the junk drawer at the end of season

It's dumping snow and we have 8 newly hatched baby chicks in a box in Beach's room.  I begged BC not to hatch them so early and during meet season but he didn't listen.

The house is a full-fledged construction site.

I spent most of yesterday in bed or on the sofa.  I would like to say I was trying to rest but honestly I was trying to get up and get going.  Trying to continue to power through this stupid cold.  But it keeps dragging me back down.  I can feel it every time I stand up- it triples the pull of gravity.  I'm short of breath and my head pounds. 

All around the valley nasty viruses are taking people out.  Last week it swept most of our team off their feet.  The line of girls using the phone to call home sick was a constant. Beach and Sophie included.  I took them home Tuesday night, feed them toast and tea, and let them sleep snuggled on the sofa together.

Deep within our own gym family one of our favorite Trophy Dads was hospitalized.  As our girls competed in Park City the moms all anxiously waited updates from the family.  We were all relieved to hear when he was finally released on Sunday to go home.

My dreams last night were all about scrambling to make flights and finding hotels... we leave for Ohio on Thursday.  Like Florida last year this is the meet that I have been watching ominously creep over the horizon.  But despite the amount of energy I have thrown at trying to ignore it I find myself staring at it calmly. 

When Beach began traveling for gymnastics we were not prepared for the expense or the commitment and time that went into it.  Just a few years later, for the most part we have all that figured out.  Beach likes, even loves the travel part.  BC has come to accept it as long as I present it to him carefully and in small doses.

That just leaves me.  I get stressed, homesick, & regular sick. I get lonely and I get overwhelmed being surrounded... but I think I got this.  I can see us standing in the middle of our gym family. Herding excited girls clutching & guzzling Starbucks cups of hot chocolate as they enter the security line.  Bags and selfies, nerves and smiles.

And now we have 9 baby chicks. 

Maybe when we get home the house will be finished- and life can get back to normal.

are we there yet?

Yeah, not really but we are getting closer.

This is a lot of chaos to live with but the positives far outweigh the negatives. Besides the obvious things like getting insulation and walls there is the fact that the house requires almost nothing from me.  BC shop vacs at the end of each day. All the family living is done is the little upstairs family room making clean up a breeze. It's kind of cozy.

Little Dog may not agree she spends most of her time hiding under my bed from loud noises. Can't say I blame her. Power tools can send me scrambling for hiding places too.

But each day we are getting closer!

*salt*

salt, from a long time ago

mlb 2/26/17

kneel not in his doorway for one more moment

push back from his table with both hands

topple the salt shaker

shatter the now empty "I'm sorry" vase

and spill the remains of his gin

noisily drag the chair out from the corner and across the floor

duck as the bottles begin to fly
grab your jacket & keys

then make for the nearest unlocked door

pause only a second under the weight of your doubt on the bottom step
as he follows you down

hurling words like bricks into the night
his shadow above you acidic and dark

but tonight, clear the sky

kick the prickling shrugs from your path

slam shut the garden gate

breaking down the strangling vines as you go

tonight you can walk out of Gomorrah

and tomorrow you can replace the gin

stones

He looks sideways at me and smiles.  He is blocking the sun. The light falls around him casting a hazy outline of his body.  

It reminds me of a crayon drawing with the lines so carefully blurred and bleeding. 

He tightens his jaw but the smile holds on.  He is waiting for an answer from me.  My answer will never come.   

This doesn't detour him. He steps out of the light and into the shade.  His hand on my arm guides me to follow.  He dips his head and all his dark hair falls forward. Deceivingly cutting 10 yrs off his true age. 

"Do you remember..." he pauses at the edge of the thought just as his voice cracks. I can feel his grip tightening on my arm. "Why the hell is it not raining?!" He blurts out in a forced laugh that dies slowly between us.  

I want to help him but I know better. 
  
I watch his chest rise and fall giving him time.  When I dare I raise my head to look him in the face. His smile has left and in its place is a ghost town.  

He lets go of my arm reassigning his hold to my neck.  He lets his fingers slide into my hair as his cups the side of my face in his hand.  Instinctively I lean in.  

"Did you ever love only me? Or have I always been a diluted version of him?"

This is the easy part. When we were together I was never able to tell him how I felt but walking the graveyard of us I can read him the words written in stone. 

"In a single moment, I loved you, and only you. That is something no other man will ever have from me... I will never be that stupid again."

"The saddest part about this is I know right when that moment was," he says letting his hand fall.  "It was raining."

s.n.o.w.

just set it down

....in the dream she was driving.  Where we were going I didn't want to go.  I woke in a startled gasp, the oncoming traffic exploding into the quiet of my darkened bedroom.

...in the dream I was scrambling to collect our things from under a folding chair.  Where I was headed I wasn't quite sure.  I woke with a sense of dread under the quiet of my down comforter.

...in the dream we walked together.  Where we paused I recognized.  I woke blinking in the pink light as it licked the tops of naked winter trees.

But that was days ago.

Scenes set in the cradle of a fever.

Last night the snow whispered all night long.

I woke from sleep that begged to find a dream to fall in. But there were no dreams to be found.  I woke heart broken.  I woke feeling like I would never be hungry again.  I crawled out of bed only to count the minutes until I could find my running shoes and slip off into my own silence.

The trouble isn't in feeling lost, it's in feeling too found.

more progress on the R and B farm house

forty-four

Traditionally, on my birthday I take a moment to look back.  However, this year I am only looking forward.  I blame the ski pass.  Forty-four, go big or go home!

Little Dog and me after going out on the J trail together 3 days in a row.

Two middle aged ladies working on their fitness ;)

a family thing

There are only a few good excuses for missing a day of gym- especially during meet season. Being dead or having a family thing are the 2 best reasons.

Soooooo, Beach had a family thing today.

Look at that smile!!!

Trying ski yoga just like dad.

 Clearly she is her mother's child ;)