betrothed

the eve to christmas eve, i can't believe it. i've been counting the days until the 25th for the past month and now, less than two days away, i have to remind myself it's almost here. still need to wrap some presents. still need to get some work done for my office job. all of a sudden though, i just can't seem to get my head in the game. my usual level of distraction is so far exceeded that i can barely remember my name.

i wonder why.


on monday afternoon, in the middle of a mountain top hike, in the middle of a mountain biking excursion, in the middle of an embrace, haley asked me to marry her. despite all my eager anticipation of the moment and daydreams about how it may happen, i was totally blindsided and a split second slow to recognize this is it! but it didn't take long for me to catch up and i haven't come down off that mountain yet.

engaged.
engaged and in love.
engaged and certain.

it seems that most relationships start out at their peak. the honeymoon. the high. and then, some faster than others, they start a steady and often precipitous decline until one or both parties extricate themselves from the rubble. but this time it's different for me.

sure, we started off on an endorphin high and rode that wave just like everyone else. but there's been something else in our relationship..even since the beginning.. something i couldn't put a finger on. i think it was a rawness. rough edges. a process. pace. reality pressing in from the very beginning.

and, quite honestly where i may have expected that to scare me away, the journey..the growth.. has bonded my heart to haley's in a way i've never known. unlike any relationship prior, and most that i see around me, ours has simply become better and better over the past two years.

so now...engaged. a promise to be married. betrothed.

the word betroth comes from the latin betreuthe, be treuthe, be true.
and maybe that's what it was that i couldn't put a finger on, the thing that makes us magical together. truth. her truth. my truth.

our truth, together.

d: holidays as bright for you as mine are already
b: i'm engaged!
g: our truth has set me free.

fanfare

last saturday todd tested for his black belt in taekwondo. to say i was proud is an understatement. the full swell of pride was only tempered by the emotional surge i had the night before, when i watched his last class before the pivotal exam, and was brought to tears by the magnitude of change i saw.

i've been taking him to martial arts classes for years now. and i've watched him work his way up through the colored belts with little more than memory and basic technique mastery. the fact that the master instructor handed me the application for black belt a few months ago for todd was both surprising and worrisome. even in my maternally biased opinion, i didn't see how he could go from where he was to black belt over three months. sure, he knew the techniques, but his literal technique was lacking that special oomph i saw in the black belts of the academy. his focus and his power, they left much to be desired.

but on the advice of master ji i enrolled him in the additional, time-consuming and expensive, course that was required in advance of examination. unlike the colored belt tests which are held every two months, the black belt test is only offered twice a year. hence the readiness training had a sense of urgency on top of the pressure of the penultimate evaluation in martial arts. i took him to every scheduled class, driving 50 miles round trip for each one. and he forewent school dances, dinner invitations and all else social on thursday and friday nights for almost three months.

during these classes, i would take care of errands. go for a run at the nearby park. read and/or nap in the car. very rarely did i sit in the uncomfortable chairs at the academy and watch. so when i did, on the last night of his training, i was met with that strangely alarming feeling parents occasionally get when they see their growing child after an extended absence and they look suddenly taller and more mature.

seemingly overnight, although literally anything but, todd grew into his black belt. crisp, powerful motions. textbook stances. and a serious countenance that honestly looked foreign to me. i really did wipe away tears.

at his colored belt tests he always struggled most with the board breaking. his casual approach to technique didn't give adequate power when met with wooden resistance. he told me that was the only thing he was worried about for the black belt exam day. but when the time came to break boards, his foot went through them like they were holding wet noodles.

*applause*

this summer when todd performed at band camp i was overcome with pride. it was perhaps the fullest my heart had ever been with parental pride. luke noticed. he also noticed how much fun todd had there that week, it was evident in his non-stop chatter on the way home. luke made an off-hand remark that the trumpet looked like it may be fun to play and i wasted no time in obtaining an instrument and a private instructor.

when i gave it to him, he said, 'oh, i wasn't sure i really wanted to play..' but i said, 'just give it a try, you might like it..' the elementary school he transferred to in town starts children in third grade for band (third grade!) so he was a couple years behind his classmates. the school band director said he needed basic instrument and music reading skills before he could join his peers, so unbeknownst to luke, i set him on a course to join the band mid-year.

before his first few lessons and at every directive to 'go practice trumpet' i heard a litany of complaints ranging from 'i'm just not a band kid' to 'it's dumb'. i held firm that i'd rented the instrument for a school year (not really true) and that he couldn't quit until the contract was up and he tried the school band (my decision). he believed me, i think; and then i started to see him turn a corner.

his affection for his private instructor, which started with healthy skepticism and migrated through curiosity, has settled into real admiration. the instructor told me about a month ago that luke should be ready to join the band and so i contacted the school band director. but no sooner did i make that contact than all of luke's confidence evaporated. i agreed to delay it until he felt ready.

last week the school band played their holiday concert and luke attended with a friend. he came home intent on joining not only the regular band, but also the jazz band, as soon as possible. this week, he met with the band director before school on the last day before the holiday; played his scales and his latest mastered song. the director said, 'Perfecto!' and welcomed him into the band. luke immediately asked about jazz band and is joining that in january, after the holidays, as well.

*applause*

he told me at dinner that night that it was the proudest he's ever been of himself. i could relate. just in this week alone, my two sons have made me the proudest mom i've ever been.

d: may they feel the love contained in my pride
b: i pushed the right buttons at the right times
g: a budding musician and an accomplished martial artist

amusings

it's been years, at least 14, since i've been in a laundromat. but just yesterday i walked out of the gym with haley and said "mmm, that smells good..like a laundromat". she said "really? all i smell is the greasy cheesesteak place," looking to our left at the armpit of ansley mall. i don't know why i smelled laundry right then..maybe the wind was blowing some lint scented air from the laundry lounge at the other end of the shopping center..maybe the dry cleaners we passed were secretly washing and drying someone's precious delicates..or maybe it was the universe prepping me for today, also known as a premonition. because today, after the frozen pipes on our unheated laundry porch thawed and the washer filled with warm soapy water it decided to give up the ole bottom-of-the-line-maytag ghost. i should add, also after my clothes were thoroughly submerged.

alas with temperatures dropping to near artic lows i don't really have the option of ignoring the problem and hoping it'll heal overnight. so, i wrung the load out best i could, hefted the 50 lbs of sopping clothes into a laundry basket, which then proceeded to saturate my pants, socks, and shoes, and took them urgently to the nearest laundromat..the aforesmelled laundry lounge. leaving a steady stream of water in my wake, i stormed the closest washer and stuffed it with my clothes, the towels i protected my car with, and the first set of wet pants and socks...

then off to pick todd up from band practice..no time to dry them - as we were making the weekly trek to taekwondo in the 'burbs with not a minute to spare. hence, my hunt for a suburban coin operated laundry. i kid you not, i counted over a dozen dry cleaners before i found the first laundromat. and the laundry lounge it is not.

where the laundry lounge had the requisite assortment of vending machines and video games, a friendly clientele and staff, a comfortable seating area (fitting its lounge description), not to mention free coffee and wifi; the suburban closet-sized facility is more resembling of my laundry porch at home. that is to say, unheated and uninhabited and outdated. the dryers don't even have a price or timer on them, simply an unmarked coin slot. i assume it takes quarters. however, i have no idea how long my deposit will power this antiquated machine.

yes, it's been a very long time since i've used a laundromat.

but that's ok. it's mildly amusing. i'll eventually replace my washer with a machine that can hold more than two pairs of jeans at a time, and that'll be a welcome lifestyle improvement. the installation of the new device will require the stove, fridge and dryer to be removed..and at least one door. (free delivery, muahaha!) that will be mildly amusing too.

it's a little over a week till christmas. i'm 90% ready and 100% excited. i told the boys that we aren't having a vending machine holiday and that i was only committing to taking their requests into consideration, rather than obligation. i know they'll be happy with where we net out and the mystery of it makes it so much more fun. similarly, haley and i are keeping all gifts secret. i know most couples don't necessarily go to the extremes we do to make christmas surprises so surprising. but most couples aren't as extreme as we are, period.

our christmas tree is right outside the french doors to our bedroom. we leave the lights on 24-7 and i fall asleep and wake to my own sugarplum dreams. so, perhaps the domestic drama of having a broken washing machine, mid-week, mid-wash cycle is just the sort of amusing distraction i need ten days out from christmas.

d: sugarplum dreams come true
b: olfactory premonition precision
g: extreme anticipatory amusement

cookie

-photo by renee lewis

there's something about baking..not that i do it much, but i do love the process and result. of course, the best part is the aroma when something delicious is in the oven.

watching todd turn into a teenager reminds me of baking. i've been so, so impatient for him to get there. to see how he turns out. to watch him rise through those pivotal years into a young man. but now that it's upon me i can only wish i'd savored the process more because all too quickly it's passing in front of my eyes and soon, like a batch of fresh cookies, he'll be gone. already he's gone a lot more..

