Change Your Tune

We went to an amazing concert this weekend. Living in Buffalo we are so very lucky to have quite a few fantastic venues for live music. Not the least of which is where we were Saturday, down at the harbor. Right on Lake Erie. It was a beautiful, warm, clear night; one of our favorite bands from way back in the day, and from Canada, was playing. It was a phenomenal show.

We saw these guys:



I've said before that music is kinda the way I live and breathe. Going to a concert, especially one of my favorite bands, is like being part of something bigger than myself. Everyone there is transfixed by the music, singing along in one voice like a wolfpack baying at the moon.

It's disconcerting to hear a song, suddenly, that brings me back to the immediate aftermath of Calla's death. Music does that to me--maybe I feel some songs too intensely--but certain of them just put me RIGHT. BACK. THERE. Well, I guess right back anywhere, depending on the song (I'm looking at you, "Moondance.").

Anyway. The winter of 2010 was filled with lots of new tunes, and whenever I happen on one it's like I get the wind knocked out of me. So here are a few songs that are carrying me along these days.









Hope you find some new favorites, or an old friend.

Wanderlust and Pixie Dust

When I see a girl with two full arms of tattoos, I occasionally get a feeling not unlike wanderlust. The pull of being somewhere, something, and someone else. 

Often I think about the path my life is on, and how I ended up here. Please don't misunderstand, I really like where I am. Looking back at all the stupid, irresponsible and dangerous things I've done seeking a thrill, it's a small miracle I've ended up in such a stable place. 

Last night as I was leaving the grocery store at 9, my glamourous Friday evening coming to a close, the clouds overhead were low and fluffy-puffy swollen. The sky was edging towards darkness, glimmers of pink and orange and blue fading in the west.  I nearly stopped as I pushed my loaded cart across the steaming parking lot and asked aloud, "Is this all a dream? Is this really my life?" Always I figured this is where I'd end up, but actually arriving at this point in my life is a bit more surreal than I'd thought it would be.

Lately I've been a bit of a voyeur, clicking through vacation and jet-setting pictures on the FB. I have one friend who seemingly lives a life of leisure, partying and traveling with zero cares. It stuns me every time. Really? And how did this become your life?

Just as much as I look around me and wonder how this is mine. Mother of two beautiful boys and one beautiful dead girl. Me? This is my reality? Grocery shopping on Friday night, playground playdates and zoo trips sprinkled throughout the week, peanut butter and jelly lunches and two-man baths each night. It's mine. 

I'll sometimes wish for a little magic, a chance to pop out of my life, briefly. To travel without a thought for who's at home, for dinner at midnight, for tattoos on both arms, for an ashram, for something other than ordinary. 

We all know how that math goes, though: if I'd chosen that path so long ago, I wouldn't be here. And I so very much like it here. 

For 20 Years From Today

Dear E,

When you're sitting around with your friends, or your therapist, or whoever, talking about how your mother was some sort of Type-A lunatic who put you in time out for unrolling the toilet paper, I mean hey man it's only toilet paper, please refer to this epistle for the rest of your story.

You did not receive time out for unrolling the toilet paper, per se.

It's not because I especially like toilet paper.
It's not because we can't afford more.
It's not because now I have to go get another roll and put it in the bathroom, another trip up and down the stairs with 20+ pounds of human in tow.
It's not because I don't find it absolutely fucking hilarious finding you sitting on the toilet, surrounded by a mountain of unravelled absorbent paper, while you are fully engrossed in and enjoying the task you've undertaken--because it's a pretty damn funny, and might I add cute, sight to behold.

No, none of these earned you time out, although I don't appreciate wasting things.

It's because when I've already told you 861 times before to NOT unroll the toilet paper, and then you insist on doing it again, I've just about reached my limit.

Love,
Mommy/Mom/Crazy Lady Holding the Acre of Unused Toilet Paper

A Midsummer Afternoon's Post

Hey.

I know.

Mid-July and not a peep for the month yet, huh? Dude, I've been busy.

You may ask yourself, "How exactly does a stay-at-home-parent REALLY expect me to believe she's totally swamped? She STAYS. AT. HOME."

