Bold Persephone

I've spent the last three days on this lovely lady:

Still trying to master skin-tones darker than "vaguely Mediterranean".  ::sigh::  Practice, practice, practice.

This piece is inspired by Russian Iconography (hence the goooooolllllld), a particularly lovely Instagram update by Black Girl in a Big Dress (the eponymous web series is one of my Very Favorite Things), and Halloween 2000 (I personally was a Maenad that year, but one of my friends dressed as Persephone, and wore a very similar flower crown).  (I should try to find photos from that year- I was appropriately scary with all my blood smears, and made a lot of drunken frat guys feel more than a little freaked out.)

I'm thinking I may actually go into that gold background with some ink and do some intricate patterning (perhaps pomegranates seeds?), but I wanted to get it preserved for posterity in all it's pristine-ness, before I screw it all up.

Plus, you know, the novelty of updating more than one time in a week...

But on to not-art-related things!  I bought myself a new suit the other week (since the old suit- purchased about 15 years ago- was cut for the old body, which TLG has rendered permanently curvier) and today I took it to a tailor like a real-live grownup!  Because, you see, when you have a shoulder(-and-bust)-girth like mine, you have to buy jackets that are way too large for any of the rest of you.  Which is why I've never been much of a blazer person in the past.  Sleeveless/stretchy fabric all the way, baby.  But anyway, the tailor poked and prodded and pinned and finally informed me that next time I should be shopping in the petite section for my tops, so that she wouldn't have to shorten the sleeves so much.  The more you know!

I'm pretty excited to see how it turns out; I expect to look far more professional than I did in the dressing room, where the sleeves were hitting my knuckles and I didn't appear to have much of a waist (but at least I could move my arms without splitting the seams!  Something I have literally done to jackets in the past!  So yes I am always extremely paranoid every time I try on a "fitted" jacket!)  I'll post photos so you can be excited, too.  You're welcome!

A Candle Held By Steady Hand Goes Dancing in the Dark

I've mentioned before that I've repressed much of 1994, the year my father was diagnosed with- and died from- cancer.  This is just my brain's way of doing its best to protect me from the horror of that time, which just goes to show that Jerk Brain is definitely not part of my Real Brain, which is obviously a much more thoughtful and considerate entity.  Because when you've mostly repressed something, you can't really spend time dwelling on it, and if you don't really spend time dwelling on it, you're far less likely to slit your own wrists in a moment of poor judgement.  Of course, the flip side to that is that I also don't, generally speaking, remember the good times from that year, either- and yes, there were some; moments here and there of brave candlelight in a long dark night of fear and sorrow.

Yesterday I found out that my Great Aunt (sister to my father's mother) died.  I was at work when I heard, and work isn't really the time or place for processing such things, so I shoved it down and went along with my day, until I could get home and write in my journal.  And as I wrote in my journal about how I felt, and the impact Cordelia Ann Richmond Dew had on my life, memories suddenly bubbled up from the repressed darkness.

Until that moment, I hadn't realized that I thought of the summer of 1994 as The Terrible Summer- I mean, I didn't really think of it at all, so how could I have a Title for it?- but apparently I do.  And one of the things that happened during The Terrible Summer was that my brother and I, eight and thirteen, went to live with Aunt Dee and Uncle Gene while my dad was poked and prodded, poisoned and sliced open, and all those other things they do to try and save you when you're very very sick.  In the haze of recently-recovered adolescent-memories it seems as though we stayed with them The Whole Summer, but I know it wasn't- surely it wasn't more than a month, maybe even only three weeks.  Regardless, three or four weeks is a very long time for a child (even a very clever child who has had to do a lot of growing up over the previous few months) to be sent to live with a great-aunt with whom she's never been around except in the company of the rest of her boisterous family.

I was not very gracious about it.  I don't mean that I was a brat, or rebellious, or anything like that- I was too much the Goody-Two-Shoes for any sort of negative acting out- but I was very, very self-centered and selfish, and spent a great deal of time alone.  My memories are of swimming in their pool, discovering MTV on the television in their office (I have very vivid memories of watching the video for Black Hole Sun over and over again), and reading Renegades of Pern in the room that had been designated as mine.  I remember finding Dee's copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way, and devouring it, and her providing me with reams of printer paper (remember when it was perforated?) to practice on, because she was an artist too and understood.  And I rememer her patiently showing me how to use the type writer so I could labor over my Very Epic SciFi Adventure Romance Story wherein a bunch of teenagers were abducted by aliens and dumped (naked, naturally) on an uncivilized planet to see if they'd survive (and breed, also naturally).  Definitely the main character was based on me (her name was Leia naturally) and the main love interest was 100% based on my three-years-older-than-me-crush.  And the other characters were also based on my best friends at the time and their crushes.  Just... thank goodness the Internet wasn't ubiquitous yet, that's all the commentary I have on that.

