We Believe

Eleanor and Emeline wrote to Santa. They put out cookies and milk for him to eat and carrots and sugar cubes in to-go bags for the Reindeer. The gel eye-pack was placed around the milk to keep it cool... Eleanor is always concerned about things spoiling.




As you can see, Santa did eat and drink and if you look closely, you can see he answered a question on Eleanor's letter.








Emeline hung around the tray for a while taking in the idea that Santa Claus had stood in this very spot and accepted her gift of food and drink. I believe, too, Emmie.

Chicago

It WAS windy.

From Allison

The Big Heart

"Too many things are occurring for even a big heart to hold."
–From an essay by W.B Yeats

Big heart,
wide as a watermelon,
but wise as birth,
there is so much abundance
in the people I have
Max, Lois, Joe, Louise,
Joan, Marie, Dawn
Arlene, Father Dunne,
and all in their short lives
give to me repeatedly,
in the way the sea
places its many fingers on the shore,
again and again
and they know me,
they help me unravel,
they listen with ears made of conch shells,
they speak back with the wine of the best region.
They are my staff.
They comfort me.

They hear how
the artery of my soul has been severed
and soul is purting out upon them,
bleeding on them,
messing up their clothes,
dirtying their shoes.
And God is filling me,
though there are times of doubt
as hollow as the Grand Canyon,
still God is filling me.
He is giving me the thoughts of dogs,
the spider in its intricate web,
the sun
in all its amazement,
and a slain ram
that is the glory,
the mystery of great cost,
and my heart,
which is very big,
I promise it is very large,
a monster of sorts,
takes it all in–
all in comes the fury of love.

Anne Sexton

Boys!

I am the driver of three little girls. Two belong to me and one might as well. They are all just burst out of school for the afternoon. I am singing to the radio tune. I am tuning-in to the talk in the backseat.

"Boys are big, fat, and stupid."

I cannot let this slide.

"Um, excuse me, but we don't talk like that. Boys are not big, fat, and stupid. What if some little boys somewhere are saying the very same thing about girls? Let's try again."

Eleanor huffs. "Okaaaaay. Boys are just stupid. And then they grow up to be big, fat, and stupid."

The mood I am in, all ideas about what should be aside, I can only mutter something about "you know that is not funny," raise an eyebrow, give her the mom look, and manage to keep my smirk in check. For the moment, well said, Eleanor. May you and I come to terms with boys very soon.

Hello

Hello Again. He says. Neil Diamond he says. Cheesy, I think, but I smile anyway. I hear him smoke though he had quit. And he was so proud.

It hits me that I have spent so much time waiting for this. I have anticipated the day when his voice wouldn't reach into the center of me. I talk. I have so many funny things to tell him. I laugh. I listen. Finally he says he must get some sleep. I hang up and realize. Nothing inside me aches. For the first time in how many talks with him, I'm not in tears or on a rant. Not because I didn't love him. But because I know there is nothing missing about me. No empty space. No shape inside me he should fill. I am complete. As I am.

I think quitting things you love is hard. I am so proud.

Getting from There to Here

I can get stuck. Which in light of how I should be grateful lately is embarrassing. Days I've been stuck in this place I didn't want to be. Days that stretched out just like the impersonal side of this city, seemingly without a beginning or an end, without rest, busy but detached, faceless, concrete grey, and suffering from the sudden onset of afternoon waterworks. Days I have had the same blank stare as I traced and retraced my worn path to work and home again creeping slowly in the gridlock.

HONK.

Surely I am not drifting out of my lane or that distracted. What...

HONK.

I look in my rearview. Nothing. I look to my right.

There he is waving. He smiles. He blows me a kiss.

I laugh.

He drives on.

I drive on.

We all drive on.

Slowly just like before. But.

