The English Geek

How I Came to Find Myself Literally Weeping into My Oatmeal

I'm not going to lie: this weird stomach virus/bacteria/whatever-the-hell-this-mild-plague-is continues to make me grumpy. For the past two weeks and one day, I've woken up and felt like hell. Like, right on the verge of coming down with the stomach flu, except it never actually comes down. Or, er, comes up, which is good. Except for I feel like hurling almost all day long. I feel like eating only white-bread toast and drinking only anything bubbly and extra-icy-cold. I feel like sleeping a lot.

I feel like I am pregnant.

I AM NOT PREGNANT!I promise. I have taken three different tests just to make sure. I'm not late. I don't even get nauseous when I'm pregnant, I just get really, really hungry and my hands get these strange red spots. And I'm the opposite of really, really hungry. And no red spots. Besides, hello. I am forty years old. I know what causes babies and I take every measure to prevent them. I'm too old and the there's the fact  that I have recently made peace with the lack of babies in my life.

Plus, really. I'm not pregnant.

I'm trying to be friendly to the nausea, even though I do keep threatening to call the doctor tomorrow if it doesn't go away. Or I'm just ignoring it and doing all my normal life stuff, like going to work and going running and cooking dinner and doing laundry. Sometimes I baby the nausea by giving it exactly what it wants. Four-cheese Italian Cheezits? Sure. Strawberry Fig Newtons? OK. Watermelon? Lucky I have some of that in the fridge! On Thursday morning I made nice to it by making it some hot oatmeal like it was demanding. Oatmeal, delicately spiced with cinammon, ginger, a dash of nutmeg and a swirl of honey, with preferably a glug of cream on top (not possible, as the cream had soured).

While I waited for the water to boil, I looked out my kitchen window. My neighbors, who are an eldery couple, walked out of their garage and got into their mini van. They were dressed up and, I imagine, going to the temple, and obviously they were driving their van because they were going to pick up some of their friends and take them along. Afterwards, they and their friends would go to lunch somewhere fun but not too expensive and then they'd all go to their respective homes and take a nap.

The water wasn't boiling yet so I watched them. They sat in their van until the water boiled and I turned away to pour the oats in, and then I stirred and I watched them. I watched them for ten minutes (because I am decidedly not a quick-cook-oats kinda girl) while I stirred, and I wondered what they were talking about. What they were doing there, just sitting in their van.

I tried. I tried so hard to imagine them having a happy conversation. I wanted them to be saying kind things to each other, because they really are kind and sweet people. I wanted him to be complimenting her on her dress and her to be laughing and saying that he still looks handsome to her after all these years. But I couldn't imagine that. I could only imagine them having one of the arguments Kendell and I have, like why is the van so cluttered and can't I ever vacuum it, or please can you drive without yelling at all the other drivers this time, or yes, I know, I made us late again, or any of the other bajillion things that married people tiff over.

Watching my neighbors and imagining them having my marriage's arguments made me think about my grandparents. They've been gone for half my life but I still miss them. They both made me feel this amazing combination of unconditional love and unfettered admiration but in a manner that gave me confidence, not arrogance. I was simply happy and peaceful in their presence.

But I also was always aware of an underlying tension. I don't know any stories to tell that would give my hunch any weight. I don't want to ask my mom because I don't want to know the details, but I wonder: were they happy? Or did they, too, sit in their car (the big brown Oldsmobile my grandpa loved) and argue?

My other grandparents—my dad's parents—definitely were not  happily married. They were actively involved in not being happily married. My dad didn't talk about this much, but there were enough small stories to piece together a larger narrative. In fact, there are suggestions, in the family stories, that my grandpa Curtis, who died when my dad was just 16, went not just from a heart attack but out of sheer, unfettered unhappiness.

I stirred my oatmeal. I thought backwards to my grandparents and forward to my own children's future. Have I bequeathed them a legacy of unhappy marriages? Have I taught them? Have they seen, despite the arguments, me loving their father? Have I taught them that love, which has to include arguments, also includes laughter and happiness and comfort? Do they know love exists?