But back to the heart of the matter.

What I'm saying here with this long and rambling and typically self-centered bit of prose is that I spent a lot of time alone that month, doing and thinking about the things that suited me- and Dee gave me the space and support that I needed to do and think about those things.  She didn't hover, she wasn't trying to make me talk about shit I didn't want to talk about.  She was just... there for me.  And for my brother, who doesn't feature much in my self-absorbed memories of that time (beyond one moment of him dumping ketchup on his mashed potatoes, and her laughing).  And for my parents, who surely were having a much more hellish time than we were.  And for her sister, who was thereby freed to be with her son during said hellish time (something I now appreciate in a way that never would have occurred to me before I had my own son).  Dee was just... there, doing what needed to be done, and doing it without complaint while finding a way to smile and laugh and encourage you and give you what you actually needed rather than what society said you needed.  She was loving and accepting and smart and funny and loyal and wonderful, and I'm so grateful for what she did for me and for my family.  So grateful to have had her in my life at all.

I just hope she and her big sister picked a really excellent shade of crimson to slather the Hereafter with.

Evolution of Cool(/Warm)

There were many wonderful things about living a large chunk of my childhood in Alaska-

Having to wear long underwear was not among them.

Such was my disdain for the trials of beige, waffle-weave "long-johns" that I found Ellen Tebbits to be even more relate-able than Ramona.  (Although at least my set wasn't woolen- the horrors!)  I didn't miss them at all when we moved to Alabama.  Of course, that was right about the time people started wearing them under t-shirts, meant to be flaunted rather than hidden in shame (hello Grunge). Interestingly enough, no one really seemed to wear the pants half of the set. As for myself, I kept my trendiness restricted to flannel; I'd worn long underwear because I'd had to, and not even the gods of fashion were going to drag me back in to them.

As an adult who now lives in a temperate climate, where truly cold days are restricted to maybe a month's worth per year, I no longer have to wear long underwear.  And I don't.

I wear a Base Layer, you guys.  Which, it occurred to me today, is just long underwear re-branded for cool outdoorsy kids.  To make matters worse, my base layer is made of- you guessed it- wool.  Merino wool.  The hands-down best material from which to make base layers- and priced accordingly.  Like, to the point where I was genuinely super stoked to receive a set as a Christmas gift, because no way was I going to justify spending that on myself.

(Seriously, ten-year-old me is puking right now.)

The Beekeeper's Apprentice

This series first caught my eye more than a decade ago, while I was living in Birmingham.  I remember it quite clearly- attracted by the pipe-smoking woman on the cover, I picked a mass market edition up in the library, read the back and thought to myself, "Oh what an intriguing concept!"  But the book I held in my hand was not the first in the series, and so I put it back.  But I took note of what was the first book in the series: The Beekeeper's Apprentice.  I'm not sure why I didn't hunt it down then and there.  Perhaps I was getting an audio-book that day (back when I had a non-bike commute), or perhaps it was because, at that point in my life, I had not yet read any Sherlock Holmes*, and therefore didn't realize how much I craved exactly what it was offering.  Whatever the reason, I did not search the first book out that day, although it stayed firmly implanted in my brain, to the point where I have thought back to it time and time again over the past ten-plus years.

Well, I finally got around to ordering it from my library.

And I devoured it.

And I've put the next two on hold.  (That's the nice thing about waiting so long to actually get into a series- you get a lot more to read all at once.)

All in all, well worth the wait.





*It was actually a short story by Gaiman ("A Study in Emerald", found in Fragile Things) that finally prompted me to actually pick up a battered old collection of Sherlock Holmes while Nathan and I were traveling in the Southwest.  I tore through it and was promptly aghast that it had taken me so many years to discover the glory.  That Christmas, Nathan gifted me with a leather-bound copy of the complete collection.  Best husbeast ever.

