and some days (TODAY), she makes me pop the cork on a cheap bottle of Zin that’s caught more dust than the corners of my bedroom and drink it straight from my beautiful, thin, read (sic) bowl-shaped wine glass like a toddler sucking apple juice from a sippy cup.  She is all that bold, beautiful, fiery Sense of Self that takes down parental figures like a scythe does wheat.  Fifteen doesn’t care who stands in her way.  Fifteen will karate chop your trachea and never look back at the wheezing, almost-carcass she’s left behind.  Fifteen forgets she’ll need you tomorrow.  Fifteen is brimstone and smoke and cuss words muttered perceptibly behind eyes that would cut out your heart with laser beams if she could.  Fifteen would leave you for dead.  Fifteen dares you to even EXIST in her world of vigilante justice.

Boyfriend tells me about his neighbor, weary of her teenage stepsons and their antics (driving without a license, whatever manner of public mayhem they can create, etc.).  Her daughters (with the teen boys’ dad) are around four and six years old.  I respond with vitriol- my feelings are transparent:  once you have more than one child with someone, you should not be allowed to procreate with someone else.  If you have more than one child, those kids deserve every ounce of your energy, time, financial ability; you must be responsible for what you helped create.  Children are all-encompassing.  They demand more than you can imagine, and more yet each step of the way.  This neighbor’s adorable four and six- who bring their Mommy angry sighs and frowns as they refuse naps, brussels sprouts, and polite thank-yous for gifts from birthday party guests- will someday give her far more muck heaped up than her “bad” stepsons!  Wait for the pain of daughters, young mother, wait and weep.

The Zin is mostly gone, the fingers weary of fast typing between this and an article to be submitted for publication (can I get paid for this, please?)!  A boy of thirteen-going-on-fourteen lies on the sofa behind me and watches the beginning of National Treasure, winding down after a day of eighth grade and track practice and girls and notes and brainpower and legpower and emotion.  I tell him he has to go to bed at 9pm.  “OK, mom,” he smiles, “Thanks for letting me watch the movie a bit.”  I choke.  I lean over, kiss this man-boy long and hard on the head (too much emotion, damn Zin), and tell him quietly, “I love you, baby.”  I go up and kiss everyone with Zinbreath.  Even Ms. Fifteen-Going-On-Sixteen.  I talk to her about our boy-cat.  What he likes, how he likes to be petted at night and then left alone.  She has softened now.  She lets me in.  Her world floors me, what it’s like when I’m not there, what it will be in a year or two when she is gone.  I listen.  I laugh.  I talk.  I pretend an hour ago didn’t happen.  I leave, five years older and with the wet tears streaming down my cheeks.  I kiss Twelve, and Eight.  I tell Ten to go to bed, now, even with his book (yes, I noticed, baby).

Had anyone warned me, would I have even listened?  Hardest job in the world.  I salute you, mothers.  I salute you, fathers.  Especially the single ones.  My Twelve told Boyfriend the other day that she didn’t think I was the marrying type.  Perhaps.  But I’m trying baby.  And you guys?  You’re Priority One.  Way ahead of me… I love you more than life.  xoxo

All bodies look frail on hospital gurneys,

laid out like sacks of flour.

Limbs tucked in like a night-bloomer, midday.

Brown skin looks pale, white skin paler still.

Hair that shines with sparks-fly-golden strands in the sun lies limp and bark-brown.

Sheenless.

After anesthesia her eyes flick open rapidly, wildly-

then fall shut slowly.  I don’t think she’s here yet, though we’ve had this small ocular exchange.

The monitor shows me her pulse in a crazy blue line

drawn by an invisible Harold-with-his-crayon.

Children- even almost-teens- look so small surrounded by white sheets,

and grey-blue scratchy linen.

Head perfectly still, one index finger eerily lit by a pulse-taking-hardware,

alchemies pour into her vein through the clear tubing taped to her arm.

Her warm hands belie the death-like sleep.

She awakens again and I ask if she wants me to put on her glasses (the world is out of focus enough)?

She tries to speak- panic enters her eyes as she finds her mouth full of blood-soaked gauze,

her tongue a swollen, leaden mound, her throat burning.

No voice. I slip the frames over her ears and watch her slip back into sleep.

