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.

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.

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.

Rushing To the Stillness

I woke up today to a balmy wind winding its way through the still bare Sycamore trees in our front yard. Spring on the heels of this wind and the sun trying so hard to crack through the veneer of gray that has laid so thickly over everything this winter. Though surely some would argue with me, I can smell the subtle shift in the air. It smells green. That smell that only smells like what it is~ wet dirt and tiny growing things and clean scrubbed air. This is potentially wishful thinking but I am loath to stick my head back into the bitter wind and snow and fur lined boots that I have decisively put away hoping that the silent voodoo prayer I've said keeps the Rose of Sharon budding in my backyard.

As cliche as it is, the coming of spring has always been one of my favorite times of year. After fall it's my favorite season. Interesting only to me in its banality but, the dichotomy of ending and beginning in such a painfully literal way always touches me. As prosaic and played out as this little drama of mine is, I can't help it. I've tried. I've kept it to myself but I'm a sucker for that stuff and I'll take the cheesiness and the cliche and silly romance of it all. These are the days I scrounge my bookshelves for Walt Whitman, Annie Dillard and Aldo Leopold. I want the voices of poetic and slaying beauty only their brand of prose can bring. I want to soak long and low in those pages, emerging from the work as green and tender as the new and budding world.

My son was born in the flush of autumn. Fire in the air and ripe falling fruit and woolen scarves coming out of hiding. My daughter though, is slated to arrive in the midst of this verdant and slow unfurling. In this first raw and opening breath after a cold and wet winter, small shoots of Crocus and Iris gently finding their way towards the buttery sun. To try and express how fitting I think this is will simply fall flat. I have decided to simply revel in the symmetry.

Just like the trees lining the street where I live, I am full to bursting these days too. The alphabet of my daughter's elbows and knees becoming an increasingly insistent presence in my body. So much so that I can no longer ignore her flipping and stretching. She is heavy and busy and half the time I wonder what she's doing in there. Sometimes it feels like she cannot be contained but I know better. I have a feeling this is going to be the case with her for years to come and I fear it is just as my mother said it would be, Karma is a bitch...

And so I wait. I am now quietly and patiently resigned to counting down the days until her arrival. The waiting is delicious and in the interim, in the small fingers of time between now and then, I will read. And I will rejoice that the once a year, the world has the gorgeous audacity to make herself all over again.

And Then There Were Four

He tucks his head into the crook between my shoulder and I take a deep, long, slow breath of his perfect little boy smell. All milk and clean sweet sweat and strawberry fruit roll ups. His small delicately boned arms wrap themselves around my neck and he squeezes me with all of his tiny might. The giant is hugging me. This ritual plays itself out 5 or 6 times a day lately and each and every time, it both surprises and delights me to no end.

I am trying to find time to write down these small shared moments because in a few short weeks his sister will be arriving and it will no longer just be he and I, arms wrapped around each other giggling ourselves deliriously. This transition is such a double edged sword for us. On the one hand we are expanding our family with the addition of his sibling which we are over the moon about and waiting to meet her is proving slightly nerve wracking in a wonderful first date jitters kinda way. Providing Joaquin with both a playmate and a very necessary alli against his father and I, it seemed only fair to him that we try and have another child to balance out the family scales. But then there is the other side to all this glorious anticipation and growth. The guilty side. The worried side. The reality that it will no longer be just the three of us and more to the point, just him with us has made me sad in a way that I did not anticipate nor did I expect.

I have spent the last year and a half being a mother to one baby. We have gotten to know each other in this passing of days. How we both need to eat when we're hungry or we get really cranky. How he likes a certain pillow to nap on and how he knows not to crush me senseless when we curl up together. I know he likes his broccoli barely steamed and his rice doused in soy sauce, just like his dad and I do. We laugh easily and play hard. We have hashed out this delicate and unspoken set of rules and ways of being with each other that is so organic. It has been a genuine pleasure having the time to get to know my son. And now that is all about to change in the most drastic way possible.

