a love story

there is no greater happiness than my hand on your back while you sleep.

tracing your face in the dark, i memorize the changes. there's a scar near your eye i pause by and remember before it was there. how smooth this spot once felt. your lashes, always longer than i dreamed possible, feel soft beneath my fingers.

you're quiet. nothing moves except your chest, slowly rising and falling under my hand.

there's a space inside me that swells when you're near. at times like these, it feels so full and warm with love that i am soothed into this moment, this time, this life with you. no worry matters, as i have you.

i am more than just your mother, but being your mother makes me more than just me.

you are my whole heart.

fill in the blank, part 2

we drive most of the way in silence. i’m wrapped up in my head, as usual.

i can’t stop thinking about her.

“you should try and get some sleep,” my dad says. i can tell he’s tired. i don’t know how he’s doing this.

“i can drive for a while if you want,” i say.

“nah, i’m ok,” he says. “i just need more coffee."

----

he was drunk. high maybe. i couldn't tell exactly what had him so rattled this night. the only thing apparent was his disdain for my mother and his need to show her physically how terrible he found her.

i hated her boyfriend.

when he started hitting her while the three of us sat on the couch, it was quiet. at twelve, there's not much you can do to stop a grown man from doing what he wants. not that kind of man. i tried to keep my eyes on the tv and block her cries, but there's only so much you can do to keep it from getting in.

when he rose from the couch, her hair in his hands, she rose, too. he took her to the back bedroom, both of them unaware of my presence.
the sounds coming from inside the walls intensified as he moved from hitting her to throwing her. BOOM against the wall. BOOM against the other wall.

cries. screams.

grunts of triumph.

i moved cautiously like those idiots in horror movies toward the opened bedroom door. i could see him on top of her on the bed, his hands around her neck as she struggled.

i was frozen.

his face started to turn toward mine and i ran into the bathroom, cowering between the toilet and the bathtub and held my breath.

i watched a roach crawl across the floor and wished for its freedom.

----

we pull off to a gas station on the side of the highway. he starts the pump and goes inside, as i pull out my phone and look through my history for the hospital’s number. we haven’t had an update in several hours. i dial the number and sigh as it rings.

“hi," i say and give my name the the nurse who answers. “i’m just calling to check in on how my mom is doing." i fully expect them to say that she’s fine and start to prepare myself to get pissed off because we’re three hours into the trip and she'll be fine.

“about the same,” she says. “i have to tell you — i really hope you decided to come.” my stomach drops.

“uh,” I falter. “i — yes, we’re on our way. we left a few hours ago.” what does she mean?

“good,” i can hear her actually sigh with relief. “that was a good decision.”

“why?” i ask. “i thought you said she was the same?”

“she is,” she says. “but i didn’t say that was good.”

----

on the last night of my weeklong visit with her in tennessee, i styled her hair a new way. not that i knew much of fashion at 19 -- i was never that kind of girl -- but i'd wanted to play with her hair. and she'd wanted me to, too. it was the first time we'd ever wanted the same thing.

shyly, carefully, slowly, we sat. i swept her hair this way, that way, up, down. i settled on bangs and she agreed. i cut. she smiled. it felt normal.

that night, we pulled out the bed from inside the sofa, covered ourselves with blankets and talked. made jokes no one else laughed at. giggled like children. it was the only time we ever laughed together. she was funny. witty. she found me the same.

i felt old enough. finally. we could talk without me feeling hurt, left out, childish. a burden. i was leaving without her in the morning to go back to my own life, also without her. she was in my life as much as i allowed, and i didn't stay by the phone waiting to be included on her schedule. we laughed for hours. it felt normal.

it was the last time i saw her conscious. the memory of it still burns. if only she hadn't died ... how many more nights of this might we have had? 

----

part 1

its hardest hue to hold

"am i able to stay up later than normal? she got to." he asks. it's a fair question.

"you can go to bed at 8:20."

"thank you!"

he's eight. when he was little, he always went to bed far earlier than my friends' kids. bedtime came early, leaving me quiet time to unwind. it was important for both of us.

now, he's eight. approaching adulthood, it seems most days. certainly the teenage years. he's smart, funny, emotional. he has a girlfriend. sleepovers. homework. sports.

when i picked him up from school today, i caught sight of myself in the window's reflection, smiling at him. wrinkles around my eyes.

when did that happen?

i'm drinking wine, watching trashy tv. texting friends. contemplating a house purchase solo. single, grown-ass lady, raising kids and getting older.

i have to chug water to keep hangovers at bay. i have to workout regularly to keep fit. count those carbs. i buy special lotion for my face and under-eye cream.

when did that happen?

it's fascinating to see the transformation in my life. i'm not where i hoped i'd be, but i'm better than i thought i'd be. i know that's vague. my heart has been torn to shreds, continually beaten and still i'm here. and pretty damned strong. i'm a really good mom. a passable friend. a roller coaster of a girlfriend.

sigh.

watching the years creep on, slowly, then all at once ... it's hard not to be completely in awe with the passing of time. the way things go. forever and ever amen.

i watched my face in the reflection for a few seconds, wondering how long i've looked like this. how often i look like this. who sees me like this. will i be remembered like this. etc, etc, and so on and so forth.

