gone

she holds a balloon. her very first one? like a ball but so light.
and then too much pressure or maybe just chance and 
pop -- no, KABLAM -- it's gone. nothing between her hands where there was
just miliseconds ago
a prize.

her tears are real.
mine are knocking.
i can't tell her
that
this
won't
be
the
last
time.

more

Golly, I'm tired today. Are you tired? Yes? Let's slide into a story together, then.

Here's the first part. 

And here's some more:

***

I've never been inside her house. Is that weird? I've lived across the street all my life. Shoveled her driveway on occasion. Mowed her grass when Dad paid me to. Threw her bread packets away when Mom wasn't looking. But I've never been in here.

It's not what I would have expected if I had thought about it. The walls are bare but riddled with holes picture-frame-width apart. A recliner faces the front window and that's it for living room furniture. But the kitchen looks fully stocked. The dining table is circular, surrounded by a full set of chairs, tableclothed, and set with two blue pottery tea cups. A loaf of bread rests between them.

Your name is not on that one.

I don't have to ask what she's talking about. She shuffles toward the kitchen. I know I'm supposed to follow but I just watch her move through the room at first. She's small, somewhat stooped, and moves slowly. Old, of course. But there's something about the way she holds her chin that speaks of strength. Like she's not quite ready to bow to whatever force bent her spine and shrunk her bones and makes her skin hang loose on her frame.

She's already filling the cups with steaming water before I think of offering to do it for her. So instead of speaking, I unzip my coat and pile my winter gear in a heap on the linoleum that lines the entryway. The snowflakes that rode in on my shoulders have mostly melted. I leave my boots side by side on the welcome mat and wonder if I should have come inside after all. Maybe Mom will wonder where I am.

I used to make bread for her, you know. 

I still don't respond. I'm not sure what to say. So I cross the room and sit across from her at the table.  Her hair rests on the top of her head in a small bun that's so thin and wispy I'm not sure how it could stay in place. When I finally meet her eyes I'm startled by the brightness of her blue. Such a contrast to her see-through hair, off-white sweater, and faded pink blouse. I find my voice.

She never told me that. 

No, she wouldn't. Her voice is soft, directed at the bare walls and not at me. 

***


Aaaaand, that's all for now. I'm going to bed. Sleep tight!

how dog poop made my day

I took the Littles for a jog today. Nothing long, probably not more than a mile and a half, with a stop at the park partway through. For them, it was all about the destination. For me, it was all about getting there.

I don't usually enjoy pushing the stroller. It interrupts my stride. It adds extra weight to the experience when usually just dragging myself along is plenty. And despite ample snacks for distraction, the space simply gets too small for siblings to sit quietly. For added difficulty, because I guess I like it like that way{or maybe because the dog just asks so nicely to come}, I tether the dog's leash around the stroller. But she often balks at the no-time-for-sniffing pace. I tell her to suck it up and just run.

But today was a particularly lovely day and the Littles were cooperating particularly well. I actually felt pretty strong, and if you overlook the fact that my pelvic floor seems to have stopped functioning the way it should (OMG), it was a great run.

The sun, the scent of fallen leaves, the perfect temperature...the whole thing was simply a sweet exhale (punctuated by some rapid inhales, of course, but those kept me alive). The kids had fun at the park, and pretty soon we started up the steep hill toward home. The dog chose this location to do her business, which was slightly irritating given the angle of incline and the weight of the stroller and the starting-to-bicker kids {and the consistency of her mess, but I won't go into that specific detail}. But then --

A man walking down the hill stopped and said since he was on his way to the park shelter he could take the bag and throw it away for me. It looks like you have your hands full already, he said.

Yes, yes I kind of do, I laughed. So I handed the bag to him with so much thanks.

But who does that? I mean, I've had folks offer to return my grocery cart for me or pause an extra moment to hold the door. But carry my dog's poop a half mile so I wouldn't have to deal with it? Now that's what I call a random act of kindness.

I shared this story with Eldest over her after-school snack because I thought she'd appreciate the weight of what this guy did for me. She understands the finer horrors of dog poop, having stepped in it on several occasions. Barefoot, once. I thought the story might make her laugh but instead it prompted her to tell me a story in return.

There was this one time on the playground when my friend fell in the wet mud and I was like 'oh no' and took off my jacket to help her dry off. 

