“the fun doesn’t happen until way later”

I bust into the bathroom to pee and then wash my hands. The sink is full of puke. Someone’s not feeling well, I think mildly. And then there’s no toilet paper. I make do with one of those sterile paper seat covers, which will always remind me of a joke Sharpie’d in a stall some time back: “Free Cowboy Hats!”

And BAM it hits me. I feel more at home in the places I go to help drug addicts and alcoholics, than I do almost anywhere else besides my own actual residence. Even in the latter, sometimes I feel oddly disconnected from my domestic exploits, like my life is a series of sensible activities to take care of my body and the bodies of the ones beloved to me (husband, children, dog, cats, gecko even, friends, family…) – even my artistic exploits, as much as I love them, can feel more soothing to mind and body than anything else. But where my heart and soul find resonance, are these places where pain twisted us to shit in a crucible, where we were finally defeated and broke in half and we learned the profound and utterly brilliant experience of complete demoralization. If you haven’t experienced enlightenment through this means, it probably sounds unpleasant. Or maybe bogus. I used to want to explain it over and over because it’s so incredible. But today, I don’t try to convince anyone much. I have a brain disease and not only that, it got bad enough the symptoms made themselves noticeable in a big way and then I had to fight myself out of a pit like nothing I could have conceived and today I’m standing on the edge still grinning down. If you haven’t been there, you don’t get it.

I sit down and the clients walk in, or shuffle in, and I greet them and smile. I couldn’t be more in my element. Except I’m hot from hustling my ass up the hill on my big heavy bike. And instead of the room being the typical preternatural cold (I think to keep people from falling asleep; many are on medications that keep them drowsy) it’s warm and so I’m not cooling off. I fan myself and I say hi. Every week, dozens more. Some people I already know from before, back out, back in. I’m glad to see they’re alive. A pretty young woman says to her friends, “There’s my sponsor!” and comes and sits by me and tells me she’s out Monday. Some look all sleepy and are in full-on naptime a few minutes into me talking. I’m thinking of one woman I saw a few weeks back, she introduced herself by name and said she didn’t know how much time she had sober… She slowly said, “I don’t know how I got here.” Anyway the sleepy ones, I’ll see them again in a few days probably, and they’ll meet me for their first time.

I tell them a little bit about why I’m there and start talking about what I’ve experienced. When I’m talking a lot of people are relating, nodding, or laughing with that kind of relief, I’m not the only one. There’s a few sleeping and there’s probably a few who find me annoying as fuck. One of the ones who is listening, a dark young man across from me, nods in recognition when I talk about being a “high bottom” and what kind of mess that gets you, and then when I talk about how it hurts to watch someone you love still in active practice. Later, reluctantly, he shares – after the group asks him to. He says he spent all this time locked up in a few forms of treatment facilities and immersed himself in Recovery culture and said he walked and talked Recovery and kept a smile on his face, always. And he collected a bit of time that way. But he says he never dealt with the pain, and he relapsed. He doesn’t say this but it seems like he’s dealing with it now. He says slowly, and to no one in particular, looking at the floor and the words are like a birth: “if you’re having fun right now, you probably don’t get it. The fun doesn’t happen until way later.” To me he reads like he’s in deep, profound pain. The truth of his words pulls from my own gut, and I know what he’s talking about. And I think to myself what a blessing, what a manifestation. I recently read in a book: “human consciousness is light perceiving light.”

The joy I experience in this work is deep and unshakeable. And it’s not hyper or even blissful, it’s just joy. It’s impossible to describe and what’s the point? You have to experience it. Get a little and you can start to recognize it in others, and you definitely recognize its absence in others.

An hour and a half later I’m leaving and a big man says to me, “I really respect you for what you’ve shared.” And I’m like, “I respect you – you said you didn’t want to talk then you get started and you’re dropping all this wisdom.” Wisdom is found everywhere in those I work with. It’s actually other places, almost every other place, you find people sleepwalking through life, going through the motions. It’s like this secret no one wants to own up to. Nothing to be ashamed of, we all sleepwalk at some time or another. We can all wake up, but we can all fall back again too.