The back of his car is pearly green as it is swallowed up by the other glowing red brake lights. I look in the rearview mirror again, but this time see my dark brown hair catching the sun and notice my hazel eyes looking back. It's me. I wink in recognition. Outside the ceiling is cornflower blue and puffy white cotton clouds have been glued across its great expanse by a child's hand. I see four and twenty black birds escaped from a storybook swirling against the pale background and then they land neatly, one by one, on a wire. To my left I see the golden yellow headlight on a dirty, dark red train engine and I hear its horn blast and even feel the rumble and clickity-clack as it glides past parallel. I see again. I feel again. In technicolor.

Maybe His name is Clarence and somewhere a bell is ringing still. Merry Christmas, Man. Wherever you are. Thanks.

Turning Upside Down

I walked to the mailbox when I got home today. There were no bills, no personal letters, no sales fliers. It was empty. I turned and started up my front walk. But because I am not empty, I was overcome with the notion to try a cartwheel. I haven't tried one in years. I am 39, I am wearing a skirt, I have an incompletely healed incision on my bikini line, but I went gracefully into a tumble I did hundreds and hundreds of times as a girl. Bare foot, hand, hand, bare foot, bare foot. Maybe my panties are not a secret to the neighbors should they have been watching. I really don't care. I have good news inside of me and I want it to show on the outside.

Thank you, Susan, for the house and the porch and the swing and the gathering. Thank you for the monsoon.

Thank you, Dawn, for the mountain top whispers and all the stars and for sharing your own story.

Thank you all for your energy and prayers, for your encouragement and vibes. Thank you for believing everything would be okay.

Everything is okay.

And I can still turn a cartwheel.

Whooo hoooo!

How to Quit Feeling Sorry for Yourself

I drove a total seven hours to get there and it should only take five. Much of it in rain so hard I could barely see the tail lights in front of me. I took one wrong turn on a drive I could do blindfolded any other day, and I only took that turn because I was so rattled by a phone call. And I knew the phone call would come. One day. The phone call about how he didn't love me "that way." Just not that day, just not in the pouring rain with two little girls who kept crossing the center line of the backseat and whining and fighting and asking if the rain would stop and asking if we were there yet. And so whether my tears or the rain blurred the road made no difference. The noise from the backseat and the back of my head was a tug-of-war between reality and the fictional dialogue I should have had... a mix of all the stuff I wish I'd said to him interspersed with pleas to "get along, girls, we'll be there soon."

Even after we drove up the drive, even after I saw my dad come down those steps in the blue glow of my headlights, even after we fell out of the car and into our pajamas and into the bed... all of us into one bed, me and the girls, I couldn't sleep. I lay there under my Daddy's roof listening to the rain and thinking. About lots of things. Mostly about all the things that have gone wrong lately. I wonder if I will ever be in a decent relationship. I wonder as I lay there if I will ever get it right. I wonder if I have ever done anything right. The tears rolled quietly from the corners of my eyes and into my hair and onto my pillow. It is raining outside, and down my face, and in my head.

I am back in my own house tonight. I am looking at the pictures I made. There they are, standing at the edge of a Louisiana watermelon patch, bathed in the setting sun, two things I've done right. I realize I am in a good relationship: I'm a mom. The tears roll down my face again. But this time, it's good.

Home

I'm going home. Louisiana home. Family reunion home. I'll be among the people I came from. I'll be looking at their faces and seeing parts of my own. I'll be hugging the old gently and grabbing the young by their middles to swing them around and tease them about school and sports and how much they've changed. I'll eat homegrown this and homebaked that until I burst.

My dad will ask me how I'm doing now that I'm on my own at least a dozen times. With that serious look on his face. I'll say, "fine, Daddy." I'll sit by him on the couch and we'll find a John Wayne movie on tv if we're lucky. "Shane" if we're luckier. We'll say all the good parts out loud together and everyone else will abandon the living room.

