Memories in the Making

Over a week later, and he's still telling me:  I wanna go back a little cabin house, Mommy.  I wanna go beach.

Can you blame him?

We never went on vacation when I was a kid.  Too many children, too little money, parents who aren't particularly into traveling (and definitely not camping, which is one way to make it more affordable).  My mom used to say we spent our money on good food instead!  I never missed it, that old adage about not missing what you never had seeming true enough, but I love traveling.  And I think we may have found "our place".  This beach is less than an hour away from our home, and it costs less than a cheap hotel to stay in a cabin for a night.  I sense a vacation tradition in the making.  And something tells me my guys won't argue:

My feet are beginning to touch the ground.  This weekend we acknowledged fall approaching and finally got some things done around the house.  I'm catching up on laundry today and I mopped the floors.  My grandmother's silver has been polished, for the first time since I inherited it in the fall of '07.  So it won't be all beachy and dreamy round these parts for long.  But I'm still soaking up the summer while I can, and making memories.  They'll be some of our last as a family of three.  And maybe next summer we can introduce our little baby daughter to all the fun there is to be had at the little cabin house at the beach.  I know just the two year old to act as spokesperson--he's already proven he's cut out for the job!

Heaven on Earth

Remember when I said that my husband and I have never taken a vacation together since our honeymoon that didn't involve visiting family?  Ten years later, for our anniversary, we finally did.  And I have to say: it was worth the wait for the beauty of the place alone:

 

 

        

                       

   

All photo credits to my husband                                                                                                                       

Southern Barbecue is the Best Barbecue

We leave for vacation tomorrow.  I'm neck deep in laundry and lists for packing only two bags small enough for carry on, and only one to send through, consisting primarily of a carseat, and then secured in the seat any toiletries forbidden from being carried onto the aircraft itself.  I have to work tomorrow, and then we have scarcely enough time to drive to Buffalo and catch our flight.  We'll spend six and a half hours in the air, including a layover, and arrive in Texas late tomorrow night.  Over the course of the week we spend in the South, we'll do a twelve hour round trip drive to Louisiana, and then another eight hour flight home, with two layovers on that trip.  We'll land in Buffalo again, which is almost three hours from home.  I'm not sure, honestly, whether I'm excited or dreading the trip!  But all the traveling means we'll get to see both sides of my husband's family in the short week we'll be there, and then arrive back in NY just in time to spend our son's second birthday with mine.  My family makes delicious desserts.  And they read my blog.  (Hint, hint!)

I had the best of intentions to pre-write posts, and then schedule them for every other day or so while I was gone.  Let's hope this trip doesn't turn into the hell to which those intentions have paved the way!  I honestly realized only last week that it was already July and my plans were highly unlikely to pan out, unless I hopped to it.  Which I didn't.  And internet access is a highly prized commodity down there (think taking turns waiting for dial-up), so I'm going to be out of commission for the next week or so.

My husband and I, in our nearly ten years of marriage, have never taken a vacation together, save our honeymoon, that didn't involve as its main objective the visiting of relatives from one of our families.  Sometimes this makes me want to sigh heavily and book a cruise.  Other times I remind myself that when your family lives many states away, this is the trade off you make to see them.  Regardless, I do my very best to turn the family visits into real vacations.  My mother-in-law has a new pool in her large Louisiana yard, so all I have to do this time is walk outside and hop in, and -voila- instant vacation!  Or so I'm hoping.  And my husband's paternal grandparents will get to meet our son for the first time.  So no cruise for us this summer, or any summer soon, if I'm honest with myself.

But I'm hoping for a week of barbecue, air conditioning, lounging poolside, and free babysitting from some of the only people in the world who will be just as happy to give it as I will be to get it!  Except for the part about how my son hates people he's just met, and won't allow anyone to watch him without copious weeping, including my own mother who visits him almost monthly.  Ah well, let's put that out of our minds for now, shall we?  The closer we get to the trip, the more my excitement morphs into dread.  But this happens every time I travel, and once we're off, I almost always find something to enjoy.

I need a mantra.  Something like:

Southern barbecue is the best barbecue.

Yep, that'll do it.  Between spending way too much in planes, airports, and automobiles, I'll be eating more pulled pork than anyone with any sense would ever recommend!  And hopefully cobbling together something resembling a vacation out of all the racing around we've got ahead of us.  Now time to fold and pack more clothes.

Southern barbecue is the best barbecue.  Southern barbecue is the best barbecue.

Say it with me now!

Hot As Hades

I heard it was over 100 degrees today, with the heat index.  I didn't bother to seek evidence proving or disproving this hearsay.  I don't need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. 

No, I don't need no steenkin' thermometer.  I have my inner thighs.  And they told me, loud and clear, that it was a bazillion degrees today, with a bazillion percent humidity.  Either that or they're opening a small business, manufacturing and selling sweat by the gallon.  I'm not sure how the market for gallons of sweat is looking in light of the current economic crisis, but it seems churlish not to let them try, especially after such an enterprising start early this morning, and lasting all day long.

