Summer Ready

Wednesday: 3:30 am The little one delivered in bed before she sat straight up and said, “Pineapple orange slushie." Her cravings were serious. An hour later, she fell asleep, full of slushies. Chips, reading, yogurt, groceries with the boys, chicken, salad. Then I read this, “Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.” — Rumi, and I couldn’t help but think of the possibilities.

Home of the Free

I didn’t get to the potato salad or the roasted turkey sandwiches on fresh bread with crackling crusts. In short, the picnic I envisioned never happened. I ran through the cemetery though and sat in the backyard under the shade tree with my phone nearby since I am on call for work, and waited for Marko and his friends to get back from splashing at Seven Peaks and watched Max shoot for hours. 

Let the adventures begin.

He held a long stick from the trail then popped the fruit snacks in his mouth before hiking to the summit.

Whatever you love...you are.

I waved to Marko from the porch and he ran through the house to meet me in the driveway. He and Max stuck their heads out the back window and talked in tandem about their trek on the bike path. I hauled my work gear and mail inside. The boys ran back to the store. Markus saved up enough. Drone in the works. The rest from his savings account.

No one is you. That is your power.

On the way home from the hockey, I pulled into the sushi place. “Can I go with Cole?” “I’m going to sushi after don't you want to come.” “I still want to hang out with Cole.” He ran over to the counter and planted a kiss on my cheek. “You need some money.” I said. I handed him a twenty. “How was it?” The whole game he played defense. “Good,” he managed to say afterward. I carried two boxes to the car. “Hey call me when you want me to pick you up.” “Okay, but can you tell Tim thanks and he's the best?”

Music is what feelings sound like.

We walked into the auditorium just as the concert started. A red tie adorned his black suit. He played a song about the sea and talked about it afterward in the car. “I like playing the Wipeout drum solo! It is fantastic being up there with Mr. J leading  . . . I got to play percussion with all my friends. Is that cool or what?” He leaned against the ice cream counter and let his voice go soft. He stood up with his long curls taller than me and kissed my cheek.

you're lovely

Soft hands. Hazy grey night. Woodsy sunset. Close to summer. Hockey. Remembering meetings. Clean simple photographs. Clear moments.

He is just 17

Tuesday: French toast, strawberries, served in bed, surfed white water with the boyos, didn't get the birthday cake in the oven, more strawberries, miniature croquet, bowling, wild ropes course boys, pizza, presents opened, dinner on Benihana.

We are all broken, that's how the light gets in.

She texted last night while everyone was sleeping. “Hi! Dad fell taking Baby Doll outside and broke his ankle... He will need surgery later this week. Just wanted everyone to know.” I called my mom and it turns out he's having surgery today. Her voice fluttered on the phone.

Keep Skating

Half day of hockey, Dutch babies, short nap. We washed off the egging, he climbed onto the roof then picked up the shells to the remaining and down the garage and over to the porch and round again. The other two practiced their math homework and hit buttons on controls.

Do you dare?

The rain came a day late. I was in the middle of flying on a trapeze, a thing I’ve never done, when Max finished with his fitness testing, “I saw you fly.” He waved the pics he took of me insisting I pay attention. So many of our conversations stem from snapchats, the space between knowing and articulation. I forgot what I was supposed to be doing today. Something about how I ended up in the trapeze quite by accident; a called off shift on a slow day when the sky drew scarlet ribbons into dawn.

Alberni Valley

Shower shower shower. The sky appeared pale, congested like daisies in murky grey water. The other babies were in the nursery and mom's were pumping most of the day. Do you think it will rain? Maybe, later. Then some hockey, always hockey.

Stardust Soul

Thursday: cereal, toast, peaches, garden weeds, kids in school, hummus sandwich, clean house, chocolate chip cookies, Amazing Race reruns, bike ride, naps, All The Light We Cannot See.

Good Vibes

Late in the afternoon, when the sun drew shadows across the white sidewalks, we stopped by the mall for a new pair of shoes. The boys hummed a steady rhythm, except for a succession of handling of jersey's and the sputtering of Cafe Rio, Morgen came home from work, hungry for tacos and informed me of a new group he's in for summer accounting class. They want to get an A he said, so they chose him. Smart group. 

live in the sunshine. swim in the sea. drink the wild air.

We bladed up to the pier and back before taking a swim. The lilacs outside my bedroom window flowered. I hadn’t noticed until evening, when I unpacked and did the laundry.

Life's A Beach

Max and I drove in the car after our picnic lunch on the beach. Tacos in LA. He stuck his head out the window and waved and nodded in time to the music. We stopped by surf shop on the way to the airport. M and I walked down to the ocean where swimmers poked out of the water like peeping frogs.

Hogwarts

The black bold letters shimmered on the street sign placed over the light post. He waited two and a half hours after he tried out to walk in to Harry Potter world. The antlers hung in the Leaky Cauldron like a scene right out of the movie. Seventeen, how did he get there so fast?

We aren't all Kings

On the way back from the rink, I remembered something he said. We were deep into a conversation about hockey. “You know, you just need to get stronger.” “So I just need to get stronger?” He sat across the room with his head hanging down and tears filling his eyes. “Yes, join a gym and keep working hard.” Until recently, I thought he was right.

Make A Memory

As a girl, one of my favorite activities was Skating In Sun Valley: In The Summer. It’s one of many childhood memories still in my recollection. I skated a lot when I was younger, enjoying the act of getting lost in creative expression, without concern whether the landing or center was good or not. I found other hobbies and put down the skates for a number of years. When I was in college, I bought a used pair of hockey skates. I worked through some of the drills in the hockey book then stopped. I still have both pairs of skates along with a trunkful of photos stored in the basement.

