big boys don't cry

He was going to fly planes.

...And also be an Astronaut; an Archeologist, a shark diving helicopter pilot with a cannon, who married his sister.   All of which I was very comfortable with, even the sister marrying part, but then he wasn't.   

Then he wasn't interested in any of it.  And then he sort of wanted to be nothing when he grew up, not even a shark diver and maybe not marry his sister after all. In fact he decided that he didn't want to grow up.  He wanted to be a baby all over again and stay that way forever.   

And then he sort of was.

I thought we had met our quota in the social maladies department in this teeny, tiny family of mine. 

Apparently not.

Would you believe that some of the smartest folks on earth are Dyslexic?  

It's true

thya uwer.  (they are)

Tomorrow morning, my son, my sun, will wake up, put on his new uniform and spend his day at a school for Dyslexic kids and though I'm feeling awfully fortunate to have figured out what exactly was getting him down, robbing him of his desire to soar through the sky, swim with man eaters, dig up old bones, blow holes in the world and screw up our blood line with potential incest, I'm still sort of freaked out about it.  

I have spent the majority of the past month with him night and day, night and day, night and day - while he's missed school, lost 1/6th of his body weight, been sickly and anxious, afraid to read, feeling dumb and hopeless - and it's been one of the saddest, sweetest times of my life.  

As I tell him not to be afraid of the new school, I have to say it to myself as well.  

Gonna hurt to let go of his little hand.  

We've had some of the most meaningful conversations of my life over the past thirty some odd days.  Together we've Christmas shopped, shared secrets, planned meals, taken walks, developed a routine thats become, well, routine.   

We've listened to an awful lot of music.  We have "our songs".  We have our lunch spots, our sleeping positions.  He's become a resident in my bed.  We have our private jokes and we have our shared attachment to his sister, whom we wait anxiously for outside the school yard gate at the end of each day.  The school yard where he used to play, where he loved to be, until he didn't anymore, until letters and words caught up to him.

Crazy to admit to myself and then of course to you, that it hurts to do the right thing. You see, I know that my very smart boy is going to fit right in at the new school.  He's going to learn to read.  He's going to realize how very clever he is.  He's going to make friends, feel strong.  He's going to love school and probably sleep in his own bed.  He'll start dreaming of diving with sharks, finding ancient ruins, flying to the stars and probably even find some non-relative girl whom he can legally wed.   I'm going to lose him to himself; his bright, sweet, brave, incredible self.

Just remember my little man, you can always come home.

The Fog

Tension.

I felt tense.

No way to turn around.  Can't go back to the house for the night.  Can't risk a do over, try again to leave in the morning light.  

We couldn't see 5 feet in front of us.  

Rainy.

  Felt very late, but it wasn't even five O'clock.

I will mind the fog advisory in the future.

This is exhausting.

"It's my fault", she whispers. 

Note to self, call the cable company.

I was clearly high when I said that we could live without TV on lake house weekends. 

My kids are anxious to return to civilized life and Nick Jr, etc...

I tell her that ultimately all decisions are mine.  

"I decided we'd go home".   I decide because I'm the mom. 

"Just look with me Baby, be my second eyes.  We are fine", I say.

" This fog isn't anyone's fault anyhow".

Even I'm calmed by my own voice.

Even I trust me.

... I had this inner assurance that we'd be A-okay, but I don't know why or from where it came.

At one point I was forced to a complete stop, which meant that any one of the nearly dozen vehicles trailing behind me could have smashed right into us.  A huge boulder, the size of a lawn chair lay in the middle of the road, surrounded by baby boulders, smaller versions of itself.  Apparently the mountain was just off to my right, dropping stone, haphazardly onto our narrow, steeply declining roadway, but you'd never know that hillside was right there.   

Nothing, not a single thing was visible.

But... I had that feeling inside, that undeniable knowledge, a certainty that we were and would continue to be safe.   And then when we reached the far clearer highway, having come down the 5700 fog socked feet, I flew, instantly free from dense, soupy, clouded oppression and miraculously void of the tension I felt on my descent.   It was as if it had never happened.