Her tone wasn't all -- look what I did -- but more like -- I know what that means, random act of kindness. It absolutely made me smile. And then we laughed together about dog poop.


So today, even though the pretty sky ended up clouding over, I'm feeling especially warmfuzzy toward humanity. I mean, maybe we're not so bad as a species after all. All we need to do now is stop shouting at each other across the lines we've drawn and start carrying each other's dog poop. Stop shooting each other, even, and start wiping the mud off each other's faces.

Hey, it could happen, right? It starts right here.  

another installment

Okay so it was fun starting that little story yesterday. It got ME curious about what could happen next. So I added some more. I put yesterday's words in small font so if you already read that, skip ahead. The new stuff is normal size. 

Please know that I'm totally pulling this out of my ass as I go. I hope I could come up with something more refined or more intelligent or more....I don't know...layered? if I spent more time on it. But maybe I really couldn't. I have yet to find out. Anyway, I don't have gobs of time to spend figuring out something stellar, so I figure I might as well put something down. It's fun, if nothing else. And that's what this is all about. 

Okay so, back to the story.

*** 

At dinner my mom hands me a foil package and says nothing but

it's from annie.

I roll my eyes and unwrap it, cringing even before I see the lump of bread I know is inside. This time it's brownish grey and speckled with darker dots. I don't even want to know what it's really made of. I close the foil back up.

maybe you shouldn't throw it away
she says.

what, eat it? this?
My gag reflex kicks in at the very thought. But there's something in her voice that makes me stop. Not really a tone but a catch in her words that I've grown up with and learned to love and to hate and it means that whatever she's saying is probably right. I hate being wrong.

But I peel back the foil again and give it a timid sniff. It makes me think about

sweat and grass and tears and puke and so much sun

What the hell. I shove half of it in my mouth -- it's only the size of a small roll. The taste doesn't hit me until I swallow. It's weird. Not bad, just...weird. Like not really a taste at all but a clenching of all my taste buds into a single point at the center of my tongue. I eat the other half as I walk up the stairs to my room.

Then it's homework and bed and a whole school day. None of that matters. It's what happens next that completely changes my life. 

 ***

I'm at the starting line. This is it.

The. Big. Deal.

I'm running in the sectional cross country meet, the race that will either advance me to State or will simply be my last. Even though I'm pretty good, I've never gone to the Big Meet. It's always something -- an injury, a cramp, or more likely, just a bad day. But this is my last chance. Senior year. Now or never.

When the gun goes off I take off fast. Too fast, probably. Everyone falls from my periphery except the girl in front of me. Her shoes become my shoes and I don't think but just move move move move.

I'm not even a half mile in when I start to feel it. The weird clenching of across the plane of my tongue. It feels familiar but my head is already in a fog and I can't place it. But it's louder an any other sensation in my body so I hang on to it. I am my tongue. I am those shoes. I think maybe this what happens when you run faster than you really can. You start to go crazy, at least a little bit.

But crazy or not, I run fast. It's not that I don't feel anything -- my lungs are fireworks and my legs sop up lactic acid like literal sponges -- but I feel my body and mind occupying two separate spaces. My legs and my lungs are somewhere miles below me.

I don't win the race. The Shoes in Front of Me take off in the last half mile and there's no way I can go with that girl. I'm passed by another runner ten yards from the finish. But I take third. And that means I'm going to State.

Mom hugs me at the finish like it's the first time she's ever seen me.

***

You're probably thinking this is a running story now. That the thing that changes my life is the race. That I go off to State and place well and end up going to college on a scholarship running for a division one team.

But no, that's that's not it at all. I'll tell you now that I take one hundred and forty second place at the State Meet, with a time significantly slower than what I did at sectionals. State is completely forgettable. It's what happens when snow starts to fly that is worth telling you.

***

I'm going to die soon, you know.

It's Annie. Her voice sounds compressed. Snow muffled. Like we're both standing in a narrow box. She's in the doorway, speaking through the screen door.

I'm shoveling her driveway in this mid-December dusk. Mom asked me to come out here and get this done and I didn't say no because otherwise Dad will do it and he won't be home until I've already been tucked into my homework for several hours and I know he'll be a lot tireder than I am right now. It will be colder and blacker by then, to. Now, in the little light left from the day, streetlights make the air glow purple and create a back light for the slow falling snow flakes. It feels weird out here. But in a good way.

