It’s alright
We’re good. Better. Hours outdoors snowshoeing, just the two of us, the sun filtering through the trees like gold onto the snow. Conversations over wine and salad about astronomy and politics and five year plans. A few extra minutes in bed together, lips brushing against warm skin, after sending Bean off to play in his room. Holding hands while walking around the grocery store. Taking the time to remember what it was like when our universe was just us. When he was my only focus. When I was his.
And yeah, the jealousy is still there. But I also know that I’d be heartbroken without this. Without the maples drenched in snow, the tiniest of new red buds just showing. Without this house that smells sweet with the heady aroma of brownies and hums with the rhythmic whir of the dishwasher. Without these boys: the big one and the small. I know this. I know there is an arc to everything, and that I’m on mine, and I’ll get there. And I know that this is my story: this juxtaposition of homestead and wanderlust. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
But thank you for your reminders. I needed them.
Daily Photo, Thoughts & observations | Comments (8)Here again
Outside, in the quiet winter cold, a dog barks again and again and again. A series of three staccato yaps, then a pause, snowflakes swirling in the silence before it barks again; left somewhere outdoors, hot breath making the fur wet around his mouth, icicles gathering in shaggy snarls.
In the sky, the moon, rinsed in the shadow of a recent eclipse, climbs higher up the edge of the dark.
Inside, I almost hold my breath. Heartache coiled in my chest again. I’m restless.
It is still winter here, and I’m home after a week away, where I was submerged in desert sunlight and words. The yearning to be at the next place in my life is fiercer than ever now; to be doing this writing thing, full tilt, without anything else. To be writing every day, without a day job that leaves me feeling like one of those tabs of fish food you throw in the tank for the fish to nibble relentlessly while the owner leaves for a vacation.
It is still winter and stumbling about the internet I find a classmate from my year in college who has published her first collection of essays, and also has the job I wish I had, in the thick of the Manhattan literary world, among tall buildings and subways and martinis. I bite my lip seeing her book jacket, her shiny hair.
I hate the color of this thing that creeps up in my solar plexus. I hate the way jealousy makes me feel small and suffocated, and the way it makes me ask a hundred stupid what-ifs, as if time weren’t irreversible, as if I weren’t here in the thick of this winter snowstorm with a three year old tucked into flannel sheets upstairs and a husband suffering through another bout of depression.
Maybe this is the thing I hate the most. How he won’t admit that his entire way of inhabiting the world hinges on finances; on what he makes or looses for the week in the market, the charts and numbers blipping by him faster than a heartbeat. He won’t say that his life is empty of things that make his heart tremble with passion; he won’t say that he keeps putting these things on hold to maintain our status quo, to keep afloat, to put in a home gym and a flat screen TV, to do whatever comes next in the acquisition process that never ends but never makes him really happy either. He doesn’t see it this way. But I feel his emptiness like a dry heat licking at my skin, making my knuckles crack, my lips grow chapped.
Winter. It seems to always find us here, under sweaters in different rooms with hardly anything to say. It’s been three weeks of tight jaw muscles, and shorter conversations. We hug each other by the kitchen island over Saturday morning pancakes with maple syrup and bacon and hot coffee, but there is always something that makes one or the other of us pull away abruptly, as though magnetism, like heat, is scarce on these cold days and longer nights.
The only time I really see his face bloom into an unguarded smile is when he is with Bean. Then it spreads across his cheeks like the unexpected tiny rainbows from the prism hanging by a ribbon in the window, and a small sharp sliver worms its way into the very center of my chest. I can’t help but wish his smile would bloom like this for me.
But we’re like hungry dogs, circling, ready to snap at the slightest provocation. It is as though we’re both looking for a reason, for some release of tension—both of us craving the pulpy mess that exposes our hearts and leaves us pressed close together with heat between us. Maybe this makes no sense. Of course it makes no sense. But why else do we do this at-once push and pull?
When he’s around, it’s all about pull-your-hair-out-crazy mood swings, and this week has been his worst week ever in the stock market. Everything tipped in the wrong direction, keel up, toppled like dominos. And at the end of a day I can’t help it, I turn away, heart pounding. I’ve already given nearly every shred of patience away to six year olds who play modern warfare games and miss their mothers living in other states. It’s almost like a reflex: the way I avoide directness, intimacy, while feeling like everything between us is flayed: muscles, tendons, hearts, tears always at the back of our eyes.
