Many afternoons, when Suzannah and I are on our way to pick up Isaac and need to make a quick stop at the grocery store, we drive through a particularly busy intersection in our town. There are all kinds of things in this area -- restaurants and pharmacies and grocery stores, pizza places, fast food joints, apartment complexes.
And there's the dancing pizza guy.
At least, that's what Suzannah and I call him. He wears a neon green shirt and is presumably paid to advertise for the pizza place on the giant sign he's holding. But he doesn't just hold the sign, doesn't just wave at traffic. He dances, really dances, like he should be a member of a high school hot squad. As far as I can tell, he doesn't listen to music, doesn't have headphones. He just moves, grooving with his giant sign advertising large pizzas for five dollars. When the flow of traffic starts to move in the opposite direction, he pauses for just a moment to adjust accordingly, and then he's at it again.
"He actually makes me want to buy pizza," Matt said not long ago. Suzannah loves him. And mostly, he just makes me smile.
It's the little things.
I went book shopping this afternoon. We'd planned to all go to Seattle Children's Museum, but at the last moment Matt offered to drop me off at the Elliott Bay Book Company while he took the kids to Seattle Center. I really love watching our kiddos play at the Children's Museum, but also, I've been pretty low on energy and in rather desperate need of some recharging.
The last time I was the bookstore, just two weeks ago, I wandered around in a daze and didn't buy anything. Today I had to whittle down my choices so we can still afford things like dinner and clothing for our children, which is more my side of normal, and I wound up with Joseph Anton, Salman Rushdie's brand-new memoir, and Telegraph Avenue, Michael Chabon's latest novel. Both signed first editions. Sweet.
And then I sat in the cafe and sipped a pumpkin spice latte and read Cloud Atlas, which I loved when I read it in 2005 and am enjoying just as much now, possibly more. And even though it's hard to feel anything but disappointed when wonderful books are made into movies because the movies inevitably fall short, I'm pretty excited to see this one next month. Or maybe I'm mostly excited about the idea of a night out with my husband.
When my family picked me up two hours later, the kids were bubbling over with stories about how they were pirates at the museum, and Suzannah told me a couple of jokes that made absolutely no sense (but that made them more hilarious than most jokes that do, of course), and then we all went out for pizza, and then we all went out for pie. And when we finally arrived back at our cozy little house in our quiet little neighborhood tonight, the kids were so happily worn out they didn't even fight bedtime.
The big things are hard, and mostly, these days, I kind of feel like whoever's in charge of the big things is not doing the most wonderful job. (As Anne Lamott would say, "If I were God's West Coast representative..." or as I would say, "If I were the one in charge, here...")
But the little things often feel pretty okay, and tonight I had new books and good pizza and a couple of glasses of nice wine and chocolate pie. And maybe there doesn't need to be any grand metaphor in any of that. Maybe it's just enough to live inside this one tiny moment for now.
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Secure yourself to heaven
“Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.” -- Joan Didion
Or maybe not dinner. Maybe you're driving to a friend's house on an ordinary Thursday night, and you're going to hang out and watch Lifetime movies and order Indian food, and suddenly you receive a phone call that sends your stomach plummeting to the floor of the car. Or worse, maybe you're at work, and the phone rings, and suddenly you're struggling to throw a bag together with the understanding that you have to be at the hospital within the hour and you don't quite know why or for how long or what you'll need or what will happen.
Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant.
On Friday evening, September 14th, 2012, my brother and sister-in-law became parents to a beautiful little girl named Bailey Rae, and I became an auntie. She had her mama's nose and her daddy's chin.
What is heart-stoppingly unfair about this is that this beautiful child did not survive delivery. She was perfect in every single way; she was just too tiny, and HELLP syndrome is merciless in its attacks. We are lucky we still have Bailey's mother with us; I am furious that we were not allowed to keep Bailey as well.
There was no almost about her and my sister-in-law and brother are not someday parents -- Bailey was, and is, very much their daughter. She made Morgan a mama, she made Aaron a daddy. They were so gracious to share her with me, and they are so strong in their love for her. I wish I could summon the words to describe what it was like to be in their presence. I cried more tears this weekend than I thought my body could produce, but somehow, when my brother placed my tiny niece in my arms, I felt unspeakable joy and, somehow, something like peace. This couldn't have possibly come from me since I am a little too broken, as we all are; I'd say it's all God, but I'm a little too angry at Him right now to ask.
