Month: May 2014

Men’s Vitamins

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WHOLE FOOD ENERGIZER, read the bold letters I didn’t notice. They are written on the bottle of Chase’s vitamins. Why am I looking at men’s vitamins? Because mine ran out.

“Just take one of my multi’s,” I tell him when he hasn’t any more.
“No. I might grow breasts or something.”
“Are you being for real right now?”
“I’m not taking them.”

I, on the other hand, have no problem stealing from his stash when the tables are turned, but last night I couldn’t figure out why I was folding laundry like a machine.
“Want to watch another episode of Seinfeld? How about Hoarding: Buried Alive? So interesting.” I spoke in speeds hardly comprehensive to my husband whose eyes were half closed.
He yawned. “You can start one and if I fall asleep, well, no harm.” 

It was like I had six arms and the piles were sorting themselves. I brushed my teeth and popped an Aleve because as it turns out, the new Power Yoga DVD I purchased is nothing like the beginner session I’ve been doing for 5 years. Youch. Apparently I was long overdue for a little challenge.

My novel drew me in page by page, I started to relax. But long after the light switch clicked off, I tossed.

Then some idiot dog thought it was afternoon instead of midnight and shortly thereafter I was stifling giggles into the pillow because all I could think about was Brian Reegan going, “Hey! Hey, hey, hey! Hey, hey!”
Listen to the bit and you’ll know why this is funny.

Blankets pulled close. Blankets kicked away, like I’m on the brink of menopause. Which I am not, thank you.

Ugh, the night. Would I have to entertain it until morning?

Aha, a snack. I needed a snack.
I grabbed my book, a Melatonin tablet for good measure, and then was off to the land of cheese. Still, everything I was doing was in super mode when I heard little feet drop to the floor and run to what I know is my bedroom. I found her cuddled against her daddy. I scooped her into me and breathed in her sleepy breath. There is nothing like the restful face of a child.

All right, round two. By then it was after 3:00 a.m. and I was in that place of debating if I should just fold the cards I’d been dealt and get some stuff accomplished or chance that I’d actually rest.

Suddenly it was morning. I did it. I fell asleep. In my haze I almost forgot to check the label inside the cabinet.
Mm, hmm. That explains it. Selfie note: no vitamin-taking at bedtime.

From now on, I will be more careful. Being up all night isn’t really beneficial for my kind of daily schedule.
But hey, at least I didn’t wake up with a beard. So that’s something.

 

A Breeze Banging Blinds

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‘Tis the season for sunburns and skinned knees. For crickets harmonizing in the dark and ceiling fans that keep warm air circulating. It’s time for ice cubes crackling in tea and grills that sizzle with the searing of meats. Bring on pasta salad, watermelons shaped like baskets, and volleyball nets in backyards.

My eyes are tired. I am tired. The night settles into a quiet rest, every last scary thought cast into oblivion with my mother’s caress across their forehead. A breeze hits me through blinds that bang easy on the sill. I let down because all three of them are finally down, and I escape from lengthy lists of what I will need to attend or pack on these last few days of school. I forget about the laundry backed into a corner of my bedroom, ignore the toothpaste splattered mirrors, and let the cool wash over my skin the way water showers my Impatiens.

But somewhere in the midst of all this easing there is aching. A nephew who will have a funeral. A marriage withered and dry, cracked on the edges with pain that doesn’t give. A parent with a diagnosis that guts a family. The quiet eases nothing. The emptiness, a beating of the soul. A summer’s breeze, razorblades, because it feels that nothing is as it should be and everything has changed.

“What if we have it all wrong? This question recently came from a friend. “What if danger, heart-wrenching circumstances, sorrow is our means to life?”

When the morning is already hot on my arms, I pinch buds of Petunias, wrangle them loose from their stem so that many more will come. When snow has stopped its angry tantrum and frigid temperatures dissipate, chive sprouts return greener and fuller. Only when a tree’s lowest branches are sawed free can the rest of it reach high.

Come through the screen, night air. Remind us that winter doesn’t last and hope comes after death.

 

Saved by the Bell

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“And the ho-o-o-ome, of the-e, bra-a-ave!”

She’s not even close, and who of us ever actually hit that note well? A small margin. The rest of us kind of lip sync, our hearts swollen proud and hands reverently gracing our chests while the “singers” fill in what we cannot. Or, we hurt the ears around us, like she’s hurting mine just now.

My little one is pounding my shoulders and kissing the back of my head. Her Frozen ballad comes next, clashing nicely with her sister’s patriotic scream.

I get out bread, crusty at the top from nearly being burned by the freezer. With a knife I spread peanut butter in swirls, trying to make it look perfect the way the old father/son JIF commercials used to advertise. Always, always I needed a sandwich after watching those. And then I’m remembering the ponds from past Country Time Lemonade ads. Kids jumping in, the narrator charming me with his raspy voice, and suddenly I want to be there too. I want the nostalgia, the feel of what’s vintage and safe and fun.