Why is it that we can be in the center of something dangerous and obstructive and yet be utterly positive that it will end and not kill us?

Why aren't we able to employ that logic or sense in all areas of our life?

Tonight, as I lay me down to rest... I'll remind myself that there is nothing I can't navigate and endure.

 What feels heavy will lift in time.

It's just a fog...

go home

Insanity runs...

it doesn't walk.  

It runs.

(sometimes it rides a bike and/or swims)

I keep simplifying my life only to complicate it.

I take on bigger problems, because little ones only require small solutions.  

Big issues make change necessary and change is.... change is good.

 A month of preparation and yet I was still not completely ready for yesterday's move.  Lucky for me I was again blessed with good natured movers.   I had thought of everything,  just not of everything ELSE.  I had cake pans, but no flour to bake a cake.  Coffee pot, filters and no coffee.  Lamps and no bulbs.

Moving should be/could-very-well-be the new Purgatory.  

As night fell, I pushed two twin mattresses together on the floor and made a big bed for boy and girl and I to sleep in together.  Me in the middle.   At 7:45 pm, we were tuckered and tucked in.  The house felt cold.  Through the curtainless windows, the sky appeared extra, super-duper dark.  Fog set in.  Wind in the pines is a lovely sound.  The furnace seems to be finicky.  Girl was boiling hot with one of those sudden childhood fevers.   Sleeping Boy had a 1/2 inch of dirt beneath his fingernails from happily, productively raking race tracks in the mud most of the day.  Dogs were restless.  Their claws kept tapping on the metal, spiral staircase.   They want to come up, but are afraid to go down.  How I know that feeling.

First night in this new weekend-y home.  It's odd, it's beautiful, it's different, it's sooo different, it's scary, it's peaceful, it's making me crazy, in other words - it's perfect.  

If I questioned everything I question in my life, I'd always be answering and never questioning.

I fell through the cracks of our make shift bed several times last night.  I got up so often, I think I rose more then I slept.  It was still one of the most incredible "rests" of my life.  I'll remember it for the rest of my life.

I am so shockingly familiar with this same sort of feeling, way back from when I was a kid.  This happy, what the hell is happening, how cool is this and just plain "oh my gosh" kind of feeling.  A direct result of my parent making changes, going out on a limb to take ordinary and make it extraordinary. 

Is this necessary?   Is this what it takes? 

Maybe I'm just nuts to think that this is what I should/could do to make things perfect for them, for us.

 And if so,

then here is proof, 

 insanity runs, it doesn't walk, it runs in the family

my passenger

Like a game of Tetras.  
You take these little cartons of this and that; containers of gravy, stuffing, vegetables, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and then there is the Godforsaken turkey itself.    Was it really this big when I cooked it?
Smoosh it in.   
Find ways to make it fit.
Press the door shut, but it won't and so... shift it all around, shift it some more, close the door.

I lean on the refrigerator door and look around the room.  It's different here then it usually is or... maybe that usual is gone and maybe then it should from now on be called how it usually was and that means of course that this is how it usually will be.

nope


And this, this abundance of food is how I show my love  -  today.  
Unwittingly inspired to make a turkey dinner a week before Thanks Giving.  (What exactly was I thinking?   And yes days from now, when and if they finish this humungous meal, they won't be remotely interested in turkey anything on the holiday itself.)   
My intentions were good and so is the gravy, this time around.

As I drive home and leave my father, not well - and his wife,  laid up with a broken bone, I am deflated and sort of lost.   I like it better when I am not well and I have the broken bone, because they are awfully good at taking care of me.  I on the other hand prepare a large turkey....

I look across the low hills toward the Pacific and I slow my car to a reasonable 75 mph, because the sun is sitting gingerly just above the sea and it's all pink on the glistening water and all orange in the sherbet sky and everything around is gold and it's amazing and it makes me want to cry.  I lower the radio and tell the kids to look at it so they can see the pink, orange, gold amazingness and maybe cry too.