i'm in luck though; because although he isn't as pliable and doesn't smell as good as he used to, i still have the sweet, sweet morsels and a little more to sink my teeth into.

d: patience with the process
b: never mind my inexperience, i make a damn good cookie
g: the crumbs i get are just as delicious as they ever were

winner

last week i had two training clients make quite opposite but both powerful insights about themselves. one woman told me that she needed to be pushed because she doesn't believe she can push herself beyond "hard". fairly common refrain in personal training. even other trainers have told me they regularly hire trainers themselves to get that extra push beyond the comfort zone. i firmly believe we are predominantly limited by our minds..our bodies have much more capacity than we give them credit for.

the other woman though said something i have never heard from another client and regrettably don't often experience myself. she said, "I hear what you're asking me to do, and I think 'no problem', envisioning myself doing it with ease. But then, I try and my body just isn't cooperative." i reassured her that her body would catch up quickly but as we worked through the next set, my mind really went to work on that idea. it truly is the mind of an athlete. one who believes they have ability beyond what they see. this woman may voice embarrassment about her current fitness level, but the picture she has of her body's capability carries much more weight.

without a doubt she will be successful.
without a doubt she will master the challenge she faces.
without a doubt, because her mind's eye already has envisioned that reality for her.

this weekend we spent hours on the sidelines of luke's soccer tournament. of course i love watching him play, but the young female athletes always impress me too. part of it is no doubt a longing for something I missed as a kid, but setting that aside, i simply enjoy these young women and their energy. their feminine sides merged with this primitive, masculine drive to compete and win.

a little girl, about luke's age, was taking a pit stop with her parents beside me and I overheard..
"You make a good argument.."
"I know. That's why I'm going to be an attorney...not that it's my dream but I'm still going to," she replied to her dad, matter of fact.
...a few minutes pass...
as if remembering, or suddenly catching up with the dialogue, her father says, "What's your dream?"
"Fashion design."
no comment...another few minutes pass.
"I'll see you later."
"Bye honey. Don't wear yourself out before the game.."

bye honey. no time for dreaming.
bye honey. back to business now.
bye honey. win.

admittedly it was a snippet overheard. i have no idea the real nature of their relationship. i have no idea if the pre-teen aspiring fashion designer has a different dream every day. but never mind all that because this conversation happens all the time with children and parents and adults and supervisors and students and teachers with the same moral.

do what you know. play it safe. far fetched ideas about ourselves are for children.

i reject that notion. i believe far fetched ideas about ourselves..our potential.. our dreams: they are for athletes. and i, for one, am an athlete.

d: big dreams come true
b: i am an athlete
g: athletes are winners

thawing

for the past three days i've been itching to write. i've opened my computer at night and considered putting my disconnected and jumbled thoughts and feelings to words. and then, because my fingers wouldn't move, i didn't.

and i don't mean 'wouldn't move' in the figurative writer's block way. i mean, 'wouldn't move' as in stiff as little twigs and unable to bend. or maybe a better visual would be popsicles.

last weekend we enjoyed the last of the fall weather i suppose. it was glorious for halloween. i was able to build a fire and wear a short skirt on sunday night and neither felt out of place or uncomfortable. the skies were clear and warm during the day and mildly cool in the evening. but monday morning, we woke to a rainy winter.

i quickly got on the phone with the natural gas company because the forecast showed temperatures dropping into the 30's with freeze warnings for the latter part of the week. [side note: our 'new' old house uses gas only for the furnace, so no need to turn it on until..umm... now.] of course, i couldn't get an appointment for another five days, so for the past three we've frozen.

i've found myself on a couple separate occasions sitting in the drive way or a sunny parking lot in my car. reading. napping. eating. just being warm. and i've vowed every which way from sunday that next year i'll turn the damn gas on in august, just to be safe. because nothing makes a house feel less like a home than a temperature that makes you want to torch it.

with all that in mind, i have much to say. i've just finished a tremendous book. a tremendously dog-eared book now. i cried and laughed and cried my way from cover to cover and then felt a bit depressed that it was over. i will write about it. i've seen a movie that i'm still marinating in. and i watched a new tv show that's on my mind as well. did you hear that portia de rossi has a new book out about her struggle with eating disorder? the interview i heard with her moved me to tears in the car. the book is ordered.

i have much to write about. but tonight is the first weekend haley and i have had alone in a month and she's on her way home. so it will have to wait another day. our now warm house is about to get hot...

d: candles on. phones off.
b: my homework and my housework are done. (the dryer makes an excellent space heater in a bind - make note.)
g: heat.

dis-comforted

they say there's comfort in numbers. they say that misery loves company.

today is election day. today is foreclosure day. one has a silver lining and the other doesn't seem to. (yet)

i've been at the old house several times over the past few weeks. thinking each time that i'm done and then discovering another nook of memories unsorted and uncollected. the scent of the house was the most poignant and debilitating when i first returned. though empty and unoccupied, it still smelled of us. i lived there longer than any other house in my life and every part of it was chosen by me, from the dirt it was built on to the roof line and everything in between. for a person whose childhood homes outnumbered her years and her control, it was my first sanction of stability and independence.

and yet that stability slipped out from under my feet like quicksand. and my sanctuary turned albatross. and today, foreclosure day, when i finally have the utilities turned off and have relinquished ownership of 3910 embassy way i'm choosing gratitude over guilt and hope over shame. because the stability and security i imagined bound to an address has put down deeper roots and bolstered my spirit in a home i only lay the faintest claim to.

and i take comfort in numbers. one in ninety-eight households in atlanta are involved in a foreclosure. that's the latest data, just released a few days ago. as a city we should be feeling very comforted, very comfortable indeed.

as an american citizen on election night though, i'm feeling very uncomfortable this evening. i turned off the play-by-play coverage instead electing to take my medicine in one disgusting swallow tomorrow morning.

and in a city where the three metro-est congressional districts, and the ones surrounding and encompassing my entire life, are represented by democrats i take little comfort in the adage: misery loves company; for the misery outweighs their company tonight.

d: a miraculous final tally
b: discovery that stability and security are not defined by brick and plaster, but rather the love within
g: closure by way of foreclosure

easy

well, it's been ages since i've written anything. at least anything worth publishing. and honestly, i don't know that this will be any different; but i'm going to give it a shot at least.

luke and i just joined my mom for four days in our nation's capitol. my earliest memories are of that city so it's a special treat to go back and share it with my boys. the only two visits i've made there since i was five years old have been these excursions with my own children. the significance and energy of the city was lost on me thirty years ago, as i'm sure it is on them too, but the magnitude has made an impact on me that i have a hard time articulating.

the trip to dc was sandwiched between pride weekend, which coincided with haley's birthday, and a trip this upcoming weekend to arkansas to celebrate my parents' thirty year anniversary. to say i'm overwhelmed with celebration would be an understatement. the wave of serotonin is crashing on a beach of sleep deprivation.

but, all things considered, i'm finding things easy. travel usually isn't. party throwing usually isn't. being a major contributor at work on top of all that, usually isn't. and balancing the whole stack of plates, usually isn't.

but it is.

i'm not sure where to attribute the ease. i don't think there's a single source, but if i had to guess i think haley characterized it last night in an unrelated comment she made. she told me that she can sense herself feeling like a simpler approach to her wardrobe would be just fine. she chalks it up to aging, (she's aged exponentially since her birthday apparently) but i prefer to think of it as maturity. (not that we're all that mature, granted.) but when she said that, it made me smile and it made me happy. i could relate, not really in the wardrobe department so much, but just in general. and together...

easy does it.

i think i've mentioned before that i'm drawn to the energy of middle aged women. i always enjoyed the company of my mom's friends when they were in their 40's and 50's and admired the peace with which they move through the world. the wisdom of their experience. the accomplishment in their lives. now it seems that more of my own friends are in that age bracket and it feels very warm. very comfortable. (perhaps we are aging exponentially after all!)

easy does it.

unfortunately, it seems that easy doesn't stimulate me to write as much as i'd like. something to work on. and so here i am.

d: more words on paper.. er, or pixels.
b: simplicity..maturity.. easily
g: a wave of serotonin

hurry

today i went by my old house to check on things and fill the fish pond. i hadn't been there in a week or so and it's always a treat to see what the neighbors have lifted off our property in the interim. this time however it wasn't the neighbors (i think everything has already been taken that's not tied down), but rather the bank.

we're slated for foreclosure next week barring the miracle of a buyer or the megaball in friday's drawing. i've resigned myself to that possibility over the past six months as i watched my realtor drop the price and drop the price and drop the price and still nobody, not a single soul, even coming to see it; let alone making an offer. but today when i showed up at the house i was not expecting to see that the bank had jumped the gun a bit. i found two of the three locks changed. the utilities (which i'm still paying for) turned off. and the house officially 'winterized'. gee thanks mr. mortgage company.

apparently they are in a goddamn hurry. and now their hurry has killed my fish and spoiled the food i still had in the freezer.

