Raise Your Glass!

If nothing else, 2011 taught me that life is unpredictable.

You know the story: I was climbing the Great Wall of China, just at the end of a bucket-list-style vacation, and two days later I was fleeing from my home in the aftermath of a terrible natural disaster. I felt jumbled and chaotic. I felt sad. I had to say goodbye to my husband, who had just come home, and then we were thrust back into the cycle of deployment and separation.

But 2011 wasn't the Year of the Disaster.

In 2011 I explored farmer's markets, family, and new foods with my mom. I watched my dad teach my girls how to plant a garden. I had a picnic near Walden Pond with my sister-in-law and my brother. I saw castles being sculpted out of snow and my little girl's face when she won her first horse show. I had midnight conversations with my baby. I kissed my husband. I welcomed him home. I even climbed the Great Wall of China. 

So really, 2011 wasn't a disaster; it just gave a sense of urgency to my adventures.

Life is good and life is bad; it's all mixed up and random, but I think the trick is to seize each moment as it comes, to hold it in your hand like treasure, and then to hang on tight for the next adventure.

Happy New Year!

...a day meant for laughing

"That's MY spot!"

"No, it's MINE!"

"That's not fair! You kicked me! Mommy, she kicked me!"

"It's MY spot!"

"No, it's MINE! I want to snuggle Mommy!"

"No, I want to snuggle Mommy!"

"Girls, stop it!" The first rays of light were playing at the window, but the room was dark. My eyes were burning. "Stop fighting! Do you hear me? Just stop fighting!"

"But she kicked me," Katherine shouted, "and that's not fair! You said I could come in for morning snuggles and I want to snuggle you, Mommy!"

"No, I want to snuggle you, Mommy!"

"But she kicked me and THAT'S NOT FAIR. Hey, she's taking my pillow! Give that back! That's MY pillow!"

I rubbed my eyes. My mouth was dry. "Just stop it, both of you," I mumbled.  

"But I want to snuggle you, Mommy!"

"No, I want to snuggle you, Mommy!"

They glared at each other and then lunged toward me: hands, knees and elbows, clawing and frantic.

"She's MY mommy!"

"No! She's MY Mommy!"

Anger welled up inside my throat and pooled there, tight and constricting: They'll eat me if I let them.

I sat up in bed and pushed them away. "Get off of me!" I shouted. "Just STOP IT! Both of you, STOP IT! What do you want from me anyway? I'm only one person and I've only been awake for two seconds."

They grew quiet; startled. Penelope rested her head on my shoulder. "I'm sorry, Mommy," she whispered. Then Katherine slipped her hand in my hand. "Don't be mad at us, Mommy. It's not the end of the world. We're sorry."

I shook my head. "I just don't know what you guys expect me to do when you fight over me like that. I want to snuggle you, but I was asleep. And I'm only one person."

"Just don't be mad at us, okay?"

Penelope stroked my hair.

Katherine looked worried. "We're sorry, Mommy," she repeated. "But you said today was going to be a beautiful, laughing day, remember? You said we wouldn't be cooped-up and grumpy."

I shook my head. None of this was happening the way I'd intended. "I said that, huh?"

"Yes. Don't you remember?" Katherine's eyes were wide and anxious. Penelope was nodding.

I sighed. "Are you sure?"

"Yes! Last night you said, 'I'm sorry we've been so cooped-up and grumpy. Tomorrow we'll go outside and play because it's supposed to be pretty.' See? Today was supposed to be our beautiful, laughing day. Remember?"

Outside the window the sunlight brightened.

I sighed again. "Yes, I remember, but before we can play," I leaned in closer, "I need my snuggles."

I smiled and pulled them toward me, wrapping my rainbow quilt around them. They nestled themselves into the thick folds of fabric. They were suddenly soft, and suddenly sleepy.

"Oh, but wait!" I paused. "I forgot! Before I can snuggle you I have to give you...tickles!"

They shrieked. They squirmed.

They giggled.

After all, the day was meant for laughing. 

Muddled in the Aftermath

December 26th, 9:45pm

Chris (exasperated; pausing our movie): Why won't they go to sleep, Emma?

Me: I don't know, love. They're little. They're probably still excited.

Chris:  Yeah, well, it's almost 10pm. They should've been asleep hours ago. I'm going in there. What should I tell them?

Me: I don't know. Just tell them...tell them if they don't quiet down right now we're going to have to celebrate them or something.