I can count on my left hand the number of times I've heard Annie speak and this is one of them. She's usually just a face in the front window. Wrinkled. Watching.

I look at her but don't respond to her statement. It settles around my feet without melting and I take a couple steps toward her door. She speaks again while I'm in motion.

You will learn about the bread.

It's not a question. I still don't say anything but just let the shovel fall in the snowdrift and climb the three steps onto her front stoop. She opens the screen and I go inside, my breath still steaming. 

***

uhhhh, that's all I got. More tomorrow? Or another day...

a story that started spinning as i drove home

There's nothing about me that I feel like telling you today.

All I can say is: Humpf.

But that wouldn't be much of a post. And I'm supposed to be posting every day.  So I guess I'll just make up a story. Okay, part of a story. I'll finish it later, maybe.

We'll see.

***{fiction}

At dinner my mom hands me a foil package and says nothing but  
it's from annie.

I roll my eyes and unwrap it, cringing even before I see the lump of bread I know is inside. This time it's brownish grey and speckled with darker dots. I don't even want to know what it's really made of. I close the foil back up.

maybe you shouldn't throw it away
she says.

what, eat it? this?
My gag reflex kicks in at the very thought. But there's something in her voice that makes me stop. Not really a tone but a catch in her words that I've grown up with and learned to love and to hate and it means that whatever she's saying is probably right. I hate being wrong.

But I peel back the foil again and give it a timid sniff. It makes me think about

sweat and grass and tears and puke and so much sun

What the hell. I shove half of it in my mouth -- it's only the size of a small roll. The taste doesn't hit me until I swallow. It's weird. Not bad, just...weird. Like not really a taste at all but a clenching of all my taste buds into a single point at the center of my tongue. I eat the other half as I walk up the stairs to my room.

Then it's homework and bed and a whole school day. None of that matters. It's what happens next that completely changes my life.

dismissed, too early

I knew, no matter what, that I would never buy from him. 

I mean, who smokes while selling at the farmer's market? I don't care if you go behind your truck to do it. Isn't that sort of opposite of what the market is about? To good health and all that? You obviously don't know.

Since I work at the stand next to his, I smell his smoke often. And I sealed my dismissal of his honey early and completely -- with a dollop of disgust.

But standing ten feet away from him for several hours each week, I couldn't help but listen. And here is what I learned:

He has been keeping bees since he was eight years old. He's one of the few keepers who doesn't use chemicals on his hives. His self-appointed assistant for all things bee is his five-year-old granddaughter. She affixes labels. She even has her own bee getup. I've heard him tell this one story several times, about how he was watching her once when she was a baby and he couldn't figure out how the diaper fastened so he used duct tape. He gives free logo-printed cloth bags to customers who buy the biggest jars of honey. He has his regulars and a steady stream of customers, some of whom swear by the bee pollen he sells. It makes them feel better, they say. He has a basement full of homemade wine and he cans the vegetables he grows. He gets his large jars from restaurants and his wife sometimes uses them for storing flour and oatmeal. He appreciates it when customers return them.

He has a story. 
He sells good honey.
His prices are reasonable.
He is a nice guy.

How quickly I was ready to dismiss him, based on a single action.

Okay, he smokes. Okay, I'm not a huge fan of that. But why judge? When I could first listen.

I bought a new jar of honey today. From him. Four pounds.

It's really good.

fifteen minutes

Write. For fifteen minutes. That's the instruction.

Okay, no problem. So I get out my paper and my pen and I try to pry open my head. I sit and sit and sit as I wander my mental landscape. Today, a desert. One good thing is I haven't seen any quicksand yet. Though maybe it would help?

A few images about doors and locks and kicking things down shimmer a few miles away but they all stick their tongues out at me and slide through my hands like scaly slippery stinky fish. I trudge after them but don't bother with my nets. They were such a drab color. And they couldn't be real in all this sand, anyway. How on earth would they breathe?

I look up at the clock. Fifteen minutes gone, maybe more. Does this count? I hold up my paper. There's nothing there. Invisible ink? I say it with a laugh. No one is amused. But I know myself. I know how I write. It doesn't come out if I say hey. just. write.

