I am so out of tune.
The whole world is waxing, growing more yang, full, ripe and bright. As we march forward to the solstice the days stretch infinitely long. As I looked into the summer sky I saw a moon growing fat and fire flies dressing up the lawn with their shimmers. It seems as if the whole world is getting ready for a party, a celebration, and explosion of life.
But I am waning, growing yin, dimmer, diving deeper into myself. I am touching dark places of my heart. The places where the shadows lurk. The places where I am still and silent–where the air is thick and heavy and smells a little like cedar and crushed pine needles.
I have not gone quietly to this place. I have fought this whole waning cycle. I have kicked and screamed and railed against the rain, and the cold and the quiet. I have yearned for connection and have reached out into the darkness pleading for the light and the energy and the bubbling up of joy. I wanted to sing in the sunshine and dance and blossom and expand and I fought the contraction with every ounce of energy I had.
Then, yesterday I got some upsetting news. Its news I don’t want to write about here only to say that it was distressing and stressful and opened up old wounds, wounds I thought I had long ago healed. I found myself reliving abandonment all over again–the feeling of losing my heart, the panic of losing control. I felt vulnerable and weary and alone. And suddenly I embraced the yin for there was nothing I wanted to do but go away and pull the covers over my head, drink chai tea and slip away into the dark of a new moon night. It was as though my soul knew I needed this quiet to deal with what would happen and was preparing me for it all along. It all suddenly made so much sense.
I am swimming in the yin, letting it wash over me. I am grateful for the silence for it asks nothing of me. I am counting my breaths now, keeping my heart focused here on the now for it is all I have afterall. It is all I can do, just breathe, and I have noticed that my breathing, even in this space, can sound like music. And I am thankful for the absence of noise, community, busyness and bustle.
The distressing problem will be solved. I am not worried about that. The wound on my heart, the one it opened up–it will heal, I am certain of it. And the seasons, they will turn again. Of that I am sure.
It may be days, or weeks or months but I will expand again. I will be yang and joyful and bright. I will light up the sky like a June moon. But for now I am a waning moon, growing dim and letting the world rest and be still.
Last night I sat with a powerful woman drinking coffee in an anonymous strip mall. It could have been anywhere in America but it was halfway between where she and I were. A place to meet. And I we sat and talked she told me stories and I remembered some of mine.
I remembered being pregnant with Max. I remembered how tired I was, how much work it was just to be. How the simple act of walking from one place to the other would require me to rest, put my feet up, retreat. I remembered how on one hand I was doing nothing to actually grow this child and yet how I was doing everything to grow him. How this very creative act left me with no energy for anything else and yet…how it felt so strangely not me.
I remembered the not knowing, the fear, the waiting. I remembered the feeling that the end would never come or that rather I had no idea what the end would actually be like. How would I be as a mother? What would this child be like? What would it be like to cradle, nurse, nurture this child? How would it impact me as a woman? How would it impact my marriage? The answers to these questions were imminent but nevertheless hidden, unknowable, unfathomable.
I was changing before my very eyes, but at the same time I couldn’t see how. It was terrifying and exhilarating all at once.
I was changing before everyone else’s eyes and friends and strangers couldn’t help but comment on the changes. The shape of my belly, the look in my eyes, the thickness of my hair. They all saw the changes but we all acknowledged these changes to be temporary. I had no idea what would come next. How life would be forever changed by this journey I was on.
I remembered the day that I sat in the airport and thought my water had broken. I called the midwife from my cell phone trying to keep calm. I was only 5 and 1/2 months along. She was calm and cool even as she told me the news. It could have been my water…But it could also equally have been a simple, small, harmless infection. I asked her what I should do–Should I get to the emergency room? Rush somewhere to save my baby? She said, “No”. There was no use in rushing. If my water had broken there would have been no saving. There was nothing to do but get on the plane and go home and sleep, hope that labor would not come. In the morning they would check me. A good outcome was all in the hands of faith–out of my control.
Pregnancy–this metaphor has sat heavy on my mind as I think here I am, pregnant again. Not with a child, but with a new life. I am in the words of my dear friend drinking her latte, “pregnant with myself”, pregnant with this next phase of my journey. I am pregnant with a life I cannot see, I cannot touch though I feel it stir inside me now and again. I wonder about it but now its out of my hands, mostly. I try to picture what it will look like, what it will feel like to hold this life in my hands and I know that there is no way I can imagine it, no matter how hard I try. I might as well just rest with my feet up for the process of getting to here has exhausted me so. I am doing nothing and yet I am tired. I am so tired. I have no energy left for anything else. Not for writing or playing my guitar or even gardening today. I am just so tired from the act of creating myself anew.
