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 |   Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland |
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Reflections and ruminations from a modern day Alice - Life is Wonderland  Welcome to the place were I chronicle my own falls down dark holes and adventures chasing white rabbits! Come on In, Take a Bite, You Never Know What You May Find... "Curiouser and curiouser." Alice in Wonderland    |
| After the third consecutive night of coughing, I carted Jaden to the pediatrician this morning before school. Of course the doctor offered one of two explanations, it is either post-nasal drip or allergies. Both maladies call for little more than over the counter remedies but at least I know her lungs and ears are clear. The diagnosis didn't really surprise me but my daughter's behavior certainly did. Normally my baby girl dreads the doctor. She spends the majority of the time anxiously looking at the door, waiting for him to walk through it and then cowers against me when he does. Not today. Today Jaden calmly stepped up on the scale and stood still while they read off her weight. She followed the nurse into the exam room and climbed up into the chair. She smiled at me when the nurse clipped the oxygen monitor over her finger and only flinched a tiny bit when she took her inner ear temperature. She looked at books with me while we waited for the attending physician and when the small woman rushed in, she treated her to a wide grin. Even the checking of the ears, usually something Jaden fights off with an iron will, went relatively smoothly. Afterward, we walked to the car hand in hand. She polished off her donut (at least the portion covered in frosting) on the way to school. We even squeezed in a few songs before pulling up to her new building. Maybe it was the fact that she acted so mature during her doctor's visit, or perhaps it was walking into the preschool building and passing all those classrooms filled with older children or maybe it was because I had to ask her for a kiss goodbye before she shrugged out of her coat and took off with her friends...whatever the reason, I found myself bursting into tears as I belted myself back inside my car. My daughter is growing older, faster and with more brilliance that I am prepared for at times. While I am delighted in part, I am also aching with the knowledge that these precious moments are fragile and fleeting and will never come again. I love watching Jaden mature, seeing daily how her skills and her ability to communicate are developing at rocket speed. I am endlessly proud of her. I love her with a ferocity I could have never imagined I was capable of. And yet, watching her growing up before my eyes also brings me a small degree of suffering as I have to say goodbye to more and more of my baby even if I get more and more of my little girl in exchange. It is the best kind of bitter sweetness. Each time I go through her closet, sending the outfits she's outgrown to exile in the attic, I am reminded of how quickly time passes us all by. Every time she stuns me by belting out a song I didn't think she knew, or using a word or phrase I hadn't expect her to learn the meaning of yet, I am reminded that she is on her own journey, one I am only sharing with her. Each time I hear her feet rushing across the landing to climb into our bed or wake up to her beautiful smile, I am reminded of how much of an incredible gift she is and how very lucky we are. So I cry from time to time, but of course these are happy tears. While I miss the baby girl I once held, there is nothing more precious to me than walking hand in hand with my little girl. Someday I will tell my daughter about all these tears though. I will tell her what it was like, crying into the folds of the tiny tie-dyed dress, remembering how it was my one of my favorite baby outfits and feeling sad knowing it would soon join the walkers and the bouncers and the other infant toys in storage. Someday I will let her know that each step forward for her also wounded my mothering heart in a small but profoundly beautiful way. I will tell her that part of loving someone with your whole being means saying goodbye to part of them over and over again through the years - saying goodbye but being overjoyed by that, time and time again. |
| I'm back at work on my supernatural horror novel for the time being...and I use the terms "at work" very liberally. A few days in and I'm already asking myself, am I really at home in this genre? I have also failed to come up with a title, a bad sign for me. I am beginning to wonder if the problem is that this story isn't organic? The most frightening elements of the story work because they are visually and physiologically disturbing and exist completely without rational explanation. I wonder, is that still what frightens the majority of people today? Are we more afraid of the reality of horrific things that could happen: a bio-toxin's accidental release or a deranged serial killer praying on innocents, than mysterious things that go bump in the night or an unexplained pattern of lights in the night sky? For me there is a difference with reading horror than watching horror movies, which I don't do. There is a real challenge in writing something scary, of telling a story that leaves a reader with such a sense of unease that they are forced to sleep with the light on. That's happened to me and it so impressed me, that I was hooked. Peter Straub remains one of my favorite writers. His "Ghost Story" was the last book to leave me sitting awake at night. I think what was most terrifying for me about "Ghost Story" and other works like it, was the fact that the characters are forced to acknowledge