everyday life

Perfect

One day last week I changed the school drop off routine a little.  Whit walked halfway across campus with us and then waited, sitting on the bottom step of a building in the middle, while I took Grace the rest of the way.  She whined a little about this change (Whit didn’t join us at all in the past), insisting that her brother would intrude on our “special time.”  She glared at me as we pushed our way through the double doors to the playground.  I wanted badly to snap at her that she was being a brat, but I bit my tongue.  Moments later, they were walking ahead of me, heads bent together, murmuring about something I couldn’t hear.

It was perfect.

Saturday morning broke clear and cold, cold, cold.  I watched Grace’s soccer game hunched over, with my hands jammed into the pockets of my down coat.  It was so cold my eyes teared behind my sunglasses.  I had a lovely conversation with another Soccer Mom (gah!) and was taken aback when, mid-chat, Grace came running over, face flooded with tears.  “Mummy!  I just scored and you missed it because you were talking to Sophia’s mom!”  She crossed her arms across her chest and stamped her foot, the very picture of righteous indignation.  I hugged her instead of blowing up, guilt and irritation swamping me at once.  With her face pressed against my coat she couldn’t see the emotions at war on my face. How can I possibly live up to this standard? rang in one ear and Oh my God I misssed seeing her score a goal shouted in the other.

“I won’t score again today and you missed it,” she wailed against my parka.

She did score again, and I saw it.  I also observed her cheering on a teammate who tore down the field and scored her own goal, which made me far prouder than anything else (and I told her that).  I kept remembering: it won’t be long until she doesn’t want me to watch her anymore.

It was perfect.

After soccer, I took Whit to make good on a promise from his birthday.  He received several duplicate Legos so I told him I’d take him to the Lego store and he could choose anything he wanted (within reason).  He was overwhelmed by the Lego store, and spent long minutes walking its perimeter, eyes wide, finger trailing across the various boxes.  He could not make up his mind.  I urged him to pick something already, fretting to myself that if we didn’t get to Johnny Rocket’s before noon we’d have to wait for a table.  I chewed a fingernail, impatience swelling inside me, and told him again that it was time to choose.  Let’s be honest: I rushed him.

He decided on a Lego, we went to lunch, there was no wait, and he was utterly charmed by the faux-retro-diner details.  Then, at J Crew he picked out a pirate sweatshirt and was given this enormous, Willy Wonka-esque lollipop.

It was perfect.

I need to trust that as surely as my frustrations and irritations, my guilt and paralyzing panic about missing it rise up, they will ebb away.   These emotions are clouds sliding across the sky of my life, that is all.  This is what I am realizing: it is up to me whether I let these feelings, these moments when I am not the mother I want to be, mar the perfection of this life.  And I won’t let them.  I can’t change, I don’t think, the spikes of agitation and restlessness that sometimes overtake me so fast my head spins.  But I can change how I let them impact my overall sense of my days, of my life.

Thank you, Katrina, for the exact words I needed at the precise time I needed them.  As usual.

This life, this moment: it’s all so perfect it breaks my heart.  Every day.

Song and memory

This weekend was glorious: finally, full sunshine, open windows letting in soft spring air, children biking and running until they were exhausted, and dinner at a restaurant so nearby that Matt and I could walk there through the dusky spring evening.

Saturday I spent five hours in the car scanning unfamiliar radio stations.  I’ve written before about the power that songs have in triggering memory for me; for hours, it was like spinning an old-fashioned rolodex and seeing what was written on the card that it fell open to.  In many cases the words to songs rose up out of some deep reservoir of memory: the words seemed to be carved indelibly on some scroll hidden deep in my consciousness.  I had no idea I knew the words to a song, often, until I was singing along to it.

I’ve realized that my years at camp are full of musical memories.  I wrote about how Like a Prayer will always remind me of being 16 years old and dancing down the dusty dirt aisles of the camp theater, the sheer joy of movement overtaking me.  That song will always, every single time I hear it, remind me of a special, influential friendship and of the fact that I used to love to dance.  One camp tradition that I loved was that each Sunday one unit would perform a song that they’d practiced all week.  These were themed and though I can’t be sure I’m remembering right, I think there were also poems and quotations read aloud.  One year my bunkmates and I sang Landslide, and yesterday, The Logical Song by Supertramp came on and I remembered that that was one too.  Then the Go-Gos came on, and I remembered my Assistant Counselor year, when my 11 peers and I got up during one camp assembly and sang Our Lips Are Sealed.