I think tonight about how so many generations of women spent their whole lives in the cycle of pregnancy, birth and the celebration of new life. I realize that now I am not that different, that none of us are. And while birth control or choices about family size have changed the physical realities of pregnancy, if we are honest we are in a constant cycle if only metaphorically–pregnant with possibilities and dreams, birthing of one’s self, creativity, and celebrating a new life, new growth, new beginning. Of becoming new again.
It has been raining all spring here in Maryland. It has been a cold wet spring. Usually at this time we have broken out the shorts and sandals and we are dining on the porch but I am sitting with a sweatshirt on shivering. It has been gray and drizzely and the weather just matches my mood so well.
I had been waiting all winter for the spring and frankly I am a little disappointed.
I had been waiting for the blossoming and am feeling heavy hearted.
I had been waiting for something to spring forward, new and exciting but am just feeling stuck in the muck, the sticky emotional mud that pulls and splatters.
Last Friday, I wanted to climb into bed with a pint of icecream and a box of feeling sorry for myself but instead I went to my neighbor’s house for pizza. He had invited a whole gang of folks–people I like, even people I love. I was so grateful to be surrounded by these wonderful people, people who can make my heart sing but at the same time I was so aware of my otherness–how apart and completely alone and unconnected I felt.
As I sat at the dining table and watched all the families–the couple interacting in their perfectly imperfect ways I was aware of how terribly lonely single parenting can be. Of how alone I can feel when Max does not need attending to and I am there, just me. I was so painfully aware of each of the small kindnesses, the knowing glances, the intimacies around me and knowing that no matter how my communities loves me they don’t love me like that and as much as I don’t want it to be…the tremendous way that they love me…it is not enough.
With each breath I find myself shrinking and growing smaller, unable to give, unable to think, move, act beyond my
own small petty problems. It weighs on me heavy, and I can’t focus beyond my own small little heart and its small little sorrows.
I lay my head on the pillow and let the tears flow like the rain, leaving my bed cold and wet.
And I wonder, where is the grace that will break me out of this cold wet spring? I reach into my heart to touch it but all I feel is deep wanting. It almost consumes me so run from that dark place, slam the door and shrink some more.
I want to build a fire but the wood is wet. I want to open the door but the wind is forcing it shut. I want to dance in the sunshine but the rain is falling hard, through the trees. I want to dwell in hope but this is where I am.
I am here.
Late last night, my stomach full of yummy, yeasty homemade pizza, I lay down my head to sleep. Sleep was not coming though and so I was able to indulge (thanks to the magic of cheap phone cards) in a three hour marathon conversation with my dear friend Jen down under.
It amazes me, even now, that she and I found each other. We live literally half a world away from each other but our hearts beat at the same frequency. I can’t quite figure out how the universe matched us up, but in some ways, it almost doesn’t matter how. The fact that we are connected now is all that really is important.
Getting off the phone with Jenni I was drunk on the notion of possibility.
But I had called her in an impossibly bad mood. My last several weeks have been about meeting obstacle after obstacle–many of them homemade by yours truly–but obstacles none the less. I feel bruised and battered from the onslaught of “no good news”. I am a little bird flying into windows I didn’t imagine were there. My nose is sore from pressing itself up against the glass in so many of my little life venues.
The message I have been getting from the universe is this: Wait. Sit. No. And I have been angry. I want to experience: Now. Go. Yes.
These last couple of weeks I have started to sullenly accept the wait, sit, no. I am adjusting to this season, to this reality, to this place I am. This quieter place. This space of not now. But perhaps too much. Because last night I realized that I had given up on Now. Go. Yes. I had moved into a grieving spot for it.
Letting go of the need to move forward feels healthy to me. Closing myself off to the possibility of moving forward does not. Its such a fine, practically invisible line, but once I cross it I know it. It is the the border between peace and despair.
