The Best Gift- published 2/21/15

I was kneeling on the floor helping Beach carefully box up 3 medals made of glass. 

Beach was far more fascinated by the boxes than the awards she had won. As soon as they announced boxes were available she rushed to get hers. 

She showed me the silky interior, the indented circle for the medal face, and announced the color was the "best" blue. 

"Aren't these boxes just beautiful?" She asked me holding them up.  

I was kneeling at her feet looking up into her smiling face thinking how lucky I was to have this kid in my life when I heard a mom from the sea of people squeezing by us say, "No, you leave those on I want people to see them when I am walking with you." 

As the woman twisted to grab the shoulders of her child our eyes met.   

Practically standing over me she looked down on me and at the stack of boxes in my hand, and then to Beach. 

Smiling Beach. 
Smiling, struggling Beach. 

The kid fighting a 10-second pause on beam before her series- the series she fell on. The kid asking from the backseat of the car through tears, "When is my dad coming back?" Wonderful, funny, honest, sweet Beach.

The look on the woman's face gave me the feeling we were the last pair of people she would have wanted to have heard her say that.

Her daughter looked at Beach, passing a weak smile of recognition; they had been on the podium together. Then awkwardly under the weight of her mother, she was taken away.

At first Beach and I just stared at each, both us feeling almost guilty for them witnessing us being us, and us seeing them being them. 

In the wake of them, I didn't know what to say to my own child but she knew what needed to be said. 

"That was really sad, mom. I feel bad for that girl- and her mom. That must really suck."

I stood up and Beach asked, "Can I see one of the boxes, they are so cool!"  

the things we do for love

I have done one and a half loads of laundry.  Changed the sheets on our bed including the duvet cover- what a serious pain that is!

Prepared dinner for tonight; an elk roast in a rich red tomato jalapeno broth with seeping garlic and heavy tones of black pepper, a side of creamy mashed potatoes for Beach and BC, and a dryish smashed yam for myself, green salad.

For dessert, a peanut butter brownie pie made with the following substitutions and/or additions: apple sauce, greek yogurt, oatmeal, and hand mashed black beans.

I have emptied and loaded the dishwasher twice, cleaned out the fridge, vacuumed three rooms, sorted the bills, trimmed and rearranged the flowers, fed the dogs and the cats, swept the mudroom, took out the trash, cleaned one of the two bathrooms, put a hundred things back where they go... and now that I think about it before doing all that I made breakfast, cleaned it up, and worked out.

The one thing I did not do was run Beach to work, BC did because he had extra time this morning.

While abandoning his coffee mug in the middle of the kitchen BC asked what the occasion was for all the work I was doing.  Well, it's Thursday... 

The special occasion is this is our one and only life.  

I do most of these things or things like them every day that I can. These are some of the last days for our little family to be together as we are now.  They are also some of the first days on the next adventure for each of us.

Beach is 16.  The closer she gets to a decision about her future in gymnastics the closer I see the end of this life and the start of something new.  Where and what that looks like I don't know.

All of her siblings are out on their own. Each took a different path. The talk of colleges beyond the idea of gymnastics is only now beginning. Driver's Education which had been on hold is now scheduled.

We have two years before she graduates from high school.  But two years?! That's not very long in the heart of a mother.

I am laying down the final pieces of a road that has taken us from where we began to where we are now.  A road that she will branch from to take out to the world beyond.  A road I want to make so wide and open and strong that she will always be able to find it again. No matter where she goes. 

Some of it I am repaving. The return of nightly desserts, family game night, and a family read-aloud novel.  Projects and Nova. Thoughts of spring camping and summer hikes.  Complex plans for the garden.  Our life as it was when they were all little.  Life slow and predictable. Well, as predictable as life can be with BC. Some of the stones are new. Adventures in Art and Fashion, a wild muddy Cowdog, and a woodshop with a big idea.

The smell of clean laundry, the memories of healthy homemade food, all the colors of the dishes put neatly away, and the sounds of childhood on newly swept floors.  There is a lot to do.  There is a lot that won't get done.  Dinners will burn, pies will not turn out but the love inside the work, inside the hours and the days that's what matters. The making of a home with open doors and sleeping cats.

Every day is a special occasion.  

Every day there is a reason to live your life as big as you can. 

Grandpa and Grandma Brown

cups of water

It's the water.  The blue weight of it lapping at the side of the boat.

It whispers low beneath the wind, Let me in, let me in.

This was my idea but sitting in the canoe in the cool vastness of a November mountain lake I start second-guessing myself.

The wind is combing the dark water.  Scraping it towards the canyon and away from the dam.

I paddle but it feels like rowing through the sand.

"You can't straighten the canoe from the front in the wind," he says over the gentle clicking of the reel on his grandpa's fishing pole.

