It's the most wonderful time of the year

Well, hello there. It seems I haven't updated in a very long time -- let's get this thing dusted off, shall we?

Something unfathomable has occurred: my little baby son is now two years old and therefore not a baby at all anymore. All week I've walked around in a sort of daze over this. I've been prone to grabbing Matt's arm and saying, with no small amount of urgency, "Isaac isn't a baby at all anymore." And then I make this little sad face, which leads to Matt smiling indulgently and replying, "Yes, but he's still a little guy. And he's awfully sweet."

This is true. Isaac is the sweetest little guy I could ever, ever hope to raise, and I kind of can't believe how lucky we are. I always had this feeling that I'd be the mother of a son, if only because something had to disrupt my love and need for order in my world, but I don't think I quite anticipated just how delightful sons could be. Let me tell you, if the way Isaac blows kisses with those chubby little toddler fingers doesn't melt you on the spot, you don't have a heart at all. He has a way of smiling bashfully that leads heavily pierced girls behind the counter of the record store to call him "Sugar."

Last night, we dressed him in new fleece jammies his Grandma Winslow made for him, and he was so pleased with them. He couldn't stop petting himself, rubbing his hands all over his soft pajama top, and he just beamed and beamed -- my rosy-cheeked little boy. (And I couldn't stop picking him up and squeezing him and kissing those rosy cheeks. I do this a lot because I understand that someday I will not be allowed to kiss him with such abandon.) This morning when we got him up, we decided he needed to go to church in actual little boy daytime clothes, and he was very, very sad about this, and many bitter tears were shed.

He and his sister love each other, and they rush into each other's arms for bedtime hugs and good-morning hugs and good-bye hugs and hello hugs after school. They play together every afternoon, and it goes beautifully until it doesn't and someone is screaming. I don't worry about this too much, since a.) sometimes the screaming is part of whatever weird game they've invented and b.) even if it's not, I also have a little brother, and I know these things usually tend to work themselves out. I will, however, intervene if there is biting and/or hair-pulling. (Isaac is a joyful, exuberant, loving boy, but he's not a particularly gentle boy.)

He's heavily into trains right now, which seems like a pretty typical little-boy thing. Suzannah is a great help to us at night when he doesn't want to go to bed, because she'll say, "Hey, Isaac, do you wanna choo choo?" And he runs over and grabs her waist and they make a little train, chug-a-chugging down the hall to the bedroom. Suzannah is the engine and the conductor, of course, hollering "Chug-a-WOO WOO! Chug-a-WOO WOO!" And Isaac trots merrily behind.

Two years and a few days ago, Isaac burst into the world on a tidal wave of laughter and joy, and we haven't stopped laughing since.

I had all these things to post about, but this seems like the most important thing. It's pretty great to realize that no matter how exhausted I am, no matter how frustrated or disheartened I am, no matter what difficult thing we're dealing with, there has not been one single day since I've become a mother that I have not experienced real joy.

Of course, this perspective comes much more easily tonight, on this lovely, dark, cozy Sunday night, this night on which I am not worried about anything because I do not have school for the next two weeks. Suzannah and I are going to have some great mama-daughter bonding time this week, and I am going to read lots of books, and Matt and I have already had a date night -- dinner at Wild Ginger before enjoying Handel's Messiah with the Seattle Symphony, followed by dessert at a downtown wine bar. (We stayed out until midnight. Have we even done that since we had children? I don't remember. It seemed like a Big Indulgent Deal.)

I have some papers to grade, but I'm going to forget they exist for several days. And now I'm off to cook up a big pot of Indonesian sweet potato and cabbage soup and not worry about staying up too late and not getting enough done.

A little unexpected grace

I reached kind of a breaking point this week.

It's just that everything -- everything -- went wrong. Teenagers I normally like turned nasty. Teenagers who normally challenge my patience and my sanity made me want to quit. We're being asked to do so many new, confusing things this year and then we read perky little things in newsletters about how all the changes are going to simplify teacher's lives, and I'm sorry, things like that make me feel just a teeny bit hostile. And I'm convinced my building has a mold problem, which is probably why I've been sick for this entire flipping school year, but don't worry, my seniors are used to me coughing through their orals.

It all culminated in being told by a kid I really like, a kid with whom I have a great relationship, that I was unfair, and that his grade was "fucking bullshit." There was that, and then there was the class that came afterwards, in which about ten sixteen-year-old boys decided to see how many times in a row they could fart loudly without my being able to tell which one was doing the farting. At which point they got the THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS speech from me. I mean, whatever, so they were being immature and ridiculous -- you know what, even good sixteen-year-olds do this sometimes. Trust me. But there was that, and there was this other kid, and there were these other things, and there were a bunch of my best students turning in totally crappy work and then whining about their grades, and it was just a very, very, very bad day.

(Teachers need to be very careful when venting about such things. If we tell the wrong people -- even the wrong friends, people who mean well and who love us but who have no idea what it's actually like to work with real kids in real schools -- we're likely to hear all sorts of opinions on public education how horrible "kids today" are when what we really just need is someone to listen. It's funny; I realized that I still feel terribly protective of the very kids I pretty much want to strangle when other people start telling me about everything that's wrong with them and "the system.")

(That said, this time around, this week, I felt nothing but support from the people who love me. I guess I talked to all the right people.)

(And I'm breaking my No Writing About School rule, but let's be honest: any teacher reading this has probably had this class.)

It's not as though anything that happened this week is something I haven't seen before. But I'm sick, I've been coughing for days, I'm tired, and everything that could go wrong, or feel wrong, did. In the space of a single day. Students, co-workers, The System, all of it. And wow, that can really mess with one's perspective.

So I broke my No Crying At School rule at lunch on Wednesday. I sat at my desk and sniffled until about five minutes before my next class. I survived until the end of the day, at which point I fled to my car and cried the entire way home. I told Matt that I was taking the next day off, that if I didn't give myself some actual breathing space I would definitely probably get myself fired on purpose the very next day. It wasn't pretty; I'm normally a lot more resilient.

As it turned out, that mental health day saved me. I don't even remember the last time I took a day off just for me; my birthday in 2008, maybe, a day on which I elected to stay home and scrub my kitchen in peace. My "sick" days are reserved for my children, because they are of the age of fevers and ear infections and colds that require me to leave my job and pick them up. Last year Isaac's kidney infection meant that I used up a lot of sick days I hadn't planned on. And whatever -- this comes with the territory of having children; it is what it is, and there's no point in whining about it. But I don't even take sick days for myself, and taking a completely frivolous day off when I wasn't even on my deathbed seemed awfully self-indulgent. But it saved me. I drove to Seattle, spent two-and-a-half hours at the Elliott Bay Book Company, sipping coffee and writing and book-shopping. I took myself out to lunch. I read a hundred pages of a book I wasn't teaching. I bought myself a cupcake. I didn't grade one single paper.

I didn't actually expect anything to get better, though. I assumed I'd come back to a terrible note from the sub, and that everything would just suck forever. I bought myself a peppermint mocha on the way to school and braced myself for, I don't know, everything. Total misery. (A not-terribly-secret part of me believes that if I set very low expectations, I will be pleasantly surprised.) Here's what actually happened today, though:

The student who was so upsettingly confrontational on Wednesday was polite and engaged today, and after class he asked if we could talk -- at which point he made a very sincere and heartfelt apology, and we had a really good conversation. I don't think I realized until that moment how much that one thing had upset me, because if that would have been the only thing to go right today, it would have been enough.

I also had some really, really great conversations with a couple of colleagues I respect and trust; I turn to them when I need perspective, and they delivered. I laughed a lot with some of my good friends. I realized that my circle of supportive friends is bigger than I realized, and the circle of toxic people on the edges of my life isn't as big or as powerful as I sometimes think it is. I taught my senior class and realized that there has not yet been a single day this year that I haven't looked forward to them -- even when they make me a little nuts, even when they frustrate me, I really love them. Every single one. They're such a fantastic group of kids. And then I found myself sort of liking my regular juniors at the end of the day, even though they were horrible on Wednesday.

And then a girl who seriously hated me last year brought me a pumpkin roll with cream cheese frosting. (I cannot for the life of me figure out why, but this year she has decided she either likes me or hates me a little less than all her other teachers, because she brings me baked goods all the time. Delicious ones that appear to be not poisoned, even.)

At home, my kids played relatively nicely together and I had them both bathed by seven o'clock. Matt and I made popcorn and drinks and curled up to watch stuff on Netflix. We're making lovely weekend plans. I can breathe, literally and figuratively. I haven't had a coughing fit since my last class of the day. I have some papers to grade, but now, on Friday night, with the weekend stretching before me, it seems manageable. I might feel good enough for a run in the morning.

My sudden good humor is almost irritating even to me. But I'm full of gratitude anyway -- for the breathing space, for the perspective, for the grace.

October snapshots

It helps to remind myself that I love this time of year -- October, with its crunchy fall leaves and darker skies and rain, with its annual trip to the pumpkin patch. I love the transition to sweaters and hoodies. I love pumpkin spice lattes (even though I almost never get them) and all the other cozy seasonal drinks. I love Halloween decorations and Thanksgiving decorations and, yes, even Christmas decorations, even though Christmas isn't for a hundred more months. I love all my caramel and vanilla and pumpkin-scented candles and lotions. I love hot buttered rum. I love bundling my children into coats and boots and playing outside in the crisp fall air; I love collecting leaves with Suzannah so we can do leaf rubbings at home.