She was just over a pound, but she also felt so solid, somehow. Her cheeks were adorably round; even her tummy was round. I kissed those cheeks, those eyelids, that soft little belly. She had ten tiny fingernails and tiny tiny toenails. Sweet little hands, kissable feet, round little knees. Her skin was soft. So soft. She had eyelashes and the most perfectly-shaped little lips. I just smile every time I think about what it was like to hold her; what makes me cry, still, is the memory of what it felt like to let her go, knowing I would not pick her up again.
Bailey was a playful spirit in her mother's womb, and somehow this came through in her face. Aaron and I, remembering our Grandpa Charlie (who is undoubtedly being given a run for his money by his great-granddaughter in heaven) are quite sure that we will encounter moments of hilarity for the rest of our lives, moments of total whimsy, in which we will know that she's somehow there. That's Bailey for sure, we will say.
There have been times in the last week when I've felt guilty for hurting like this -- what right do I have? When it's not my baby? But grief is messy, a trickster that doesn't respect boundaries, and what would be the alternative? How could I not grieve this child who was already so deeply loved by so many people? I saw my grief mirrored in my daughter's face, my own little girl who was so excited to meet her cousin. Suzannah crawled into my lap and sobbed when I told her that Bailey was too tiny to stay on this earth. When she cried, "Why?" I had no answer. Because there is no acceptable why.
Bailey broke my heart, but only to fit herself inside. When this happens too early it's not a gentle process, and it hurts. God. It's almost too much to bear. But our hearts are bigger now, and they're going to be completely new shapes when they heal around the cracks.
Or maybe not dinner. Maybe you're driving to a friend's house on an ordinary Thursday night, and you're going to hang out and watch Lifetime movies and order Indian food, and suddenly you receive a phone call that sends your stomach plummeting to the floor of the car. Or worse, maybe you're at work, and the phone rings, and suddenly you're struggling to throw a bag together with the understanding that you have to be at the hospital within the hour and you don't quite know why or for how long or what you'll need or what will happen.
Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant.
On Friday evening, September 14th, 2012, my brother and sister-in-law became parents to a beautiful little girl named Bailey Rae, and I became an auntie. She had her mama's nose and her daddy's chin.
What is heart-stoppingly unfair about this is that this beautiful child did not survive delivery. She was perfect in every single way; she was just too tiny, and HELLP syndrome is merciless in its attacks. We are lucky we still have Bailey's mother with us; I am furious that we were not allowed to keep Bailey as well.
There was no almost about her and my sister-in-law and brother are not someday parents -- Bailey was, and is, very much their daughter. She made Morgan a mama, she made Aaron a daddy. They were so gracious to share her with me, and they are so strong in their love for her. I wish I could summon the words to describe what it was like to be in their presence. I cried more tears this weekend than I thought my body could produce, but somehow, when my brother placed my tiny niece in my arms, I felt unspeakable joy and, somehow, something like peace. This couldn't have possibly come from me since I am a little too broken, as we all are; I'd say it's all God, but I'm a little too angry at Him right now to ask.
She was just over a pound, but she also felt so solid, somehow. Her cheeks were adorably round; even her tummy was round. I kissed those cheeks, those eyelids, that soft little belly. She had ten tiny fingernails and tiny tiny toenails. Sweet little hands, kissable feet, round little knees. Her skin was soft. So soft. She had eyelashes and the most perfectly-shaped little lips. I just smile every time I think about what it was like to hold her; what makes me cry, still, is the memory of what it felt like to let her go, knowing I would not pick her up again.
Bailey was a playful spirit in her mother's womb, and somehow this came through in her face. Aaron and I, remembering our Grandpa Charlie (who is undoubtedly being given a run for his money by his great-granddaughter in heaven) are quite sure that we will encounter moments of hilarity for the rest of our lives, moments of total whimsy, in which we will know that she's somehow there. That's Bailey for sure, we will say.