I just cannot wait for Grace to experience camp, and I hope that the place is as important to her as it was to me, magical and grounding at the same time.

The Soup Dragons came on, singing I’m Free, and I thought about another time when dancing was important to me.  Senior year at Exeter I participated in the dance concert instead of doing a sport.  My dear friend C, a rare real, substantive friend in those years, and I did it together.  We choreographed several pieces, one of which was to I’m Free. In the annals of embarassing photographs, here’s one from another piece (for I’m Free we wore cut-offs and tie-dyed shirts, and I do not have a picture of it).

And then a couple of songs sent me back to college, specifically to my little quad in the sky.  The Freshman, by Verve Pipe, Lightning Crashes, by Live, and Whenever I Call You Friend, by Kenny Loggins, each carried specific and visceral memories.  Whenever I Call You Friend, in particular, reminds me of when I had a broken leg and my wonderful roommates took it upon themselves to dance and sing to entertain me.  In the photograph below they are serenading me, and I remember leaning over to grab my camera, and taking the picture, remember how I was laughing so hard that I could barely hold the camera straight.

And then REM’s Night Swimming brought me back to a spring evening, not altogether unlike this one in Boston, when I walked from my freshman dorm to meet a boy for a first date.  The air was thick with the smell of magnolias, the sky perfect, hydrangea blue; we were in the weeks when Princeton is at its most beguiling.  I walked through the junior and senior dorms, gothic facades on either side of me, feeling vaguely intimidated to even be in these spaces that were still foreign to me.  As I approached the room where I was going, the lead-paned windows were all open and REM’s Night Swimming wafted out into the early evening.  I felt anticipation and nerves, was somehow aware, deep in my consciousness, that I was about to step into a relationship that would be one of the most important of my early adulthood and most formative of my life.  I’ve never heard that song since that night without thinking of that walk, and that sense of promise, the tangible presence of the future right in front of me.

And then, as I neared home, poetically, Southern Cross came on.  I’ve always loved CSN(Y), and this song is one of my favorites.  I thought instantly of the summer of 1998, when Matt and I spent 6 weeks in Africa.  We had known each other only a month or two when we planned the trip; I think my parents probably thought I was coming home in a bag.  We climbed Kilimanjaro and on night before the summit ascent it was crystal clear and gorgeous (not so the night we summitted – white-out blizzard conditions).  We could see both the Southern Cross and the Big Dipper in the sky which, our guide told us in his lilting, accented voice, was very rare.  Only possible right near the Equator.  We both looked up, spellbound at the enormous sky above us, at how far we were from everything we knew.  And yet, at that moment, I’m certain we both felt at home.  “For the first time you understand … why you came this way.”  And we did.

What songs trigger important memories for you?

Monday morning

A few things that were on my mind this weekend …

1. Carol Edgarian’s Three Stages of Amazement may be my favorite novel I’ve read in years.  It is a beautiful, pitch-perfect story about adulthood and marriage and in exploring the complexities and challenges of both it shows that trying hard and wanting  something badly doesn’t keep people from messing up.  Edgarian’s characters stagger under the weight of their commitment and responsibility and yearn for the freedom and desire of earlier days but ultimately they tiptoe into a tentative but redemptive  embrace of their flawed, rich lives.

2. Laura Munson, whose book This is Not the Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness touched many people, is reading in Cambridge on Wednesday April 13th at 7pm.  I’m so looking forward to meeting Laura and hope many others will be there.

3. My friend Hilary Levey Friedman told me about a piece of art she has ordered for her new house.  First we laughed about how there is very little wall space for art, given how many books we both have.  I remembered the Anna Quindlen quote that she “would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think interior decorating consists mostly of building bookshelves.”  Then Hilary told me about a wreath she is having made out of book pages.  I adore, worship, and covet this idea and can’t wait to see it.