I remind myself of these things in order to stay grateful in the midst of what always seems to be massive amounts of stress. I don't know if I'm more stressed out now than I was at this time last year; after all, this year, my husband is at least gainfully employed in a new job he likes. That's actually pretty huge. Our life, as it stands, is pretty wonderful. The kids are well-adjusted and happy, and I enjoy all the daily stuff -- finding interesting new recipes to try (giving up meat has, interestingly, led me to try so many more things that I otherwise might), playing with Suzannah and Isaac in the afternoons, heading out for weekend adventures as a family, curling up on the couch in the evenings and pretending to grade papers while I'm really just zoning out in front of Twin Peaks (because it is also that time of year).

I haven't been writing much here, mostly because I'm just trying to stay sane. However, not writing never keeps me sane, ever, so here I sit on a Saturday night, with my Netflix and my gin-and-tonic and my laptop. I don't really know what I can say, since I have this flimsy little no-writing-about-school policy and school has been pretty consuming lately. I'm finally settling into some sort of rhythm with my new junior classes -- which, thank heavens, seem to have stabilized, so I can start teaching actual stuff now. I'm excited for the freedom to teach basically whatever I want in my regular junior classes, so I'm planning a bunch of revolutionary literature. Literature of Change! Yes!

(Also, I don't think I mentioned this ever? Two of my brand-new language & lit classes were "flipped" a couple of weeks into the school year, meaning I learned on a Sunday night that I would be teaching something totally different, with totally different kids, on Monday. Thank you, Broken Master Schedule. However, I wasn't actually all that upset, because I still have my junior IB lit class, which I can teach in my sleep, and my senior IB class, which I love, and teaching "regular" juniors means I have a tremendous amount of freedom in what I get to do, and that's always fun. Surely I get some credit for my relentlessly positive attitude, right?)

I have a really interesting bunch of kids in my two new classes. They frustrate the heck out of me. They make me angry. They break my heart. They're going to force me to really look at how I teach them and find different ways to help them be successful. It means I'm busy and exhausted and kind of pissed off some days, but still, when I stop and breathe, I usually manage to remember that I have exactly the job, and the life, that I want.

The kids are doing so well. Suzannah still loves (loves, loves, loves) kindergarten and my heart cannot even take the way she is just such a kid, a kid who skips across the playground and waves at all the people she knows and chatters about the games she played in music class and the book she picked out in the library. Isaac is becoming more and more his own little joyful self who just seems to love everything about being almost-two. (Suzannah didn't enjoy this age quite so much, as I recall; or maybe it's just that she hated sleeping at this age, and she resented me for trying to make her do it every night.) The kids love each other, know all the ways to torture each other like no one else ever will, and make sure to give each other lots of hugs before bedtime. They delight me every single day, even when they insist on soundly trouncing my self-esteem. (Last week, on our way to someplace or another, I happened to be singing at the top of my lungs when Suzannah said, "Mommy, your singing is hurting my ears. You can try again tomorrow." When I told her that her leftover noisemaker from some birthday party -- WHY was that even in the car? -- was hurting my ears, she simply replied, "But I like it.")

In between all of my Sunday blues and paper-grading (which provides me no end of absurdity to read aloud to my husband, which, actually, is one of the perks of being a teacher) and school drama and laundry and toys all over the floor and runny noses and running out of the one ingredient I need to make the dinner I wanted, there are the things that will make me remember these days more fondly: waffles on Saturday morning, trips to the Seattle Children's Museum and Discovery Park, dinner at the Elliott Bay Brewery and stopping by Easy Street Records and Cupcake Royale afterwards, family shopping trips at Trader Joe's, the annual trip to the pumpkin patch, going for runs in the crisp fall air, and realizing again that it is such a deep blessing to share this house, these moments, this life, with people whose company I enjoy so much.

Things that make my heart burst, things that make me smile

Just a bit ago I asked Suzannah if she was excited to go to the fair tomorrow. She replied that she'd rather go to kindergarten.

"But there's no school tomorrow," I explained.

"But I like school," she said.

"I know, Bug, but it's Saturday. No one will be at your school."

She pondered this rather sadly for a moment but brightened when I mentioned that we could go on rides together, maybe, or she could go on some by herself because Mommy is pretty much scared of all the rides.

"We could go on the big blue ride, though," she said. "We did that last year."

"We did, yeah, but that one is pretty scary for me." (It really is. I don't even know what it is, it's this thing that goes around in a big scary fast circle, and she is technically big enough to go with an adult but JUST BARELY, and so last year we went on it together and I was so terrified we'd both go flying off that if you look very, very closely I'm sure my finger marks are still visible from where I was clutching her. And no, it wasn't the merry-go-round, it was something VERY BIG AND SCARY that has since become known as the Big Blue Ride and that's all I can tell you.)

"But Mommy," she said, "I'll be right there with you."

So I promised to try my hardest to be brave.

And so as not to neglect my second child: Oh, he so desperately wants to be a Big Boy. He's really into doing "projects" -- he has remarkable concentration if you give him art supplies. My mom noticed this when we were at their house last month; he'd have spent all day at the easel in the garage if he could. He loves to draw. He loves to sit at the little white IKEA table his sister has long since claimed she's too big for, and he looks like such a little preschooler. (Even though he's not even two, so I don't know how I feel about this.) His language is exploding; until now he's been a man of few words, although he has always been good for random joyful screams. Now he's learning to use please appropriately, he shrieks "Doggie!" all day long, yells "NUH!" when he wants to nurse, and he can ask for books and balls and milk and more and crackers and apples and bananas. (Although Suzannah is also Nana, so I have to rely on context clues.) My favorite thing he says, though, is dup. Dup = "Yep," as far as I can tell.

"Isaac, would you like some more milk?"

"Dup!"

"Isaac, would you like to draw?"

"Dup!"

"Isaac, are you poopy right now? Do you need a new diaper?"

"Dup!"

It is pretty wonderful to be so perpetually delighted by the people I live with.

So this is what it feels like to have my heart explode

Some important things have happened in the last week:

I ran my second 5k for the Northwest Hope and Healing Foundation. I did beat last year's time, but just barely. In my defense, I was getting sick. Also, I'm pretty sure that's...just how fast I run. Anyway, I loved it and had a great time. This year was particularly awesome because a.) Matt and the kids came along, and they cheered for me as I neared the finish line, and b.) Dori and her husband and sisters were there as well. Last year at this time Dori was just beginning chemo, and this year she rocked the 5k. Matt snapped some good pictures, so one of these days maybe it will actually occur to me to upload them.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Madison Beach, playing in the sand and swimming in Lake Washington. Matt swam out to the floating dock so he could fling himself off the high dive a few times while I played in the sand with the kids, but when my turn came I swam around a little and then returned to the grassy beach, where I stretched out on a towel and dozed in the sunshine. It was a pretty perfect way to spend our last real summer weekend. (Although the forecast for the next several days looks a lot more summery than most of our actual summer. Really? It could hit ninety next week? Oh, good. I'm glad I'll be in a classroom with no air conditioning, wearing professional clothing and swatting away the wasps that drift through my open door.)

I started school again. We had freshmen orientation on Thursday, and since I don't teach any freshmen, I didn't meet with my classes until Friday. Of course, I spent all of last week at school anyway, trying to get ready for the year, planning frantically, and trying to process all the changes we're supposed to implement. I was completely exhausted by yesterday afternoon, so you'd better believe I was ready for a three-day weekend. I abandoned all thoughts of cooking last night and drove the kids to West Seattle instead, where we met Matt for a low-key dinner at the Elliott Bay Brewery, and that, followed by a night of decent sleep (Suzannah and Isaac stayed in bed until 7:30!) and a long, slow run in the sunshine this morning, has left me feeling pretty good. I'm still overwhelmed, but less exhausted, and as I said earlier this week, feeling overwhelmed in a job I love is a pretty privileged problem to have. I haven't quite found my groove yet, but I'm excited to get there.

And finally, the biggest and most important news: my firstborn, my baby girl, started kindergarten.

That really trumps everything.

I was fine at kindergarten orientation on Tuesday. I'm thrilled with her kindergarten teacher; I'd heard good things about all three, and I would have been fine with any of them. But Suzannah made it into the class I really, really wanted her to get, so that was a huge weight off my shoulders. (I wonder if, years from now, I'll look back and chuckle at this younger self who was so concerned about which of three great teachers my daughter would have.) I felt reassured and confident that Suzannah would do just fine. She met her teacher on Thursday, and while she was quite shy and reserved -- as she often is when meeting new adults for the first time -- she seemed excited to start school.

I was losing perspective by Thursday morning; I was running around like crazy, trying to find my keys, feeling emotional and stressed. The kitchen was a wreck, and there was just stuff strewn absolutely everywhere. I had cleaned the house the day before, and suddenly it all seemed so futile. I felt crazy. I told Matt I really thought I was going to lose my shit, and Matt, being the wonderful, calming husband he is, wrapped me up in a hug and said, "Baby, I'm going to take care of this today, and it will be cleaned up when you come home." (He usually works from home on Thursdays.) I looked up at him and said, "I love you, and I'm sorry you have to be married to a girl who has no shit." He burst out laughing, and then I laughed in spite of myself, and things were sort of okay again.

(This kindergarten stuff -- it's the kind of thing that makes me want to stop total strangers and tell them about it. But I also don't really know what to say about it. How does one describe this feeling? I'm not sure my heart has ever felt so huge, so full-to-bursting of so many things. Mostly, I'm just so overwhelmed with love and pride and gratitude that this spunky little girl in all of her beautiful complexity is my daughter. I'm not sad the way people seem to expect; it's not sadness that makes my eyes well up when I think of her joining her little class, putting her lunch in her cubby, and doing all of her kindergarten things. It's not even sadness about time passing, really, even though I'm doing things like looking at old pictures and reading through old journal entries and remembering stories of her babyhood, of her toddlerhood, and feeling like those moments are still so near yet -- not. It's hard to fathom that she was ever an infant, instead of a girl who asks questions and tells stories and giggles and teases. And oh, how I loved her babyhood, and all of her lovely younger selves, but I wouldn't ever wish away what she is now, the person she continues to be and become. No, it's not sadness. But every other word, even words like bittersweetness, seem totally inadequate.)