that what's happening to them defies reason. The concept that, "this simply can not be but yet it is still happening" is one that leaves them without defense and therefore no protection from the horror that invades their lives. For my character, the fact that the thing pursuing her can not exist by any natural laws also means that is can not be bound by them either. When the "monster" steps through the mirror and grabs her by the throat, she is terrified by the beast but also because the reality she knows has ultimately failed her. Time will tell if I get this all right in the end. It has been work in progress for some time. My "monster" and I use that term liberally as well, was born from casual outing during a business trip when I stumbled into a place that seemed soaked in bad juju. The residual evil I felt there spawned a nightmare and the nightmare gave birth to my creation. Now let's see if I can bring it all home and maybe if I'm tremendously lucky, my little tale with have them leaving the lights on one day. |
| I remember... Cranberry colored walls, smoke-scented sheets, urgent, heated whispers. I remember... Apple candles glowing amber in the gloom, heavy, forbidden moments. I remember... the taste of sin on your lips, aching with confusion, searching for something to make us less hollow. I remember... using flesh to forget. |
| There are few things in this world that I am more thankful for than the fact that my Gramma is here and able to share in my daughter's life. I believe that the experience of having a little girl was made all the more wonderful because my Gramma was able to enjoy it with us. She desperately wanted me to have a little girl. I think she must have dreamed of my blue-eyed baby girl as much as I did in the months before Jaden was born. She was convinced she would have my eyes, despite our insistence that it was a genetic improbability. But, as if made by Gramma Boop's very order, Jaden was born with eyes that are more blue than my own. Her's are bright pools rimmed in indigo, made even more prominent by her darker skin. I know that Gramma Boop prayed for me to have a healthy, happy, blue-eyed baby girl and God delivered on all fronts. Today I was upstairs getting ready for work. Jaden was downstairs with Gramma Boop, having been thrilled to find her still there when she woke up this morning. I listened to them together; Gramma Boop's singsong fairy godmother voice and Jaden's giggles, interrupted by little pauses that I knew were filled with special hugs and kisses. I came downstairs to find them snuggled side by side on the couch, my daughter leaning into my grandmother, one of her arms stretched up with her fingers gently resting on her grandmother's soft cheek. When I first found out I was carrying a baby girl, I knew they would share a special connection. It was a great love forged before my daughter took her first breath outside my body. My grandmother showers Jaden with attention, with affection and love, as she does all her grandchildren. She is already trying to teach her the "Have You Seen my New Shoes?" song, the same tune we all learned to memorize and perform for her. I can see that same devotion and desire to please on my daughter's face. I know soon she will be dancing and singing along, delighting her Gramma Boop to no end. I am so grateful for the incredible gift of life that brought my two favorite people in the world together to love and cherish one another. |
| I feel Valentines Days is largely a commercially generated holiday designed to sell cards, chocolate and all other manner of love-themed merchandise. It gets even harder to believe in the sentiments it represents when your toddler wakes up in what I like to call the "no way in hell mode" - as in, "there is no way in hell I'm going to do anything you want or need me to do today without a fight." And fight me she did. She fought me through the diaper change, the dressing, the doing of the hair...even getting her physically out the door was a challenge. Jaden decided she had to open the door on her own and we spent a few frustrating minutes deadlocked while she struggled to get her little hands around the doorknob. By the time I was strapping her into her car seat, already running fifteen minutes late for work, we had settled into a pretty grumpy little funk and I felt like bursting into tears. Ten minutes into the ride, a glance in the rearview mirror revealed my little girl was wearing the same expression of woe as Mommy and I began to thaw. Life is hard. Sometimes we just make it harder on ourselves then it needs to be and even we don't understand the reasons why. I decided our commute wasn't going to go out like that...Hallmark be damned! It was Valentines Day after all. I pushed track 5 on the CD player and cranked the volume. The infection sounds of Go Fish's Five Little Monkeys filled the car. When the first play drew no reaction, I hit repeat. By the third play, Jaden was smiling and signing along. By the fourth, I had joined in with her, not caring how foolish I looked as I mimicked her hand-motions; tapping my head and wagging my finger. Luckily by the time we arrived at her daycare, all was forgiven. We walked hand in hand to her classroom door and I was treated to both a kiss AND a hug. Sometimes nothing cures a bad morning better than singing about naughty little monkeys with your most favorite little Valentine. |
