Life is happening right now
Posted on | April 14, 2007 |
He told me he loved me, for the first time, yesterday. Driving home on our washboard bumpy dirt road, spread thick with mud like peanut butter on an open faced sandwich, he said, “I yuv you mommy.”
I said, “What?” Not really listening, caught up in the replay of a Teri Gross interview with the late Kurt Vonnegut on NPR.
“I yuv you,” he said with a rosy, jelly-smudged grin.
It felt, then, like summer sunlight. Like lightening bugs flitting about the lawn on a late August evening; like standing at the top of a very tall mountain, above the clouds and suddenly breathless; like finding ten perfect unbroken sand dollars in a row at the beach;
“I love you too,” I said. “So much.”
In my chest, I suddenly felt the fluttering of a thousand mariposas.
It’s bizarre sometimes, how things you were sure you were set on, when they don’t come to fruition, make room for other things to come into focus, unfurl, blossom. Every so often I feel like I get the chance to pan out and see the full three-ring-circus that is my life. The rest of the time, I’m there in the midst of it, too close to the action for perspective, twirling with the raspberry stain of my love smudged across my sleeve, and a thousand fragile things gathered up in my arms: my child, my work, my many foibles and distractions.
Finding the small envelope in my mailbox gave me this unexpected opportunity for perspective. It made me step back and really admit for the first time, how utterly overwhelming the past year of my life has been. I’m a chin-up kind of girl, and I’ve been trying to tell myself a hundred happy-ending stories, but painted over the stress of raising a toddler and renovating our own home, has been the pale hue of trauma after the shooting that took place at the school where I work in the beginning of the year. Terror pressed into the supple limbic portion of my brain that cannot speak and only feels, with sudden abrupt urgency, and altered the certain fundamental aspects of the way I live and trust and respond in the world.
I’ve been navigating my way out of that maze of reactions the entire year, and somewhere in the process, when I applied to grad schools, I entirely forgot about the school I’d researched last year that really belonged at the top of my list. Forgot, entirely.I was so shocked to realize this, it made me no longer sad about the small envelope bearing the word regret. Instead I finally gave myself permission to slow down a bit. Permission to have the summer here, with my family and a box of mail-order chicks, and watermelon seed spitting contests and writing workshops, and to take out West to run a half marathon with my sister.
Permission to not compete with the peers in my life who are at different places in their lives, because in the end, our lives are tangled up with entirely different sets of stars. Can’t you picture that? All of us, like marionettes with fragile golden strings stretching up into the dark indigo bowl of heaven. Have you ever looked up and tried to count all those stars?
Like dislocated limb, I’ve been dangling on the peripheries of my life all year. I’ve spent many months trying to find that groove where the cartilage of necessity and the bone of loving and dreaming meet. It has been painful. My senses of safety and inner equilibrium have been precariously balanced amidst a heap of responsibility and guilt and worry. My days are scribbled with the irrational ink of worry. I’ve burst into sudden shocked tears when a glass breaks. I’ve had entire fights, painful and raw and startling, that midway through, I can no longer recall the initial provocation.
Somehow, receiving that letter didn’t shake my belief in my writing at all—the way I imagined it would, before it came. Now, from this vantage point I don’t think my writing was the reason I was rejected at all. I think instead it was because my readiness to be there wasn’t self-evident in my application, or in my hurried recommendations from professors I hadn’t worked with in years.
I don’t know if I would have been ready, honestly. It would be a little like jumping off a bus moving at full speed, and because I’m that chin-up kid with a big ego, I’m sure I’d make it work somehow, despite the inevitable scraped knees and broken arm. But this way I’ll have some time to really find my footing, rather than plunging blindly into a new stream with flooding banks, which graduate work in writing invariably is.