Bad omens- I uttered these words yesterday in tears as I fell asleep.  So much death I’ve heard of lately-

the Reaper coming in from behind with his scythe striking the blow

before even the intended victim notices there’s something amiss.

I’m sure my child is already earmarked by a fluke that will leave me stricken in the waiting room.

But she isn’t.

Even after the anesthesiologist failed twice to find her vein due to his shaking hands.

Even after I’m certain the operation has gone on for far too long, and they are merely prepping how to tell me she is gone.

She is fine.

She is before me- groggy, swollen, bleeding, so small between the stretcher’s metal arms.  She is here.

Finally, I exhale.

but think of the scenes in Love, Actually where Liam Neeson portrays a widower trying to move forward in life with his young stepson, as we imagine him at his wife’s bedside now?  And now- while praying for that cup to pass from this family- it appears he may be a widower in real life, far too soon.  Prayers to the family of Natasha Richardson, and here’s  hoping for a miracle.

What is it when you walk around slightly dazed, yet feeling the coiled- up spring of a tiger’s tail in your gut, ready to pounce on anything or anyone who crosses your path?  When the impulse flashes to punch yourself in the nose to awaken from the eyes-open coma you feel in your soul?  Perhaps the split-second shock of pain would snap you out of it?  The lack of feeling feels like too much February grey.

It’s raining, so I can’t shock out of it with a run- though in college I had the gear and used to always run (and love it) in the rain.  Today I feel it may be my only hope, so the old yellow poncho that’s accompanied so many of my kids to camp may have to do for 30 minutes of cover, and my knees may have to ache in the cold, wet air.

My kids are moody.  Angst-ridden.  Coiled tiger’s tails themselves.  My Thirteen wants to know why he won’t see his dad for a month again (his dad will be out of town on “his” next weekend).  It’s unfair.  He is slamming around like a feral cat at the SPCA, and snarling every few minutes.  My Fifteen is getting over being sick.  My Ten wonders aloud why his friends don’t want to play with him.  My Eight and Eleven (for one more week- happy birthday, baby!) are holed up “cleaning the room,” but I hear the GameBoys on, so I imagine the dust bunnies are safe for another hour.

Me?  I’m going to resist punching myself in the face, screaming, cussing- I’m going out into the grey.

Lately, I’m all about the Vikings.  I pick up a mythology book and find that Odin- the Zeus of Viking lore- did not eat at the fancy feasts of the gods, but sat listening to the stories of the ravens on his shoulders: Huginn (which means thought) and Muninn (which means memory).  His food at the table goes to the 2 wolves at his feet.  Odin is associated with wisdom, war, poetry, and others.

The Vikings are seeping into my life in the most random of ways, and at some point, I know the impact will be manifest in my thinking and then perhaps my actions, and certainly my writing.  Earlier this fall on a field trip with my daughter’s sixth grade class to the air and space museum, a man gave a demonstration using liquid nitrogen.  He froze some flowers, and had a student put on an oven mitt and grasp them- they flaked to the ground like wood ash.  At one point, he said the following (or this is how I heard it):

Vikings didn’t fight in the winter.  They ran their swords in the ground to the hilt.

They found that the swords came out sharper when pulled from the frozen earth in the spring.

Freezing changes steel.  It stays sharper longer.

I can find nothing in a quick search on the internet to support or refute the above (Google offered the option of “Vikings put words in ground in winter.”  Hm… I like it!)

As I find myself in a frozen time- frozen with decision-making, frozen with moving forward in some important places, frozen in fixated thinking- I take great solace in the idea that I may come out of the freeze into the thaw sharper than I ever was.

1.  Upon waking up, decide the world just isn’t worth venturing out into today.  Hit snooze 5 times.  Cuss yourself out because now you are LATE.  Eat 7 Hershey’s kisses you find in your sock drawer.

2. Get dressed and make it to the kitchen, yelling.  Feed wayward children.  Take youngest ones to bus stops.  Think about children who don’t have money for coats in cold weather.  Or breakfast.  Feel your eyes tear up.  Walk home doing relaxing yogic breathing.  Hum your mantra: Don’t Fixate.

3. Vacillate for 45 minutes about whether to have eggs or oatmeal, while eating Hershey’s kisses.  They take so long to unwrap.  Break down and cry.  Have cold cereal.