"The wind is going to push it sideways."

I know this. 

I lean carefully over the side of the canoe.  Let my fingers dip into the water.  I guess the water temperature to be in the '50s. I nod to myself knowingly but really it's the only cold water temperature I know- the water tank at the sports rehab I take Beach to. Honestly, I have no idea how cold it is or isn't.

 I look boat to shore, shore to the boat. Then I glance around the canoe wondering if we tipped which of the items I took with me would be the thing that killed me: the scarf? the big sweatshirt? the coat? Yeah, definitely the scarf. If only she hadn't worn the scarf...

I imagine the weight of waterlogged wool wrapping around my throat and my hands like a sea monster. I resist the urge to throw it off to the muddy floor of the canoe.

BC leans to one side.  I react and lean to the other and swear under my breath.

"When we go back we should take the trail below the parking lot," he says.

I look back up the steep, yellow hillside and wonder how long until we do actually go back.  Long, I tell myself, relax, enjoy this... because it was your fucking idea after all. He is only doing this for you.

I sit quietly among the sound of the grayling jumping; starvation fish.

I begin to contemplate how to get into a life jacket while fully dresses in breath-stealing water. Will it fit over my coat? Or do you try to remove your coat first? 

"I know this makes you uncomfortable," he says.  I hear the strong zip of a good cast. "Just give me a few minutes of drift to get set."

I turn and "date" smile. "No, it's fine. Take your time." I adjust the lifejacket at my feet so it's not trapped beneath the seat if the boat flips. I measure the distance to the nearest shoreline- far. Yep, it's officially very fucking far.

Pause. "It's just...uncomfortable, why does it feel like we are going against the waves?"

"We aren't."

I paddle three dozen strokes.  "I want to go over there but we aren't." I am pointing at the far shoreline.

"We are," he answers dryly.

The sun touches the hazy crown of the mountains to the west. I stop my slow panic to watch it.

He shifts.  The canoe takes a bow to the waves.

"Why does the canoe seem so tippy?" I ask, once again readjusting the lifevest with my foot.

"It's a canoe," he says.  Then probably remembering something about me he adds, "It won't tip.  We would have to both really try to tip it to get it to go over."

I know this. 

I nod. My back fighting to stay calm.

I watch the waves roll by blue- but the lake is green.  Clearwater almost gelatin looking in its purity.  Early in the day, I had called the reservoir ugly but it isn't.  It sits like a silver cup between golden canyons. 

"Okay, where do you want to go?" he asks his paddle already in the water correcting the course.

"There." I point to the shoreline around the headwater. Dead trees standing like broken gates. I can't help but to want to look behind them.

The canoe finally points and BC's strong comfortable stokes coupled with mine move us. The water dances against the low craft.

This is why. It's the water.  The sound and the silence.  The light and the dark.  The deepness and the shallows. I was raised on the water.  It's where my soul rests.

My strokes are easier than they have been in years. My shoulder finally healing.  BC and I move the boat together and we make big gains.  Yes, this is why.

Midlake I say, "I think I need a beer."

He stops paddling.  Opens the cooler pulling out a brown bottle.  Popping the lid with his lighter he hands it to me.  Our fingers barely touching over the length of the boat.

The canoe losing it's direct turns in the wind.  I pretend not to feel it as he pours himself a glass of wine. For some reason, the sideways gait of the canoe is less uncomfortable now.

A triad of ducks drifts by then explode into flight. They call out to each other, ark in the muted sky and land on the other side of us; no closer, no farther away.

I put in a few strokes that pull us back on course.

BC joins me and we glide to the end of the lake.

"Shore?" he asks.

"Sure," I answer, not really wanting to leave the water.

"The rocks?"

"Sure."

"You will have to bring us in," he says as he begins to pull is his line.

"I always do," I answer.

I push my paddle down reaching for the bottom and don't find it.  I do it two more times as we get closer wetting my gloves but never finding the ground. The shoreline below us must be steep I reason.

I take aim, give three good strokes and set my paddle down on the bottom of the boat to pick up my beer. The nose races in.  It nuzzles a set of white rocks on the right and a dense cluster to the left.  It stops softly on the patch of open gravel.  A perfect mooring.

I look over my shoulder to BC a laugh already spreading across his lips.

I shrug, "Who needs a paddle?"

I jump out landing precariously three times before finding solid footing.  I pull us in. I was raised on the water.  My body knows everything about it. I look out across the lake, the waves with the sun slipping away.

BC pulls on his coat before carefully making his way to shore.  He is more thoughtful than I was. Choosing a route up the rocks that ensures (over luck) dry feet.

A bottle of beer, a glass of wine, and a silver, no, a golden cup of blue-green water. 

