in her head

she curls her body beside me, her cold feet resting on my legs between the warmth of the blanket and my skin.

"i just want some mommy and me time," she says.

it's always before bed -- right before she knows she has to go to sleep. as a baby, she never fought the nighttime or naps. when she was tired, she slept. on the bed, on the chair on the floor -- wherever. now, this older version of her clings to the daylight like a lifesaver. to sleep is to admit defeat.

i sigh and let her in. five minutes, i tell her.

we watch tv, quiet and close. she rests her hand on my hand, her head on my chest and she breathes. i listen to the sound and feel her weight against me, struck by how quickly time passes.

-----

i spent today looking at videos of her and the boy from years ago. a two-year-old boy blowing raspberries and refusing to eat broccoli. a three-year-old girl telling a rambling story about princesses scaling rooftops. 

i miss those kids. it's a physical ache.

-----

she's smart. frighteningly so. not like her brother, who has my emotion but his dad's brains. where the boys are mechanically inclined -- they can mentally take apart machines and easily think of ways to improve the design -- my girl and i, we aren't that kind of intelligent.

we dissect people, situations, social interactions. we ruminate and meticulously construct just the right way to say something before we speak. we think abstractly on love, life, universality.

she's five, but you wouldn't know it. age means nothing with her thoughts.

"what's that?" she asks, pointing to the tv.

"oh," i say and pause. "well, that's a brain." i explain why the surgeons are operating, and what role the brain has to a person or animal. without it, i say, you couldn't speak anymore, as is the problem with the girl in the show.

she asks how a person's speech is regulated by the brain -- she thought the vocal chords took care of that. once again, she has awed me.

"yes, the vocal chords allow you to speak in the same way that your muscles allow your arm to move," i explain. "but without the brain function, the body doesn't DO anything."

she thinks on this. i can see the wheels turning.

"so," she wonders aloud, "the person can't even THINK without a brain? but their body ... would still be alive?" she's not misunderstanding the brain's role in thinking -- she's scared of the possibility that she could one day not think.

the realization that when we die, we no longer think -- EXIST -- hit me when i was close to her age and is one of the most fundamental changes in my life. i nod in response to her question.

"i'm scared of that," she says.

"me too," i admit and pull her close. we talk about how the body can live without the brain, but that the person would no longer BE.

"they would be like a plant," she says slowly. "their body would grow, but they couldn't play."

i look at her. i see her in my arms, giggling as a baby. her hair in first pigtails, as she takes her first steps. here before me, grappling with existential crises.

i miss her -- all her stages. the girl who exists now only in videos and memories. i will miss this girl, too.

one day. but not this day.

tonight, we snuggle on the way to bed, whispering secrets and talking about dreams.

tick tock

i stood outside the kids' room, listening to them talk and laugh. had a flash of the future, some christmas eve 25 years from now, with them back home, tucking in their own kids. i thought of my future self, watching them, thinking back on tonight when they were just kids, laughing about fairies and magic stars. i teared up, went inside for hugs/kisses/snuggles, round two. rubbed warm bellies, held squishy fingers between my own and tried very hard to imprint the video of the night in my mind so when the future comes, i can know i did everything i could to stop time.

free bird

they don't tell you how lonely it will be. how hard making new friends becomes with age and jobs and kids and exhaustion. how vital proximity and youth are to forming bonds that stretch beyond a pleasant hello in break rooms and hallways.

but it is. it is lonely. especially when you're doing this adulthood thing solo.

even the people you count as your closest friends become ghosts. a movement in your peripheral vision that disappears when you look, but you'd swear was just there. they all have their own white whales they're chasing. their own next step, next step, next step, bed.

each morning, i wake to two lovebirds nestling in my bed. warm bodies wrapping me up in a cocoon of "good morning mommy" and deep stretches. i'm bombarded by full-body hugs, drowned by piles of papers adorned with rainbows, ninjas, hearts, stars, horseshoes, clovers and balloons ...

and yet.

and yet.

at night.

