I watch the kids through the kitchen window, out front. Yesterday, the boys were playing with our neighbor friend, who is ten and a girl and she can kick booty with all the boy rough make believe games. They stood in a circle, their backs to each other, and would each count to ten, one at a time, and take off running. Asher went first, because he said he couldn’t run as fast as the older two. Then the other two went, one after the other, 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10, I’m going! They ran away, around one house or the other, to try to get back before the others. I have no idea why, but they were Avengers. These are the random things I witness that cause some sort of explosion of love for them down deep. I smiled and wanted to cry for some reason, but […]
My friend is in the hospital in a city about an hour away. I drove there yesterday, with the wind trying to push my creaky old minivan from side to side. I love seeing her, no matter where she is, and I’m grateful for the ways she is being cared for there. She is a sober friend, who has been through more of life’s Hard than anyone I know. She says things that feel like the best kind of slap to the heart and mind. Wake up. Stop ruminating. You are going through hell. Keep going. While I was there, a physical therapist came in and I sat off to the side to wait. He was from our same town, and so kind. My friend knew all the tricks he would ask her to do before he asked. She’s been fighting her body for seven years, it’s old hat. My phone rang and it was another sober friend. She […]
Lately there is a moment by moment practice of letting go. It is exhausting, but less exhausting than not letting go. It’s like the difference between doing some yoga and moving on, or running a marathon without ever stopping. I feel off around here, not sure of what to write, when to write, always that feeling of coming up short. Like it’s impossible to take the time, and when I do, I just sit and stare, let go again and move on. Namaste. I can say that the depths of pain that are the crux of divorce will do this. These depths will require a constant practice of letting go, and a desperate need to remember that no matter what it feels like, or what wrongs have been wronged, the path can be clean again, one day. I wrote something about it all, and haven’t shared it anywhere, but what came out of me was this: What […]
Elsie’s voice has taken on a munchkin sound since her tonsils and adenoids are gone and her throat is healing. It’s the cutest thing you’ve heard. My voice has taken on a croaking toad sound since I was slammed with a bug and can’t seem to get better. It’s not the cutest thing you’ve heard. We are all back to struggling through sickness, acquired during spring break and Elsie’s recovery week. Even poor Elsie, with so much already on her healing plate, is coughing considerably. I just keep thinking, This too shall pass. Like the dreary rainy weather will leave, these germs will exit, hopefully quickly. I have no energy to say more, except for to say that in the midst of all of this, there was a Story Show, an event of live readings put on by yours truly and a dear friend that I grew up with. It went off without […]
