Thursday, January 31, 2013

nap...


 




This smallest babe of mine will only be two for a little while longer. Less than a week, really. And that is causing all sorts of mixed emotions and bittersweet feelings in her mama's heart.

Today I watched her nap, trying to memorize every detail of her... just as she is, right now. Trying to just be in the moment with her. But even so, I still saw glimpses of her newborn face... bringing memories of her birth rushing back to my mind in the most powerful way. And I also saw the shadow of a bigger girl... just below the surface, just out of reach. The face she'll wear after a few more birthdays.

And then I looked at her... curled up with the blanket I made before she was even born. Before I ever knew she would be born and, somehow, that tied all the days together. Somehow, my hands making that blanket, years ago, for a baby I only wished for, made everything seem so connected that I couldn't feel the angst I had been feeling. I just felt like everything was as it should be.

Of course it is......just look at that face.




Saturday, January 26, 2013

still...

I'm still here.

But finding my voice is a bit harder than I imagined and I'm not sure why.

Last night, my oldest daughter (all of ten years old) told me, in the most dramatic and desperate voice she could, that when she stares at a page, about to write, her mind just goes blank and "I can't, mama, I just CAN'T".

Oh, little girl, I get it. I really do.

But we have so much to say, she and I. And it looks like the soul searching continues in this house of ours. This very same girl is so much like me that I'm thrilled and proud and terrified all at the same time. I want very much to make it easier for her. To tell her to be brave, to trust herself, to love the gift of her amazing, complex, artistic and confusing mind (I want to tell myself that, too). But she'll have none of that. She has to figure it out as she goes along and, in the end, I know she'll be ok. But, oh my goodness, how I want to make it easier for her.

So, maybe we'll be quiet as we find our voices, or maybe we'll howl at the moon, or at each other. But watch out....when the soul searching teaches us what it will- when we, indeed, find our voices- what stories we'll tell, what poems we'll write and what worlds we'll change.

In the meantime, I'm still here.




Thursday, January 3, 2013

winter...

It's cold outside. It's been cold all week...with dark skies and a drizzling rain. I couldn't be more excited about it. Granted, forty three degrees is hardly a deep freeze but it is as close to winter as I've had in a long while and I'm relishing every moment. Apparently, this soul of mine *needs* seasons and this brief cold snap is like a reset button. It's so familiar...to be curled up inside with socks and long sleeves. Too wet out there to even want to go out is so validating to the part of me that misses being snowed in...snowed in with a good old movie, lots of books, hot tea and homemade soup. This brief respite from the normal balmy (or sweltering) weather makes me feel....like me. Not a visitor, not a foreigner but me.

Most of the time this house of ours feels like a lab partner I've been paired with...one I barely know, one I'm not sure I'll like once we know each other better. That awkward relationship of a shared task with a stranger in a class you don't even like. Inevitably, one of you breaks the ice with a joke, though. Or you both realize you have some other shared knowledge or acquaintance and then an ease settles in. Maybe even a friendship takes hold. This weather goes a long way to push me and this house together. A room is never so warm or inviting as when it whispers to you to come away from a cold window.

Only three days into this new year and I've already said "thank you" more times than I can count. For the familiar season I've missed. For a chance to just be me and not be constantly striving to adapt. For desperately needed rain. For the chance to watch my children "ice skate" across the floor in socks they actually need to keep their little toes warm. For a chance to pull out a favorite scarf for an outing tonight with new friends.

So far, it's been a very good...and "homey" new year.




Wednesday, January 2, 2013

new year...

Today I walk quietly back to this space and try to pretend I never left. Truth be told, I never really did leave but I certainly did avoid it, didn't I? It appears that I haven't sat here staring at this crisp white screen in all of five months now. But with a new year it seems fitting to come back and say "something".

In all honesty, I have avoided this poor, neglected skeleton of a blog because I felt... fake... and disingenuous. It is supposed to be a place about "home" and every time I sat here, trying to write, all I really wanted to do was throw the biggest two-year-old temper tantrum and scream "BUT IT'S NOT HOME!" It's not home and even in my best Anne-of-Green-Gables-imagination I couldn't see a day that it would be. 

That realization was... heavy. I felt like I had been stripped of my one and only super power. I have always been able to find "home". No matter where I have moved or traveled I have always been able to at least imagine it as my home. I once spent a night in Paris on a layover. I fell so deeply in love with the tiny, converted convent hotel I stayed in that it springs into my mind faster than other places I lived for years, when I scroll back through my past homes. The walls had to be two feet thick and the window in my room opened onto a little alley that had a lone bicycle leaning against the wall. I couldn't dream that scene more perfectly. It rained so hard that, instead of racing around the city and trying to squeeze a year of sight-seeing into one morning, I sat in the lobby and read a book until I had to make my way to the airport. I listened to the sounds and watched the faces and just let myself be there. 

But try as I might, I couldn't let myself "be" here. And to come back to this space and try to write about that was too daunting and...somehow humiliating....and I just stayed away. Hoping all the time that the next day would bring that familiar feeling that has been so very elusive since we arrived here. 

There has been much soul searching, much angst and more than a bit of whining. I still don't know if it's home to me yet and I'm willing to just accept that for a now and try to find a way to feel grounded anyway. Maybe I'll write about the last year, maybe I won't. Right now I'm more interested in "right now". 

And right now it feels very good to be back in this little blog. I never really knew what it was going to be but I did know, when we were packing our apartment in the city, the thought of having this space to go and talk and write made me feel less lonely. Am I too old for imaginary friends? I don't care. 

So, Happy New Year. I hope we can talk again soon.