When does it come out, then? After I've thought and thought and stood on my head and shook myself by the ankles. That gets pretty interesting. And it doesn't always work. Okay, it only occasionally works.

So. Try.

Alright. I press pen to paper and start to go on and on and on and on. I end up writing about writing and finally about the owl I heard through the basement window while I brushed my teeth before bed and how I wanted it to mean something or be something or say something but it was just an owl. I went to bed with disappointment stuck between my teeth. I always forget to floss.

I heard it again at midnight. It woke me up. This time I just listened through the cracks of my sleep. And then at dawn it spoke to me to me to me. Right to me. It asked who. And I didn't say anything but just pressed my palms together and touched my thumbs to my forehead. Then my to heart.

There. Fifteen minutes.

room temperature

Summer has been exhaling her last breaths around here, bequeathing to us some truly gorgeous days.

The biting bugs have mostly gone to rest, the sun warms but doesn't really burn, the breeze wafts the musky scents of autumn all over everything. What do you call days like this? Perfect? Heaven? There are no discomforts to speak of. No extremes. I can only sigh and term this a room-temperature day.

We tend to complain about the deep chill of winter. The suffocating heat of summer. But without the change of seasons, days like these wouldn't get a second glance. So I'll put on my coat in the winter. Retreat to the shade in the summer. And inject days like these straight into my bloodstream.

***

My two littles have been playing side by side all morning. Right now, they've devised some game that involves pouring water into a bucket until it overflows onto the picnic table and dribbles onto the ground. There's much excitement about placing another bucket under the waterfall and reusing the water in the first bucket. This process doesn't get old for a very, very long time.

I'm seated nearby, listening and watching. Thinking. Mostly on the periphery but easily drawn into their circle. The whole scene is so normal but I'm wrapping it carefully and tucking it into my pocket. Because this is one of those moments. The room-temperature kind.

No one is fighting. No one is demanding. There's no discord. Not between them. Not between us. I'm not trying to get something done. I'm not trying to hurry us in any direction. We're just here. In a moment of total comfort. I can't help but sigh.

***

Back inside, the temperature is a little cooler. I put on my sweater and make lunch. We move through the business of eating and getting out the door for preschool.

On the way home after drop off, little youngest finds much to be upset about. Everything, really. It's a long drive for me. Her noise assults my senses, the sun (what, that gentle sun?) beats through the windows and I'm cooking in this stupid sweater. I yell at her to PLEASE. STOP. CRYING. She doesn't.

I feel icy but at the boiling point. A short nap helps (me, not her). We carry on with the afternoon.

But yoga class helps even more. For all the usual reasons, of course -- the deep breathing, the turning inward, the stretching and strengthening and surrendering. But I'm also given a gift of sorts.

My teacher talks about the moon as a calming, soothing presence. And as we move through some moon salutations, she asks us to imagine a full moon lozenge, resting between our jaws. It shimmers on my tongue, never melting. I suck on it all the way home.

It tastes like coolness. Like shade. A balm for those extreme moments. A hint of those room-temperature ones.

I only have to remember to keep it in my mouth.

simply ten

taking a cue from SouleMama, boiling down the day to ten good things.

**

it's not too hard to do
with a life like this

**

~a small-bodied, big-voiced singer serving as my alarm clock {even though it was 5am}

~the ecstatic smile and wave through the bus window {i don't embarrass her --yet}

~an hour of luxury reading while the littles played intently {how i devour you, hunger games}

~new! compression! stockings! in! the! mail! {oh, the unsung joys of pregnancy}

~a clean bedspread drying in the sun {can't wait to crawl in}

~eating the cake she made {and the joy on her face as i took "bites" of sand water and rocks}

~the hello hug at preschool pickup {still so short, she squeezes my leg, constrictor style}

~driving through falling leaves {they'll fly right off the car, mama}

~dinner i didn't have to make {dishes i didn't have to do}

~earning money in my pajamas {snuggled under the afghan my grandma made}

**

and you? what was good about today?

the girl in the glass

I step out of the shower, skin pink from the heat. Sometimes I try to scald the morning's fog away. It usually works.

I'm warm and cozy and steamed clean, feeling full of my blessings right now. I glance in the mirror. Not at my face but at the curve of my belly. I'm starting to look full now, too. Good.