Turn up the music again.  Van Morrison plays softly and fills my head.  

I think about my new, little old lake house and about how I painted there this weekend.  How I loved rolling the paint on my future weekend bedroom walls.  I stayed until the light was completely gone.   Think about how I drove down the mountain and saw a scarlet red sky over the distant ocean far below.   How I wished then that I could have shared it with someone, anyone.   How I wanted so very badly to reach over to the passenger seat, put my hand on someone/anyone's knee and without speaking, tell them to look at that sky with me.    I wanted a man beside me and I want that man again today.   I want my father.   I realize that, more then anything, I want him to ride with me, up the hills, round the bends, through the tall trees and down into the town, along the lakeside then up the tiny road and into the driveway of the dove grey lake house.  I want him to see it, because it will make him feel better if he does.  It will.  
It will make him feel better then 12 lbs of perfectly cooked turkey with all the trimmings, expertly crammed into his fridge.

Together we will go into the mystic...

too late to stop now

Great Un-expectations

Captive audience seemed interested and so I continued to spill the beans.

I spun the yarn in the yard decorated with gauze webs, jack-o-lanterns and little skull lights strung with care along fence rails and from auspicious tree branches above.   Candy dishes still overflowed and a to-die-for dessert table off to the right was heavily stacked with sugary treats, but my story kept their attention still.  Even the bar was not a more tempting distraction.  
Is it me?  Or is the way I tell it or is it both?   OR am I just really rude and overbearing?   Maybe all of the afore mentioned.  I don't know why, but sometimes when I tell the story, which I realize has become "my story", I can captivate and it baffles me.
What I realize is, that sometimes in the repetition of things over time, we reveal, even to ourselves, details that went unnoticed or were too obscured with minutia, or maybe those realities beneath the surface of the story were too painful in the past to look at, listen to, even for us, the teller of the tale.

I've come to understand that there are a few monumental moments in one's lifetime that literally define us and we have no control over what they are and when they happen or why.   Much as we may seek to create these life changing events, select the time and situation which shall mark us to ourselves and to others, to establish us as who we are and how we will be known or seen, it's simply not that way.   
Catching the ball, making the play, wearing the red dress, breaking the silence, socking the bully, delivering the eulogy, throwing the drink in the face and sauntering away - these things may make you memorable, but they do not make you.   They will not alter you irrevocably internally.   They will not be your story.

Your story chooses you.   Your story happens, occurs, presents itself when it's meant to and not as we mean it to.  It is not often what we'd script and I'm pretty sure that if possible, most of us would select something more appealing or less restrictive or well, just anything but what is simply put upon us by fate or God or whomever is in charge of the universe, but that is not how it goes.   

Last night, for no real reason, I repeated one of the two stories of my life, there are only two that I can recognize as life changes at this time, but maybe there are more hidden in the things I do not look to.  Last night, in the telling, I heard something new.  I had a reality about it, about the changing thing and about me, the changed person and although both of those things, the story and the stor-ee seemed rather unlovable to me, I felt a love for them (myself and my situation) that made me more sympathetic and a bit stronger, more respectful to myself for having dealt with, grown accustomed to, accepted, and I'd go so far as to say, having embraced what is my life due to my unchosen story.

I woke this morning thinking about the second story, what I know for sure was one of those unexpected, undeniable, monumental events that seemingly, randomly took place and changed my life irrevocably.  I thought of it as pure luck, one of the loveliest possible, freakishly good,  most perfect happenings that could ever befall a person, but in many ways it has proven more painful and hindering then the un-ignorable true wreckage of my first life changer.    I realize though, that we cannot judge a book by it's cover, nor a life changing event on the day it took place and still we cannot judge it/label it and it's effects even on this day, the one we are currently placed in.  We never know how these things, these events, these changers and changes will come to aid us or slay us over time.   We simply can't tell how our story will go, none of us can, not until we reach the end of the book, the book that is the story of our life. 