This is the reason: to remember I am more okay than I think I am... even when I am drifting.

sunlight through my fingers

Yesterday was a shit show.  A shit show on a stale cracker.  

A day so messed up it can rarely occur so it's important to not let it go before wringing out the hidden drops of beauty inside it. 

I learned my grandma passed away.

My son's truck broke down.  Meaning my day watching Little J was going to run late and my plans to go to the gym (my gym) had to be canceled.



BC left a gate open and the dogs got out.

My daughter's car was hit (& run) in a parking lot.

I was talked into buying McD's for lunch by a 4-year-old who was then not in the mood for chicken and wanted me to make pizza.

Beach's back went out and she had to miss practice.

BC lost his wallet.  His jobs ran late so he missed getting to the bank again leaving me cashless. 

I couldn't get Fair Photos to the printers.

Ants in the laundry room.


I hung up on BC.

And then I was called into work.

Looking back I see the sunlight and hear Little J laughing, the water splashing, the dog jumping.  

I see Little J's other grandma, Nana, despite having her own long day smiling, standing at her back door as I handed her a sleepy Little J so I could get to work.  I see the gym moms and my coworkers laughing through it with me. 

When I rushed out the door to work my yard was picked up and raked, the house was clean, laundry done, a chocolate zucchini cake for dessert cooling on the counter, and dinner set to pop in the oven.     

And I only put Little J's swimsuit on her backward once.

Today doesn't look any less complicated. 

 I have Little J all day again.  I have photos to get to the printer, a kid to get to gym or the chiropractor or both, homeschooling to be done, a gym date for myself and the request that I work tonight to lessen the crazy of the first week of a new session.  

So much for getting days off in trade for working weekends.

I also have a mystery: I have a blog post Words Across The Water that has gone viral for a lack of a better term but I can't figure out how or even why.  

And there is one more thing I have today I didn't yesterday... last night as I was dreaming in the chaos of dreamlife. I saw my sister.  I want to remember this, I told myself so I reached out and grabbed her arm.  I held on to it for as long as I could.  

Hold on to all of it.  

The phone calls, the texts, the distractions, the craziness, the dogs, topless markers, lidless glue sticks, tiny socks, the sticky smell of pancakes, the sunlight, the splashing, the whole whirlwind of life- shit show on a stale cracker and all.

Grab ahold of it and don't let go. 


  

dust to dust

I can admit I bribed her to help me.  Not that I had to but I did.  I dropped her off at home to get started and I walked the half block south to fetch an oreo shake.

It was supposed to be a pretty straight forward project. Clean out 3 dressers, move them around, pack a load (or 2) to donate, and list a few of the furniture items we no longer need on KSL.   

"Did everyone have this much music?" She asked wading through a dusty drawer of CD's and yes, tapes.  Something BC was assigned to do years and years ago. 

Before you, we always listened to music...

Before you.  She accuses me of saying it all the time.  Before you, we swam every night.  Before you, we took sunset hikes.  Before you...

But it's true.  Life before Beach was different.  It was slower.  It was two families dating each other.  His one child and my two. We were all on our best and our worse behavior.

There were lines of his and hers drawn all over the place.  Two sets of family traditions, 2 ex's, 3 households. It was Beach that changed all that.     

Life before Beach and life after Beach.  She made all of us make sense.  She tied us together and erased the lines.  It only seems right she would be the last child here. The child sorting through the remains of a family.  The family she created.  Helping me decide what stays and what goes.  Knowing the difference between what matters now and what mattered when. 

In my lifetime I have three times cleaned out the living spaces the dead left behind.  One old and ready to go, one just ready, and the other too haunted by life to live, afraid to die but gone all the same. 

I think about it a lot.  Not the death part but the remains part.  What would I want to leave? How much am I willing to hold on to?  And why?  What is the value of objects versus the value of freedom?

Our passion for vintage and rare walks us straight down the whale bones.  Ghost towns and desert roads.  I like abandoned places.  I like to see what gone looks likes.  I am drawn towards emptiness.

Clutter is my number one trigger for anxiety but the house on 10th West (and its male owner) likes junk.             

Despite BC's best efforts to collect and hoard the house is thinning.  We are all growing up.

Before you Beach, we listened to music... but then you came along and created a whole new soundtrack to our lives. 

I can see the end.  Forts made of blankets and bedtime stories are being put away. 

I see a field of golden grass blending in the autumn light. It is the hillside where 16 years ago BC and I laid down a blanket and a bottle of wine.  We planned our life together there.  In some ways we were wrong but in the ways that matter we were so right.

Our lives together, like moving through a house opening door after door.  Now they are all open and we find ourselves standing on the back porch.  Staring out at an open field.  Right back where we started.     

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.  I'll meet you there." ~Rumi

kids at play

For Baby J's birthday, we met up with Conner and Lexi at Jump Around.