Exactly. Things just come up all the time and then the dog's paws need wiping and then someone's behind needs wiping and then it's dinnertime and boom, it's bedtime and then I'm too tired to write or it's the no-computer time or something.

So anyway, hello.

Also this: I keep thinking about last summer. When I was newly out from Calla's death and pregnant with O. I couldn't bring myself to do much more than turn on "Yo Gabba Gabba" and sit on the couch while E danced and sang and told me not to bite my friends.

Like I could have mustered enough energy to bite anyone.

I did the bare minimum, parent-wise, last summer. I was sad and uncomfortable and anxious and, pre-airconditioning that we now have, really, really hot. I mean, E was well-fed and clothed and cleaned, had plenty of books and toys and shows and games to keep him happy. And I could entertain him enough, could read the stories and do the voices and cook the dinners. I was, however, a bit of a basketcase behind his back.

So I phoned it in. And all of a sudden this year E had his third birthday and the same summer festivals and parties and concerts are rolling around and I'm all, "Wait. How did I miss this last year?" So I've decided to do as much as I possibly can with the boys, and with C as a family, all day and on the weekends and at nighttime--even if that's just running around the yard or taking a bike ride or whatever. Because I missed so much last year. I was living with my hands covering my eyes and ears, rocking in the corner muttering, "I can't believe she died, oh please let him live," over and over and over.

It pretty much sucked, and I was not the most fun mother on earth.

All this to say, I've been busy. But happy, because I wake up and think to myself, "Homey, I can DO this."

********
We've been taking the boys on bike rides through the cemetery. It's right across the street, pretty much, from our house, and it is beautiful. It's super hilly and quiet and once you're in, you'd never know you're in the middle of the city. We've found some old parts where the stones date back to the mid 1700s. And then there's the deer who we see now and then. He's curious and cute and it's like a real-live game of Where's Waldo?--he blends. Baby O refuses to keep his helmet on in the trailer, so our rides are frequently punctuated with me freaking out and adjusting his helmet, only to have him yank it off four seconds later. It's a process.

We stop at Calla's spot--it's a nice hill where E can run up and down and burn off some energy. There was an open grave nearby once when we went, so of course most of my energy was spent keeping him far from it. I tried explaining why we were there, whose name was on the stone. He was far more interested in the truck that lowers the casket into the earth. So he's not really ready yet.

(I'm making this sound like we were frolicking as a funeral and burial were going on feet from us--don't worry, that wasn't the case. We were alone--except for the truck and its driver.)

********
I think people sometimes confuse my ability to function as a normal person with being, ahem, "all better now." Yes, we have our beautiful baby O, too--clearly another marker of someone who's completely healed, right?

Sigh.

I mean, yes, of course, things are far better than they were eighteen months ago. (But even just writing that, "eighteen months ago," it could be eighteen seconds or eighteen decades ago.) The hole in our lives is not the raw, ragged, gaping maw it once was. But it's still a hole. She's still dead and always will be. Calla's still our daughter, still E and O's sister, who is not with us. And that will always hurt.

But it's strange, being a year and a half out from her birth. I've met new people; they don't know. And I'm mostly OK with that. But there are days when I want to scream, "What about HER?! I have a daughter and she's dead and I'm sad and I MISS HER and you don't even KNOW IT!"

That would make things all about me though, wouldn't it?

********
Every night before I go to sleep I sneak into the boys' rooms and give kisses and whispers and just feel their chests rise and fall. I listen to them breathe and imagine what they're dreaming. Now that E is in a big boy bed I can kneel next to it and, if I'm careful, put my ear against his chest and listen to his heartbeat. For these tiny moments I am ever so grateful.

Last night I gave myself a good cry, long overdue and possibly facilitated by the red wine I had before bed. I have Calla's pink knit cap under my pillow, and it's been there for eighteen months. I try to hold it in my hand all night long, but I keep it between the pillows in case I roll over or lose my grip.  And last night it made me sad that all I get for her goodnights is some donated yarn, the only thing I have--not packed away-- that touched her. No kisses, no dreaming, and definitely no heartbeat.

Life may get easier, but living without her never does.