This work keeps me awake while I’m doing it.

verily my mind hath been blown

Today I was ill, in only one regard I can identify: I slept so incredibly poorly last night, not falling asleep until long after sun-up. So I put one foot in front of the other, literally, once I got up. I walked as much as I could. I walked with my kids and dog downtown on business- and pleasure-errands. I walked with my kids and dog (and one other child) to a meeting, then back. I made some food and did some chores and rested and watched a made-for-TV movie.

A bit ago Nels calls me from the bathtub, because he does not like being alone when it’s nighttime. I go in and sit down and he’s floating in the bath in the warm red light of the bathroom and he’s beautiful. So in a minute he tells me his penis is like a boat, bobbing in the water like a raft, and he does these little ocean-waves with his hand. Then: “What’s on the raft… a germ?” he asks. I’m like, Yeah, imagining a little germ with a captain’s hat standing like a coxswain on (what would be to the germ) a massive penis raft. And Nels says, “Two germs and a flea…” (we’ve had horrid flea problems with the new dog, which are finally abating thanks to a kindhearted-soul’s donations to our family) then while I’m still thinking on this ludicrous image Nels sits up very serious and says, “Can fleas see germs?”

CAN FLEAS SEE GERMS, this seems entirely reasonable. Holy shit, it’s like, I have been high a few times in my life, but my kids come up with these questions and/or observations straight-up sober, and pretty much any time you have a conversation with them.

Tonight is night two in a row of children camping in the backyard. A neighbor child D. is over here whenever he can be. He stayed last night, ate a great deal of food here today, and is staying tonight. I really would take him in and raise him but you’re not allowed to make those kind of overtures where I come from. So instead it’s like, I have this extra little guy with me. I wonder how he’ll remember our family. I wonder what the future has in store.

Today Phoenix and I are walking with the dog while the boys trail behind us. And I say, “I think D. has a crush on you,” and she says, “Obviously,” and flicks the dog to attention and bangs on the button for the crosswalk lights. OBVIOUSLY, spoken with a thousand percent aplomb. She really kills me.

stuff we talked about and stuff

Me. Ten hours ago via email to Ralph: “I want that salad with fruit, garbanzo beans, and homemade bread rolls stuffed with ham and green beans”

Well while I was craft blogging and doing a bunch of other stuff, Ralph made dinner. Do you know what he made? He made all of it. Homemade rolls. This awesome salad. Roasted garbanzo beans. And fresh green beans sauteed with ham diced so fine it was like angels were in my kitchen.

It was the best meal I’ve had in forevvvvvveerrrrr

***

More stuff that got said today. On a long walk the kids and I and the dog, plus an extra kid, took.

Nels: “What you just said was so boring, a vulture squawked somewhere.”

Phoenix, later: “I’ll have a Virgin Mary because I’m a virgin. You have a Bloody Mary on the account of the miscarriage. Also your middle name.”*

I’m very tired. Insomnia quite a bit over the last week-plus. & last night just after falling asleep my neighbors got up to REAL rowdy and drunk at 2, 3, 5 AM. Going to the doctor tomorrow. About the insomnia stuff. About the neighbors, I may call the police since it’s happened like three times in the last ten days. Anyway, wish me luck with both!

Going to hit the shower and take some R&R.

* Marie.

supermoon and sundays

KidArt

“I’m so bored,” I tell Ralph. “It’s so boring in this town. I can’t stand it. Anymore.”

My husband waggles his eyebrows: “There’s lovemaking.”*

“Yeah. Right. I can do that when I get home. After doing the other cool stuff.”

Here’s the thing, we’re at a school carnival on a Friday night. It’s 7:30 and the thing is packing up and people are yawning and stuff. Yes, 7:30 PM, not AM. Friday night. This is what I’m talking about. Is it any wonder I feel an intense resentment toward shops that leave their OPEN signs lit past hours? Every time, every damn time, I drive by and my heart leaps, maybe everyone isn’t asleep already and I’m the only one awake, maybe someone wants to party**. I mean I’ve felt that hopeful flutter when I see the erroneous neon even in a paint store, only to have it ritualistically smashed flat in the land of dashed hopes and dreams that is Aberdeen and surrounding area, WA.