I'm hotter'n a cat on a hot tin roof.

An egg frying on an inner city pavement.

A lipstick on the dashboard of a car parked in the desert sun.

Speaking of which, did I ever tell you about the night I spent in the desert, dancing like a revelation, lipstick-free beside the parked car that carried me there?  No?  Well, now's as good a time as any.  Pull up a seat, and mind your ass don't stick to the leather.  It ain't easy gettin' comfortable in this mess, but we'll do our best.

It was southern California, the Anza-Borrego Desert State Wilderness area, east of San Diego.  We were headed for Tijuana, in no particular hurry to get there, or anywhere.  We drove all day in sweltering sun through tiny towns with nothing but mexican mercados, and finally turned left off the road and drove straight into an endless sand flat.  There was nothing but sand as far as the eye could see, and then the purple hint of mountains framing the distant horizon.  We set up the tent as night was falling.  There was no one, and nothing, but us, and a car, and a tent.

Even after the sun set, it was so hot I had to strip down to bare skin.  I heard coyotes howling in the desert night.  I slipped from the tent and looked up to a sky that could swallow you whole.  I danced around that tent in the buff, like a woman possessed, under a deep purple sky and yellow moon.  I howled with coyotes, and felt each grain of sand under my feet, still hot like the desert secretly embracing the sun after nightfall.  The night was empty, and the desert endless, but I felt no fear.  This place, as foreign to a northeastern Irish girl as anyplace could be, embraced me like a mother, washed me like baptismal waters, sang to me like a gospel choir, or maybe an angel hovering in the open air between the hot sand and heaven itself.

Eventually, I slept, and the heat woke us at 6 the next morning, like loaves of bread trying to escape the fate of our own baking.  We stopped at the first mercado we saw.  I drank cold lemonade right from the bottle without stopping, tilting it back until every last drop drained down my throat.  I felt the eyes of the mexican merchant men on my legs, clad in torn off denim, and my hair, wild down my back like a pony's mane.

I had the desert in me; of course I was desirable.  I was more powerful than the purple black of a moonlit night.  Coyotes didn't dare approach me, nude and dancing in the night near a nylon tent home I carried on my back, slow and aimless as a turtle on my way to Tijuana.  I could see forever in every direction, to those purple mountain majesties of lore.  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, got into the car, one foot on the dash, and the other draped out the open car window.  We drove off into the southern California sun.

Word has it that tomorrow is supposed to be over 100 degrees as well.  California's not on the agenda, and we don't have coyotes in the area so far as I know, but ever since that night, the desert's in my blood, and there's nothing to stop us from stripping down into the green grass clover of our own city yard, dancing 'round groundhog holes like creatures possessed by god, the devil, or the lunatic love child rumored to be born to the two of them after one crazy night in Tijuana.

If I disappear from these here internets, know that I'm off making my fortune selling sweat to mercados in southern California.  With the oil market being what it is, somebody out there's gotta be crazy, or crafty, enough to try a new method for frying tortillas.  And if this heat keeps up, I'll tell you something: my thighs?  Oh baby, they can supply.

Large Plans Writ Small

We were invited to a weekend party last Saturday, celebrating ten years of marriage for some old friends of ours.  We met them in Arizona, and there were six of us who got married that year, three couples in the same summer, all meeting on the west coast, and marrying on the east: Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New York.  It was Massachusetts who celebrated this weekend.  We were planning to camp in their big backyard, but our air mattress pump exploded in the car on the way there (necessitating a short stop at a wildflower sanctuary, where we aired out the car and waited for the smell of whatever chemical was hissing from the pump into our vehicle to dissipate).  So we had no air mattress, and then the toddler displayed a marked reluctance to sleep in an unfamiliar environment when it came time for his sorely needed afternoon nap.  We ended up driving there in the morning, and home again in the evening.  It was a long, but beautiful drive across New York State, and our son slept much of it, giving us a chance to talk and reflect on our own upcoming ten year anniversary.

I've always liked big plans.  If we're going to Texas and Louisiana to visit the in-laws, I'm all about stopping to see any friends we can along the way, or researching campsites, cities, towns and sightseeing along the way.  We hosted Thanksgiving the month after we moved into our new house, even though it meant sitting on folding chairs, and we held my sister's engagement dinner on our deck where the families of the bride and groom first met.  We've probably hosted a big party for family or friends at least once annually since we got married.  So when my husband suggested that we, like the friends we were on our way to visit, host a huge get together later this summer to celebrate our tenth anniversary, and we began to talk about a guest list and menu, I was surprised to find myself feeling a mounting sense of dread rather than excitement.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I waited half a decade to have children after I felt ready, or that I didn't bother to substantially grow up in almost any area of my life until after I was 30 (no career, house or children until after that), but I really don't miss being in my twenties at all.  I don't miss going to bars or parties.  I don't miss having a big group of friends with whom I lounged around, wasting time by the hour (although I miss and still love the people, I don't miss that phase of my life).  I don't miss going out unencumbered by children.  I don't miss late nights, or lazy days with no babies hanging on my limbs.  Don't get me wrong; I loved it.  At the time.  But, God, do I love what I've got now, and for right now: I love it so much more.  I wouldn't give a single one of my messy mommy days for a blast from the past.  I'll get those days back again, some time when my children are older and less in need of my limbs for crawling and cuddling, and my attention for teaching and soothing, and my whole heart for every minute they're awake and in need of mama.  And, honestly, I'm in no hurry.  I'd slow it down if I could.