I'm not sure anyone taught me. My parents loved each other, but I don't think anyone would say they had a happy marriage. I remember, during a rough patch that happened when I was about 14, lying in bed and listening to them argue and promising myself that my kids would never hear me argue with their father.

A promise I broke about a month into my sojourn as a mother.

And I realized, right there in the kitchen on that random Thursday April morning: I don't know. I don't know if I have taught them what love looks like. I know it was my responsibility to do so. I know whether the arguments were my fault or someone else's, whether I was right or wrong: none of that changes my responsibilities. I know I want them to know it exists so that they have faith enough to find it. I'm just not certain I've taught them that.

All of those thoughts while I stirred my delicately spiced, boiling oatmeal and watched my neighbors sit in their van and wept. Out of shame and disappointment in myself and missing my grandparents and wishing my parents had been happier and trying to grit my teeth against the nausea. I finally realized what they were doing: they were laughing, their heads flung back, their faces split by grins and I wanted that to make me hopeful. To give me an idea that with time, with enough eventual growing up, we can reach a place where the arguments stop and the recriminations cease and we are simply, finally, enough for each other. That it just takes growing up and trying and coming to an understanding of each other that is deeper than anything you might argue over.

But it didn't. It made me weep even harder because I don't know. My parents never got there. Did my grandparents? Will I? Worse: will my children? I want them to. I want them to get there more than I want it for myself. But I don't know if—no, I don't believe I have—been the kind of example that could teach that that is a possibility. The fact that for ten long minutes I couldn't imagine my neighbors were simply laughing with each other seems to me to be proof enough.

What is maddening about this failure is that, despite the arguments, I do love my husband. Their father. I do. I just, I just don't know if I have shown them that. I don't know if they know. And I don't know if it is too late for me to show them that. So I cried, there in my kitchen. And I promised myself I would try harder and be kinder. Let them see me laughing with him and let them know  we were laughing. Not make them guess, or wonder, or fail to imagine.

Not leave them to pick up that unnamed current of tension and work it into their own marriages.

17 is an Odd Number

Today, my daughter turned 17.

Of course, just yesterday she was sixteen. But sixteen, while notable for driving and dating, still felt manageable, somehow. Still felt like enough time was left.

But 17? 17 feels so urgent it can't be typed with letters, only numbers.

17 feels like a butterfly unfolding her wings.

17 feels like flight is imminent.

17 feels like a contradiction: a loss and a gain all at once.

It feels like the hush of the breeze before a door closes.

It feels like although another door will open, I wasn't quite ready for the one on childhood to shut.

So today as I helped her get ready for her prom—and how magical is that, to go to prom on your 17th birthday in just the dress you've always wanted—as I sewed straps and added lace and adjusted measurements, gave make up advice and touched up a few last curls, I was swept up in the contradiction.

Here she was, her beautiful and competent self right in front of me, talking and laughing and curling and painting. Yet sometimes when I turned too fast I could almost see her just behind me. Her six-point-five-year-old self (who knew enough math to calculate that she was already halfway to thirteen) was adoring her prom gown, adoring and pointing out all of the perfect details. And then asking to spin in it. Her nine-year-old self was touching, with careful but ink-stained fingers, her thick, long, curly auburn hair, commenting on its beauty. Even her thirteen-year-old self paid a visit, admiring the grace and the confidence of her walk in such high heels.

Those selves fluttered around us even though she didn't see. They are only in my heart now, as only a mother can know how she saw her own child. This girl whom I held when she was 17 seconds old, then 17 minutes and hours and days and weeks and months and now years. Who will she be? I wondered, watching her change, who will she become? and then I went back to her in that moment and gave her what I could.

I never knew just how immense my capacity for failure would be.

I also could not imagine the ways in which I would succeed.

And I didn't know, when they first put her in my arms, what it would all mean. They hand you your baby like they're handing you your baby, the small being you chose to make. Who they are really handing you is a person, a person for whom all your choices are made in order to help her make her own choices.

What else do you do? You teach them everything, from that first thing—this is human touch and voice and breath—to whatever is last—tonight it was a trick for the bra strap and a way to keep her eyeliner from smearing and a reminder to take some Kleenex in her tiny purse—with the goal of helping them find their own happinesses. With the desire that, when they stand on the precipice of their familiar cocoon, spreading and drying the impossibly beautiful wings they have formed, you have taught them enough.