i do plan to set them straight in the morning, for what it's worth. that house is still mine and they have no business changing the locks or even stepping foot in there until that's not the case.

after that fun discovery at the house i went for a run at the park, mega's leash around my waist and her relentless hurry motivating me over the hills and around the strolling pedestrians. i corrected her too, as i wanted a jog rather than a sprint.

on the way from the park to pick up todd at taekwondo i saw a man drive away from a gas pump and take the hose with him. it ripped right out of the machine still in his truck's gas tank. apparently he was in a hurry. seems to be going around, sort of like the back-to-school-cold.

i have a close friend who's found herself in a different kind of hurry. rushing a relationship to maturity before its time. it's caused her some heartache and my heart has broken in empathy over the past week.

slow down.
slow down, my friend.
slow down, my pet.
slow down, my bank.
slow down, strangers in your cars.

our days are so full this fall. the boys have earlier school alarms and later bed times. in between there are more lessons and practices and homework. i have more varied obligations and passions. and though the agenda is multiplying, the hours are not.

and even so, i'm choosing to slow down. each minute, even when there aren't enough, is felt more tangibly and deliciously when i don't hurry it away. i am reminded of this tonight. the air is crisp. the windows are open. fall is leisurely rolling in. this season between the scorching and the freezing is nature's reminder to me that there's no need to hurry.

d: less hurry
b: more delicious minutes
g: fall's reminder

vroom

vroom. tonight my mind is racing and i'm trying hard to keep up.

todd has a friend over and the only thing that they've found to entertain themselves with is some abduction role play; to which i've now put a firm foot down upon. the sound of falling bodies, hysterical laughter, and the ensuing eruption of ferocious barking bedlam quickly alerted me that i needed to intervene. now they're playing some sort of game which involves a buzzer, but even that's preferable to the whispers of 'we need more duct tape' that i heard half an hour ago.

vroom.
on my last road trip with the boys they spent a good hour or two asking me 'this or that' questions about high priced sports cars. the questions went something like, 'bugati or aston martin?' to which i'd reply, 'umm, can i see pictures?' then they'd google up some photos on my phone and i'd carefully choose, 'the red one.'

my education on two seater cars that reach stupid high speeds in milliseconds and cost stupid high dollars hasn't been very thorough, i have to admit. but really, i haven't noticed. currently driving the sportiest car i've ever even considered, a mustang; i spend more time daydreaming about an outback station wagon with four doors and all wheel drive than a bigger engine and less seats.

but i do try to take note of things that show up in my life and today has been strangely synchronistic on this topic.

this morning at luke's soccer game todd and i were eavesdropping on the parents sitting on his other side. it was hard not to because in between the 'great shot max!' cheers, one of the fathers was waxing poetic about his deliberation over which ultra high end sports car he was going to buy. or maybe he already had. i couldn't follow it. i did glance over todd's head to see what a person who had six figures of purely disposable spending cash looked like and honestly, i think the man may want to consider something with a bench seat rather than a bucket. that aside, he and his friend were honest-to-god debating the pros and cons of brands that i've only heard mentioned by my children and the guys on top gear.

i didn't think twice of it after the game, until haley and i pulled up behind a sparkly, shiny red ferrari. i'm sure it's not the first one i've ever seen, but perhaps it's the closest i've ever been. i even took a picture to show the boys.

vroom.

and then, a few hours later, walking out of publix i see a car i've never seen before. not in person at least. i watch the breathtaking black sportscar pull into a parking spot far from the door and immediately i ready my phone to take a picture. it's a lotus.

vroom.

i'm fairly observant when it comes to cars, mostly because i'm looking at their tags for messages and their bumper stickers for solidarity, and i see a representative sample of expensive cars here in midtown. but i do not see ferraris and lotuses (loti?) on any sort of regular basis. and so i took note.

and my mind started racing (appropriate, no?) to land on the symbolism in this entertaining synchronicity..and it hasn't stopped. along the way, i considered the possibility that perhaps we won the megamillion last night. (because an overpriced sports car is definitely at the top of the boys' lottery wish list.) so, i dutifully went to my car (again, appropriate eh?) to retrieve my weekly lottery ticket. pulled up the numbers on my computer. and though we didn't win the jackpot, we did in fact match on the megaball (finally the dog comes through: $2!).

vroom!

speaking of cars, my car recently had the best type of transmission failure. the kind that requires towing, loaner cars, and the entire thing to be replaced. at 97000 miles with a 100000 mile warranty. indeed, the best kind of transmission repair.

so i'm still racing through possibilities.. wondering what my three brushes with automotive opulence signify...and i'll let you know when i get there.

d: more automotive abundance speeding my way.
b: i'm paying attention and picking up speed.
g: i splurged on the extended warranty.

cushion

i'm decidedly awake today. and yesterday. and the day before, even. it may be drug induced, but regardless my eyes are wide open.

but, there are two sides to every coin. (and every forehand too, as i just discovered. more on that later.) and without the fog of sleepiness, in the light of day, i am noticing something else missing.

a cushion.

i generally am a pretty laid back person. i have my anxious moments, but they don't usually last long. i just don't hang out in a worried place much, as a rule. but today, in my amped up, more awake, and less padded place i'm having a hard time zoning out on the details that cause my heart to pound. i'm acutely, even obsessively, aware of what's causing the anxiety.

a cushion.

in my current employment situation my income not only varies in amount, but also in timing. the fluctuation necessitates a certain flexibility and ease, not to mention trust and creativity, when it comes to meeting obligations with fixed deadlines. or making plans for the future. but what really is necessary is more. more abundance. more overflow. more...

cushion.

this week i'm finding myself hyper-aware of the inadequacy of the single paycheck as a buffer. when my income is tethered to a person who is halfway around the globe, sleeping when i'm awake, it only adds the element of absurdity to the situation.

when we moved into the city this summer we did an overhaul on the furniture. purged the oversized pieces and replaced with items more appropriately sized to our dollhouse. i think i picked up new furniture for two rooms and sold even more than that. but the pieces we picked for the living room: not good. they have the same problem my bank account does. not enough depth.

cushion.

i'm resolved to correcting this. as soon as the money comes in it's being placed immediately under the mattress. because although i'm not sleeping in the daytime, i'd like to at night. and the only thing i need for peaceful sleep is that cushion...

d: stuffed mattress
b: i'm very awake
g: a resolution

chicken

for most of my childhood and early adulthood i journaled religiously. and daily. i recorded everything that happened to me. no matter how trivial. no matter how mundane. i have hundreds and hundreds of pages of spiral notebooks, pages covered front and back, cover to cover detailing the conversations and nuances of ten years or more of my life.

and then at some point, i stopped. and what i realized quickly was that if it wasn't written down, i didn't remember it. that hasn't changed. i have coping mechanisms in place for the workplace (lots of lists, notes and emails), but even still the holes in my memory are a handicap at times. and the rest of my life? well, it's a blurry fog.

it makes me weary. or maybe that's the sleepiness making me weary. hard to tell which comes first.

chicken.
egg.
chicken.

though i don't remember much, i do remember writing about this earlier in the year. about my decision not to take the affordable amphetamine and my inability to take the cost prohibitive wakefulness drug. i wanted to take a more holistic approach. even a psychological approach.

and i've tried that. i really have. and here i am nine months after the sleep study and 30 years from my first memory of lapsed memory and i'm still sleepwalking.

i'm ready to wake up. i'm ready to wake the hell up.

i'm reconsidering what i'll do to make that happen. i don't know that i'll feel good about taking a drug daily. i won't be a proud pill popper. but when i consider the alternative, when i live the alternative, i think to myself, 'this may never end.' sure i can self-medicate myself awake for brief periods of time. i can write lists and journal compulsively. i can make charts and put rubber bands on my wrists. but at the end of the day..week..month..year, i probably won't remember even half of it.

i've always been a dreamer. i live more in the future than the past. i let go of the painful memories and forgive easily. that's the silver lining. but this is my life. i only get to live it once. and i want to remember it.

d: the luxury of nostalgia
b: i'm expert at coping mechanisms
g: a life i don't want to forget

breakneck

tonight as i sit and watch the us open, i am acutely aware that my left elbow is aching more than my right. and appropriately i can only attribute it to tennis.

since tentatively trying out the racket for the first time a couple of weeks ago and noticing no ill effects in my still healing (right) elbow, i've been dragging haley to the court at every opportunity. and while she's in florida, partying it up with the family, i've been constructing my own tennis camp: practicing my serves with mega, working on my backhand with chrissie, rereading the inner game, and watching the us open at all other opportunities. i even signed up to play singles in the fall, for the first time.

so, yes, my left forearm is a bit tender. and i welcome it. a bit of pain in the name of strengthening is a far cry better than what i've felt in the wake of injury. i'm a week away from the three month anniversary of my dislocation and though i know it can take longer than this to heal, i'm subscribed to the school of fake-it-till-you-make-it and refuse to back down. when it hurts, i figure that's a sign i'm sufficiently replacing the torture of formal physical therapy.

anyway, much like my reentry to tennis, life seems to be hitting a steady pace. a breakneck pace, but steady nonetheless. the boys' schedules have stabilized. soccer two nights a week. taekwondo one night. trumpet lessons another. and drums yet another. it hasn't left much time in the evening for us to breathe, but then tonight luke finished trumpet practice, dinner, and shower with half an hour to spare before bedtime and he said, 'what do i do now mommy?' to which i replied, 'whatever you want' and realized that we'd come out on the other side of the first three weeks of school, with thirty minutes of air. and it was simply divine. and so i offered a silent prayer of gratitude.

d: may the pace of my backhand match the pace of my life: steadily breakneck.
b: i've found my footing for the fall season...of school.
g: time to spare.

siren

On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.