My friend Jenni, she knows about this line too and together we talked about the challenge of staying grounded in reality while still staying open the possibility that reality is going to shift and change. Indeed, it always does. When reality is not so rosy, it is easy to only consider the negative possibilities. We whisper to ourselves instructions to come to terms with the possibility that we might not get well, might not accomplish our goal, might not have a fairy tale ending, might not reach the finish line. But we feel so committed to helping our brains consider the negative that we refuse to give equal due to the other possibilities–we might get healthy, we might accomplish it and more, we might have the ending we hoped for or something better, we might reach the finish line and keep on moving.
I asked Jenni why we do this to ourselves? Why do we only consider the negative? Is it that we don’t want to be disappointed when the negative possibility comes true? But really will we be any less disappointed when the time comes? And by only considering that negative possibility have we actually taken a step to make sure that it is the only one that will come true? In an effort to prepare our hearts for the worst, do we actually start to ensure that the worst is what we will face?
Somehow keeping open to all possibilities seems to be the lesson of my week. To recognize that every moment, in fact every breath provides an opportunity for a new possibility to unfold. To learn to stay in whatever this moment brings knowing that the next brings a brand new world.
My friend Maya needs our help. The other day when wandering through the office she told me a story that made me weep. I need to tell it here and ask you all to help us.
Last Wednesday, two of her family’s oldest and dearest friends, Waheed and Nusrat Hashmi, an elderly Pakistani couple, were ripped from their homeby Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Hashmis were placed in detention near Cleveland, where they remain, clothed in orange jumpsuits, unable to see each other. They are likely to be deported this week.
The Hashmi’s story is a story of the system failing. Plain and simple, it is a story of it all going wrong. Dr. Waheed Hashmi legally entered the United States in 1973 as a Fulbright Scholar. Since then, he has worked with the Immigration and Naturalization Service and with immigration attorneys to ensure that he and his family have a chance to attain permanent residency in the United States. He followed the rules every step of the way.
Over a period of approximately 35 years Dr. Hashmi, a scientist, and Ms. Nusrat Hashmi, a floral designer, have lovingly raised their children, held jobs, paid taxes, contributed towards social security, and invested their time and talents to build a better Toledo community.Due to a series of circumstances and occurrences beyond their control, including oversights on the part of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, some of which were revealed in documents obtained by a Freedom of Information Act request, the Hashmis have faced several obstacles to attaining permanent residency but they never gave up hope of achieving what all immigrants want–a decent life for themselves and their children. However, as law abiding people, when they recently realized that their dream of staying here could not be realized, they voluntarily made plans to leave and return home to a country they had not been home for more than three decades. But those plans were interrupted last week when ICE showed up at their door and arrested them.
If the authorities had taken the time to explore the details of the Hashmis’ case, they would have learned that after Dr. Hashmi retired from the University of Toledo, the couple began the process of selling their home and leaving for Pakistan where a job was waiting for Dr. Hashmi. They were never given the chance to prove that they were in the process of returning to Pakistan. Instead, public resources were used to lock up this elderly couple who posed absolutely no threat or risk of flight.
At the Maple Heights City Jail, Dr. and Ms. Hashmi are being held in separate quarters, are unable to see each other, and their interaction with their children has been severely restricted–they have been allowed only 20-minute visitations during which they can only speak with their children via a telephone and across a glass screen. The trauma of the detention threatens the health of Dr. and Ms. Hashmi–both of whom have serious health problems.
As it stands now, they will never again see their home in Toledo. They won’t be able to say their goodbyes–to their home, their community of 35 years, not even to their children, who won’t even be allowed to hug their parents before they leave.
It is simply inhumane to hold two elderly people in custody for no good reason, especially when they were voluntarily planning to depart the U.S. The Hashmi detention is a colossal waste of precious tax dollars and does not make us any safer. ICE should lock up those who would do us harm, not senior citizens whose misfortune has brought them into the grip of a dysfunctional immigration system. ICE needs to do the right thing and release Dr. and Ms. Hashmi.
Please read more about the case and consider signing on to a letter to Julie Myers, the head of ICE. Maya and her family , are hoping that if enough of us speak up together the Hashmi’s can be released from detention and allowed to close up their house, say their goodbyes and start their new life with dignity. The unjust detention of the Hashmis is not at all an unusual case. The Hashmi family hopes that bringing attention to their case will help the push for immigration reform.
You can get to the online petition that Maya set up by clicking here. Please take a moment to go there and read their story. This should not be. It should not be. It should not be.