Here at early-thirty the gala is fun enough for our kids: a series of impressively inane games designed to A. file parents past the book fair wares about fourteen times and B. encourage the kids to fill in letter-clues to a corporately-sponsored word-puzzle instructing them THEY SHOULD READ MORE. (For realz! The games are managed by high school students serving out community service time; in one room such a lass dumps a pile of things on the floor and the “game” is, return the things one at a time to a garbage bin. Don’t worry, all contestants “win”. “Win” a letter-stamp on the dictatorial reading word-puzzle.) Lest you think I’m being snotty let me point out our kids are having a lovely time and I’m enjoying talking with my husband (and yes, we bought a couple books to support the kids and teachers).

I’m also putting to the test my resolve since moving here in 2007: say “hi” to every person I recognize from my schooling years (there are a surprising lot of them), even if I don’t remember their names (there are a surprising lot of those, too – more about how my brain don’t work too good in a minute). In fact I chat up a perfectly cute dad (first-name A.) and talk to his young son then a heart-skipping beat later realize wait, did I have a one-night-stand with same here in west side in ’95? No, just another feller named A. who pretty much looked exactly like him. Harborite boys (now men): close-cropped hair, henleys and/or flannels, fairly-grabbable asses in Carhartt’s, cleanshaven (my husband on the other hand breaks all these conventions, especially in that his corduroy-clad ass is not merely grabbable but excellent).

I’m also in a bit of a panic because I just committed to having Ralph pack up every bit of my sewing accoutrement and put it into storage. I figure, given our “restaurant” enterprise, I’m not going to be sewing much in the near-near future. Secondly and more relevantly, we’ve decided to make good on my longstanding and relatively intense desire to have a proper studio, a place with enough room I can start projects; maybe even a facility where I can set up a few machines for people to make use on. This is sort of my current version of wildest-dreams (yeah that’s right, aim high sister!) and I’m not sure we’re going to be able to make it happen (in which case we will be moving my gear back home). It’s a scenario that has me a bit on edge; as does the lurching in my gut now as Nels races down the school hallway after his sister and I observe he’s due for a few new pairs of homesewn trousers and I realize my gear is (for now) unattainable! Horrors.

On our way out of the carnival the kids pick up second-corporation-sponsor coupons and we head out into the night. It’s beautiful out: wet but warm, spring thawing the darkness. We’re on foot and as we walk Phoenix falls silent; cracks into her latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book to read in the gloaming. I put my hand in Ralph’s and we make our way through the near-full-moonlight to home and a late dinner cooked from scratch.

***

Casa Mia

With the kids, preparing and eating food and we’re trying to come up with a menu item, and I ask, What’s a kind of food that begins with ‘v’?  And I struggle a bit and a beat later just as I semi-trumphantly stammer out “vegetable” Nels smiles and says, “victuals”. Then it’s a word for “tasty” that begins with an “S”. Again, I got nothing. “Scrumptious”, says my daughter calmly.

Yeah, I know. Kelly Hogaboom = “Jeremy’s…  iron”. To be fair, I’ve been severely limiting my brain with the use of alcohol as a coping mechanism for the work and stress I’ve experienced in raising and caring for children. So yeah, they might look come off rather well on paper, but let’s remember who got them there and at what price.

* using sexiful voice

** “party”, meaning drink coffee and talk directly out one’s ass while sitting on a couch somewhere

From the mouths of imps

Interesting fact: barring a couple exceptions, we see a lot more of our friends without children than our friends who are parents. I’d started noticing the trend a while back. I think it’s rather simple, really: we aren’t so rigorously scheduled – and our friends without children (nor intense schooling/dual-income schedules) have (or make) time as well. I’d previously thought often of my adult friends and what lovely parents they might become, if they so chose… Now seeing how things often go I feel a pang, wondering if they were to have children of their own if they’d disappear or if we could still be a part of their lives. Parenting new babies, for many it’s hard to go out in the world.

Today Nels and Jasmine texted all day long about the “rock hunt” they were going to go on in her back yard. I’m taking so. much. texting (on his part especially) and so. much. heckling (by him, at me) – he just really wanted to make sure the date happened as planned. While Phoenix set off on foot to pay our garbage bill, Nels and I listened to music in the kitchen and cooked up a storm. We made Chinese cabbage salad, from-scratch sweet and sour chicken (using fresh pineapple!), pork and vegetable fried rice (again, all from scratch), black tea, and red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting (Nels elected to dye the frosting pink). I have one frying pan, and this was a fry-centric meal, so it took a while longer than I’d planned.

