Apr 20, 2010

Recycled Words or, It's New to You


I am a chef and can make a mean mushroom ragout. That and I know how to cook the perfect medium rare steak.

I miss living in San Francisco.

Being a mother is much more complex than anyone ever lets you in on. It is profound, humbling and awe inspiring but also tedious and boring too. Try entertaining a 3 month old and then we can talk. With that said...

The sun rises and sets for me with my son. He has taught me how to be still in a way that I have never experienced before.

I gave myself my first tattoo when I was 15 in the basement of my parent's house while listening to the Smiths and eating Cheetos during the winter of my discontent.

I love cheese. The more unpronounceable and French, the better.. stinky doesn't hurt either and while I was pregnant with Joaquin I ate a whole wheel of Brie and called it dinner...don't lecture me and don't judge.

I can build a decent campfire, even when its raining, all by myself.

I know how to shoot a gun.

I have kept all my old love letters, since I was 17 and in my first relationship. Sometimes I take out the dusty box they live in and fall into the past like a warm bath.

I have kept a diary/ journal since I was 11.

I love old country music and bluegrass and own too many pairs of cowboy boots for an arab girl.

I value communication in my life above all else- pure authentic open(ness). I am not afraid of confrontation and will let you know a few things if you don't act right. But, I will also let you know a few things if you do.

I love my family, dysfunctions, joy, distance and all, more than is humanly possible to explain. They are the measure of all that is good and true and right in my life.

I love my husband and think he is a remarkable man.

I can keep a secret.

I am not afraid of dying and when I do, I want to be cremated.

I once ate 8 dozen oysters with a friend and we could have kept going but I think the waiter was scared and we realized too late, the grace that comes along with exercising something like self restraint.

I may just one day finish the book I started writing when I was 25.

I spin in music alone in my living room and sing terribly off-key. There is no shame in this. Unless of course, someone is watching.

I tried to learn to play the cello when I was 19 and living with a shy boy who stuttered and had freckles like summer's first strawberries in Ohio one summer; I failed miserably at both the cello and the boy.

I am painfully shy of speaking in public or in front of large groups which makes me want to run away screaming and beat myself unconscious with my own arm rather than face the attention.

I eat lots of toast and read books with a voracious appetite.

I take pictures of old barns and am irrationally drawn to them.

I used to have a cat named Sophia Loren because yes, she was just that gorgeous.

I lived in Rome alone, for 6 months when I was a much younger version of myself and jilted by a boy who surfed and loved his mom too much.

I once collaged the walls of my room with paper flowers because I missed the spring and the east coast winter was as dark as a shadow around me.

I love the color red.

I love moonbathing and black tea with lots of milk.

I think words and how they are used and their intention is everything.

Apr 9, 2010

I'll Tumble for You

He fell off the back steps a few days ago and managed to scrape a fantastically belligerent red welt right down the middle of his face. A bruise the size of a small quail's egg on his forehead angry with purple and gold leading the way to his nose rubbed raw from being scrapped against the sidewalk. His chin survived almost unscathed with the exception of a nice little scrape. This is what happens when you don't realize you have feet attached to your body. Joaquin does not realize that his legs attach to these unfathomable things called feet, that get him to where he needs to go. Rufus and I are constantly pleading with him to watch where he is stepping. Sometimes this pleading is plaintive and gentle but most of the time it's shouted and rushed out in panicked voices too late to do anyone any good. A test. This is all a test of a sanity I did not know I needed to possess to have a child. You need to have a steely constitution for this work. This raising of a human being is queasy business fraught with a constant and never ending worry so encompassing it has the capacity to age you in a heartbeat.

