Still, I believe in the hope

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.” ― Anne Lamott

I've been thinking about this all week: about hope, and about darkness, and about the strange juxtaposition of the two that I cling to every Advent. I would say particularly this year, but the truth is that every December is dark, and this is something I wrestle with each year. I'm not sure that's much of a comfort, though.

Still, I believe in the hope, in the dawn, in the light, despite everything. It is literally the only way I can live.

Six years ago today, my three-and-a-half year old daughter was supposed to appear in her very first Christmas program. As luck would have it, she spent the entire weekend miserable with a fever, cough, and runny nose, so we hunkered down in our pajamas instead of watching our baby girl in church. Reading over my journal (one written in a fog of late pregnancy, but one I am still so glad I have) I remember that in the midst of our excitement and anticipation for our new little one, I also felt quiet and a little lonely. I had already stopped teaching for the year, finding it impossible to put on my socks by myself, much less manage classes full of teenagers. I didn't see anyone during the day, which is perhaps one reason I loved my visits to my midwife so much--just to connect with another human for awhile, to feel her loving hands on me, to listen to her soothing, authoritative voice.

I spent those last days mostly on the couch, trying to read, trying to write. "Mostly," I wrote, "I'm just waiting."

My son was born on a dark and cold December morning six years ago tomorrow. My water broke shortly after I went to bed on Sunday night. I sang my way to the birth center at two o'clock in the morning, sitting on a folded towel. I alternated between "Float On" by Modest Mouse and "Revelation Song" by Phillips, Craig, & Dean. Both seemed appropriate.

I've told his birth story before, even here. I never grow tired of remembering it, but tonight, on the eve of his sixth birthday, the part I want to remember the most is the rush of pure joy as he was born into his father's hands, and the way I laughed when he was delivered to my chest.

(Is it strange that I can't type that without crying?)

In Hebrew the name Isaac means He laughs. Laughter. On that dark December morning when ice coated the driveway of my midwife's house at the edge of Lake Tapps, my son was born into our family and I laughed. I laughed and I fell in love and that joy carried us home a few hours later, followed us into our own cozy little house where we introduced our baby to his big sister, who was eating waffles with her auntie.

Tomorrow morning, that boy turns six years old, and he is still our light, our joy, our laughter. Even though his birthday falls during the darkest part of the year and I will never be able to completely untangle it from the dark events that surround it, maybe that is the point. Sometimes despair just envelops me these days. I wonder if I'll ever again celebrate his birthday without feeling helpless rage over the Sandy Hook massacre, for instance, which happened the day he turned three. Tomorrow he will be the same age as those children who were executed in their classroom, and I struggle mightily with the fact that my children live in a world where this is a real fear of mine. I have a plenty of irrational fears and I will own those, but this one has struck close to home and I know it will continue to strike. I struggle mightily with raising children to be compassionate allies when it would be so easy to raise them to be a part of the status quo that will continue to serve them at the cost of our humanity. I struggle with feeling completely and utterly inadequate for the job. But my struggles are nothing compared to the struggles of those who have lost their children, their safety, their homes, their dignity, their faith. And the fact that this life is a struggle doesn't give me permission to check out or to build a wall around what I have and hold dear; it calls me to show up and roll up my sleeves and work and, yes, wait, which has never been a particular strength of mine. I'm still figuring out what, exactly, that means.

Today, on his last day of being five years old, my joyful son took on his first speaking role in a Christmas program and he was objectively, totally fabulous--both of my children were--and my heart burst in all the predictable ways. Sometimes I think the entire point of me writing anything ever is just to try to keep and hold these beautiful moments for myself because they pass, and they fade. So quickly. But I also think that maybe this is my own small way of lighting the darkness. To remind myself that darkness will fall, again and again, and sometimes I will just have to sit down in it, but I cannot and will not stay there.

The complicated, irrational in-between

Monday ended terribly this week. I write this down to remember, to remind myself that all Mondays after the long Thanksgiving weekend are terrible, just like all Mondays after winter break are terrible. I try to remember this, so I don't take it so personally when these days just suck. It's just that I ended this particular Monday with my toughest class, and it didn't go well, at all. It's not that these kids are awful, or that they're awful to me; it's not like that. But they're tough in other ways, and it means that I've felt completely unmoored all year in my seeming inability to teach this class well, when it's normally a class I could teach in my sleep. But also, there's my wake-up call, right? If I think I can teach a class in my sleep, clearly it's time to shake things up. And I've tried. I've tried to think of this year as an opportunity to resist complacency, to practice what I preach.

Still, it's hard sometimes, and on Monday it was really hard, and I was so angry and frustrated that I just shut down. I shut the class down. I think it's probably safe to say that every one of us in that room was fairly miserable by the time the bell rang. I was barely holding back tears. I couldn't bring myself to listen to my favorite Christmas music in the car on the way home; I just drove, in sullen silence. I'd thought I might try to squeeze in a jog before I picked up the kids, but suddenly I felt so drained and defeated that I merely changed into pajama pants.

And on Monday night, I didn't sleep. I couldn't turn off my brain -- that dumb old hamster wheel thing again. I mean I really didn't sleep. Sometime around, I don't know, 2:00? 2:30? I left the bedroom and curled up on the living room couch, worried that my tossing and turning would keep Matt awake. Sometime past 3:00 I just gave up. I sat at the dining room table and graded papers, angrily. I crawled into bed forty-five minutes before my alarm was set to go off, and I think I dozed some.

I felt crazy on Tuesday morning. I tried to run a meeting. I think I did a terrible job. I had a somewhat undignified meltdown in front of a colleague/mentor/friend, and she rolled her eyes and sent me gently on my way to teach a couple of sophomore classes. The sophomore classes were fantastic, but not because of me; it's because I've simply been blessed with some incredibly fantastic sophomores this year. I have to remember this, too. I teach about a hundred sophomores and I'd say about ninety-eight of them are really wonderful, and the other two are kind of a pain right now but I also suspect that they will be pretty great by the time they're seniors, and that they will wish they could go back and kick their sophomore selves right in the butt.

Later I learned that my colleague/mentor/friend went to a senior girl that I've taught since her sophomore year and said, "You know how Ms. Winslow was there for you every day last year when you were all, I quit I quit I quit I quit I quit? Well, now you need to go take care of her." And I'm not exactly sure what she told her about my eighth period class, but this girl recruited a friend of hers (also a completely wonderful girl I was lucky enough to teach last year) and they appeared at the beginning of that eighth period class to deliver an impassioned speech about sucking less at their education, respecting themselves and each other and me, not wasting their time, and the importance of giving a damn. It was beautiful. I have no idea if it made any difference to the kids listening to them, although you could have heard a pin drop when they left the room. It did, however, fill me with such deep gratitude, because I have been able to watch these girls grow into fierce young women. And it's beautiful.

The class didn't go terribly after that. All told, it went pretty well. I felt that it might be possible to go on.

On Friday, one of my kids wasn't in class. She's one of my toughest, for sure. She made it clear on day one that she absolutely did not want to be there, and I thought she'd find a way to drop. But she didn't. She stayed, and it turns out I liked her, and she seemed to not hate me, and even though all I'd ever heard about this kid was that she never went to class and never really tried, she never skipped my class. And because I teach with this stupid, unkillable optimism, I kept believing she'd buy in. Not right away, but eventually. Maybe not even this semester, but eventually. I told her recently that I expect her to pass. I just expect it. And she nodded, because I said, look, if I leave that door open you'd damn well better walk through it.

She wasn't in class on Friday, but she poked her head in after school. She didn't have her cell phone in her hand for a change. She walked over to my desk slowly, shyly. I think I greeted her warmly. I hope I did. It's kind of my personal rule for myself: no matter what, when a kid walks into my room, even if they're a perfect shit, I smile and say hello. And this kid isn't a perfect shit; she is, in fact, a good girl who has some things to figure out. And part of her figuring things out right now means that she's dropping out of school to pursue her GED. I felt inexplicably sad. I'm not sure why, because her current high school situation isn't working, and maybe she just needs something different. All the same, I can't help but believe I could have tried to provide that something different. But then she said something that just leveled me.

"I just wanted," she said slowly, "to thank you for trying with me, until the end. No other teacher has kept trying to help me for this long. And I just wanted you to know I really appreciate it."

I had no idea what to say in that moment, other than that I'll miss her, which happens to be true. But as soon as the door closed behind her I lost it. This surprised me. I'm still trying to figure out why, to be honest. Tears leaked out of my eyes the entire way home. I said to my wisest friend last night, "It just feels futile sometimes. I've been crying for a damn hour and I don't even really know why." He replied, "Tears for wins, tears for losses, and sometimes tears for the complicated, irrational in-between." That's about it, I suppose.

But I slept last night. And I know that even if I couldn't help this girl, I can't stop trying to help the ones who show up in my room on Monday, because the fact that it's hard, whatever it may be, doesn't give any of us permission to quit. The fact that none of us can ever be or do enough on our own doesn't mean we get to step away.

Which one now

Tonight in the car I was listening to NPR. More coverage of the San Bernardino shooting. And then I heard my daughter's voice in the backseat: "Wait, which shooting are they talking about now?"

Let that just sink in for a moment. Which. Shooting. Are. They. Talking. About. Now.

Those words, from my nine-year-old. My nine-year-old. My fourth grader. My fourth grader who has to practice lockdown drills. My children live in a world where they understand what an "active shooter" situation is. They are growing up in a world in which they actually have to think about being gunned down in a school, a place of worship, a clinic, a mall, a movie theater, a community center. And that is just totally fucking unacceptable to me. The fetishization of guns in America is unacceptable to me. I'm tired of feeling sick and angry and terrified and powerless. My daughter was six years old when the Sandy Hook massacre occurred and my son will turn six on the third anniversary and it is deeply fucking personal to me. I'm tired of writing the same thing: that if we just continue to say, meh, what're you gonna do after every shooting (more shootings than sunrises this year) it's not. going. to. stop. That my children will continue to exist in a world of lockdown drills that I pray, desperately, remain only drills.