In a few breaths' time I will speak some sad words to you. But you must hear them the same way we have agreed to see scars now. Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvelous, and then she will turn around and smile.

-excerpted from Little Bee by Chris Cleave

i always say i prefer the tragically sad novels. when asked my favorite book i waffle between the books i recall shedding the most tears on. the stories of sadness draw me in and it is only there that i find escape and a calling stronger than that of the pen.

tonight after my shower i looked at my laptop and then at the book i'm absorbed completely into. ordinarily when given a quiet, awake, opportunity to write there is no hesitation. but the siren song is calling my name..

d: a choice so sweet for you
b: i have scars and sad stories of my own

g: i am alive

early-ish

i'm not a person who needs a lot of sleep. despite my tendency to fall asleep at any seated opportunity, i can function pretty capably on a steady six hours per night. but something is definitely amiss since school started.

i've got a throbbing pain behind my eyes telling me to close them through the day. i'm falling asleep with overhead lights on, mid conversation. i'm waking with a headache at 6:30. in and out of the bed until i take todd to school at 8:30. and then some days, when i can squeeze it in, i crawl back into bed at 8:45 and try to replace what is clearly missing.

yesterday was one of those mornings. i don't work on mondays generally, so after i dropped off todd i snuggled back up next to haley. some time later we woke up and haley said she thought to herself, 'please don't let it be 10,' as she pulled her wrist out from around me to check her watch. we both focused our fuzzy eyes on the dial and read: 11:23. 'holy shit!'

and still last night at 11:15pm we were both foggy and sleepy and wondering what's happened to us. we hadn't even been up twelve hours.

i don't have it all figured out yet. but i have some ideas. i think we're going to get a white noise machine for our bedroom to help with the mornings. at least haley should be able to sleep through the breakfast, bus, and business of school. afternoon naps are going to a mandatory part of my day. thirty minutes of power napping should carry me through the evening. and once again i'm going to break my caffeine cycle. (how'd that creep back in there? i have no idea.)

it's amazing really how many things happen when we're sleeping. human growth hormone.. leptin.. digestion.. serotonin.. in short: sanity and thinness. and when i'm not rested? irritable fatness.

so, in the interest of reducing my crabby bloat, i'm heading to bed early. well, early-ish.

d: satiating sleep.
b: i have the most comfortable bed in the world.
g: clean sheets and haley's getting off work early.

os

in a family with four, no make that five (or even six if i count haley's) computers, i'd like to think we could keep at least one per person in working order. but right now, of the five computers in our house, only one is in 'perfect' working condition. two are inoperable. and my primary laptop is operating at a fraction of what it should be.

sigh
deep sigh

i like to think i'm a savvy computer person. i mean, i can muddle through all sorts of nonsense when it comes to operating systems ranging from windows to vista and even mac now, thanks to haley's imac. but this is ridiculous.

todd's desktop computer won't recognize the monitor, which i think is the fault of the monitor since it's done this sporadically on multiple computers. todd's laptop computer was about a million degrees today when i attempted to power it up from 'sleep'. and when it finally came alive it was 'seeing double'. literally two screens stacked horizontally on the monitor. after resetting it with battery removal and the whole nine, it will power up with a single image - but a psychedelic image - as though looking through a puddle of oily water. umm ok.

as for my laptops.. well, my work computer only has 10% of the hard drive free and that's apparently not enough to actually run the os with any sort of reliability. and since upgrading it isn't in the fiscal plan for my department, i'm going to have to off-load some data and cross my fingers. my other laptop - it technically works fine. except that i never bothered to enter the product keys for the office applications and now i'm running out of 'unauthorized uses'.. and i have no idea where i put the key information. i mean none. it's somewhere in between the top of the fridge in my snellville house and the attic of the yorkshire house.

sigh
deep sigh

oh and did i mention that i can't find the cables to connect the printer and even if i did find them, i'm not sure how to get the printer on the network. if there even is a network anymore. but i guess it doesn't matter if we have a printer, since we don't really even have computers.

and that's all i have to say about that.

d: an os that actually operates
b: i feel a little better now.
g: an inkling of how to fix 3 out of 4. an inkling.

bender

i consider myself fairly aware when it comes to gender variance. my son has long hair and my girlfriend is occasionally called 'sir' from behind. so, needless to say, i don't see myself bound to gender norms in any way. perhaps because of that, or perhaps in spite of, i've found myself mistaking boys and girls, men and women, more than once over the past couple of years. when it happens i smile to myself. i get a certain sense of pleasure when i see folks expressing themselves outside the norm. i feel comforted that we're all different and yet, we're all the same. we all want to be understood for what's inside, where our true self really is.

in the synchronistic way things always happen to me, yesterday was a crash course in gender empathy. i read a disturbing article about a 17 month old baby boy who was beaten to death by his mother's boyfriend for being too feminine.
a 17 month old baby.
a baby.
the man was trying to 'toughen him up' he claimed. i read the article on my phone as i left work and couldn't stop thinking about it, all the way to bedtime. i wanted to share it with haley and weep over it, but i didn't bring it up.

after dinner, we all piled up in the living room to watch a movie i'd rented a couple days prior. billy elliot. i rented it because i heard it was a wonderful dance movie and a hilarious comedy. nobody ever told me that it would be a study in gender typing. a touching and heartwarming exploration of gender, even. (at least from what i could make out of the film, with the crippling dialect and less than stellar speakers on my tv.)

combine that experience with the article i read earlier and the gender stumper that todd and i puzzled over at the orthodontist (we never did decide male or female..) and i was definitely having a gender bender of a day.

i'm still sad this morning. as i sifted through my closet of girlie clothes and selected the perfect earrings to go with my outfit, and as i considered what color filmy skirt i wanted to buy for ballet class, and as i applied my mascara at the stoplight waiting to get on 400, i felt grateful and then guilty for being grateful. grateful that my gender is so simple. and guilty because it seems unfair to celebrate that simplicity when the very most innocent among us are being killed because theirs is not.

[sidenote: of course we don't know if aforementioned baby's gender would have been simple or not. a 17 month old baby is not expressing a gender. they are in fact expressing innocence.]

d: a compassionate society
b: my compassionate heart
g: there but for the grace of god go i...

weightless

when i was a kid there was an amusement park near our house that i remember going to several times. they had one ride there that i particularly loved and i rode it over and over again. nobody else liked it the way i did, so i would park myself there and ride it until we left. it looked like a barrel and you would get in and stand against the side. when the door closed it would spin very fast and the floor would drop out, leaving you pressed against the wall by centrifugal force. weightless. that's it. it would spin for a few minutes and then the floor would come back up and it would stop. my mom found it nauseating. i found it exhilarating.

i think it foreshadowed how i grew to find life most exhilarating, as well. when i'm spinning in a frenzy and the only thing holding me up is momentum, even when everyone around me is dizzy and ready to rest, i'll say, 'can i go again?'

the summer's been like that. i feel this way every school-starts-in-two-days-eve but for many reasons this summer's been more of a whirlwind than most. from house on the market cleaning through to moving, with vacation travel, work, and a broken arm thrown in the mix- it's dizzying.

my mom's been here visiting for the past week, along with my aunt. they arrived the day after i returned from a week in florida with the boys and haley. also the day after i had a good-bye dinner with one of my closest friends, moving across the country as we speak. this was the first week that todd's spent in the house since we moved in. his room was still half in boxes, which i had to step over and around as i borrowed it for the week. on top of that, this was the first week of additional responsibilities at work - responsibilities i'm excited to take on (for a change) - requiring international conference calls every day at the schedule and whim of my foreign colleagues. oh and yesterday, we all piled in and went to meet the boys' new teachers and see their schools.

all good things.
but spinning like crazy, nonetheless.

one thing i generally do a good job of in my insane spinning is setting aside time for myself. the gym. a book. sex. writing. a nap. at least a couple of those a day. it's the real life equivalent of the euphoria i felt when the floor dropped out of the barrel and i was weightless.

i haven't done such a good job of that lately. fatigue has been bearing down on me in every seated moment and yet naps have been elusive. my nighttime sleep has been tormented with ridiculous dreams that leave me even more exhausted and waking with a headache. i haven't been to the gym in nearly two weeks and the runs i have managed to squeeze in have been abbreviated by the heat or time or both. i've opened my book to the same two pages every night for weeks and well, everything else has fallen off my ability list too.

