July 2009 Archives

It's summer vacation for my kids, but they still have to get up early every day, throw on shorts and sunscreen, eat breakfast, comb their hair, brush their teeth, and grab their backpacks and lunches before I scoot them out the door for day camp. 

Camp is a gorgeous place in the redwoods, and they hike, tie dye stuff, swim in the pool, and sing camp songs.  Sophie was a little mad at me earlier this week because I wouldn't allow her to take one of her new bras to tie dye.  She settled on a camisole and the last of the white tshirts and pillowcases in the house.  But as fun as camp is, they are burnt and want to just watch TV in their underpants all day while drinking milk and eating cheetos.  I was thinking of taking a weekday off work, just so we could all hang out half-dressed and eat processed food and watch The Simpsons, but since I'm using all my PTO for illness and travel, it may have to happen on a Saturday.  I don't know, I think if I'm going to hang out with the kids in my bathrobe and eat bologna with fritos and mayo rolled up in a corn tortilla (because I can't eat white bread, but maybe I'd just suffer the consequences to have a bologna and frito sandwich) then it should really happen when we are playing hooky.  I don't care what they say, lots of wrongs make one big RIGHT in my world. 

The mornings are hard.  They want to sleep in, and if the world were a fair and decent place, they'd be able to.  The girls sleep with me every night.  Most mornings, I get up, do some work, get dressed, and then start with them.  I dress them while they are still waking up, and walk them to the table so they can eat.  Sometimes they are not awake enough to deal, and will dip their hair into their cereal, or jam a spoonful of Frosted Flakes into their cheek while their mouth is still wide open. 

I wake the boys up by walking into their room and telling them what time it is.  This happens every ten minutes for about an hour, and then when they get up they are pissed that they have to rush because I didn't wake them up on time.  They can get ready fast, and always are just finishing up when it's time to go.   

But yesterday, yesterday I walked into the boys' room, stood on the bottom bunk where Nate was sleeping, and reached up and over to touch Lex on the shoulder.  Hey, I said, Good morning.  I want to talk to you about something.  I told him what was on my mind, he listened and I was reassured that I didn't need to worry.  Then I stood back on the floor and saw that Nate was up.  I gave him a hug and asked him what he wanted for breakfast and said I'd get it after I dried my hair.  Then I walked around the corner into my room, and overheard the boys talking.  I don't know if they thought I could hear them, or if the conversation was genuine, but Lex said, Wow, that is so much of a nicer way to wake up.  Mom came in and actually talked to us instead of yelling to us that it's time to get up.  That was nice.  I liked that. 

Definitely something for me to think about.  Because, hey, if the kids like me better, maybe they will pick up more of their crap off the floor.  Just sayin.

So then I went to work, and I brought all my stuff to go to yoga after work before I went to SG's house for dinner, since the kids all were having dinner with their dads.  But, we've both been a little off lately with too much on our plates and so when he sent me a text asking if I wanted to meet him after work in the very same bar where we had our first not-date, and then go out to dinner, I texted back "Y E S !" 

It took way longer than usual to make my way home.  Both the freeways I drive on were backed up and I was cranky.  The ipod was on shuffle and by the time I got off the freeway (a couple of exits early, so I could take the back roads and get there faster) I was singing along to Elton John (Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me) and really looking forward to seeing SG.  Like, really REALLY looking forward to seeing him. 

And then this happened:

Was I distracted and rammed into the back of the car in front of me?  Amazingly, no.  I was in the right hand lane and this guy, well, let me just make a diagram!

So, as you can somewhat maybe make out, Mike couldn't see me and he turned left DIRECTLY in front of me.  I was sure that I was going to kill the guy in the passenger seat, and that was freaky and bad and all that.  Turns out I slammed into their car - here's the diagram of that whole thing:

By some miracle, I didn't hit the door, but rather the right front fender and tire.  The three of us, me and the guys in the other car, did that You OK? YEP, You OK? thing thru our windshields and then I backed up and we navigated into the country club parking lot. 

I called SG (but I didn't cry! It was a miracle because I've been crying for a week straight because I went to BlogHer and I am super emo and funky, but not for any bad reasons, just because I love the internet, but it is exhaustingly awesome to meet it in person.  I think.) and he came down to get me and made sure that we called the police.  I was afraid to look at the front of my car, especially since the guy I nearly killed handed me my lisence plate after he picked it up off the road.  Look at that screw, dude:

As SG would say, It's all gnarled up!  I finally did look, though, and it's not nearly as bad as I figured.  The bumper is trashed, and I'm not 100% sure about all the internal organs on my poor baby van, but it certainly wasn't the crumpled mess I thought I'd see. 

I drove to SG's house, he drove me to the bar (the one where we had our first not-date, and we sat at the same table) and he bought me a B I G martini.  Then we went out to dinner, and sat at the same table in the window we always get when we go to that restaurant.  It was a really nice night, all things considered.  Today my neck hurts and my foot is all jacked up because I guess I slammed on the breaks hard enough to rearrange things in there (it's not broken) but I'm of course just happy to be here and to be ok and to not have "killed a guy with my van" on the list of Crappy Things Which Have Happened To Jen That Were Totally Not Her Fault. 