One of the biggest changes for me, since becoming a mother, is that I've gone from very, very fly-by-the-seat of my pants to very, very routine-oriented.  My husband is a happy man, as he's always preferred routine, and I've always been tearing him from it, dragging him into whatever next adventure I could find.  Suddenly I'm settled, at long last, and it's as if I was born to be this way.  I love the rhythm of knowing what comes next, and how my son will respond.  I love the way the rhythms and routines of the day offer so many opportunities to teach, and so teaching my son flows naturally from what we do each morning, afternoon and evening.  I love the lull of sameness, like a slow song playing in the background on repeat.  I honestly don't know who's most comforted by it: myself, my husband or my son!

And a huge summer party to plan?  Waaayyy outside of the routine.  Way, way outside of it.  So far outside that it will not only disturb the routine of the day itself, it threatens the routine of my whole dang summer!  Planning and purchasing, and budgeting, and cleaning, and landscaping, and to-do lists with a definitive date hanging over our heads, and ..... no.  I'm just not up for it.  I've done it before, and someday I'm sure I'll do it again, but hosting huge parties, much like traveling, is something I feel no sadness in setting aside for the time being.  Much like I felt no sadness in setting aside stable employment for the whole decade of my twenties.  Heh.

On Father's Day morning, I let my husband sleep in, and when he awoke we hit the grocery store for fresh bagels, cream cheese, and strawberries for the kiddo and myself, and a sandwich of his choice from the sub shop for daddy on his special day.  Then we drove to a favorite park, with a playground overlooking a lake, and ate breakfast out of grocery bags at a picnic table.  We timed it so the toddler would fall asleep on the drive home and segue into a peaceful afternoon nap.  It was simple.  And it was good.

We decided to book a small cabin on a beautiful beach about an hour north of our home for a long weekend to celebrate our tenth anniversary.  We can drive there easily after I get out of work that afternoon, and toss most of the food we need in a cooler.  There's a pizza place/pub right near the cabin, and it's a half mile walk to the beach.  I'm so looking forward to our regular routine, replacing beach with work in the morning, sticking with the afternoon nap, cooking a simple dinner over a camping grill, or grabbing slices at the pizzeria with a cold beer for my hubby in the evening.  Watching the sun set over the water, and walking a short half mile back to our temporary home for a few short days of simple sameness.  Right now, nothing could sound better to me.

My Tick-Free Travel Fantasy

Remember when I broke up with Road Tripp?  And you know how when you're a young girl, inexperienced in the ways of love, and you end a bad relationship, but then find yourself dreaming of that old, bad boyfriend and wanting nothing more than one more try?  One more chance to make it work?

*Sigh*  I guess I haven't grown up yet.

Let me tell you about my morning commute.

It all started so...reasonably.  So professionally, with such nose-to-the-grindstone spirit!  I had just dropped my son at the sitter, and was thinking about the fact that I need a new day planner, as mine is a school year model and ends at the end of June.  Because my office is in the building of the small non-profit our district collaborates with to run the program I coordinate, I have to make a special 20 minute trip to visit the district building itself, for meetings, supplies or anything else I might need.  I was very responsibly thinking about when and how to schedule that trip in order to procure a new day planner, so I could continue to plan and schedule work-related events without missing a beat as we move into June and then July.

And without warning, my mind meandered.  It took a quick detour from Responsibilityville, and swung suddenly left, down Memory Lane.  I remembered my very first major road trip, back in '97, and how I used a day planner as a diary.  I was too busy to keep a diary, what with all the traveling, and sight-seeing, and pitching of tents, and finally buying beer once I turned 21, waking that birthday morning beside an old stone bridge in Oklahoma and bedding down in a lakeside campground in Kansas.  So I used a little tiny day planner as a diary, recording only the name of each campground, friend or relative's house, hostel, hotel or motel where I found myself sleeping, and the name of the city or town, and the state where it was located.  I still have that day planner somewhere, probably in a box in my attic, where an embarrassing number of our belongings remain, so close to two years after we bought the place!

And then, since my mind was already coasting down Memory Lane, in no apparent hurry to return to Long List of Things To Do Boulevard, it pulled over and rested in Wisconsin.  In 2005, the hubby and I spent our summer on the road, and one of our first stops was a campground in Wisconsin.  It's funny that I should recall it so fondly, because now that I am thinking more critically, it occurs to me that the evening ended in the tent with my husband telling me to: bend and spread 'em, and while this might sound romantic to some of you pervs out there, when I explain that it followed a tick sighting that required full body examination to be sure we weren't sharing more bodily orifices with the ticks than we share with one another, you will surely understand that romance had exited the premises at this particular point.  In order to make room for the ticks, I suppose.

