Originally posted August 16, 2007
At last, on Thursday, I rise before the sun. Lisa stumbles down with coffee in hand and drags me out of bed. Together we pull the kayaks into the water, though first we inspect them thoroughly with flashlights, making sure there are no sleeping spiders to tickle our feet. And then with few words we push off onto an ocean of glass and mist.
The lake is still. Only one lone bird is awake and singing. Fog hangs down silent and heavy over the pines—the distant shore but a watercolor—an idea of a forest—a memory of one long ago.
As I move silently I half expect the Arthurian lady of the lake to appear and whisper something wise, perhaps ancient mother secrets of creation. My paddle dips into the water. But the ripples disappear almost instantly as we glide glide glide along the lake, paddling to the middle. The eastern sky is becoming blue now and then from behind the Monet pines fingers of orange reach up, like a hand offering hope. Then the great globe rises brilliant and true—a drop of primary color oil paint on a watercolor masterpiece: brilliant, garish, warm.
We sigh, Lisa and I. We break our silence to talk of metaphors of God and sun. I point out that every ancient culture worships the sun in one way or another because of moments just like these when a dark night instantly becomes day. More birds are in the sky and trees now waking their children and their neighbors with hymns to this hope—this promise that we have one more chance to live. The mist is fading fast, giving way to a brilliant day of blue skies.
I breathe in the smell of pine and cedar and whisper thank you. It is late before we beach the boats. Activity has broken out now on shore. I enter the cabin to see my child raise his head and smile—“Good morning, mama!” I pick him up and wrap him in his blankets, snuggling him in my lap. “Yes,” I breathe into his little ear. “it is”
I don’t often write about my job here on this blog.
Its very important to me, my paid work, but it’s not the kind of thing I talk about here.
I don’t blog about politics or income inequality or the financial markets even though I think about these things all day long. When I decided that I wanted to blog, I very consciously decided that I would keep my “professional life” and my “writing life” separate.
But every now and again those boundaries start to blur. After all it really is just one life. And its mine.
When I count my blessings, when I sit in gratitude, when I think about the abundance in my life, I am thankful for my work.
For starters, I get to spend my days fighting for justice for working people. I get to join my skills with the skills, courage and smarts of nurses, janitors, security officers and public employees as we work together to build a better life for our kids. I feel passionate about my work. But the blessings don’t stop there. I adore my colleagues–they are some of the smartest people on the planet. They are also some of the kindest and most loving folks too and I cherish the fact that when I walk into the office, I get to spend the day sharing ideas, dreaming up schemes and being creative with them. My mentor and boss is the cream of the crop–He pushes me to be my best self. Over the years he has become a brother and dear friend. Really. My work situation is ideal.
But really…one of the best things about my job…is that once in awhile I get to do something like this.
I still can’t believe they actually pay me…Will someone pinch me please…
If you are interested in learning more about what this video and our work is about you can do so here, here or here.
I am home now. Home to the simpler pleasures of my life. Home to the splash of the kids in the pool, to the sweet kisses of my boy, to the heat of a summer that snuck up on us while we were waiting for spring. Puerto Rico allowed me to hit a kind of re-set button, to hole away and devout myself entirely to my paid work, to do some different things and in the absence of routine or ritual to see what was really important in my life.
I came home hungry for the simple things–for Max’s hugs, for trips to the grocery store. I came home hungry for the rumpled sheets on my bed and the sound of the birds outside my window.
Somehow all the other stuff that I had been feeling this spring just felt so far away and I was grounded again.
Last night, after a spontaneous dinner with my across the street neighbors, I went to the local American Legion Hall. My friend’s band was playing at a luau party and pig roast. It was a private affair for American Legion members only but I was able to get in by saying “I’m with the band”. Even in an American Legion hall it still held cache.
We drank $5 pitchers of beer and cut up the dance floor. At 38, I was the youngest one there. Most of the couples cutting it up were well into their 70s and I just basked in the glow of them. I wanted to talk to them to hear their stories but as they gazed into each others eyes I knew that they had no time for me, they saw only each other and the lives that stretched out behind them and the lives that stretched out before them for whatever months, years or decades they would have together.
Later when the band broke down, I stole away for an impromptu gathering at a new friend’s house. I was exhausted, all but curled up on the sofa, listening to the music played live as a child would, having it lap over me and all but lull me to sleep. But it felt right to hear it wash over me. It was right, just as my life is right, exactly as it is.