but today i finally got back in the gym and did a complete upper body workout reminiscent of pre-fracture days. it felt incredible, despite the strange noises and contortions my elbow offered in protest. i took care of some birthday shopping for the boys, took a nap, made the necessary $175 school supply excursion. and now here i am writing and the night is young...

still spinning? absolutely.
but centrifugal force is a wonderful thing.

d: a night as weightless as my day
b: rehab complete!
g: school starts on monday.

i-deal

i can't tell you how many times i've heard women's bodies described by terms like 'swimmer's body', 'gymnast's body', 'runner's body', etc. each conjuring a fairly distinct image with certain characteristics, none of which fit me.

the ideal i've always longed for though, as long as i can remember was the body of a dancer. a ballerina, to be exact. long thin lines. graceful and strong. light on my feet and perfectly poised. those of you who know me are undoubtedly laughing your ass off. coincidentally the very activity that would benefit me the most, because my body is much more suited to booty-shaking than toe-pointing.

no, my body doesn't fit a fitness stereotype. i know, i know, most people's don't. but it doesn't match up with my own fitness ideal either. and tonight i'm struggling with where to take that knowledge. either i can accept that fact and change my ideal or i can (continue to) set my sights on an ideal that seems woefully out of reach. perhaps it sounds as though i think one is clearly the 'right answer', but actually no.

i'm stumped.

i don't give up easily and i don't let go of a fantasy without a fight, so holding onto the dream of a slim, lithe dancer's physique despite a lifetime to the contrary..well, why stop now?

tonight i went to ballet class. my first in three decades. i can't say that the full wall of mirrors helped me with my internal dialogue, but something about the simplicity and beauty of the routines was mildly distracting.

and so, i cling.

d: deal with the ideal already
b: strong calves, proven
g: distracted by dance

pride

i've had moments of pride for my children over the years. some big, some small. some for the expected things like good grades and acts of kindness. and some for perhaps inappropriate things, which i'll leave unmentioned. but nothing can compare to what i felt thursday night at todd's camp concert.

i know this won't translate unless you've experienced it yourself, but i felt my heart in my throat for him as his solo approached and i thought my heart would visibly overflow for all the pride and love after he completed it. the rest of the show went off without a hitch and he said he looked up once and was blinded by my enormous toothy smile. i just couldn't get it off my face.

i realized in that moment that i never gave my parents that feeling and i couldn't decipher whose loss was greater for that. i never participated in a team sport or a performance art. even report cards were generally a non-event or afterthought, as my grades were so consistent.

todd didn't have a great first year in band. his teacher wasn't very attentive to the percussion students and gave them little instruction, much of which wasn't right anyway. todd looked forward to his lessons with haley and then dreaded class with mr. bader. (yes, the teacher's name was Mr. Bader. don't even go there.) so when i signed him up for band camp, i had a sense it was a make-it or break-it event in his infant music career. especially since he'd expressed some hesitancy over the summer about signing up for band at his new school.

he called thursday as we were walking out the door to his concert. he wanted to tell me to leave as soon as possible because his band was performing first and he had a solo in the first song. (plus it's a two hour drive.) i reassured him we were on our way. and then he launched into a flurry of discourse about how much fun he's had, ending it all with '..and i'm coming back next year!' (and later he clarified, 'and the next year and the next year.')

the fire's been lit.
i'm relieved.
and oh so proud.

d: that his pride in himself match mine for him
b: he didn't miss a beat
g: the opportunity to be his mother

center

today haley asked me if i miss my old house and without hesitation i replied, 'no.' then i felt a quick pang of guilt and sadness, as if i should feel differently. but when i walk around that large, empty house and remember how easily we all fit there i don't feel any longing. i simply feel grateful that it was mine for a spell and now it's not.

and when i walk through the door to our new house on yorkshire, i also feel grateful. i feel grateful that this precious little house is ours. that it's quite quickly transforming into a home that i feel comfortable and represented in. that it's absolutely large enough for all of us to spend time, both together and separately. and even, paradoxically, that it's not mine. as in, i don't own it. so if the pipes burst or the hot water heater gives out - it's only an inconvenience, rather than a costly chore.

but without a doubt the part that is overwhelmingly perfect about our new home is the location. and i don't mean the fact that i have a publix, kroger, trader joe's and whole foods all within five minutes. (though that's a treat, i have to admit.) and i don't mean the fact that i'm perfectly central to everything i spend my time doing and much of it i can get to on foot. (and of course bike! when i'm haley-cleared to do so.)

rather..since the move, i no longer feel as though i live in two places. i no longer feel transient or caught in between. i no longer feel that i can never be where i need to be - enough. instead, i feel absolutely perfectly central. and centered.

and in the very natural way that everything has happened between haley and i over the past year and a half, she's found herself quite centered too. here. i marvel at how we spent as many days and nights together as we did living 40 minutes apart, it truly is testimony to our passionate commitment. but i'll take that testimony in other ways now, thank you very much, because the ease with which we've merged into the yorkie house has been absolutely blissful.

she's still got her house, of course. she owns it and has no plans to change that any time soon. but every day we settle in more and more, and every day the yorkie house becomes more our home than mine.

and for that, i am grateful.

d: more centering, more nesting, more rugs
b: in just the right timing, we found our center
g: home, where the heart is, centered.

passion

i thought that i was quite obsessive until i met haley. and then i thought i'd met my match. but truth be told, the most obsessive, single-minded, and driven (occasionally to madness) person i've ever known is luke. he always has been but the intensity with which he attaches to a pursuit has only increased with his maturity. since the month of world cup continuous (to the chagrin of the wimbledon fans, ahem) coverage, luke's latest obsession is soccer. not only is he planning his own career as a world famous soccer player, but he's also booking our tickets to brazil for 2014 and shopping for a new wardrobe.

as haley once told me, 'either i'm obsessed, or it's dead to me.' i agreed and related when she said that and so, once again, i know this is an example of children learning what they live. my wish for him has been that he could channel the fervor into a sport or art or talent. (rather than an all-consuming quest for the perfect high-end collectible statue of batman or terminator or prince of persia or..)

and so as i sit and watch him teach a similarly belted adult at taekwondo, demonstrating strength and leadership and a commitment to technique, i am optimistic. perhaps the kick is the thing. people, soccer balls, his brother? whatever, i'll take it.

speaking of his brother, i'll be lucky to get him home from band camp. as expected, he's having the time of his life, even singing the praises of the cafeteria food, 'especially the dessert!'

d: luke's passion channeled
b: to passion, i can relate
g: passion over apathy

bird-th

all moved in. a week and a few days now. finally we have internet and tv and hot water and a porch swing. all the essentials. and we're down to only a few boxes. literally. like 4. todd said there were 41 and a half (not sure what the half was) the day before the move. we packed another after that and i assume we finished the half off, putting us at 43. meaning i've unpacked (or otherwise stowed) 39 boxes in a week. pretty solid effort, if i do say so myself.

nested.

it's been five weeks since my broken arm and as my workouts have dwindled to merely cardio i'm curious about where i'll find myself strength-wise when i can finally get back in the gym properly. in the shower tonight i mused, 'can i still do a push-up?' so after i toweled off, and checked the door to make sure haley wasn't coming through (she would most certainly not approve), i dropped to the wet bathmat to give it a go. first attempt there was a strange clicking and i cut the movement short. but, i'm hard-headed if nothing else, and i gave it a second try. admittedly my nose didn't touch the floor and i didn't lock out my elbows (not that i could if i wanted to), but i'll be damned if i can't still do push-ups.

winged.

today i took todd to milledgeville for a week of band camp. though he's been leaving me every other weekend for over ten years now and away for multiple weeks every summer, it's the first time he's gone to camp. the camp is at a college and i have no fears for his safety or independence (despite milledgeville being home to the state's largest insane asylum), but since i drove away this afternoon i've found myself absolutely obsessed with curiosity about what he's doing at every minute. i have every confidence he's having a blast, but if i could be a fly on the wall, i'd happily risk the flypaper for the opportunity. despite the distance i feel closer to him than i have in years.

flight.

d: a breeze to ride on
b: wings to soar on
g: lift from my flock

process

well, as of today, tuesday the 29th, it's been three weeks since my elbow decided to take the road less traveled. not a single day of the 21 has passed that i haven't offered a prayer of gratitude that i'm left handed, that i have haley, and that i have good narcotics.

by the same token, not a day has passed that i haven't marveled at all the things your non-dominant hand is still necessary for. that old expression, 'i could do that with one arm tied behind my back' has taken on new meaning. in case you were wondering, there are many fewer things in that category than i'd ever imagined.

like, tying your shoes. or putting in earrings. or even washing my face. the seemingly simple is much harder when one hand simply can't reach your head.

but this isn't a pity party. on the contrary, i want to tell you all the things i've learned i can do with only one arm.