Creativity, Imagination, and Me

Musicians amaze me. Not pop stars, not those autotune denizens. But real, honest-to-goodness, talented music makers. I believe it was Ad Rock who so wisely rapped, " . . . Only 12 notes that a man can play." We all have the same notes. We have the same constants. Some of us can turn them into such amazing, original, beautiful new things. Some of us plunk out the same old chords.

I am the latter.

In my youth I took piano lessons. My teacher was this hard core, old school pianist who would regularly scold me for my too-long fingernails and biomechanically-impossible turned-out thumbs. "You don't see people walking around with their thumbs turned out!" she would huff. Except mine do. I was a thorn in her side, for sure. She and her husband were concert pianists, their small North Buffalo house filled wall to wall with baby grand pianos. Early on in my lessons--I started later in my youth, say, when I was 10 or so--I was assigned short compositions. I had to write musically-correct melodies and then play them each week at my lessons.

I sucked. Even during the years when I was learning music theory my compositions were pedestrian. Boring. Blah. Unoriginal. I don't think the way creative people think. I'm a rule follower to the core. A musician hears whats missing in the world and then makes it. I don't understand how that works.

I don't know if I've ever had an imagination. Looking back, thinking about being a child, I don't know. My drawings all looked the same. As an adult, trying to paint a picture I have no idea what to put on the paper.

Believe me, I'm not throwing a pity party for myself here. Being a literal thinker has done well for me, mostly. I just wish, sometimes, I had a bit of a creative spark in me. Some way of looking at the world that would help me make something different and new.

My lack of imagination and creativity, though, has not served me well when I think of my little girl. I can't place her in our family, other than what I knew her as. I don't see her as a one and a half year old. I don't know what she'd look like, sound like, smell like. I don't see her in the world around me, I don't know if she sees us.

I just miss her. I just want to be able to conjure her up when I need to. And I can't, and that sucks.

Fathers' Day

I like Fathers' Day so much more than Mothers' Day. I don't know, maybe it's because there's absolutely no chance I'll ever actually BE a father, and get to watch from the sidelines. The dads deserve their day. I don't buy into the hapless, bumbling dad-stereotype, full of farting and golfing and beer-swilling and how-do-I-change-a-diaper. Not to say those dudes don't exist. But come on.

C is such an awesome dad. He makes up, with E, these elaborate games of construction sites, and forts, and chase, and adventure. Trips to Home Depot are full of wonderment for E, what with the forklifts and tractor trailers and all those damn TOOLS he might find a use for. He gets up with the boys most days of the week, affording me extra sleep or time to run.

I don't know where I'd be in my life without him. I do know my life is exponentially better with him in it. We've travelled, we've dined, we've bought and sold houses, we've had three babies. Through every labor he was at my side, amazed at the goings on, encouraging me when I wanted to give up, or even worse, just die. Quite literally.

This space is where I pour out my heart, not wanting to give too much away from anyone else's point of view. But C has had his sadness, too, and shares so very much in my grief. He planted all the crocus bulbs at Calla's marker last Fall. He missed out on his dad and little girl life, too. He carries his sadness differently, but it is always there.

I am a lucky lady to have him as my husband and as the father of our kids. Right now he's outside getting E's birthday sandbox ready--in the dark. That's just how he rolls.

I love you, sir. xo

(OK, enough with the sap-a-lap-a-ding-dong!)

Three

Tomorrow, Sunday, Fathers' Day, it's E's third birthday. And yes, time has gone from amble to sprint in that short time. Three years ago right now I was getting ready to go to the hospital, ready to be induced, ready for this gender-unknown baby to be born ALREADY, ten days past his due date. I kissed the dog goodbye, sad that he wouldn't be the baby anymore.

And now. Happy birthday to my first born, my first baby love, my companion through happiness and sorrow, my alarm clock, my truck driver, my bookworm, my human megaphone, my tricyclist extraordinaire.

If I could list everything I love about this boy I would, but there's no space big enough to contain it. My heart is full to bursting every time I look at his sweet face, even when he makes me want to rip out my hair. Oh, three.

Happy birthday, Eliot. We love you oh so very much.