Things That Make Me Happy

An avocado, spinach, fried egg, siracha sauce grilled pita sandwich
First coffee of the day
A good night's sleep
The noon emergency siren
The 2am train whistle
Warm weather
Rainy weather
A clean kitchen
Weddings with dancing
A free day
Walking into Goodwill
A foot massage
Depositing checks
Getting texts
Smiling kids
Mailing a letter
McDonald's coffee, large, 5 creams
When my students practice
Going to the movies
Having a supper plan
Checking my garden
Free food
Practicing music
Walking at night
Open windows and breezes
Birds
Holding my dog
Drawing
Dressing up
Quiet
People who talk slowly and listen deeply
Hugging
Flying in an airplane
Crossing things off lists
Not being finished with a really good book yet
*

Just Me

It will be just the kids and me for at least a month,
while Matt helps to open some new Party City stores in the Toronto area.

He will be gone 10 days, home for 4, gone another 10, etc.
And during the 4 days home will likely work at his own store at least part of the time.

I always really ramp up my expectations for times like these.
And I'm usually way more efficient, way more organized,
way ahead of the game, as if I'm trying to prove that I can do it all myself.

But I feel a little anxious this time, a little less ready.
A little bit lost.

I think the older I get, the more I feel like I'm forgetting something all the time.

I hope it's not anything important.

*

Wizard

I visited the Khan Academy online and read this quote by Descartes:

You just keep pushing. You just keep pushing.
I made every mistake that could be made.
But I just kept pushing.

I want to be like that.
If I can only figure out what it is I'm pushing.

Then I would be on a trajectory of purpose
instead of this series of starts.

I think I am like a pinball.

I start and bounce
on downward arcs,
east, west, north for a bit
then straight south.

Yet I hurtle down that spring-loaded corridor with a huge grin on my face
every single time,
because I believe I am headed out of that machine,
not just around the corner for a familiar jolting ride until I circle back.

*
peace

One More Hug

I had a dream last night - several dreams, all mixing together with extraordinary circumstances flowing into the story as if it were completely normal.
You know how it goes.

In this dream, in between the bizarre and the sudden changes of scenery,
was my grandma.

This made perfect sense in the dream, but still came as a wonderful surprise:
that I had another chance to see her.

Somehow I had the knowledge that my grandpa was taking care of her - or rather - that she was in his care. I found out that he was coming to town.

Apparently he was an important personage, and the pomp and pageantry was already beginning. Flags, robes, a stage, people filing onto it.

I knew that he had brought her along, and as I waited, I cried.

I cried so hard - harder than I ever had in the past, harder than on the day she died.

I guess in the dream I knew that she had died. Her coming back was like a gift -
a second chance - another opportunity - a bonus.

And as I sobbed, my cousin Carin was there, with her camera, and she was crying too.
Carin was going to get some extra time with grandma - more than me - and I said to her,
"Oh take some pictures - please take as many as you can!"

And then she arrived - with someone on either side of her.
My grandma was smiling, but small, with her hands curled inward - she was weak, but happy.

I ran to her, crying and laughing, and hugged her, wondering if she would be confused -
if she would know me.
She did know me, and she hugged me back and smiled, but lightly.

Everything about her was light, as if she were not completely flesh and blood, just barely there.

But she was there, and I hugged her, for real. She wasn't a ghost. I felt her.

One more time.

*
peace

Imperfection

We took a walk, the first one in a long while,
and he was telling me how changeful I am.

He said,
"Remember how you proclaimed that we were all going to be vegetarians and then you made us all quit eating meat?"

Yeah I remember. That one lasted 2 years.
And there have been other short-lived proclamations.

I think it might be hard to be the child of a wandering soul,
especially when you're a black-and-white sort of person.

I said,
"Yes, I start new things all the time. It's one of the best things about me!
And one of the worst."

I keep something from everything I leave behind.
A little remnant of knowledge.
A healthy habit or a painful bruise.

I imagine myself, at the end of life,
a patched-up conglomeration of everything I've tried.
Maybe a beautiful mosaic, maybe a piece of trash-art.
Depending on how you look at it.

It's easier to be the child of a scheduled constant.
It's easier to live under the roof of someone who never contradicts himself, never changes direction. Keeps to the safe road.

But I look at my children and all four have somehow survived
my neglectfulness or my hovering,
my inability to stick to a plan,
my confusing mix of strictness and lenience.

I think it's because, beyond the erratic mealtimes and the abandoned projects
is one unscheduled constant:

Love.

I think, if you can give your child that,
along with a huge bucket of humor to wash over everything,
then you've done alright.

I've done alright.

*

Conferencing

Yesterday was parent-teacher conferences at school, which I rarely attend, except they have cookies so I do sometimes.

The husband does it for me, because he likes to talk to people. I get bored. I feel like I already know everything that they sit and formally tell us from behind the teacher desk. In fact, I feel like I know things that they don't know, so it should really be me sitting behind the desk, telling them non-schoolish things like how Beth drew that picture in band and smudged it on purpose by rubbing it on her jeans, or how Kara figured out how to edit photos on her own or how James helps so cheerfully around the house that sometimes we pick him to take out the garbage too much.

Speaking of James (and the previous post below), the teacher from the biting incident had some words that made me smile when the husband came home to tell me. She said, when he apologized for James' random and weird offense, "Oh please don't squelch his spirit and his creativity. There aren't enough kids these days that have his spunk and his creativity."

I'm glad to know that when my children are off at school they have teachers like this, who see them as I see them.

Now I need to go wake them up, because they were supposed to have a snow day, but it didn't pan out, so I let them sleep in anyway.

*

Names and Unanswerable Questions

Well, my babies are big now.
I have four teenagers.
They are all on Facebook,
they are all web-savvy and properly informed about Stranger-Danger.

And so I hereby Name them:

Michael: (previously The Teenager)
Kara: (aka The Middle Child)
James and Beth: (Twin Boy and Twin Girl)

Well that's done with.

Now on to the letter I received from James' teacher today.
My husband read it to me from behind his computer.
I sat with my hands over my face, shaking my head.

Mr. and Mrs. K,

On James' progress report today, he has a 1 on his Dam Comparison assignment. I'd like to explain that grade.

James did a fine job on the assignment, as did his classroom neighbor. For some reason, and I can't for the life of me make sense of this, James chose to take a large bite (yes, seriously) out of his neighbor's paper. James freely admitted to having bitten the paper. Since the paper was in no shape to be turned in, James was asked to recopy it for the young man to whom the paper actually belonged. He said he would do that and took the paper with him. James was told that if he did not recopy the other paper, the other boy would get his grade, and he would get the 0.

That was a week ago. As of today, James has not recopied the paper, and in fact, he reminded me of that. I put a 1 on the assignment so that I know it was done, but that it was not done correctly - or his part of the assignment was not done.

I hope that makes sense.

J

Well of course, it makes perfect sense.
sigh.

I have decided that when he comes home today I will say,

"James, why did you take a bite out of that Dam paper??"

*
peace