Long, long and interesting may your tale be.

lost in text-lation

No, I can't and won't completely discount the medium for communicating... however,  try as I might, I cannot locate even one single message, not in my mind or on my phone, not-a-one that actually spoke directly to me, touched me, relayed it's genuine intention.
There's a lot of guess work in texting for me.  

Oh wait, F me, here it is, the best of em all.   Found a noteworthy note after all; a simple "I L Y", code for, "I love you".  Other then that, well, there isn't much clarity in texting, not to me anyway. 
I mean, how unimportant must you be to require just like 15 seconds of phone digit pushage only.  As a matter of fact, I honestly feel that unless two people are completely in tune, totally connected mentally, linguistically, socially, emotionally, spiritually and possibly even so far as sexually, there is a whole lot of room for misinterpretation in a text.  
If you don't know what time I got up this morning and what I did the day before, we aren't close enough to be texting, unless I owe you money.


I can't tell most of the time if the texter is happy, sad, mad, mushy, gushy, pushy, drunk, dumb, horny, lost, serious, curious and unless I know how someone is feeling, what they're doing, how they think these old days then I won't know anything from a simple line or two, unless you happen to be  E.E. CUMMINGS.
I don't want relationships with people I care for to be conveyed by telegraph (aka text) this is why that lovely Bell fellow invented the phone and made his Ma so proud. 
What's next?  Pony express? 
Directness via text seems cold, the LOLs aren't funny and for no good reason that abbreviation simply annoys me.  I refuse to submit to using it.  I'd rather write, "I am currently laughing out loud", even if it puts me over the text character limitations and busts itself up into two separate messages.
Texting is for phone numbers and for pointing out a great sale to a dear close friend whom you'll call soonish or for telling your lover that the recent sex was fabulous or for yelling at your realtor, for reminding someone of a dental appointment and when stretched they aren't an awful way to say hello to someone who crossed your mind but whom you'd rather not speak to, but you want to remind them that you still exist solely and thats it.  
Yea, yea, yea, the booty call.  Text is probably a great way to not talk to someone you don't want to talk to but whom you are bored enough to shag with, I suppose. 
Unless you're so close that you can understand the subtext of someone's text well then - - - - - -
It ain't no way to talk to a friend.
It ain't no way to stay in close touch and...
it ain't no way to treat a lady. 

coming clean

Like pulling petals from a Daisy, he loves me, he loves me not; but if I'm really good or successful or smart or quiet, if I marry well, if I don't break a bone, if I can skate...
Trepidation...
I feel it.  
It impedes me.

There are people in my life whom I love without limits and there are limits in my life who are people I love.


If I were to tell the truth, there isn't anyone who has furthered my current existence more then my father has. 
Do I love him?
Yea, I do.
Does he know it?
Yes, he does.
Does he know how much?
I'm not sure that even I do and so, who can say what he knows and what is yet to be known.

No matter how old I get, I never seem to outgrow the inclination for my parents adoration, my need for it.

In this life, someone, some person has to know when to say when and sometimes saying "when" means you get loved less, but not really.  
I have no idea how deep it goes when it comes to how I feel about my parents. 
I only know that with each passing year, 
they become more dear

My daughter asked me today what I want to be for Halloween.
A Mom, I thought, but then I went a little further -
I'd like to be Wonder Woman and with my golden lasso I'd circle up all the people I love best; starting with Hayl and J, Soot n Buck, Marvin n Jack, Mom, Daddy, Daiser and on a good day my Taters, you and her and him, them and then there is me...

half way

In the thick of it,

Half way through

At the center, up come the many whats in all the what to do

It seems that no matter whom I speak to, my peers and I are all in some form of quandary, not just for ourselves but for all whom we care for and are there for. 
No one is falling down, but there are many times when we seem to feel like just lying down.  
Life is apparently hardest once you reach the half way mark.  
Boo hoo for  our collective  "midlife cry-sis".