There have been times in the last week when I've felt guilty for hurting like this -- what right do I have? When it's not my baby? But grief is messy, a trickster that doesn't respect boundaries, and what would be the alternative? How could I not grieve this child who was already so deeply loved by so many people? I saw my grief mirrored in my daughter's face, my own little girl who was so excited to meet her cousin. Suzannah crawled into my lap and sobbed when I told her that Bailey was too tiny to stay on this earth. When she cried, "Why?" I had no answer. Because there is no acceptable why.
Bailey broke my heart, but only to fit herself inside. When this happens too early it's not a gentle process, and it hurts. God. It's almost too much to bear. But our hearts are bigger now, and they're going to be completely new shapes when they heal around the cracks.
Monday, September 3, 2012
Beginning again
A snapshot of our morning:
Isaac is busy with a puzzle on the floor; he is very into puzzles these days, and we have these great Melissa & Doug wooden puzzles stacked in the family room. It's adorable until he chooses one that is just a little too difficult, because then it's all "Need HELP" again and again and again, sorry if you were thinking you would enjoy a quiet cup of coffee or wanted to clean the kitchen right now. Although that's what I'm doing, for the time being -- just enjoying a quiet cup of coffee while he plays happily. The dog is snoring, the laundry is humming, and Suzannah is watching a video for a bit. The morning feels cool. We've been waking up to cloudy skies that give way to sunshine in the afternoon, and this fills me with deep contentment. And I'm actually looking forward to the rain, if it ever returns. We're going on over forty days without it.
Labor Day often finds me feeling sort of anxious; I always have school, sometimes the very first day of school, the next day. This year I have more of a buffer than I ever have. Tomorrow is another staff development day and I've heard lovely rumors that we'll get to spend quite a bit of time in our own classrooms. The day after that is technically the first day, but it's mostly for the freshmen, so really I don't meet my kids until Thursday. My first real week of teaching is only two days long, and then I have a weekend to process. Nice.
Also, we've had a really idyllic weekend. Friday was kind of chaotic -- I did lots of frenetic running around town for the first six hours of my day -- but we spent the sunny afternoon hours at the splash park, which felt like the perfect way to end our last week of summer. On Saturday, Matt and I both had the idea of getting out of the city, so he found a trail we've never hiked and we headed into the mountains. Both kids did so well; Isaac hardly even rode in the backpack, and Suzannah was so proud of her stamina. ("I think this is a very good hike for me," she said.) I just loved to watch her noticing everything -- the water, the moss on the trees, the shape of things. Rocks, or hollow logs, or spindly trees growing out of ancient tree stumps. We were on the trail for over two hours, and by the time we made it to one of our favorite haunts for dinner, we were all happily starving.
This morning Matt slipped out of bed at dawn, whispering that the coffeepot was ready to go. He's spending his morning hiking solo, and when he comes home we're all heading to the zoo for a picnic. And after that, Matt and the kids will play at the zoo while I sit at a nearby coffee shop and work on my lesson plans for the first few weeks of school. This sounds like a nearly perfect day to me, actually. I've taken the kids to the zoo plenty of times this summer, so I don't really mind skipping this round, and also, I just really love lesson planning. It's creative work for me, and I find few things as energizing as thinking about literature I love and ways in which I can share it with teenagers. Even if they don't all love it, the challenge of creating meaningful experiences for diverse groups of kids is really exciting to me.
Anyway, I'm in a good place right now. I've told people I'm about a hundred times more relaxed than I was at this time last year, and it's true. For one thing, I'm not sending my beautiful baby girl off to school for the very first time. I already know she'll be fine; I already know that we love our little neighborhood school, and I'm pretty confident that we'll slip back into the familiar rhythms of our day. For another thing, I'm also pretty confident that this year I will not receive a phone call on a Sunday night a few weeks into the school year informing me that two of my classes are flipping to something entirely different, giving me less than 24 hours to prep for a class I haven't taught in years -- with the extra fun of knowing that kids will trickle in a few at a time for an entire month, so I can't really start a real unit until, what, mid-October? November? And then what I didn't know is that I would spend the rest of the year with two classes that made me absolutely dread going to work every single day. Let me tell you, after last year I was genuinely worried that I wouldn't ever recover, that I was damaged goods who didn't even belong in a classroom.
But we had a wonderful, restorative summer. Apparently, it worked. This is why teachers need summers, in case you were wondering.