I got extra squeezes from SG last night, and tomorrow when I wake up the boys, I will come into their room and talk to them until they wake up.  Maybe I will just say, Good Morning, this is your wake up call

We eat a lot of quinoa around here (thanks to SG for telling me how SuperHealthy it is), and Nate likes it especially lately so he had some for breakfast yesterday.  He sat there eating while I did dishes and laundry and tried to get all the kids to get ready so we could go.  I don't think I was yelling, but maybe? maybe I was.  I know I was stressed and rushing and trying to do too much at once. 

Hey, Mom, Nate said, C'mere. 

I walked over to find he'd made that heart in his bowl.

He smiled up at me, didn't say anything much. 

From then on out, we had a much better day.  Sometimes, it just takes a little reminder.  You know?

This afternoon we packed everyone up and went over the hill to the beach. 

And, judging by the amount of people there, four people in Northern California did something else like watch a movie or mow the lawn.  But, whatever.  We braved the traffic and the full parking lots and the packed beach and we got all ready to get in the water so the boys could boogie board while SG and I took the girls in to test out the wetsuits he picked up for them after their proven ability to rip it up on a boogie board on our last beach trip.

There were a bunch of birds just offshore, and Hey! there's a seal!  And another one!

Wait.  What's all that silver stuff, up where the sand goes from dry to wet along the shoreline?  Huh.  It looks like, what?  Fish?  Ew.  Are those fish? 

Oh.  Yeah.  Those ARE fish.  Wow.  That's, uh, that's a LOT of fish.  Are they alive?  I mean, the ones that are more than just heads?  And look at all those birds!  And seals!

Eh.  We can still swim.  No problem!

Right?

Oh.  Oh yuck.  A fishhead just washed up against my ankle.  Did I just?  Oh, gross.  Yick.  I just stepped on a fish head. 

SG said he hasn't seen a sardine run in years, but was betting that was what this was.  Sure enough, there were thousands of birds flying low over the water.  Gulls and pelicans, thousands and thousands of them.  And the seals.  I saw five or seven of them at once at one point as we stood in the surf, dodging dead fish that were washing up at a ridiculous rate.

We stayed in the water watching for a long while, but the boys didn't swim out.  Not only was there a silly amount of dead fish, but there were gimongous seals very close to shore chowing down.  

We sat at a picnic table and ate. 

Nate skated down to the pier while we cleaned up and SG loaded the van.

We drove to the pier and met Nate, then walked out to see the fisherpeople and the cement boat.

Everyone on the pier was catching a ton of little sardines, and there were lots of kids fishing, so of course my kids walked right up and made friends.  There was a group of three or four siblings who had a bucket of little fish that they decided to throw back.  I think all my kids (except maybe Lex) took a try at tossing a fish back over into the sea, giggling and screaming FLYING FISH!  These are the same children who won't get in the bath if there is a spider up in the corner of the bathroom, you know, minding its own bisness up by the ceiling.  But, a floppy little possibly dead, certainly smelly fish?  HAND IT OVER, DUDE. 

I don't get that.

Our trip was totally fun, for some reason.  No one was pissed about not getting to surf or swim or boogie board.  How could we be, really, when we got to see a baby seal jump up into the air, and a big seal gulp down a fish above the surface of the water?  And all the birds -- so impossibly many of them. 

As it got dark, we came home and had popcorn and watched Uncle Buck, even though it was too late to start a movie.  Even though there's a little cussing in the one we did start.  It's summertime. 

red chair in the alley, Chinatown, San Francisco, July 2008

Summer is about halfway through, at least by the school calendar that the kids and I use to mark it.   Lex has gone from matching my height when he finished sixth grade to being half a head taller than me in just a few weeks.  I'm constantly washing towels, hanging bathing suits up to dry, cutting up fruit, making ice, shaking sand out of bags and shoes and blankets.   I used to spend all summer wishing for autumn, but I love it now.  Most mornings I get up at 5:30 so I can make coffee and get some work done before the kids get up.  I see them nearly every day, but I'm still struck by how big they've gotten when I go to wake them and take a second to watch them still and sleeping.   The girls sleep in my bed with me, and when I slip out from between them a few seconds before the alarm would have gone off, they reach for each other in their sleep, cuddling up like puppies.