UPDATE:
The Hashmis have been released! Our joint efforts on many fronts—grassroots, legal, and political—sent a powerful message to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Yesterday I ran down to the yoga class at my office thinking I might be late. Instead everyone was waiting in the hallway, including my teacher. The room was locked and no one had the key. The woman who coordinates the class had put a call into housekeeping but the minutes dragged by. I made a joke about this being our yoga for the day, this lesson in patience and non-attachment. Why were we so attached to our room? We could do it in the hallway, even if it would be a bit loud. We had all rolled out our mats and were getting ready to start when the key finally arrived.
Yoga was something I desperately needed last night. I needed to practice letting go, something that is so much easier to do on the mat. See I have been quite cranky now for the last week or so. Its a mood that is not promising on lifting any time soon. And as I rolled out my mat last night I had to chuckle about my own comments about attachment. Because if I am honest my crankiness is all about my own refusal to let go of my latest attachment.
Over the last few years, I learned all about non-attachment when I realized that I had to let go of the story that I had written for myself. The story that went like this: Girl meets Boy. Boy falls in love with Girl. Girl and Boy get married, buy a house, have a Child and stay together forever. Girl and Boy work through their problems like champs and figure out how to make it work and live happily ever after. Wow. Was I ever attached to that story. I had planned on riding it all the way home to my grave. Letting it go was almost as hard as actually letting Juan go.
The experience of letting it go was transformative. I felt so brave and like an adventurer woman willing to just rely on faith. But, I have come to learn that while letting go of that one, I secretly attached to another fairy tale. This one goes like this: Girl survives heartbreaking loss and learns to make it on her own. She nobly walks a hard road, learning to breathe and take each day as it comes. She walks this road, defeating fear, and realizes that it all happens for a reason. She learns to appreciate the journey and not to question why she was set on it. That reason becomes clear (she is so smugly Buddhist in her non-attachment to the specific result) as she rounds the corner and finally arrives at her own Happily Ever After.
Its the Happily Ever After part that is getting to me. I am really attached to the notion that it is all going to work out exactly right. I am going to fall head over heels in love with a man who will sweep me off my feet, or my true calling will emerge or I will finally get successful at cleaning the house. That it will all make sense to me and I will say, “yes–no wonder I had to go through what I went through–How else could I have landed here?”
I have been so angry at the Universe for failing to deliver my happily ever after in a timely fashion. I have been angry that others I love are having to wait far too long for theirs. And I am angry because its dawning on me that it never gets delivered. People suffer. Then there is joy. Then they go through different hard times. Life never really gets better or worse, it just presents different challenges and obstacles–some easier to clear than others. People get sick, people die, people break each others hearts, people fall in love, people get better and we all keep trudging along on a road to nowhere–no castles and happily ever after in sight.
This all makes so much sense to my 38 year old wise woman. But my inner 8 year old, the one who was counting on it all someday getting better and coming together for a reason is struggling with bitter loss–the loss of the fairytale that kept her marching on on the dreariest of days.
I want to believe that the pain I have felt is just the cost of something better–that it will be exchanged for something beautiful at some later juncture, but I am coming to realize it doesn’t work like that. I want to believe that it is all going to be worth it one day when I pull into the land of Happily Ever After but I am realizing that no such country exists. It is a mythical city in the fog that has inspired, confused and driven many a traveler to drink. No road leads there.
But the road is worth traveling anyway, or at least that is what I am told. Seems I have a lot of work to do these coming weeks to let go of fairy tales.
Its been almost a week since I’ve been able to sit down and write. In fact, its been a week since I have been able to do much of anything expressive. Words are not coming to me and indeed I find myself wandering silently about my day.
I am in a resting space. A yin space. I have been dwelling in silence.
Its been a wild rollcoaster of emotions here. The high of the party was followed this week unbearably sad news about my housemate’s daughter having TB and the hopelessness that comes to all of us when we realize there is nothing we can do but pray and hope and send money for medicine and pray some more. There is nothing I can do to comfort my dear Odette. I feel almost empty. If I am honest, I have to admit that part of my silence is my anger with the universe, with this someone greater who is holding us. I feel like we are being played with, toyed with, made fun of. That we dared to hope for magic and instead we got a cruel twist of fate. We have been asking for miracles and we are answered with radio silence and so I am just silent myself.
But at the same time, something keeps telling me that the story is not yet over and that somehow it is all unfolding exactly as it needs to. It is so easy to remember that when everything is going well. Its so much harder to accept that when it seems to be going to shit. Holding on to faith this week has been hard.
