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.