Parenting has become easier as Joaquin has gotten older and at this point in the game, I often ask Rufus what the hell we were thinking having another baby. We underestimated the potency of a few glasses of Jameson and couple of hours alone and here we are. We have had it so good between routine and bed and family help that we have miraculously created something couples with children often complain about. Time. And this coveted and hard won time allows us to do things we didn't think we ever would again. All those sleepless and dizzy nights of pacing a teething fevered baby on an already empty tank had us convinced that people were lying to us about it getting easier simply so we didn't off ourselves. We can do things now like have dinner and watch movies. And being able to have conversations about real life things other than whether or not the boy pooped enough today has done wonders for our marriage. We can read and laze, spoon and the holy grail of time for couples, actually have sex. It's amazing. And we deliberately screwed it up by getting me knocked up.

So we ride the changes the best we can and placate ourselves with thoughts of how a year from now, insanity and sleepless nights aside, there will be two curly raven haired moon eyed children keeping each other company, arms wrapped around each other's necks instead of ours, conspiring our beautiful demise.

Tell Me

Bah! Up! Ber and Be. Mama, Daaahhhhh. Uh huh and yup. There are endless variations on these words and countless others. These "words" are usually augmented with some insane pantomimed hand or head gesture intended to clarify what it is exactly, that the Giant is trying to convey. My boy is in the throes of learning how to speak and it is potentially by turns, the most wonderful, hysterical, ridiculous and frustrating thing we have encountered in our journey together thus far. My son is a little life mimic and he has a mind like a steel trap. Seriously. The child does not forget ANYTHING. He can watch where I put something just once, and from then on, he will go to that place and wreck havoc with his little hands and beautiful diabolical baby mind. So the learning to talk thing has been a riot. He copies sounds, tries to sing in his one toned hum and has full blow conversations with Rufus and I and then, just with himself. It is a sight to behold.

When you have a baby that is growing this quickly, each phase seems to be both amazing and amazingly trying in the same breath. In the beginning he was simply in a very rudimentary way, trying to gain control of his body. I would watch him for hours as he just lifted his arm or tried to touch his hand to his face. His sense of depth perception and crude motor function frustrated him. As the months whizzed by, his development has accelerated at a phenomenal clip. Holding his head up and rolling over, getting up on his hands and knees and rocking his butt back and forth like he's getting ready to ambush us. Pulling up to standing and then with pride and fear, those first tentative steps that tested his independence. Now he is finding his voice. His first voice. I can hear the birdsong sweet cadence trying to find its way out of his mouth and into the bigger world. I can't wait to hear what he is going to have to say. My boy and his words. His mama and her words. We are both a work in progress.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

We've begun planning next year's garden. With the wind keening outside rattling the windows and shaking the bare trees, we are in the throes of imagining planting. We are literally plotting the lush and verdant bounty that will feed us hopefully, not only through the coming summer but also through the winter of next year as well. We have framed out two gardens- one smaller home garden in our backyard and a huge expanse for our family's communal garden out at the farm. 4 tons of black gold tilled into to the ground courtesy of my land loving husband. Two simultaneous composts working their dirty magic awaiting to be folded into the soil with our bare and eager hands. We can almost smell this growing of things, this green and familiar scent.

The last few days have been an exercise in imagination, in thoughtful and deliberate conversation and research. The names alone are enough to spin my brain into a frenzy of delight. The ubiquitous Moon and Stars watermelon is on the list. Plum Purple and French Breakfast Radishes, Hearts of Gold melon and an old heirloom variety of corn called True Gold (oh my!). We are experimenting with German Butterball potatoes and the the blushingly demure Pink Viking varietal as well. Tendergreen Bush beans and more herbs than you could shake a stick at- Chives and Thyme, Hyssop, Spearmint and Borage, Basil and Chervil and Lovage. This list is only partial too with the requests of the extended family needing to be tossed into the mix as well. So it goes. So here we go.

This is going to be a very ambitious project considering the extent of my gardening acumen. I have planted some sort of garden in almost every place I have ever lived. Whether it be a container garden holding one stalwart and noble tomato plant in Los Angeles or a small patch of backyard in a shared community garden in San Francisco, I have always grown something. I always loved not only the idea of growing my own food but also the physical work it required of me in these small endeavors. The zen of gardening. Yes, there is such a thing. The dirt under my fingernails and the sweat on my brow as I bend to weed a too long neglected row. How my shoulders smell like the sun. But THIS, this is another animal all together and we are excited to see how it all unfolds.

With the changing of the light and the press of winter, we have a lovely reprieve upon us- we can take our time a bit in deciding what and how it is we are going to do this thing. The reverie is a beautiful one. A subtle yet enduring reminder that even at the start of winter, it's never too early to start dreaming about spring.