- train 1st graders at fitness camp four days a week
- pack up eight years of closets, drawers, and shelves for a move
- ride a bike (albeit stationary), climb stairs, and do (one-armed) jumping jacks
- sand and repaint a rust-erator, er i mean refrigerator
- mow the over grown grass in our drainage ditch
- with a three-wheeled lawn mower
- change that fourth tire
- drive and drive and drive (thank god i have an automatic) back and forth and back
- sell/give away a household's worth of junk at a garage sale
- ably lift weights twenty pounds below my norm (fyi: furniture is generally not in this category)
...
- realize limitations
- ask for help
- accept help
- learn patience

and so it goes. i'm three days from a new home and three weeks from being able-bodied. and the nagging thought i go to bed with and wake up with is 'when will i be able to write?' tonight, i write. the boxes wait till morning. the ice pack balances on my elbow. and tonight i write.

i've missed it so.

d: patience in the process
b: progress in the process
g: partner in the process

detour

well i'm supposed to be mid-vacation number three, in the mountains with the boys, haley, and our pets today. but plans change. and instead i'm (hopefully) on the tail end of a serious detour. before we left for the beach i was confronted with an imperative new tire purchase and alignment. which means four new tires in the past three months, in case you were wondering. (i'll leave out the part about how my 'sports car' requires hard-to-find and harder-to-afford tires.) this morning when i took mega out, my front right tire is flat.

no big deal, you're thinking. it happens. the highways and atlanta roads are practically like driving through a construction site, i know. but in between the tires i bought a week ago and today i've had the rather exciting and unique experience of dislocating and fracturing my elbow. at least i hope it's a unique experience in my life because the excitement resembles the thrill of waking up every morning and remembering you're in for a day of pain and difficulty like none before. woowee! exciting!

and in case you were wondering, a beach vacation isn't very cast friendly. sand, water, heat. eh. the silver lining: percoset.

i've only made it through these past five days with a minimum of tears and tantrums because of haley. in every way imaginable - and many i never imagined - she's been my right arm. and my left. and my nurse. and my engineer. and my chauffeur. and my cheerleader. and simply amazing. and today i have to wake her up with the news that she gets to also be my mechanic.

sigh

surely it will get easier soon.

d: a break
b: still managing to laugh
g: it was my right arm..and i'm left-handed

dabble

when i was a kid i wanted to try everything. and to the best of their ability, they obliged me. i took violin lessons, piano lessons, played basketball, took gymnastics and ballet, participated in a musical production, sang in the school chorus, competed with quiz bowl, odyssey of the mind, and math counts (yeah, i was a nerd. so what?), and a million other things.

one time each.

meaning, i dabbled and never dove. and some things i wanted to do, i never tried. after all, there were only so many days in the week and dollars in the bank. i've often said that i regretted not being forced to persevere with something, for mastery. or even just accomplishment.

and now, as a parent, i am confronted with this same dilemma. how hard to push and how much to offer. tonight haley and i went to an amazing concert. imogen heap. an artist i knew little about, previously. and while i sat in the second balcony, in utter amazement at the talent and production, i wished the boys were there.

my mind wandered and i remembered longing to act on a stage myself - luke's dream. and i watched the massive percussion ensemble in this band and thought of todd and his ambivalence toward his drumming. i've always loved the production aspects of stage, tv, film, music and in my line of work have had the opportunity to be involved in many of these. as such, the complexity and sophistication of the stage show caught my attention. reminded me of my brother. made me want to go to new york. made me want to take the boys there. my mind raced.

how hard do i push? how much do i offer? do the two cancel each other out?

moving into the city affords me so many opportunities for their exposure. i feel overwhelmed with the desire to show it all to them. perhaps what my own parents thought.

d: the push/offer balance
b: i'm creating more opportunities to balance
g: a lifetime of dabbling

super

i think maybe we all wanted to be superheroes when we were kids. what if there were a pill we could take and have superhero powers? what if something could make all of our senses superhero strength? if it could transform mediocre music into the greatest symphony you've ever imagined - allowing you to hear sounds you never knew were there... if it could allow you to see the inner strength and beauty in even the most average people... if it could empower your imagination and vision to see atlanta's night time skyline as though it were indeed gotham city. what if...

if there were such a miracle drug and i were lucky enough to stumble across it, i imagine that when the supply evaporated real life would lose its luster. i imagine i'd feel a vein of nostalgia pulsing through me at times that craved those superhuman powers. eventually i think the memory would fade, as memories usually do; and ordinary experiences would excite my senses and even possibly override the memories of superhuman sensation. after all, reality trumps fantasy. or so they say.

and then sometimes: the senses surge with superhuman powers rekindled by extraordinary circumstances, revisiting heights previously learned under the tutorage of magic superhero pills.

if such an extraordinary circumstance could exist, as to evoke memories of a magic euphoria, tonight would have been such.

a consummate musician. an artist in every sense of the word. music and lights that brought me to the edge of a cliff. and dropped me off.

an extraordinary circumstance.
a superhuman sensation.
reality trumping fantasy.

d: extraordinary circumstances
b: senses with superhero memory
g: reality trumping fantasy

procrastinating

to be so excited and so impatient for my move, i'm running up against an unexpected thread of procrastination in myself. admittedly, i'm a procrastinator. i do my best work at the 11th hour. but with only four weeks left before moving day and one and a half of them spent out of town - i'm perplexed to be fighting this disruly personality trait.

i did pack two boxes today. the first two. and i filled a cabinet in my kitchen with things for the garage sale. but i'm not living in a home of excess. i purged and thinned a few months ago in preparation for the house to go on the market. and so when i open a cabinet or closet and think 'i'll just pack this all up' i hesitate. i think, 'but i'm going to use that..' or 'i'm going to want to wear that...' and suddenly the four, well technically two and a half, weeks until moving day seem like a year. 'how will i ever survive without my pizza pan?!'

we're leaving for the second of our three back to back vacations on sunday. i haven't packed for that either. it's a beach trip so it won't be hard to pack for. bathing suits, sun dresses, sandals. done. the moving truck on july 1st is another story.

when i moved into this house and bought the furniture that is now here i proclaimed that i'd never move myself again. i swore 'no more u-hauls' for me. this furniture is too damn heavy and the stairs too treacherous. and when i called and booked the mover this week, i felt all grown up. but now i'm looking around and thinking things like, 'do i have to put that in a box?' because i know that when i've packed moving trucks in the past, many things just 'fit in'. you know, 'between the legs of that chair i can fit this hat box or those dumbbells.' but it seems like all the rules are changed now.

sigh

it's all going to be over in four short weeks. and when i'm all moved in, to the house on yorkshire road, the dread of packing will be well behind me. and the thrill of unpacking and setting up our new home will be upon me.

d: speed and efficiency when the procrastination passes
b: i packed two boxes!
g: purging and thinning months ago.

d:elivered

yesterday luke asked me to do a dbg for him as we drove to atlanta. he'd already answered the same question for me, so of course i obliged. my d was for income generating opportunities as a trainer. i think it's a piscean quality that i believe i can change the world or die trying and since i've become a personal trainer i've been much more interested in the helping aspect than the income aspect. and as such, i've been quick to volunteer and slow to advertise. i have no regrets about that, it's absolutely what i want to do every single time i do it; but in addition lately i've thought about how much i'd like to make some money changing the world.

and then yesterday i got my d. i met with someone about an opportunity to be a trainer this summer at a camp serving inner city children. the camp runs for six weeks, and as a trainer i'll be there an hour a day, four days a week. i'm going to be employed by a non-profit foundation that runs after-school fitness programs at some atlanta high schools. similar to my own philosophy, the organization has realized they can change lives with fitness. and they don't get paid to do it.

they are however paying their trainers. it's not big bucks, but when you'd take the job for free, anything is better than nothing. and even more than the money, there's the excitement and satisfaction of being part of something i can believe in. contributing to an organization in a way that fulfills me and answers a need in the community that is dear to me.

truly i feel as though i was given a gift with this opportunity and it's simply icing on the cake that it was an immediate manifestation of a verbalized desire.

d: abundance
b: i'm open to opportunity
g: immediate manifestation

running

it's been a solid ten days since i've blogged. it's been a crazy busy ten days. though i can't say i'm a huge fan of running, i've been doing nothing but, it seems. and while i'm running around like a headless chicken i'm finding myself in the familiar place of forgetfulness. a paradox indeed.

yesterday i came home to find i'd left the hose running into the fish pond. for five hours. the sidewalk and street were well irrigated, i'll just say.

and though it's only been ten days, it feels like a solid month. too many sleep deprived nights on top of a tedious culling through of home options combined with the last ten days of school for the boys and..and..the running never stops.

today i went into a coffee shop with todd and luke and came out to find i'd left the car running. carefully parallel parked and yet keys in the ignition and engine running.

tomorrow is the first day of my summer vacation. though the boys were out today, i had to get to the office and take home one of their friends beforehand, making for an early morning just like all the other weekdays for the past nine months. running from one appointment to another until eight tonight. but tomorrow i'm not setting an alarm.