On Friday morning, we got ready together. She dressed in a new pink polo shirt and embroidered jeans and let me put her hair in a pony-tail and "helped" me put on make-up. She seemed pretty matter-of-fact about it all, pretty cheerful. I could hardly breathe.

We took pictures.

We took her to school. We walked her to her classroom.

She hung up her new pink backpack. She already had a cubby, one she'd chosen the day before when she met her teacher. She gave us each a big hug, and then she walked over to the large rainbow carpet and joined all the other kids. Her cheeks were pink and I could tell she was nervous, but she was holding it together so well. (A boy in the classroom next door was sobbing and clinging to his mother. I knew how he felt.) She turned and waved at us, gave a little smile. We waved back, smiled as hard as we could, and left. And then we sort of staggered across the playground, holding hands and leaning heavily into each other. I must have looked awfully shaky, because we attracted lots of sympathetic smiles from other parents milling around. I really thought I might throw up. And then, it was so ridiculous, Matt and I kissed each other good-bye and went off to our respective jobs. I was all, what? I have to go to school and teach classes? How?

It really did put everything into perspective, though. I mean, it was pretty impossible for me to muster up any angst over the scheduling chaos that was going on at my school -- or, for that matter, anything else people were freaking out about. I was like, I DO NOT CARE, MY BABY GIRL HAS BEEN IN KINDERGARTEN FOR AN HOUR NOW, I AM A LITTLE DISTRACTED.

I met my students. I know a lot of them already, actually, so they were pretty understanding when I told them all that I would probably be a better teacher next week, after I'd had a chance to process the fact that MY BABY GIRL WAS IN KINDERGARTEN. (And once I have a chance to process everything in general, by the way, I think my classes will be pretty fantastic.) At the end of the day, I raced home and drifted aimlessly around the house for a bit. I dashed out the door twenty minutes before her school day ended. (I remain infinitely grateful that my schedule allows me to both drop her off and pick her up.)

It takes about five minutes to walk to her school, so I sat on the playground and called my parents and asked if they'd felt like throwing up on my first day of school.

The fifteen-minute wait was excruciating. When the teacher finally opened the door, she was smiling. "We made it!" she said. Remembering my manners, I resisted the urge to push past her and elbow my way into her room. When I did enter the classroom (in a very orderly fashion), I saw my little girl right away -- and she was beaming. And my heart -- I don't even know how to describe what it felt like. It just exploded. I couldn't wait to hug her, but since she's all grown up now and probably wouldn't have appreciated having me squealing against her neck in front of everyone, I managed to wait until we'd at least made it outside before I knelt down and squeezed her against me.

"Hi, Bug," I said. "What do you say we walk to Starbucks and have a treat, just the two of us?" She nodded and smiled, and so we walked, hand-in-hand, through the afternoon sunshine. I tried not to bombard her with questions and just let her talk, and before we'd walked a block she had told me all about her day. (..."And then we had a treasure hunt, and I ate my lunch and a girl helped me open my milk, and I picked a green spot on the rainbow carpet, and then I picked a blue one, and then red and purple and...yellow. And we went outside lots of times, and I climbed on the ladder and played in the sandbox, and a boy poured sand on my sandcastle, but it's okay because I wanted him to do that. And I got to drink water out of the drinking fountain. And my teacher read us a story about a mouse...") She wanted to stop right there on the sidewalk and pull out a picture she'd drawn. And she's been asking when she gets to go back to school.

All I really need is for her to be okay, and I'm okay. And that, I guess, is where I'm at. Earlier this week, I wrote this -- it seems like an appropriate conclusion: Isaac has a cold. I have a cold. I feel gross and overwhelmed and tired. But really, really, when I look at my life, at the way it looks in this exact moment, with all the shitty diapers and runny noses and dishes all over the kitchen, with all of its unwritten lesson plans, tantrums, insecurities and fears and uncertainties, it's still the only life I want. Because all of that just means I have this wonderful family and a complicated, absurd job that I happen to love, and all of that is more than I could ever ask or deserve from this life.

Summer, and the end of it

The year I'm not excited to set up my classroom and shop for school supplies is the year I should no longer be teaching. Thankfully, I don't think I'm anywhere near that. We arrived home last night from the longest vacation we've taken -- well, ever, really, and I haven't even finished unpacking my suitcase yet. I did, however, head into school today to get my classroom ready. I left it in pretty good shape back in June, but I needed to work on the walls a bit and clean my desks and organize things. It's more or less ready to go, and I'm beginning to get excited.

The rhythm of the seasons is like this, always: I end the year a little burned out and more than a little tired. This past year, for various reasons, I was more stressed than usual. I was so ready to get out of there in June. But at precisely the right moment in August, something clicks -- it's quiet and subtle and I almost don't realize it's happened, but I reach a point where I can consciously say to myself, I am ready to go back. I want to buy new notebooks and pens. I want to sit with my planner and my notebook and a stack of novels and flip through my poetry collections and figure out how to talk about it all with kids. It's a good feeling. Sometimes August is like one long Sunday afternoon -- there's a certain amount of dread involved, combined with a strange inertia -- but at some point, anticipation for September kicks in.

September is nothing like Monday. September is golden, optimistic, hopeful. September is warmth and crunchy fall leaves and the transition from shorts to sweatshirts. September is a huge box of markers my students haven't yet ruined, it's new shoes, it's stacks of crisp white paper. September is kids who haven't grown too comfortable or too complacent yet. September is settling into a rhythm that hasn't yet become routine, hasn't yet become drudgery. September is falling in love with my life all over again, the way I do every autumn even when I am stressed and overwhelmed and seriously doubting my own competency.

So today, today, on this first day back after vacation, I decided not to dwell on the fact that summer is essentially over. I decided, instead, to look forward to the start of a new school year. I am stressed and overwhelmed; I am teaching a lot of brand-new stuff this year, including two brand-new classes. Frankly, I'm sort of terrified. But I'm also excited and desperately hoping I can rise to the challenge, because if I can pull this off, I'll be teaching my dream schedule.

Also, also, this is the year my daughter starts kindergarten. This feels so huge and wonderful and scary to me. I'm not quite sure how much I'm going to write about it on this public blog, to be honest; as she grows, I wonder if I should be a bit more selective in what and how I write about her in such a public space. I also feel a little protective about her schooling experience, knowing how opinionated people are about school in general. For now, I'll say this: we're blessed with what seems to be a great neighborhood school, and she's excited and ready. And I'm working on feeling ready myself. It's wonderful, it's bittersweet.

I can't believe I'm already writing about school. On the other hand, while we always talk about summer passing so quickly, it seems about right. I've had an absolutely lovely summer, and planning our vacation for August meant that I had to let go of a lot of my usual anxiety or I wouldn't have enjoyed it so much. And I did. We spent almost two-and-a-half weeks on the road between all the places we love the best. Our vacations right now always involve trips to visit our families instead of, I don't know, more exotic locations, but at this point in our lives I am really very okay with that.

I wrote a lot on the road, but I'm not really sure how to condense it here, and anyway, I'm not sure how interesting it would be to the general public. Instead, I'll share some things I've learned (or had reinforced) in the past couple of weeks:

It is very, very difficult to be vegetarian in North Dakota.

Planning for time out of the car is crucial on long driving days. I know where to find a park in just about any town between Seattle and Minneapolis.

I am not as patient as I want to be.

Spending so much time in extremely close quarters with my family really enhances all of our, um, quirks. Maintaining a sense of humor about all of this is absolutely key to our survival.

Moses Lake, Washington and Miles City, Montana are so very hot in August and there is just...no relief anywhere. Moses Lake has no shade. Miles City has way too many bugs. And yet, I have an inexplicable fondness for both towns.

I don't think I am ever as truly relaxed as I am when we spend time at Pleasant Pines in Minnesota.

Mosquitoes still love me. Especially in Minnesota, where they are big enough to shoot.

My best friend is happier than I've ever seen her, and even though this has come through in our various forms of long-distance communication, it was wonderful to see in person and I'm so honored to have been a part of her wedding day. Also, Dan has turned her into a big old softie, because we both bawled our faces off when I hugged her good-bye. (Should I not write that in public? Sorry, Carmen.)

The wedding was in the middle of Nowhere, North Dakota and it is beautiful there. It would challenge all of your assumptions about what North Dakota looks like.

I don't know if MacKenzie River Pizza is actually the best pizza in the world, but I have such a fierce devotion to it that I still tell everyone it is. Same thing with Pickle Barrel sandwiches.

If someone throws up in Bogart Pool in Bozeman, it closes for the rest of the day. (Thankfully, it was not because of either of my children that I had to learn this.)

Splash parks are perfect for our family right now. I fell in love with two of them on this trip, and I'm not one of the moms who sits on a towel and watches.

I need to do a much better job of breaking in my hiking boots before hiking ten miles.

Emerald Lake with all those alpine meadows full of wildflowers is still worth the blisters.

Suzannah prefers to be barefoot as much as possible, like I do. She hardly wore shoes at all at the lake; she looked so golden and brown and summery by the time we left.

My parents will still happily sacrifice their dignity to please the children they love. They both ran through the sprinkler in their backyard in their work clothes because it delighted Suzannah. (I never had all that much dignity to begin with, so you don't even have to ask if I joined in the fun.)

To my children, Grandpa and Grandma's house is better than Disneyland.