| This past week we relocated the entire brood to do some much needed renovation work on the old house. We had made a difficult decision to spend our limited funds on home improvements rather than taking off to some sunny, semi-tropical destination on the theory that we would get far more out of our money that way. While my father's house wasn't on the beach in Fort Lauderdale, it was still more luxurious than our home and far more well-equipped. Jaden enjoyed being under the same roof as Grampa and took full advantage of his unlimited attention whenever possible. Fatih spent the days working on refinishing all wood floors on the first floor, repairing some plaster damage and repainting the stairwell and painting the great room. This past Tuesday I got my first real look at all his hard work. It was an amazing transformation. My decision to keep the house after my first divorce was one born of need rather than want. I had needed a project, a mission to divert my attention from the fallout of an ugly failed relationship. I had always loved that old house but it came with a boatload of memories, most of them bad. Still, I moved in. I planned to bury those bad memories in new paint, throw out all the yard sale furniture and fill in the fist-sized holes myself. The process by which I re-invented my home was very challenging and healing. And while gutting rooms and knocking through walls was very cathartic, new paint and fancy new decor will only go so far to change your perception of a space. It was still a place that had seen to much pain, sheltered too much shame. When I met Fatih it was always my plan to sell and find a new space to build our lives together. Then we were blessed with the birth of our daughter and the decision to sell was put on hold while we adjusted to life with our precious newborn. We converted one of the spare bedrooms to nursery and told ourselves we would stay put until Jaden was walking. By the time our little girl was taking those first few steps, the recession had squashed the opportunity sell and upgrade. Suddenly the list of all those repairs and improvements seemed unavoidable...it was time to get cracking. At least we could improve our space and enjoy it until conditions again became favorable. So the plan was set, we would start with the floors and walls and go on from there. I walked back into our home Tuesday night and I realized two things simultaneously... First, I love this house. I love sweeping openness of the floorplan, made even more impressive with the shiny new wood floors with their depression-era pattern. I love the high ceilings,arch ways and wide rooms, made even brighter with the soft new paint. I love the character of this home and the integrity of its original construction. Secondly, and this is the most important thing, I love that we have made a life here, the life I share with my husband and daughter. And while I know that eventually we will all move on to a quaint neighborhood in the country, the memories that I will associate with this old house belong to us now. It has been the pulse and heartbeat of our existence here that have truly managed to cleanse this space of those bad memories in a way that remodeling and renovation never could have. The spare room at the top of the stairs will always be my daughter's first room - the peaceful place I sat so many nights, rocking and dreaming of what the child I carried would be like when she finally arrived. The stairs will be the first ones she learned to climb. I will remember those floors because they will be the ones my husband coaxed ageless beauty from on his own hands and knees. That kitchen will be the one where I made the meals my daughter never ate and the place where all our parties seemed to begin and end. Those walls and rooms will be the ones that witnessed all the amazing human drama of our growing, loving family. One day, when we do leave, I know I can stand in the center of that home, close my eyes and hear the echoes of my daughter's laughter. I know when we do move away, this home will be remembered as our family's first...and only that. I can not begin to describe how grateful I am for that truth. |
| This morning my oddly fitting soundtrack, courtesy of Pandora, is Mary's Danish. This is the music of my college afternoons, the music I rocked through my frustration and angst through. The loosely chaotic sound, somewhere between garage-born alternative rock and 80's-era punk, coupled with it's cold, biting lyrics always seemed the best antidote for whatever ailed me. I see that even today, it still has the same soothing effect. The tunes transport me back to a time when the problems and challenges were, in hindsight, so trivial. They take me back to a time when I was delicate and naive, when the heartaches were about silly little loves and losses and my dreams were still colored by the gullibility of youth. If I had only known then the things I would face in the years that followed; the dark days, the doubt, the real losses I would shoulder.. That's the way the world works though, we always think we will never hurt worse, love harder, break more - and then we do. In retrospect, not having the person I loved love me back, wasn't really so terrible. I survived to learn that there are far harder lessons born of love and longing. Back then, the fear of failure was so overwhelming, but it was nothing compared to the crushing wave my future failed ambitions left in their wake. If I had known these things and more, I would have embraced those small challenges, those little aches and pains. I would have cranked those tunes, would have sung the words loudly and with abandon. I would have celebrated more. |