Waiting on the Gates

(I actually drafted this about two weeks ago, thumbing it out on my phone whilst pinned down by a sleeping baby.  I came across it this afternoon and remembered that I'd never gotten around to posting it.)

More than fifteen years ago, my mother put a book in my hands, and told me to read it. That book was Gates of Fire. "It's very good," she said. "About the Battle of Thermopylae."

Now, my mother is a voracious reader- perhaps even more than I am- and she often recommends books to me. She is not often wrong. And when she actually gives me the book and commands me to read it, she is never wrong.

And yet I did not read the book.

I put it on my shelf, to wait for the Right Time. I packed it into a box, moved it to my latest New Home, and replaced it on the shelf at least eight times. I never felt quite like I was in the mood to read it, although I did keep it through last year's great, "I'm gutting these large stacks of 'to be read' books because it's time to accept that I'm not ever going to read them" purge.  Perhaps that was because my husband (acquired after the book) also informed me, "Oh you'll love it," which only doubled-down on the guilt. 

I think the main problem I had getting into the right "mood" to read it was that I already knew the story of Thermopylae, which meant I knew the book wasn't going to have a happy ending. And me? I like happy endings. Almost exclusively. Some people, thinking themselves Quite Worldly, scoff at happy endings as Unrealistic. 

Well no shit.  I am intimately acquainted with real life's capacity for Unhappiness. So why the hell would I want more of it from my fiction?

But that's just me. 

Anyway, after my recent spate of uplifting Georgette Heyer and rediscovered children's classics, I went to my now-only-one and only-thigh-high stack of "To-Be-Read" books looking for something new. There, about 1/3 of the way down, was the bright red spine of Gates of Fire. 

I paused, carefully examining my Mood. Was I ready, at long last, to read this book?

Yes, yes I was. 

 

 

 

 

(They were both right, by the way.)

The Doll in the Garden of My Mind

It is fascinating to me, how hard a brain will work to protect a heart.

Two of the books I uncovered at my mom's house were The Doll in the Garden: A Ghost Story, by Mary Downing Hahn, and When the Dolls Woke, by Marjorie Filley Stover.  I remembered the story lines of both of them perfectly clearly.  I also distinctly remember preferring Woke.  In fact, I was a little puzzled that I'd kept Garden, but I decided to go ahead and reread it, and in fact to reread it before Woke, so as to save the best for last.

And so I started reading.

(Twenty-seven-year-old spoilers to follow)

I soon discovered that, for all I could tell you every little plot twist that happened in the book, I had completely forgotten every tiny detail relating to the fact that the main character's father had recently died of cancer.  It was just sort of... removed from my memory, whole-cloth, like you might cut out a star from a piece of construction paper.  Even as I read that he'd died of cancer, I still didn't remember the revelations that would come later in the story- namely that the girl had overwhelming feelings of guilt over being too afraid to kiss her father right before he died, because of all the tubes and machines.

I may have started bawling in the break room.

And I realized... this book probably had a massive impact on how I handled my dad's illness.

Looking back at that time, I'm always sort of vaguely baffled by some of the surprisingly mature and self-aware decisions I made.  For example, when I achieved menarche while visiting him in the hospital in Mississippi, I realized we didn't have time for me to play the stereotypical embarrassed preteen.  I knew in my gut that it would make him happy to know that his daughter was becoming a woman, and so I told him- and every other adult in the room.  And there were a lot of them.  And I think my subsequent, "Feels like I'm wearing a diaper," grumbling brought everyone a certain welcomed levity in the midst of a very dark time.

It was a strangely cold and logical decision for a not-quite-thirteen-year-old to make, and I've wondered, in the intervening years, where I got the awareness to make it.

Now I think perhaps that reading Garden when I was younger showed me how terrible regret could be, especially when it came to the death of a parent.  And so I took that lesson and tried very hard to make sure that I wouldn't have any.

And then my brain just went and sterilized my memory.

If I'm being honest, I don't really remember much around the time that my dad got sick and died.  It wasn't that long a span- he was diagnosed in February and died in November.  Nine months.

(The irony.)

Anyway, my point is that there's more or less a whole year of my life that is mostly missing- I have the occasional highlight, like the menstruation story, or watching MTV for the first time at my great-aunt's house, or standing outside the funeral home with my two best friends- but for the most part... it's been clipped away, just like the dad in Garden.

And yet I kept the book, perhaps because somewhere deep in my psyche I knew it was valuable, knew it was worth saving.  It makes me wonder if, someday, I'll get the missing pieces of 1994 back, too.