Math Bonanza 2015

Allow me to indulge for a moment in a moment of Mama pride: my daughter won 7th in district at the fourth grade level at tonight's Math Bonanza, and top 4th grader at her school. Until that moment when I heard her name I really wasn't thinking about how well she would do or whether she would even place; really, I've just been so tickled about her enthusiasm in going at all. She just likes doing math. And she had such a great time last year. She didn't place, but she felt good about trying her best on some really tough math, got to eat a bunch of pizza, and cheered hard for her classmates. So when she had the opportunity to go back this year, she waved the paper in my face and said, "We're doing this again, right?" It really wasn't even a question.

And it was a terrific night. I fully admit that at 2:10 this afternoon, knowing I still had a meeting of my writing club between school and collecting my children and then we would have just enough time to stop by the house for a quick bathroom break before rushing over to the elementary school that hosts this contest, I really wished I could just come home and put on pajamas at four o'clock and read. But. Isaac gathered his bag of entertainment (over four hours of hanging out in a hot cafeteria is a long time for a five-year-old, and it was a struggle last year) and I washed my face and brushed my teeth, and we headed back out into the afternoon. The sun was beginning to slip behind the trees as we parked, and the air was bitingly cold. The kids slipped their hands into mine, and I relished the moment for exactly that: this sweet little sliver of time when they are little enough to unselfconsciously hold onto me, but big enough to let go and run over to the registration line to greet a friend (Suzannah) or sit alone at a table in a crowded room and color and be just fine (Isaac) while I go buy concessions and chat with my friend and colleague who runs this event.

This year was also lovely because I shamelessly exploited my "VIP" status. I have exactly nothing to do with the execution of this night, but I am lucky enough to call the teacher who runs it my friend and colleague, and the tests are scored by a group of volunteer students from my high school, most of whom I know, many of them whom I've taught over the past couple of years. So when I learned that they'd be arriving for orientation at 4:45 but didn't actually have orientation until 5:15 (high school students need decoy times, just like my husband), I thought I'd go say hi. And then I thought, what if I hang out in the library with my restless son instead of lined up along the wall of the cafeteria? We can spread out on an actual table, and and it's so much cooler. As I walked to the scoring room, an official-looking person asked if I needed any help (which was obvious code for, "Excuse me, but who are you? The sign says no parents or coaches allowed") and I said, "Oh, those are my students in there, and I'm with Mr._________." (Matt was all, "Well, that was shameless.") It was a good move. Isaac had tons of things packed that he could have played with, but he settled into coloring a mandala with gel pens. He is my little artist; he can concentrate for a spectacularly long time on drawing or coloring. (One of the seniors walked by and said, "Man, he's good. I can't color like that and I'm eighteen.") He took breaks to eat popcorn and pizza, but other than that, he was totally absorbed. I tried to read a bit -- math contests are not exactly the most thrilling spectator sports, so I didn't feel badly about not staying in the cafeteria -- but I felt too distracted. I kept watching my students, marveling at the way they were both goofy with each other and serious about their task. I kept watching my son, bent over his paper, absorbed in his coloring. I thought about my daughter, bent over her paper in the cafeteria, her cheeks flushed from the warmth of the room. And I just felt so deeply in love with all of it.

Seeing my kids -- as in, the teenagers I love so much -- spend their Friday night scoring math tests at an elementary school was just about as heart-bursting as watching my own daughter lock into fierce and lovely concentration. Two of these kids in particular made me so crazy as sophomores. I mean this seriously -- not crazy in the fun way, but crazy in the way I feel when teaching actually hurts. I worried about one of them, and I didn't feel like I could help him enough. The other one spent at least a good semester just pissing me off. And now when I see them I feel nothing but pure affection. I feel sure that they will, ultimately, be okay. I laugh with them so easily. I still lecture them, because I still feel they need it and because I think they actually respect me, but mostly I'm just happy when they stop by my room to say hi. I'm going to miss them next year, and if they don't let me know how they're doing, I'm going to think about them, and wonder, and hope.

Sometimes when I tell friends that I'm going to literacy night or math night or science night or family night at the kids' school, I get that sympathetic eye roll. Because we're all tired, and we've taught all day, and the thought of eating terrible pizza in an elementary school cafeteria at five o'clock is not incredibly exciting. It'd be nice to come home and heat up some leftovers instead. Or it'd be nice to toss the kids in the bath and chop vegetables at the kitchen counter while listening to NPR, or really any scenario would be lovely as long as it involves changing into sweats before five o'clock. But they don't need to pity me, even on days when I pity myself, for heaven's sake. Motherhood is often lonely, and some days I am so very aware of the fact that I can't go to happy hour when I really, really want to. But also, this time is golden. It's golden. My children are so happy to be exactly who they are right now, and they seem to just really like school, and they are young enough to really want Matt and me to do these things with them: to show up at their events, and chat with their teachers, and beam. And there is almost nothing as magical as seeing your kid see you beaming at them from their spot in the front of the crowd.

Last year, the week before the contest, she teared up at home when she couldn't make sense of some of the practice problems. (The math skills aren't inherited, but the perfectionism might be.) We talked through that. I told her it's okay that it's hard, that she can do hard things, and that there will be things she doesn't know. Always. This year, she says things like, "I like math best when it's a little bit hard. It's better than when it's too easy." And that grit, right there, that's what makes my heart burst. That's what I hope I can help to teach her (I certainly can't do that on my own), so much more than the actual math.

Matt managed to get home from work in time to make it to the awards part of the night. We crammed into the hot cafeteria and waited, and I fully expected to smile while my girl clapped for her friends. But when I heard her name announced I turned to my husband and saw, I suspect, a mirror of my own face: bursting with happiness and this sweet, shared moment of parental pride. That's our kid up there. Look at her. Just look at her.

On leaving the door open...

I'm currently hunkered down in the study, hiding from my children who are fighting about who takes the first bath tonight. Neither of them want to, and they are hissing terrible things at each other right now, and I can barely bring myself to care. In fact, I don't, really, until the whining and screeching becomes too annoyingly loud. Where is my Mother of the Year award? Is it around here somewhere? Well, actually, I think I'll just drink a glass of wine and call it good.

...Okay, but if I hear "That's not fair" or "I'm telling Mom" one more time I'm going to switch to something a bit harder.

Anyway.

It has actually been a good day. Sometimes I find good days unexpectedly follow the days in which I feel crazy and cry a lot, which happened yesterday. I woke up this morning feeling fairly calm, though. I didn't stay calm, because this also turned into one of those teaching days that requires flailing and threats and semi-deranged rolling of the eyes. That felt necessary today, but not exactly bad, and I left my toughest class at the end of the day feeling wildly, stupidly optimistic. I don't know whether this is a strength or a weakness: my wild, unkillable optimism. I pulled aside a boy I know well -- this is my second year with him -- who is crashing spectacularly. It's not the first time I've pulled him aside. Last time, in fact, I basically threw up my hands and said, "I'm all out of tricks! I don't know what's going to work! I just know things are hard for you, and I'm sorry. I'm also sorry that I'm probably going to continue to get on your nerves, because I care, and I see you, and you're not ever going to slip off my radar. So, okay, I'm sorry in advance. I'm not going anywhere. You're going to be mad at me. I know I piss you off. You piss me off. I'm still not going anywhere." We've butted heads hard a few times, but he smiled at this. It was not exactly my most eloquent speech ever.

It also didn't work. That was weeks ago. Today something seemed different, so I gave him a similar version of what I'm beginning to think of as my Desperation Talk, and then I said, "Look, you and I both know you're good at bullshitting adults and telling them what they want to hear." He laughed, because, you know, teachers shouldn't say bullshit or whatever, but then he said, "Yeah, I know. But I don't think I'm doing that now."

And I said, "If you're telling me that this is a turning point for you, and you mean it, and you show me that in the next week or two, I will make it possible for you to pass my class."

I held out my pinky. Forget handshakes; teenagers know that a pinky swear is serious. He hooked his pinky into mine and I leaned in and hissed, "I swear, if you're bullshitting me now, I will break your pinky."

I'll just go ahead and put my Teacher of the Year award next to my Mother of the Year award, yeah?

But I'll tell you what, these moments when I really believe in what's possible are it. They're what keep me going. When what's possible actually happens, it's magic. There's a perfectly solid chance that I'll feel crushed and disappointed, because sometimes kids just don't know how to get it together when they're teenagers and they're a mess, despite our best efforts. And honestly, while I used to believe they have to care more than I do, I no longer believe that's true. They're kids, and they don't see the bigger picture. And also, I can't judge where they're coming from if I don't understand it -- sometimes school just isn't a priority, and for good reason. I frequently care a lot more than they do, and that hurts sometimes. But I also believe that even if it doesn't mean they get their act together right now, today, this month, or during their entire junior year, something might stick, and we have no way of knowing how that will matter later. So in the meantime, I fumble along, sometimes desperately. I sound like a crazy person. I rant, and I get angry, and I accidentally use the word bullshit. But underneath that all, I hope what comes across is this totally helpless love. I can't help it. I do love this. I keep coming back. And if nothing else, I try to leave the door open.

I'm just going to hide out here for awhile

I briefly considered squeezing in a little exercise after school today, but then I stepped outside my classroom at the end of the day and surveyed the garden and courtyard, dark and slick with rain. Instead, I picked up the kids and asked them if they wanted popcorn, which I made immediately. And I'm just going to be okay with that.

On Friday evening I decided to take a Facebook break, but I haven't actually done that. I've read sporadically, but it's been enough to upset me. Look, if you're going to make blanket statements about not wanting refugees in your state, thank you very much, I challenge you to look into the eyes of a refugee child you work with every day and say it again, out loud. But! You don't work with any refugee children, do you, so it's a lot easier for you to post such things without thinking about it too much before you go on to post a recipe you found on Pinterest. (That was unnecessarily snarky, perhaps, but I am making a point, a big fat point, in my own tiny little corner of the internet.) You are perfectly comfortable. And scared; you are also scared. I understand that. But we cannot allow our fear to govern our humanity. I still deeply, passionately believe that. If I am to continue in the work that I do, I have to keep and hold a part of my twenty-two-year-old self, however insufferable she might have been.

