You make bathtime so much fun!

Started my "Create Big Paintings" class last Friday. Learned enough to paint this bathtub last night! What fun!

Strawberry Picking and Chamomile Harvest

Yup. We live in Portland. Yup. We pick strawberries!

Off to the jiffy john!

Eating strawberries makes a little girl tired!

And we spent the evening plucking chamomile blossoms off of flowers we found in the alley behind our house...Tea for winter!

When you fall...

If I’d been any closer, I might’ve heard the sound of your body tumbling, tumbling, ass over teakettle, softness striking cold cement. But instead I was running, running, the six endless feet to catch you when you hit the bottom. The accidents always happen when everything is so good. And things had been so good, you were saying goodbye to your Gretchen, calling out “I love you and I want to take care of you.”

Your head hit the concrete with a muffled thud, not a whack, and I was grateful. Grateful for gravity’s mercy on this one, grateful for each cement step that broke your long fall. You didn’t fall down the steps so much as fall down a step, and then another one, and another one, minutes after your Dad warned you “If you keep doing that, you’re going to fall.” To which you answered, in all of your three year old chutzpah and oblivion, “I want to fall Daddy”.

Right now, as I write this, I’m reminded of another fall down the stairs, a different type of day. Not sunshiney fresh Portland evening but the claustrophobic feeling of the Maryland house at night, the avocado walls, the avocado carpet, the lonesome flicker of the TV. My mom very sick, losing her grasp on the railing, coming barreling down the stairs in a blur of heft and confusion. I was lying on the couch (In fact, I’d had the feeling-known, really-that I should help her up the stairs but I was angry at her, angry at her for having a couple of drinks, most likely angry at her for being in the act of dying, right in front of me, every day.)

But you, fresh you, I could scoop you up, hold your whole body against mine. Smell your sweat and skin as you criedhard, but not worrisome hard, into my shoulder. I’m grateful, right now, that I had the chance to comfort and cuddle, the chance to make this fall right.

Hold that thought

What I want to write about is the luxury I have, on the weekends, of getting tired of her. Getting frustrated. Of the loving arguments and head butts that prepare her for the complexity of love, the security of forgiveness. Of the time we spend entwined, not playing with toys but playing with each other, making noises, laughing, poking at each other’s faces. The way her eyes communicate such purity of emotion, the joy so joyful, the sadness so dang sad.

I want to write about her vision of the future. “When I get older I’m going to have a kitty and a scooter and I’m going to eat Kimchi.” She’s so brave and definite, there is no doubt, no second guessing, she sees a picture of the world and it will wait for her, this her in the future, this surety and decisiveness, this wonderful sense of order and what will be.

What I want to write about is how brave she is, everyday, navigating this world of constantly shifting meaning, asking “What is a daydream?” and “What’s in the middle of a rock?” That there is nothing missed, no mystery unexplored, and any answer given will suffice.

What I want to write about is how this is the stuff of my life. This is what is smashed between the work and the bills and the dirty, dirty dishes and the piles of wrinkled clean laundry waiting. How each moment I am present I am thinking remember this, hold on to this, and as quickly as that thought is thought all my fears squeeze in through the door and crowd it out.

This is what I want to write.

Still here.

Here I am. My brain still feels scrambled. I hesitate to write about it, because it’s not a worrisome thing. Not a thing even, more just a confused state. Although not too confused to carry on with the every day, the teeth brushing, the work dwelling, the dish doing and the dog walking. Our strong and beautiful tomato plants still get a daily inspection and talking too, weeds get pulled, clothes get put on and taken off.

But there are these blank feelings. Like there is something amazing hiding or just on its way or smoldering. Like there is a terrific beauty right in front of my eyes, and I just can’t see it. (Which there is. Because there always is.)

I seem to be, lately, in a constant state of plotting, only the goal changes minute by minute, the plan changes with every new thought in my head. It’s like the old days at the library, line after line after line of text passing as you slide the microfiche, looking for that one headline, that one article that you need right now. And the feeling, as I search, is the same. Dizzy, heady, hopeful, impatient, and just a touch sick to my stomach.

It’s not unpleasant. It’s something, you know. It’s something. And that’s what I want. Some sort of change, some sort of corner turned, some sort of chapter put to rest, some new thing started. I can feel it. A culmination. But of what?