I was really naive to believe that my children were too young to find so many creative ways to a.) annoy each other and b.) annoy me during our long hours on the road. Let's talk about how Suzannah taught Isaac how to make vomit noises. And the "Smell my feet" game. And the way they managed to yell "Mine!" at each other for like a hundred hours straight -- they sounded like the seagulls in Finding Nemo. You'd think they'd have grown tired of these things after the first ten hours of driving, BUT NO.

Despite all that, I still love road trips.

The more time I spent away from Facebook, the less inclined I was to check in. When I did, I wondered how I sort through so much noise on a daily basis. Now I'm wondering how to continue to use it in a way that doesn't suck so much of my time/annoy me/frustrate me and still stay "connected" to people I care about.

Making sure I build in time for exercise on vacation makes a significant difference in my mood, energy level, patience, etc. Matt and I went for long runs, long swims, or long hikes pretty much at least every other day -- until this week, because my heels are in bad shape after Wednesday's epic hike. Today was my first run since then, which I needed because I'm running a 5k in less than a week. Also, I've spent a lot of time in the car again over the past couple of days, it's been hot, I ate way too much pizza for dinner last night, and I feel just generally kind of gross.

After living in our little house for eight years, I still love the way it smells when we walk through the door after a long absence.

Sometimes it takes a trip through time, so to speak, for me to realize how lucky I am to live exactly where I do. I can't even articulate how much I love Montana, and in many ways I also feel perfectly at home in Minnesota and would probably be happy living there as well, but I really do think of the Pacific Northwest as home. And it feels so, so good to be back.

First Lesson

Well, it happened: All of us were hit with the same stomach bug at more or less the same time. I guess I'm documenting this for posterity, but I really don't wish to hash out all the details. Let's just say that I thought briefly of killing myself when I glimpsed what lay ahead for our family late last Sunday night, but by five o'clock the next morning I just didn't have the energy. Whatever, it was gross, we survived.

And then in a show of really spectacular timing, our washing machine broke. It's not good when it smells like it's on fire during the spin cycle and leaves all these weird scorchy-looking brown spots all over your sheets and towels. Fixing our eight-year-old machine would have cost about twelve cents less than the cost of a shiny new one, so we got to go shopping. (The dryer, thankfully, is fine, although it needed a good cleaning. The guy who came out to service it cheerfully reported that we're lucky we didn't burn down our house.)

In happier news, my little girl had her very first swimming lesson today. We've never had her in "real" lessons before; I didn't really think she was ready last summer. Last summer she was just starting to be okay with sitting on a brightly colored carpet all by herself in her Kindermusik class, and she loved that, but I thought it would be pushing our luck to expect her to jump in a swimming pool all by herself. (In hindsight, she might have done just fine, but live and learn.) She's been excited for swimming lessons. She's been in gymnastics for the past several months, which has been great in terms of getting her used to listening to coaches and interacting with lots of different kids. I'm always nearby, watching, but I'm in the background.

She was shy at first, of course. We lined up by the pool, and I guided her into her little class group. I prodded her to follow her teacher, and then I stepped back and let her go. She didn't look back at me, and the next thing I knew, she was jumping right into the pool. By herself. Within minutes she was blowing bubbles, hanging on to the side of the pool to practice her kicks, and putting her face in the water. She allowed her teacher to pull her around the pool away from the side as she continued to practice her kicking and her back floats. She actually leaned back far enough in the water to get her hair completely wet.

She glanced over at me a few times and we exchanged secret little waves. I tried to control my beaming so I wouldn't completely embarrass her. She's so funnily shy about showing her excitement in public -- she goes so far as to actually reach up and pull her cheeks down when she's really tickled, like she doesn't want the world to see how much she's smiling. (And when her smile is just too big to be contained and it comes bursting through anyway -- well, it's beautiful, and impossible not to feel that smile all the way to your own toes.)

Mostly, though, I just watched, and she was so absorbed in kicking and bouncing in the water that she wasn't looking over at me all that much. The thirty-minute lesson flew by. Afterwards she climbed out of the pool like it was old hat already, shimmied over to me, and said, "I'm getting cold -- can I please have my towel?"

Sometimes I feel like every triumph I have ever experienced in my life culminates in these little moments -- watching my daughter jump into a swimming pool by herself, or watching her glide effortlessly across a balance beam in gymnastics class when four months ago she was so tentative. Or cooking dinner while she colors and hearing her suddenly announce, "Hey, Mommy, look -- I made a letter Q." Or hearing my son say a world for the first time. Watching him as he grins and starts to dance when he hears music. Listening to my children laughing together in the next room, knowing they are sharing something that they initiated without my prompting. Some of these moments are obvious (Suzannah's first swimming lesson is a pretty big one), but so many of them are so ordinary. One of the things I really try to do, though, is stay present enough to notice them -- to notice all the little ways in which my children discover the world and all the things they can do in it. It gives me a little thrill in my stomach and a swell in my heart that feels so much bigger than anything I've ever managed to do myself. I can't take credit for any of this, for what they do, but I can hopefully be in the moment with them and let them know that they matter.

And I know there is so much more to come. I try to remind myself of this whenever I start to miss their babyhoods, although I don't want to look too far into the future, either -- I don't want to miss the beautiful, shining splash when my little children take their first big leaps.

First Lesson
--Phillip Booth

Lie back daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
Gently, and I will hold you. Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls. A dead-
man's float is face down. You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea. Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

A moment

When Suzannah goes to sleep, she wraps her bedspread around her shoulders and rolls herself into a tight little cocoon. Often, like tonight, she flips around and sleeps curled up at the foot of her bed, her feet towards her pillow. Something about this makes my heart swell. Tonight, actually, everything about her has this effect -- she seems so grown-up to me, so far away from babyhood, despite the fact that sometimes I'm still prone to having moments of whoa, we have actual children five years in.

I was going to be so productive today, but I spent my morning washing sheets and peeling clothes off of both Isaac and me. He seemed out of sorts this morning, and then at nine o'clock he started throwing up. After he'd done that twice I put him in a warm bath, where he played quite cheerfully for a long time. He seemed fine after that -- and hungry, so, hoping it was a fluke (coughing from postnasal drip? he also has a tendency towards allergies, we suspect) I let him have a piece of a banana and some crackers. He devoured them, played happily for awhile, and threw it all back up. His mood shifted then, and he became clingy and unhappy. He threw up a few more times, including once all over his bed when I tried to put him down. By the time I changed into my fourth shirt of the day, he was mostly just heaving up pitiful spoonfuls of nothing and he seemed completely worn out.

It was the kind of morning that could drive a mama crazy.

I've been really lucky with both of my children when it comes to the puking department. Suzannah has never really had a bad bout of vomiting -- not until last year, shortly before she turned four. She threw up all night then, and I wound up doing load after load of laundry; by eight o'clock in the morning, she was wearing an old pair of sweats that barely even fit anymore and sleeping on the one clean blanket we had left in the house. She remembered that, today, when she asked "Why isn't Isaac feeling so good?" I asked her if she remembered how she felt when she was sick like that, and she said -- almost proudly -- "I threw up right over there on the wood floor."

One of the worst parts of such an illness, I think, is the fear. Will my other child get it? Will I get it? Will our entire family be knocked flat by this? Because I still remember a horrible day from my own childhood, one in which my brother and I and both of our parents had the stomach flu at the same time. I still remember the awful sounds of people throwing up in two bathrooms at the same time and the way I curled miserably on the couch, by myself, knowing my parents were both too sick to really take care of me the way they would have otherwise. Thankfully, knock on wood, this hasn't yet happened to us. When Suzannah got so sick last year, the rest of us were spared. When I spent an entire day throwing up last October, no one else in my family felt anything out of the ordinary. When Matt got sick on New Year's Eve Day, the rest of us were fine. And so, I hope, is the case this time.

I put Isaac to bed shortly after lunch and he went right to sleep. Suzannah and I curled up together on the living room couch and read a couple of her books, and then she scampered into her room and crawled right up into bed for "quiet time." She actually fell asleep. She doesn't really nap anymore, but she's had several late nights recently and really not enough sleep, so I wasn't entirely surprised. In that moment, I decided to forget about the vacuuming and the rest of the laundry and I collapsed in the recliner to read Faithful Place, by Tana French (which is everything I could possibly want from a summer read). I hadn't read more than a page before Isaac cried pitifully for me.

I sighed. I put my book down.

I braced myself, waiting to hear the tell-tale sounds of gagging. They never came; he merely whimpered. I peeked in his room. He was still lying down, though he wasn't asleep. He probably would have fallen back asleep if I'd left him alone, but the sight of his wan face broke my heart a bit. I lifted him up and he sagged against my shoulder. He wasn't too limp to wrap his arms around my neck.

I settled back into the recliner with him, and he rested his cheek against my chest. He felt warm, but not alarmingly so. He sighed and grew heavier as he relaxed against me, and we leaned back together. I kissed his wispy hair, kissed his ear, rocked with him. His breathing became steady, sleepy, slow. He lapsed into snoring after a few moments.

I actually picked up my novel and read a few pages -- it is not one I want to put down, at all, until it's finished -- but after a few moments, I set it down again. Because really, I just wanted to hold my son. And I hated that he felt sick, I hated how confused he seemed every time he threw up, hated that he wasn't his usual happy-go-lucky little self, but I cherished that moment all the same -- the absolute gift of that moment that allowed me to just hold him while he relaxed against me and slept. His warm little back rose and fell against the palm of my hand. The fluff of his hair brushed against my lips.

I didn't get anything done, but I'll hold this moment long after my son has outgrown rocking in my arms.

Upsilamba!

I'm sore today. The good kind of sore -- the kind that comes after a long summer hike in the mountains, the mark of a summer day well-lived. Of course, I hadn't actually planned on feeling sore this weekend; I'd only intended to go for a nice run with a friend before lunch. Three miles, maybe four. Tops. We accidentally went about ten miles, though, before we were "rescued" along the highway, far away from where we started. I'm pretty sure I've never had anyone out looking for me before.