Chris (laughing): We're going to have to celebrate them? That'll definitely work! Way to take a firm hand, honey.

Me (throwing a pillow at him): Separate them! We're going to have to separate them! Warn them with a celebration.

Chris (laughing harder): With a celebration?

Me: What? No! No, I said a separation!

Christmas Morning

I hope your morning was full of magic. Merry Christmas!

The Countdown to Christmas

The stockings are hung, the cookies (and carrots) are waiting, the girls are asleep, the kolach is in the oven, and Chris just poured me a glass of red wine.

Now all we have to do is wait for Santa.

It's my favorite countdown of the season! Merry (almost) Christmas, everyone!

The Nutcracker

Morning baths. Stiff fabrics. Christmas dresses.

The moment she realized she wasn't going to be dancing.

Train after train after train.

Soba at the station.

Standing outside the theater, and quickly...

 ...rushing in; and then:

Katherine's hand slipped in my hand. A little girl's hair bow silhouetted against the stage. Penelope, snuggled deep in her daddy's lap, hands pressed against her cheeks, gasping as the Mouse King launched his attack. Penelope, arms outstretched now, fingers spread, dancing the Dance of the Snowflakes. The rustle of two, little skirts in the darkness. Then, as the Sugarplum Fairy gathered her delights, Katherine's whispered exclamation:

Oh Mama, it's beautiful.

Look! Oh, look!

Do you see this, Mama?

Santa Be Warned...

...there's not a cookie here we haven't tasted.

Oh no! It's a mischief!

Penelope: Mom, do I look like a mischief?

Me: Yes baby, always.

Penelope: Hey Katherine, you better watch out! A mischief is coming!

Katherine: Oh no! Not a mischief! EEEEKKKK!!!!!!

My Knight in Shining Armour

Chris (groaning): I don't want to go to work tomorrow, Emma. Don't make me.

Me: Okay, love, stay home.

Chris: No, I have to go. Unless you go to work for me. What do you think? You could go work on the ship and I could stay home and watch the kids. We'll swap! Great idea, huh?

Me: Um...

Katherine (furrowed-browed; stern): Daddy, stop teasing Mommy!

Chris (hands raised; innocent): But I'm not teasing Mommy! All I'm saying is, Mommy could go to work for me and I could stay home and take care of you and Penny. Think about it! We could have fun!

Katherine (glowering now; serious): Penny and I will play with you after work, Daddy, but stop it now. You're being mean to Mommy!

Chris: What are you talking about? I want to stay home and play with you! How could that possibly mean I'm being mean to Mommy?

Katherine (sputtering): Because Mommy doesn't know how to work, and you know it!

Oh! If only every mother could have such a dedicated defender! What can I say though? She's a chivalrous girl, that one.

Inside the Bamboo Garden

Lately, I've been longing for natural spaces. I've been yearning for Sicily, the scene of all our old nature walks, games and explorations. And I've been homesick for Oklahoma, with its red dirt and secret places. I miss spending mornings in our garden.

Today, though, we found a different garden.

We spent the day at Hokokuji Temple in Kamakura, a hidden treasure in the middle of the city, and you can trust me when I tell you, it was exactly what we've been needing. 

What We Don't Have (And What We Do)

A few days ago Chris and I were talking about the lives we imagined for ourselves when we were younger, the lives we thought we'd have by now, and the lives we still (kind of) think our friends are already living. They're good lives --- lives played out on tree-lined streets where basketball goals dot the sky above the driveways and children scrawl hopscotch courts in chalk across the sidewalks --- and Chris and I can see ourselves inside them, but they're a far cry from the life we're actually living.

The conversation was discouraging.

We talked about the big things we don't have, like a house, or a car, or our kids enrolled in private schools, and the small things, like a full-length mirror, or an extra lamp, or even bedside tables, and I felt suddenly and intensely (and for the first time, really) like we'd fallen behind somehow. We'd forgotten to keep up with the Joneses.

We Don't Have:

• a house
• a car
• a lawnmower (or a lawn!)
• fashionable clothes
• a washer/dryer
• a headboard
• bedside tables
• a dresser for Penelope
• a desk with drawers
• more than four dining room chairs 

Once I had time to think about it though, I realized something important: Chris and I were being crazy. We're blessed.