4. Put misanthropic tendencies aside to do errands.  Periodically tear up to a poignant song on the radio.  Wipe eyes when going into businesses.  Think that no one else knows you’re a sap- after all, maybe your dog just died or something, and you have a REASON to weep.  Put on stoic face, despite smeary mascara.

5. Snap at strangers who cut in line, cut you off in traffic, generally piss you off (especially the guy who played chicken with my car on Lynnhaven Parkway- uh, in the case of smallish teen delinquent vs. the minivan- you, sir, would lose.  Messily).  Decide Hershey’s kisses should come unwrapped especially for eating while driving.  It’s dangerous to drive and unwrap the foil.  Resolve to email Hershey’s about this.  Today.

6. Call best friend.  Cuss at answering machine while it’s ticking out the message.  Hang up before leaving message.  Call other best friend.  Let her talk.  Listen to her stuff for awhile.  Feel better that you can leave your own shit lie for a little bit to care about another human being.  Decide you are pretty cool that way.  When she interrupts this mental reverie to ask how you’re doing, burst into tears.  Explain you MAY be pms-ing.  Hang up quickly.

7. Notice another driver on a cellphone.  Rant loudly (with closed windows) about how IDIOTIC it is to DRIVE and talk on a CELL PHONE.  Feel superior.  Your cell phone rings.

8. Answer cell phone.  Put it on speaker and in your lap quickly.  Realize you’ve been butt-dialed by friend.  Yell into phone.  After 1 minute, hang up.  Rant loudly (making sure phone is completely hung up and keylock is on) about how DUMB it is to not KEYLOCK YOUR CELL PHONE.  Wonder if you can get your 8-year-old to unwrap a whole package of Hershey’s kisses and put them in a ziploc baggie, without eating too many of them herself.  Maybe she could have one per every 20 she opens.  (This ziploc is for emergency purposes, understand.)

9. Somehow make it through afternoon kid appointments.  Watch a teen girl pace around counselor’s office loudly repeating “I once believed in Humpty Dumpty,” only it sounds like, “UhonebeeleeHUMDUMTY, uh huh.”   As her mother slumps in a chair, periodically imploring her daughter to “Sit down, honey,” or “Find a book for us to look at,” you are a woman divided.  You want to grab the mother and hold her and laugh hysterically at the Universe for this scene (about a dozen others in the waiting room acting like this disruption is either a) not happening or b) normal in this office), and also  grab her and hold her and let her weep with you for the reality of a child locked in her own world, unable to even hear her mother.  You also want to offer the mother a ziploc baggie full of unwrapped Hershey’s kisses.

10. Arrive home.  Eat 25 Hershey’s kisses while helping kids with homework.  Yell at son to stop throwing ball IN THE EFFING HOUSE.  Realize Hershey’s kisses evidence from morning is all over desk.  Quickly scrape too many wrappers into trash bag.  Feed wayward kids.

11. Rush out door to take son to freshman orientation at high school.  Wish you had brought bag of Hershey’s kisses.  Realize you cannot sit through meetings eating one after another pieces of chocolate.  You are NOT in high school.  Wish you’d thought about UNWRAPPING many Hershey’s kisses and stashing them in pockets for meetings.  (They could be cough drops, you know.)

12.  Sit through meetings craving chocolate.  Tell son repeatedly to stop wiggling his leg.  Finally grab his leg with vice-like grip and hiss between clenched teeth, “STOP-MOVING-NOW-OR-YOU-WILL-NOT-LIVE-TO-NINTH-GRADE.”  Smile at teachers and administrators.  Feel your eyes burning.  Wonder if there’s a candy machine nearby?  Wonder why you feel so bloated?

13. Arrive home with tired boy after 2-plus hours of meetings.  Yell at children still awake and watching Spiderman.  Threaten bodily harm if they don’t GO-TO-BED-NOW.  Feel utterly overwhelmed.  Decide you are too tired to even unwrap Hershey’s kisses.  Make hot tea.  Fall asleep on sofa, top jeans button undone.

The characters (and I mean that sincerely): Young Son- age 10, Maddy the neighbor- age 11, Middle Daughter- 11, Oldest Daughter- 15,  Tired Mother

Young Son comes into the kitchen, scrounging for more food.

