A week in moments

I’ve been trying to live in the moments this week (okay, this and every week). And so I wanted to capture a few of them. In words, this time.

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Driving Grace and Whit to school in the morning, stopping at Starbucks for my venti nonfat latte, then heading to school while both children belt out “Funny how falling feels like flying, for a little while” at the top of their lungs. Peeking in the rearview mirror to catch them smiling each other with that conspirational, we-are-sharing-something-fun smile.

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Monday night, 10:45, Whit wandering into my room and saying, “my throat hurts, mummy.” I picked him up to take him back to bed and he sprayed vomit over my shoulder (miraculously, only onto the hardwood floor). I stripped off his pajamas and rushed him into the bathroom. I watched him, wearing only a pull-up, retching over the toilet. He turned to me, shivering on the cold tile, his hair messy with sleep and his eyes watering with the violence of throwing up, and said, “I’m sorry I made a mess on your floor.” Oh, little man. No matter.

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Taking Grace to a one-hour yoga class on Wednesday afternoon (genius: kids’ yoga simultaneous to adult vinyasa class). As we walked to the car, her cheeks were pink and she was quiet. I asked her what was wrong and she said she was tired and did not feel well. “Could it be my spleen, Mum?” she asked with concern. I assured her that if it was I was sure she would have sharp localized pain, but the whole way home I could tell she was trying to control and brush off her anxiety about it. I feel terrible that the requirement to avoid contact sports after mono (for risk of a spleen rupture) has engendered such paralyzing fear.

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Sitting down at a work meeting and pulling a few pages I had printed out from my bag. As I smoothed them on the table and looked through them, I found Whit’s five year appointment health form interleaved amid the work stuff. The form I hadn’t been able to find that morning. Excellent. Also excellent: the curious looks from across the table.

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Snow flurries every single day. Running in the snow on Thursday, coming in to see myself in the front hall mirror, the blue baseball cap from my college roommate’s wedding in Florida totally white with snow.

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My father coming over for an impromptu visit. The children barreling into him with joyful surprise at his appearance. The clink of ice cubes in his scotch glass. His insightful commentary, as always, shot through with humor and wisdom.

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Walking home from hearing Dani Shapiro read last night in the dark and rain by myself. Her words, the themes of Devotion and its probing questions, falling over themselves in my head. Feeling both clear and confused, solitary and not at all alone as I walked with the rain misting in my face.