But I digress (and aren't you glad about that?).  Prior to the potential tick infestation (and the full body examination did prevent the terrible possibility of discovering a tick burrowed into one's nether regions in the early morning, I will give my husband that.  Growing up in the South, he learned to take such dangers very seriously.), we had a lovely evening.  We found a campground, pitched the tent, cooked our dinner over an open fire, and had time to take the dog for a walk in the woods before the sun set.  We walked through the trees, scrambled up rocks to enjoy the view from an overpass, and watched fireflies dance in the shadows of the forest as daylight began to dim.

Remembering this trip I was seized by a wave of longing, positively filled with a voracious hunger for travel.  I envisioned camping with my husband and our boy, racing through the woods chasing fireflies and k-yiming rocks, as my son likes to say.  I could hear the car wheels beginning to turn, and see the dust in the rearview mirror as we peeled out of this old town and hit the road, morning sun blazing overhead, my hands drawing lazy circles in the air outside the window as we picked up speed, our toddler content in his carseat to look out the window at the passing scenery.

There was no whining in this fantasy.  And needless to say, no ticks. 

Alas, this morning's trip ended in my office, where I organized the three month old pile of paperwork that has been vying for my attention, and losing out to more immediate concerns, for some time now.  It wasn't quite rock and roll and the open road, but it did offer its own brand of satisfaction.  I suppose I can be a grown-up when it suits me.

I don't think my not-quite two year old is ready for the adventure I envisioned.  Nor is my bank account, or my summer calendar, which is already scheduled full of work days and family trips.  My body probably wouldn't enjoy long hours in the seat of a car either, especially as the weather gets hotter, and I get bigger and rounder in the belly.

But someday, Road Tripp, someday, I swear, the stars will align for us again.  After all, my husband will have to teach our children that time honored Southern tradition of bend and spread 'em tick infestation avoidance at some point, right?  And I'll be damned if I don't get a road trip out of the deal.

A Very Good Friday

I used to make lists before I traveled.  What I would wear each day, accessories and shoes for every outfit, a separate list of toiletries, and maybe another one of reading and writing materials.  I'd pack by the list before leaving, and pull it out again to make sure I had everything I'd brought with me before returning home.  I love lists, and have been known to write things like: get up on my to-do list, just so I could check it off right away.  Making lists is also a way to feel some semblance of control.  Travel is notoriously difficult to control, full of surprises and apt to disrupt the most smoothly laid plans.  Controlling small things is perhaps my way of maintaining calm in the midst of chaos.  Now my lists include things like car friendly toddler snacks, infant tylenol, and an abundant supply of diaper wipes.  Listing outfits for a variety of occasions with matching shoes and accessories seems like a silly bit of nostalgia; just thinking about those lists makes me feel young.

But parenthood, I think, is better when I embrace the chaos, rather than constantly struggling to keep it at bay.  I'm always trying to walk the thin line between planning, organizing, listmaking, controlling, creating the environment I want for my boy, and letting go to leap into the unknown and follow him where he wanders, honoring the spark of divinity alight in his little soul, standing back and allowing it to grow even (or especially) when it's messy.

Last night I was dreading the trip we're taking for Easter weekend.  It was looming before me, a list from hell: loads of laundry, boxes of spring and summer clothes to find and organize so we could pack for the sudden hot spell that's forcasted for the weekend, a naptime to coordinate with driving time, a doctor's appointment in the morning for my husband who's hoping to alleviate the sinus headaches he's been suffering from for weeks now, a trip to the park that seemed increasingly unlikely, and a growing bitterness at all the tasks that would be required of me before we could leave for our trip.

I woke up early this morning and put on a pot of coffee.  When it was ready I asked my husband to sit outside with me on the deck while our son played in the yard and we sipped coffee.  I watched the morning sun beginning to glow brighter in the sky, felt the air warming around us, and made a decision that is almost always the right one:  I decided to chill.  When my husband left for the doctor's office, I packed my son in his stroller and we went to the park, putting last things first, not thinking or worrying about laundry, organizing, packing, or coordinating schedules.  We spent the morning climbing and sliding and swinging and playing with a puppy who came to visit the park with her owner.  I brought a yoga book I've been meaning to peruse and a small notebook to write down ideas to include in a new class format I'm trying out on Monday.  We spent a couple hours together enjoying the early April sunshine.