But my point is that I am done reading on Facebook for awhile, and by "awhile" I probably mean a week, but I really do mean I'm not going to read it. I don't really believe in fancy cleanses when they pertain to food because I think we just like the word "cleanse" and don't really get much benefit out of cutting things we plan to add right back in ten days later or whatever, but occasionally I think a social media cleanse can help a great deal, even if it's just to quiet the noise in my head for a time and not walk around in this huge cloud of angry resentment directed towards people I generally like who post careless (heartless? ignorant?) things online. So I'm going to maybe write a little more here instead, because I still love to tell people what I think, and I still like to fling my tiny little thoughts out into the world, even if they just land in empty space. I'm going to resist the urge to call out to my Facebook friends, "Hey, I just wrote a blog entry!" which means the traffic here will be pretty light. I'm going to be okay with that.

And maybe, because of that, because I won't be writing with a particular audience in mind (although that's not entirely true; I always write with a particular audience in mind) I'll be okay with throwing silly little things up here, things I'd normally write on Facebook. And I'll know that it might not be my Best Work, and it might be read by three whole people. And I'm going to be okay with that, too. Maybe I'll just write things like, "There is a decided lack of brownies in my life tonight and I find that distressing." Or I might record silly conversations I have with my sophomores.

Sophomore Boy: You know what's hard? Just being shut down. Like, I try, and then I get shut down and I don't want to even try anymore.
Me: Who shut you down?
Boy: *names a girl*
Me: Hm. Are you sure she was trying to shut you down? Or is it possible she was simply politely disagreeing with you?
Boy: No, it was definitely mean. Like she thinks everything I say is just irrelevant.
Me: What did she say?
Boy: She said I was a BIG PHONY.
Me: Um, she really said that? (Note: I resisted the urge to make a comment about Catcher in the Rye.)
Boy: Okay, she didn't actually say that. BUT I KNOW SHE THOUGHT IT.

Oh, bless them.

Last night I read an article about being an HSP -- a Highly Sensitive Person. I must have heard about this at some point, because this doesn't seem like a new thing, but suddenly I found myself demanding that Matt listen while I read parts of it aloud.

"This is me, isn't it?" I said. I ticked off traits: We're going to cry when we're happy and sad and angry, because we feel deeply and react. We notice subtle changes in tone. Repetitive and loud noises are particularly distressing. We startle easily. (I wasn't sure about that one, but Matt confirmed it, and he knows me better than anyone else on the planet.) Violent movies can be incredibly distressing. We're constantly told we take things too personally. We crave deep relationships.

Matt nodded and seemed to think it was pretty accurate. Today I took the same article to a friend at work and said, "What do you think?"

He laughed when he read the bit about noticing subtle changes in tone, because I confessed that yes, if he sounds different when he sends me a text message -- more abrupt, say -- then I notice; as in, I actually spend time wondering about it.

"That is a colossal waste of time," he said, "but the part about you being overly-empathetic is very true, and I love you for that." And because I am apparently highly sensitive, I felt all warm and fuzzy over that.

(For the record, it's not all true across the board; I don't think I have a terribly difficult time making decisions, and I don't think I have a particularly low pain tolerance. But the rest felt true.)

I can think of no artful way to end this, so I'm just going to sign off now, because I have dinner to make and floors to vacuum and children to bathe and, if I can stay awake after those children are tucked in, a book to read.

I'm not doing school work tonight. And I'm going to let that be okay.

What is there to say?

What is there to write, really, on a night like tonight?

On an ordinary Friday night in November, I might write about the rain, how because we didn't lose power tonight the storm is soothing to me, coaxing me into pajama pants at five o'clock as soon as we pull into the driveway after running errands. Ordinary errands: a haircut for Isaac, a quick stop at Trader Joe's. The kids slurp on their suckers and bother each other and I sneak a package of special holiday Joe Joe's into the basket while they're not looking. Matt and I hide these in the laundry room and dole them out slowly, or we eat them secretly ourselves. Usually the latter. The kids have plenty of Halloween candy still, and they only eat that a piece at a time. Their stashes last all year long.

Earlier this week, if I had sat down to write, I'd have ranted: about how one whackadoo pastor gets actual time on CNN for complaining about Starbucks coffee cups being anti-Christmas or anti-Jesus because they don't have snowmen and reindeer on them, about how I read like eighty-five posts in a row on Facebook about how ridiculous that was, and about how I just wanted to say, Stop feeding the trolls, people, everyone knows no actual Christians are mad about the fucking Starbucks cups because I did not and do not know one single real-life person who actually believes that the sign of the devil comes on a coffee cup unadorned with snowmen and reindeer. Perhaps my rage was disproportionate to the situation. I think any time I find myself raging at Facebook I should probably just take a two-week break. It's probably about that time.

But aside from that, I had a few rocky days. What would I have shared about that? Something terrible happened to one of my students and it shook me but out of respect for her privacy I will not use her story to Make A Big Fat Point. And it's not my story to tell, anyway -- only, possibly, to learn from. I might have written about a friendship that means a great deal to me, about how I felt particularly grateful for it this week. About how the moments that crack my heart make it bigger.

There were lovely moments, too: taking my kids to Freighthouse Square on Wednesday, eating a cozy lunch and riding the Link to Union Station. Walking to Hello, Cupcake. Watching movies as the afternoon grew darker. Meeting my brother and his wife for dinner in Tacoma and tucking my babies into bed, too late for a school night and smiling because they are old enough to understand that indulgence.

But how do I do that, when the world is as absurd as it is? When I'm driving through the rainy streets to pick up my children from school, listening to NPR, and I hear about the attacks on Paris? When at home headlines scream "THIS IS A HORROR"? When I realize I've been living my blissfully ordinary, beautiful, safe little life while others are, right now, learning what it means to lose everything?

(But that's not new. That has never not been true.)

I logged on to Facebook, which was stupid. I understand why people are posting "Pray for Paris" and sharing artful photographs of tearstained faces superimposed over the Eiffel Tower, I guess, but the more I scroll the more inadequate it feels. It's easy to push a button and share an image and say poignant things, but I guess I also just don't think it matters: Facebook, that is, and whatever we throw up there. I guess I just don't think it's going to mean anything if I say I stand with Paris. I'm just one person on the internet, one person on the other side of the world -- and so I don't post anything, because what is there to say? But I keep reading, like an idiot, scrolling past more of the same thing, and suddenly it's like the drinking game: how many comments in any news article about anything ever before somebody blames the president? Hashtag Obama Sucks! Because that's a logical place to direct our anger right now. And if you're not angry at the president, be angry at the people who don't also post about Beirut, or Syria. How can Facebook show what's in our hearts, and what if we show the wrong thing at the wrong moment, anyway? What if we leave something out that someone else things we should include? I want to punch the whole internet in the damn face. It's not big enough for our hearts.

So I will just say this: Everything seems terrifyingly absurd. I feel crazy. (I have the luxury of sitting in my own safe house and feeling crazy; this is not lost on me.) Paris is under attack and my student is under attack in her own life right here and I am sitting on my couch in my own comfortable house with my children tucked into bed. And I know that's all people are trying to make sense of when they turn to Facebook, really, because the world is grieving and afraid, so I don't mean to sound like a jerk. But all the same, I find no comfort there, only more absurdity, and I don't think I can be of any real use anywhere if I keep reading it.

Today before any of this unfolded I had a conversation with some of my students about this very phenomenon, about how desperately glad I am that Facebook and social media didn't exist when I was in high school. I was a little surprised at how quickly, and how sadly, my kids agreed with me. But then again, teenagers are smarter and more savvy than many adults give them credit for. And sometimes my heart hurts for them and what they have to bear.

I'm just one person, on the other side of the world, trying to cling to a little hope and a little gratitude every day for this cosmic lottery that I seem to have won through no virtue of my own. And probably my restless tapping away in this little text box is my own version of "Pray for Paris." And it's still not enough.

Halloween

I love this time of year. I love the turning of the weather: the dark evenings, the foggy still mornings. Today has been a tempest of wind and rain and I was completely delighted by it. I love that my feet are cold at night, that I fall asleep bundled in covers. I love burning fall candles. I love cooking soup, I love hearing the rain on the roof. I love the thought of our little home and what it must look like from the street, its windows glowing from the light within, tucked into our little neighborhood.

But I have a confession, Dear Internet, on this night when everyone -- myself included -- is posting pictures of their children in their costumes: I kind of hate Halloween.

It’s the hugeness of it all. The expectation -- of fancy costumes, of bucketfuls of candy. I went on this big old capitalism rant this morning, which made Matt tease me a bit; usually he’s the Get off my lawn person in our marriage. But I truly hate it. The good news is that my children do love to dress up but are also easy to please; Suzannah’s Harry Potter costume was mostly cobbled together by bits of other costumes. Her old Darth Vader cape, for instance, and she made her own wand out of a branch. I did find a nice Harry Potter scarf for her, and a pair of Harry Potter glasses, but I didn’t go too crazy. Last year’s Luke Skywalker costume was created with a women’s extra-small scrub top and plain old black leggings, plus the leather belt from an old Ewok costume. It was pretty great. I bought Isaac an actual Batman costume, but he loves to dress up so much that we more than get our money’s worth, and anyway, I’m just not remotely crafty. At all.

Another confession: I don’t care about pumpkin carving. I just don’t really like doing it; I guess that goes back to the “not remotely crafty” thing. But Matt does like pumpkin carving, and we have some nice fat pumpkins from Isaac’s field trip to the pumpkin patch last week. So this afternoon, Matt and the kids produced some Halloweeny works of art, and we set out a few flickering jack-o-lanterns. And I do like that.

The other nice thing is that while my children love trick-or-treating, they don’t actually have the expectation of tearing through their candy. They nibble on it all year, and yesterday morning we actually dumped their leftover stash from last year into a plastic bag that I’ll toss into our bowl by the front door -- because kids knock on our door and expect candy, so I will hand it out by the fistful. But then again, I should probably just focus on the fact that our neighborhood is friendly and walkable and I do love seeing all the little ones and their siblings and cousins and parents, right?