It makes me wonder if I want to.

Reverse Course

Think of one dramatic event from your life and write the event backwards.

I sleep.  He tucks me into bed, saying he'll join me soon.  She leaves, promising to be back if we need anything.  They take me home.  I'm glad he wasn't alone.  My husband is there, and my best friend.  I do wake up.  The lights are very bright in the OR, but I don't notice them for long before the darkness returns.  He kisses me.  She brings him to me.  Someone tries to tell me I can't- the other nurse, tone brooking no argument, says she'll find him herself.  I want to see my husband, I plead.  I might not wake up.  I have to sign forms saying I understand I might not wake up. Someone draws him away, to wait for me in the recovery room.  The kind EMT wheels me down corridor after corridor, my husband walking beside me.  They have to take me in for surgery.  We've just pumped a lot of very cold fluid into you.  You will be, he says.  The EMT asks if I'm cold, but I'm not.  I know she will come, so he doesn't have to be alone.  I tell him to update to my boss, and tell my best friend.  I'm okay.  It's okay, I say, voice thready.  I smile.  I open my eyes, and it's my husband.  I can feel the love radiating from the hand, and I think, what a compassionate nurse.  I turn my face to the touch, nuzzling into it.  Things start to come back, but I am so lonely- and then a warm hand touches my bare shoulder, just where it meets the neck.  I am at peace.  Everything is fading, and I think, at least they know I love them.  Textures of rough cloth and smooth cold metal against my naked skin, the slither of tubing, the pierce of many needles.  It's dark- but there is movement in the darkness.  Maybe not entirely lost, tho'- I think I hear my husband screaming at them to do something.  I slump over, consciousness fleeing.  She passes me paperwork to fill out.  I tell the disinterested nurse that I am hemorrhaging.  We make it to the head of the line.  I am feeling weaker.  It seems so unfair to me, to have to wait in line at an emergency room, but I don't want to make trouble.  We have to wait in line.  He wheels me in while my husband parks the car.  We pull up to patient-unloading, and an orderly asks me if I want a wheelchair: I do.  We go, and I text my boss to tell him I may or may not be in tomorrow.  My husband returns home, and I tell him we need to go to the hospital.  I call the nurse-line: they tell me to get to the emergency room.  I'm regretting sending him to the store.  I'm bleeding more- and maybe it's not nothing.  I tell him to go ahead and go to the store.  My husband is worried, but I tell him it's probably nothing; it's not at all uncommon to have bleeding after a miscarriage.  I am bleeding.

Thanks (Again)

I am a person who enjoys writing thank-you notes- specifically hand-written thank-you notes.

I didn't used to; when I was a child I resented the hell out of my mother making my brother and I write them.  None of the other kids had to write them.  But then I became an adult, and the habit was set, and I found that I was no longer doing it out of obligation; I was doing it because it made me feel good to do it.

Therefore it should come as no surprise to you, Gentle Readers, that after my baby shower I very promptly sent out appropriate little thank-you cards to each giver (even tho' strictly speaking, etiquette dictates you need only send them to the people you weren't able to thank in person).  What I'm realizing, now that I'm almost nine months into this whole raising-a-human thing, is that some of those gifts deserve a second round of thank-you notes.

Not, "Oh you were so thoughtful and generous," oh no.  More like, "Holy shit you knew exactly what I would be needing, even if I didn't!"

Hooded towels made from adult towels, so they actually fit past the newborn stage.  Tiny little rubber duckies that perfectly fit a baby's hand and can be used to distract/bribe during changing sessions.  Board books that are well-written enough not to make me want to kill myself, but also short enough to get through at bedtime before infant-meltdown.

You know, the little things.

Slytherclaw

It's been a day fraught with emotional upset, but none so great as what happened to me this afternoon.

Once upon a time, when I worked at Borders, Harry Potter books were still being released.  I worked several of the midnight release parties (always super fun!) and during the first one I was the Cafe Manager, and thus dressed up as "Sortia O'Simmer, Syltherin Potions Mistress".  That was my first inkling of my future greatness.

A few years later, Pottermore was released to potential beta users.  I was super lucky, and managed to get in- and was promptly sorted into Slytherin.  I wasn't surprised, exactly- I knew I'd come out either Ravenclaw or Slytherin- but I was a little saddened by the lack of Positive Slytherin Representation in the world.  I vowed to show the world that Slytherins were basically the best of Ravenclaw and Griffindor- we're incredibly clever (some might say "sly") when it comes to getting our way, but we also have deep, powerful bonds loyalty (to those who deserve it).