“I want some of that banana bread!”

I slap his hand away, lightly.  “Nope.  Dinner’s done.  Scram-jamble, McGee!”

“But I didn’t know we had banana breaaaaaaaad!”

“Child!  I had it on the table!  Maddy and…”  I rub my forehead, but the words evade me, ” And that other girl had it.”

-pause while Oldest Daughter stares at me in mock horror-

“Erm, Mom?  Are you talking about your own daughter as ‘that other girl?!’ Did you just NAME her friend and forget your own middle daughter’s name?!”

-pause-

We dissolve into hysterical laughter.  The others come running, but I’ve sworn Oldest Daughter to secrecy.  It is finished.  I need more sleep.

I awoke today to this in my inbox from The Writer’s Almanac. What a gift.

Proposals

by Cecilia Woloch

Mistaking me for someone else, he asked me to marry him. This has
happened more than once. The first time, I was eighteen and the boy had
a diamond ring in a box. It was the Fourth of July, it was dark, he said, Happy

Independence Day. Of course, the ring was too large and slipped right off
my finger into the grass. (It belonged to someone else: the woman he
married, eventually.) And when I was twenty-one, that redhead, sloe-eyed
and slinking out of his grief, said he’d imagined I’d be his wife. But he was
mistaken. It wasn’t me. Then a drunk who drove too fast, who threw the
proposal over his shoulder like some glittering, tattered scarf. I staggered
out of his car, saying, No thanks, No thanks, No thanks. And the man over

eggs one morning, in the midst of an argument, saying he planned to wait
for spring to ask for my hand, then he never asked. (So of course, I married
that one for a while; spent years convincing him I was not his cup of coffee,
not his girl.) And in Prague, on a bridge called the Karlův Most, a stranger,
a refugee, who mistook the way I stared at the river for thinking of suicide.
Who mistook my American passport for his ticket out of there. And
others-the man whose children grabbed the food off my plate, called me
her; the man in Chartres Cathedral humming the wedding march into my
ear. And tonight, at dinner with friends, happy, discussing their wedding
plans, a man I’ve known for a couple of hours turning to ask me to marry
him. I don’t know who they think I am. Do I look like a bride in these rags
of wind? Do I look like the angel of home and hearth with this strange green
fire in my hands?

“Proposals” by Cecilia Woloch, from Late.

Last winter I had the chance to stop by Tye River Pottery, in Lovingston, VA.  Kevin Crowe is an amazing potter, and has a wonderful space on the planet.  Things like this buddha hang around; he looks as though he sprung from the earth in this spot, no?

“Childhood is a strange country.  It’s a place you come from or go to – at least in your mind.  For me it has an endless, spellbound something in it that feels remote.  It’s like a little sealed-vault country of cake breath and grass stains where what you do instead of work is spin until you’re dizzy.”

Lyall Bush  (Executive director of Richard Hugo House, a center for writers and readers)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

This comment on a Starbuck’s paper cup left me breathless.  Just the first sentence is good writing, and I’m sure it was first spoken aloud.  “Childhood is a strange country.”  Like the first sentence of a novel I want to devour, and that’s leaving off the “little sealed-vault country of cake breath and grass stains!”  It’s inspired me, of late, to do more spinning ’til I’m dizzy writing.  And in January, I launch my website- prostituting my skills to those who need any kind of writing, from copy and commercial to internet dating ads and techie editing.  Blondie said it first, but I’m saying it now, and loudly:  Call Me!

Locals:  Watch this space for info about my new January thang:  A Night of Cheap Wine and Literature!  Everyone is invited- you merely bring a slice of writing to share (your work or another’s) aloud or to pin to the wall…      We’re overdue for a shindig, methinks.

Lastly- but not leastly- Darth said recently in an email that he can’t wait ’til I remarry or change my name back to “_” (my maiden name).  (Wait- does he think I’d change my last name if I remarry again?  Identity crisis…)  I pointed out that I’ve only kept “his” name because of the kids (ironically, I’ve had “his” name more years as a single woman now than I did as a married one), but now that he mentions it, I’ve never really felt like a “_” (his last name).  So let’s have a contest.  Who can come up with the best last name suggestion?  Heck, if you’ve got a great first name/last name combo- throw it out there!  I may consider changing both!