A year or two ago I read an article that really resonated with me. I’m such an introvert; what I want to do on Halloween is turn off all the lights and huddle in the dark with a book or a movie and just not answer the door. But this article was all about how Halloween gives us the opportunity to open our doors to our neighbors, to make this momentary connection and to be a part of our community. We live in a lovely little neighborhood, but we don’t often have the chance to open our doors to each other like this, even just for a moment. I thought about that tonight when Matt took the kids out into the rainy night and I sat on the couch and typed notes back and forth with one of my seniors who’s submitting her college essay tomorrow. And instead of feeling annoyed when the knocks came, I found that I enjoyed the kids, many of whom I recognized, as well as the little glances exchanged with their parents. I thought about all the small ways I hope the world treats my own children kindly. I thought about how lucky I am to have a partner who takes my children trick-or-treating in the rain while I stay in to hand out candy. And so, in the end, it wasn’t at all difficult to tell the kiddos how much I loved their costumes, that I hoped they were having fun. The kids were all gracious and polite, and the parents lingering behind them all called their thank-you’s. It felt friendly. And while I’m sure all of those kids went home and dumped their candy on the floor for a frantic inventory the way mine do (ugh), I would like to believe, for just a moment, that the candy is secondary. That it isn’t even really the point.

Also, I realized this year that adolescent boys dressed in their jeans and trick-or-treating with plastic grocery bags just don’t bother me anymore. In my mid-twenties this drove me nuts. I would lecture my students about being completely lame: If you think you still have to go trick-or-treating, I would tell them, you’d better at least dress up as something cool. I’m not sure what shifted, or when; maybe there are just enough years between me and a fifteen-year-old to see something sweet in a boy who wants to preserve a little of his childhood, as tough as he might be. Tonight, a boy appeared by himself on my doorstep. He wasn’t dressed up as anything, really, and he held one of those plastic grocery sacks. And he was cool. When he said, “Trick or treat,” I wasn’t worried that he’d egg my house (a common worry my peers share when they explain why they grudgingly hand out candy; is this really a thing?). I said, “Happy Halloween...and have fun, kiddo.” And he smiled in that way that teenage boys do when they’re a little unguarded. “Yeah,” he said. “Thank you.” And he shuffled down my driveway.

I thought about how lonely the world can be sometimes. And about how maybe, even in the midst of my grumpy rants against buckets of sugared crap and capitalism, this night gives us these little moments to look into each other’s eyes and smile. To say, “I love your costume!” and “You are a perfect Elsa,” and “Have fun,” and “Be safe.” And I hope what was unspoken came through just as clearly: that I don’t care how fancy your costume is, or if you wear one. That I simply hope you transcend whatever ordinary moment you’re living in for a little while, and that the ordinary one is okay when you return. That I hope you see more kindness than scorn tonight. If only this night could just be about that.

Sunday evening snapshot

It’s Sunday evening, and I’m writing at our dining room table. Suzannah sits across from me, coloring an elaborate butterfly with gel pens. My children have both taken to coloring mandalas lately; they wake early, and our mornings, now that we don’t have to take Isaac to daycare before school starts, are blessedly unhurried, so after bags are packed and teeth are brushed they often sit quietly and color. We fell in love with mandalas this summer when one of Matt’s cousins brought a book of them to the cabin, and now we color them all the time.

Isaac is in the family room playing in a fort constructed of a couple of our dining room chairs and the comforter from his bed. He’s taken the belt from his ninja costume and tied it around his head because the kids have spent the last week watching Karate Kid (I & II) and there’s a lot of crane moves and wild kicks happening around here these days.

Matt is out for an evening run. This afternoon he suggested a recipe I’ve had my eye on, too (a combination of vegetarian Italian “sausage”, escarole and white beans), and he volunteered to do all the food prep when he comes home, so I’m taking a moment to just enjoy the quiet. An hour ago I rose from the couch, frustrated because the nap I tried to take just didn’t happen, barked at the kids that they were not allowed to be in the same room because they were being terrible to each other and annoying the ever-loving shit out of me, and grumpily opened up my laptop to tweak a lesson plan I realized just won’t work this week. But the kids settled into their own quiet play, and I’m sipping a glass of wine, and the misty damp air hanging over our backyard is soothing my rough edges a bit. I do love this weather -- the stillness, the gradual darkening at five o’clock in the afternoon. I love that when I drove to school on Friday morning the light was still so soft even though the day promised sunshine, and Puget Sound shimmered against the mountains in a wash of brilliant blue. The leaves fall over the sidewalks, and there are certain ordinary streets around my neighborhood that take my breath away each morning right now. Yesterday afternoon I ran through those streets, through the fallen leaves still soft underneath my sneakers. A few weeks from now they’ll crunch and crumble and I will love that, too.

I paused in writing this to run a bath for my son, who’s spent the weekend playing soccer with his sister in the front yard and playing hard at gymnastics and is coated with that faint grime of boyhood, layers of sweat, that vaguely potato-y smell behind his ears. He danced around the hallway in his underwear, practicing his karate moves. I poured his bubble bath and returned to my laptop. He called to me, “Mommy? Did you check if there’s no spiders?”

“No spiders, Buddy,” I replied, distracted. He asks every time.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Did you check everywhere? Even the corners?”

“I always check everywhere, Baby,” I said. Satisfied, he proceeded to apply bubbles to his chin until he looked like Santa Claus. Now he’s got Batman and some other thing, a Rescue Bot maybe, and he’s absorbed in play. Five more minutes until we wash hair, I tell him.

I had an entire blog entry roiling about in my head earlier this week: it was about teaching and teenagers and how much I love them and how defensive I feel when someone who doesn’t work with them tries to tell me that they don’t know how I do it and how their kid is not like “those” kids and how I just smile even though I want to rage and how I wish I could talk about a frustrating day at work without it becoming a representation of all teenagers and all teachers and all of public education and how sometimes I feel sorry for people who don’t get to experience the hilarity and rawness and absurdity that I do in the course of a single day, because it is a privilege, a gift, a joy. But I’ve written that entry before, a million times. I will write it again. But tonight I’ve lost a little steam, I guess, and not in a bad way. Tonight I’m just trying to let go of my earlier grumpiness, the tiniest bitterness about my unsuccessful nap, and appreciate this moment: my son splashing in the tub. My husband, sautéing onions. My daughter, deep in concentration over her paper.

A bit ago I wrapped her in my arms and kissed her forehead. She tolerated it for a moment but grew impatient.

“Mom,” she complained.

“I know, I know,” I said. “But sometimes I just have to hug you for a second, because I know we get grumpy with each other, and I sound cranky, and I just want to have a moment when I get to remind you that I still love you so much, all the time.”

She smiled.

“I know,” she said, “but can you please let me go now?”

It’s so bittersweet. So much letting go.

And I suppose that’s why I write here, ultimately. To keep and hold each ordinary moment, because moments pass. But moments are also what make a life, and tonight, I am deeply grateful for mine.

On what’s not enough (or, feeling firmly stuck...)

Today we received Suzannah’s SBAC scores in the mail. The SBAC is the latest test, blah blah blah, and here is where I could engage in dialogue or debate about the test but I have zero desire to do that, for a billion reasons. Some of y’all People just make me tired, is why. And it’s Friday. I just typed and deleted and typed and deleted a lot of words about testing, but I am not here to write about testing, not really.

Full disclosure: Suzannah scored very well, if I’m reading it correctly (and I’m pretty sure I am). Well above the school, district, and state average. She also kind of enjoyed taking the test itself, which I love -- not at all because I care how she does on a standardized test, but because I feel it means we have been at least moderately successful in our endeavors to encourage her to try her best on whatever she’s doing but also have conveyed to her that no single test will tell us how smart, kind, capable, funny, or creative she is. She seems to enjoy tests as a fun challenge but doesn’t seem to worry about them much. She worries much more about whether or not Isaac has messed up her desk, or how the markers and paper are organized on our art supply table. (No, she did not get this from her father. She got lots of other cool things from him. The neurotic traits are all mine, I KNOW.)

Anyway, when the scores came she wanted to know how she did. I told her. She said, “Cool. That’s actually better than I thought I did.” But we didn’t make a big deal about it, because I didn’t make a big deal about when she took the test. And because I really, honestly, truly, could not care less. Here’s what I care about. Here’s what I want to celebrate. Adults who work at my children’s school have told me about seeing both of them stand up for other kids who were being picked on. Different adults, at different times. One teacher (not even Suzannah’s teacher) told me about how she walked up to a much bigger kid when he took something from a much smaller kid and demanded that he give it back. Isaac apparently stood up for one of his little buddies when another kid shoved him on the playground. That’s what I want to celebrate, that’s what I actually do care about, because that is not often the popular or easy choice, and I know that it won’t be the last time they’re faced with it. When I think about what I want to teach my children, what I desperately pray they learn from me, and from other good people in their lives, doesn’t have much to do with what goes on a test.

The world isn’t kind enough. It’s not an easy thing to each them. It’s not an easy thing to model. And frankly, when I take a good, hard look at myself, I find myself too often falling short. I lack patience and I yell too much and I am angry and I find it really difficult to extend grace to people who annoy or upset me. Not much of a model, am I?

It’s been a week like any other, really -- I had a really terrible day which left me wanting to stalk through the parking lot punching holes in everyone’s tires. I had a really sad day that left me crying at school (albeit briefly, and not in front of students). I had a really stressful, exhausting day that turned into a pretty satisfying day when I managed not to make a total ass of myself (or so my boss said) at a parent function I had to lead. I had a sad morning that turned into a surprisingly excellent day when a friend immediately cheered me up at school and my classes were absolutely fantastic. I had lovely late dinners with three different friends in one week, which is an unspeakable luxury. And now here we are on Friday, which is my time to sit and collapse with it all, collapse cozily, collapse gratefully, collapse in grief/anger/joy/fear/anxiety/relief. This is my time just to sit with it. To rage inwardly at all the “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people!” bullshit posts that spring up after every damn shooting we experience, which will continue to spring up because we don’t do anything to stop it. To feel paralyzed with anger and grief and total helplessness, to listen to the President in his own exhausted grief and anger, to wonder when it will hit even closer because it will, because my God, twenty school children can be murdered in their classroom and one of my friends actually says she’s annoyed that people are “making this about guns,” that very same day and that was the day I stopped reading her Facebook in order to preserve any possible relationship with her but there are so many more, there was another this week, and one of my former students was right there in the middle of it, and there will be more and more and more and we know this and we don’t. Do. Anything. To stop it. There’s no reason it won’t be us next time because it could happen at my school or it could happen at my church, and oh, wait, five years ago it did, or it could happen at the damn mall, or it could happen in a movie theater, and there are people who actually believe a solution is to send me into my own goddamned classroom with a gun, and that is where I just have to stop typing all of this and walk away from the computer and breathe. We are broken. We are broken and this is so crazy I can’t even process it. It’s crazy and I am angry and I do not know how to see past that tonight. I’m all out of understanding for people who say intolerable things right now, which, I realize, isn’t what I want to model or teach my children. But tonight that’s where I’m firmly stuck.