I've been bleeding green and silver ever since (we even did Neeps's birth announcements with me in Slytherin robes and Nathan in Ravenclaw robes), although I've never been super active on Pottermore.  I'll pop over every once in a while, when JK Rowling updates with something cool.

As she did today.

So of course I wanted to know which of the American houses I'd be sorted in to!  But... I couldn't remember my password.  And they couldn't email it to me, apparently, because I'd originally signed up under the old Pottermore: I'd have to sign up again.

So I did.

And lo!  They told me that if I entered my old username, I could recover all my old stuff- house, wand, etc etc.  Well that was cool- except I couldn't remember my randomly generated username.  I knew I could dig it up if I looked hard enough, but I figured what the heck- I'd just re-sort myself into Slytherin and would be fiiiiiiine.

Except that's not what happened.

The test- a test which was noticeably different from the one I took seven years ago- sorted me into freaking Ravenclaw.  I was aghast.  I may have literally howled, "Nooooo!"

Almost immediately thereafter, I found my old username.  "Okay," I told myself, trying to calm my breathing.  "We can fix this.  I'll just... delete this new account, sign up for a new new one, and use my recently recovered username to grab my old info!"

Except that's not what happened.

I went to go delete my account- and was informed that if I did so, I 'd lose access to all the Harry Potter books I'd purchased several years back.

There was definitely some very vulgar swearing at this point.

And so I've sent Pottermore a letter, laying out my situation and begging for mercy.  We'll see what they say.  I'm sure they can help me out, with the power of friendship and magic...

(But don't think the Slytherin in me isn't shrieking, "I will burn shit to the ground!")

EDITED TO ADD:

After a second, pleading-intensified missive, they finally took pity on me!  I'm back in the snake's den where I belong.  Thanks, Pottermore!

Spiraling On

Describe your first kiss. Describe your most recent kiss. Describe your next kiss.

Once upon a time, if you had asked my to tell you about my first kiss, I'd have described to you a rather under-whelming (but retrospectively humorous!) encounter with an older boy (by a whole year!) on our gifted program retreat to Dauphin Island.

But today, as I sit here writing after putting my son to bed, today when I think of "my first kiss", I realize that moment of mutually-awkward-fumbling was not the one that matters.

No, my first kiss was pressed to my brow just moments after my birth, when my head was tiny and fragile and covered in skin softer than the air newly surrounding it.  I had just become my own separate person, and it was then I received a kiss of love so true I will never have to fear falling into an enchanted slumber.

My most recent kiss was with my husband: the sort of in-passing kiss that becomes so common among people who have been partnered for any significant amount of time.  A brief pressing-of-lips to reaffirm that yes, we are still mates, we still have the right to this small intimacy.  We are tired these days, worn out from discovering our roles as parents in addition to spouses, but we will never not make time for kisses, for touching, for love.

My next kiss will surely be on my son's sleeping head, because now I've sat here contemplating the full range of kisses, the full range of love, and it is the only answer my poetic soul will accepts: a return to the beginning, to keep the spiral slowly spinning onward, forever and ever.

The Happiest Father's Day In a Long Time

It has been over twenty years since Father's Day wasn't (at best) an annoying contrivance, or (at worst) a fucking painful shit-storm.  Obviously having your father die young makes the holiday pretty terrible.  Miscarrying (for the second time) just days before makes it even worse.  (Especially when some dumb-ass-bitch sees you and your mourning husband and best friend at a restaurant and chirps, "Or are we celebrating father's day?")(No we are trying to get food that we don't have to make or clean up because it's too much effort to live right now, but thanks for your contribution.)  Last year held a bit more hope, but let's face it- I spent my entire pregnancy metaphorically holding my breath, just in case I somehow jinxed things.

But today.

Today was the fucking greatest.

Today I got to hang out with the father of my son, who is everything I could have hoped for in a human-raising-partner, and also with our son, who is the latest manifestation of my own father's genetic legacy.

So yeah.  Today was awesome.

