Made for TV drama

Me, spinning.

Whack goes
the bat. Off spins
the pinata, spilling
the sweet contents of my life on
the floor.

Tradition.

Life is moving fast.

Too fast.

If I can concentrate 24 hours into a single sentence it would go something like this:

One of my sister's arrived with her 2-day-old baby to witness another sister marry, and in the middle of the ceremony our dad collapsed and was rushed to the hospital, but recovered quickly enough to return to the reception in time for the father-daughter dance.

Participants, observing.

Whew.

"This is like a movie," my sister-in-law said.

And everyone cried. And everyone cheered. And everyone laughed.

The numbers tell the story

Courtesy of nataliej.

Many years ago, I sat in an obstetrician's office and feared I was miscarrying. My husband stood near me as we waited for the ultrasound's results.

"Everything looks good," the doctor said.

I cried.

"In fact, I probably should be congratulating you. There are two embryos; you're having twins."

I cried harder.

"That's good news, isn't it?" the doctor asked.

I laughed and cried at the same time.

"I don't know," I admitted.

Months later, I walked into the hospital 38 weeks pregnant, dilated to 10. My husband was again at my side as we waited for an ultrasound to tell us whether our breached babies had shifted. But before I could get the news, my water broke, a tiny foot was felt and an emergency cesarean performed.

Seconds before I slipped under the anesthesia, I asked that pictures be taken. While unconscious, my first son, Samuel, was born. One minute later, my second son, Max, arrived. An hour or so passed and I woke.

"Bring me my babies," I demanded.

As I held them in my arms, I smiled through my tears.

This past week, we celebrated their ninth birthdays.

1
exhausted mother

2
birthday cakes baked
3
legged races
4
burlap bags used for sack races


Max leaps.

5
pounds of chicken wings
6
Lego sets
7
minutes of ABBA danced around musical chairs


Sam shares a chair.

8
whacks at the pinata
9
years on this earth
10
p.m. and the kitchen was clean again
11
year-old girls are great helpers
12
deviled eggs
13
bottles of bubbles
14
children celebrate with us.


Doubles.

Tangled time

I'm unwinding from a whirlwind, house-hunting trip to Seattle, where the rental market is so hot houses are snapped up as I deliberate on the door step. It made me want to cry. It made me want to laugh hysterically. Instead, I pulled out my knitting needles and jabbed it into yarn, fiercely adding inches as we drove off in search of the next address.

Courtesy of NapaneeGal.

Overheard between a mother and daughter at a playground in Seattle:

Mom: What side of the teeter-totter do you want?

Girl: I want the sunny side.

Courtesy of Claudio.Ar (not too much online).

I'm like a cat that wants to sit in puddles of warm light and sleep, so each time I entered a rental I had to get my bearings in order to measure the sunshine levels. My dream house faces south and has a kitchen with morning light, but I fear it doesn't exist in Seattle. At least not on my budget.

Definitions of home

Courtesy of weakestlink.

There's a hole in my home, empty and dark as the mine shaft I climbed down into as a kid. I remember the cool, dry breeze touching my face as I lay on my belly and peeked over the edge. I held out my arm and dropped a rock, listening as it banged and clattered against the wooden scaffolding, falling down, down, down.

Finally, silence.

I inched over the side until my feet touched the wooden ladder and followed my dad and brother into the abandoned shaft. Above me I could hear my mom's worried voice, and I clung tighter to the wooden rungs and breathed softly, trying to make myself lighter.

Courtesy of Chazz Layne.

HOME (n): 1) A place where you live. 2) A plant or animal's native habitat. 3) A starting position. (adj.) A place of origin. (adv.) The center or heart of something.

The new hole was blown out when my husband left for Seattle to begin a new job and scout out a new house for our family. The kids wander to its edge, listening to his silence, breathing in the temporary loss of their father. They telephone him, recounting the minutiae of the weekend as they wander from room to room.

When does a house stop being a home?

When a rabbit hole appears and someone falls through it.

Like the White Rabbit, but not like the White Rabbit, I'm talking to myself. Leap and the net will appear. The Zen phrase was mailed to me by a friend who knew life, or at least the next 30 days of it, would turn surreal as school ends, birthdays are celebrated, a marriage begins, a baby is born and movers descend.

I hum Tom Petty lyrics as I paint.

Yeah I'm free, free fallin'

A poem by my daughter, Chaja, and given to me on Mother's Day.

I Am From ...

I am from books scattered around the house. I am from the rocks, flowers and shells piled on the mantle.

I am from flowers in their brick planters. I am from rabbits in their hutches, and the swing hanging from the tree in our backyard.

I am from making plum jelly in the fall. I am from riding my bike around the block and from walking to school.

I am from the little box that is filled with thoughts, sandstone and sagebrush. I am from the photo albums in the hall.

I am from Mom and Dad, Nana and Opa, and Grandma and Grandpa.

I am from soccer games where I watch you cheer me on. I am from camping on Mount Rose and swimming in Lake Tahoe.

I am from you.

Just living

It was the kind of week where nothing much happened, bookended by the comforting and mundane, with laundry and computer games, the first corn and the last bit of sanding to make the table leaves fit nice and snug.

Sometimes the boring is so damn beautiful.

Max and Sam.

Chaja shows Ivan how to shuck corn.

Finishing work.