It's when I lock with my own eyes that I see her. She's leaning into the glass, examining her face, frowning at her angular elbows. Her brows are furrowed. So critical.

What would I say if she could see me, too?

Would I tell her to ignore the boy at school who laughed at her skinny knees?

To throw away that eyeliner because its not you anyway?

To take calcium supplements starting now because you'll avoid that stress fracture sophomore year?  

Should I remind her to thank her parents more genuinely because theirs is the kind of love that's real?

To inhale the scenery at every step, drinking in the journey, even though you can't see what's around the bend?

And should I tell her to just sit tight because see this belly? You'll meet this kid's father in about a year. If he seems like a nice guy from the start, believe me when I say he will mature into a fine man. The very best kind. And he'll never notice your skinny knees, I promise. 

But I doubt that girl would listen to my words even if she could hear me. Her head is full of doubts and dreams, and I stand half a lifetime away from her....30 seemed so old when I was 15.  My words wouldn't mean anything to her anyway. So I keep my mouth shut. She doesn't need to hear my voice. She's doing fine, finding her own way, even if she feels unsteady on her feet sometimes. 

Besides, I really like where she ends up.

***

Playing with the NaBloWriMo prompt: what advice would you give your 15 year-old self?

broken

As soon as I picked it up, it felt wrong.

I should have just set it back down. But my brain had already fired the command to move forward and inertia held everything to that specific groove. Almost like it was laid out ahead of time. Like this was meant to be.

When the bottom of it grazed the top of the kitchen chair, the soft clunk of contact whispered gonner up my arm and into my ear. I had time to imagine the million pieces before it actually shattered. And then it was at my feet. In about seventeen pieces, not a million. But certainly beyond repair.

I mopped up the dregs of my drink and put the pieces of the mug in a paper bag. In the trash. Later, I discovered the bottom portion, the entire base of the cup, shorn artfully along a curved fault line. I put it on the counter. It could almost hold water. Never mind the fact that it would slice your lip wide open. It sat there for a couple days before I finally threw it away.

That mug was my favorite.

An old friend.

Maybe I considered it to be lucky. It started most of my days {filled with coffee. and a splash of milk} And I made it to the end of all of them. If that's not luck I don't know what is.

But now it's gone. And hey, I'm still here. Good thing I never put much stock in lucky charms.

But that curved fault line is lodged in my mind's eye. I see it in myself sometimes, in some places. Threatening. How easily we can break. 

So maybe it was something after all. It left an imprint, anyway.

***

I joined up with NaBloWriMo again this year {write a post. every day. in october}. Today's prompt was about lucky objects. I guess I don't have one.

perspectives

hers

its getting darker in here. the chair is under me. they are talking at me.
i am screaming.

i look again. the two bowls are still sitting there.  
ugh. yuck. no way.

dark. chair. talk. scream. bowls. dark.chair.talk.scream.bowls. darkchairtalkscream.
still
the bowls.

i feel it in my throat. my belly. raw from sound. no spoon in my mouth.
empty.

dark. chair. talk. scream. bowls. dark.chair.talk.scream.bowls. darkchairtalkscream.
still
the bowls.

i close my mouth. brighter room. bowls gone. i can have something else if i get it myself.
i ask for the bread.

i look up at her and she doesn't look right. mushed face. she sets the bread on the counter.
hard so it makes a sound.

what's wrong mama. she doesn't answer. i sit down with the bread.
it's good.

***

mine

i can't believe
i'm sitting here at this table with three crying gagging children. eating my dinner which should be good but i'm not even tasting it. only tasting anger. growing. boiling. scalding my mouth.

i know i should
swallow it
but
goddamnit
nearly two hours in the kitchen chopping washing stirring and
and
and

i get up. i'm done.

why on earth am i crying?

i go out. sit down. let it fall.
it's good.

surfacing

And this is how it always happens.

You're down deep. Stuck at the bottom of some hole you dug for yourself. Lying there, immobile, the sun positioned in the sky so it shines right in your eyes and you can't see a thing. All you can think is, God, this sucks. Why you ever got the shovel out in the first place baffles you. It's all so stupid.