This has been a good year.  I mean, if you saw it outlined in bullet points on paper, you'd think otherwise -- but the truth of our life is that the last year has been great.  I don't write much about getting divorced, but that should all be final before the real end of summer toward the end of September.   I put it off for so long, for years, literally, because I worried about the kids and about Willow in particular.  And they are thriving, even though it's not been an amicable parting.  They're full of laughter and energy and stories, they try to sneak extra ice cream and test out using cuss words in front of me.  They're happy when they're with me on the weekends and we go to the beach with SG or to the drive-in burger place for fries and milkshakes.   We sit at the kitchen table together with our supper that they helped make, and they tell me jokes and ask me about my day and ask if SG can come visit, if he isn't here already.   Lex watches too much tv on the internet, and has discovered The Beatles and Oasis at the same time; Nathan skates as much as possible; Willow spends hours making stories with her Playmobile toys and stuffed animals; and Sophie IMs her friends and angles for playdates at houses with swimming pools.  And they all sing.  All the time. 

I'm so truly happy.  I sing in the shower, and sing AND dance in the kitchen while I'm cleaning up.  I've got some health problems that will never go away, an epic tax mess that I have to pay half of even though I had no part in creating it, am having to do damage control when Willow's dad says juvenile things about SG to the kids, but it's okay.   I can handle all of that.

A year ago, I was so depressed, and wondered if it was stupid of me to continue to hope for better.  I could never talk myself out of wanting what I wanted, though, even when I thought I'd never get there.  And because I still wanted to get my real life closer to the story in my head (for me and also for my kids), I promised myself that I'd do whatever it took to give us a shot at it.  No matter how hard.   There are so many cliches about hope, but here's my take on it anyway: Life is so much more rewarding when you are working toward something that you are hoping for -- really hoping, the closing your eyes and wishing hoping that you discovered when you were a little kid -- even if you don't quite end up where you thought you would.  

I feel lucky every single day, even the days when I want nothing more than to get my ass home and a sit down with a gluten-free beer in my hand.  But it isn't all luck, exactly, that I'm happy.  I'm willing take full credit for getting my ducks in a row and opening up the door for good things to come in.   When the good luck showed up, I was ready.  Part of me was tempted to say, Dude, what took you so long? but the smart part just decided to enjoy every single second of this reward for still hoping, even when it seemed pointless.  Like I said before, some bad things have happened this year, too.  A couple of them broke my heart.  But now that we are pointed in the right direction, I can feel sad while still being happy.  And when people find out that I'm a single mom with four kids and they act like they feel bad for me because I must have it so rough, I tell them that I'm lucky, and we're doing just fine.

I'm standing waist-deep in the water in Monterey Bay, hopping around on one foot and trying to get a fin on the other.  I've got a mask on, am remembering to breathe so I won't panic, and remembering that remembering to breathe means remembering to breathe through my mouth, not my nose.  Sometimes I try to inhale through my nose, but there's no air, and the impulse to pull off the mask and gulp in air as fast as I can is almost too much to resist.  Just like I put up with airplane rides (terrifying) to get to where I want to be, I will squash this physical reflex I get when I put a mask over my face and breathe through a snorkel (that I'm not entirely sure I trust to not send a dose of saltwater into my lungs). 

SG knows that I'm nervous; he helps me with my fins without making me feel dumb.  My heart is beating too fast from ignoring the urge to get everything off my face.  He is so patient with me that my heart starts beating faster from being happy.  It's enough to tip the panic back down so I can keep going.  I can't just put my snorkel in my mouth and my face in the water and go.  I have to put my face in, quickly pull it back out, steady myself, and then try again.  The water is murky, so I don't have much to distract me.  But I can see SG, and there's a single blade of seagrass reflecting that shimmering hypnotic glowing quicksilver underwater light. 

After I get more comfortable he tells me to float with my face in the water, and to not kick my legs or move my arms.  The sun is warm on my back and I am amazed to find that I'm completely relaxed, listening to the underwater sounds and my own breath going in and out of the snorkel.  He tells me that I can just relax and float, that I don't need to work so hard.  Then we both put our faces in the water and start to swim around.  He takes my hand, and we swim together for a little while.  I'm not scared, not even a little bit. 

Later we get lunch, then drive down the coast a little further, to a beach on the side of Highway 1 called Garrapata.  The waves mean business here.  It's too beautiful to be real, but there are ants crawling on the blanket and kids with buckets braving the surf to get water for their sandcastle.  SG and I are on a blanket in the hot sunshine, and when I touch his shoulder it's hot. too.  I come home with photos, but they don't even come close.  Not even a little bit.

Next we drive back north to Carmel to get in the water.  My feet won't let me in, though, because the water here is colder and walking in it makes me cry.  SG is tougher; he goes in and I watch him from the shore.  When we leave, we go to Moss Landing, to meet my mom and stepdad at Phil's for dinner.  I'm tired and sunburned.  I'm happy.  SG goes to get us a couple of glasses of wine, and comes back with glasses that are filled to the top and impossible to carry without splashing.  And I look at him with his full hands and all I want to do is wrap my arms around his neck and tell him how damn grateful I am every day that we found each other and how I can't exactly get my head around how much I love him.  Instead I take one of the glasses from him and sip it down and wipe it off.  And he sits down next to me.  I hope he knows.