The world isn’t kind enough. But kindness, frankly, isn’t enough. Nor, as Obama said, are thoughts and prayers. I don’t think think that’s what we’re short on.

I didn’t know I was going to write all that when I sat down; I rarely know what’s going to happen when I curl up to write these Friday night musings. Here, Internet -- you get my messiness. I keep my desk organized so I can hurl my thoughts at the keyboard and watch them splatter.

The quiet that follows

Well, this has been just about the longest week in all the history of all the weeks ever. I woke up on Wednesday morning and was both surprised and mightily offended that it wasn’t Friday. Yesterday I was sure it was Friday and nearly burst into tears when I realized that it was only Thursday. I didn’t, because we get to wear college shirts on Thursdays and I just got a new Concordia t-shirt, and because I realize that a job in which I get to show up in a t-shirt and jeans and still be considered professional is a pretty sweet deal. All the same, it’s been one of those weeks where I had something going on every single night, and I’ve been staying up too late, and when I don’t get enough sleep I let down my guard and my skin feels thin and I just hate everything.

I nearly deleted my Facebook this week. I didn’t, because I hate internet flounces, and because I obviously have a lot of fun posting on Facebook. I try quite earnestly to use it to capture the small, ordinary, hilarious, lovely moments in my life. This, I think, is what it can offer, what I wish it did -- glimpses into those moments we all have, those glorious small moments, that can be so easily overlooked and forgotten. I wish it offered more opportunities for us to look at each other and say, “Me, too.” Instead, I feel like I log on and have to slog through all this other crap in order to find any of the good bits. Most of the time when it just feels like too much I either don’t bother to read (I’m a jerk sometimes, yes, I post and I’m not reading) or I don’t let it bother me because I have a self-imposed time limit and accept that I’m just not going to see it all and don’t have to let it ruin my day because it’s the internet, but sometimes when my brain is tired I let myself get sucked into scrolling and scrolling and it’s all hey, let me tell you all about how you’re wrong about vaccines and you’re doing school wrong and let me show you this article about common core I found which proves everyone is doing math wrong and what about the second amendment and MY RIGHTS and make everyone come to this country the RIGHT way and if my kid can’t bring peanut butter to school because your kid is deathly allergic then your kid better not complain when my kid brings a Bible and look at my new kitchen remodel and look at all the organic vegetables in my child’s lunchbox and Kim effing Davis (and why are we even giving her airtime?) and let me show you this really poignant quote slapped on top of this picture that makes a very important point and LIKE IF YOU AGREE and SHARE IF YOU AGREE and as my friend Robina said, it really just feels like EVERYONE IS SCREAMING AT ME ALL THE TIME. And it’s so easy to get sucked into the screaming. I scream sometimes, too. (Sometimes I feel like I’m screaming somewhere all the time, even if it’s just in my own head.) I promise myself I’m only going to share this goofy thing someone said in my fifth period class and then I accidentally slip in something I find particularly thought-provoking from the NYT or whatever, although you should know I will never ask you to “share if you agree” because that makes me want to set the whole internet on fire.

In fact, I think the last thing I said before bed the other night was something about wanting to set the whole internet on fire. That was probably a sign that I really need to just chill out, so. I’m trying. I’m simply not reading people who stress me out on a regular basis because of all the screaming, and it doesn’t mean I don’t love those people, it just means that I seriously can’t deal with wanting to put my head through a wall over the internet on a Tuesday night when I’ve just come home from Open House and all I want to do is crawl into bed and say to my husband, “So tonight I found out that one of my students is getting a major organ transplant this week because she moved way up the donor list and it’s happening now” while he pets my head. It just means I have to protect my heart -- and my sanity. And if anyone wants to unfollow me on Facebook because of all my offensive opinions, I promise, I won’t mind. (If you’re not sure whether or not my opinions are offensive, I can send you a list. It’s long, though.)

And also, it’s September, which means that yes, I’m exhausted, and I haven’t quite found my teaching legs yet, but! But. It also means that I live in the Pacific Northwest under a spectacularly beautiful sky. It means that the afternoons are still golden, and when we pull out of our parking spot at Trader Joe’s my son will cry, “Mommy, I see Mount Rainier!” and I will pause for a moment, despite my desire to just be home and in pajama pants already, because he’s right, there it is, the mountain rising before us. It means that soon I will go for a jog on a Saturday morning and I will crunch through autumn leaves on the sidewalk. It means I am still fiercely in love with the work I do every day, with my students. We are all still learning each other, and I am humbled and delighted and baffled every single day. In September it’s coming at me too fast to worry about all the Facebook articles and opinions about education and teaching; I’m just doing it. As well as I can. As desperately. With all the love I have. I’m watching my children run into school in the morning, barely glancing back to catch my wave, I’m blowing them a kiss and driving to a different school, I’m leaving my school in the afternoon and driving back to theirs, singing at the top of my lungs, watching the door to my son’s classroom open, watching him run towards me, grinning. He has this little buddy in his class, and they are so cute I can hardly stand it. We ran into him and his mom at the fair last weekend, and when Isaac called his name this boy turned and beamed and ran to hug him. Today I watched him holler, “Isaac! Fist bump!” And they clonked their little knuckles together, very manly, even though neither one of them has lost their first baby tooth. My daughter jogs towards us, smiling, her arms clutching her binder and whatever novel she’s reading. My heart expands. Bursts. I hold my son’s hand and tell my daughter to stay close and we cross the parking lot together. At home they dump their backpacks inside and don bike helmets and play outside until I call them in for dinner. Yesterday I ran outside to the sound of sobbing and my daughter’s screaming: “Mom! Mom! Isaac fell!” and I found my son face down on the driveway, pinned underneath his bike. I lifted him into my arms, ready to carry him into the house, but suddenly he squirmed away and said he wanted to keep riding. And I remember the time my daughter took a spill like that, the way she said in her shaky voice that she wanted to try again, and I think everything is okay and beautiful in these little moments, these moments in which I can kiss my children’s tears away as they wriggle out of my arms and climb back on their bikes. (Is this worth sharing on Facebook?)

Anyway, it’s Friday night, and I am blessed with a life that usually allows me to write myself back into a state of gratitude on Friday night. I can sit and breathe. I can say to the kids, “Who wants popcorn?” and they are still young to enough to shriek with glee about this. They change into pajamas and we play an extra game of Uno before stories. Tonight when I read to Isaac, Suzannah curled up on the couch next to us instead of reading her own book (currently she’s devouring Island of the Blue Dolphins; I expect she’ll move on to My Side of the Mountain by Sunday). I tucked them into bed. They’re both a little sniffly because it’s September and every teacher and student I know has a cold right now, but they both insist they’re perfectly fine, and I can only pray they’ll sleep past six-thirty tomorrow morning. But they’re sleeping now. I’m watching a documentary and thinking I should probably go to bed soon, and I’m appreciating the moments of grace I experienced this week: a good planning session with a friend and colleague, a night out with some of my favorite people, a message from one of my best friends in the world, the kindest words and a wisecrack or two from another friend at work, a smile from a typically surly student.

I’m exhausted and I know I should go to bed right this second; I should have gone to bed an hour ago. My children are going to wake too early, and I’ll feel a little cranky about that, probably. But for now, I just want to sit inside this moment: the one that feels far away from all the internet screaming, the one that reminds me of the flesh-and-blood people who hug and high-five me in my actual life.

Full of wonder, full of grace

I’m recovering from a cold. It hit with a vengeance on Isaac’s first morning of kindergarten; I woke up with that tell-tale sore throat that often promises a sinus infection, and thought: Of course. Here we go. I spent the next week diligently doing my sinus washes, drinking water fizzing with Alka Seltzer Cold, and carrying on basically as usual, except for last Friday when I had to squeak pitifully at a class of exuberant sophomores, “Guys? This is all I’ve got. Help me out.” They furiously shushed each other, and at the end of the period, one girl volunteered to be my voice when I wanted to remind everyone about something for the next class. They are lovely people. Anyway, I’ve gone through a lot of Kleenex, and I’ve drunk too much Nyquil, which gives me strange dreams. But I’m well on my way back to healthy, and life still seems awfully sweet.

(Sidenote: I resisted Alka Seltzer Cold for years out of sheer stubbornness. My band director in college was a fanatic about it. If I sneezed during a private trumpet lesson he literally pulled it out of his desk drawer and insisted I drink it on the spot. And then I married Matt, who did the exact same thing. I’m telling you, these people are insufferable and irritating and I want to mix their stupid Alka Seltzer with whiskey and drink it at them but at this point I also might have to admit that it at least doesn’t do any harm.)

So anyway, now I’ve got two school-aged children. I don’t have the words to adequately capture the sweetness and wonder of our lives, but I’m going to try, because I need something to come back and read when I text Matt and inform him that I’ve locked the children in the backyard and will be shoving their dinners through the window. They are all up in each other’s business all the time and yet they cannot bear to be in different rooms, and they whine and tattle and aggravate and provoke and the other day I might have said something like, “Thanks a lot. I’m SICK and you’re making my morning even HARDER and you don’t even CARE.” And then I was like, shut up, Shari, are you seriously trying to guilt trip your children at eight o’clock in the morning?

But also, truly: it is all wonderful. Full of wonder.