And then suddenly -- you're out. It happens so quickly the breath skips from your lungs and you curl at the edge of the abyss, panting. You watch a pebble bounce from the rim down the sides and you can't see it but just hear it hit the bottom. It's very far down there. What a hole to dig. To fall into. But how on earth did you get out?

And then you see it. The thing that rescued you. And what strikes you first is not gratitude but disbelief. At how normal the thing is. Ordinary. Household, even. But in a kind of ghostly form. Wispy, ethereal. You can see right through it. It's from here and there. This world and that. So, so ordinary. But beyond beautiful.

***

Today, for me, it's the toys. Everywhere. No clear walking path. No clear sitting place. How did it get like this? I'm putting most of it away myself but muttering about trash bags and donations and rules and someday it will be clean around here. I do the cursory, obligatory, internal reminder that when such a day comes, I will, in fact, be very sad. I'll miss the mess.

But not right now.

Ugh, not right now. 

When the couch is clear enough I flop down on it. Slouch sideways and put my feet up, knees bent.

Immediately they come. Carrying more toys. I sigh.

I'm handed a small plastic animal and asked to be it. I hop it around the air in front of me and respond where I'm supposed to and somehow this is all very entertaining to them. It's actually kind of fun.

Behind their small frames, I can see the gray sky out the front window suddenly brighten -- a break in the clouds. The wind gusts and shakes the pooled rain from everywhere -- water streams down in the sun. Leaves blow around crazily and acorns tap tap tap on the roof


I'm looking past the kids but at them and their faces glow in the strange sudden sun. And then --- tap tap tap from the inside. A knocking on my womb. Someone saying, hey, I'm here too.   

For a minute, I don't move. Don't shift my gaze. I hang on to all the pieces of this moment that just so completely stunned me. Feeling very breathless, very rescued, and very here. At the surface again.

And then it's time for lunch and we abandon the toys on the floor as we head to the kitchen. When I step on one later it doesn't bother me at all.

way up in the sky

On my hip, her legs hang down to my knees. Her nose runs in the cold, cheeks surprised and red.

I point out the moon, hanging halfway to the horizon, an odd spot in the morning sky. She looks at me.  

Touch she says. It's a question. I laugh and start to tell her that its far away

but then.

Stop.  

Try I say. We both reach out. It's warmer than I expected.

We walk home and her chin lifts high, exposing her warm neck to the whole wide world.

Sky. Move move move move she says. The wind shoves the clouds forward and the hair away from her face.

I don't need to look up to see what she sees.

Yes the sky is moving.

It's magic to me, too. 

stories

The path I run is a circle. Like always around the same question -- where are the words?

I walk up the hill. And at the end take off my shoes and socks and sit on this cool concrete.

Still outside. All of me.

First: closed eyes, crossed legs, thinking about only the breath. Morning sun filters through the backyard oaks, shifting sun and shadows over my closed lids. More breath.

Then: feels like faces, inches from my own, moving closer then away. Games of sun and shade. But I imagine lips moving, hands reaching. I'm still. Open. But I can only hear that traffic and these leaves.  I can only feel this breeze drying all that sweat.

There are stories right in front of me. I want to know them so I can taste them. So I can tell them.  But my eyes are closed and I can't see them.

Hi, Mama. I turn my head and see her face pressed against the screen door. My lips -- my eyes and ears, even -- lift and shift into a smile.

So finally, this is it: the only story I know right now is my own.

Hi, Baby. I go inside.

a start

All I could find
to write on
was this narrow
strip of paper,
the width
of which truncated
my lines into
something that
looked like a
poem but was
in fact
not.

I was thinking
about running
and racing
and another life,
about lungs
exploding and
everything wanting
to stop but not
stopping because
that's not
what you
did, in a race.

Now I like
to stop. Have
to stop. Or
not do it at
all. That's
how it is
and I don't mind
it.

But I always
start up again,
even if all that's
left is down
the block. Because
I want to.

I stopped
writing stuff
down for a
long time
because I forgot
or my mind
was full or
empty and
now my
guts are burning,
my limb are
twitching.

I still have
nothing to say
but I found
this narrow
strip of paper
and filled it
up because
it's a start.
After a
stop.

be here now

When I tell some people, I feel guarded. Self conscious. Pregnant catches in my throat for two weeks before I tell the folks I work with. For no good reason, of course -- they are kind and congratulatory.