On Friday, I raised my head and realized I had misplaced most of what I needed to get through my life. My bank card, my cell phone, my work security ID, my keys. The house was filled with junk. The yard is overgrown. Everywhere I look I see the signs that I just need to buckle down and tend to the little things in life right now. I somehow believe that if I can just pay all the bills, pick up the clothes and fix the broken things around the house that maybe, just maybe the part of my heart that is feeling drained will fill back up again. I believe that if I can just gather the scattered pieces of my life my scattered faith, my scattered energy might just come home too.
So this coming week I plan to chop wood and carry water. To fill my moments with the ordinary tasks in front of me in the hopes that I can regain my voice and find a little patience for the world. I am going to focus, not on big things like hope and joy but on little things like clean laundry and less clutter. Lets see what happens at the end.
It was late. A band was still playing but I was the only one on the dance floor. In between songs I would ran about the room, collecting cups and plates, throwing away trash. Almost everyone who was still there was actually on stage, except maybe Odette who was fast asleep on the couch. It was a good evening.
And yet it was a complex evening for me too. As it wound down I felt myself grow grouchier. Sure I was touched by the magic but I was tired, my body ached from two days of cooking and a full night of dancing. The refreshments had left me a little fuzzy too and I found myself being impatient, snappy and downright grumpy.
But there was another reason too. Even in the swirl, as I packed off Max with neighbors and sent him off to a sleepover, even as I danced with one friend and then another, a feeling bubbled up from a place deep inside. I couldn’t name it then–I didn’t have the perspective to be able to do it. It felt so dissonant compared to the rest of the evening. But now, as it lingers I can call it by name. Loneliness.
It is such an odd thing to feel lonely in the midst of my beautiful community. But it happens from time to time. It is the moment when I realize that I am raising my child alone–without the one person who loves him as much as I do. It happens sometimes when I am dropping him off at school, or when I am wrapping Christmas presents. It is the moment when I so desperately need to be seen for who I am and I find that no one quite gets it (at least the way Juan would try). It is the moment when I am dancing and realize I have no partner. On most days my community stands in so well–loving Max, helping me keep it all together, being a place where we can laugh, and chat and share–but there are just some roles that they cannot fill. But still it is so strange and uncomfortable to be in a room the people who love you best and to feel so damn alone.
Odette and I talk a lot about this feeling. These days 95% of the time we can hold it together, but sometimes, the smallest thing–a snide comment from a friend, a misunderstanding, a disappointment can open up the whole damn pandora’s box of emotion and suddenly everything seems so utterly complicated and sad. Suddenly there is only one factor that matters. I am alone. And I don’t know how I am going to keep doing it by myself. But I do…and I will.
Tomorrow I will wake up and the feeling will have dissipated. The sun will rise, sweet sweet sleep will cradle me. I will realize that I am only alone in a few things and yes, we all feel alone from time to time–even in the midst of a near perfect marriage. I will wander to the mirror, look with love upon a woman, strong–if not entirely always secure and then turn and do what needs to happen next. And love will carry us after all. It usually does.
I recently had a conversation with a friend where we admitted we both once had a fear of looking foolish and we both proudly exclaimed that we were so over that one.
And the truth is, I have let go of my fear of looking foolish long ago. Clearly I have no problem about acting silly in public. I tap dance in the office. Start Very Serious Work Meetings with a song, and will throw any idea out there no matter how crazy it may seem. I blog about things that may make me look nutty. I tell funny stories that make others laugh with me at my weaknesses. There is a certain part of me that is just OK with being out there, who cares what the rest of the world may think?
But feeling foolish…Now that is a different kind of story. There is a certain kind of feeling foolish that sends me screaming for the hills. Its the foolishness that comes from loving too much and caring too deeply and trusting too much and being let down by that love. And I fear it more than anything. It is the foolishness felt by a lovesick teenager who realizes her crush doesn’t notice her. It is the foolishness felt by a wife when she realizes that her husband is leaving her. It is the foolishness felt by a friend when she realizes that she has asked too much of dear friends who give and give but are tired of giving right now. It is the foolishness felt by a happy visitor when she has realized she has stayed too long. It is the foolishness felt by the person standing in the town square, her heart wide open and bleeding for all to see.
Yeah that kind of foolishness scares the sweet bejezus out of me.