On Isaac’s first day of kindergarten, Matt and I walked him to his line at morning assembly. We were allowed to accompany him to class and take a lot of pictures, and then we were gently shooed out the door. Since Isaac had been to kindergarten camp and knew his teacher, he didn’t seem terribly nervous, so I figured Matt and I wouldn’t feel quite so shattered (in the best of ways, really) when we left him there. Still, we did sort of stagger across the parking lot leaning against each other.

For the first week, I walked him into the gym for morning assembly. I walked him over to his line, right next to the fourth and fifth grade classes that are the “big buddies” to the littles. Every day he hugged me and waved cheerfully as I walked away. This week, I dropped him off with his sister out front. How ridiculous is this? I pull up in front of the school and my babies hop out of the car by themselves and walk into the school by themselves and maybe, if I’m lucky, they remember to turn around and wave at me. My little girl, who all of a sudden stands as tall as my shoulder. And my little boy, who suddenly does look so little, so adorably little in his crisp polo shirt and new jeans and giant backpack. I know that he can confidently get milk at lunchtime. I know that he has friends he plays with at recess. His teacher tells me that he’s such a good model, such a “great little guy.” He is a great little guy. Every afternoon I meet him at his classroom door and he is beaming. That is all I need, really and truly. My children, beaming every afternoon. Everything is okay in my world, even when it’s not, when my children are just happy to be.

Suzannah still loves school. My daughter enjoys homework. She wakes up before everyone else in this house just to have quiet reading time in the morning -- well, to be honest, I’m not even convinced that this child has truly slept since she was a fetus, so maybe she stays up all night reading, but what I am telling you is that I tiptoe past her room in the early dawn hours and she is almost always cross-legged on her bed with a book. This afternoon she said to me, “I really love math! It’s not my favorite when it’s too easy, but when it’s a little bit hard, I love that.” Right now she’s working on a writing “assignment,” but it’s turned into a story that fills pages of her composition book. She wakes early enough that she finishes her daily reading log long before we have to leave for school. I write this all down to remember, to fully appreciate the fact that right now my daughter loves learning with her whole being and it’s not a battle I fight with her. I’m so grateful for her very presence in my life. For her awakeness, for her wonder-filled and curious self.

This afternoon we had Isaac’s five-year well-child check-up. We’re a little late, but it actually worked out nicely this way as it’s almost exactly a year since his hospital stay. We’ll have another check-up with the pediatric kidney specialist later this fall, but today our pediatrician checked him over and pronounced him “perfect.” Isaac’s blood pressure was excellent (it was terrifyingly high a year ago when his kidneys decided to stop working properly), and he’s growing terrifically fast. I have a doctor-crush on our pediatrician, sort of like I have a teacher-crush on his kindergarten teacher. Both of these people have been so important in my children’s lives and been so loving and patient both with them and with me. Suzannah more or less ran Isaac’s appointment today; when the doctor walked in she took over. She answered all of his questions about Isaac (what time he goes to bed, what he eats, what he’s learning in school) and then showed him her latest short story. I tried to shush her a bit, but the pediatrician laughed and said, “No, I love this, this is great.” And my heart grew three sizes. For all of it.

And I’m doing well, too. It’s September, which is always golden and lovely, all full of highlighters with sharp tips and new Pilot pens with green ink, all full of students’ earnest writing and notebooks with unbattered corners. My sophomores are the most wonderful, ridiculous people. My juniors will challenge me this year, but I am choosing to think of this as an opportunity. A girl who rolled her eyes at me on the first day laughs easily now, and she doesn’t seem to hate my class. A boy who hated my class in every way possible last year chose to stick it out in my IB literature class, even after his football coach called him and asked, “Are you sure?” Miracles happen. The system might be broken, because systems always are, but luckily I don’t have time to think about systems when I am working with real kids and when I am working alongside real teachers, who are as tired and exhilarated as I am. Right now I am just so deeply thankful that I work in a place I love, with people I love. Morning comes fast, and too soon sometimes, but right now I take my children to school where they thrive and I drive to my own school and feel deeply happy to be there. It matters. It’s enough.

The ache, the privilege, the gift

On this day one year ago, I was waiting for answers at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital. My son had been admitted in the darkest hour of dawn, after nearly nine hours in a room at the ER. The official reason was “acute kidney failure.” I didn’t read that in his paperwork until later. I’m glad.

I’d cried hard the day before -- the morning before? I lost track of time. I knew something wasn’t right, that Isaac's sinus infection wasn’t really a sinus infection. I was overwhelmed at the start of a new school year. I had three completely different preps, but my heart and mind were at home, worrying over my little boy. Still, once the doctor called and said he wanted to admit us, once we’d thrown our still-cooking pot of soup into the sink and tossed some toothbrushes and t-shirts and Isaac’s stuffed beagle into a backpack, the side of me that manages to remain remarkably clear in a real crisis kicked in. I didn’t freak out then because I had shit to do. I spent the next few days listening, processing, asking questions, and waiting -- so much waiting. By Saturday we were blessedly home again, tucked into our own beds. Exhausted, so grateful, but with our heads swimming. I still had classes to teach, and I’d missed the first few days of school. I was nowhere near finding my groove. Honestly, last year was so tough in a lot of ways, and sometimes I still wonder if things would have been different if I hadn’t felt so thrown at start. Probably not. But I still wonder.

I didn’t sit down to write about that, but when I thought about where we were a year ago, I just thought, we are so lucky, right here, in this moment. I’m thankful for all of it: my children’s ordinary bickering, their whining for a snack, for dinner that doesn’t come fast enough. For the ordinary exhaustion of these first days of school, uncomplicated by the visceral fear that took hold of my stomach, of my breath, last Labor Day weekend.

What I sat down to write was this: the Winslow Girls have survived their first full week of school! And Isaac starts kindergarten on Tuesday, with the same teacher Suzannah had. We love her, and when she called to tell us that Isaac would be in her class, I literally did a little dance right there in my kitchen. I mean, it’s all pretty ordinary stuff, really. Cycles of our life, every September, because I now have school-aged children and because I am a teacher. This is my fifteenth year in the classroom and I am well aware of the rhythms of fall. It’s not new, except that it is, every year. New people and a new normal mixed with deep nostalgia for the kids who are no longer in my class but who stop in for a hug anyway. And this year my job has changed in a pretty exciting way; I’m still teaching, but I’m trying something a little different and taking on new responsibilities. I’m passionate about the program I’m coordinating, I care about doing well, I’m stepping into shoes I’m going to have to work really hard to fill, and I’m terrified of fucking it up. (This is true of so many things, really. Teaching. Parenthood. My eternal prayer for everything seems to be, “Please, God, don’t let me royally eff this up.”)

I’ve been back at school every day since August 10, which has been good. I’ve had a lot to do and a lot to process, and in some ways I feel like I’m just barely getting started, but then again, my head and my heart are pretty fully in the game right now. I was able to ease in slowly. Suzannah and Isaac spent an awful lot of time there with me during the past few weeks, playing with my principal’s daughters and reading and coloring and accepting little gifts of chocolate and chips and toys from my friends and colleagues when I was off planning and organizing and trying to figure out my new role this year. Right now I’m so thankful that they were such good sports, and that my colleagues were so kind to them when they were stuck there with me.

I know Suzannah is glad to be back at school, and she seems to be having a fabulous time so far. This is the first year she has moved up a grade with her entire class -- while I’m not convinced that’s always a good thing (kids who are too comfortable with each other can be a challenge), in this case, I think it’s a positive for her. She’s also in a 4th/5th grade class, and I know she’ll be challenged. I also know she’s absolutely up for it. I had very little anxiety over her starting school this year, which left me free to focus on my own. I’m happy to report, though, that I have had a pretty great week myself. My sophomores are wonderful, spirited and cheerful and lovable and ridiculous in the best of ways. My IB juniors were a little too quiet today, but I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt; I had them last, on a Friday afternoon. Next week we’ll all be a little more clear-headed, and maybe my crazy cheerleading will help them find their pulses. I remain relentlessly optimistic.

Anyway, Suzannah has got it down, this school thing. I would love to believe that she’s like me, because isn’t it natural to see in our daughters our most idealized versions of ourselves? And in some ways, maybe she is. She wakes before the rest of us, every morning -- when I get up I tiptoe past her room and she is always cross-legged on her bed, reading a book. She is ferociously organized. She loves school. She wants to be a teacher. On the other hand, she is less engaged in girlhood drama than I was at her age. Her best friends are boys, and she spends at least some of her recess time drawing comic books with them. How spectacularly nerdy is that? I couldn’t be more proud. She also loves math more than any other subject at school, and honestly, her skills probably surpass mine. Whether this is because she’s naturally more inclined towards math or because back in the nineties I bought into the idea that girls were supposed to think math is hard, I don’t know (although I have always been a naturally linguistic learner). I do know that I don’t care at all that my daughter is learning math differently than I did and I wish everyone who learned math fifteen or twenty or thirty or forty years ago would calm down about that, my word. I care that she loves learning. Period. I care that she feels like she can do math. I care that she is confident. I care that she is kind.

And Isaac, oh, my little son, who screams gleefully that he’s going to stink his armpit on me before zerberting my belly, who still vaults into my arms and slobbers on my cheek. I will lift him up for him to wrap his skinny legs and knobby knees around my waist as long as I have the strength. Today was his very last day of daycare. I have been in such denial about this, but it was hard, and I will tell you right now that I tried not to cry when I picked him up but was spectacularly unsuccessful, because we have had the same wonderful woman and her daughters in our lives since Suzannah was a baby. For nine years I have been able to continue to do the work I am called to do on this earth and still know that my children are loved and nurtured. My children have made friends and learned and played, and I have felt like I have a community helping me to do this important work of raising my children. We simply were not meant to do this in isolation. I try to cheer myself with the thought that I will no longer be giving up such a hunk of my paycheck every month, but the truth is that they were worth so much more than we could give them. And so I drove home with my son today, and he held his “graduation” trophy in his lap, and tears poured down my face the entire time. Motherhood is like this: I love everything my children have before them. I’ve said this so many times, but watching them grow is the greatest joy of my life. But leaving behind the stages of their babyhood, toddlerhood, and preschool -- it aches a bit. I wouldn’t wish them backwards, because their growing is so beautiful, but still. The stretches, pulls, tugs, and breaks -- they ache. And what a privilege to feel it all. I never want to forget this: that the very ache itself is a gift.