I left the house early yesterday morning, headed into the mountains for the annual retreat for the Children, Youth, and Family Team at my church. (Everyone else went on Friday night, but after joining them for dinner I came back home; I'm not quite ready to leave my nursling babe overnight.) It was at Buck Creek this year; I drove it in an hour, sipping coffee and listening to a biography of Thomas Hardy on CD, enjoying the quiet, the morning sunlight, the time to myself. I love these retreats -- I come away feeling refreshed, renewed, maybe a little more clear-headed, and definitely grateful to have the support and friendship of this church family. It's a recharge this mama needs every now and then.

I was also looking forward to a run. My friend Peggy asked if I'd like to go with her, and I wouldn't dream of turning down the opportunity to breathe mountain air, clear my head, and get in a good workout. So Peggy and I planned to go on a nice run before lunch; there are trails around the lodge where we were holding our retreat, and when we asked about good places to go we were given reasonable instructions for a loop that sounded like it would be right around two miles. We decided we'd do that twice and call it good.

What actually happened was that we took a wrong turn and couldn't really figure out where we were supposed to go, but by the time we realized we weren't on a two-mile loop, we'd run pretty far. We encountered more hikers and bikers who gave us well-meaning but inaccurate advice, and -- well, we got a little lost. All told, we went eight miles on the trail and another two along the highway before we were "rescued." At least, according to the people we managed to flag down for directions when we finally emerged from the trail onto a dirt road. At the time, I wasn't convinced we'd really gone that far, although today I feel appropriately sore for having run and hiked several miles of up and down mountain trails.

We saw the most beautiful waterfall on the mountain, through an opening in a canopy of trees, an opening filled with sunlight. We stopped there for a bit, just to look, to breathe, and to deeply appreciate the gift of that view. That moment made our little misadventure more than worth our sore muscles and parched throats. It was more than a beautiful view; it was somehow an unexpected gift of perfect peace, unexpected and undeserved. It reminded me a little of the weekend my college roommate came home with me for midsemester break during October of our senior year. I wrote this not long afterward:

I remember so clearly one golden afternoon of that long weekend; we climbed through the barbed wire fence at the edge of my parents' property and made our way down to the creek. We found a bridge consisting of wooden planks placed across two logs that stretch across the water and sprawled on our backs, our legs dangling over the side. I tipped my head back until I was upside down, gazing at the sky and water and inverted trees. A gust of wind shook the remaining golden leaves clinging to the branches, and they swirled above our heads in colorful flurries before drifting down to land gently on the water, the ground, in our hair. It was a moment of such still perfection it was hard to believe it was real. I watched one perfect leaf dip and twirl until it landed and the current carried it downstream. The beauty of it almost hurt with its simple intensity.

This was a bit like that. In fact, it might be my definition of upsilamba. I haven't put it into words as lovely as "the impossible joy of a suspended leap," but maybe it's something like "a moment of unutterable perfection."

The day was lovely and the weather was perfect -- sunny and warm, but not hot. We felt badly because we knew our group would be worrying about us, but we also knew that there was nothing we could do about that, and we knew we were perfectly fine. All we could do was keep moving, appreciate the adventure, be grateful it was a relatively safe adventure, and enjoy each other's company.

We came across a campground with a spigot for drinking water, and we stuck our heads underneath that for awhile. That was around mile 8, when we finally reached the highway. It was the best water I have ever tasted.

Maybe upsilamba is the sudden clear gush of cold water on a hot day.

Anyway, we had a really, really great time. The only downsides were a.) the fact that we hadn't brought any water (we were, after all, just going out for a quick run!) and b.) the fact that we knew our group would be massively freaking out. Which they were. Thankfully, the people who run the lodge had a pretty good idea where we'd gone, because this has happened to people before, and they picked us up. By then I was glad, because when we hit the highway and saw where we were we realized we were exactly four miles from the turnout to the lodge, at which point we'd have another mile of hiking in before we got there. I actually didn't expect to be found out on the highway at all. It was nowhere near where we'd started -- so I was pleasantly surprised to hear a honk behind us. We turned to see a truck from the camp pulling up alongside us. The driver waved cheerfully.

"Would you ladies like a lift?" he asked, smiling. He wasn't frantic, anyway. When we finally crept in the door of our cabin, Julia looked at us as though we were ghosts before grabbing me in a furious hug.

I ate about twelve brownies when we finally made it back to the lodge. I started fantasizing about those brownies by the time we reached the highway; our friend Bonnie brought a huge pan of them. That's all I wanted -- brownies and water. Neither have ever tasted so good.

Matt spent the day with the kids, and it sounds like they had an equally fabulous day. He was incredibly ambitious, taking them to the tot lot and the zoo and Owen Beach and to a coffee shop for treats. All of these things are fairly close together, but still, it's a lot to do in a single day. I came home to two very dirty, very tired, very happy children. It was well past ten by the time everyone in our house had managed to have a shower or a bath, but I feel like this is such a deliciously summer way to end a day: worn out, scrubbed clean, maybe a little sore, and satisfied.

This is why bedtime takes awhile

"Mommy, can you sing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' to me?"

"Sure, bug. Twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a pizza in the sky --"

"No! It's not a pizza, it's a diamond."

"Oh! Oops. Okay, let me try again. Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the ocean..."

"No! It's not the ocean, it's the sky."

"Ohhh. Silly me! Okay. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky...twinkle, twinkle little tomato..."

"No! It's a star!"

"Oops! Okay, let me try one more time. Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky...twinkle, twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are."

"Can I sing it to you now?"

"Sure."

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are. Up above the world so high, like a pizza in the sky..."

"No! Silly girl. It's like a diamond!"

"Up above the world so high, like a banana in the ocean..."

"Wait, what? That doesn't make any sense!"

"Up above the world so high, like a tomato in the...mirror..."

"Well, this song is getting ridiculous."

"Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky, twinkle, twinkle little...strawberry! How I wonder what you are."

One of the the things I treasure about my children is the space they keep open for pure silliness. I hope we're always this effortlessly playful.

The beauty in the blue

Our last day of school is June 20th, a week from tomorrow. Originally, it was supposed to be this Thursday, but we had a couple of snow days to make up. Students -- and teachers, for that matter -- complain about how ridiculous it is to come back after a weekend for one day after finals, as the last day of school ends at 10:00 a.m. (and "classes," if you can even call them that by then, are only ten minutes long), but I don't mind. I mean, we have to have our 180 days, so whatever, and am I really the only person who rather enjoys having the last day as such a "blow-off" day? Because to me, there's sort of a celebratory feel. A lot of kids won't be there, which is fine, but for the ones that do come, it's about signing yearbooks and hanging out and getting some sort of stress-free closure to the year. The rest of the day is for teachers to work on finishing up grades and signing out and getting our classrooms cleaned up and put away, although my plan -- as always -- is to be as organized and efficient as possible so that my day, too, is finished shortly after ten. Since I've had children, the last day of school means that if I have my act together, I have a sweet day (or at least a few sweet hours) of free time, during which I don't have to worry about lesson plans or grading papers or anything I should be doing. Usually, I go home, or I go to a coffee shop, and I read for a long time. In 2007, I read The Light of Evening on the last day of school, a lovely novel by Edna O'Brien. In 2008, I read Thirteen Reasons Why in almost one sitting at Starbucks. (In 2009 I was just a week or two into my second trimester of pregnancy, but I was still extremely ill much of the time. I remember wanting to read The House of the Spirits, but every time I tried, I felt carsick. Instead, I came home and ate some spring rolls from Trader Joe's because that's what sounded good but didn't make me feel much better and probably took a nap.) This year, I plan to book it out of school as soon as possible, take myself to Poverty Bay for a really good vegetarian sandwich, and spend the rest of my free early-afternoon hours reading either When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead or one of the books I've borrowed from Kyanne before diving into my self-imposed summer reading list.

Anyway, even though I technically have school a week from tomorrow, I've been thinking of today as my last real Sunday of the school year, the kind that brings with it the inevitable Sunday Blues. Although the Sunday Blues are significantly less blue for me than they were before I had children, probably due to a combination of things, such as my part-time schedule (easier to be angsty on a Sunday night before a very early morning), the fact that several years of experience mean I'm generally not scrambling to figure out lesson plans at the last minute, and my desire to be present for my family that allows me to put aside things that otherwise might nag at me a bit more persistently. Still, I get them, and I realize that I probably bring them upon myself more than I need to -- even if I have a relatively stress-free weekend, even if I've managed not to bring home any work. It's a feeling I associate with late-afternoon light, the way I feel after the nap I usually try to take, the way the dishes seem to build up in the sink a little more quickly, and the way dinner plans seem to get lost somewhere in the afternoon and before we know it the evening is closing in on bedtime and we're still chopping vegetables. It's not my favorite.