When we got home I pulled out a basket of summery clothes my sister gave me that I haven't taken the time to try on and put away yet.  I plucked out a shirt for today, and a dress for Sunday.  I scurried up to the storage area behind the attic wall where all the off season clothes are stored.  Rather than unpacking and organizing everything, I simply poked through until I saw things I thought would work for this weekend.  Then I spotted a large, brightly colored purse that I got as a birthday gift some years ago, and haven't used much since.  It looked perfect for Easter.  I did the same thing for my son, leafing through clothes with no plan in mind, grabbing whatever looked good, and then tossed it all in a couple of bags.  I did no laundry; we didn't coordinate the drive with naptime; spring and summer clothes are exactly where they were before, only messier.  But we made it to the park, and we played in the sunshine, and I saw the joy in my boy's eyes while he watched a giant puppy run and jump in the grass.  And you know what else?  Packing without a list?  Tossing accessories and shoes haphazard into brightly colored bags with barely a thought to organizing?  Preparing for travel with nary a list?  It made me feel young.

And a very Good Friday it was.

R.I.P. Road Tripp Luv

Road Tripp, honey, I'm sorry, but it's over.  We had a few good years, heck, we made it more than a decade, but I'm in love with someone else now.  It's my house, and I pretty much never want to leave it, so ... yeah, it's probably not going to work out between us anymore.  At least, not for now.  Call me a few years down the road and we'll see if I'm feeling a seven year itch or anything.  You never know.  But for the time being ... yeah, sorry ... um ... we're done.  It's not you, it's me.

Of course, baby, of course I remember when we first fell deeply in love.  It all started in March of '97.  I walked out of my morning lifeguarding shift, hopped into my high school boyfriend's Honda Civic, and hit the road.  We spent the next three months livin' it up, Road Tripp, just you and I, my sweet.  Well, and the high school boyfriend, but he was short-lived after that; we parted at the end of that very trip, whereas you and I came back together again and again as the years passed by in a blur like the view from the passenger side window.  I pored over road maps and atlases like a student with a textbook and a test the next day (oh, the heady romance of the days before mapquest!  Remember that time we traveled to the southernmost tip of New Jersey, driving all day through smokestacks and graffiti, only to find that the "bridge" to Delaware was built by my baby sister, and made entirely of magic marker on the map?  I knew that would be funny someday, and look!  Now it is!).

I ate road food until I gained 30 pounds and couldn't fit into any of the shorts I brought with me after March turned to April, May and then June.  It's okay, Road Tripp, I forgive you.  It was just another excuse to shop at thrift stores for bigger clothing, cuddlebug, and I needed to shop at thrift stores anyway, after spending all my money with you.  Well, on you.  You were never a cheap date, dear.

But then there was that time in Virginia, lost in the woods, when I happened upon a lake, and looking out over the glistening water, vowed to live the rest of my life in three month increments, never repeating what I had done the three months before.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, sweetpea, but such is the folly of youth, and the madness of amore.  I can't keep up with you any longer, love.  I'm getting older, and I guess it's true what they say: we settle.

Settle in, and settle down, and for some reason the backseat of the station wagon just wasn't as comfortable this last time, pulled off on the side of the road, somewhere in a rural Louisiana truckstop, infant nursing or sleeping on my exposed chest, feet resting on the carseat and husband passed out in the driver's seat, leeaanned back, with his mind on his money and his money on his mind.  Except I'm pretty sure a part of that money on his mind -- a subcategory, if you will -- was pondering both the price of gas and the state of the current economy; let's not underestimate the man's intelligence, he may well have entertained a fleeting analysis of peak oil; we'll never know.  The point is, Road Tripp, I could tell, even then, that things were beginning to go south between us.  And I'm so sorry, sweetheart, but I don't mean that literally.

Those last miserable hours driving home, between Buffalo and Syracuse, where I balanced my body weight on bags of luggage and attempted to twist my breasts into some brand new shape that allowed for backseat breastfeeding while keeping the child enclosed in the infant carseat?  Sugar, those were simply nails in the coffin of our long-dying relationship, at that point.  And then when the house began to demand those same dollars for basic maintenance that you would require for your own existence, well, there's only so much I can do with a dollar, and keeping my roof from leaking every day into the dining room simply must take precedence over our sweet celebration of the beauty of our nation.

Baby, it's me, not you.  But it's over.  I've got four walls, a good job, a toddler, and a comfortable bed.  Revel in your youth, Road Tripp.  Go on without me.  Perhaps we'll meet again someday, in a Winnebago somewhere, where knee braces are an everyday occurrence, and those day-of-the-week pill containers are a spot of poetry in an otherwise chaotic world.  I'll never forget you, try though I might sometimes, but my feet are planted firmly now, and we can't meet anymore in the middle of the night; truck stop coffee just ain't what it used to be.  Or maybe it's just me.  I'm old; I'm tired.  I'm happy where I am.  R.I.P. Road Tripp Luv.  You may be gone, darlin', but you'll never be forgotten.

A Long Time Comin'

Shortly after I met my husband, I said to my sister on the phone: he makes me a better person, he makes me the best me I can be.

But then we were together ten years and we mostly just chilled for that decade, lacking any demands that we become better, let alone the best we could be. We traveled and we partied and we dibbled here and dabbled there and we were always broke, but lucky in love, and life was pretty easy, overall.  We spent years flitting from place to place, living in three states, six towns, and nine domiciles in our first decade together, no real responsibilities on our shoulders for most of that time. 