There’s a fight near the coffee table and someone has moved on to, “Now bring us some Figgie Pudding, nah nah nah…”

Time for school.

 

 

Love That is Lost

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It’s an ugly sweatshirt. When I first found it, damp, lonely, and tucked between a pile of forgotten camping gear, Chase advised against finding a spot for it in our closet. I already knew of a place.
And so it came home with me. Since then it has become my favorite. I wear it in the morning when my little one wants breakfast and there is no time for brushing out hair tangles. It stays as housewear because, of course, I do heed some red flags of fashion.

From upstairs I hear the doorbell that sounds too loud against my minimal hours of sleep. The pilling sleeves of my beloved hoodie are pushed to the crooks of my elbows. I’m not presentable per se, but I’m dressed.
Then I see them, two of them all ties and smiles, and there is no escape. I’ve left the front door open. I have no chance to pretend I’m not home. I adjust, tug at the cuffs and scooch the neck opening to try to make up for no makeup, and greet them with circles under my eyes.  

“Hello Ma’am,” he says.
Ick. Singes the ears every time.
“Hi.” I barely respond when he’s already talking again.
“Do you notice how stress is a big part of life these days?”
There’s a measurable pause as if he’s expecting me to say something. I do not.
“I mean, do you notice that we tend to stress more…”
I think, and I’m just guessing here, he thought my bored face meant I wasn’t listening. Really, I didn’t mean to ignore the prompt to speak but I was seriously debating using sarcasm to lay out the last two decades of my panic disorder symptoms. Stress? Yeah, I’m accustomed to the likes of it.
“…as we get older?”
Now listen here, Sonny Boy who thinks I’m a Ma’am. Just because my sun freckles and grays are showing doesn’t mean you can take that tone with me. Kids these days. (He’s probably a baby, like 28 or something. Still.)
But I reign it all in with an,  “Mm, hmm.”
“If I could read you something,” he says with a Bible open right to the rehearsed page, and proceeds with thy’s and thou’s. “Pretty simple, isn’t it?”
He’s so chipper I want to twist his nose. Instead I nod.
“Now, we’d like to give you these pamphlets and if you have your own Bible (Ha. And ha.) you can look up some verses on the back of them.”

Why don’t you ask me if I have a Bible? Or why at this late hour of the morning I’m in raggedy clothes? If you spent five minutes getting to know me you’d understand the reason I look like I can’t wait for you to leave. It’s because I can’t wait for you to leave so I can go back to my youngest girl who was puking while you were likely sleeping last night. So I can finish shampooing apple chunks out of the carpet and bleaching the toilet where the unspeakable happened.

You’re missing me even while you’re looking right at me.

Oh, how many time I’ve done this. When my stance on abortion sets up a blind around the woman who was gutted and now aches from the decisions she’s made. When theological accuracy replaces a hug and an open ear. When my political affiliation alienates anyone on the other “side.” When being right is more important than being a safe place. When a man with a backpack full of pamphlets makes me roll my eyes because I know just as little about him as he does me.

When the mission becomes more important than the person, love is lost.

“We’d like to stop by the next time we’re in your neighborhood. To see how you’re doing,” he says.
I’ll put on my sweatshirt and try not to shush the kids so you think we’re out of town.   

    

Slurpity Slurp

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The smack-slurp is loud, easily audible above the roar of baristas who banter in partial truths. Yeah, I come here too much. It’s a problem. 

I don’t even realize what is happening until her finger is aggressively curving the arc of her paper cup. She is shamelessly scraping out syrup and sucking it off her finger. I glance around in shyness, under the radar. As if I’m whispering to a best friend I wonder, Am I the only one seeing this?

Back in she goes, another swipe, another lick, and I’m doing everything I can to force my eyes into submission in my own space.
She cares not as she snaps the lid in place and goes back to her social media scrolling.

That’s when I look at my cup. I mean, I could. She did. No one really saw, though we all know it wouldn’t have mattered.

I rise up, my shoulders are bold. “Could I have a venti water?”

I’ll save it for a day I choose the drive-thru.

 

Coffee Cold as a Blizzard on Mother’s Day

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It sits there with just a few sips missing and I know I’ll end up drinking my coffee as I do almost every other morning. Reheated.

The usual escapades are unfolding. My daughter is angry that her brother has infected the air of her bedroom with his cootie-like oxygen molecules, and Miss Petite is having a meltdown about wearing snow boots with her favorite dress.
I know, I want to say to her. It is nearly two weeks into May and the idea of that blizzard, the one outside, makes me want to spread eagle on the bathroom floor too. But one of us must keep it together. So I’ll do it. I guess.

I get ready in spurts, half-listening to the articulate speeches on inequality in our household republic given graciously by my oldest. Except then I remember this is a dictatorship. Go change into something not jammies, and without peace signs. Thank you.