At the same time, part of me, today, appreciates even these moments. Of course, it's easy not to feel too stressed on the last real Sunday evening of the school year, despite the pile of things I know I need to do this week and the fact that it's nearly eleven o'clock and I'm nowhere near going to bed myself yet. (I could, but I'm obviously choosing to write instead.) But maybe it's a little like the way I remember the weeks following Isaac's birth. I remember them so fondly, and to be honest, they weren't nearly as difficult and exhausting as I imagined they would be (I think I'd set very low expectations). At the same time, there were days. Days in which I looked down at myself at the end of the day and realized I hadn't managed to shower or change my spit-up-stained, milk-stained, probably tear-stained shirt. Days in which I wondered how I'd make it until Matt got home from work, or even until the kids' naptime, if naptime even happened. Days of juggling the needs of my three-year-old and the needs of my newborn and feeling as though I couldn't possibly do either one well. Wondering if I'd ever read a novel again, or write anything more than a fractured journal entry. And weeping because I knew that those moments were passing so quickly, sliding right through my fingers, and despite my desperation and feelings of inadequacy in the face of my children's need, I wanted to hold them close -- just like I wanted to keep and hold the moments of utter contentment and peace. Holding Suzannah's hand and wearing Isaac on my chest as we walked to the playground, to Starbucks. Curling up in my daughter's bed with her and reading stories, curling up in my own bed with my tiny nursing boy. My baby sleeping on my chest. Suzannah holding her brother. Lying in bed with Matt, our children between us. Those are the obvious moments, of course, but the picture isn't complete without all of it -- it needs the memory of tears, the defeat of a messy house and tantrums and piles of unfolded laundry, the worry, the fear, the anxiety, and even just the little ordinary moments that make up a day. The nursing baby, the little battles and negotiations with a willful preschooler, the daily rituals of making lunches and reading stories and taking walks and coming home.

When I think back on those early days of learning how to be a mother to two children, I want to remember it all. I wouldn't wish myself back to some of those days; postpartum anxiety is no picnic. But I cherish it all. All.

And that's how I feel tonight, a little: nostalgic in advance for the life I'm living now, even the days of Sunday Blues. I imagine my future self remembering my life now and remembering all the ordinary details of our weekends. The ways we might tend to be a little snappish with each other as we try to get out the door to church on time, for instance -- it always makes me a little crazy that we can never manage to get the breakfast dishes cleaned up. But then, about halfway to church, Matt's fingers find mine in the middle of the car, and we smile, and things are okay. And afterwards, we stop by Target and Trader Joe's, and there are little presents we give ourselves: Tahitian vanilla caramels and wine, maybe, or the portobello mushroom ravioli we like to have on hand for an easy dinner. At home we eat a thrown-together lunch, a sandwich for Suzannah and leftovers for Matt and me and pretty much anything for Isaac, and after the baby goes down for his nap and Suzannah goes to her room for a little "quiet time" (maybe a nap, but usually just quiet playing or reading) I curl up on the couch in the living room and doze off to the sound of the dishwasher, the pug snoring in the space behind my knees. I always intend to take just a short cat-nap, but if I'm especially tired this might be my best sleep of the weekend, and sometimes I don't wake until Isaac does. But then I feel groggy, and suddenly the afternoon is spinning into evening and there are papers to grade or laundry to transfer from the washer to the dryer or dinner to figure out or any number of things I'd planned for so optimistically on Friday. Matt might take the kids to the library or for a hike at Hylebos, which gives me a window of time in which to accomplish any of these things, but it's both too much and not enough. I don't check off everything on my to-do list, but I find myself looking at the clock and wanting my little family to come bursting back through the door.

Dinner is often too late. The kids are often awake too late on Sundays, later than they normally are on weekdays. I feel edgy for reasons I can't necessarily pinpoint. But when I remember Sundays, the whole picture -- the weaving of the blissful, the comfortable, the ordinary, and even the anxious and edgy -- is what makes the memory beautiful. It's what makes it last.

Growing pains

The class of 2011 graduates tomorrow. I will not be there, because I will be getting ready for my little girl's birthday party. Her first real birthday party with friends her age, in fact -- not to minimize the delight of the equally wonderful family parties we've had since she turned one. Still, it feels like a milestone. There will be a bunch of little kids running around, and there will be cake and ice cream and Backyardigans decorations and presents, and the best part is that it will not be at my house. Suzannah loves gymnastics class so much that we booked a party for her at The Little Gym, and maybe we are paying too much and maybe it is not the most original thing in the entire world, but the appeal of turning over the games and entertainment -- not to mention the set-up and clean-up -- to a couple of friendly and energetic gymnastics coaches who seem to genuinely delight in such chaos was too great to resist. I will be there with my camera and my smile and my bursting heart.

(I'd planned to go to graduation, really. But we ended up bumping back the date of Suzannah's party for a couple of reasons, and secretly, I'm sort of relieved -- I love watching "my" kids walk across the stage, I love hugging them afterwards, and I'm usually glad to be there, but I don't love graduation traffic, and graduation ceremonies themselves are excruciatingly boring, for the most part. You know it's true. It's why Carmen and I always drove to Barnes and Noble for reading material to prop on our music stands before graduation at Concordia. We probably did that for our own graduation. But I really do love you, Class of 2011.)

My girl, my lovely little girl. She is five years old now, and so spoiled that she is celebrating her birthday two weeks after the fact.

So anyway, here we are, on the cusp of a beautiful summer -- a beautiful time to be a mom, especially if one is lucky to have time off to enjoy it. Summers with my children mean lazy afternoons in the backyard, splashing in sprinklers and swimming pools. It means walks to the park, hard play and sweat, and a constant sheen of sunscreen. Trips to the zoo, the aquarium. Swimming lessons, maybe Kindermusik again. It means reading books without the worry that I should be grading papers, going for evening runs, and learning how to make a perfect black bean burger that holds together on the grill. One more week of teaching, and all this is mine.

Isaac is old enough to really play outside now. Last summer he and I did a lot of sitting on a blanket while Suzannah pranced through the sprinkler and splashed in her pool, but now that he's a sturdy little walking fellow who loves the backyard, we'll all be in on the fun. I only hope there's enough yard for both of them, as Suzannah has become a bit territorial lately. Not that this is especially new; as soon as Isaac was old enough to take any interest at all in baby toys, Suzannah developed a renewed interest in, say, the soft cloth blocks she hadn't even glanced at since 2007. ("But they're mine," she said as she hustled them off to her room.)

This morning I glanced in the rear-view mirror at my two kids in the back seat. Suzannah was draped over the side of her seat, her arm extended almost to her brother's seat.

"Mom, Isaac's touching me. He scratched my arm," she complained.

"Well," I said, "maybe you should move your arm."

"But I was here first."

And like, what am I even supposed to do with that? Reason with her? (This is the point at which my mother would like to remind me about all the times I complained about my brother taking up more than his fair share in the back seat, although I still maintain my complaint was totally legit as he would fall asleep with his head on the armrest in the middle, and that clearly violated the "each kid gets half of the arm rest" rule that I tried to enforce with absolutely no help, but nevermind, this isn't about that.)

Anyway, Isaac is persistent and is learning to hold his own with his big sister. He uses all of his rough-and-tumble boy-ness to his advantage; he's not afraid to grab, to pull, to push, to throw, and to bellow at the top of his lungs just because he can. And if that doesn't work, he has this terribly tragic routine in which he throws himself facedown on the floor and sobs pitifully, sometimes kicking his legs for good measure. It's especially tragic when he forgets to wait until he's on the soft carpet of the family room floor instead of the less forgiving kitchen floor, which tends to leave a red mark on his forehead during his more enthusiastic tantrums. ("There goes Calculus," Matt and I mutter to each other.) But he's also my sweet, sweet little snuggler, who often waddles over to throw his arms around my legs and look up into my face and just beam. And he climbs into my lap and wraps his arms around my neck and hugs, really hugs, with back-patting and everything, and that is just too much. When he does that, I turn to my husband and say, "He's still my baby, right? He's still little? I really still need him to be my Little."

Matt rolls his eyes (although I think sometimes he tries not to be obvious about this) and says, yes, Baby, Isaac is still a baby. He's still Your Little. At least, you know, compared to some things. He's still smaller than Suzannah. Kind of. And your students.

And whatever spats Isaac and Suzannah have throughout the day, what never changes is how protective she is, and how proud. How she will announce to anyone who will listen, to anyone she is meeting for the first time, that she has a brother. She is a Sister. And every night when I carry Isaac to bed, she insists that I carry him to her first so she can kiss the top of his head with its goofy little cowlick and hug him and say, "Aw, look. I made him happy."

My Birthday Girl

Five years ago at this time, I was lying on the couch in the living room, pretending I was not in labor. At 10:30 the next morning, my beautiful baby girl was born. It was the most perfect moment of my life. Even now, even after the processing of her birth led me to make very different choices for my next birth, even after I would never choose the circumstances of that hospital birth ever again, I still feel the same way about that beautiful moment in which she entered the world and made us a family. Because now, five years later, what I remember about her birth -- what matters most to me -- is the way I looked into her eyes as she was placed on my chest, and the way I thought, I know you. I cannot even begin to explain the connection I felt, or the ways in which my heart was broken and made into something completely new.

(There is something about nursing an infant to sleep, about looking down into that sweet, trusting face and tracing the curve of a cheek, and understanding that your heart will break, and break, and break for this child in ways you have yet to grasp.)

Things that will always be part of Suzannah's birth story: the gray morning; the way the city of Tacoma looked from the fourteenth (or was it twelfth?) floor of the hospital; the way my heart burst with joy to hear Matt cry, "We have a girl!" and the way his arms encircled us both; the way she looked at me and I looked at her; the grilled cheese someone knew to bring me almost immediately (and indeed, the way that grilled cheese was the most fabulous thing I had ever tasted, even though it was brought up from a hospital cafeteria on a Sunday morning); the way my daughter felt in my arms as we were wheeled into our little postpartum room; the way I couldn't wait to unswaddle her and feel her against my body. These are the things I tell my little girl when I tell her about the morning she was born.

"I used to have very tiny feet when I was a baby," she says. She is distracted when I tell her about her birth; tonight, she is more interested in talking about actual babies, like Isaac. She is not a baby any longer, after all.

"Isaac is almost a toddler," she said to me tonight. "And I used to be a toddler."

"Isaac actually is a toddler," I replied, even though I still need -- need! -- to think of him as my baby.