But when I walk up to her it tumbles out. Four, I smile. She has that many, too. They're all out of the house and she grows and raises and crafts food with passion and runs her own business and she looks so strong standing on her own two feet and I hold her up as a model for what I could be after all this. When she smiles I can see her laugh lines. Oh, how I wish mine were still young. I hear her past threading through her words.

I'm not there but I know what she means. I hear what she's saying. Live here. Live now. 

So simple. But so hard. At least for me.

***

Dishes done, one girl napping, two girls playing. Notebook in hand. I haven't opened it yet when the Awake Ones find me. Request candy (just one piece?) and ask me to play a game. Of course I will. One day they'll stop asking. I know this. 

But one smacks her gum while I shiver and the other fidgets across five square feet of floor, wiggling under my skin. I have to remind each player of her turn. The space vibrates with their noise. I'm starting to get annoyed. I'm starting to wish myself somewhere else. With my notebook, maybe. Or with my pillow. And definitely alone.

But then, for once, I remember what I've been reading. About finding now by finding the breath. (I know. I've written about this before. I'm a slow learner, it seems.)

So I notice the in and the out. The rise and the fall. And I notice how annoyed I feel. It doesn't go away. But I'm here, feeling and playing, and suddenly very Aware that annoyed is an emotion -- it's not what I am.

The feeling never really goes away but I set it aside, on the edge of my periphery. Out of focus.

No one wins the game. It goes on too long and we all agree to quit early. When I tell them I had fun its mostly true. My feathers are all lying down, at least. 

***

It's later. The napper is up and busy with cups and water in the yard. The other two play in Another World of their private creation.

Okay, now's the time. I open my notebook and set down a few lines. She looks up from her cups and sees me sitting there. Her wheels turn while she plans her approach. 

She plants her damp bottom on my lap, thinking she's so sly as she slides the pen from my hand and oh-so-stealthily scribbles over my page. Her smile is so satisfied.

I just watch.

Soon she's asking about Eeeee's and Oooooh's and we're filling my writing space with capital letters. She says H like eight and watches my mouth as I tell her double you. That one mystifies her. Her joy seeps into me as sure as her wet dress soaks through my jeans and cools my skin.

She won't remember this -- she's too little. But I will. Because I don't need to breathe to be here this time. I just am.

patterns

I feel it wherever I am. In whatever I'm doing. In quiet space like Ironing at Night, Doing Dishes During Naptime, Walking the Dog Alone. And especially, most notably, in loud spaces like Mealtime and Cartime and Bathtime and They Need a Referee Time.

It's a tightness around my mouth. Tension I hold there, captive, where it whispers about the wrinkles that are carving my face into a map, historical, that tracks patterns that I thought were invisible.

But whenever I am here enough to let it go -- let my mouth relax outside and in -- I feel a sigh travel up my cheeks and across my scalp. Down my jawbone and all over my neck. But always, moments later, the clench creeps back into my lips and tongue and palate, pulling closed what was just open. I try to practice letting go again and again, but this pattern runs deep beneath the surface. It owns me.

***

I walk into class expectant but unsure what yoga will say about The Joy of Running. All I know is that I used to enjoy running, back and back in another life when I was fast and good and had all the time in the world. But the only thing that's fast about me these days is the rate at which tired and done set in. With lungs exploding and shoulders slumping and various injuries knocking at my door, I've always quickly given up any attempt at resuming running. I hated it.

So I'm all ears when he talks about teaching the body new patterns of movement through yoga and drills and then not worrying about it in the moment but trusting that the body will remember what it learned and the elegant posture that's nothing but natural will feel good and efficient and leave room from the mind to notice all the things it loves about sweating and breathing and being outside.

We work from the ground up. Talking about the feet and how a light step starts with firm grounding. About pelvic flection and using the most efficient muscles to bend the knee. About a strong pelvic floor and a strong low belly. About coordinating movement across the planes of the body. About finding the sweet spot in shoulder alignment. About exhaling fully and -- interestingly -- relaxing the roof of the mouth.

I take these tools home with me and find myself running fast and having fun -- and -- stopping often. But stopping isn't the enemy, I learned. Run -- walk. Exert -- rest. A productive pattern that keeps the heart rate up and allows me to enjoy the exercise. I am in love. Sore, but in love.