It's practically epidemic, the woes, worries, loads and lessons.
Like crossing a tightrope, once at the center, you're most vulnerable.
And hey, shouldn't we be more practiced by now with all the tightroping, now that we've reached the mid mark of this journey cross our lives?   
Perhaps it makes sense that we're typically less burdened at the start and at our end?
Maybe we're better at this life/work/stuff then we realize...
They say that we are never given more then we can handle and if thats so, then I'm likely to become one hell of a juggler.
Life sounds more and more like a circus.  
I'd like a bear on a motorcycle in that case.

And there are parts of this grown-up bracket/racket that I do like.   Its not all stress and strife.   I can see the greatness in all of it, even when I pretend that I can't.  Sometimes it's sweeter for the trouble it takes to get past the hard candy shell and to the softer center.  Kinda like an Oreo, crusty and dark on the exterior, but not at all terrible or bad really and then the good goo in between, well it's just the best part.  Midlife is not all milk and Oreo dunking though, in fact it rarely is, which is quite possibly also good, considering my physical middle and how I have to work on that area more then ever just to maintain.

I wouldn't trade away a day of my one and only life, not even trying middle days.  I am, however, awfully comforted to find that I'm not alone.  
Luckily I'm stuck in the midlife with you...

falling

Trapped in NYC, luckily someone she knew, a nice, young buyer from the small world of fashion in which she worked, was kind enough to offer her a place to sleep.  After all, there was a second bed in his hotel room.   She located and purchased a pair pantyhose at a quickie mart.  In the dimly lit, unusually still city night,  she eventually came upon a restaurant with open doors.  All they had to offer was one meal.   They served spaghetti with tomato sauce to everyone.  The TV was on, quiet talk ensued, shock marred the patrons solum faces.  When our President appeared and spoke on the news, all of New York fell silent.  
This was my first account, the true tale of my very close friend who survived the World Trade Center attack on September 11th years ago.

"Did that really happen Mom?"

What do I say to them?   Do I tell my children who ask me to explain what I know about the catastrophe of 9/11, which happened only miles from where I lived most of my life, "Heck no, the Wickersham brother's took the speck from Horton and held it over the boiling pot, threatening to drop it in, but the people of Whoville, called out louder, "We are here, We are here!".

It really happened.
I'm really telling the truth; the whole, sad, unreal, fantastical truth.

When it happened, I remember how I found out, precisely what time it was and how I felt and what exactly I did I after I learned about it, but it wasn't until I read notes from the folks I knew who survived it and how heroically they behaved, how those who were less fortunate had fallen and how their families were left to pick up the shards of what remained and how they dealt with the fragments of their once intact lives, that it became real to me.

Growing up outside of New York City, one of the hardest things I faced in my youth was choosing the Yankee's over the Mets and Giants over the Jets.  Sneaking into Discotheques long before I was legal drinking age and becoming a willing slave to fashion were natural side effects from living too close to the center of the world.  Never did I imagine it would all come crashing down.   Oh how the mighty had fallen.

I love New York and there's no place like it...
(that slogan from the 80's meant to remind people to visit the Big Apple, still rings true for me today.)

In memory of 9/11 and of those I knew and loved or liked and some of whom I kissed.

For you - "Lets roll"...  Let us roll forward for you.

frequent flyer...

In dreams I could fly.
I always dreamt that I could.
Did you?  Do you?
Is that unique to me?  I doubt it.

My daughter asked me today what I would do if I could only do one thing, just by myself -
and without so much as a single thought, I said, "I'd fly".

Looking at photographs of my kids learning to surf this summer,
as they actually surfed without learning, as children apparently can do, unless they are told they can't...
Arms spread, legs firmly planted, concentration marring their typically soft faces,
How quickly they stood, set off, free from earth...
Coasting on nothing of substance
Soaring above the ground --
They flew.

This summer,  away at the lake I love
I suspended myself between earth and sky.
Akimbo, on the surface of water in the very center of the lake, I floated
Earth way below
Only sky above
It felt like flying
And I was happy and free, utterly free and happy

Music played in my mental stereo and things that weighed heavy on my mind evaporated.
The lake cooled me to my core and the sky gave me warmth that felt like love.  
Time stood still, but my body levitated.