I am not a worrier by nature. I am not anxious or prone to easy panic. I would like to think it takes a fair bit for me to get seriously stressed out. But. But that was before. Now is another story all together. Since Joaquin was born, I have this insane existential worry that can sometimes be both debilitating and consumptive. It is encompassing in its scope and depth. I have these horrible thoughts about things I hate having horrible thoughts about. About him getting hurt. Or lost. Or in an accident. Drowning. Getting hit by lightening. Tornadoes. Bitten by dogs or rabid raccoons. The list is endless in its minutia and it makes me insane that I can be this insane. I know. Cliche. It's what everyone talks about once they have a child but it doesn't seem to stop it from being painfully and glaringly true.

My mother has four children. Along with myself there is one brother and two sisters. We have long since lived out from under our parent's roof but still, my mother, worries. And for years I didn't have a context for this. I thought she was just being dramatic and overly cautious. But now I know. My mother is a mother the same way that I am now a mother myself. I am destined for this life of toeing this delicate line. The line between taking care of this blooming becoming person and my own need to keep him sheltered and safe. My mother and I now understand each other in a whole new light. This is beautiful and validating but also sad to me somehow as well. That for all those years I couldn't see what that look in her eyes was telling me. It was saying be careful. You are mine and I love you....and yes, I will be sleeping on the couch until I hear you come home, no matter what time it is....because I am your mother, that's why.

I have written about this before and now I am reminding myself of those very words. It is not my job to keep my son static and small. It is my job to lead him into the world, brave and strong on his own two little sturdy legs with feet he doesn't know he has, and set him free to run into the unknown of this life. Even if he loses a tooth. Even if he gets hit by lightning. That is my job after all. And no one said it would be easy. But damn if it isn't the most exciting thing I've done so far.

Apr 7, 2010

Waiting Game

It's maddening really. This waiting. This rushing and stockpiling and then nothing but static. The house is ready. And by ready I mean it's overflowing with this mystery baby's stuff. All the trappings in place for this mythical invisible child that we are all pacing the floor waiting to meet. Bursting at the seams and tucked into corners are quilts made by her great grandmother, just waiting to wrap her up. Hand knit hats soft as the belly of a kitten made by the hands of those we love stacked in piles wishing to kiss her wispy little head. Cotton and wool in dusty colors jumbled like a New Mexico sunset bursting out of dresser drawers and enough diapers to keep her and us, housebound for at least a week should we wish the seclusion after her birth.

And we're ready too. But she is stubborn. She is comfortable and no amount of walking or spicy food, sex, tea, castor oil, cajoling, jumping jacks, pleading and begging, pelvic tilts or praying is obviously changing her mind. She seems perfectly happy where she is and I am within an inch of reaching in and pulling her out myself. Yeah. It's like that.

So I pace the floor. I drink tea and enough water to float a battleship because my midwife loves to tell me just how dehydrated I am. I try and read. I write. I spin the hamster wheel in my brain. I do not pass go. I do not get to collect my two hundred dollars. I snap at my husband though by god the man is beyond destined for sainthood at this point and this is (no matter what anyone says,) not his fault. Though he did have a hand in my present condition he has born this journey with patience and understanding...that and lots and lots of beer. Or maybe it wasn't his hand that got us into this mess now that I think about it. See! I can't help it~ mean! I am mean mean mean. I feel my feet on the edge of this precipice and all I want to do is jump and I cannot. Maddening.

The hours tick by slow slower slowest until I find myself prowling the empty and quiet rooms of this house in the long moonless hours when I should be asleep. The half light from the amber lamp casting warm shadows on the walls and books as I hear the contented sighs of my dream-bound boys asleep in the other room. And I twist and sigh. Heave my enormity around the furniture like some insanely uncoordinated amazon woman trying not to crush the villagers with my reckless clumsiness. So I sit here and try and make some peace with myself. Try and get comfortable in this massive and planetary body of mine and try and remember my level. My balance. My quiet and still. I am attempting something like grace here. So I wait for the arrival of this daughter of mine and try and remind myself that this time is almost over. That soon, I will get to meet this star traveler and gaze into her knowing little face and then time will take on a whole new speed.

Breath. Slowly. Almost.