everyday life

Come Away to Sea

Grace was a colicky baby. I was a colicky new mother. Those first few weeks and months involved far more crying than they did sleep. First, I was lost in the 24 hour tilt-a-whirl cycle of newborn-ness where day and night blend into each other in an endless wash of tears, milk, and a general soggy grayness. As a routine slowly, awkward emerged from this murk I started trying to put Grace to bed around the same time every night. This was no small feat. And it was so scary to me that I remember feeling full-blown dread as night approached, feeling each afternoon as the sun went down as though my anxiety, which started in the pit of my stomach, would eat me alive.

I started playing a Martha Stewart lullabye CD at bedtime. I don’t remember where this came from, but I chose it basically at random and put it into the CD player in Grace’s room. The dulcet tones of “Baby Mine” and “Blackbird” accompanied those early evenings when I would rock her in the ivory rocker, nursing her to a calm but not asleep state. I was obsessed with her learning to put herself to sleep. I’d burp her, swaying with her over my shoulder in the darkened room, humming along to the familiar tunes that got even more well known because I was hearing them every single night. Then – oh, careful, oh careful – I would put her on her back in her crib, standing over her as though she was a grenade about to go off. Well, let’s face it, she sort of was. I’d gradually inch backwards out of the room, freezing in my tracks as though caught in a bad act when she turned to watch me. At the beginning of this enterprise my success rate was low but it climbed over time and she eventually became a great sleeper.

I remember so many nights my anxiousness to get on with my evening. Two feelings, truly, coursed through my veins in those evenings: I wanted to have some time by myself, and I wanted my baby to damn well do what I wanted her to do. I wanted her to just obey and go to sleep. I also wanted a couple of precious hours where I could be nobody’s mother. I hate now knowing that I had both of those feelings. Why was I rushing those minutes past? And why did I care so much about her doing what I wanted? I guess it’s normal that I wanted to get some rest – but, still. I wish I had not wished those evenings away. I wish, now, that I could have those baby-drenched evenings back. Every single one of them.

And that CD still sings her to sleep. To this day, she listens to it going to sleep. Her bedroom is next to mine, and every time she goes to the bathroom or anything in the night she turns it on again. In many ways this CD is the soundtrack of my life. I’ve had to replace it twice. I can sing every single song from that CD, though the ones that come to mind most viscerally are Come Away to Sea and Home. I imagine a day when I am walking down the street – or being wheeled – at 80 years old, and I hear an acoustic version of one of those songs. I will be, instantly and powerfully, back in a darkened nursery suffused with the powder smell of baby, a dark-haired infant scrunched up against my chest, rocking her back and forth.

When I think back to that 28 year old woman I feel flickers of empathy for her but mostly I feel frustrated at her, even angry. I wish I could shake her – myself! – by the shoulders and let her know that she would spend the rest of her life wishing she could reach back to live these minutes again. There’s things I’d like to tell her … but I can’t. Of course I could not know that then.  Isn’t this, in fact, the struggle of our lives?

Come Away to Sea (David Wilcox)

The wind is right for sailing
The tide is right to go
So come away to sea with me
There’s things that you should know

There’s things I’d like to tell you
That words can’t seem to say
Unless we’re on this simple craft
Sailing far away

Sail around this sound
Far away from shore
Come away to sea with me
Sail your heart once more

Join me in this simple craft
Welcome to my home
The things I’d like to say to you
Are better said alone

So let your heart sail with me
We’ll cast away from town
And we’ll sail away on music
Inside this simple sound

This simple craft I play upon
Is made from wooden parts
Its never sailed an ocean
But is sure can sail my heart

And if you feel the music
Then we’ve raised another sail
The ocean wraps this world around
The wind will never fail

Inspired by Jo’s Flashback Friday prompt at Mylestones. Thank you Jo!

Still Life: Whit

Images of Whit (this time in photographs, not words)


A handwritten valentine for his favorite girl classmate.


Look what the melting snow unearthed in the back yard!


Epic bedhead (this, by the way, was how he looked on Picture Day – A+ for motherhood that day).


A Lego robot he built himself.


Dinosaurs and superhero cape: just another afternoon in Whit’s room.


First day of school.