Kindergarten Camp

We flew in from Minneapolis late Sunday night, bleary-eyed and covered in bug bites, still sticky from the Midwestern humidity and gloriously exhausted. We caught a shuttle to our car. Stopped for a gallon of milk on our way home. Tucked our children into bed.

Ten hours later I led my son into the gym at his new elementary school for his first day of kindergarten camp -- five mornings of getting the littles acclimated to school before the bigs show up. They have recess and music and PE and snacks. They cut and color and sing and write and share and learn where everything is. I am not remotely worried about Isaac’s kindergarten readiness, but in some ways, he is my more cautious child, the one who clings for one more hug, the one who feels a little more nervous in new situations. Suzannah was also quite shy as a five-year-old, but she preferred to just handle it herself, thank you very much. Isaac, I knew, would benefit from a gentle introduction to school where he has the chance to find his bearings a bit.

We were greeted immediately by teachers who are, now, so familiar to me. (Suzannah’s kindergarten teacher remembers me picking her up in the afternoons, wearing Isaac in the Ergo.) Isaac was given a marker and he printed his own name on his nametag. He misjudged the space a bit and had to squeeze in the second a and the c, but one of the teachers smiled and said, “That’s just perfect.”

I led him over to where the kids were lining up with their teachers. He knew I would leave for a few hours. He has an older sister at this school, so he has spent plenty of time in this space -- for concerts, for Winter Wonderland and family math nights and cultural nights.

“This is where you’ll have lunch,” Suzannah explained, putting her arm around his shoulders in a rather proprietary manner. “You also do other stuff in here, like morning assembly.”

“Oh,” said Isaac, solemn and wide-eyed. And then Suzannah ran off to give her kindergarten teacher a hug and say hello to another older sibling, a boy she knew waaaay back in first and second grade.

“How’s your summer going?” I heard her say conversationally. His mother caught my eye and winked.

I held Isaac’s tan little hand in mine. It’s so soft, still. I noted that I needed to trim his fingernails, which held little traces of sand from the lake.

“Okay, Buddy,” I said. “You’re going to stay here and have lots of fun, and I’ll be back at noon to pick you up. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said quietly. But he held my hand tightly. My heart was pounding, which surprised me a bit. The entire summer before Suzannah started kindergarten I felt perpetually on the verge of barfing, but I’ve been pretty relaxed about Isaac. We know and love this school, he’s already spent plenty of time there, I trust the teachers, and I know my son will be fine. I know this. And yet. And yet. My little boy. His little hand in mine.

I squeezed three times. It’s a code I share with my children -- when we’re walking somewhere, say, or when we’re in a crowd of people, they know that three little squeezes is how I say I love you.

Sometimes when I do this to Isaac he cackles and runs away. Sometimes he grabs my hand and crushes it as hard as he can and says, “I love you the most” in a voice that resembles Darth Vader's, and he might follow that with something like, “and I’m going to eat your eyeball.”

I. Squeeze. Love. Squeeze. You. Squeeze.

In that moment he squeezed three times back, steady and firm. I knelt down to hug him, wondering if he’d shrug me off or push me away -- sometimes that’s necessary when he’s navigating a new situation and doesn’t want to be coddled. But he wrapped his arms tightly around my neck. I kissed his cheek, still so deliciously baby soft. He turned towards me with his lips puckered and I kissed him once on those, too.

I don’t mind admitting that right about then I could have just devoured him whole. I love that little boy so much.

And then I stood up, and smiled, and said, “Have so much fun! I love you!” And I walked towards the door. I paused to call Suzannah away from all her socializing (if I’d let her go for much longer she’d have probably gone ahead and started a reading group with some of the kindergarteners or organized them into a game of some sort) and turned back to look at my son. He smiled bravely and waved.

How can my heart break and feel so full at the same time? How can I keep breathing in and out? How can I keep from floating away?

His smile when I picked him up three hours later was exactly what my mama heart needed, grounding me solidly in that moment: in the gratitude that we’re all right here, where we are, and everything is going to be okay.

Where I am and where I’ve been

Sometimes summer days are like this: without a clear agenda, my anxiety begins to simmer sometime around mid-morning. I’ve had a few cups of coffee, which is as necessary as air but also doesn’t exactly soothe me, and then the children are screaming at each other.

“Isaac! You stepped on it!”

“Zannah, give it back!”

“Mom! Isaac hit me!”

“Sorry!”

I mean they are just so all up in each other’s business, and yet they cannot bear to be separated for even five minutes. I try! Oh, I try. This morning before we did anything fun they were given the task of dismantling yesterday’s “spaceships” -- Suzannah’s took up the entire living room and Isaac’s took up the entire family room. They’d created dining rooms and escape pods and control areas out of blankets; they’d made their favorite stuffed animals fellow travelers; they’d basically unloaded their entire bedrooms into different parts of the house. Which was great. Yesterday afternoon I had a tour of both ships, and I didn’t even mind that they stayed intact for the rest of the evening. I passed out on the couch last night as soon as the kids were in bed, and I just did not have the energy to care that much. This morning, I told them that they would clean it all up before we went anywhere or did anything fun and figured that would keep them busy for awhile. Additionally, we picked up some containers at The Container Store yesterday, and since Suzannah loves organizing as much as I do, it seems, I figured she could use some quality time in her room quietly organizing the disaster on the floor into her new bins. She’s good at this. She likes this.

It just wasn’t that kind of day.

It wasn’t a bad day. The kids were just kids in summer. It’s just that the only other adult I spoke to today happened to work at the Honda dealership. And they’re so great there, usually, but I really wasn’t in the mood to hear, “Huh. Doesn’t your husband usually do this?”

Respectfully: Bite me.

Anyway, I decided not to go ahead with the mini-service that was apparently due today, because I didn’t want to deal with two kids, one car seat, one booster seat, and a loaner car. I didn’t want to have to come back. So that was an hour in the car for no reason. We went to the spray park instead. I read in the sunshine and watched my children leap through the water. I still hadn’t had any adult conversation, but I had a book, and the day -- like almost all summer days in the Pacific Northwest -- was nearly perfect. Blue skies. A breeze. My children in the water. Fresh cherries and blueberries waiting in my refrigerator, and also just maybe some Flathead Cherry beer brought back from Montana.

I sent my husband a text: Can you stop and get milk, toilet paper, and some sanity?

He responded: Do we need to cage the children in the backyard?

Later, he sent a text from the store: Getting groceries now. I replied, Okay! I’m drinking beer.

But he’s home now, and the children are watching a movie and we’re all bathed and I’m feeling pretty calm. Matt is grilling veggie burgers and baking fries and promising me a little alone time tomorrow, and I’m basking in this evening sun, in the scent of sunscreen and shampoo, in gratitude. Because even though I felt my nerves begin to sizzle before lunchtime, and even though the unstructured nature of summer days tends to make me anxious in a way the school year does not, I do love this season.

We’ve been on the road and I’ve been offline. It was a beautiful break. Not necessary a vacation, but a break -- virtually no social media, internet, or phone. Lots of sunshine. Tons of time in the water, which feeds my soul when I don’t have time to myself. (I was going to link to a hilarious article about going on a vacation vs. going on a trip, but when I went to google it I found ten more hilarious stories. Just go read a few. They’re great. Vacation vs. trip. Yes, google it, especially if you’re a parent.)

We spent the first half of our trip in Montana at my parents’ house, which included taking the kids swimming at the outdoor pool downtown, Pickle Barrel sandwiches and huckleberry soda (obviously), a visit to the Museum of the Rockies, floating the Madison River, taking a 12-mile hike (that was just Matt and me), meeting my favorite high school teacher-turned-friend for coffee (a must-do on every trip home), visiting my grandmother, and eating popcorn from my dad’s famous 45-year-old popcorn popper. We spent the second half of our trip in Glacier National Park, which is my favorite place in the entire universe. As in, when I was hugely pregnant with Isaac and preparing for labor at a birth center with no drugs, my “happy place” in my mind was the shore of Lake McDonald in Apgar. Which is where we spent two full days last week. In the “happy place” version (which existed in my mind only), I was sitting at the shore gazing at the mountains, or possibly swimming by myself. In the “reality” version captured on film last week, my daughter was paddling a kayak all over the place by herself. And then she tried paddle boarding. By her damn self. It was both hard on me and totally heart-exploding in the best of ways.

Anyway, it was all wonderful. We spent the first two nights in a cabin with two bedrooms, which meant we could tuck the children in and then sit up with the lights on, read books, and drink fancy gin for ten minutes before I was all, “Well, I’m exhausted." I was absolutely giddy with it. The second two nights we camped, and that was lovely in the way that camping with our little family always it. It rained hard overnight, both nights, and I tell you what, there is honestly nothing better than curling around my children in the warmth of our tent with the rain drumming over our heads, knowing we are warm and dry and that our rain fly is indeed going to hold over the peaceful space beneath.

We also had the extraordinary privilege this time of spending a few days with my aunt and uncle and cousins and their partners and children, which has happened exactly never since Isaac was born. I think the last time I saw both of my cousins together, Suzannah was about five weeks old; needless to say, a lot of life has happened since then. Watching my kids play with their second cousins was, again, totally heart-exploding, and reconnecting with my first cousins was exactly what I hoped it would be. I’ve spent a little time with them both over the years, mostly separately, for graduations and funerals and the odd dinner, and I’ve always come away thinking, you know, I really like these people and I wish we could hang out. This trip gave us a little of that time, and I feel more determined to nurture these relationships through our adulthood. That’s a good place to be with family.

We’re home again, settling into whatever normal means during the summer months: play dates with friends, trips to the spray park, letting the sunshine slide over us in the backyard or while we hunker down inside with books or endless games of Uno, special lunch outings when I’m tired of making sandwiches and want fancier things in my salads. We go to the library. We go to the zoo. Sometimes I force my children to just be bored and figure out what to do about it; I refuse to over-schedule their summer days with activities and I also refuse to turn on the television, even though I was mightily tempted at ten-thirty this morning. We nibble fresh blueberries and Rainier cherries, maybe crackers and cheese in the late afternoons. I read terrifying articles about “the big one” sure to hit Seattle. I inform my husband that we need to put together emergency preparedness kits. (I am absolutely serious about this.) I read novels. I fret. I run the sprinkler in the backyard. I pour iced tea into tumblers. I breathe in, I breathe out.