I was onto something, long ago, when I first admitted that I wanted to fly...

alterations...

To me it appeared to be perfectly fine.  I saw no flaw, felt no bumps, was not swallowed by any potholes, yet the road just outside my gate was apparently in dire need of repair.

It's currently all torn apart; loaded with work trucks, men in hard hats, tractors that blare out "beep beep beep" as they back up again and again.   Orange cones unclearly/clearly mark which lanes are safe to travel, yet I keep screwing up as I attempt to come and go.  Went so far as to run over one of those cones and dragged it right into my driveway, lodged beneath my jeep.

Make no mistake, the road is under construction, though it looked good to me, I guess it had problems.

If I seem alright, it's just a facade.

My macadam may be intact, but beneath the surface, there are pitfalls and leaking pipes, hazardous stones and old tree roots applying pressure from within.

It's dangerous to travel too close to the home of me.

I don't want to feel this way.

I want to be as smooth as freshly spread cement.

I want to feel as together as I appear.

I want to be finished.  My trusty road led me here.  I'm where I meant to go and so I'm done... 

And I thought I was because I signed a paper or two or three thousand and they indicated to me that the end had arrived.

Ready to move forward, no really I am, but it's not so simple as want, is it?

As E.E. Cummings so eloquently puts it, "love is more thicker then forget".

Ah silly me, haven't I learned yet that an end only signifies the beginning of something else?

And, haven't I learned that beginning something else sometimes means the tearing down of what exists?

So rip it up, pull at it, demo me and let me rebuild, shore up, reassemble what was and turn it into something new, something more, something which can endure all the new somethings, wonderful or not, that are about to cross my path.

Consider me under construction.

and I'd like to think that the ---- Grand Re-Opening will be Coming Soon...

  

Love at last, I confess....

I love him.
I don't know when it happened.
I don't know why now of all times either, especially since he just chewed my Curious George Anthology, which must have been like devouring a phone book, that Nut.  Why not choose Peter Rabbit or some other, rather delicious, semi candy coated, likely sticky, old, but far smaller children's book also stored in the garage to gnaw on?
I adored that big, yellow book about the man in the big, yellow hat.   Yet still, even after that, I find myself more attached then ever before to him.  
Big yellow dog.


Yesterday, delivering that dog to the kennel was the hardest thing I'd done in three days.  
AND maybe it was the hardness of the previous three days that had finally hit me, as I walked him, tail down, eyes full of dread, into the place he normally loves to go stay and play.   His kennel is cushy to say the least.  They call it a pet Bed and Breakfast in fact.


But we three; boy, girl and me, we were teary eyed and emotional walking away from Rosa, with her blue hair, pierced face, muck splattered boots, as she tugged our reluctant, big, yellow doggie deeper into the yard of the place he'd stay this week, while we began our camping adventure followed by days of Sea World, Legoland, fireworks and Fourth of July - our summer fun continuum.  


I never knew that I was going to love him more.   I thought I loved him already.  But I think I fell, at last.  I think I've fallen and I can't get up.


We miss you stinky boy, but I'll be back for you.  

wish you were here...

"Microscope, not my criss cope", I say. 

"So you don't have one?" he presses, hoping against hope that I have a mi-cros-cope here at home, stowed away, until now unseen, like buried treasure.

I'm confused, but I go on; "a telescope lets you see things far, far, far away, like the stars and the planets.  A microscope shows you things up close, like cells and germs, and specs n stuff."   The longer my explanation the dumber I sound.  We discuss magnification and then he asks again, still microscopically optimistic, if I do actually have that criss cope...

I don't want to break it to him, don't feel like correcting him.

I have come to so greatly cherish the mispronunciations, miscommunications,  missed concepts, misguided missives of all kinds.  They are fewer and far between, as my kids grow older and for the most part wiser.