I haven't wanted to go home for a while. But something has turned in me. Now it's a longing. I see each familiar mile between here and there flicking by in my mind already. I see the interstate give way to the highway and the highway turns just so and there is that curve by the fairgrounds and then the long driveway. I see my dad come out of the house and down the steps of the porch. He's been looking for us. I'm home in my mind. Now I just have to get there.

Father's Day

Thanks, Daddy. I love you, too.

The Left and Found at Chevron

A trip to the gym and I will sweat out all my frustrations and world weariness. Only I don't. I carry out all I carry in and trail behind me my two girls like droopy ducklings back to the car. We load up and pull out of the lot.

We stop to fill the car with gas. I hate this chore. The car is so greedy. The car just consumes and wants more from me like everyone and everything else. I sigh and clomp to the pump. I go through all the proper procedures to feed the car. It seems to take so long in the simmering, cicada sizzling, late afternoon. I'm sure I got the slow pump and my car is totally empty as usual because I put off filling up until completely necessary. Finally, with sweat rolling down my back, the nozzle clicks to indicate that the car is engorged like some tick on a dog. Done. Or nearly.

To make the annoyance completely absurd, I can't get my receipt out of the convenient, at-the-pump, printer. I struggle to grasp just the tiniest edge and try to pull. But the receipt is wedged up inside the machine. It is my nature not to lose a battle and I use my key to try and coax the paper further from the slot. I waste precious minutes of my life on this task in the sweltering Houston heat. I cuss at the edge of the paper and I decide time is indeed too precious. I slide defeated into the car. As I pull the seatbelt across my sweat-beaded body, I tell the girls I'm sorry to have taken so long, but I was trying to get the receipt out of the pump.

My oldest daughter Eleanor cocks her head slightly and quizzes, "You can return gas?" I pause. I flash-consider my habit of shopping and then finding purchases too extravagant, or too big, or too small, or too... well, returnable. I snort. I start to laugh a little. Eleanor smiles and blinks and me oddly. She starts to giggle, although she is only laughing at my laughter; she doesn't even understand her own joke. Now the sheer joy of truly laughing for the first time in too long takes over. My youngest daughter Emeline joins in, too, because laughter is just infectious. I explain to Eleanor what is so funny about her joke, and the three of us sit in the car in the gas station, laughing like we haven't in weeks. Heads back, eyes twinkling, in my case, tears streaming. A man passes by our car and sees us and grins. We must be a sight.

I wheel us into traffic and head toward home with a smile still clinging to the corners of my eyes. I keep glancing at my girls in the rearview mirror. Eleanor is looking at me, smiling, and I think she is so relieved to know I can still laugh. I slide back the sunroof and I swear there is a now a hint of laughter in the song of the cicadas, buzz band of summer's swelter, and I vow to let a little of the stuff I've been carrying around inside of me blow out and stay behind with that receipt stuck in the pump.

Comfort

The silence is not loud anymore. It is just quiet. I hear a heartbeat. I wait for the words and nearly hear the breath drawn in before the exhale of them. They will come.

Where once I could not live with space, I stretch myself in it and notice my own arms and legs. Brown. Strong. Solid enough.

I fill my own time. I dream. I think. I am. Comfortable with this.

Memorial Day

Lest we forget.

-Thanks, JW

I feel better.

For the first time in days I took note of some good things. I saw a red trumpet flower as I drove home, I heard a snippet of a bird singing, I found a birthday gift left on my kitchen counter by elves. I got to use a skill passed on to me by my dad: I tied a Windsor in a piece of striped silk for my friend's son because she's a single mom, too. It made me feel like a magician to take the tie and produce a perfect knot for his band concert at school. Then the Girl Scout meeting full of giggles and paint and popcorn. My girls got their bath and books and prayers and water and songs and tuck-in.

I don't feel angry and self-absorbed and self-important like yesterday. I have beauty that is free, I have those that need me, I have skills to pass on, I have friends to share with, I have girls to bathe and grow and love. I have all I'll ever need. Inside, outside. May I always have eyes and heart to see.