Fair Witness

One of my all-time favorite books is Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein.  In this book there is the concept of a professional "Fair Witness", a person who is trained to observe events and report exactly- and only- what they actually witness.  For example, at one point in the book a Fair Witness is asked what color a house is, and she replies "It's white on this side." (emphasis mine) It is then explained that she does not make the assumption that the rest of the house is white.  She does not give extrapolation or opinion- only observed fact.

I absolutely fell in love with this concept as a younger person, because it made so much sense to me.  It resonated with me, and with the way my brain works.  I know that I annoy the hell out of most people with my oft-repeated motto, "Precision of language is important!" but it is.  Precision matters.

But most people do not want precision.  They want broad, easy strokes.  And this can make life very awkward for me, indeed.  At times during my childhood it made it downright miserable- other children can be cruel to peers who are different, and using polysyllabic words at a young age certainly marked me as different.  But even more than that, certain adults don't know how to deal with children who are as smart- or smarter- than they are, and some of those adults react by attempting to put said children "in their place".  The world can be terribly lonely when you are surrounded by peers and "superiors" who are all telling you that the way you're acting- the way you are- is showing off and mean and wrong.

But that's another blog entry entirely.

The point is, I have a history of saying things that alienate people, all because I tend to forget that the average person doesn't care about precision in their day-to-day interactions.  They only care that you hit the proper steps of social ritual.  And although I've gotten better about it, I still occasionally fail to switch out of logical-Vulcan mode.

I failed today.

A friend of mine asked me,

"Am I a good person?"

And instead of responding like a normal person would, by saying, "Of course you're a good person!" and thereby giving them the reassurance they were searching for, I said, thoughtfully,

"Well, I  don't know."  I went on to explain that I wasn't sure anyone could ever know whether or not another person was good, that the most I could do was comment on the behaviors I'd observed, and that they seemed like the person in question was probably a good person.  But I couldn't know.  And while I'm saying these things, my mind is whirling with thoughts like, "What is good?  I don't even know that I'm a good person- I'm more likely a neutral person who occasionally does good things," (any time I take those, "What's your Alignment?" quizzes I get "true neutral", if that tells you anything).

And then, suddenly, I realize that my friend is looking at me.  Looking at me in that, "You just failed a test of basic social niceties" way.  And then they sort of try to brush the whole thing off, but can tell that actually I've really hurt their feelings.  And I feel awful, because I absolutely didn't mean to hurt their feelings, and if they had phrased the question just slightly differently, ("Do you think I'm a good person?" or "Am I a bad person?") I could have answered appropriately, but oh no- whatever part of my psyche that cannot let go of literal-ism is flailing around screaming that if I don't know what the definition of something is, I cannot categorize things using said "something".

But then?  Then I start to feel angry.  Because why the hell do people have to take things personally when they aren't personal?  Why do people have to be so sloppy with language?  And why can't people just ask for what they actually want, rather than making me have to guess at their stupid normal emotions and react "appropriately"?

But then I realize that I'm just going into defensive mode, myself, getting angry to mask the discomfort of having unintentionally hurt my friend.  So I shake it off, apologize, and try to explain myself- but the brusque way they're speaking indicates that they don't really get it.  In fact I'm pretty sure they're still thinking that I think they're a jerk.

::sigh::

Oh well.  Tomorrow is another day.






(In all fairness, sometimes I'm just plain self-centered/oblivious.  It's a pretty major personal failing, and I'm working on it.  I've been working on it for over a decade.  Theoretically someday I'll get better about it.  Hopefully.)

Losers, Weepers

Lincoln City has this lovely little tradition called Finders Keepers, where they scatter beautiful, blown glass floats along their beaches for people to find.  It's one of the most brilliant tourist-lures I've ever come across, and it's been going on for about fifteen years.  I first heard about it perhaps a decade ago, and while I've always wanted to participate, I never actually have.

Until today.

It being my birthday weekend, and the ocean being My Happy Place, I decided that what I really wanted was for today to be the day that Neeps got to see the Pacific Ocean for the first time.  In a happy coincidence, today also kicked off a week's worth of "special glass art drop", so I decided that the the time had finally come for me to go beach combing.

If you saw the title of this post, I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that, in spite of spending a couple of hours doggedly trudging up and down the beach, we did not find a single float.  I did, however, anoint my son with ocean water, and we saw a whole lotta' seals, so it wasn't a total bust.  I briefly considered buying myself a float from one of the various hot shops out there, but I decided it simply wouldn't have the same satisfaction- and this way perhaps we can make it a family tradition to go out seeking for birthdays (since all three of us fall withing Finders Keepers season).  And/or I'll fork over the money for the super-awesome experience of blowing my own, something I've wanted to do since I worked at the Museum of Glass after college.