When we got engaged, almost twelve years ago, another couple we knew at the time also got engaged, and bought a house.  I can't believe you're buying a house! I told her.  That's such a commitment.  You're getting married! she replied.  I know, I said.  But husbands are portable.

As it turns out, I was correct there, at least in regards to our easy, breezy, goin' where the wind blows, lifestyle.  We took our sweet time growing into anything but each other, and when love's the only commitment you have to make for the first decade or so, it's not so difficult to do.  We get along well day-to-day.  I thrive on daydreams, abstractions, and intuition while he loves delving into details, organizing and running daily operations with ruthless efficiency, eyes sparkling with adventure.

Because it took us so long to settle down, both career-wise and geographically, we had a long time to ponder what we wanted out of life.  He decided to teach art; I wanted to split my work between early childhood ed and yoga, teaching each part-time, with the choice to stay home with my babies when they eventually came.  So we needed a house affordable on one income, and hoped to find it in a city, rather than in the 'burbs or the boonies.  We also knew we wanted a property that allowed (or needed) us to redesign, rework, remodel, with a yard big enough to landscape and garden, to grow some of what we eat rather than buying all of it.  All of these were considerations that we entered into very consciously, albeit without fully understanding how they would play out day-to-day, and the level of commitment required to achieve them.

There are times when I feel like all we did for that decade is wait and wish for what we wanted, and then it manifested into reality via some sort of voodoo magic.  I'm susceptible to New Age magical thinking at times, although I'm probably a pragmatist at heart.  Other times I acknowledge that we worked hard to get here, although we did it so slowly that in retrospect it sometimes looks like hardly working.

But here we are, at long last!  He's teaching art; I'm working part-time with infants, toddlers and their parents, and teaching a couple yoga classes a week.  I have afternoons at home with my baby, and we're working on having another one (although this second, stubborn baby seems to be taking its own sweet time being conceived.  Perhaps already taking after its lagging, last-minute parents!).  We own a house in the city with a nice big yard that's just begging to be redesigned, reworked, remodeled, and don't even mention the landscaping/gardening that's somewhere on the bottom of an endless to-do list.  When it all finally came together, it happened quickly.  Very quickly, and the demands of our thoughtful choices suddenly seem to be outpacing the supply of time, energy and money we have to offer.

So, approaching a decade of marriage, my early words to my sister are finally put to the test.  When push comes to shove, will I, will we, be better together?  Will we be the best that we can?  And will it be enough?  Quite simply, it will have to be.  What else do we have?  Only faith.  Faith that after a decade spent seeing a whole country full of choices, that the ones we've made are the ones we mean, and that taking the long road is our forte, and that while it seems like we've finally just arrived, this is really the beginning of a whole new trip, and one thing we do well together is travel.  So, yes.  Yes, together we will we better.  Together, we will be the best we can be.

Sledding with Daddy

 AGAIN DADA, AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN!!!

Moments of Resolution: Last Year's Delusional Drunken Elderly Fellow versus This Year's Overly Earnest Spiritual Seeker

Last year we celebrated the end of our holiday trip with two days of driving twelve hours with a five month old, returning home from visiting my in-laws.  He cried for the last three hours of the drive, inconsolable in the carseat.  We arrived home, he looked around, let out a huge sigh, and finally went to sleep.  I collapsed on the couch with relief and sat staring out the windows at the light snow falling.  I drank two glasses of white wine and my stomach was empty and I was immediately overcome with such a feeling of goodwill toward man and rollicking hope for the future, I can only describe it as wildly delusional.  The comparison is crass, but the most apt I can come up with:  I imagined myself an old, old man, out at a pub, surrounded by the most nubile young women, like delectable delicacies to me: tired and sunken in to my everyday routines.  Two drinks in, and I am feeling certain I am going home with one of them tonight.  The night is young and I am old, but I am deliriously delusional, young and virile again for one evening.  I felt so grateful to the universe for allowing me to feel the delusion of youth, of rebirth.  I felt, for at least those moments that night, like I could accomplish anything.  I looked at my life and I thought:  I can do anything!  This will be cake; it will be beautiful; and I will do it perfectly.  That feeling carried me through most of the past year, and I'm still intensely grateful for it.

This year we ended our holiday trip with a three hour drive home from my mom's house, arriving in the early afternoon.  I drank two cups of coffee, and then Sun declined the generous parental offer of a nap in his very own bed, and dashed my hopes of cleaning the house with my caffeine buzz.  I looked around at the bags to unpack, the mess my son was currently creating with a whine, while overtired and teething, the afternoon already beginning to grow dark and get away from me, the unspent caffeine buzzing in my veins and I felt frustration rising.  I went into the kitchen, made a pizza and put it in the oven.  While it cooked, I went upstairs and sat alone in the attic.  Our attic is converted; it's a bedroom with diagonal walls, built into the roof of the house.  I lay on the futon we keep upstairs for guests and stared out the window at the thick, white, fast falling snow.  My husband called up to tell me that we were in a storm and would likely be snowed in through tomorrow afternoon.  As I watched the cold, winter weather from the safety of my warm, wood-colored attic, I felt my frustration melt away, and turn to awe.  I felt humbled by my luck and my blessings, and my earlier feelings seemed petty, unworthwhile and easy to release.  I felt deeply humbled by the blessing that is my baby, unworthy of such a gift, and I rushed down the stairs to hold him, to breathe in his scent, to carry him to my husband and clutch his hand, and to kiss them both.  I was overcome with a feeling of deep commitment to doing the best I can, not just for myself, but for them: for my family.