So I’m looking forward to summer now, more than I was. (Also because eight inches of sleety frozen crap is in the forecast for tomorrow night. Somewhere, some very drunk weather gods are having a hell of a good time at our expense.) Some part of me feels like hugging this other part of me that has reached out and offered permission to just be here right now; at the beginning, instead of rushing pell-mell ahead. I know how that sounds, but I can’t think of any other way of describing how my drive to accomplish things can a perilous and ruthless taskmaster, who crowds my days with post-it notes and plans, and forgets life is happening right now, and how relieved I am to have to slow down.
Life is happening right now.
He said “I yuv you mommy,” and he was beaming.
That’s enough.
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25 Responses to “Life is happening right now”
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April 14th, 2007 @ 10:13 pm
Oh, is that enough. It is everything. Give Bean a very, very big hug.
My five year old crept into the comforter last weekend, stretched his thin, warm arms around me, and said “I love you, Mommy. You take such good care of me. I love you.” I was immediately reduced to tears and squeezed the little guy to no end. Those moments are everything.
April 14th, 2007 @ 10:30 pm
How precious those words are when they come pure and honest from the lips and hearts of our little ones.
I am so happy for you. It sounds like life is beautiful for you and best of all, you recognize it. I hope you have a night, a summer filled with millions of fluttering mariposas.
April 14th, 2007 @ 11:20 pm
what an incredibly gorgeous, touching, real post. your writing is gorgeous. i’m glad that one letter hasn’t discouraged you. things happen for a reason.
and i needed that reminder about not comparing my life to that of my peers. we are all tangled up in different sets of stars. i just finished an art piece yesterday called “catching stars”, so this was a nice, timely turn of phrase. thank you!
how precious to hear your son say i wuv you. my heart aches to think of it. in a good way.
April 14th, 2007 @ 11:41 pm
It has been awhile since I’ve commented. I have to tonight. Christina, while you are giving that part of you a hug, feel a hug here from an old blogging acquaintance.
This paragraph, that ended “All of us, like marionettes with fragile golden strings stretching up into the dark indigo bowl of heaven. Have you ever looked up and tried to count all those stars? ” May just stay with me forever. I too compare myself too often to my peers or those I admire, holding myself to this ridiculously high standard and not taking the time just to breathe and feel thankful for my blessed life. You have reminded me to do that this evening.
Thank you and God bless!
April 14th, 2007 @ 11:43 pm
every single time i come over here i am blown away. with your insights. with your poetic writing. with you.
April 15th, 2007 @ 12:20 am
Oh, what a gorgeous post–as they ALL are, but this one just left me aching with its poignancy.
Thank you for reminding me to appreciate what IS, and stop staring at the holes in the air that contain what I think is missing.
April 15th, 2007 @ 2:40 am
Best post you’ve ever written. It brought tears to my eyes. So many of us women beat ourselves up senselessly, comparing and contrasting, never measuring up. and then there’s the moment when you see that it is YOU who are special, amazing, unique, flawed and confused like every other person you’re age. to be oneself is the gift.
I’m so glad that you are at peace at the beginning of this new season…i’m sure it will be a good one.
April 15th, 2007 @ 3:54 am
This is a stunningly honest post and it really resonated with me. Coming home from a wonderful birthday party of a dear friend who I often feel has more, experiences more and I too regularly compare myself to her…your post of Bean saying he loved you for the first time reminded me that this week, for the first time, my sweet boy said, “Mommy you pretty and daddy is handsome.” I melted.
It’s these types of moments that require more tought and introspection - not the what ifs and why nots and why them and why not me.
While I am sure your blogging is therapeutic and life-clarifying for you, it also helps so many others. Thank you for putting this into words. I feel I was supposed to see this tonight.
April 15th, 2007 @ 9:02 am
Yes, life is happening - isn’t it startling how often we manage to forget that?
Surely your writing is not the reason - that just could not be possible.
So sweet about Bean’s I love you. And chicks! How exciting!
April 15th, 2007 @ 10:20 am
I came to your blog from Mama Tulip’s. I think this post is incredible, as is your writing overall.
What an amazing and important life lesson to share.
Thanks.
April 15th, 2007 @ 12:29 pm
I am so very moved by your writing…especially moved to happy tears by your little ones words of true love!