(No for real- who wants to get me an awesome birthday present?)

What we did find (after a retrospectively-comical series of mishaps that had me growling, "Lincoln City is great- unless you actually want to eat food.") was a wonderful little restaurant called Tiki's at 51st.  They were 1) open, 2) accepted credit cards, 3) minor-friendly, 4) dog-friendly, and 5) had gluten-free options.  (By the time we went there we'd been trying to find a place for close to an hour, and I definitely called them to check on all of those things, because I had learned that apparently double-checking is required in Lincoln City, never mind what the damn website says).

But yes.  Tiki's.  Good food, good people.  I even got a gluten-free cinnamon roll to go, to eat for my Birthday Breakfast tomorrow.

A Mother to Emulate

I'm not totally sure how old I was when I first met my friend Lisa.  I want to say 23 or 24, and I'm leaning towards 24.  Either way, it's been at least a decade since we first became friends while working at Borders.  She'd been with the company longer- had come over from another store, actually, and was a handful of years older than me.  Old enough that I classified her as "adult", but certainly younger than I am now (ironic, that, as I've only just recently started to feel like I might actually be an adult, myself).  She was upbeat and fun and pretty- and she was happily married, with two little kids.

But here's the thing- she also did other stuff.  Yes, she was a wife, and yes, she was a mother, and yes, she had a part-time job at a bookstore.  But!  She also had interests, and she pursued those interests, and quite frankly it was sort of this radical thing for me to be witnessing, because at that point in my life the only females in my peer(-or-near-peer)-group that I'd seen married and with kids were... married with kids.  That's what they did: that was the whole of their focus in life, and the full extent of their identity.

And that terrified me.

So to meet Lisa, for whom I coined the mental category "Cool Mom", was eye-opening, and gave me hope for the future.  She was a good mother and her own, interesting person, and I filed her under "Mothers to Emulate"*.

We stayed in touch through our respective relocations over the years (in fact Nathan and I stopped in to see her on our road-trip back to the PNW, and she fed us breakfast!), and over that time I've had the pleasure of watching (from an admitted remove) the progression of her children into young adults who look like they're set to match or exceed their mother in awesomeness.  Which is pretty much the definition of Doing Parenting Right.

Lisa happened to be in town today, and made it a point to come by and meet Neeps (and also Isis).  We sat and chatted for over two hours, about our kids and their development, yes, but also about our other interests and pursuits.  It was wonderful, and I couldn't help but feel a warm glow of gratitude towards the woman who helped show me that motherhood could be just one more awesome thing about my awesome self.








*(my own mother is, of course, at the top of this list- but I also know I bring a certain bias to my feelings towards her near-perfection.  And on a more serious note, I didn't really become cognizant of her parenting "style" per se, until I was nearly an adult, myself- so I don't have accurate data regarding how she dealt with little-littles when she was in her twenties and thirties.)

The Wise Fox

I was going back through some of my unpublished drafts, and came across one that I started almost exactly a year ago, on 02/16/15.  I thought I would go ahead and share it today, along with some commentary.

***

Sometimes I wonder if my lessening desire for a child is just the natural reaction of having been denied one for so long- coming up on five fruitless years now.  Or rather, five years with nothing but fruit-fallen-too-early-from-the-vine.  But then I think back to how long I wanted Nathan- and that desire never diminished, never- not even when I knew I couldn't have him.

And it comforts me, because I realize that I can trust this lessening desire.  I am not a fox walking away from a cluster of grapes.  I'm just a woman who has changed with time, as we all do.

Nathan and I had a really good talk yesterday, about that change.

***

The conversation that we had (one year ago today) as we drove out to the coast for a day of spontaneous freedom, was about how long he needed me to feel like I no longer wanted children, before we took permanent steps of prevention.  At the time I'd been feeling that way for about two months, and he wanted me to feel it consistently for a year.  I though that was a reasonable request, since I had definitely, in the past, gone through cycles of wanting kids less, and of wanting them more.  We came to that agreement, and I felt an incredible lightness, a sort of freeing, as I said, "Okay, so by our birthdays next year." We spent the rest of the day driving and playing and splashing and photographing and running around with Isis, and generally enjoying our life together without a child.

