Mount Olympus Wilderness

 

Mother's Day 2020

 

Currently

 

Nice To See You

If you come to my house, I’ll forget to tell you where to put your coat or purse or keys because I’ll be ushering you into the kitchen for a drink, some almonds. I’ll try my hardest not to apologize about the state of my home because I’ve learned enough to know that true friends don’t clean for your arrival. I’ll hope you take the dust bunnies as mascots of your inner circle status. If you don’t, that’s OK. We’ve all got our things.

I’ll want you to sit down and spill the beans. What are you learning right now? What’s going on with your kids? This means that if you’re coming to my house for a meal, you’ll likely get fresh bread or a homemade pizza. I can simmer or saute or poach while engaged in a conversation, and I’ll always choose the conversation. This also means I’m a naturally poor hostess, often too lost in stories or thought or sentences to notice that I already refilled your glass or the cookies have the timer going off. For this reason, guests must forgive me. Sorry about that. Come anyway, please.

We might talk about design or style or beauty, but probably not. I struggle often to justify my disenchantments of aesthetics. I love to rearrange furniture and choose fingernail polish shades and discuss collections and have amassed more than enough statement jewelry over the years, and I sometimes treat these gifts as if they’re burdens. I sometimes wish I could trade these passions for something more “worthwhile” – whatever that means – and then I realize how ridiculous that sounds. Gifts are gifts. Passions are passions. We don’t choose them; they arrive.

We might talk about children, families, relationships.

We might talk about covid-19 or the latest news update or last week’s death count, but I might have nothing to say. I don’t follow pop culture or celebrity gossip or sports teams and I can nearly guarantee I was asleep by 9pm last night. We might talk about the latest Internet meme, but I might have not caught that either. We might talk about how I’m often in my own world, churning around questions and answers and revelations in my head, and then, yes, we’d have something to work with.

Other topics that might burst forth, if I’m leading, that is: baking brownies, books on my nightstand, books on your nightstand, how on Earth one folds a fitted sheet, upcoming travel destinations, my quest for the perfect mascara (found it), yoga, your deepest dreams, lists, Internet Speeds, why our culture’s so obsessed with fitness and perhaps a lively debate on tea vs. coffee.

Topics that we probably won’t cover? Marriage. I’m not proud of the way they ended, yes, but they are not my everything. They are slivers. Snippets, clippings in fine print – captions overshadowed by real, everyday life: jumbled thoughts and junk mail, swirling doubts and snagged sweaters. The everyday stuff is less glamorous, to be fair, but it’s part of me, too.

For every well-written blog post – cursor blinking, fingers hovering – life can sometimes look like a dance. Like a beautiful, effortless, and perfect ballet.

But I know better. Dancing can bring blisters, too. You can’t see them beneath the silky pink pointe shoes, but they’re there. They’re always there. So if you come to my house, I’ll forget to tell you where to put your coat or purse or keys. But I know exactly where the bandaids are.

Here’s to blisters and blog posts, bandaids and beauty.

It's nice to see you again. 

Hooray

It's Nurses Week

 

Bike Park City

 

I've Got The Month of May

May

 

You're Invited:

Want to write with me in 2020?

You might’ve noticed I fell way, way silent last year. After the incredibly kind response of my family and friends, I wanted to see what it would mean to write for me again. Not for a blog post, or an Insta caption. For my eyes only. No filtering, fluffing, or fixing allowed.⁠⠀
⁠⠀
And so began A Year of Reflection, where I sat down weekly with 1 simple passage and just a  journaling prompt to reflect on. Achingly simple, astoundingly profound.⁠⠀
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What I hoped would happen: I'd learn to hear myself.⁠ I'd break patterns. I'd finally learn what I wanted, not⁠ what I wanted to want.⁠⠀
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What actually happened: That - and everything⁠ else.⁠⠀
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I didn't expect a byproduct of confidence, this complete and unwavering clarity. I didn't expect improved writing, or braver conversations around the dinner table. Hell, I didn't expect to quietly untether myself from social media - but alas, wild things happen when you put pen to paper.⁠⠀
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So, round two. I'm doing it again, my simple 20 minute practice each week. But this time, I want you to join me.⁠

A Simple Smattering of Memories and Moods

Bang trims, watercolors, mango slices.

Musical recitals in the sunroom, his stage. He wants to learn taekwondo, needs to learn piano first, asks me to play ‘Road Race Rally’ on repeat.

For a bit, I say, sliding the door shut.

 

He remembers candy and legos from last winter, and our tradition begins. Yesterday, we signed him up at Master Kim's.

Already? Martin says.

Already.

—

We have had two dinner parties in two weeks. The first, pizza with our favorite kids – leisurely, loud, lovely – the second, more quiet with foam in the beer. The child seated at the piano performs well: just the one song, thanks.

At our first family dinner, we talk about the future and other people. The second, we talk about now and ourselves. Many of my doubts, much of his sureties.

But you’ve always said… 
I know…

At home, we laugh in the kitchen, a jealous dog left at Max's.

A gift from Divy: five sheets of paper stapled together, presented to his father. It’s a book, he says.

—

The boys want a ball or two, or many. When they are done playing softball outside they're thirsty, he makes the sound of a caveman; a grunt, or a mouthwash gurgle. He has been doing better with his group time, already in the dorm phase. 

How is Morgen doing? someone asks me last week.

But he already is on his own.

A gift from my mother: a Ziploc bursting with puzzles. For Divy, she says.