Despite the lateness and the fact that we are in my bed, hunkered down together, somehow we continue to talk more about things in outer space.  It's late and there are these little, puffy, half moons sitting right beneath his sleepy eyes.   She chimes in.  She begins to list  for us all the planets.  She gives detail about whether they are solid or gas.  I'm always pleasantly astonished by her.   

 Jupiter is my favorite I tell them.   This leads to discussion on why and how come and what for.   Somewhere in-between my telling them that I like the name Jupiter and that it sounds as if it might be a nice place, I mention going to sleep again.  But, we've not finished our planet list... on she goes and eventually she says, "Uranus".  

They are not too young to find the undeniable humor in this name.   Hysterical.  

He adds, "To see Uranus you may want to use a my criss cope, not a telescope".

Hysterical.

When they go overnight, away from me, from the dogs, from their toys, from the stuff here, I always think I'll be so productive.   I'll run dogs, pick up toys, deal with stuff.   I'll edit something I once tried to write, work out, read, get in my closet and try on every sundress, every pair of questionable sandals, every single-ingle, retired bikini - scrutinize each and every article of whatnot.  But... all I end up doing is just mostly walking round the house, looking for signs of them, till eventually I go outside, where I sit.  I watch the sky, wait to see what stars might come, what shape and size the moon may be.

I'm really not so great at alone time.  That reality is magnified.

On the other hand...

I am  much better at sharing then I ever dreamed I could be.

screwed

My box is small, weighs light, but to me - its high, this is heavy.
To you, I'm spastic, to me, I'm  practically elastic  - compared to where I was and who I was and how, back when.


I can remember Aaron saying he'd catch me if I fell, only a short, long year ago
I looked for him today to see if he would come back, stand there, catch me if I should happen to catch my foot as I hop up.  I have this overwhelming, not entirely irrational fear of breaking my teeth while I attempt box jumps, even on the itty bitty guy.  
He's nowhere in site, but obviously still in my head, so I do it, teeth breaking fear and all.
Each jump is a leap of faith for me at my age, 47, with, as I like to refer to it, my literally "screwed up" and screwed in leg.
I can't be flexible.  Ironically, physical inflexibility, being stiff and sore, left me little choice but to at least try to become, well, flexible.   And to do that, I had to and still have to continue to literally ignore, if not surpass my limitations, all of them, mind and body.
Though I'm not strong, I can't tell you the strength I have inside and how I push  myself to try to show up.  I can't express how hard of an exercise in self discipline it is for me just to walk in and partake of this amazing, exhilarating, exhausting, excruciating, most excellent form of incredible torture and exercise called Crossfit.


I hate to talk about it and I hate to use it/excuse it and myself for having it, but it's there and it's a pain, literally and figuratively.  It's ugly and it prevents me from being remotely graceful and there is no way around it.  I'm stuck with a fuc_ed up leg... but, on the bright side, it's not as bad as it used to be.
I feel better, stronger then I knew I could and because of that, I'll jump or more like thump my way up onto that smallest box.




...what I lack in range of motion, I make up for with my wide range of emotion...


Every time I make myself show up, I feel more unexpected gratitude, which leads to an emotional latitude, which in turn allows me to feel happier  and stronger in every conceivable, inconceivable way.
Its like love, at first leap/box-jump, which means that I apparently technically love the little guy; the tiny box and I do... 




Without the patience and the ever present assistance of the trainers and sometimes the well intentioned do-gooders/can't help but want to help ya do betters, who thrive at my gym,  I'd absolutely be lost and limping.   No doubt about it. So thank you, for sure.