32. thirty two.

tick.

tock.

to be looking at the board, not looking at the city

so it's been a while.

what have i learned?

i need to write. i need to read. i need to be lost and found and snuggled and comforted inside the arms of words on page. 

god, i miss it. the permanency of words. your thoughts on paper. and his thoughts. and her feelings. mine. ours. forever in print.

why do we get so tied down by things, distractions ... why do we deny ourselves the things we know will make things RIGHT because we are tempted by things that make things RIGHT NOW ... immediate?

oh, i WOULD read that book/write that thought, but look! shiny penny! new documentary on fonts! brand new package of cheese sticks in the fridge!

i am letting short-term distractions muck up long-term contentment. 

sigh.

i realize this is probably nonsensical, and more to the point, i realize no one reads this but me. and that's fine. it's whatever.

it's for me, anyway. that's what this whole blog is for ... raw thoughts on "paper."

if you want to travel, sell your car and go to bangkok, amiright?

fill in the blank, part 1

it was such a lovely day.

that's what i remember most clearly about the before.

driving to work with my windows down on an unusually warm winter day, i sang country at the top of my lungs and believed every word.

it was a great day to be alive.

my phone rang from the passenger side and i glanced at the screen. an unknown number flashed on the front, but i answered because why not?

she was in the hospital.

dying, apparently.

i pulled into work and stared at a blue sky.

----

i used to watch her for hours when she didn’t know i was there. quiet as a mouse, small as a whisper, i would hide around corners, behind chairs, anything i could do just to watch her. if i did it just right, she never even knew i was there. 

she was so different when she was by herself. 

from her doorway, i stood watching her sitting in her bed, propped up with pillows, tucked into blankets, carefully hemming some clothes. she had nimble fingers and a creative mind that allowed her to make the best halloween witches from scraps of fabric, or angels from tea cloths. 

today, it was mundane. mending clothes. but she did it with precision. a steady hand holding a thin needle, moving swiftly and smoothly along the lines. 

i must have made a noise or a small movement, because her eyes flew up to mine. 

she smiled. i felt warm. 

“come here,” she said, and beckoned me beside her. 

i flew to her side as she moved the covers to let me snuggle next to her. 

“want to learn to sew?” she asked. 

this is what heaven feels like. 

the love of a mother.

----

he said he didn’t trust me to drive myself, so my dad drove from fort worth to waco to take me to tennessee.

to her.

i packed a small bag with a blow dryer, makeup, a few text books, pens and a random assortment of clothes.

what else, i wondered, would i need?

but i knew what else.

i knew the if.

i walked to my closet and was for once grateful for my slight OCD. my clothes hung in perfect color blocks from black to white.

i only needed the black.

----

it was supposed to have been my weekend with her. 

i'd only seen her three times in the last year since they divorced, yet her boyfriend's daughter, beth, was there every saturday. to make up for breaking my heart, she tried to bribe me by letting me name one of the kittens that had just been born at her house. 

there were three — one white with a black spot on its nose, one black with a white paw and a red tabby. she said i could pick any of them to name.

i knew she’d been drinking. her speech was slurred and her reactions were much too slow. i could almost smell the alcohol through the phone. i suppose she thought her odds were good that out of three, i wouldn’t pick the black one — the one i wanted to call moonbeam. 

but i did.

“you can’t name him,” she said. “beth named him blackie.”

blackie. ok. unoriginal and obvious, but fine.

“wait — beth is there?” i asked. “i thought you said you couldn’t get me because your car broke down.”

silence.

“it broke after we got her.”

“so, she got to see the kittens be born?” 

don’t cry. don’t cry. don’t show her that this hurts you. she doesn’t deserve to see that this hurts you.

“yeah, and she really liked blackie,” she said. “and snowball.”

“she named two of the cats?” 

i’m stuck with the tabby? she said i could name any of them, but what she meant was, i get the tabby? beth gets two, but i get the tabby.

“well, no, i named the white one,” she said. “rick calls the other one scout, but i told him that you get to name him.”

“but you said i could name any of them,” i whispered. if i spoke quietly, she wouldn’t hear me cry. 