The clutter of combs, earrings, toothpaste, too many hair ties, an old watch, or two, and various sizes of brushes slam against the face of the drawer as I open it. I pull out the big round one and turn up my drier. I think they talk to me, the kids. At least, I see their lips moving but it’s like listening on the other side of glass. I make some confused motion that will exasperate them from still trying. They just get louder.

Finally, I’m in a zone. The kind where I’m doing something monotonous and there is just enough space for me to think. I push myself to come up with words but instead, it’s all faces. Beauty. Of the amazing women I know.

There’s one with fists like iron, to fight lawmakers by day and to keep her marriage together for her kids by night.  

There’s one who sits on the toilet lid as tears slide from her knuckle to the hundredth stick test that never shows a second line no matter how much she prays in those 4 minutes.

The one who knows the only baby she wants is the revolving door of patients that walk through her office, and a small cat named Tibbles.

The one who is actually a dad carrying both roles, spent and depleted in every way and still missing the wife he sees when his little girl giggles.

One who has a daughter she’s never said by name, or held, or heard whimper because she was called home before she made it to her mommy’s arms.

One who lives with newspaper ink on her fingers from scouring coupons to feed the five foster kids that need a place to name home.

I sit on the side of my bed and tell the kids to come close as I open my card from them. The first word is Grandma, picked out by my son who really just loves Snoopy no matter what the sentimental words declare on the front. I mean, he’s seven, and has obviously not made me a grand anything but messes. I open it, and I’m grateful. To be their mom, to be in their life.

But also to know some pretty incredible women who do some pretty unbelievable caring, biological mother, or not.

Would anyone like to warm up my coffee? I need to sit here and remember a few people.  

 

Slow Your Hurried Self, Time

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Tucked just below a small bow on her neckline are her hot pink nails, a reminder to me of how much girl runs through her veins. Her eyelashes hover over the top of her cheek and when I trail down a tad, I find a that cute little mole. Her skin, it’s creamy and perfect, unblemished by acne or scars that promise to come with future hormone changes. I will hate that time for her. And for me, because it will most assuredly test our relationship.

I do not hurry to my phone or think of how many minutes until the school bell. I care nothing of the forecast or what e-mail will need my reply. Instead I memorize the curve of her nose, the ruffle of her hand-me-down jammies around her wrist, her smell. The bangs I trim, the ones she scoots across her forehead when she’s coloring or after doing somersaults, lay ever graceful above her brow.

I’ve been a parent long enough to know these moments matter, and will not last. I will forget, and then someday ache for such early morning cuddles.

Don’t pass quickly, time. Slow your hurried self. I’m just so in love.  

What About Birds?

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A bird person I am not. At all.

Theirs is the only exhibit I skip when at the zoo. The Big Year, with some of my favorite actors, left me dumbfounded. I’m sincerely curious when I ask, “What is the draw? I’m just not seeing it.”

There are at least a handful of them, brown with strategic spots like a domino, in my vision from my spot on my patio. I’m scooping together a little lettuce, a bit of strawberry and Feta, some almonds while they are as settled as a toddler. So, not settled. They flit and they flutter, to and fro, and I’m tired trying to follow them. One of them does that creepy thing birds do where they turn their heads like a cap on a bottle. No neck, just a beak reaching much farther than seems natural to do.

One of them hops between the dime-shaped leaves of our Aspen. The branch keeps a sway long after the initial impact and I wonder if this is their version of a trampoline. Another jumps in, but on a different branch. Soon they are intermittently scattered, just enough distance to claim their space, just enough intimacy to be a unit.

That’s when I hear the bird on the highest branch start screeching, and remember why I don’t really like this species. I scrunch my nose at the sound and pretend that she’s a plump southern belle with a wooden spoon and a whole lotta sass. With her eyes on the side of her head she’s punching that beak here and there giving what-for’s to the others. Or maybe it was a male saying, Hey, back yo-self up off my lady friend.

I’m probably wrong in every way since remember, I don’t care enough to know these habits. But I breathe deep the fresh cut grass and let the wind move my hair across my neck. I settle for all of us because my children run circles around me like my new feathered friends. The screeching is too much, the constant movement more than I can pace.

I drag my eyes down to read, take in something other than the air of rivalry.

“…but we also exult in our tribulations…”   – Romans 5

We do? Actually, most of the time I sound more like my three-year old when she looks at me out the top of her eyes and says, “Everyone’s being mean to me and I don’t love it.” I tend to order another coffee and sink into that dark place in my mind that throws parties. The pity kind.

The sun comes through the rainbow umbrella above, and I read the words again.

This morning when tears streamed angry down my daughter’s face, I was not exulting. When my son lay on the floor and ignored my order to get ready for school, I was not exulting. When my little one screamed her way up every, single stair to her bedroom last night, I was not exulting.

“How?” I ask Him.

And I feel His response in every part of me that begins to relax. “I will take care of the ‘how.’ You only need to think about the ‘where.'”

I rest, because I know my direction now. And it is enough.

 

That restless energy is for the birds.