At six we were joined by my mom and fellow Tweep and friend Justin and we ate and talked well into the night. Amber and Jasmine joined us after the GHC Winter Art Gala and a shift at Casa Mia, respectively, and as promised took The Boy out. Nels was Excited Times One Hundred.

Treasure

This Little Light Of Mine

When they got home Amber asked to take pictures of our son with his favorites.

Loot / Lurve

I kind of love that he gathered up his “conch shell”, pyrite, and obsidian, leaving only the ignatius rock out. Awkward.

Nels and I have not been getting along. All my fault, seriously, but I can’t quite figure it out. Yet.

He’s been relating a pretty fabulous day to me, though. While peeling carrots (he’s very skilled at obtaining results but makes quite a mess, which he then cleans up assiduously) he said, “Do you know what I like about myself? That I have such good parents.” (I’m not fucking kidding!) He then went on, “You help me with things that are difficult, like tying shoes. You spend time with me and do interesting things with me.” Then he thought for a while and started naming things he’d observed other parents do, that he didn’t think were so fabulous. I kept mum through it all, I mean besides acknowledging I’d heard him. Because really? It’s his life, his experience.

At dinner he ate two huge helpings of the pork / veggie fried rice and shouted it was “Awesome!” Later he took a cup of it into the bathtub. According to Ralph, only two grains of rice were spilled.

So yeah, you know? This parenting thing is pretty okay lots of the time.

murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas…

“Mama…” my son says, lying warm and still beside me. “Cats are more likely to bite you than snakes. Foxes are rough… but they’re so cute when they’re young.” Nels is falling asleep. A beat later he says, “Foxes are so cute, I just love them so much.”

It’s 9:30 PM and we’re lying together in the kids’ bedroom. It feels so safe and secure and cozy and well-tended: the kind of room I’d have loved as a child with everything in its place, soft starlight-lighting and clean sheets and nooks to read or sleep in. Ralph and Phoenix, a few moments ago, had put the room back in order (after a day of Legos, drawing, reading, and respite from outdoor shenanigans) and now a pink nightlight bathes us in a glow and Nels is snuggled next to me under a down comforter. It’s seemed warm inside today so the window is open for fresh air. He holds my hand and sighs and kisses me and his blonde hair falls across my face now and then and his body finally grows heavy with sleep and his skin is so soft and smooth.

It was a hard day for he and I. He made a fool of me in the coffee shop or rather, he behaved like a six year old and I responded poorly, making a fool of myself. For quite some time afterward I was angry and unforgiving even after he’d repented (for his part) and after I realized I’d done him wrong (and apologized for it). It’s like – some days I don’t bounce back so quick. Eventually I softened and we rejoined in holding one another close (physically and emotionally).

Still, I was grateful for a walk with the children in the cold, crisp air, and a night cooking dinner on my own (teriyaki chicken and sticky rice; carrot and celery sticks and baby corn with dipping sauce) while Ralph taught his late-night class. Phoenix is knee-deep in her book series and surfaces to run around outside for a bit (the kids are digging a “mine” in the backyard) or eat; little else.

In living with children sometimes I feel I’ve been given this extraordinary privilege and gift, like a bottomless well of light and joy I can sample from any time I choose. I write and write and write to get across what it’s like when I’m wise enough to choose this way, but I can only capture glimpses and I suspect I’ll never make it fully known how deeply I love and enjoy these little ones. I’ve had wonderful friendships and family and jobs and experiences and moments in my life but nothing as magical as these children have been.

Now at 10:30 Ralph warms up my mom’s truck so we can head out for groceries (provided our plastic doesn’t bounce), and a few minutes alone and on the road. Tonight in the hours before I sleep I’ll go into the room and kiss my sleeping son, before crawling in bed with my newly-bathed daughter and watching B-movies or nature films into the wee hours. This winter continues to be hard on me, but family provides much respite and healing. I feel so fortunate to have them.

random monday awesomeness

A coffee date with my mom.