This is my twelfth year, and I know that there will be times -- in January, say, or March, which is often kind of a dreadful month -- when I'm going to be disillusioned and frustrated and exhausted. But it's good to know that in this golden September before my twelfth year of teaching, I'm still in love with it, and I still believe, deep down, that the key to saving the world lies in the connections we make in the classroom. I still really believe that poetry will save us in the end.
Isaac is busy with a puzzle on the floor; he is very into puzzles these days, and we have these great Melissa & Doug wooden puzzles stacked in the family room. It's adorable until he chooses one that is just a little too difficult, because then it's all "Need HELP" again and again and again, sorry if you were thinking you would enjoy a quiet cup of coffee or wanted to clean the kitchen right now. Although that's what I'm doing, for the time being -- just enjoying a quiet cup of coffee while he plays happily. The dog is snoring, the laundry is humming, and Suzannah is watching a video for a bit. The morning feels cool. We've been waking up to cloudy skies that give way to sunshine in the afternoon, and this fills me with deep contentment. And I'm actually looking forward to the rain, if it ever returns. We're going on over forty days without it.
Labor Day often finds me feeling sort of anxious; I always have school, sometimes the very first day of school, the next day. This year I have more of a buffer than I ever have. Tomorrow is another staff development day and I've heard lovely rumors that we'll get to spend quite a bit of time in our own classrooms. The day after that is technically the first day, but it's mostly for the freshmen, so really I don't meet my kids until Thursday. My first real week of teaching is only two days long, and then I have a weekend to process. Nice.
Also, we've had a really idyllic weekend. Friday was kind of chaotic -- I did lots of frenetic running around town for the first six hours of my day -- but we spent the sunny afternoon hours at the splash park, which felt like the perfect way to end our last week of summer. On Saturday, Matt and I both had the idea of getting out of the city, so he found a trail we've never hiked and we headed into the mountains. Both kids did so well; Isaac hardly even rode in the backpack, and Suzannah was so proud of her stamina. ("I think this is a very good hike for me," she said.) I just loved to watch her noticing everything -- the water, the moss on the trees, the shape of things. Rocks, or hollow logs, or spindly trees growing out of ancient tree stumps. We were on the trail for over two hours, and by the time we made it to one of our favorite haunts for dinner, we were all happily starving.
This morning Matt slipped out of bed at dawn, whispering that the coffeepot was ready to go. He's spending his morning hiking solo, and when he comes home we're all heading to the zoo for a picnic. And after that, Matt and the kids will play at the zoo while I sit at a nearby coffee shop and work on my lesson plans for the first few weeks of school. This sounds like a nearly perfect day to me, actually. I've taken the kids to the zoo plenty of times this summer, so I don't really mind skipping this round, and also, I just really love lesson planning. It's creative work for me, and I find few things as energizing as thinking about literature I love and ways in which I can share it with teenagers. Even if they don't all love it, the challenge of creating meaningful experiences for diverse groups of kids is really exciting to me.
Anyway, I'm in a good place right now. I've told people I'm about a hundred times more relaxed than I was at this time last year, and it's true. For one thing, I'm not sending my beautiful baby girl off to school for the very first time. I already know she'll be fine; I already know that we love our little neighborhood school, and I'm pretty confident that we'll slip back into the familiar rhythms of our day. For another thing, I'm also pretty confident that this year I will not receive a phone call on a Sunday night a few weeks into the school year informing me that two of my classes are flipping to something entirely different, giving me less than 24 hours to prep for a class I haven't taught in years -- with the extra fun of knowing that kids will trickle in a few at a time for an entire month, so I can't really start a real unit until, what, mid-October? November? And then what I didn't know is that I would spend the rest of the year with two classes that made me absolutely dread going to work every single day. Let me tell you, after last year I was genuinely worried that I wouldn't ever recover, that I was damaged goods who didn't even belong in a classroom.
But we had a wonderful, restorative summer. Apparently, it worked. This is why teachers need summers, in case you were wondering.
This is my twelfth year, and I know that there will be times -- in January, say, or March, which is often kind of a dreadful month -- when I'm going to be disillusioned and frustrated and exhausted. But it's good to know that in this golden September before my twelfth year of teaching, I'm still in love with it, and I still believe, deep down, that the key to saving the world lies in the connections we make in the classroom. I still really believe that poetry will save us in the end.
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