Wormhole

The older my chidlren get the harder it is to believe in the construct of time.

They are doing things I did yesterday.  Like losing their teeth and writing notes to the Tooth Fairy:

Wrestling each other until someone gets rug burn or steps on someone else's throat.

It was a week ago, Eric and I were racing just for racing's sake across a blacktop to an undefined yellow pole over the horizon.

And practicing good sportsmanship because, like Abby's brother, mine runs like a cheetah also smokes me every time.

Wasn't it yesterday, I was following my cheetah anywhere on the globe.  Believing he would protect us both because there is nobody braver than a cheetah with a trusting cub behind it.

Kathleen, Lindsay, Lisa, April and  I just spent a summer digging out the bubbles from the bottom of a rusting toy chest in my garage.  Right next to the folding spaghetti string lawn chairs.   And a slippery bottle of tanning oil.

Because when Operation was finished, Feely Meely was over, and Kroft Superstars got boring, bubbles are always the best show in town.

Especially when the audience is captive and ever smiling.

I can still hear my own mom reminding me with her serious voice to get my Face.Away.From.The.Dog.

(I never did either.)

No way was it decades ago that we left all the caps off our paints because we weren't sure we were finished painting yet.  No way was it 35 years ago.  Impossible.

There is a wormhole in my house, letting time pour in from years ago.

My kids are mine and I'm pretending to be their mom but really?

I'm this little girl  playing with curlers in her hair and a camera in her hand.

Wondering...

If growing up is just something they say. 

Not something we do.

Humming

You know that extra sixth sense we all have that isn't quite sight, smell, touch, hear, or taste? It's more like a feel or sensing or...how do I put this...an overall hum?  Well, mine is always in high gear.  I can't turn it off.   I try to turn it off with wine, practicing guitar, trying out a new recipe but it's forever there, like a bass line in my bones.  Is yours like that too?


Last night, I cooked dinner early and got the kids ready for bed before I got the call my husband would be late because the hum told me to do all of that already.

I wanted to take Abby out for lunch yesterday but before we stepped foot in our favorite place, the hum let me know it was bursting with people's energy and too crowded for a girl and her mom.  It was, she screamed at me to leave as soon as we entered the din.

When I need beef broth and noodles for a recipe but I quickly change lanes last minute for a store I don't usually go in because, well, the humming guides me there.  Turns out the organic beef is on sale and it's perched conveniently on a kiosk next to the three other ingredients I would've forgotten at the other store. My body knew it was there so we went.

This sort of thing happens so often that I barely ever run into crowds, get into traffic jams, or am stuck somewhere I don't want to be.  It's not to say bad things don't happen, I just dropped a very large jar of strawberry jam on both of my feet (both of my feet?!), but the hum steers me away from negative energy if I listen.  EVERY. SINGLE. TIME I override the hum, I live to regret it.  I wind up spending time with someone I don't care to spend time with.  Or stuck at an event that doesn't resonate well.  Or worse, spending money at Michael's on a wreathing craft I will never put together.

And the hum can premeditate, too.  For example, if a friend makes an invitation for an event two weeks away, my body hums and I already feel whether that day someone will be sick, late from work, or otherwise just not a good time to go.  Can you imagine that response?  I'm sorry, Michelle, one of my kids is going to have a raging fever and my dog will puke that night.  Or something like that.  There would never be another invitation to anywhere ever again so I temper my response to fit the situation.  If my body is quiet and I don't hum at all, usually the coast is clear and I can make the event.  Some might call this a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.  I read the book too and yet,  I still call it life.  It's been this way ever since I was a little girl.  This freaky thing has seen me through lots of could've-been-treacherous episodes and one definite near-death experience.  Forty years later?  I trust that sh*t, no question.  I listen to my body's hum automatically and it never does me wrong.

The humming happens when I meet new people, too.  It is such a good judge of character that I trust it implicitly.  I've tested it, which is to say not trusted it, and have always been disappointed, yet impressed when I get lemons.  The sixth sense allows nobody with ill intentions through.  It's like a gargoyle that way and I love it.  I'm sure it's not full-proof, and there are times I still give far too much time to someone I feel I shouldn't, but I'm working on that.  I think it's human nature to feel we can be everything to everyone.  My hum lets me know I can't so I won't.

The humming comes in handy when I'm with animals, too.  Obviously I prefer dogs but it happens no matter what species.  It just so happens, dogs vibe a lot and when I'm with them, it's easy to get caught up in their sensory lane.  It's not long before you see every movement, lip lick, side-eye, and back-leg prance that leads to a scuffle.  There is so much vibing going on at the Dog Adoption Center that I'm on sensory overload the entire time, but in a comfortable way.  It's a language I understand.  It's a language I trust.

Throngs of people are so much more confusing.  Exhausting, really.  Our natural masks, social deflections, and pride defenses make it impossible to vibe without a mask, too.  This is definitely why friends can be aplenty but soul sisters are few.  For me, a friendship bond is the same as humming well together.  When I meet someone I like, it takes me a while to discern whether the chemistry will work or it won't, because we're both wearing masks.  In the end, it's chemistry, either gelling or not.  Dogs?  No mask, all personality traits are out there.  Sometimes there is posturing or submission but those aren't false advertisements, those are rules.  Refreshing.