I feel like me. Only better. One year better.

39

Today I turned 39.

I had a nice lunch with the people from work. I ate more than my share of the dessert.

I went to the gym and tried very hard not to be 39 by staying longer than usual.

I took a nice, hot bath and drank a glass of wine.

Then I got a call from Mr. Blonde Curls to wish me a happy day. Somewhere in the middle of his lecture about how not to feel down, about how to be a good parent, about how to let God handle things... I lost my ever-loving mind and yelled my head off. Pounded my fist into my bed and yelled into the phone, rose up onto my knees and I think I turned reddish-purple. I tore at the sheets and gritted my teeth and seethed. I asked severeal rhetorical questions that really didn't beg an answer. I was yelling at him for nothing, for everything. I was screaming because I can. And when I finally finished, I cried. Spent. I listened, then, because I was pretty sure he should have hung up. He was still there so I apologized for yelling at him. He said, "you weren't yelling at me." Oh, but I was. But not for any of that. I was yelling at him because we're friends. Friends.

Today was my birthday and I indulged myself.

Um, No thanks.

Well, no new job. The man was nice about it.

But I'm having dinner and wine with girlfriends tomorrow night. I'm in my own house. My girls are breathing softly in their beds. We're all well.

And there are Oreos. And milk. Both cold.

Currency

Some days I feel like I'm living in a shiny, new coin way. Heads or tails. Flip me. Lucky penny. Lucky to know me. Two cents worth from my opinionated mouth. Mint.

Other days are more like older days. The constantly rubbed coin in a pocket, face worn from worry. Checking my value. Circulated.

Either way, I have to spend the days. Spend wisely. Spend foolishly. But there's no saving them. Charge.

Happy Easter

Eleanor Age 3

Things I've learned lately...

1. I'm no fan of the symphony.

2. It feels good to let people help.

3. It's okay to make mistakes.

4. I can trust myself.

5. It's going to work out.

Oh, Be Careful Little Hands What You Dial

I tried at least once to tell myself I would laugh later. Maybe not in days but hopefully in weeks and at at the very least in years. But a woman in a closet sobbing isn't very funny.

Today was a perfect day. I got to drive to work with the top back. Sure, something blew into my eye, but big, dang deal, I had the wind in my hair and, well, who doesn't look good with the top back? And cats, me and my officemate have both had cats as pets. Something in common. She actually laughed with me today and there is a difference. A friend offered to take my oldest daughter to tennis and so I got to go to the gym right after work where some guy actually struck up a conversation with me as I climbed two miles of stairs while dripping with sweat. I love attention. Even when sweating. And then I got to take my youngest daugther to the park where I ran into one, two, three friends and we chatted. We had a wonderful quiet night at home later. We baked brownies. The girls giggled in the tub.

And then I stumbled. The day nearly done and I fell across the finish line. The little one wants to tell Daddy goodnight. I dial. I quickly say, "Emmie wants to tell you goodnight." I hand the phone to the toddler. She says goodnight and gives a kiss. I take the phone and click it off. Wait. What was all that noise in the background? A restaurant? A bar? He doesn't have... friends... Oh... my... God. I dialed the wrong number. I feel the blush begin somewhere around my middle and rush up to my head. I am crimson. I am hot. I dial back. "I am so sorry." He laughs. I tell him it isn't funny. I apologize again and he says he'll call me later. He's on business. Out to dinner. I tell the little one that Daddy didn't hear her and it's my fault and I dail the right number this time.

I tuck in the girls. I read them a book. I sing their songs. I pray their prayers. I walk to my bedroom, into my closet and close the door. I cry for twenty minutes. Great big heaving sobs. Not because I'm embarrassed, but because I should stand between their little hearts and any hurt. She asked for her Daddy and I handed her a stranger. Carelessly. Mistakenly. She smiled and didn't seem to blink any notice. But I know. I'm a poor sentry. I missed this watch.