When your daughter is 17, you want her to know that you look backward because for you, the entire metamorphosis matters, not just this one moment of it, and that the looking back helps you see the future as well and that her whole life matters to you. That who she is right now is formed of all those other versions of herself and that for you all the incantatory swooping of time coalesces in the here and now.

You want her to know that you know she can move forward and that she will be strong enough for life's tumults. You know that her heart will be broken and her will and her hope but that she will mend and find and renew. You hope that she will appreciate beauty and love the world and be loved by others in amazing ways. That one day she will be handed her own sweet bundle of life.

But more than anything, watching your daughter at 17 in the door frame, on the edge, pushing out, your heart fills up with this desperate hope: that when she flies it won't only be away.

Pondering on this Late Night

Fourteen years ago, I went to bed at about this time—a little bit after midnight. I'd been up late that night, after a long day of shopping and doing post-Christmas returns with a sweet little two-year-old who wanted to be carried everywhere that day, working on recovering the bumper pads. Not three hours after I finally went to bed, I woke up in labor. I really didn't want to be in labor, since my due date was still almost three weeks away, but desire almost never matters when it comes to labor, does it? By 5:30 Kendell and I were driving to the hospital for what turned out to be my only pitocin-free delivery.

Tonight, I was up late making two sheet cakes and a double batch of artichoke dip for the December 30th festivities. We're celebrating Jake's 14th birthday with Kendell's entire family because it was the only day they all could get together to celebrate Christmas (one of the dangers of being born so close to Christmas). As I worked I thought about how much has changed since that December 29th in 1997, the last night of my life when i didn't have a son to mother. Of course, every baby you have changes your life dramatically. But they also change it specifically. They each bring themselves into your life—personality, quirks, affections, dislikes and tummy troubles and peaceful moment. Jake was a healing force for me in a way I had anticipated for a long time, but he was also, simply, himself. He brought a sweetness into my life that was nothing other than his own (and equally indescribable). He was my child I knew was coming to me for years before he actually arrived, who made his presence known in small whisperings and nudgings before he ever started taking shape.

I wish I could relive it, somehow—those moments of his birth and right after, when they handed him to me. Out of all my babies, he had the most definitive face, a clear foreshadowing of what he would look like as he grew up. Sometimes I still catch a shadow of what he looked like as a baby. Those moments were some of my life's favorites. Even though I was exhausted I was ecstatic.

(Yes! He really is that much taller than me!)
In the morning he'll turn fourteen. There will be cake. Cake, and presents, and possibly even singing. I will count my lucky stars that I get to have him in my life; I will look backward to the day he was born and forward to what might be to come. And I will hope that he knows: even though I get mad at him for playing too many video games and leaving his cups downstairs and forgetting to put the towels in the dryer when I asked him and not wearing his rubber bands—even though all of the adolescent difficulties are staring us right in the face—even though I yelled at him the other day and might have even sworn—even though all of those mistakes, I love him so, so, so, so much. Him. Even the complicated bits. He gave me my first chance to raise a son and I still, when I stop to think of what that means to me, get a lump in my throat. I love him.

And I hope that he knows.

Nothing to Do With Christmas

Sometime between yesterday and today, I set myself the goal of blogging every day until Christmas. I don't know why this goal seems so pressing and important—but there I was, snuggled down in my flannel sheets, just on that delicious edge of consciousness when you know sleep is about to overtake you and there is absolutely nothing in the world that could stop you from slipping under:

except remembering that I hadn't blogged yet.

This thing that has been swirling around in my head has nothing to do with Christmas. Mostly. It has to do with memory, though, which seems to me is a main component to the Christmas spirit. Here is the memory:

It's May or June, and I am pissed. I'm 18, and I'm like a puzzle: torn into bits but finally starting to put myself together for real. This new structure I am forming is taking a different shape, both figuratively and literally, and my friends aren't altogether fond of it. I'm no longer needed. Actually, I'm sort of embarrassing, and that is the thing that's got me pissed: My second-best friend, whom I've forgiven for puking on my favorite steel-toed boots, covered for with her mom, and held secrets for that I've still never told anyone, bought tickets for the Depeche Mode concert—but not one for me. As she was going with my used-to-be boyfriend, this is an obvious message: she's not sleeping with him (unless that is a secret she never told) but he is her new best friend, no "second" about it.