This feeling was so different than last year because last year I felt:  this will fall into place.  This will all fall right into place.  It will happen like magic.  I can see over vistas and into the heavens from right here on my couch and I can smile and make magic happen.  This year I feel like:  Now it's time to work.  Now it's time to climb.  Gather my loved ones close, and count my blessings.  Now I must earn this, create this.  I feel a calling this year to reach outside of myself in some way that I haven't defined yet.  I'm still sitting with the feeling now, and it may end up taking some time to define, but last year I sat atop a vista and this year I'm in a valley, and I may have some climbing to do once I gather my bearings.

My New Year's Resolutions flowed from the moments described above.  So last year's were a bit delusional and over the top, but I did eventually scale them down and achieve some of them, or steps toward them.  Others I failed completely.  And I think this year will end up being more of a recommitment to the day-to-day work of the same dreamy ideals I conjured into fancy last year.  With, as will be my new annual tradition: a few wild and unrealistic dreams tossed into the mix as a shout out to my Inner Old Perv, and a wink and a thank you to the Universe who nurtures us, Old Pervs, delusions and all.  Happy New Year!

On The Road Again

Tomorrow we get on the road to go to my mom's house for Christmas.  The plan is to get everything done in the morning (laundry, cleaning, packing, wrapping, showers, baths, meals and whatever the hell else we think of along the way), and get on the road in the early afternoon, allowing the little one to sleep as much of the trip as possible, and arriving on time for dinner.

We depart one hour later than planned nearly every time we travel to my mom's.  I've tried planning for an hour before the real plan.  Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.  I don't think it will work for tomorrow; there's really just too much to do.  In fact, I think I'll do the opposite this time.

I would like to leave by 1pm tomorrow.  Even saying I'll leave by noon is obviously a total lie, so I'm going to reverse it and say we'll leave by 2.  We might even make that plan!  Okay, the pressure is on!  Ready...Set...Christmas!

P.S.  I got some scrapbooking skillz!!!  No, I will not post pictures, because compared to other people in the wide world, I most likely have no skillz whatsoever, but in the privacy of my own family, where no one else scrapbooks:  I got skillz!

Better Late Than Never Thankful

So we were supposed to go to my mom's house on Wednesday.  My husband and I are both teachers. Tuesday is our last day; we'll leave Wednesday.  But then on Tuesday my husband tells me that he has to work on Wednesday.  We work in different counties, so our academic calendars do not always align, but I wasn't expecting him to work Wednesday.  So I readjust my plans to accommodate him working on Wednesday.  I will need to clean and pack by myself on Wednesday while he is at work, and then we'll be ready to go when he gets home.  No problem.

I am thankful that we are teachers.  I am thankful that we both love teaching, thankful for the teacher's schedule.  I am thankful that we live in NY, a state where teachers make enough money to live, and have enough time to spend holidays with family.  I am thankful for our careers.

So I wake up Wednesday and my shoulder is.....shall we just say all jacked up?  My sister and I have discussed how "all jacked up" covers everything from a stubbed toe to a terrible car accident.  So it's fair to say my shoulder, falling somewhere smack dab between a stubbed toe and utter ruin, is all jacked up.  I suffered a previous injury to this shoulder, and my physical therapist warned me it would be easy to re-injure.  It crept up on me; I noticed it hurt on Sunday, but not badly enough to curtail activity, and then more and more each day until I get up on Wednesday and.....yeah, all jacked up.  I try to do laundry, but I can't carry a toddler and a basket full of dirty clothes to the basement at the same time.  It takes 20 minutes, round trip, to negotiate the stairs: toddler climbing backwards while I guide him with my bad arm, blocking him from falling sideways off the stairs with no rail onto the concrete basement floor below, full laundry basket wedged against my hip and clutched with white knuckles in my opposite hand, and then the same thing all the way back up, that very bad idea in reverse.

I am thankful that our family has health insurance.  I am thankful for the coverage that allowed me physical therapy in the past, and will most likely allow it again in the future.  I am thankful for the knowledge that if I go to the doctor, or even the emergency room, I will be treated with respect, and the best that medical technology has to offer.  I am thankful that I am relatively young, and healthy, and I have choices for how to deal with a failing shoulder.  I am thankful for yoga, an unlikely dialogue between my cerebral self and my lethargic body that sometimes gently suggests what I need to do next, or how to get where I need to go in order to feel good.  I am also thankful that we didn't fall down the stairs.