4. Finally, I have a professional page on Facebook.  I’d be honored if you would click over and check it out.  Asking this makes me more nervous than almost anything else.  Thank you to the lovely Social Butterfly Solutions for her help!

my Gracie girl

This was one of the most special days of my life.  One of our days at Disney, Grace and I snuck away to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.  We were both spellbound.  I have never been somewhere more crowded – honestly.  Harry Potter made walking through the Magic Kingdom seem like an amble on a deserted beach.  But still…. still.  It was absolutely magical.  We walked around Hogsmeade, bought a wand, drank Butter Beer, explored Hogwarts castle, and rode twice on the Flight of the Hippogriffs (above, photo taken from car in front of us).  I don’t like roller coasters and neither do either of my children (coincidence?  perhaps not) but this was a nice, not-scary ride that we went on twice.

In this photo I see sheer joy radiating from Grace.  And from me.  We were both enchanted by the world of Harry Potter brought to life, but I know that part of the happiness was sharing it with each other, and only each other.

I’m extra aware, lately, of how short the time grows in which Grace will always, without question, choose my company.  She wants to be with me all the time.  This past weekend, after a Friday sleepover she was tired and weepy on Saturday evening.    When Matt and I left she clung to me, crying, asking me not to go.  To assuage her, she asked me to list how many nights in a row I’ll be putting her to bed starting on Sunday night.  These moments can be intensely frustrating for me, but I try to remember that soon enough I will miss them.  I’ll be nostalgic for the time – now – when I am a balm for all of her troubles. For the time – now – when a kiss genuinely helps a bruised knee and an extra cuddle truly does chase away bad dreams.

Sunday morning Grace and I sat in her room and played with her American Girl dolls.  From across the room, she said, out of the blue, “Mummy?  Did you know that if you don’t use your imagination you lose it?”  I was startled and then agreed with her, thanking my own mother and instinct and whatever other influences have contributed to my distinctly under-programmed, free range parenting style.

Then we walked down to the stores a few blocks from us, doing errands, and she happily bounced down the street with her hand in mine.  I don’t know how much longer this will last, but I know it’s not that long.  In the afternoon, at the park, she kept calling my name, wanting to be sure I watched her do the monkey bars or launch herself into a full flip above the swings, holding the chains.  Sometimes it feels like Grace needs me witness something for it to be real.  She’s got a wicked, uncanny sense for when my attention wavers, too, and always, always calls me on it.  Often with tears.  This, too, can be daunting: I try to focus on her as much as I can, but sometimes I do falter.   Watching her react, I always feel a wash of emotion, guilt mixed with aggravation.

And then, just as quickly, the reminders come flooding in.  This will pass.  These days are numbered.  It won’t be long til she doesn’t want my attention at all, and I’ll want to go back and relive every single park afternoon when Grace’s voice, calling my name, echoed in the early spring air.

As I write this I hear two things in my head: Grace and Whit’s giggles, from next door, and these lines from Ben Folds:

Life flies by in seconds
You’re not a baby Gracie, you’re my friend
You’ll be a lady soon but until then….

One day you’re gonna want to go
I hope we taught you everything you need to know
Gracie girl

And there will always be a part of me
Nobody else is ever gonna see but you and me
My little girl
My Gracie girl

Seuss and Doty

Sometimes I can be dense.  Sometimes the universe needs to scream at me to get me to hear something.

I wrote a while ago about the Annie Dillard line that I believe says it all: What you see is what you get.

And I practice that, at least most of the time.  Last night, walking with Grace and Whit in the very-early-spring evening, Grace stopped short in front of a dense bush that was still mostly sticks and twigs, no leaves.  She looked, hushed, into it.  I stood next to her and followed her gaze.  She whispered, “Look!” and all three of us witnessed a flock of small, dun-colored sparrows deep inside the bush.  I have no idea how she noticed them, but I’m glad she did.

I guess I had flagged in my paying attention, though, because I was forcefully reminded of the need to do so this week.

This weekend I read Mark Doty’s beautiful short meditation on creativity, art, and life, Still Life With Oysters and Lemon.  The book itself is an exercise in looking closely, an exaltation of the wonders that can result.  It evinces, simply, “A faith that if we look and look we will be surprised and we will be rewarded.”

And then last night I read Whit the book that Grace took out of the library for him (one of her new and more endearing habits).  It is a Dr Seuss book that’s new to both of us, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut.  And Seuss’s voice joins with Doty’s, in a different kind of poetry, “If you keep your eyes open, oh the stuff you will learn!  The most wonderful stuff!  …you’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”

Okay, universe.  I’m paying attention.  Eyes wide open here.  What I see is what I get.