I recently passed my love of skating onto Max and Markus who I like to take with me to the rink and skate with. The practice of seeing where edges fall on the ice is key to skating and ends up helping my teaching too. “Skate More” has been at the top of my Things I Like and Want To Do More. So I found the skates and sharpened them up and checked out two tickets for California. 

Skating for anyone who has ever wanted to learn to play hockey or simply skate better, the Gold Coast offers a mix of inspiration, motivation, and doable location. Southwest even lets you check your hockey gear for free to take your bag along with you.

Unchained Melody, the song from the movie Ghost, takes me back to California when I performed in a show in Century City. Scott gave me the opportunity to fly down and choreograph a program with him, three time World and National champion and asked me to move in with him as a way to cleverly have a life and skating partner. I could see that he loved, admired and wanted me to be there with him in his home in Hermosa Beach to transform me into a new woman to work with. The first show we did together, The Mission, he asked me to “strip familiar beliefs of my personal meaning in order to develop new image-making techniques.” Throughout the performance the skater returned to the theme of transforming my personal narratives to create new ways of seeing. My personal photo albums hold many of the great times of my life, including: “love, boyfriends, sickness, death, children, parties, work, money, personal endeavor.” That week long trip concluded with technical impossibilities for keeping my religious beliefs and living with him and this conversation stuck out in particular: “Believing in morals is what attracts me to you. It is actually just as important as your eyes and smile. I hope that no one ever breaks your heart."

The fifth trip in his series of back and forth flights, The Christmas Show, was the last time he came up to visit me. According to Scott, “The belief of our childhood is the one that stays with us our whole life” and I tend to agree with him. I laid out principles for our relationship that read like a quipping manifesto on love and religion: "Temples are for marriages I knew in my head. How I feel when you kiss my lips or brush the inside of my arm are what I feel in my heart.” Most of us have access to a memory that we refer to as before and after to experiment with another set of 2 different outcomes to shift perception. Date # 7, Romatic Dinner, was one of mine, which he asked me to “break with traditional views of temple-worthy events and turn to the matter of what goes on inside the four chambers of your heart” instead.

I’ve been carrying both versions in my heart for 25 years to make me more aware in those in between moments. I tucked several of our snapshots into a scrapbook with a pendant he gave me and skate when I need a break between my heart and my brain. Learning to skate is about putting blade to ice and if you study the past, you’ll likely arrive sooner than expected.

Summer League 16

Three o’clock. Writing about hockey while working, maybe that’s the secret. It’s eighty-five outside and I’ve gone out to take a patient to her car and that’s all. I’d trade places with anyone to sit outside all day. No takers, I break for green beans and pineapple instead.

YOU AND ME ❤️ ME AND YOU ❤️

On a Wednesday afternoon, we followed up on the text messages about lunch this week while she sampled then tossed chicken-flecked salad into her bowl. She opened her gift from Pandora for her bracelet, from the city to the mountains and back. The blazing sun didn’t faze me though my cheeks turned red as strawberries. Microscopic details stopped us on point. To imagine how we experienced those tiny heart charms for mother and daughter, even for a second, reminded me to let go of the worries that traced lines into my face the past few weeks.

Single Mindedness

Tuesday: cinnamon rolls, yoga, spinach pineapple smoothie, new book in bed, dusted bookshelves, chicken and pasta salad, F'real, laundry, dishes, roller blading, mosquito bites on the parkway.

+++++

Love. Dream. And be free.

I had the house to myself after breakfast. I sat down to write and all I could think of was a running race and Popsicle, preferably together. I played the Enchanted soundtrack instead of my default background classical music. It reminded me of countless discussions we had about running songs sitting on the pink phone in my room, Sun Valley posters papered the walls. Late night runs through the park, after American Idol marathons. Landslide followed, and on cue, I was in '08 again, lying on my bed listening to Dixie Chicks on the radio. Memory and music run deep, and often sets the course for the direction I write. I clicked pause and listened to the whirring furnace. Back to the short post.

Celebrate Mom

She texted today when I was at work. “Happy Mother's Day Little Miss Sunshine. I love you B. Hope I get to see you today. Put all those babies on hold! You are the sunshine of my life. Let's do lunch this week. Miss you. Hope you get some rest. What days are you off? Let me know so I can work around all my physical therapy. I go three days a week now.” Her voice showing in the writing.

Dream Come True

“You’re a lucky woman,” he said. I wasn’t sure why he said this to me, but I smiled and replied, “Yes, I think so.” The race took us by the library then immediately picked up water and oranges and apples followed by a bag of barbecue potato chips, which Markus kept close to him. By the time we left the race and went to the BBQ, spring arrived. I bought a pack of limonata on the way back to the Letey's. I liked random songs, played for me by Max, after our trip to the mall just to purchase a Mother's Day gift. It’s going to be a good year, I thought.

{Face Off For The Cure}

Burst of Pink

The magnolia and weeping cherry trees blossomed all at once as if a secret tree pact happened a few months back. It was a long winter, and anything was possible. While sweeping the back patio yesterday, I watched pink and white petals fall like confetti on the sidewalk.

Cinco

I fell asleep with the solar panels being installed on the roof. It’s been a long day. I’d picked the shift up days ago and repeated it like a mantra. The garden stayed dry while we drove to get snow cones yesterday. Tonight stopped to watch the hockey game, refill water, and shoot on every net. The heat made it feel like paradise, I love it. I said goodnight and left work for the morning when I would get an earlier start.

Simplified

Goals keep me from living in a reactive, passive way and helps me align my daily actions with my true priorities.

Six things I dreamed of doing before my next birthday (this September): drive to West Oregon in a convertible loaded with cameras and snacks and movies (for the boys), swim in a pool on a hot afternoon, go to the movies, beach picnic, trip to the old rink in Portland, finish riding 100 miles at Little Red.