Oh that warmed my heart this morning.
I’m a happy grandma who delights in every nuiance of her grandchildrens’ movements, twitches, smiles, words, activities, LIVES!
They are MY JOY! And you are just beginning this journey…I smile to listen to you picking a graduate school, pacing yourself to do other fun and exciting things, living your life so fully…
Sorry you had the trauma of the school shooting, what a toll that must take…scary…PSTD?…wow…yes…much to heal from…
hang on to your stars, they are right there with you amongst the dust of remodeling, renovating your home/self/life…so much to enjoy and to look forward to. Enjoy the NOW.
Thanks for letting me respond. Fun finding you.
April 15th, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
Dammit Woman! You always make me cry. And about that letter…I noticed when visiting my son last weekend that he has one of those letters hanging on his wall. It’s a daily reminder to him of how much better he’s become and all that he would have missed in the life that he loves now, if that letter had never come. Let it serve as an inspiration…
April 15th, 2007 @ 12:59 pm
*sniffles*
congratulations on your new outlook - three little words can do that sometimes, huh? I am so happy that you are deciding to take this road and slow down and enjoy your sweet boys, the summer, and the NOW. give that little part of you a hug from me too.
April 15th, 2007 @ 1:29 pm
C, I am so glad you got here. Slowing down I think is so hard and yet so important. To be here now fully and make that the best momment we can.
Also I love the photo. How did you do it?
April 15th, 2007 @ 4:55 pm
Well you know I had to google mariposas…:)
Darling you, this is so good. To have this realization, to gently let yourself off the hook. You are one extremely driven woman, and despite whatever twists and turns, I can’t imagine that your set of stars isn’t brilliantly exploding with goodness. What you went through in the fall really does take time to get over and through…so scary to think about it all over again. Remember my prayer at that time? And you are here, in the wonder and glory of it all.
I can perfectly picture Bean’s face with his message of love…and I can’t wait to read about all your adventures this summer.
April 15th, 2007 @ 8:59 pm
I yuv you, too. And Bean. And your honesty and beautiful writing and painted word pictures.
April 15th, 2007 @ 11:04 pm
great post~ reminds me of this quote:
“Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans”
John Lennon
April 15th, 2007 @ 11:49 pm
“Permission to not compete with the peers in my life who are at different places in their lives, because in the end, our lives are tangled up with entirely different sets of stars.”
Love this. It’s exactly what I needed to read.
First time visitor (got here from Marilyn at California Fever), and I love your writing. So rich.
Isn’t that first “I yuv you” the best? The BEST? Yes, it is.
April 15th, 2007 @ 11:53 pm
I love your writing. giving yourself permission to slow down… needed that. thanks. =)
April 16th, 2007 @ 6:54 am
I yuv you— most beautiful words ever–
so glad to know you are gonna put that overdrive into cruise mode— summertime and you are gonna be soaking it all in and giving yourself a chance to absorb and enjoy ALL that you have created in these past few years– so much! love how you experienced the small letter– an inspiration for me–
April 16th, 2007 @ 8:36 am
So sweet. And I think summer is a wonderful thing to look forward to. It’s all about the present moment, Christina.
Hugs.
April 16th, 2007 @ 10:05 am
The image of marionette strings reaching up into the stars will be with me for a long, long time. Thank you!
April 17th, 2007 @ 12:22 pm
once again I bow my head to you in gratitude. I have more years of experiance in parenthood but you have more wisdom than a thousand years could bring. Thanks again for the profound lessons you always teach me always at the right momments. I am grateful for moms like you.
April 17th, 2007 @ 6:25 pm
You know I don’t often comment here -
I just want to remind you to breathe and be…I think you’ve just been handed a lesson from the universe, and that you know it.
April 18th, 2007 @ 10:43 pm
Been reading for a while now; I found your blog through a friend, and love it.
I just wanted to thank you for this post. It is a eloquent statement of peacefulness and a reminder to slow down.
I needed that.
Enjoy your summer!