We Have:

• stamps in our passports
• charities we support
• family dinners
• a good climbing tree for the kids (at the park)
• savings
• books lining our bookshelves (and tossed into baskets) (and stacked up in piles on the bedroom floors)
• friends
• conversations
• tickets to see the ballet in Tokyo
• a train station we can walk to, and
• plane tickets to Vietnam and Cambodia

We aren't living the life we always imagined. We don't have a four-bedroom house on a winding street. We don't have flowers planted in porch pots or in a well-ordered, backyard garden. Our kids don't have ready access to open, green spaces, but they have other advantages. We have an amazing life together -- a life we can't predict or settle into or take for granted -- and we're happy.

We're grateful.

***

What about you? How does the life you're living compare to the one you always imagined?

Swift-footed, fleeting

Two hawks circle above the trees. Their wings extend across the cloudless sky.

Beneath the trees, children are playing. My girls are among them: two blonde heads in a sea of glittering black ones. They run across the grass and their braids fly out behind them. Foreign words tumble from their lips; words they've just learned; words that soon will be forgotten: chotto matte, kudasai.

I slip my hands in my pockets and turn my head to watch them.

Part Two: The Celebration

The cake was half crumbled and we ran out of powdered sugar well before we finished making the frosting, but I think my favorite part of Chris's birthday cake this year was...

...the last minute candle addition. I have it on good authority that you can't have a birthday cake without a candle; so, Chris: happy 5th, or happy 33rd, or something.

However old you are, you should know...

...you are deeply loved.

Happy Birthday!

Part One: Reveling in Ordinary

"Hey Katherine, I forgot to ask earlier, but were you late for school yesterday morning?"

"Late? What are you talking about, Mommy?"

"You left the house later than usual yesterday morning, remember? We talked about how you were going to have to scurry!"

"Oh yeah, that's right, but I have no idea. I don't remember."

"Really? Well, do you remember if the kids were still in line when you got there or if they were already in the classroom?"

"No."

"Oh, okay, um, if you're sure you don't remember --- really?"

"I really don't remember. The thing you don't understand about me, Mommy, is that I don't have great, big, google eyes that can roll around and see in every direction. When you ask me things like that, like about the school line yesterday, it makes me feel bad because I can't remember. I can't see behind me, Mommy."

"All right, well, then that's something I'll try to remember."

***

The past few weeks have been a blur for me, a hazy progression of beds made, then unmade, of meals cooked, then eaten, of laundry washed, then worn, and even though I've been happy -- joyous, even -- I haven't wanted to record it. I don't know why.

It's ordinary, and I'm reveling in ordinary.

I'm not thinking about the next step. I'm not longing for the next big moment. I'm just here, living, not striving, while the girls eat popcorn and drink hot chocolate on the living room floor. They're wide-eyed and flushed, watching a Christmas program.

Right now, the rain outside our window is falling as steadily as the sunset. Chris's birthday cake is cooling on the counter; it's lopsided, but homemade, and decorated with candy canes in a lumpy, buttercream frosting. Penelope helped me bake it, and after school Katherine did the decorations. I have dirty dishes in the sink and steaks marinating in the refrigerator, and as soon as I finish typing this I'm going to start roasting red potatoes for dinner.

Chris just called. He'll be home in half an hour.

***

The thing is, I don't have great, big google eyes that can roll around and see in every direction either, but if I did I think these are the moments I'd want to remember.

Scenes from {My Mom's} Life: Mikey

Happy December, friends!

This month I'm featuring a very special edition of Scenes from Life. It's a testament to the lasting effects of love and friendship, and it was written by an incredibly talented, but non-blogging, guest writer; so, grab a tissue and settle in --- because nobody tells a story like my mom.

Mikey

by Janie

We must have been a sight. Him, blond-haired and plump, still holding onto the sweet look of a toddler even though he no longer was one; me, my once blond hair beginning to darken, unruly, skinny, growing like a weed, they said, with knees stained red from the red clay dirt that touched every surface of the town. If things had turned out the way they should have, age and gender differences would have separated us eventually. I like to think we would have smiled at one another across the gap.

Time has softened the edges of my memories. Our friendship may have lasted a summer or more. In those days, when I still lived completely in the moment, a week would have been enough. If things had turned out the way they should have, you might say I would have forgotten Mikey, but I’ve lived long enough to know better. We can forget any memory that lives in our brain, but we never forget the ones that live in our heart; and, in all these years, my heart hasn’t let so many people in that it's had to turn someone out to make space.