Suzannah is neither toddler nor baby, although lately she likes to pretend that she is a baby frog or a baby owl or a baby bear, and I am Mommy Frog or Mommy Owl or Mama Bear. (I suspect it isn't unusual for an older sibling to need to be the baby again every now and then, and sometimes I think we both need that. So she crawls into my lap and snuggles like a baby, and I don't remind her that she's not a baby. Because I already know how much I'll miss this, and that moment will come long before I'm ready.) At five, she is both sensitive and spunky, exuberant and affectionate. She has been so excited about her grandparents coming for her birthday, and even though she has only met her great-grandma a handful of times in her life, she is very concerned about her not feeling well (she is in town, but has been "resting" in her hotel since she arrived). She makes sure Isaac never goes to bed without hugs and kisses from his big sister, even if she tattled on him five minutes earlier for touching her stuff. (Or, you know, touching any stuff that she played with at one time or may consider playing with at some undetermined point in the future.) She loves to draw pictures of the people she loves. She loves to cuddle during bedtime stories. She loves gymnastics class, and during warm-ups as she runs around the gym with her coach she tries to look very serious, all business, but she can't help but break into a grin.

She brings me so much raw, pure joy.

She also takes me to the edge of my sanity, probably because she's a lot like me -- or because she's holding up a mirror to everything I face in myself. At the same time, I never want to reduce her by saying she is like me or like Matt or like anyone besides herself; she is her own beautiful self. And that is all she ever needs to be.

Tomorrow, we are going to have breakfast together -- just our little family. Banana waffles. And then we're going to get ready for her family birthday party. We're going to take her to Grandpa and Grandma's hotel and we're going to swim in the pool, and then we're going to come home and have a birthday barbecue with the people who love her best. Her daddy and Isaac and me. Her Grandpa Chuck and Grandma Diane, her Grandpa Jim and Grandma Cindy, her Uncle Aaron and Auntie Morgan and Great-Grandma. We are going to eat Strawberry Shortcake ice cream cake -- her choice. (I feel particularly pleased and nostalgic that she wants a Strawberry Shortcake party, because it was on my fifth birthday that my parents gave me my beloved Strawberry Shortcake dollhouse, the very same dollhouse that I've passed on to my children.) She will open her birthday presents. She will, undoubtedly, be very gracious -- she always says something like, "Oh, I love it! Thank you!" (And it still sounds like Mank you! which I will miss so much someday.)

I have always loved birthdays. Mine or anyone else's, really. I was deeply lucky to have a family who made me feel cherished every year. My best birthday memories are not of particular presents, or huge parties; rather, I remember the ways in which the people in my life -- my parents, or my husband -- have tried to make me feel special on that day. I'll never forget waking up on the morning of my tenth birthday to see the little pink clock next to my bed, the same clock my mother had been given for her eighth birthday (I think?). I was only ten, but that clock -- something that connected me to my mother in ways I could not articulate at the time -- meant more to me than any shiny, new gift I could have received. I'll never forget the way I felt when I unwrapped a pair of pierced earrings on my eleventh birthday, my parents' way of letting me know I could get my ears pierced two years earlier than they'd originally dictated.

And that is what I want to give my children on their birthdays -- the feeling of being cherished. Celebrated. Whatever that may mean for them at the time, whether it means swimming in a hotel pool while Grandpa and Grandma cheer them on, or a trip to the zoo or the Children's Museum, or having Daddy's banana waffles and playing at the park before eating the best ice cream cake they've ever tasted.

I don't know if it will ever be possible for them to understand the joy they bring to my life. Maybe I couldn't understand how much my own parents loved me until I loved my own children.

Tonight, on the eve of my little girl's fifth birthday, I'm thinking about how becoming a mother has made my heart so much larger than it ever was before, about how my children have made me want to be the best version of myself that I can possibly be. I haven't lost myself. No matter what I imagine I sacrifice, I'm not diminished; it's just the opposite. And the gratitude brings me to my knees. The gratitude, and the love. It's more than I could ever ask for, and it's more than I deserve.

Happy Birthday, my beautiful baby girl. No matter what life throws at you, may you never, ever doubt how much, how deeply, you are loved.

On Mother's Day and the nature of memory...

Today after church, we drove to Seattle for brunch at Portage Bay Cafe. We haven't been there since we had Isaac; I think the last time we ate there was Father's Day when I was pregnant in 2009. It was predictably busy, although we were seated immediately because we agreed to a table on the covered outdoor patio.

"It's not heated," our hostess said, "but we have blankets, and there is some sun..."

The morning was chilly and breezy and swinging between overcast and partly sunny, but it didn't seem too cold and we had jackets. And, in fact, there were heavy woven blankets draped over the back of each chair. Suzannah immediately wanted to be wrapped in one, and she snuggled into her chair, announcing that she was "so cozy." Brunch itself was lovely. The kids ate pancakes -- Portage Bay has an amazing pancake bar, although Suzannah only wanted whipped cream, and Isaac didn't want any toppings or fruit at all, preferring to make short work of his pancake by shoving fistfuls in his mouth. Matt enjoyed the specialty hash with grilled organic vegetables and sautéed mushrooms, and I had migas -- a tortilla stuffed with seasoned eggs, cheese, basil, and salsa, topped with avocado. And, because it is Mother's Day, I ordered a mimosa. Delightful.

It was all a little chaotic, as meals with our little ones often are; Matt wound up holding Isaac for much of the meal when he tired of his high chair and nearly wound up with a tiny shoe in his eggs more than once. Suzannah wanted one of the toys we'd brought for Isaac, insisting that he didn't want to play with it and could we please give it to her now (nevermind the fact that Isaac was happily dunking it in Matt's water glass). You know, the usual commotion. I like to think I'm pretty good at staying relaxed even when it's impossible to do something as simple as sit at a table and peacefully eat my own meal for more than two minutes without balancing one child and placating another. Mostly, we all leave fed and happy, and if Matt and I can both stay at the table the entire time -- as opposed to taking turns walking with a restless toddler -- I consider it a success.

After we left the restaurant, I had a "surprise" trip to the Elliott Bay Book Company, which is pretty much always my favorite gift for any occasion. I left with two books: The Devil's Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea and Kristin Lavrandsdatter by Sigrid Undset, the latter of which is a huge behemoth of a novel and which I am determined to read this summer.

We've actually never gone to Portage Bay by ourselves; our first visit was nearly four years ago when my friend Colleen was in town for a weekend and we met here there for breakfast with Suzannah, who was then just a bit younger than Isaac is now. I was thinking about that first visit today, and it occurs to me that my memories become sweeter over time because they piggy-back on each other. I can't separate this visit from that one, when Suzannah ate her first seasoned fried potato and decided it was to her liking. Likewise, every visit to the Elliott Bay Book Company carries the memory of that first visit, when I made my sweaty midsummer pilgrimage with my parents and Aaron and Morgan after a couple of hours at Pike Place Market. I bought Fingersmith by Sarah Waters, which I read in the cooler, darker fall. (And I remember the afternoon when that book really pulled me in, pulled me in and didn't spit me back out until I read the last page the next day; it was a Friday after school, and I drove to the Poverty Bay cafe and ordered a huckleberry mocha and curled up in a chair in the corner and stayed there almost until closing.) And even though the bookstore has moved, when I order a coffee in the cafe I think about ordering coffee in the old basement cafe, writing in a journal or making reading lists. Somewhere in each visit is the memory of wandering the stacks with an infant in a sling or the Ergo, or with a toddler in a stroller. I had a similar moment last weekend in REI, buying running shoes; I happened to glance over at the little restaurant -- World Wrapps -- next to the play area, where Suzannah was climbing up in the tree house with a bunch of other kids. And suddenly I wasn't only a mother of two, holding her toddler son's hands while he lurched around the playroom and calling a cheerful "Yes, I see you!" to the five-year-old brave enough to go down the twisty slide on her own now; I was also the nineteen-year-old about to step on a plane bound for Alaska, where I would spend the next three months working at a fishing lodge. I still remember the Saturday afternoon before my Monday-morning flight; I was shopping with my parents and brother and aunt and uncle and cousins, and I ducked into a back corner of the cafe with my journal (it was purple, and spiral-bound) and a stack of stationary and spent the better part of an hour writing and sipping a smoothie called a Tropical Storm (they still have it) and looking out the huge windows at the view of the city, feeling completely disoriented, knowing that the next day I would trade that view for a very different one, and both of those were very different than the view from, say, my bedroom in Bozeman or my dorm room in Minnesota.

That same afternoon last weekend, we stopped for coffee at Vivace across the street. It's a fairly new location, not the same one Matt and I first discovered on Broadway back in 2001, but the coffee smells the same; it's a particular aroma that evokes spirals of memories that pre-date even our marriage. I sat with my little family and sipped my latte and shared bits of cookie with my daughter and remembered the countless Saturday afternoons Matt and I spent at the old one, sitting at those marble counters. I graded stacks and stacks of sophomore essays there. We sat there together writing thank-you cards the week after our wedding. I scrawled endless lesson plans, letters, and journal entries while sipping White Velvets. Sometimes I feel so far away from those weekends of my early-twenties, immersed in my new teaching job; I look back and wonder how I filled my time and marvel at our freedom to get up on a Saturday and do whatever we wanted at the drop of a hat, and yet I remember so distinctly the sense of desperation I felt -- would this be the weekend in which I would catch up on my life and sail confidently into Monday morning? The juxtaposition of those memories on the now of my life is a little disorienting and very immediate.