***

I want to enjoy everything more. The quiet spaces. Even the loud spaces. And I have a hunch that letting the tension drain from every little moment is a way to start from the ground and move up, changing old patterns and trusting that with time, my body will learn to help my mind meet loud and quiet, stress and leisure, exertion and rest with equal composure and presence and peace.

And just like in class, where we started the process of teaching our bodies with yoga and drills so that the run could be effortless and enjoyable, I need a place to practice, outside especially the loud moments that can sometimes totally take me over.

Can daily meditation be that practice place? I was working to meditate a single minute each day earlier this year, but that intention evaporated at some unknown point. I stopped. Gave up.

Maybe it's time to start again.

unexpected

Looking out across the lake there's something coming. Ignore the sky and it could be rain or an unnamed, unexplained swarm boiling beneath the surface. But the clouds are few and colorless and the fish hold no mystery. They've all been caught at least once, don't you think? No, it's just the wind sending ripples across the pane glass surface. The boats rock against their tethers.

***

My seat is a curb in this crowded parking lot where people oooh and aaah to my left and right and I am alone. I sit down late and last minute never leaves the scene. I look up but look back, remembering years ago, lying on a blanket watching the lights explode and fade leaving smoke imprints in the sky floating like specters behind the here and now. The sound echoed in the hollow of my chest and light after light lasted forever. Tonight I'm not looking for magic but I wanted to feel something. Lonely is not what I expected.

***

She's sitting near the shore, lake up to her waist, legs in front of her floating on their own accord. She pulls stones from the soft sand and declares them BIG before tossing them into the water. A boat passes. She points. When the wake reaches her, pushing her pulling her, she watches the waves fold onto the shore -- shouting where moments ago there were only whispers -- and her eyes are big and wary. The water gentles and she remembers the stone folded between her fingers. She tosses it. It splashes.

***

I turn on the tap and look out at the grainy purple dusk settling over our backyard. Glass halfway to lips I freeze frame, arrested by the ordinary, made breathless by the everyday. A hundred fireflies take turns sounding in a silent symphony, pricking holes in the approaching black that fill with light rushing in from another world. I can't drink deeply enough.

***

I'm pretty sure I know my body but I've pretty nearly convinced myself this can't be real. I take the test anyway. A plus sign. It screams POSITIVE and FOUR and OMG. It flips my calendar and timetable and expectations and forecasts over and upside down and out the window. I never saw this coming. I'm rocked. I'm at square one. I'm bewildered. But here I am, two once again, and totally, totally awestruck.

twinges

A doll, face down on the hardwood floor. Dead quiet as is her nature. She makes my chest hurt and I must must must right her. Face up, queen of the toy mountain, empty eyes stare past me. I have to look away.

***

The grass is getting too long. It tops her ankles and tickles her calves. She's barefoot, dress past her knees. For now. Clean. For now. She crisscrosses the yard random like a moth but following some map she makes up as she goes. I should get up and make lunch but I can't stop watching her.

***

Dishes. Done and drip dried resting in the rack. Clear them out make room for more. Three colored bowls nest together just so, a neat stack I hold right now. A few drops of water pooled in the rims slide out onto my palm. Tears when I'm not looking. I don't brush them away.

***

Clumps of hair like autumn leaves litter the floor under the chair in wet chunks the way they fell. The shape of her face stands out, not chubby cheeked like one year ago but more angular and wise with memories that are starting to stick. In the mirror she's a decade older and I blink once and look back at her real form. Still four. Still four. I almost pocket a chunk of that hair. But I leave it. It's not a piece of her anymore. Never really was.

***

I make it to the top of the hill. Without stopping this time. But now I have to. Head down, heat pooling in my cheeks, sweat dripping down them, chest just about to burst. Next time, in theory, this should be easier. But maybe not.

***

She's learning to ride a bike, frustration leaking out in tears. Stoppered. Then flowing again. I want to be the hero. The voice. The guide. The safety net.  But I can only tell her what she already knows. The magic that she needs to find evaporates when I hold it out to her. I don't like it when you try to help. You tell me to try again. Her words bruise my skin but I roll down my sleeves.  Her face when she gets it lightens the sky so much that even though I missed her exact expression I felt it. I felt it.

***

I've never felt real pain. Only twinges. Someday something will smack me in the face. I know that.