So he does call after his dinner. He assures me he just thought for a second I was crazy and then he figured it out. He manages to make me laugh. Okay, more like a chuckle. But my eyes don't want to play along as they are still sad. He manages to convice me I'm not the world's worst mother. It's not so much his words, it's the honey and balm in the tenor, it's the warm place his words make for me. And I draw my legs up to fit inside. I lay my head on my knees and rest and listen. Odd, I fell across this phone line, and now it's my lifeline.

Quote

"The decision to become a mother is to know that your heart will forever walk outside your body."

So I have two hearts. One, sensitive and full of flight. One, touching and full of fight.

Both after my own heart. And, today it aches for them.

Like Two Peas in a Fishbowl...

We are very different, my new office mate and I.

I lay out my clothes for the next day the evening before. I think she sleeps in her clothes for the next day the evening before. At first I thought she was wearing the same black "iMac" t-shirt every day. But then I noticed subtle differences in them. The fronts are all the same, but the backs all bear a different message. So, really it's a uniform. A Mac geek uniform. Today she wore one over the other. Two black iMac t's at a time. Me, on the other hand, I was wondering this morning if it was too soon to wear my red pumps as I had just worn red suede boots last Friday... even though they were boots, they are heels, and red is red.

She's a gamer. She plays something called "Warcraft" on her lunch break. Me, I'm game. I just like to talk to the guys in the office and see if I can make them blush. Hey, that's a fun game.

For lunch she eats take-out that smells fantastic. I eat microwave popcorn that smells fantastic.

She stays late. I have little girls to get home to.

Every now and then I stand up and dance while I wait for my stuff to print. She ignores this. It's best, as the music is just in my head. Every now and then I sing. She ignores this. It's best, as the music is just in my head. I ignore her ignoring me and talk to her anyway.

We are finding as we work together that we each have a place. Sure, her place is a little more black t-shirt and full of mythical creatures... but she can find every file on the server and fix email issues. And my place has more red shoes and more real men.... but when your boss actually tells you part of your job is to "provide levity" you just go with who you are. Yeah, me and my office mate are different. She sighs often. I laugh often. We both slyly look over at the other and think "Man, I'm glad I'm not like THAT." It's working out between us just fine.

The Dress

I bought it with my friend's encouragment. I may not get to wear it. Out. I may not get to wear the dress out in public. Man, I look good in that dress. Sort of Audrey Hepburn. If she were to ever have a nightmare and end up glistening sweat in the Houston suburbs on a warm summer night. But I can put it on and dance around the living room with the girls. "Mama, you look pretty." "Yeah, Baby, I do." A girl should know when she looks pretty. All girls. Any age.

So maybe no smiles over candlelight. No gazes through eyelashes. The hope of that seems too much. But maybe I'll flop across my bed after I tuck in those little angels and sleep in it and dream something fantastic. It's only ebroidered cotton. God, I love what it means. Belted. Sleeveless. Gathered. Knee-length. Sexy. Independent. Flirty. Pretty. This dress screams "can you help me with this zipper?" Damn. I look good in it, too. Even glistening sweat. Especially like that. Southern, suburban Audrey Hepburn. I'm out in it. In my dreams anyway.

Love

Here is my daughter Eleanor. This is her as flower girl. She looks so smitten with the idea of weddings and white dresses and looking pretty on a perfect day. I hope that as she grows I am able to prepare her for more than a perfect day. I hope that I can help her to become a woman who knows herself well enough to wait for her Compliment. Her truly better half. For a man who encourages her to be more of herself with him than less of herself. I pray for her a man who loves her with all that is in him. A man who has passion enough to fight with her and make up with her. A man who respects her mind enough to know she could win any fight. I pray she finds love to meet her love. As this silly holiday approaches, I hope she never gives up as she stands in front of the vast selection of cards. I hope she always has love and her love always has words. Even if her love is too big for words.