The only possible glitch I can see about this sixth sense being "on" all the time is that I am usually safe.  Safe is good but it is not always challenging.  I never find myself in an uncomfortable collection of people.  I've spent too many years doing that and while yes very challenging OMG was I extremely challenged,  it brought me to neuroses, not happiness.

So while I'm slightly wanting to be outside my comfort zone at times, I won't push past the brink of insanity for myself anymore.  Humming has become so second-nature that it would take some serious mental wrestling to drive through an ice storm, attend a Mardi Gras parade downtown, or book a flight to Vegas just because.  I think by this time, my body doesn't want to waste one ounce of energy in a place it doesn't belong.  I chose to put it through hat A LOT for several eras so we're solid there.   It has spent a long time thinking about these things.  Which leaves me all the time in the world to reap what it has sewn.

January Chill

January breathes her troubled chill through the clouds

and brings them down to me in feathers,

 in stars between bamboo,

while eggs hide to hold in their last hope of warmth.

I pine with them.
Blanketed in prayer
But today it's winter.

January sun sends warm prisms through my lens,

belated green and orange guardians

His voice is straight and it is calm,

letting me know the choice is gone,

We are walking away

from winter.

Look At Me Now

In keeping up with the rest of the freezing Joneses, we scored three consecutive surprise snow days this week.  Or as my local friend taught me, "Sneaux Days."  Everything looks better in French.

Surprise Sneaux Days because A) It's Lousiana.  B) It never actually snowed. C) My husband got off work for two of them, also.

While the temperatures dove into the teens and most of what fell was ice, we hunkered down like happy mammals.  I baked, kids ate, Andy cooked, I ate.  Abby and Grayson swung from each other; all marmosets in a 71 degree jungle.  At night we got together with our buddies to play Dominoes, drink Sangria, and sing "Let It Go" dramatically during a bootleg version of Frozen.

Basically, the best week ever.

Except I realized my poor girl thinks I never look at her.

Abby is five now and she has no idea I spend all hours of all days in many years looking at her, at her brother, and then back at her to make sure she's still in fact not needing emergency services.

"Mommy, look at me!  Look here, Mommy.  Mommy, are you looking?" She asks while I couldn't be looking at her more lookingly.

"Abby.  Do you see where my face is pointing?  My eyes?  That I've been starting at only you since you were born.  Why do you think I'm not looking at you."

"Because I don't want you to look away."

Boom.  Damn you Generation ChronicOn.  We snuggle, huggle, wrestle, break out into percussive Katy Perry songs during dinner, and encourage sarcasm.  We fight, apologize, talk it out, shut it down, and discuss why our privates remain privately ours at all times.  We practice 911, vote for elections, and discuss whether or not heaven allows snakes and killer whales (no and yes).  We are the parents that never stop parenting. We are Generation ChronicOn.

It's mostly from watching The Cosby Show and Full House, I'm sure, but our generation of parents spends a boatload of time parenting their Keurigs off.

Not that ours didn't, mind you.  There was boatloads of parenting then, too.  Just in a Generation OldSkool way.  Times were different.  We were allowed to bike across a busy highway to our friend's house for (rum &) Coke in the 6th grade.  Our parents got home after us because they worked super long hours and there was no such thing as after school care.  Except After School Specials.  They were pretty decent babysitters for the latch-key generation.  And the first place we learned what happens when Brad kisses Mary with their mouths open.

All their Non-Hovering-Letting-Us-Walk-Three-Miles-To-7-11 was right on.  And we turned out batsh*t neurotic regardless amazing.

But every generation does it differently than the last.  If we didn't then kids nowadays would listen to Bob Dylan instead of Daft Punk and the 80s would've never made a resurgence in music and Target fashion.

Honestly, I think our generatoin of ChronicOn is a good one.   It's just M to the F exhausting.  Who can keep up with all the looking, painting, Play-Doh'ing, letter-sound establishing, Pinterest crafting (just kidding), soccering, GMO investigating, organic produce collecting, gymnastic schlepping, important small soul psyche building?

Not ChronicOn me.  I can't keep up.

And my kids know it.  Well, Grayson does now.  Abby will too, pretty soon.  Too soon.

Somewhere along the way she'll want to triple lutz, straddle split, somersault more for herself, her friends, a more revered adult... and less for her mom.  Pretty soon she won't want to sit in my lap while she watches Garfield, calling it "lasanza" instead of lasagna.  Pretty soon my kids won't rely on each other for repartee and bruising.  Pretty soon their friends will dictate their interests and Mommy will permanently become Mom Where's Your Purse.  Pretty soon my life won't be piggy backs, flag football practice, tiny glove sorting, and washing plates with sweet smiling frogs on them.  Too soon.

So when she asks me to, "Look here, Mommy, Mommy are you looking,"  You better know I and my B12 vitamins will be looking - memorizing - right at her to see what she so temporarily wants to show me.

I wouldn't miss it for the world.

Oh my babies.  I'm always looking.  Even when you're running in the opposite direction.