In a few days I’m flying to Chicago for the IB of Americas conference. It is a huge, huge privilege to attend and I am so grateful for the opportunity. I’m also freaking out about it a little bit, because that is what I do. My husband cannot ease all of my fears but he can reassure me that he will vacuum the house before I come home again, and that small gesture speaks volumes. This man knows me and puts up with me and seems to love me even when I’m crazy.

I’ve been missing my dog, a lot. Still.

I’ve been reading excellent, challenging books.

I painted our master bathroom, finally.

I’ve slathered my children in sunscreen and turned them loose in the bright hot afternoons.

I’m getting tan.

I’m struggling with changes that have infused my first half of summer with unexpected melancholy.

I’m still grateful for the friendships that mean so much to me.

And I’m still excited for this upcoming year. I’m in no hurry for August, though, not just yet. So for now, despite my anxiety, despite the tough summer mornings in which my children can’t get out of each other’s faces, despite my attempts (sometimes successful, sometimes not) to shake it all off and just relax already, I’m content to just let these days flow over us. Like water, like sunshine.

I just miss her

“Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole.”
― Roger A. Caras

The kids and I came through the back door this afternoon, balancing the mail and library books and the box of pottery from Suzannah’s birthday party that was finally ready to pick up after all the pieces had been glazed. Right away I was bracing my leg against the doorway to keep the pug from scooting into the garage. Right away I was planning to dump everything on the counter so I could grab her dish and fill it with her dinner (and sneaky thyroid medication). It was nearly five o’clock, and she usually starts barking her reminder at about 4:56.

Except that she wasn’t there. She’s not here.

I cannot get used to this.

It’s been 48 hours now. Two days. For two days, I have been someone who does not have a dog. I don’t know how to be this person.

Mine is not an unusual story; it’s just the story that virtually all of us who are lucky enough to love a dog in our lifetime share. It is the right and natural order of things. Dogs are not our children, not really; when we let them into our lives, it is with the understanding that we will outlive them. We understand that it will be our duty, our responsibility, and, yes, our privilege, to help them out of this life with dignity and compassion and love. But this week I realized that my basic understanding of that concept could not prepare me for the sadness I would feel when the time came.

Two years ago, our pug stopped eating. She moved uncomfortably, and her breathing changed overnight. She was nearly thirteen, which is right around the average lifespan for a pug. Matt took her to the vet and spent several hours there while I took our daughter to her second grade orientation. There were some spots on Blondie’s lungs. There was blood work. X-rays. I cried a lot. I thought I should be prepared to say good-bye to her; she was old, after all, and she couldn’t see very well or hear very well. (Then again, when she could hear she didn’t listen anyway. I never really thought her diminished hearing diminished her joy in being a dog.) Matt and I talked about how much we could realistically do for an old dog who may or may not have cancer. I pulled her on to my lap and told her I loved her.

And then it turned out that her problems were a.) a giant gas bubble (typical pug!) and b.) pneumonia. Antibiotics and some special canned food took care of it all pretty quickly, and within a couple of days her appetite had returned and she was back to her old self, plunking her butt down the middle of the kitchen floor at 4:56 every afternoon and barking pointedly until her food dish was filled.

She gifted us with nearly two more years. She slept more and walked slowly, but she knew her way around our house, she knew every inch of our backyard, she barked for her breakfast and she barked for her dinner, and every Sunday afternoon when I curled up on our living room couch for a nap she insisted on sleeping with me, tucked right in behind my butt. She hasn’t been able to jump up on the couch for quite some time, but even though she couldn't see well she knew I was there, and she’d sit there and paw crankily at the side of the sofa until I lifted her up. She’d shove her face into the quilt, grunt in my ear, give my hand a lick, turn around a few times, and settle in for as long as I wanted to stay there.

But in the last few weeks, things changed. She stopped woofing at the door when she needed to go outside; Matt and I guessed and just carried her to the backyard a few times a day. In fact, she seemed not to know where the door was. She walked straight into walls. She hasn’t been able to see much of anything in a very long time, but she knew our little house -- she knew where to go. She knew our yard, too, and never had any trouble making it back to the door after taking care of business, but suddenly she’d find herself stuck underneath our patio furniture, seemingly unable to understand how to extricate herself from the maze of table legs.

She slept all the time. She’s always loved to sleep, but really -- all the time. She stopped waking us up too early on weekends. For the first time in fourteen years, she was still soundly asleep when we rose for the day.

The other day, I thought, I’m not sure she’ll make it through the summer. And I thought I was prepared. But summer is still an entire season, and there is room to put that thought securely away.

But the last few days found her eating slowly. She didn’t refuse her food, but it took her a long time to finish. Unless she was quite ill, our dog finished her food within thirty seconds. She moved even more slowly. She didn’t want to get out of bed. When she did, she paced restlessly. She didn’t seem to understand where she was. I picked her up and settled her in next to me on the couch and she couldn’t relax.

On Monday morning, she didn’t touch her breakfast. And I knew.

I called the vet. I said, “She’s not eating, and she’s not moving well. She just...doesn’t feel good.”

There was a long pause. “Oh, Blondie,” the receptionist sighed. They know her. They’ve known her for a long time.

I took her in. The two receptionists peeked over the counter. “Oh, Baby,” one of them said. Blondie didn’t perk up. Didn’t wag her tail. Her breathing had become labored. I’d had her in for a UTI only six weeks earlier, and even then my geriatric old dog worked her audience, flirting and wagging and begging for a snack. On Monday, she just slumped onto the floor. They ushered me into a room right away. They’d had one waiting since I called four hours earlier, I think.

Her vet came in and I told her about Blondie’s confusion, about her inability to find her way around in the house she’s known so intimately for years. About the fact that her big beautiful eyes seem to have stopped responding to the drops we’ve given her daily for so long. About her lethargy. And, finally, her refusal to eat.

“I think,” I said, my voice breaking, “she just no longer has any joy in being a dog.”

They said they would wait until Matt could leave work. The vet gave her a shot, a combination sedative and pain medication. “This should last her a couple of hours,” she said. “She’ll sleep, or just be really mellow.” The receptionists and vet techs filed into the room to say good-bye. They’ve loved her for a long, long time. I held it mostly together until one of them broke down in tears.

I took my dog home. She slept in her crate. She seemed comfortable. I sat nearby and cried.

Matt left work early. Blondie was my dog first, but she was his, too. When he moved out to Washington a few months after me, that first night, he walked into my little apartment and took one look at my goofy little pug puppy and burst out laughing. But he’s the one who’d scoop her up like a football and take her down our apartment stairs at five-thirty in the morning. I couldn’t have said good-bye to her without him there, too. We drove her back to the vet together.

It was blessedly quick and smooth. I held her in my arms, and Matt stroked her head. I told her she was a good girl. The injection worked fast: 30 to 60 seconds, we were told. She wouldn’t feel any pain.

My dog has slept in my arms so many times, but even in sleep, there was always a lively tension in her muscles. She was always tethered to this world. The needle went in, and she went down. She collapsed over my arm. She was breathing, and then not. I kept talking, telling her what a good girl she was and how much we loved her. I kissed her ears, watched my tears drip onto her fur. The vet listened.

“She’s gone,” she said quietly. She gave us a few minutes alone with her, and I gathered her limp body into my arms.

Five more minutes. What I wouldn’t give for five more minutes.

Two days later, I still think I hear her snuffling and snoring. Two days later, I look at the last picture I snapped of her there at the vet and can still feel her in my arms. The way her ears felt permanently sticky from the drops we had to give her. The way she’d snort in my ear. When I leave the house, I think about making sure she’s tucked into one of her beds. When I come home, the first thing I think is that I need to get her fed.

Her food is still in a tupperware under the kitchen sink. Today when I threw in a load of towels, I stepped on a piece of food she missed, the last time she ate. Sunday morning? Sunday evening? We washed her dishes on Monday night, after we came home without her. They’re still here, stacked on the counter. I’m so sad. Our home is filled with the delightful chaos of our children, and in the last several years Blondie has needed so little -- just her beds, really, and her dishes, and all of her meds lined up on our counter next to the cookbooks -- but our house feels. so. empty.

I do all right during the day, when I have plenty of distractions: meeting friends, taking the kids to the splash park, running errands, going to the library, cleaning the refrigerator. But at five o’clock, at Blondie’s dinnertime, I miss her so much I almost can’t breathe. That’s when I put on a movie for the kids so I can go indulge in a few minutes of hard crying and maybe a half-hour of intermittent weeping. Since becoming a mom I’ve joked that I haven’t been able to go to the bathroom by myself, but when someone nudges the door open it’s just as likely to be the dog as it is the children. I haven’t been able to sit on the couch without her insisting on joining me, and this was true right up until Sunday night. Her last night with us. I lifted her onto the couch next to me. The difference, on Sunday, was that she couldn’t relax, couldn’t settle in, and I knew. But knowing doesn’t help or make it easier. Planning doesn’t make it easier. Realistic expectations don’t make any of this easier, as much as I thought they would.

Matt and I keep saying, “Remember when?” Remember when she used to steal your socks and my underwear out of the laundry and race around with them. Remember when she crawled into your dad’s suitcase and took a nap. Remember when Suzannah was born and she was so upset she had to go on Valium for a few days. Remember when she used to steal Suzannah’s toys, remember when Suzannah used to steal her toys. Remember that awful smelly stuffed leopard and how she’d shove it against our legs when she wanted to play. Remember how she used to bark her face off when the neighbor’s cat was in the yard. Remember how we used to tease her when we said, “Where’s the kitty?” just because it made her go apeshit.

The last time I took a nap on our living room couch was not quite two weeks ago. Blondie wandered into the living room, knowing I was there even though she clearly couldn’t see me. She sat next to the couch, gave an impatient little woof, and I lifted her up. She curled up next to me, licked my hand, and settled in. We napped together for two solid hours.

I’m glad I didn’t know it was the last time.