ago. The smells whisper to me of promise, of joy in the midst of uncertainty. Of presence in the midst of hoping. Of a story I will some day tell. I wanted to sop it up like honey with a bit of warm tortilla, crunchy with cinnamon and sugar and yielding soft in its interior.

My true love sent me notes today. Sent me such silliness in the midst of business, strictly business. He popped up there on my screen and said hello, I love you in a thousand different ways that made me laugh. He reminded me what's good, what's right, what's true. He told me things that only I would understand. He was a tangible presence there, like a hug from far away. He made me wonder why I thought anyone else ever mattered.

My muse visited me today. In spite of his being a wee bit battered of late, he came to say hello. Yes, my muse is male. No he isn't real. He's just visits me from time to time and brings me treats of words. Phrases and ideas that tumble around and fall out through a pen that moves so smoothly, uninterrupted. I thanked him for his time and explained I'd love to stay and chat forever, but there was this laundry to be done, food to be made, people to tend. He said it was all right, he'd just hang out in the back of my mind a while. He kept me company while I worked.

These little people in my life with their speeches and their declarations, their moods and their mischief. I looked at them through new eyes today. The eyes that say that's good, that's right, that's how it should be. They whirled themselves green on the playground; fell tumbling, laughing to a heap of suddenly longer, leaner arms and legs. Arm in arm they skipped away to find the next adventure. They have their secret language, the language of being born of the same womb in different times. The language of eyes that match each other's and barely distinguishable laughs. Their world is two halves of a whole, a yin and a yang and a hop, skip, pounce, giggle. My eyes said that's good, that's right, that's how it should be.

Photo courtesy of morguefile.com

There are things you'll never know. The things that make me cry. The things that light up the inside of my head like too many fluorescent bulbs and make me cringe and cower. The things that hurt and annoy and break. The things that seek to destroy. The things that bring me to my knees. There are things you'll never know because they aren't worth knowing.

These things that make me smile, though; I collect them like stones and carry them in my pockets. Their weight is ballast. Their clam insistence holds me to center when balance is precarious. These stones shelter me when the outside is scratching to get in - whining, niggling, insisting upon itself. These warm stones that fill up the pockets of my thoughts: the scents, the sun, the soul mate, the source, the smallness of hands and feet with great big souls. These are the things that made me smile today.

Even A Good Melon Has A Soft Spot

The Chief Lou and I married young and quickly. It's not a course of action I would recommend in general, but like that old lady says in When Harry Met Sally "sometimes you just know. Like you know about a good melon." He's my good melon. But there were a few things that we didn't get the chance to discuss before the big day where we vowed before God and everybody to spend the rest of our lives together. We agreed on all of the big things: God, politics and coffee. We reached an amiable compromise on some other important things: Top Five Greatest Movies, Bands, and Songs. And it just seemed like all the rest would work itself out.

I mean, how do you work it into a lovey-dovey, dating, I want to spend the rest of my life gazing into your eyes type conversation that you may or may not, hypothetically speaking of course, have a deep and abiding love of legumes? When he pledged the whole "until death do us part" thing, I don't think he ever realized that death could come silently and soon from the Dutch Oven of Doom.

While writing each other the poetry of the gods about how the moon is only shining because of the reflected light of her handsome sun, it's tricky to slip in a stanza or two about how the moon never cleans out the car or takes it for an oil change and it's not a moral failing, per se, it's just that the moon gets so busy with the other things she's got going on, like seeing if she can make green bean pâté that tastes just like the real thing only vegetarian.


And it's a known fact that while dating you will sit through any movie if it gives you the opportunity to snog with your beloved, but there was no discussion afterward about how we would never, under any circumstances withstand the sheer cinematic torture that is Highlander, no matter how brilliant and underrated you think it is and if you want to watch a movie with a Scotsman in it, any and all of the Ewan McGregor ouevre are not only perfectly acceptable, but mandatory at regular intervals, yes even the one where he's a crooked stock trader and pukes all over a fancy dress party. There's just no time, what with all the goo-goo eyes and making out.

One of the biggest things that the Chief Lou learned about me after we got married is that I may or may not be a bit of a hippie. Not a mall hippie who's in it for the fashion statement. I have no peace sign necklace from Claire's Boutique and while I do enjoy tie dye, patchouli, and batik, I indulge only in moderation. More of a mental hippie, which I think he may have confused with being the same as his ultra-liberal progressive politics with a button-down collar. He had a few discoveries in store for him.

A few months after we got married I gave him a Grateful Dead sticker to show him how awesome we were. It was two of those little infectious dancing bears and it said "A Rare and Different Tune". I thought it summed us up exactly. It never went on the car, although he did appreciate the sentiment. I think I still have it in a drawer someplace.


I had the rare treat one time of witnessing my Texas boy's full range of facial expressions - from jubilant joy to the depths of despair - in the space of the few seconds it took me to utter the sentence: "I'm making chicken fried steak for dinner. I found these breaded meatless 'beef' patties at the grocery store today!"


By the time the kids came along, he was amenable to breast feeding (not that this is a particularly "hippie" activity, he'd just never seen it before), baby wearing, co-sleeping and cloth diapering. He just took them in stride, embraced them, even advocates for them now. 


He has learned to enjoy TVP tacos, homemade soap and hairy armpits. He knows how to choose batik and incense and the all-natural cosmetic items I like. He patiently washes the handmade reusable sandwich bags we use to pack the kids' lunches. It took a while to get past it, but he accepts that cloth napkins are not just for fancy meals. He understands why I save used envelopes and put stickers over the pertinent parts to reuse them. He even has helped move my collection of salvaged empty jars around the country a few times. He's a patient and tolerant and loving man. He takes my whims in stride and doesn't criticize or complain or, more importantly, say "I told you so" when one of my experiments fails (green bean pâté). But I may have found his breaking point the other day.

Casually, while watching TV: "Hey, you know how when the kids were in diapers and we used those reusable flannel wipes with the tea tree and lavender solution I made?"

Wary, eyes flickering to the side: "Um, yes?"

"Well, I was thinking that maybe since we still have that small diaper pail and reusable liner, we could just put those in the bathroom and...  I'm still trying to figure out how to manage the space issue, but I thought..."

Gulp, deep breath, his voice almost a squeak: "Does this mean you're going to stop buying toilet paper?"