Okay, so not a still life, but my absolute favorite picture of my son EVER.


Because you need tools for meals (note also plate made by Grace, which says “Whit the monster”).


A “sunflower” that Whit made in school and presented, beaming and proud, to me. I cherish it.


His (and my) favorite pajamas.

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.

A glimpse of home

Inspired by Chatting at the Sky today, a glimpse of my home.  My desk, where I spend most of my time. Photographs of old friends and family.  A few quotations.  Printed lines of emails from my mother and father.  Art by Gracie.  Two prints whose messages speak to me.  And of course, my trusty laptop.  What does your home look like today?

A sibling weekend

Saturday morning. For some reason, despite 12 solid hours of sleep, these guys were wiped out. They eased into their day on the living room couch.

Finally they worked up enough energy to sit up. Whit watched Grace playing on her DSI. He was enraptured. She was sufficiently softened up by his avid worship that she even let him play a few games. Trust me, this is definitely not the norm. Methinks Whit is figuring out how to manipulate his sister just like he plays the rest of us. It’s only taken him this long with her because she’s just a little sharper than the rest of the family.

Later in the day, Grace and Whit were playing in her room and I did not know what they were doing. I heard Whit exclaim, “let’s do the shoulder opener, Grace!” and I had to see. I opened the door to see them in a partner yoga pose of surprising complexity. Scattered all over the floor was a deck of cards for kids with hand-drawn yoga poses on one side and an activity to save the earth on the other (Grace’s “big sister” gift on Whit’s birthday). I was blown away at how long they had been entertaining themselves doing this. Then Grace held up a card that showed one person in a handstand, leaning against the other person, standing in tadasana. “Let’s do this one, Whitty! You do the handstand,” she suggested, surprising me not at all with her selection of who would play which part in the pose. I decided this was a good point to stop and pointed out that hand stands were best attempted with parental supervision.

On Sunday morning, Grace and Whit accompanied me to church (after we took Matt to the airport). What’s more holy than taking pictures with my iPhone before the service starts? They colored and ate their booty (pirate for him, veggie for her) and then they actually sat and listened for a bit. Whit looked carefully through the hymnal and the book of common prayer and was disappointed by the lack of illustrations. They enthusiastically participated in the peace, shaking hands and repeating loudly, “Peace be with you!” to our neighbors. Later on as the rector said the prayers over the bread and the wine, Grace, who was reading the BCP with me, said “The Lord be with you,” in unison with the rest of the congregation. Whit said (not in a whisper), “No, Grace, peace be with you.” This child, hilarious as he is, is becoming a liability in my short-lived church career.

They both joined me for communion, and Grace for some reason reversed her firm stance on No (red) Wine to take a sip from the chalice. She spluttered dramatically as we walked back to our pew, eliciting several giggles from other people in the church.

Grace went to a birthday party in the afternoon and Whit curled up with Star Wars and I curled up with bills to pay and thank you notes to write. Relaxation and fun all around! The party Grace went to was hip-hop themed, so she came home with this hat and a bunch of new moves which she promptly taught Whit.

They even went to sleep in good moods with each other. This has to be a record, and just as I think “my baby slept through the night!” is just asking for five nights of screaming child, I am likely jinxing it now. But it was lovely.

Watching Grace and Whit in a patch of sunshine, behaving benevolently towards each other made me think about my decision to have a second child. It’s no secret that my introduction to motherhood was difficult. The honest truth is I felt no impulse whatsoever to have another baby. Zero. In fact, truthfully, I felt dread and fear. But I also knew, intensely, that I wanted Grace to have a sibling. I feel guilty about this memory, because I worry it might make Whit doubt how fervently he is loved. Despite all of my anxiety, from the moment he arrived he brought laughter and joy in his wake, and he gave me the blissful newborn experience I so desperately wanted to have. And I haven’t for a single moment, ever, wished he was not here. I really do believe that a sibling is a gift. I have one, my older-and-wiser younger sister, and I can’t imagine my life – or myself! – without her. Seeing Grace and Whit this weekend made me think of the interwoven lifetimes that lie ahead for each them, the particular terroir they are growing in, and the tremendously good friend I hope they will always be to each other.

And I tried to pause over the weekend, to watch them, thinking: we won’t come back here.