As I had in the past when I was angry, I hopped in my car and turned on some music. Angry driving is best done accompanied by The Cult, of course, preferably "Wild Flower" as loud as possible. Only, in this brave new world I've entered, my mom, instead of my best friend, is in the car with me. There are many perks to having your mom around—not having to worry about finding quarters under the floor mats to use as gas money is a big one—but loud punk music is not one of them. As I watched her hand reach for the dial and actually turn down my music, I realized just how far I had come in my transformation: angry music might never soothe again.

I think this memory has been so vivid because I've had the chance to hang out with Haley more than usual lately. Sometimes when we're driving around, and she's got her radio station on, I can remember nearly exactly how it felt to drive around aimlessly with your friend, how the world seemed full of possibility that could surprise you at the very next corner (because, back then, it was and it did). How you knew your friend understood what you needed, wanted, thought, and felt because you assumed she needed, wanted, thought, and felt the same things. How the perfect song on the radio would feel like karma and angels and all the planets aligning to create that very perfect moment. Only a best friend can bring that sort of joy.

Except, I can't remember it at all, really, that joy. So much has happened since I was last that girl in the passenger seat next to my best friend driving nowhere important. My perspective has skewed and knowledge slid across my vision in nearly-transparent layers that block me from feeling that wild hopefulness. As the mother (instead of the best friend) I know what perils hide in those limitless possibilities and how the loss of a best friend, second- or otherwise, is a wound that is some ways worse than any other—how that friend, by holding your dreams, your thoughts, your desires and despairs and secrets in the cup of her hand also cradles power, too. Sharp, wounding power. All she has to do is drop them or, worse, scatter them with her breath.

I suppose mothers hold our daughters' hopes, despairs and secrets, too. We could wield them like a power if we wanted. But while we lack the ability to create the experiences that best friends do, we have something more gentle and perhaps more enduring. We put gas in the car and slushies in the cup holders and a permanence into their world. We might turn down the radio but we aren't going anywhere.

I find myself at this unexpected crossroads. Well, I am not there yet, exactly, but I can see it coming up ahead. Haley, my daughter, my girl who nearly shares my birthday but is not myself reborn (she is so much stronger than that), is nearly grown. What will our relationship feel like as she speeds out into the world without me in the passenger seat? I hope I can continue being the permanent thing in her world. I hope that, whatever betrayals she experiences, they don't come from me; that I can be the place she comes home to.

Halloween 2011: the costume stories

Right now, my house looks like Halloween exploded. Kaleb got halfway through sorting his candy before getting tired, so there's candy spread all over the front room floor. There are piles of discarded costumes here and there. And every. single. one. of the donuts are gone (even the one I was saving for myself although, alas, someone else ate it; my donut appetite is annoyed but my belly fat is not).

I need to deHalloween.

Instead I'm trying to clean up the computer room, which has been the scene of all my Halloween sewing. First the quilt, then two costumes. Toss in the few scrapbook layouts I managed to make this month, Kaleb's piles of crayons, markers, and pens (he's been on a drawing spree lately), and the bag of new supplies I bought at Archivers (who had an actual SALE...I don't think I've everbeen to a sale at Archivers before last Friday), and yeah: this room is getting my attention first.

Still, a photo I love from last night's activities:

Haley was a leopard. She and I shared a costume this year, which turned out just fine since I needed the leopard parts on Saturday the 29th. (Note to self: Although I referred to myself as a cheetah, it really was a leopard.)