memorization

Do not ask me how we land on these topics...
"God and Mary weren't married?" He asks with a mature incredulousness that I can totally relate to and resent both at the same time.
"Ehh... hmm.".  Throat clearing gives me pause for thought... and just where is a nail for biting when you need one?
Emaculate conception is hard to explain even for good Catholics, never mind bad ones like me.   And so how exactly do they, children of a bad Cath, even know to bother asking about this business?  I mean, who told them about the bizarre relationship between God and Jesus; his, "long haired, barefoot son" - because those are the things that stick out about God forsaken Jesus in my young son's eyes.  But girl, she wants me to go into great detail about how exactly genes from God got into his supposed son while he was housed inside of Mary, whom God never physically hung out with.
Atheists might be onto something.
Simplicity.
But I can't do simplicity well.
So, I deflect.  
I do this initial deflection by reciting the Our Father and then Hail Mary, but I change up words so that it all sounds nicer, makes more simple sense.   I pretty them up a bit.
Have I mentioned we don't attend church often?  Yup, we are very busy apparently.
My kids want to know why I know the words for those two rather unknowable prayers and why do I know them by heart when I can't seem to bother learning the street names and common routes home in the area where we now reside; after all, this is where we choose to live.  Good questions.
I tell them its sort of like learning the alphabet, but I know inside it's not remotely alphabetical....its philosophical.    It's not wrote - it is written and in truth I have no better understanding of it all then they do and I cannot explain it well ... and so instead I deflect again.  I simply say, "Oh man, oh man, how very much do I love you?  So, so very much is how much.  Come on, come on and close your eyes".
They do.
We are done, for now.  But I'm not done.   
I am on.
I'm on inside my head.


Someone logically tell me why and just how does the world keep turning and why can I get away with so much and so little?  How can I gamble with things like love and happiness, the future, security, friendship, good health or even just stupid Blackjack and why do I win, lose, win, lose, win more, then lose a bit but win again, just not enough to make a real difference?   Why do I tread so much endless water to only stay pleasantly, surprisingly afloat?  Why doesn't the tide just carry me away?  AND - What if it does someday?   What day might that be and why have I been so lucky and unfortunate and blessed, cursed, strong and weak, loved and lonely, lost and progressing all at the same time?
I'm not getting anywhere, but then again, look how far I have gone to get here?

I'll deflect and admit that I am kinda succeeding at getting nowhere and admit also that I don't actually begrudge the journey.
Hell, I know the alphabet...
"Hail Mary, full of grace" ...

Deflecting...

"Give us this day."

More deflection... 
He must know we're worth it -

it was the nearness of you...

They call them "feel good" movies for a reason.


Not so much before, but definitely during and also for a while after, we felt good,  good in a way that none of us had all day long.   We watched a movie together.  During the film we morphed our positioning.  We'd started clumped, the three of us on the couch, my hand absentmindedly, tenderly scratching their narrow backs.   Then there were just two of us, him literally laying on me, as if I was the sofa.  At some point we were each alone in spaces throughout the room, but in the end, it was them together with the big dog, at a distance from me.  I watched them, while the movie ended and I was moved to tiny tears, partly because the film touched me and partly because my life touches me and maybe a little in part due to the big, beautiful full moon that was now visible from one of the high, pointless windows near the top of the house.   I think about these windows.  Too high to cover, letting in all the light that is lovely, but brings extra heat and a feeling of openness that sometimes seems like too much exposure.  However, they come in handy during the full moon, I realized.
In the film, the feel good movie, a person asked, "which would you choose, people or animals"?   
Ironically I was looking at my kids and dogs lying together in perfect harmony on the floor, just as this question was posed.   I looked at the moon then; bright, giving, mysterious, familiar, unchanging, alive, cold, distant, comforting and I thought to myself; I don't have to choose between people and animals.  I have no choices there.  I am stuck happily with them both.  This is the burden/commitment of being a parent and pet owner, though you chose them, once chosen, unlike lovers, they are yours for the duration.  
So what choices can I make?
Many.
Last night I chose to love the moon and if I could have, I would have touched it.
Today I choose to spend quality time with the sea... and I'm awfully curious about what my moon might have done to that ocean.
...this brings me to my point, the point I never realize I have when I begin to write anything; isn't it amazing that we can have both?  Isn't it amazing that we don't have to just choose to love only one, not the other.

I am forever amazed by the way the things I can not help but love seem to move one another, morph together...