Flowers from the husband.

Dancing while holding Nels and singing to him.

Some sewing whilst watching Black Dynamite.

A right-good rogering.

Homemade Valentines:

Happy Valentines Day Nels

Happy Valentines Day Phoenix

(for my FOO:)
Happy Valentines Day FOO

(Um, here are Ralph’s, made for me. “Call the police!”)

Dinner out and (as always) great conversation with Ralph.

My daughter on FB: awesome & more awesome.

Then:

(thanks, J.!)

And:

Phoenix, watching a movie with me: “That’s what I want for my birthday – a giant mechanical wolf!” (handy – take note. Her birthday’s the second of next month.)

with that massive special effects budget you figure they could afford more convincing wigs for the male characters

I like living with little kids. Lots of blankets, warmth, laughter, shared food, good smells, snuggles – and our bandaids have Batman on them.

Tonight I walk into the living room and the kids are on the Minecraft server but they’re also getting ready for a bath. Phoenix and Nels are in an oddly grown-up vignette; she stands with her back to him and her eyes onscreen, her hand holding her slippery golden hair off the nape of her neck, as Nels gently unfastens the buttons at the back of her pinafore-style dress. Tears sting my eyes and I want to swoop them both up into my arms. I have this impulse often and the kids don’t always appreciate it so I do my best to refrain. Ralph and I are particularly incensed that Nels insists we do not pinch his bottom (fair enough) but literally runs around in his tiny little boxer briefs flaunting the most pinchable bottom you’ve ever seen (it’s not just us that thinks so; our friend Jasmine commented on this last night).

What a day we had together. We took our errands out around town and the kids helped wipe the incessant condensation off the car windows (hazardous!) until things were finally warm enough. I was innundated with a barrage of questions and conversation openers. Phoenix asked me about methods of birth control (this began with her query, “Mom I only want to have one kid – how can I do that?”, a question that didn’t seem to strike Nels with any particular implications), which then included a recap on erections/”boners”, ovulation, menstruation, etc; then she asked if there were any side effects to any of the drugs I mentioned (this is her first question regarding pharmaceuticals – yay!), and the differences between miscarriage and abortion. Nels listened in to all this and offered his own summaries and helpful suggestions. Phoenix told us she’d grow up and invent a side-effect-free birth control called The Birth Police Officer (FTW!).

A few minutes later as we sat down to snacks in the Safeway deli table section she and Nels began to innundate me with more questions while stripping off their coats and in between running to wash hands and procure napkins and an Odwalla juice to share. This batch of queries included the likelihood of observing and the cosmic mechanism inherant in a solar eclipse, what B vitamins were, which planet was the largest planet, and speculation on the atmospheric makeup of Neptune. I could have used a smartphone and the internet a few times, because not only do I not have all the answers, sometimes I have a shockingly complete lack of any answers. Fortunately I don’t have to put much faith in me as Knower of All Things when I put entire faith in my children as being enthusiastic and relentless Learners and we can just look it up when convenient.

Tonight on my mother’s suggestion Ralph, Phoenix and I went with her to watch Harry Potter and the Film of Interminable Duration. Nels was quite firm that he doesn’t care for the Harry Potter movies so he stayed home and our friend Laurena and daughter Sophiea came over to sort of house/Nels-sit (for a wee bit of Christmas money to boot). It was a great fourway date for us and my favorite part was leaning over to Ralph during the film and cracking wise and making him laugh, a lot. I’m glad he likes me. (Usually)

for posterity

Nelsisms from the last few days:

Upsicles
A stalagmite made from freezing water. Like an icicle but from the ground up – he saw one the other day and coined the term. Oh and according to Nels there are also “leftsicles” and “rightsicles” and he just explained to me how these would form. I’m a little skeptical, but okay.

Snuggle Trance
This is what Nels says he wants in the morning when he wakes up and desires me to come to bed and cuddle him.

Greedy Voice
This is what Nels cries out in protest when I am angry or irritated and speak to him with a “tone”.

Wine Makeout
You’re drinking wine and you’re really enjoying it. My kids think being drunk is funny. Because they watch “The Pink Panther” and “Reno 9-11”, not “COPS” or Leaving Las Vegas.