Jake gave me a last-minute costume meltdown. Sort of. He told me that he wanted one of those "this IS my costume" Halloween t-shirts. I assumed that meant he wanted to wear it as his costume. Then, the day before Halloween, he was like, "Mom! I don't have a costume!" and I was like "what do you mean, you have your cool t-shirt!" and he was all "but I can't wear that for trick or treating!" so I was in a panic to find him a cool, non-stupid, teenage-boy-appropriate costume. ON HALLOWEEN DAY. Haley suggested he be Frankenstein's monster, which really would only require a trip to the Halloween store for make up and then a trip to the thrift store for a suit jacket. Luck was on my side, though, as I found this Frankenstein's monster-esque costume at the Halloween store, on sale, so I didn't even have to go to the thrift store. Add some hand-drawn stitches and he was good!

Nathan was sort of unenthusiastic about Halloween in general this year. He wanted to wear the same cloak he wore last year but didn't want to be Aragorn again. He came up with the idea of being Robin Hood. Easy enough! I sewed his tunic and his hat. (I used this brilliant hat pattern to make the hat; I only had to cut out and re-sew three different times before I figured it out, but it still turned out great I think.) Adding to his Halloween letdown are the facts that his friend from school couldn't come over and the kids from the neighborhood didn't include him in their plans. Plus, in a horrible Bad Mother Moment, I failed at procuring a bow and arrow set from the dollar store for him. I don't think it was his favorite Halloween ever.

After much discussion, Kaleb decided to be a pirate. Actually...much discussion happened, and then *I* decided he would be a pirate because the pirate costume pattern was on sale at the fabric store for just $1. I finished his vest about a week ago and he wore it as often as he remembered to. At first I was sort of antsy about this, because I didn't want anything to happen to it. Then I decided it didn't matter. He could be a bedraggled pirate if worse came to worst. And nothing did happen, until last night when he was running in to eat dinner (pizza of course!) and he fell, scraped off the entire top half of a fingernail, and tore a hole in his pants. (You know...the pants I finished sewing late Sunday night, after the church Halloween party; another Mom Fail.) He was crying so hard over his fingernail and broken pirate gun, and terrified that he'd have to go to the hospital for stitches instead of going trick or treating, that he didn't even notice the hole in his pants. It's always good to look on the bright side!

How did YOUR Halloween costuming go?

Good Day

Last week, I had an epiphany. My two oldest were away at a youth conference with their church friends. My tween was spending a few days with his grandma Beth. And for two entire days, it was just me and Kaleb. We laughed, we played, we went shopping at Walmart (save me) for all his school supplies.

My epiphany was this: it's much easier to focus on your child's needs when there's just one child doing the needing.

I know! It hardly seems like a noteworthy realization. And it's not as if I want to get rid of any of my kids or anything. I love them each! But I find myself wishing for more one-on-one time with them.

Or, as I discovered today, two-with-one is pretty good, too.

Nathan and Kaleb started school today, but Jake and Haley don't start until tomorrow. Just two kids at home, with a handful of back-to-school errands still left to do. So, after I took the kids to school, went running, and showered, we were off to the mall.

Haley was already mostly set for back-to-school clothes (although she did manage to find a few other things she needed today), but Jake, not so much. Shopping for clothes is not his favorite thing. But doing it with his cool older sister is something else entirely. They laughed and wandered the mall and made fun of odd clothes. She helped him pick out some cool T's. I was there in an advisory role only ("no, he needs a medium because it'll shrink and his shoulders will be too broad"). Well, and the financing, of course.

After the mall, we had a madcap run through Costco, Walmart, and Menchie's frozen yogurt before I had to hustle off to work. Throughout, there was laughing, teasing, quoting of lines from movies, conversation, and that teenage penchant for knowing exactly who is singing the song on the radio.

And there was happiness building in my heart. Sans my two youngest, I could focus on my two oldest and not be torn between the various levels of need. Instead I just immersed myself in the entire teenage experience.

When Nathan got home from school, he was annoyed that we went to Menchie's without him. I promised him that I would take him on his own one day soon. When we do, I'll immerse myself in his experience, too.

My world feels more full of expectation and possibilities and stronger relationships.

That Conversation

"Mom," Jacob said, pulling me out of the kitchen. "You should come outside with me. It's raining."

I left the pasta water that hadn't quite boiled yet and went outside. We stood on the driveway under the overhang and watched the rain fall.