I call family members to let them know that we will not be able to make it on Wednesday because I am simply not able to get things done at the pace that would be necessary for us to travel that afternoon.  I mostly leave messages because people are too busy cooking and preparing to answer.  Then I get a message from my mom, which I was too busy putting the baby to bed to answer:  I heard you aren't feeling well, honey, and I want you to know that if you can't come down, we will miss you, but it's okay.  Do whatever's best for you.  Of course we'd miss you, but if you're sick, do what you need to do.

I am so thankful for a family that has taught me flexibility.  I am thankful for the freedom to change my mind, or not.  To be sick on a family holiday, to hibernate for winter, if need be.  I am thankful for my mom, who's extended to me the freedom and the courtesy that the next step is whatever I decide, no guilt, no hard feelings.  I am really, really thankful for that.

 So we get up on Thursday, and we notice.....Oh!  I'm due for an oil change.  Overdue, in fact.  We're talking 8,000 miles instead of 3,000.  Whoops!  So my husband has to find an oil change place open on Thanksgiving morning.  Which he does.  And we get the oil change.  And we get on the road.

I am thankful for a car that works!  For a car that has an overdue oil change as the only item on the list of things gone wrong.  I have driven cars for years that are a cross between a rustbucket and a round yellow fruit, and I am sometimes astonished that we ever got where we needed to go for all those years.  I am also thankful for a husband who takes my car in for oil changes after I have inevitably neglected it for longer than recommended.  And finally, I am thankful for all the people who work on Thanksgiving, providing the rest of us unprepared shmucks with last minute saving graces. 

We get to my mom's house a few hours before dinner.  Little Sunnyside Up morphs immediately into Torrents of Tears when we exit the car.  He doesn't see my family more than once every few months, so when we arrive he's whiny and clingy, afraid I'm going to abandon him to these seeming strangers.  After a few mini-sobfests inspired by various people having the audacity to pick him up and offer a friendly welcome, my youngest sister says:  He does not like to be picked up.  If he doesn't know you, get out of his face.  That's how he is.  Just accept him already, and step back, people.  Soon he's breezing through the house like a typhoon.

I am thankful for all my sisters, for their comedy and their wisdom.  For always teaching me new things, even though I am the oldest of the six.  I am thankful for what wonderful aunts they are, for everything they offer my son, even though he may not yet be old enough to recognize it.  I am thankful for borrowed clothes, borrowed ideas, and surrogate storytellers and snugglers for my baby boy.

Shortly before we sit down to eat I fill a high chair tray with all the yummy Thanksgiving treats a toddler could ever dream of: scrumptious sweet potatoes, savory cornbread stuffing, tasty bites of turkey, a succulent cranberry-cherry sauce and heavenly homemade applesauce.

I am thankful for peanut butter and jelly.

He has no interest in any of these delicious, delectable morsels, but he does devour a peanut butter and jelly sandwich like it's.....well, Thanksgiving Dinner.  Which I guess, for him, it is.  And then the rest of us sit down to a delicious feast, fine wine, family and good conversation.  As we sit together, in the gathering dusk, passing dishes and glasses, laughs and wishes, prayers and thanks and some of the best food ever eaten from one end of the table to the other.....

.....I am thankful.  I am thankful.  I am thankful.

Travel Memories

We drove all over the country. We drove west, from CNY to WNY and then across Canada to Michigan. And then Michigan through the Dakotas or other times we went west on the 90, stopped in Chicago, and then went south to Kansas.

He had a red pickup when I met him which I swear to God is half the reason I fell for him. And we drove together, all over the country, really, just daydreaming, and driving into and away from dreams. Tryin' 'em on for size.

We drove south through Wyoming, and there were rocks to either side as far as the eye could see, and I had just quit the best paying job I'd ever had, but I'd hated it--oh how I'd hated it--and I was so deeply fucking grateful to see the horizon over the stretch of rock in Wyoming right as the sun came up.  It was like a prayer, exploding across the grey rock horizon.  Or maybe the fountain of youth.

Another time we drove straight South: to Buffalo to Cleveland to Cincinnati and into Kentucky all in the pouring rain, sweeping thunderstorms the whole way, twelve hours or so of making bad time, cheap caffeine pit-stops, and keeping each other focused on the dark, gleaming road. Finally, we ate at a Waffle House, off the side of the highway, listening to the rain pound against the tin roof and then camped that night in a nearby state park with a swinging wooden bridge we didn't find until morning, setting up our tent together in the dark downpour.

We've gotten to know each other in the cabs of trucks, coffee racing through our veins while day turns to night and back again.  Writing this, I think I finally remember why I told my sister that time, half-drunk on lack of sleep, three people and two cars crossing Canada at dawn, somewhere at a random rest stop, somewhere I told her we would have second careers as a truck driving team.  She and I still laugh at that sometimes.  It seems crazy most of the time, but when I remember that red pickup and the feel of truck stop styrofoam coffee cups in between my fingers and obscure, local radio and the bright, artificial, overhead lights of toll booths, sometimes it reminds me of why I might say something like that.