And then at brunch today, Matt and I discussed travel plans for this summer and I found myself thinking about last summer's drive to Minneapolis, about how every road trip to Montana or Minnesota builds on the memories of the road trips before; every cup of coffee from a familiar drive-thru stand, every meal eaten during a break at a favorite roadside restaurant, is reminiscent of a trip we took in 2003 or 2006 or 2010. Remember when we stood outside at this gas station for what felt like forever, waiting for our dog to pee in the snow the first time we took her to Montana? Remember when we changed Suzannah in the car in Ellensburg the first time we took her on the road? How we played in the park in Miles City? (In 2007? 2009? 2010?) Remember how she fell and skinned her knees in Spokane, and the man at the coffee shop directed us to a store that sold really cool bandaids, and she plastered those all over her arms and legs and forehead between Bismarck and Dickinson, North Dakota? Remember when I had to change Isaac on the floor of the tiny bathroom in the Thai restaurant? Remember our stops at Vargos, at Zandbroz, at Atomic Coffee and the Leaf and Bean?

I remember specifics, of course. But when I try to recall my favorite memories I begin with imagery, rather than events, and soon I'm lost in a collage of moments, places, and feelings, all connected to very concrete sensations. The smell of White Rain shampoo, which reminds me of summer afternoons at the pool with my friend Julia -- the high school, or the water tower. The pine-scented air of Glacier National Park, the inside of the Cedar Tree gift shop, the way the pebbly shore of the lake feels under my bare feet. The smell of the oil we used to polish all of the wood walls at Rainbow King Lodge in Iliamna, Alaska. The Jergens bar soap in my grandparents' bathroom. It's not about any specific trip or summer day, but when I remember these things, I can place myself right there: My childhood bedroom, or the shore of Lake McDonald, or my grandparents' house. My favorite coffee shop in Bozeman, in Seattle, in Moorhead. The Thai restaurant in Ellensburg, or the hotel in Coeur d'Alene where we always take our longest bathroom break between here and Montana. Vivace, Pike Place Market, the Elliott Bay Brewery. This stretch of highway, that hotel.

I tried to identify a favorite memory today, and instead I thought about the things that make my memories sweet, the ways in which my senses collide to keep them close even as they blur and shift.

And when I kissed my children to sleep tonight, I was kissing them to sleep on an infinite number of nights, rocking them, tucking the blankets around them, singing softly and trying to hold the moment close, knowing how fleeting such moments are. And I wonder if, on Mother's Days many years from now, I'll dwell in memories of these moments -- awkward gluey creations, flowers, brunches here and there, sunny spring days -- with the same blurred yet very real and concrete appreciation of the moment in which I am blissfully present.

Does it make us better people?

‎‎"Faced with the death of a man, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibility of each and every one of us before God and before man, and hopes and commits himself so that no event be an opportunity for further growth of hatred, but for peace." --Vatican spokesman Fr Federico Lombardi

So many things bring me joy: the sound of my children's laughter; the way I feel on top of a mountain after a hard hike; writing until my hand cramps; a boisterous family dinner with good conversation and good food; attending plays and concerts; dates with my husband; a trip to the Elliott Bay Book Company; the open road at the beginning of a trip; a clean house; the smell of pine trees; Christmas.

And, of course, I love an excuse to celebrate. Birthdays -- I love them. Suzannah turns five in a few weeks, and we are all looking forward to this milestone with great eagerness. Birthing Days, too, because I love reading and hearing birth stories (and maybe, just maybe, if I pursue this doula thing at some point, I'll be present at a few of these myself). Weddings. The last day of school. Hugging kids I love when they graduate in June. Successes. I celebrated my first 5k last summer with a fabulous brunch afterwards; I still remember how good my breakfast burrito tasted at Easy Street Records, and how much I enjoyed the company of my family and two good friends.

The idea that someone's death -- anyone's death -- would bring me joy is something I can't fathom. The idea that it is something to celebrate is incomprehensible. No. Bin Laden's death didn't have me pumping my fist in the air last night when I heard the news, and the footage of crowds chanting amongst a frenzy of flags and beer cans left a bad taste in my mouth.

In his recent blog post, "Killing One Monster, Unleashing Another: Reflections on Revenge and Revelry", anti-racist author Tim Wise writes:

Ultimately, the mentality of human disposability that animates war, terrorism, gang violence and all forms of homicidal street crime, is a dangerous one to indulge, and certainly to indulge giddily. Such a mindset feeds upon itself, perpetuates itself without end, and serves to ratify the same in others. Surely we should strive to do better, even when, for various reasons, we can’t manage it, and are required to take life for one reason or another. Most soldiers, after all, are not happy or self-satisfied about the things they’ve done in war. For many, if not most, killing even when you have no choice, is life-changing. It scars. It comes back in the middle of the night, haunting the soldier’s dreams for years, and sometimes forever. We do not honor them or their sacrifices by treating the mortal decisions they so often have to make as if they were no more gut-wrenching than those made during the playing of a video game.

I also liked Pamela Gerloff's words in this Huffington Post article:

One aspect of being human is our ability to choose our own behavior; more specifically, our capacity to return good for evil, love for hate, dignity for indignity. While some consider Osama bin Laden to have been the personification of evil, he was nonetheless a human being. A more appropriate response to his killing would be to mourn the many tragedies that led up to his violent death, as well as the violent deaths of thousands in the attempt to eliminate him from the face of the Earth; to feel compassion for anyone who, because of their role in the military or government, American or otherwise, has had to play any role in killing another.

I have all kinds of feelings about this myself, but they're not so easily defined -- I get that this is a Big Deal, that this symbolic thing matters, and while I'm completely creeped out by the idea of celebrating it, I'm certainly not condemning it. That's not my place, either. But I think that the exhilaration, the frenzy, and the idea that we're somehow safer overnight, is a bit misplaced.

I suppose I feel a mix of grim relief, gratitude, regret. Maybe hope, even, because I believe hope is hidden in the cracks of just about everything.

I find it sobering and heavy.

But joyful and celebratory? No.

"It's a beautiful story, and it's a lie."

Today one of my colleagues sent me a link to this story: "Is Three Cups of Tea writer Greg Mortenson a fraud?"

I rolled my eyes before I even read it, assuming it would be some ridiculous media witch hunt (and, in fact, some people are calling it that). I certainly didn't think it would be anything to take remotely seriously. But then I read the article, and it troubled me. So I looked up some more articles -- they're hitting the news like crazy today -- and read those. And most of them were equally troubling. Here is another one. (I do think the difference between the stories published in my hometown -- where Mortenson currently resides -- and the stories published pretty much everywhere else are interesting. I wonder if that will change at all as this story develops.)

I read Three Cups of Tea back in 2007, and I loved it. At least, I loved the ideas, and Greg Mortenson became one of my personal heroes. (I have to admit right now that the writing was only okay, if that. Which should tell you right there that I feel pretty strongly about the story, about the work itself, because -- snob that I am -- I can have a hard time looking past clunky writing and overwrought metaphors, and Three Cups of Tea is heavy on both). I think it is (was? is? I don't know right now) an extremely important book. I championed that book all over the place. A few months after I read it, my friend Kyanne and I heard Mortenson speak at Town Hall in Seattle. We met him afterwards, and when we told him we were teachers, he immediately hooked us up with 120 free hardcover copies of his book for our school. They were delivered within the week.

I did not find him to be a particularly charismatic person. He's not a natural public speaker. (He makes no secret of this; he really played up the whole "I hate wasting all my time at events like this, I'd rather be out doing all this important work, but I have to promote all my very important work so I can continue to do it" aspect of his personality.) I've read several accounts by people who find him "difficult" to work with, and frankly, he and David Oliver Relin -- who actually wrote Three Cups of Tea -- have never really seemed to like each other that much. I'm not sure any of these things are faults; they're simply my impressions, based on meeting him one time and based on things I've read, so take them with a grain of salt. But also, keep in mind that until today, I was still firmly inspired by this man.

And look, I'm not waving a pitchfork here. Many of the responses to his alleged deceit have been pretty vitriolic (although to be fair, it seems that most people who comment on stories online are working out some of their own unresolved issues. Sheesh. There's a reason I try to avoid reading comments). I'm not boiling over with righteous indignation just yet because I just don't know enough, and I'm waiting for more to be revealed; for now, I've landed somewhere between unsettled and disheartened. I haven't paid too much attention to the "inconsistencies" in some of the stories, because truth in memoir, in story, is not always the same as fact. If it is, I'm in a lot of hot water with this blog, because my husband would pick through it and be all, "THAT IS NOT EXACTLY WHAT I SAID." However, I think it is totally reasonable to be troubled by the implications of some of the accusations.

When I read that first article, after I'd let it sink in for a bit, I thought about one of the novels I deeply loved when I was about thirteen: A House Like a Lotus, by Madeleine L'Engle. One of the things I remember as though I read it yesterday is the idea that when you put someone on a pedestal, you have to be careful to get out of the way when their clay feet come crashing down. I think that I was far more likely to do this when I was younger, and I'm sure I experienced the pain of not getting out of the way more than once. I'm not thirteen anymore, but a part of me still feels that sense of -- dare I say it? -- betrayal. It's absolutely silly for me to say I trusted Greg Mortenson, because I don't know him. Meeting him at a public event, reading his work, and sharing his hometown make for interesting anecdotes, but it's arrogant to claim that any of those things mean I can really say anything about his character. So maybe I shouldn't feel so disillusioned.

And maybe, as more of the story develops, I won't have reason to be. For now, I can say this: I still believe that the work he has done, or at least the work he began, is extremely important. I believe he has done real good in the world. Even Jon Krakauer -- once a fervent supporter himself (and, interestingly enough, no stranger to criticism of this sort) -- concedes that point. So it really is a shame that this -- whatever this turns out to be -- will undoubtedly cast a pall upon his efforts. Because I know it's going to be difficult for me to recommend his books with such wholehearted enthusiasm anymore, and I'd certainly think twice before sending any money to the Central Asia Institute.

Do intentions matter more than ethics? (There's a loaded question, eh?)