"This is my favorite smell," I told him. "Rain falling on hot cement."

"I know," he said. "That's why I had you come outside. Do you wish someone would make a candle that smelled that way?"

I thought for a moment; put my face into the breeze and breathed deeply. "I don't think you can candle this smell. Because it's not only the smell. It's the coolness of the air and the wind on your face and the dampness and the sight of the clouds."

Then we just stood, watching the rain fall and sniffing, and I it was one of those moments that you hope with everything you have your son will remember one day when you're gone. I hope he'll remember always that I love the scent of rain and wet cement, and that the smell will evoke me for him, whenever he finds himself in a rain storm, and that way I can always stay near him.

That conversation, that standing in the rain with Jacob and feeling time bend, just a little, also made me think of my dad. Because I don't know what my dad's favorite smell was. Maybe it was the way a hiking trail smells when it winds through tight clumpings of pine trees, so that everything around you is sweet woody savor. Or the scent of Lake Powell, which is cottonwood trees and sunscreen and sandstone emanating heat. Perhaps the smell of the high desert where he went to hunt arrowheads. Or something I can't guess at.

I don't know because he never stood with me in the presence of his favorite scent and told me why he loved it.

I don't know because I never thought to ask.

Now it's too late to ask. Now especially, when he is caught where he is—not dead, but certainly not experiencing life. Trapped. I can't help it: I long for him to be freed from the captivity of his body. I long for his soul to stride out. And to some day, when I find myself standing in the presence of his favorite smell, come back to me, on a breeze or a trickle of water, to evoke himself for me. 

Driver's Ed

When I was 16, I was totally not excited about driving. Most of my friends had their licenses before me, and plus: I knew what I'd be driving. The rust-brown, 1972 Ford Torino waiting for me didn't exactly inspire a rush of driverly ambition. That, combined with my insanely-complicated-by-gymnastics schedule meant I didn't take driver's ed until the summer after I turned sixteen.

One of our driver's ed assignments was to learn how to change a tire. And not just read about it in a book—we were supposed to actually change a tire. My mom gave a vague explanation of the process and then signed my form stating that I had, indeed, changed a tire. "It's not like you'll ever really need to change a tire!" she said. "I mean, look at those legs. You'll be surrounded by guys wanting to change your tire for you if you ever get a flat." (Insert all the possible things you can think of about how awful this is. I know. I'm blushing just writing about it.)

On the day I was finally ready to take the test to get my driver's license, you'll never guess what happened: I got a flat tire. And you'll never guess who stopped to help me. Not the hordes of adoring, adorable, drooling-over-my-legs boys, but my driver's ed teacher.

That, my friends, is karma.

Now that Haley is sixteen and taking driver's ed (the summer after she turned 16, ironically enough), I've decided to take a slightly different tactic than my parents did. A couple of weeks ago, she learned to change a tire.
 

(Woot! Look at those gorgeous legs!) (Driver's ed assignments have changed, or the teachers have gotten more suspicious, because now you have to provide photographic evidence of your tire-changing knowledge.) (I also learned how to change a tire, only 23 years late, in between taking pictures.)

And when we finally do figure out what car she'll drive, I promise you it will have a working gas gage, a functional odometer, and brake lights that actually, you know, light up when you press on the brakes.

I honestly haven't looked forward to teaching Haley to drive, but it hasn't been nearly as bad as I imagined. She is a careful driver and doesn't have my lead foot. We started, as is Utah tradition, in the church parking lot, driving in circles. She's since braved driving on State Street and University Avenue. Tonight I had her drive up the canyon to Vivian Park and then back home. I confess to a little bit of terror as she took the curves, but really she did a great job.

Teaching your teenager to drive is a lot like potty training a toddler; you're always afraid an accident is going to happen. It reminds you of how fallible we are, speeding around in our automobiles, and of just how easy it would be to make a mistake. It's a terrifying reminder of your own mortality. But it's not just the curves and the lane changes and the parking. It's also a reminder of how fast she is speeding into her own life, away from needing me very much. Driver's ed is teaching me just how little time I have left to influence her and urging me to do better, to make our connection stronger, to pass along the real wisdom she needs.