Of course, as we now realize, Neeps had managed to squeeze in just before the wire.  I technically shouldn't even have been able to conceive when I did- but obviously the Universe knew what was up, and rearranged my internal rhythms accordingly.  The irony was not lost on us, three weeks later, when I found myself staring at a little plus sign that was absolutely unexpected.

But not, in the end, unwelcome.

Potential First Phrases

Family legend has it that I didn't have a first word- I had a first phrase.  As such, I've been wondering what Neeps's first phrase might someday be.  Given that children tend to repeat what they hear the most, I've compiled some contenders from my own repertoire:

General Phrases:

-I love you!
-My BAY-bee!
-You're so cute!
-Nom nom nom!
-Soakin' wet! 

Around the House:

-Mommy will be right with you.
-Let's go see daddy!
-Do you want your pacifighter?
-No, bad kitty!
-Damn it, dog!

In the Car:

-Almost there!
-Watch it, asshole!
-Fucking commit!

 ...maybe I should get him some earplugs for the car...

Remember the Ghosts

My mother, as I have mentioned, sends lovely care packages, especially around the holidays.  She always includes things that may be opened immediately, and things that are not to be opened until Christmas Day.  Being adults (and perhaps somewhat dull) we did not actually open the "immediate" things until this evening, when we had a nice quiet moment to indulge.  Of especial interest were several flat, rectangular objects which whispered "book" to fingertips once deft at discerning contents based on shape and feel alone...

classic

My heart squeezed when I unwrapped this particular gift, because one of my clearest memories of my father is of him reading aloud to me the words of this story when I was no more than six or seven.  It was Christmas Eve, and we were curled up on the couch in his parents' living room, surrounded by a quiet darkness made gentle by the rainbow shimmer of Christmas lights.  His voice painted pictures in that darkness, bringing to life the humor, the horror, and the hope of the tale.

I held this tiny volume in my hands tonight, remembering, and had the overwhelming urge to read it aloud to someone else, to pass along the magic of a quiet voice in the darkness.  But there is no small form to share with me this Christmas Present, and it seems less and less likely that there will ever be one to share it with me in Christmas Future.  And I realized as I sat there, staring at the red and gold cover, heart aching with those twin emotions of joy and sorrow, that what I really want is for someone to read it aloud to me, curled up tight in the light of Christmas Past.

On Memory's Wings

Once upon a time, my family lived in Spain.

(and by once upon a time, I mean within my lifetime)

 My mother bought jewelry during our time there, and eventually passed some of it down to me.

(Someday I'll go back, and buy some damascened pieces to pass on to loved ones of my own)

Keep It Together

I was no older than eleven the first time I got CPR/Basic First Aid training.  It was part of a baby-sitting-certification class I'd been eagerly anticipating.  It was the first step in a lifetime of keeping-myself-prepared for emergencies.

...that's not creepy at all...

I went on to be a lifeguard in high school, which obviously required even more training, and the "re-upping" of my various certifications every two years (or even more frequently, if you were me and paranoid about keeping your skills sharp) (I took my job very seriously).

The truth is I'm still fascinated by emergency medicine.  I love reading about the technological advances (you want scifi?  Read up on battlefield medicine, my friend.) Part of me would dearly love to become an EMT, or even a paramedic, but then I have a long, hard conversation with myself about the realities of those jobs, and I have to confess that I'm happy with the low-stress, relatively-well-paying job I have.  Although I suppose that wouldn't keep me from just getting my EMT certification, if I'm serious about it.  Because the truth is, I like being the calm, level-headed one in a crisis, who keeps her shit together and gets other people through it.  I think it's a gift that is due partially to my own nature, but more to my mother's nurturing (she trained to be a nurse, and it definitely comes through in her parenting).  It's something not everybody can do, and in a way I feel like I have a duty to be as prepared as possible.

Which is why I was at the Source this morning, getting my refresher on (man, that muscle-memory just kicks right in, even a decade later) and while I'll be at the next wilderness first aid class when it's offered.  And hell... maybe I'll even enroll at Clark College and put my money where my mouth is re: the whole EMT thing.  After all, what good is a relatively-well-paying job if I don't do something good with the proceeds?

White on White

I used to bake a fair amount, back before I had to go gluten free and it became too complex a process to be relaxing.  I loved the tactile aspects of it, having my hands covered in flour or sugar...

These Days I settle for chalk