“don’t you give me that shit, caressa,” she hissed. “it’s a damn cat. you can call it whatever the hell you want when you’re here. beth won’t always be around here when we get you and cats don’t know their fucking names anyway. it’s a cat. shit.”

----

we drove all night to get to her, stopping only for coffee, gas and restrooms along the way.

i don't know how my dad stayed awake, refusing to let me drive and insisting i get more sleep. as i laid there, tapping my fingers against the glass and staring at the ink black sky, i felt the swells of anger rise and calm within me. 

she's so dramatic.

she's just doing this for attention.

i'm going to drive all this way, i thought, get to her bedside and find her eating jello and watching daytime tv. meanwhile, i'll have missed three of my midterms and the chance to see a really cute boy in my thursday class. 

and for what? an impromptu roadtrip with my dad in the middle of february? there are better ways to get me to talk to you, mom.

fell into an orange sky

"tell me the best day of your life," he asks. and then waits. 

-----

in the dream, i drove. i got into a car and i felt the need to escape, so i drove and i drove until i remembered meeting a man who told me the best place to get away happened to be just around the corner from the road i was on. i pulled over and found myself at dusk, under a swirling, almost eerily orange/purple sky, facing the man i'd just remembered. he led me to an unusually tall, tiny room set atop wooden poles that stretched 10 stories into the sky. the wind whipped across my body, slicing me in two with its surge. i looked back at him from the porch, where he started to climb down. 

"be still. look. feel," he said. "take as long as you need. you'll know when you're done."

-----

do i go with the obvious? the "mom" answer? do i say, "of course it was when my children were born." or "it was the day i met their father (despite the later crash and burn)."

yet i am more than motherhood. so should i talk about the unexpected joy i found laughing with my mother for the first/last time? should i tell about the boldness that comes from the steady constant of my father's love?

still, he waits.

how do i answer? what is my best day?

-----

i dreamed i was losing my hair. i leaned into the mirror and saw a map of an enormous lake that rivaled an ocean in its beauty and depth on the bald spot on my scalp. along the hairline, the coast. in the dream, i knew this was a place i'd always wanted to go, but didn't know the way until i lost my hair and found the map permanently imprinted on my own body.

-----

when i feel small.

when i lie on my back, in the dead of night, with nothing but my breathing to note the passing of time while i look at the stars, feel a sense of oneness with the universe and wonder ... why? how? when? who?

when my focus becomes narrowed by the lull of the ocean, the spray of the water, the feel of the sand. when i'm grounded on earth, firmly planted and still feel ... fleeting.

a blink. a nod. smoke.

there are so many things that cause me to feel bigger than i am. more important. the chance to feel small ... to really feel the freedom of my own insignificance ... is at once frightening and calming. reassuring and sad.

but it is freedom. it is such freedom.

and if you string together the moments i've felt released, the sum might equal a day.

the best day.

landslide

i had a breakdown in the middle of a barnes and noble parking lot two months before i graduated from college. i sat in my car, on the phone with my dad telling him about the hundreds of lives i wanted to live and realizing that i only got one.

one.

one life. that's it. one.

my dad calmly told me to chill the f out.

"just pick one," he said. "work hard. do your best. just pick one and, honey, you'll be surprised at all the doors that open for you that you never even saw coming."

in the nearly 9 years since that conversation, there have been doors. doors, and windows, and a few walls i've had to knock down myself to make a new way. a new path that led to new doors with new faces and pain i didn't know to watch out for along the way.

but joy, too. two kids in less than two years who push me to become not just a better mom, but a better human and isn't that what all these doors are supposed to lead to anyway? isn't that the point of everyone's path?

but ... i still want a hundred lives. a hundred chances to start at that point in the parking lot, talking to my dad with my future so very wide open in front of me.

because the older i get, the narrower my view looks ... and that's hard. and humbling. and scary.

but true.

now when i look at the horizon of my life, i still see doors, but i'm less brazen about flinging them open and stepping inside. i'm carrying two passengers along for the ride, and each door i open creates their futures, too. so i'm cautious. calculating. and while those can be very positive traits, they are limiting and less exciting.

remember when literally anything you picked for your major was fine because you had FOUR MORE YEARS to change your mind? i'm the college junior realizing that maybe accounting isn't for me, but i'd rather finish it than start all over again.

and it's fine. it's all fine. i have food on the table and clothes on their backs. i can buy them things like random new bikes and splurge for dinner out once a week.

i'm fine. i'm good, even.

but i'm not extraordinary.

and if i'm honest, i really thought i would be. i'd write that novel -- and it would be so good. i'd find love -- and it, too, would amaze us both. i'd travel. i'd be respected.

i'd rise.

and ... i'm good. i'm fine.

i picked a path. i picked a person. i picked a peck of pickled peppers and ... i just want to be back in that parking lot sometimes.