| The holiday season seemed to stretch well beyond the allotted calendar days this year and so it has taken us a bit longer to get our routines back on track. My resolution to get Jaden to fall asleep in her own bed has been delayed. She is however, delighted by her newly renovated "big girl" bed complete with the new Minnie Mouse sheets and comforter. She will happily play, read and even snuggle down in it without any coaxing at all. Ask her to go to sleep in it though, and the crying commences. And her tears are not those fake sniffles and boo-hoos, but those really tortured wails and sobs that only a toddler with a broken heart can produce. Jaden still prefers to fall asleep, snuggled in close against us, with her tiny hands wrapped around one or more of our fingers. Honestly, I'm okay with that. Aside from the nights when I fall asleep with her, her nightly routine is workable. Once she's sleeping, we simply move her to her own bed - or not. Sometimes its easier to let her stay where she is, avoiding the dreaded three am wake up call that comes when she wakes and finds herself alone. Sometimes the very best part of my day is cuddling with her under the blankets are night, looking up at a ceiling full of purple glowing stars. This year her grandfather gave her a Twilight Ladybug for Christmas. It has become a marvelous edition to bedtime in our house. It projects a field of starts, in your choice of three colors, onto the ceilings and walls. It has a wonderful calming effect, there is something peaceful about this private galaxy with its tiny crescent-shaped moon and constellations. Often the very best part of my day is cuddling under the blankets with my daughter and gazing up at our ceiling of stars until her baby blues get droopy. I don't think there is better lullaby for me then the sound of her deep and peaceful breathing. Time is moving at such an unforgiving pace. She is growing up so quickly, shedding all things "baby" and morphing into a little girl before I have a chance to prepare myself. Before I know it, she won't want to share my bed. She will want to be in her own bed in her own room, a room that will begin to look less like a nursery and more like the place a burgeoning young adult will make a home. For now, I'm content if she wants to stowaway in Mommie's room. I'm okay if she wanders in, her stuffed lion tucked under her arm, and wants me to make a space for her between her Dad and I. These are all but brief moments in our journey together and these moments are some of the sweetest. I've decided to enjoy them for as long as I am able. I think we'll shift our energy to some potty training and leave the sleep training where it is for now. |
| Jaden has become very interested in Santa this year. At nearly two, her comprehension and vocabulary seemed to have increased triple-fold almost overnight. She likes to talk about what she likes most and right now, she is pretty fond of the big guy in red. She waves to the big inflatable Santa at her daycare each morning and tenderly pats the little light-up Santa on our back porch each night. While she may not understand his role in all this completely, she has managed to make the connection between his arrival and new toys and that's enough to make him cooler than Elmo, gummy fruit snacks and her puppies combined! This morning I told her Santa is coming in five days, we counted them off on her tiny fingers. She smiled and clapped and then hugged me, for good measure I suppose. Tonight we will go spotting for Christmas lights on our commute home. I'll try to get her to help me with some wrapping, or at least distract her from unwrapping what I've already gotten done. After her bath we will read her Christmas story book, "Bear Stays Up" and then I'll put her to bed where I hope she has sweet sugar plum fairy dreams. As she grows we will teach her about the true lessons of the season, the real miracle, but for this moment I'm okay with Santa being the central attraction. Christmas is a wonderful time of year to be a child and the window we all get to be children is so very brief. I want her to enjoy every moment as much as possible. |
| This morning was not a stellar success by any stretch of the imagination. Admittedly it has been a while since I drove to work in tears but one black morning can sink a boat full of bright ones. It did not help that the car was on "E" either, the bright orange gas light flashing, taunting me inside the car's dim interior. Running dry and having to call home for help was not an option. I had to pull in for gas even though I knew it would make me late for work...yet again. Of course I picked the slow pump and had to stand, the rain and wind whipping at my bare legs, while the pump delivered my gas at an agonizing pace. Finally I had enough. I pulled the nozzle free and managed to splash myself with some residual petrol in the process. Dropping back into the front seat, I caught my heel under the gas pedal and banged my head off the ceiling in my frantic efforts to free myself. Stupid car. Stupid me. I'm beginning to suspect though, that this is the problem...me, not the car. Maybe I'm more daft than I realize? Maybe happiness is meant to be a fleeting emotion and I'm the one that mistakes it for a state of being? Maybe I have forgotten that to live ones life without expectations is far better than to try to build off foundations that are not solid? There was a time when I believe I was not a person constructed for "forever love", that the best I could offer, the best I could be, was someone who loved in the fiercely temporary way in which people do when they have the luxury of not being able to commit themselves to another. Maybe the only real bond made to withstand the hardships of life, the trails of being so humanly fragile, is the one the exists between us and our children? Made of different organic fibers, designed to weather the most demanding of elements, perhaps those relationships are the only ones divinely designed. Then again, maybe I have just had one of those mornings that turn the whole world black and blue. |
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