the boys visited our new house today. though i thought i'd found a house 'close enough' a couple of weeks ago circumstances conspired to bring me the 'perfect house' instead. and i couldn't be more pleased. i signed a two year lease. great schools. beautiful old house charm. a perfectly located and well appointed neighborhood. fenced back yard. twenty-three doors. and two bathrooms. ('close enough' only had one.)

vacations are coming. starting tomorrow we're on maximum relaxation and minimum obligation mode. for the next two and a half weeks. though i have to work a few days next week, it will be sandwiched between four days at the lake, six days at the beach, and four days in the mountains.

the faucet is turned off. the keys are out of the ignition. the run has slowed to a walk.

and the finish line is in sight.

d: replenishment
b: accomplishment
g: denouement

turn-around

some may see the recent decisions i've made as a step backwards in terms of fiscal responsibility, but i beg to differ.

about seven years ago i opted to stay in my house when i really should have sold it. i was letting go of a relationship and couldn't take on the added stress of moving out of my nearly newborn house. but honestly, hindsight being 20/20 and all, i couldn't afford it alone. i took out a variable rate loan and as the interest rate climbed, so did my angst. eventually i was forced to refinance into a fixed rate - fixed at a payment that created a negative cash flow avalanche...for the past three years. (or maybe four?) *sigh*

as the avalanche crashed down around me, so did my credit score. late payments. increasing revolving credit debt. and general robbing-peter-to-pay-paul cash management decisions. after all, i'm a gen x'er and we did learn how to charge in the 80's and 90's, if nothing else.

but this week i've made a decision to turn that around. it's essential. so the boys and i are downsizing. we're going to live smaller. we're going to live greener. and we're going to live in the black.

and as for this house... well, it's going to sell. one way or the other. at full price, with a miracle, or at a loss. either way, i'm cutting my loss right now. today.

d: a signed lease on a property identified
b: finally a responsible financial decision
g: i live in a universe of abundance

maximizing

finding a house, particularly a rental, is sort of like finding a job. or maybe more like hiring the right person for a job. in both cases the interviewee feels like they have the hard role, but really it's the interviewer (or home seeker) whose choice either will set them up for a comfortable fit or months to years of inconvenient hassle.

this is the first time i've looked at houses for myself in over seven years and more than a decade since i've considered rentals. it's quite the adventure. at the first house i saw the landlord was leaning up against the front porch reading a book called, 'the paradox of choice'. haley asked him about it and he told us that the author described two types of people, "maximizers" and "satisficers".

the maximizers turn over every stone, researching and searching for every possible option when presented with a choice. they won't rest until they are certain they are making the right decision and even then, they will continue to validate the choice. the satisficers will look just enough to make a choice, make it, and move on. (or at least this is what i gathered from a five minute conversation with the guy.)

haley and i make a balanced max/sat team and i'm grateful for that. her determination to see everything is pushing me through my impatience and readiness to be satisfied. and of course, the fact that every single house is somehow dysfunctionally quirky.

i've identified one house that i have a vision for. i've got my fingers crossed it will work out. because so far the alternatives are absolutely comic in their absurdity. (closets converted to half baths enclosed with a curtain, back porches walled in to create 3rd bedrooms, basements filled with appliance 'collections', stairs capped off with enormous checkerboard constructions, and the list goes on)

but regardless of the draining nature of disappointment, the promise of a home that i can afford and recreate my life in without the hours of commuting being a component is worth every minute. even if i have to maximize in order to get there, the satisfaction on the other side will be the reward.

d: the perfect home, in the perfect time.
b: i have a vision.
g: i have time.

clearing

it's been too many days since i've written. too many and yet i'm not full or overflowing yet. it seems that though i've had moments where the stories were all running together and begging for their page they've been squashed between some hard realities.

and here i sit. still fairly squashed but feeling a little more breathing room. enough that i want to attempt to write.

yesterday i was asked, 'did you get anything nice for mother's day?' and i stopped and thought for a second and then replied, 'well i spent a pretty day outside at the renaissance festival with my boys and haley.. and had a nice dinner out?' with that questioning lilt at the end of my sentence, as if to ask for approval. my friend said, 'oh really?' and i said, 'yeah.. i can't really think of anything more that i'd have wanted.' in fact, i felt sort of the way i do when i miss the punchline of a joke. as if i wasn't paying attention and something slipped by me. wait, was i supposed to want for some sort of precious mother's day gift? oops. i thought i got one.

todd had a difficult day at school yesterday. a middle school angst that there really isn't an easy way through and no advice that can help. he wanted to talk to me about it privately and then i had to play the hardest role a mom can: listener. he's at that awkward age where one second i see little boy and the next i see teenager, and for every waffle between the two he has an internal struggle. i can hug him. and then i can't. i can see his anger. and i can see his fear. and all i can do is say 'god, i'm so sorry. middle school sucks.' and try to hold back my own tears of empathy. we did a dbg at dinner last night and todd's d was 'a better day at school tomorrow.' today he cheerfully told me 'it was a thousand times better.' all is forgotten. perpetrator playing basketball in the driveway with him, todd laughing as though no tears were ever shed.

i haven't been properly to the gym in nearly two weeks. i've been riding my bike fanatically, attending taekwondo, and nursing some injuries; but mostly i've been beating myself up. for not going to the gym, that is. sigh. seems that i haven't quite made the mental changes i desire, yet.

but.. the clouds are parting. in other news, haley and i have finally had a day together. just us. to just do the things we wanted and needed to do. we hadn't been able to fit one in as one or both of us were with our parents the entirety of the prior eleven days. i needed it. she needed it. now i want another eleven days just like yesterday, it was so good.

(unfortunately that pesky thing called work is interfering.)

and i think i'm about to get out from under this house. one way or the other, i am. i have to. the slow bleed is killing me. i'm ready for an amputation.

so, though it's only tuesday, i feel every minute of the week weighing down upon me. and the weekend oh too far away.

d: continued cloud clearing
b: the most precious mother's day gift is mine: motherhood
g: forced writing. random perhaps, but writing nonetheless.

daydream

daydreaming. one of my favorite things to do. i credit it with my survival in fact. then sometimes i can get so lost in a daydream, i'm simply lost.

today i put my house in impeccable order for a showing. (there haven't been many in the month plus i've had it on the market, so it was cause for special preparation.) i was literally vacuuming myself out the door to taekwondo, putting on my uniform in the laundry room, and tying my belt as i walked into class to make it on time.

but then, as luck would have it, the realtor's 'master key' wouldn't open my lockbox. no matter that it opened the five houses before mine. and of course, for the first time in years, i had double checked that all my doors were locked. (because for some reason i thought that might be an impression worth making. as if anyone would notice.)

so, all that frantic, fastidious prep for naught.

except for the daydream. because in my frenzy of last minute mopping and dusting, my mind wandered far away. and as i drove around the city today i took a third glance (because i always take a second) at the homes for rent and even the ones for sale.. (after all, sellers are becoming lessors every day.)

i really can't even let myself go there...it seems so far away. someone has to at least see my house in order to buy it and that's proving to be an event that cycles with the blue moon. but when things are feeling so overwhelming and indefinite and increasingly difficult daydreaming is my best escape mechanism.

d: real life worth leaving the daydream for
b: my house is extremely clean
g: a healthy coping mechanism?

mind

two years ago i made a decision to get healthy. it feels like five years ago, but i just counted on my fingers and i know it wasn't. today i was looking for some paperwork and ran across my original gym contract and the page where my first trainer documented my measurements, body fat, weight, etc.

i took those numbers to my laptop where i currently document the same measurements and compared. my weight is nearly unchanged. three pounds more, to be precise, but basically the same. and yet, every body measurement has increased.

hmm. what does that mean? i know.. i know. i know what it means.

haley tells me that fit people aren't skinny. i replay that mantra in my head over and over because despite what i know about my health and fitness now versus two years ago i am more insecure about my body now than i was ever before.

i'm sure it's not good business as a personal trainer to admit that my own body image has taken a nose dive since i've started becoming fit, but sometimes i see that in myself. and i'm disappointed. and puzzled. and ashamed. i know i shouldn't feel this way.

i used to participate in an online community for fitness junkies. i met some really great people there actually. tonight as i've had this come-to-jesus with myself over my self-image, one of the threads i read there came to mind. it was called 'things the scale didn't tell me' or something like that; in it people shared their accomplishments that weren't quantifiable with a scale or tape measure.

and i know i can make a long list of those things. a very long list.
that list is why i can't go two days in a row without working out.
that list is why i don't fear my body betraying me with illness or disease.
that list is why i feel able to do any physical thing i put my mind to.

and yet, somewhere along the way, i have put an ideal image in my mind that seems to only make me feel worse and worse.

must make a change. not in the gym. not in the kitchen.
just in my head.

d: a new minds-eye.
b: i can do anything i put my mind to.
g: change of mind: imminent.

thin

today i'm in santa fe with my mom. it's the first time we've taken a trip together in i-don't-know-how-many-years without my boys in tow. (at least five, i'd guess.) my very small plane landed yesterday in 50 mph winds at nearly the same minute hers did. (well, they must not have been at the very same minute, seeing as there wasn't a fiery crash on the runway.) but at any rate, we met in baggage claim and our bags arrived within minutes of each others. damn near perfect timing.

i've never been to new mexico and despite the raging wind and dust storm in albuquerque and the snow flurries (yes, snow) here in santa fe, i'm overwhelmed with the beauty of the place. last night i had to remind myself i was still in the states because i felt like such a foreigner. every time i hear english, i'm surprised a little.

so this morning i got up with the intention of doing some exercise while mom had to attend a meeting. forced to workout sans equipment, i started with some basic cardio moves like jumping rope, jumping jacks, etc, to get my heart pumping. but then - what's going on? i. can't. breathe.

suddenly this place of beauty and wonder has transported me back in time years ago to when i was a much different fitness level. and then i remember that a friend at work said, 'the air is thin there.. give yourself a couple of days to get adjusted.'

thin air. less oxygen per breath. hmm. i quickly do some mental gymnastics and decide that if i have to breathe harder to support my workout, then my heart rate will be higher, and perhaps i can even burn more calories than at home!

