{my topography}

The harbor

With chocolate croissants and coffee, we went to the harbor this morning and watched people walk out along the long narrow docks with supplies, getting their boats ready for the day.

Protected: Three Years Ago…

View from the side of the bike path after getting a flat, with Bean in the bike trailer.

We made it back alight. DH, my personal fix-it guy, had a new tube. He used a dollar bill to patch the tire–and everything was smooth rolling.

Eating the Honey of Words, By Robert Bly

I remember exactly when I bought this book. DH and I had gone out to Nantucket the summer of my senior year in college. We went on the ferry and spent the day riding rented bikes around the island. I couldn’t believe how quaint it was:shingled houses, grey from the weather and covered with rosebushes, beaches sheltered by grassy dunes, and a downtown full of little shops, including a book store where I fingered volumes of poetry, settling for this one. That night on the ferry back I remember sitting with my back up it’s metal hull reading poem after poem, a certain hunger in me quenched. The span of Bly’s poems in this collection (as in many of his collections) is huge: he speaks with the deeply personal voice of a man in love, caught up in nature, and then with the voice of a philosopher and activist, watching our country lurch forward, and saying words about it that might make all the difference.

We live here

Like postcards of memory on my mind:

Last night, nursing Bean I watched the wooden fish mobile from Mexico above his crib turn in slow circles, as though they were swimming in crescents through the air.

The five bright sunflowers, each with rough stalks and thick green leaves, from the farmer’s market for a dollar a piece, standing in a tall glass vase of water on the table.

The man I see often, his hair in long dreadlocks, with his huge Bull Mastiff who was being attacked by a Boxer off leash, screaming”Who’s fucking dog is this, who’s FUCKING DOG is this?”� And then wiping the blood from his big dog, who was shaking, tail between his legs.

Bean grinning up at me after his morning nap: so happy to be awake in the world again, his pacifier imprinted on his cheeks.

The view from the shore at the beach near our house: college kids and families on picnic blankets, in the water, playing badminton on the grass. The smell of grills, sail boats their anchor’s down, dotting the swimming area, the sky bright blue.

Bean and DH cheeks close on the beach, laughing together in the evening sunlight, trees folding shadows down around us, sand between our toes.

Cutting fresh sweet corn off the cob in the kitchen with DH after a day outdoors, making pasta with round ripe tomatoes cut into cubes and basil and sage. Then crashing gratefully into each other on the futon couch, eating dinner with the cats curled up against our knees.

Storm

Vulnerable

I’m feeling sad and incredibly lonely tonight. There were thunderstorms all day here, and tonight DH and I got in a fight–about nothing more than that both of us are lonely here for now, new to this community and a bit stir crazy. We argued in the street, and I walked away from him–with the diaper bag containing his insulin, but not my wallet, house keys or cell phone. I assumed he’d walk home, but he didn’t and later, when Liam was tired and wanted to be in bed, I came home to find the house locked. It was definitely one of those times where if I were the type, I would have slammed my head hard into a wall. I felt scared and idiotic and alone. I realized I actually know not a single friend or family member’s home phone number (cell phones don’t work called collect–I tried this tonight as well!) So much for the convenience of the technological era.

I was furious with myself for being not remembering the lesson I learned eight or nine years ago with an ex boyfriend of mine in Hamburg, Germany. Same scenario really–a fight, us walking off in different directions, me left without money, keys or a map–in a foreign city no less. I vowed at the time NEVER to let that happen again, and tonight I was so angry that I was here, so much smarter, a mother for god’s sake, and yet still dumb enough to trust someone else entirely with my safety.

DH did eventually come home. He realized at some point he had the keys. I had been sitting on the side porch with Bean watching the rain come down and writing short, fierce sentences in my notebook, feeling like I wanted to vomit, and wishing DH would come home. I had been there about an hour when he showed up, and I immediately started to cry, hysterically.

Of course in retrospect it doesn’t really amount to much. He apologized a zillion times over–and really, it wasn’t his fault. I guess in the end what left me shaken was that my vulnerability has INCREASED since having Bean. Just the two of us there, on the porch, made me feel so fragile.

And then I thought of this girl I see around town in the mornings before the tourists arrive. She’s homeless. Pretty. Biracial, with gorgeous nappy curls that are always out of control. She’s probably only 17 or 18. And I wonder what the hell her life must be like. It made me feel grateful beyond words, and like a total wimp to sit in my comfy arm chair tonight with a cup of Earl Gray tea with milk and sugar, and my cat. Even with a temporary loss of security, I’ve got a NETWORK of people to catch me if I fall–and my husband, even if he’s frustrating, is a precious part of that net. There at the end of it all, wrapping his arms about me, offering tea. But that girl. Who does she have? Shit, I’m lucky

Jailbird socks

Terrified

I was a complete wreck last night. We put Bean in his new bike trailer for the first time and took him on the bike path down by the waterfront. He fit snuggly into it, and even fell asleep, but every bump, every stop, had me gulping. My heart, up in mouth. I kept imagining throwing myself off my bike in front of oncoming cars to protect the trailer. We all survived however, and will be trying it again. Soon, if not tonight.