(It's also reminded me that my legs aren't quite as shapely as they used to be when I was 16, but that is an entirely different story.)

Delicious Birthdays

Sunday was Kendell's birthday and today was Kaleb's, so we celebrated both on Sunday with the traditional Grandmas Party. I made two desserts, since Kendell doesn't love cake and Kaleb doesn't love grown-up desserts. Everyone (except my inner thighs) was happy!

Last year, on Kaleb's fifth birthday, we didn't call this event the Grandmas Party. It was the Grandparents Party, because Kendell's dad still came. In fact, Kaleb's fifth party was the last one Kent came to:

 

As I sat at the table for this year's party, I looked at my mom and my mother-in-law and wondered: how long will it last? What birthday will it be when it is just one grandma, and then none? I hope we get in a good run of Grandma Parties before that happens, but I still felt a deep, unexpected sadness settle down on me. Maybe it was because of the weather: warm at last, the sun lowering and that delicious summer-night coolness wafting through my hair. "There are moments when the body is as numinous as words," the poet Robert Hass says in a poem, "days that are the good flesh continuing." That moment in the angled sunlight felt like that poem, a thin wire of grief wrapped up in all the happiness.

Numinous.

And sweetened, of course, by two desserts. Here are the recipes, just so I don't forget:

Lime Icebox Dessert

2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cups butter

1 cup lime or lemon juice
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
zest of one lime or lemon
2 cups whipped cream
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
dash salt

Combine graham crackers and melted butter; press into a 9x13 pan. Zest the lime or lemon, then juice enough for one cup. Whisk juice and sweetened condensed milk together. In a separate bowl, whip the cream till stiff; add the sugar, vanilla, and salt to the cream. Fold the cream into the juice mixture. Pour over the crust, then chill for at least four hours.

Bask in the adoration.

Perfect White Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

1 bag white chocolate chips (11 ounces)
3/4 cup whipping cream
1 cup butter
dash salt
1 tsp vanilla
3-ish cups powdered sugar

On low heat, preferrably in a double boiler, melt chocolate. Add whipping cream and stir until smooth. Allow to cool to room temperature. Beat with butter, salt, and vanilla till creamy; add enough powdered sugar to reach desired stiffness. Enough to frost a two-layer cake with leftovers for graham crackers. This frosting is best if you allow it to chill after frosting the cake. So deliciously flavored!

Know What I Miss?

 
Fall of 2004; Haley was 9, Jake was 6, Nathan was 4. I was about two weeks pregnant with Kaleb, just starting another new year (destined to be my last) of teaching.

Those days: I miss those days. And not because there were only three of them then, and I still got to have one more pregnancy, one more newborn. But because they were all still little. Because the maelstrom of adolescent hormones hadn't dervished up yet. Because they couldn't yet see all my faults. Because they didn't know, yet, how to tell me what I was doing wrong. Because troubles were only about not getting a Happy Meal every day of their lives.

Because things were more simple.

And yes, sure: I'm altering history. Rewriting it. It's never easy to be the mom; our memories filter out the details of unpleasantness and just leave the good bits. I know they frustrated me then, too. I know we argued and I was unfair and I let them down. I know it was hard to juggle my role as a teacher with my role as a mom. I know their sorrows were over more than just chicken nuggets. I know I felt, then, as shaky about my mothering skills as I do now.

And I also know: I should savor every phase of their existence. And I shouldn't get caught up in thinking the past was the only best part. And it could be harder than it is. And I do love them, desperately. And I am proud of them. And it is only painful because I love them and want to have good, strong relationships with them.

But I still find myself missing those days. When I could make everyone feel better just with a trip to Sonic during Happy Hour. When they liked to talk to me before they went to bed. When they would tell me all the details of their days; when they came to me with their hurts because they still knew I could fix them. When even the joyfulness wasn't tinged, yet, with misspoken, pointed words, failed expectations, and dire consequences. When it didn't feel like they were slipping away all too impossibly quickly; not just slipping, but fleeing. When their mantra wasn't "away, away." When just loving them was enough.

Those days. I miss those days.