(there goes my thin obsession again.. making me behave a little crazy...)

i wonder though as people acclimate to the thinner air if they simply breathe deeper, taking in more air so as to oxygenate their blood effectively? or do their lungs become more efficient in other ways? i'm not sure.. and i'm not going to do the research to figure it out because i would like to believe the former.

i'd like to believe that when people are surrounded by all the beauty this area affords them and the thin mountain air, that nature forces them to slow down and enjoy it. i certainly plan to.

d: slow, deep breaths of new mexico
b: workout complete..lungs adjusting
g: exploring with my mom..and breathing..deep.

trust

trust (trŭst)

v. intr.

1. To have or place reliance; depend: Trust in the Lord. Trust to destiny.

2. To be confident; hope.

v. tr.

1. To have or place confidence in; depend on.

2. To expect with assurance; assume: I trust that you will be on time.

3. To believe: I trust what you say.

4. To place in the care of another; entrust.

the american heritage dictionary, in a discussion of synonyms, further defines: Trust implies depth and assurance of feeling that is often based on inconclusive evidence: The mayor vowed to justify the trust the electorate had placed in him.

i trust. i extend trust easily and retract it hesitantly. i know that i'm an exception to the rule in this regard. most people operate in the reverse, i think. as to whether that's a good thing or a bad, the jury is still out.

when i look closely at the dictionary definition of trust given above, for me the easiest ways i trust are hoping (v. intr.#1) and assured expectation (v. tr. #2).. and the hardest are depending (v. intr #1) and placing in the care of another (v. tr.#4). where i'm eternally hopeful and expect the best outcome is mine for the having, when my trust wavers it's in the depending and entrusting.

and even then, my confidence (v. intr. #2) usually bolsters my trust and it rarely wavers. until, beyond all of my hopefulness and all of my confidence and all of my expectation with assurance (v. tr. #2) i am proven wrong.

it takes quite a lot to convince me. i heartily agree with the american heritage's extended definition that trust implies a depth of feeling often based on inconclusive evidence.. and i will give the inconclusivity the benefit of the doubt until there is no doubt.

like i said above, i don't know if this is a good trait or not.. i fear what it says about my ability to protect myself. i fear what it means for my heart and the pain i'm susceptible to. i fear what it means... yet i don't know how to change it.

for..i fear, i trust.

d: trustworthiness
b: trustworthy
g: worth trust

yellow

yellow.
the color of cowardice. it brings to mind the cowardly lion from the wizard of oz. there was an entire book dedicated to the lion, the cowardly lion of oz, that tells of his pursuit of courage. his belief is that if he devours a courageous man, he will replenish his own depleted supply of courage. and as he is afraid of the task, he sets about to accomplish it as quickly as possible.

yellow.
the color of caution. the color's high visibility has given it the honor of gracing warning signs and dividing lines alongside every major, and minor, roadway in our country. even without seeing the symbol contained within its boundaries, the pavlovian response of an experienced driver is to slow down at the sight of yellow.

yellow.
the color of waiting. yellow ribbons. a symbol of patience. a symbol of hope. a symbol of promise.

yellow.
the color of energy. spring flowers. new york city cabs. the color is known to stimulate the nervous system and activate memory. it's been shown in color research to even encourage communication - perhaps the yellow pages were capitalizing on that reaction. (or did the yellow pages come first?)

yellow.
the color of the rising sun. according to korean taekwondo tradition, it is the belt color where the seeds of learning begin to grow. and as of today, it is mine. a small accomplishment, no doubt. but celebrating small victories can still feel good.

if it weren't for the other meanings of yellow swirling around in my head today.. perhaps. perhaps.

d: the yellow ribbon's hope and promise
b: the yellow belt's accomplishment
g: the yellow effect on communication

bikema

what goes around, comes around. karma, right? i, for one, believe wholeheartedly in it. and today the pain, agony, and dogged determination in my mountain-biking-for-all campaign has been rewarded.

when last i chronicled the epic bike saga i told of the ebay bike. the bike which was far, far, far from the loser-seller's description. the bike for which i was on the hook to pay return shipping. well, this bike was shipped back to loser-seller last tuesday, but not without a few additional hassles of course.

feel free to skip the following parenthetical story. it's simply to give further clarity into the agony mentioned above.

[just in case you're curious: when i wrestled the enormous bike box into the ups store i was informed that it would cost me $120 to ship it back. my jaw hit the counter, but i ponied up the cash and returned to my car, just a bit more disgruntled.

i called the loser in denver who sold me this decrepit bicycle to see if he felt gracious enough to split the return shipping, at the very least. he protested that it should have been no more than $60, as his original $80 covered the cost of the box. so.. i consult the receipt and note a 'large package fee' of fifty bucks. loser-seller tells me that's a mistake. 'the dimensions are printed on the box, and it's within the size constraint for a normal package.' i find this hard to believe since the box is ginormous, but he did just ship it to me a week ago so maybe he's right.

i hang up and call the ups store back to ask for a reassessment. they inform me that the dimensions printed on the box are internal measurements, rather than external, and that ups will fine them if they don't use the actual size. hmm. this box was just shipped to me with the same contents a week ago, also via ups, and was not charged the extra fee. hmm. i find this very annoying.

long story 'short' (i know, not very short. sorry.) the owner of the ups store gets on the phone with me and offers to cut down the box to shave the extra inch (yes one measly inch over the limit) and repack the bike in it. i said, 'go for it!' and they refunded me the large package fee.]

which brings me to last friday, when the box was delivered to loser-seller. who then rejects it. yes, he rejected the box because he claimed the box was damaged. damaged being cut down an inch and resealed with tape. the loser-seller then informs me that he rejected it, it's being returned to me, i am supposed to reject it too, and then (and only then) ups will open a claim for the damaged item.

umm. where's my refund, i'm wondering. according to this loser-seller he won't issue it until ups resolves the 'damaged box' issue. which, in my opinion, is just him trying to weasel out of the refund.

so, ebay contacts me yesterday saying that my refund will be issued when the item is delivered and that the tracking number isn't correct. of course those things are forty digits long and i'm sure i didn't transcribe it perfectly when they gave me the new one.. so i march up to the ups store this morning and am there on the sidewalk when they open at 8:30.

i ask for a copy of my receipt and tracking info and when they pull it up on the computer they notice that the box is to be redelivered to me today. i say, 'so what happens if i'm not home? how do i reject it?'

'why would you reject it?' they ask me.
'umm, that's how you start the claim process right?'
'hmm, no.'

turns out loser-seller had that all wrong. he should have accepted the package and told the driver the box was damaged on the spot. then they would contact me to open the claim. instead he simply rejected it, meaning what? who knows.

ups advises me to call ebay. and so i did. and holding back tears - because i tend to cry when i'm angry - i explain the entire ordeal to customer service. and this very, very, very nice woman named emily (coincidentally also the name of my one and only cabbage patch doll, which is strangely reassuring) told me that 'all you had to do was ship the item back to him, or attempt to, and if loser-seller rejected it, that's not your problem.' she issued me a refund on the spot - price paid plus original shipping - and said when the bike arrives...

it's mine to do with as i wish.

oh yes. finally.
karma.
bikema.

today haley and i rode our bikes all over grant park, reynoldstown, and cabbagetown. the sidewalks are only a smidge safer than the trails we navigated last weekend and the term 'urban jungle' is taking on a new meaning to me.

tomorrow we're hitting the trails again. the non-urban trails, that is. finally it seems i've gotten out of the afore-mentioned cage.


d: one cage down, one to go.
b: i ordered a how to guide for bicycle repair and soon i'll be the go-to-girl-with-a-wrench. and two mountain bikes.
g: perseverance paid off. in abundance.