i tuck them in. the little one and i fight about bedtime while the big one begs to sleep in my room. always later than intended, they're asleep and ...

it's just me.

i wish it was a small world.

little boy mine

he lost his first tooth yesterday. in just one summer, he grew almost two inches, gained more than a pound and lost the first part of his babyhood.

i remember when that tooth came in. the sleepless nights that accompanied the first tangible sign of time moving forward. now it’s wrapped in tissue in my jewelry box.

this tooth is not just a tooth. it is another small slap in the face of what I already know, but can ignore most of the time. he's growing up. every day he slips further away from this little boy I won’t see again. the baby that is already gone.

and i miss him.

i miss the little boy who only needed my chest and a song to be happy. whose sticky fingers curled my hair, dirtied back door windows and fumbled delicate things. whose content sighs lulled us both to sleep at night.

but then there's this kid in front me.

this big man who steals my heart with his curiosity and enthusiasm. the one who asks me about whether I’ve been in "indian wars." the one who is so good at monkey bars that i brag to anyone who will listen. who won't touch his dinner because he's too busy journaling math problems to notice his hunger pains.

the one who is still trying to hold on to his babyhood, too.

“Mom, is the tooth fairy real?” 

“What do you think, kiddo?”

“It doesn’t seem possible that someone that small could hold a tooth.”

“Well, that’s a good observation. What does that make you think?”

“... I think maybe I’ll ask that question when I’m older.”

“Just let me know.”

i am in love with him, he who is becoming a man in front of my eyes, with his head on my shoulder and his dreams on his lips.

and i'll miss him one day, too.

fire and rain

there is a vibration inside me
a hum of emotion
it moves through and warms my body
lights a fire from inside until my walls crash down
exposed
i'm left screaming, shaking
exhausted at the love, the fear, the joy, the pain
then, silence
a cool, smooth calm takes over
i sit in the stillness
waiting for the next wave to move in
and start again

red and black

i loved her jewelry.

she had this small, square glass box framed in brass with tiny pieces of stained glass on the top. inside, she kept all of her special pieces. large dangling earrings made of tiny interlocked metal circles, painted in teal and pink. chunky studs with owls adorning the front. feathered earrings. ornate, but cheap, plastic broaches, designed to look like ivory, studded with plastic to look like diamonds.

i loved them all.

at 10, i was inches away from my mother’s petite 4’11” frame. where she was thin, dark and wispy, i was solid and already starting to look like a woman. and it was her i wanted to be. some girls may have played dress up with costume ball gowns and tiaras. my dream was my mother’s closet. she was the princess i pretended to be.

in our house, the tenth i’d lived in in as many years, her bedroom had a walk-in closet. such a luxury for a duplex. clothes were packed into each side, the shelves piled high with boxes of papers not to lose, pictures to remember and tucked away in a corner, my mother’s pot stash.

when she was away, i’d spend every second i could, modeling her clothes. trying on dresses with this necklace, those earrings. walking in high heels and her robe.

trying to be her.

without fail, i’d stop at my favorite skirt. made of rough red fabric wrapped around soft black satin, this was my drug of choice. it fit my waist perfectly, the red elastic waistband cinching to meet my hips. i knew i’d wear it when i was grown. i imagined myself going to high school dances in it, swirling perfectly on the floor. moving off to college and meeting my husband in the skirt, him as taken with its beauty as i was. i would fall in love in that skirt. i would mother my children in that skirt. 

i longed for the day that the bottom hem would brush the floor, not pile at my feet. 

that skirt was the ruler by which i measured my years. she’d been back and forth into our lives dozens of times since my parents first separated when i was 8. each time she came home, i’d try it on. had i grown? did it fit better?

how much longer before it was mine?

post, the first

hello you.

the about section tells you what you need to know about this blog and me ... i'd repost it here, but it's a pretty good representation of me, so i shoved it on that page.

i never know how to start these things. it's how i feel when i walk into a social situation, not knowing anyone. who do i go to first? how do i break the ice? what the hell do i do with my hands?

at least here you're behind your screen, i behind mine. my hands, they type.

here we go.