—

A quote in my journal: “I love you forever’ really means ‘Just trust me for now,’ which is all it ever means, and we just hope to keep renewing the “now,” year after year.” -Adam Gopnik

Rosy Thoughts

In my journal:
When you push your stroller past a group of elderly women, you’ll see in the turning gladness of their bodies a glimpse of the children they had been, turning toward the tin music of the ice cream van.

This is the time of year in which I am reminded that all people have goodness, and quite a lot of it. It’s the time of year in which businessmen driving BMWs, coffee-clutching mothers in minivans, school buses and garbage trucks and helmet-clad riders on triathlon bikes all come to a screeching halt, a total stand still, and wait patiently as a meek mother goose and her docile gaggle of eight amble across the road to safety.

I will never tire of the sight; an entire civilization making way for another. Ceasing business as usual to usher in an everyday miracle.

Aria has been hard at work in her latest humanitarian efforts to save the world. There are no-selfish roots in the quest, let the admission stand, as she’s intent only on gathering enough to feed the world for her just-now-finished play writing. 

They can have my written word! she says, before scampering off to the garden, and I’m left thinking of this odd spinning sphere and its twisty ways.

All else is all else: yardwork and wheelbarrows, painting finger-nails, blackberry chai. Ordering stacked vats of Chinese food and flinging the front door open, calling it a dinner party. Linen dresses coming out of storage, the faint familiarity of must and memories.

Rose dryer sheets for the old dress; rosy thoughts for the old wearer.

Hibernation

And so, it’s been Hibernation Station in these parts for something like six weeks? Bedhead, house shoes, clementines for breakfast. I was on vacation for a week, and I’m not certain Martin and I left the house for anything other than a milk run on a random Friday. It’s been lovely, really, and yet, Quarantine has this tired way of sucking you dry. The clouds hang low; the color drains from the world. It’s unsaturated, quiet, semi-maddening.

Luckily, it's beautiful right here. 

The fires are a delight, and I saved just enough room in my weekend for Divy’s stuffed panda and a pair of sneakers (he’s been into tumbling this week and let it be said for posterity: this is not a phase I should be encouraging, but really, you should see the panda’s transformative back flips. Stunn-ing.)

Now

Things I have been saying:
In a sec.
Pancakes or bread?
Careful!
Shoes.
Tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
Now.
 

My COVID Experience

Three Good Things I Did Today...

1. I lived another day. 

This is not pessimistic but grateful thinking. I woke up healthy, breathed fresh air, enjoyed working, driving, cooking, smiling, talking, watching friends post about their adventures during the COVID pandemic. 

2. I improved myself. 

I didn't just do what I needed to do, but I made steps to embrace what is possibly the hardest time in most of our lives. I didn't break down, instead I worked towards improving the situation. I spent time reading, planning things, preparing for finals, signing up for fall classes, and learned a few new things. 

3. I made differences to people. 

In my own small ways. Figured out a way to help our immunocompromised patient's feel safer with masks and private rooms for waiting, called my family on Group FaceTime and shared my care, spoke to my near and dearest, and worked on a couple of blog posts. 

I do a lot of things everyday, but what's the most important ones among them? All may be trivial and taken for granted, however, I'm grateful to live them, and to find strength to keep moving even during such a difficult time. 

See Markus' COVID Experience here...

Currently

The sun is shining, a side yard lilac bush is in bloom. When its Lilliputian flowers dance over to my back stoop, I can’t help but sense they’re carrying an early conception of chimera. As it stands, every idea I’ve pursued at length – plans snared to homes built to projects born to school proposed – has been hatched in the spring.

Generous lilacs, they are.

Really, it’s just that my brain is as seasonal as they come. Last winter, and every winter before, the pattern emerges: I cannot bake, I want to quit, I have nothing to make, not another cake.

Wait until April, Martin says while we are soaking in the tub, and he is always right.

 

In April, what with the remote work and home schooling, it is difficult to shut up.

For You

I have never believed in love at first sight, that we are able to give our hearts away upon one view or that after just one glance we are in love. But I do believe that the second I saw your eyes, I loved them. And the moment I saw your smile I loved it. And the instant I heard you laugh I fell in love with the sound.  

I have never believed in love at first sight, but I believe that after one glance in your direction, I have belonged to you. Completely. 

 

Great Magic

 Madeleine L’Engle once wrote about the great gift of love, the great cosmic pairing of two, and she said this:

“It’s a strange thing, how you can love somebody, how you can be all eaten up inside with needing them–and they simply don’t need you. That’s all there is to it, and neither of you can do anything about it. And they’ll be the same way with someone else, and someone else will be the same way about you and it goes on and on–this desperate need–and only once in a rare million do the same two people need each other.”

And when we do find that same one, that same one who needs us as we need them, it is great magic. It is great love.

Heaven

Later, he makes me a replacement cake – a special concoction with homemade icing, black currant jam, an ingredient sworn to secrecy. There’s some currants in there, he whispers, and I will myself to not devour the whole heavenly thing down.

Delicious, I tell him, because some times the grand scheme of things absolutely warrants pretense.

Yesterday, we colored Easter eggs and drank coffee in the kitchen and a pool of caffeine drains to my heart. Are you sad? Martin asks when he brings paper towels.

I want to tell him that I am not, that a global pandemic is no big deal in the grand scheme of things, but I notice that’s precisely what I feel, sad, and that sometimes, often, the scheme of things aren’t grand enough for pretense.

I say yes, and that I also feel happy to have someone here who understands.

Morgen is Morgen, which is to say that I’ve taken to him sending me selfies to disguise a smattering of bite marks, pink crescent moons of love and chagrin. He’ll kick the habit by summer, I think wishfully, for vanity sake alone. (I never was one for enforcing rules.)