overheard...

So we're in the car. I've just strapped the boys in, fastened my seat belt and put the key in the ignition. And from the backseat I hear Caleb say:

On your mark!
Get sick!
Go!

A dream while napping one recent day

I am at a daycare/preschool picking up my eldest son. A little African American boy runs out of the door ahead of us as we are leaving. He is headed straight for a busy road and runs out of sight around a corner. I am so afraid for his safety; I am yelling and running furiously after him with my son.

As I turn the corner, I see an African American woman ushering him to safety. I am relieved and breathless. What would I have done without this woman? I take a second look at her and realize she is my favorite teacher of all time: Priscilla Green, my high school English teacher, who died much too early last year of cancer. I say, "Priscilla? Is that you?"

"Yes," she says, "I am here."

I throw my arms around her in a wild embrace and ask her: "Are you okay?"

"Oh, yes..." she says, "Let me show you." And she holds me very closely, which somehow allows me to feel with my whole mind and body what she shows me, which is this: ecstatic daffodils, new and upright, swaying and trembling in bright, Spring morning sun.

Godspeed

I unearthed "Godspeed" a couple of weeks ago and let it shower over Tavish, Caleb and me in my cheerful and cramped office one afternoon, happy tears springing from my eyes. Years ago, I used to listen to it alone in my car and cry tears of grief and depression and lost love, hoping beyond hope that I could one day be lucky enough, good enough, to have a baby of my own to sing this song to.

I had no idea how little it had to do with luck, and how good--perfectly good--I already was. I had no idea the beautiful plan God had for my life, the beautiful boys who would grow like miracles in my womb, take their first breaths on my wet and grateful breast, and become firmly rooted in and wrapped around my brave and worn heart. I had no idea how close my greatest happiness really was--close as a veil against my face.

I let the song and my tears rain deliciously down and marveled at bright-eyed Tavish perched contentedly on my hip and gorgeously curious Caleb standing on my office chair blowing out a candle. Gratitude spun like a thousand sunlit pinwheels in my chest.

The other day I found out that "Godspeed" was written by a father for his three year-old son whose mother was moving with the boy to France to be with her boyfriend. I know a little something about being the kid in a move like that. And now, as a parent, I glimpse the tower of pain my biological father must have lived in after my mother and I left. And in the faces of my little boys, I see how fragile and heartbreak-able I must have been.

Ten years ago, trying to find my way home in more ways than one, I took a strange and magnificent and important drive across the country and back. On the way out west, as I was crossing the state line into Colorado (my birthplace), "Landslide" came on the radio. The snow on the mountains was pink with sunset and the road ahead was turning purple with the coming dark. Weeping, speeding through the falling dark, I sung "Landslide" the way I always secretly have: to him, that daddy I had had to leave so many years before.

And so this evening when I found "Godspeed" and "Landslide" paired together in this YouTube clip, it seemed so appropriate. In a burst, my childhood drizzled like confetti behind my eyes and I felt the way seamen must when a wild storm brings them finally to shore.

random thoughts...

Nothing has made me happier--or more disappointed--that I don't drink anymore than having kids.


Next to love, laughter is the greatest gift.

earthworm love

Did you know earthworms can drown?

Yeah, well, Caleb and I discover this sad little fact the other day as we're combing the yard for earthworms after a night of rain. Caleb is pretty into worms these days, and while I admit I have some growth to do in the creepy-crawly department as a mother of boys, I am--and have always been--a big fan of earthworms. They are so quiet and diligent in their (very important) work. And if, perchance, they get cut in half by, say, a well-intentioned but nevertheless brutal shovel, they don't die; they regenerate. And become two worms. That, my friends, is a dang marvel, if you ask me. And frankly, something to aspire to. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

So we come upon some of these miraculous beings in a puddle, and I'm very excited because SCORE! we don't have to painstakingly search through our too-high spring grass for those beloved, fascinating creatures. "Look, buddy, WORMS!!!" I exclaim, reaching into the cool water to fish out what I will soon discover are their dead, limp bodies. Oh. goodness.

Caleb, with a face full of pure, in-the-moment anticipation, reaches out his pointer finger to touch what he expects will be their wet, wriggling bodies--something that always makes him giggle and squeal with this-is-so-gross-but-I-still-love-it delight--but instead he gets just what you'd imagine: dead, squishy, soaking wet worm carcasses. He pauses, his upper lip turning up ever so slightly.

And I'm thinking, "Seriously? I gotta do death with a two year-old on this glorious, fresh, worm-filled day?"

"I think they...died, buddy..."

Blank stare. Long pause. Little body perfectly still.

"Ah, jeez..." I'm thinking, "He's devastated..."

Then he says, with absolute cheer and exuberance, "Night night, worms!"

Then later, when we discover yet another dead worm in a rain-filled flower pot, he tenderly and enthusiastically instructs it to "Lie down...put head on pillow! Turn off light! Niiiiight niiiiight...!"

Would that everyone could have such a simple, happy eulogy.

when spring breaks open

I am wild with relief. Too many days of illness and rain and tantrums had made my house felt like a dirty matchbox, and my mind, a rabid monkey. Then the illness loosens its grip, the weather breaks and I'm breathless and giddy, bumbling through the park with two girlfriends and six of our kids, the new March sun like a benediction all around us.

Popcorn, strawberries, grapes, chips, guacamole, raspberry soda, and sandwiches on a blanket. There is plenty.

The toddlers run into all the open spaces. We watch to see just how far they will go, and then gather them when the distance makes our motherhearts lurch. My boy brings me a tiny blue flower, my baby flexes every muscle in brain and body to come up on all fours and fling himself forward. Soon he will crawl...how can this be? Just a moment ago he was blooming from my body, red and wet and wailing.

Just a moment ago I was this young. I have a picture--it must be late summer, my hair is babyblond, and I am perched on a bed of pineneedles in the Rockies, tiny fingers curled around a wildflower. I am still this baby.

My boy cries when its time to leave. Later, I am putting him to bed and I ask, "Did you have a nice time at the park today?" He nods.

"Worm?" he says. "Yes, we saw a worm, didn't we?"

"Yates? Soo-wee? Baby Yiy-wa? Baby Ginna? Gia? Pachey?" he says. "Yep, that's everybody. What else?"

Pause. And then wistfully, slowly--there is almost a sound of relief and reverence in his breathy voice--he says, "TREES..."

old fat naked women for peace

Well, my husband will be mortified, but I just had to post this lovely ditty that made me laugh out loud in solidarity today. This is so brilliant, it will be worth the weeks of (lighthearted) ridicule I will most assuredly get from him.