I have a few clear memories of how we spent our time. We walked up and down the dirt road between our houses. We drank the Kool-Aid our moms handed out through back screen doors. We sat on logs, stacks of wood, or concrete steps --- we were nearly always outside --- and we talked a lot about buying diamonds for our mothers, or, depending on how the day was going, maybe some other lucky family member. Mostly, we were planning to buy them for each other.

Memories are strange. Sometimes they’re fickle and the things you think you should remember escape you, while random things remain, either in their entirety or in vivid bits. I remember it being a beautiful summer day. My mother was working outside. I was playing in the yard, and then I didn’t feel well. My neck felt stiff and my head ached. My mother was uncharacteristically brisk when I told her, saying that if I didn’t feel well I should go inside and lie down --- the mothers’ litmus test. I remember lying in bed feeling strange and a little neglected, but it’s probably the events that followed that make me remember all this. My mother came in and checked on me. She seemed different, less distracted. I started to feel better and got up after a bit. Later, women started coming over. They were talking to my mother, sometimes in hushed tones, and sometimes not. I was still small enough that my impressions were mostly of their legs and skirts, and their voices above me.

The women brought the details. It happened quickly.

Mikey died in a small town hospital, and what I remember most are the descriptions of his parents’ reactions. Those are etched in my heart, as if I knew the burden was too heavy for them to carry alone. I never knew what the illness was, but it almost surely would have had a different outcome today. I sometimes wonder about the way I felt that day, if my symptoms mirrored his, whether our hearts were somehow communicating. I’ll never know.

I only know that Mikey was my friend.

Penelope's First Recital

Once upon a time, when I was three years old (maybe), my parents took me bowling. I must have looked sweet that day, crouching over the ball with my blonde pigtails swinging, because my dad told me about it once years later.

"I wish I had a picture," he said. Then he paused, "but I guess it doesn't really matter. I'll never forget the way you looked that day."

I know what he meant. I'll never forget today, either.

The throng of people; the crowd; the crush, and Penelope following after her teacher. Penelope in her long-sleeved black leotard, with a sparkly star on her tummy and puffy, pink pom-poms in her hair. Katherine in the front row and Penelope being oh, so brave on-stage.

And afterward, moment...

...by moment...

...I want to remember.

But here's the un-photographed moment. The tender one I'll always treasure:

"Did you have fun at your recital today?" I asked, bending low over her bed. She was all lit up in the moonlight, or the streetlights, and when I leaned forward my body cast a shadow on the wall behind her. I arranged the quilts around her anyway. "I was so proud of the way you danced today!" I smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead.

"I did have fun, Mommy," she sighed. "I had so much fun today." She yawned. Then she whispered, "will you sing to me before I go to sleep tonight, Mommy?"

"Okay," I said, and started singing.

Hush little baby, don't say a word, Mommy's gonna show you a hummingbird.

Her eyes were wide and dark and heavy; her shoulders were lost inside her big sister's yellow t-shirt, good for the inside of a child; and, with her hair still in bunny ears, two, small buns all disarranged, she raised her arms into fifth position, closed her eyes, and started to sway.

***

Sweet dreams, sweet dancer. You did a beautiful job today.

Penelope and the Disrespectful Pirate

Me: Oh no, it's the Dread Pirate Penelope! Watch out! She's coming for the treasure, Cap'n Bones! Watch out!

Chris: Aargh, the Dread Pirate Penelope doesn't frighten me. I'm Cap'n Bones and I'll steal the treasure and lock her in me brig.

The Dread Pirate Penelope rushes into the room. Her skull cap is askew. Her hands are on her hips.

Penelope: That's not very respectful, Cap'n Bones! I don't want to play with you!

Chris: Ha-ha! But I'm a pirate, me hearty, and that means I'm disrespectful.

Sunlight sweeps in through the window. A sharp-edged glint comes into Penelope's eye.

Penelope: Well, I don't play with disrespectful pirates. I only play with respectful ones.

Me: Aren't all pirates disrespectful though?

Penelope: Not Captain Hook. He captures anything, and he's very mean, but he's always respectful.

Me: Oh. Yes. Quite right.

Chris (sweeping Penelope into his arms): Aargh! Hook's a codfish! I've got the treasure now, me dear, and you're coming with me to the brig. Ha-ha!

Penelope (shrieking, laughing): No! No! Bad form!