In the weeks and months after Juan left I felt foolish like this a lot. I didn’t believe for one second that others thought I looked foolish, but frankly that didn’t matter. I felt exposed and vulnerable and sick to my stomach. And when I finally stopped feeling that way I decided I didn’t ever want to feel that way again.
There was a time when this fear would come up I would react. Listen to the loud alarm in my head without really understanding what it said. The alarm would say run, act angry, say something mean, PROTECT YOURSELF AT ALL COSTS and I would. Reflexively. Not that long ago when it came up I would ignore it, pretend it didn’t exist, or worse still throw stones at it.
But these days when this fear comes up I just notice it. I say hello. Invite it down for tea and ask it to tell me what is really going on. It speaks to me about not being good enough. It speaks to me of hoping to hard. It speaks to me of knowing my place, standing in line, waiting my turn and not expecting too much. I listen without accepting all that this fear has to say, but I can’t quite ask her to leave. At least not yet. I am afraid of what I will do without her.
This is a tough fear to have when one has set ones mind and heart to fearless true love. And yet it seems that the two may go hand in hand-at least in my heart. This week, last week, I realized how much this fear just simmers under the surface–in some ways I guess and the more I lead with my heart, the more I jump into life with both feet, the louder it can become. Somehow in seeking a life of fearless true love, it is the fear that doesn’t want to let go. But it is the one that MUST go for me to truly live this life. It is the one I must learn to leave behind. Because to love you must always risk feeling foolish.
I can’t say why I feel the need to post this tonight. Its just been on my mind, I suppose. Its the clutter I need to remove from my life. The excess I need to give up. The candle and prayer that I light for myself each and every evening as the sun goes down.
Hey…Its not too late. Leave a comment here to win this fabulous mug from MotherHenna in my Howdy Stranger giveaway. Heck…leave a comment on this post if you’d rather. Max will pick the names from the hat on Friday at 8pm eastern time.
Today I had my “quarterly breakdown”. It happens about once every three or four months. Usually on a Sunday. It often starts with the house (oh the house!–the toys everywhere!) or my room (Why can’t he sleep in his own room? And why has he insisted on bringing in every single stuffed animal and 35 books and crackers into my bed) or maybe its the paperwork piled up on my desk (when did THAT bill come in? For HOW much?). Often it happens when I haven’t eaten a real meal in 24 hours, usually I am sick, and I am often wearing the same clothes I have worn for 48 hours. Should be able to predict them by now, but I still don’t.
It starts with the house, or the chores or the details of life and spirals down “Why doesn’t my child listen to me?” and the “What is wrong with me as a parent?” and then “What don’t I feel any control?” and then “How can I be such a fool?” and then “AAAAAAH”. I usually stop the downward spiral at AAAAAH. I have ridden that spiral all the way down to the bottom before and I am wise to calmly step off the spinning escalator at this particular basement. Thirty eight years has to teach you something.
My downward spiral was also fortunately broken by two phone calls that came in within 45 minutes of each other. The first one from Jackie. After a 5 minute update on the status of the breakdown she delivered surprising good news on a project we are working on together. Then, my mood moving up half a floor from AAAAAH, I stomped around the house all the while scrubbing my bedroom clean until Odette came into my room with the phone. “Its for you–Its Jen” she said. Ohhhh…. the lovely Jen Lemen. Within 5 minutes of chatting with Jen I was laughing at myself, laughing at her and laughing at the aburdity of my little tantrum. The reason she too was calling was to give more great news on yet another project we are working together. I couldn’t help but feel that the universe was trying to tell me something. Great news and surprises abound–get rid of that grumpy old, beat down, bad mood now and pay attention.
There is a theme that is playing out in my life right now. We talk about it over here almost every day. I find myself waking up each morning, completely curious. Realizing that I have no idea what will happen as the day unfold but certain of the fact that somehow somewhere I will be completely and utterly surprised and amazed.
I wasn’t planning on posting tonight but after Max had finally gone to sleep Jackie called me and asked if I could join her for a movie. Eric had to work. Odette said she would stay with Max and off I went to her house, my knitting in hand. We watched Dan In Real Life. Oh what a sweet film. A story about everything unfolding messily but beautifully exactly as it should. Apparently the universe believes that I really need it spelled out for me and so it is writing this lesson on every stone in my path. Along with the story Jackie and I fell ourselves falling deeply in love with the soundtrack and the singer-songwriter-composer who wrote the score. And this song. This song which will be my anthem for the week.