But then when he’s gone all I can do is watch the clock, the minute hand dogging the hour hand until he’s back, craving him like homesickness.
Work, Writing, The way I operate, Thoughts & observations | Comments (26)Three years old
Dear Bean,
You are three this week. Three, and around you everything is a little tornado of delight. When I came home from a week away and slipped into our comfy king sized bed, you were already there, curled among the flannel sheets, nuzzled into my pillow. I kissed your cheek and you smiled, a dreamy sleep smile, but still one of contented recognition. Later, you woke to find me next to you and threw your arms around my neck, “Mommy” you sighed. “I love you so much.”
In the morning we made blueberry pancakes, and stacked them on your plate with a star candle, flickering brightly. At your place, I put the rocks I’d collected hiking on trails winding along the desert outside Zion, Utah. One smooth and round, sparkling with tiny bits of glitter, like a star-filled sky. Another, a small bit of petrified wood, found on the muddy trail outside of the park where the group stopped and ate apples and chocolate and almonds while the desert sun soaked into our skin.
You pay attention to everything around you now. Never missing a subtlety of expression, you listen to your daddy talk stocks, and when we asked you how your day was going, you shrugged mournfully, held your hands up in the air, palms up, and said: “My stock is going down; it went all the way down under the floor.” Then you grinned like an elf and added, “But it came back up.”
More and more I notice you paying attention to text—everywhere you notice letters—the ones in your name, and also others. When I was gone, I left you a small present for every day I was away. One was a counting book, starting at 10 and going backwards. By the time I came home, you knew all the words, and pointed to each number identifying it correctly. Like me, I think, you are a kid born to learn. I’ve always been voracious this way. Always full of wonder and hungering to learn new things, and I’m glad this is something we share.
I missed you while I was gone, in a bewildering tender way: I kept thinking wherever I went that I’d forgotten something. Still, I was thrilled to go. I hope you understand this. We napped together today. I needed to catch up on much needed sleep, after a week writing, my entire being thrumming like a tuning fork with inspiration after being with such an amazing group of writers.
When we snuggled under the covers, you whispered, “I missed you so much, Mommy,” and gently kissed my face again and again. I said I missed you too, but that it was good for me to go, because it made me happy and you nodded.
I watched you all day today, content to let my orbit grow small around you after a week of airplanes, content simply to be your mother. Remembering three years ago, labor long, spring temporarily bursting in the Connecticut suburbs where I circled the deck working through contractions. Remembering the disorienting blur of new motherhood, your small body no longer a piece of mine. On your birthday we spent the day doing things your way: walking along the waterfront checking out trains, playing with cars and cranes on the floor, and giggling. Lots of giggling.
Adjectives that describe you right now: inquisitive, persistent, curious, determined, intelligent, astute, perceptive, silly, playful, intuitive, and observant.
I’m so proud to be your mama.
I love you.
Inspired.
I’ll be back by the weekend.
Writing, A sense of place, Inspiration, Daily Photo | Comments (7)Gallop, gallop, gallop
Whew. Met the deadline, but now: getting ready to leave my classroom in the hands of a sub. A very capable one at that, but still, do you have any idea how hard it is to clone yourself? That’s what writing lesson plans for an entire week feels like.
Too darn busy.
Hence the almost absence from around here. Will be back shortly.
Thoughts & observations | Comments (4)Doing:
* Writing, writing, writing, writing. In my sleep I dream of keystrokes and perfect endings.
* Eating freshly made biscuits, panchetta, and eggs with DH and Bean. Listening to jazz and sipping a cappuccino. A perfect morning.
* Mourning the loss of my two last hens: the weasel came back. My father in law shot him, and despite his beautiful fur, I was gleeful at his death, the bastard. I am still in shock that he killed all six of my chickens.
* Writing. Did I mention writing? Deadline tomorrow. I’ll be heading out west to write with Pam in a week. Thrilled. Giddy. Totally nervous.
* Planning Bean’s third birthday. He’ll be THREE in two weeks. SINCE WHEN???
* Painting with Bean. It was his idea to do the armadillo.
Art Everyday, Doing | Comments (9)