If it seems I have fallen off the face of the earth this week, I haven’t. Its just been a busy, crazy, wonderful, falling down nutty week–full of activity and drama. There was hockey to watch and sob over, live music to go see, a sweet 6 year old boy to cuddle, and an amazing party to plan. I can’t wait to tell you about this last one but its got to happen first. I am almost afraid to speak of it, for fear that I will somehow attach some expectation to it that will just ruin it for me.
I remember when Juan’s Tio Gordo and Tia Fidelina built their new house. It was a spectacular house in a modest village–two stories high with balconies dripping with bougainvillea. People came from 5 villages away to see it, to celebrate its birth. We too went down to Veracruz for the house blessing. The event was bigger than a wedding and wonderful in all the ways that happy occasions are but I personally found the rituals around the party were more delicious than the party itself. There was the shopping for the perfect ingredients, the purchase of a big spoon worthy of a witch’s cauldron, to stir mole for 500 over an open fire. There were two nights straight of cooking, grinding corn, cooking mole over coals, forming tamales by hand. There was the afternoon setting up the stage for the band. And then the magical party itself.
Its gonna be like the next few days. It started today as we passed emails around, solidifying our plans. Tomorrow Odette and I will rise with the sun, get Max off to school and we will start to shop and then chop. All afternoon sisters will come in through our front door wielding knives and will join us in the chopping, the wine, the singing. Then at 6 we will take our food to store in a big industrial fridge at the photo studio where we will work to set up our fete. Ten of us will drag tables and lights and music equipment around and transform a photo studio into something else. When we wake the next morning there will be more cooking, more running to the liquor store, more final preparations. And then there will be a party. A party for a very special woman, my housemate Odette. A simple and beautiful person who walked through our magic door and changed all our lives in ways we cannot even begin to explain, ways we are all still trying to understand. Bands will wander on and off stage, bread will be broken and wine will flow and in the end, we will have raised money for her girls, preparing them a home for a someday soon reunion, building them a family to walk into, preparing them a place of rest.
Thinking about it all I just feel giddy and grateful.
What are you looking forward to this weekend?
I want to take a break from my discussions about now, and life and magic and parenting and soul sisters and all that to simply say: These guys rock.
Awww…yeah…I’m so smitten with my community, is it true. I couldn’t help myself. Had to post about ‘em. But…aren’t they good y’all, these friends of mine? They are so talented but more than that–they are so damn fun.
I love that I have friends that sing and play for me. I love that I get to hear these guys around a campfire, in my living room and around the corner on a regular basis. I love that music, played joyfully is a part of every day in our life in one way or another.
I am a lucky girl.
And did I say it already…these guys– they really do rock.
1. Wake up without an alarm. Sleep until you are ready to wake up. Be really amazed that you are not horribly late.
2. Have a long long hot shower. Take all your vitamins.
3. Kiss 6 year old boy a whole lot and run around and have a tickle fight. Eat a Rice Krispie treat along with the healthy breakfast.
4. Get the 6 year old out the door without once saying “Hurry up we are late” (even though you are). When he asks if we are late say, “maybe…doesn’t matter today.” Smile.
5. Drive to work with this song on repeat. Sing it at the top of lungs and dance at every damn stop light. Forget you have a meeting and so therefor don’t stress about the traffic.
6. Get a parking space in the garage (even though it is full) because the parking guys are true friends.
7. Walk into the fancy schmancy Washington job and hug all your co-workers because its Monday and you REALLY are glad to see them and feel blessed to have them as your comrades.
8. Learn about meeting and be happy because you are not even late. Sit on the couch before the meeting starts with girlfriends and bask in the morning sun. Make a cup of chai tea to take to meeting.
9. Have very silly email exchange with soul sister halfway across the world.
10. Go to yoga and actually stay focused on your breathing.
11. Drive home blasting same song over and over again. Dance at all the stoplights again.
12. Come home and put Ipod on speaker and invite stunningly beautiful son and slightly baffled (almost) ex-husband to dance to same said song. Over and over again. Until everyone is dizzy and falls down laughing .
13. Skip the TV.
14. Make plans with a new friend to go see music this week.
15. Cuddle in bed with boy and cat and three down comforters and knitting and a good book.
16. Post on blog and get to bed before midnight.
17. Wake up and plan to repeat for as many days as necessary.
When the winter blues get me down, there is nothing like live music to get me moving again. Some music is just joyful. Other music is fun. Some is masterly. And some is downright transcendental.
Thursday night I dragged my rear end out of the house for a night with some girlfriends to go hear Rosie Ledet and the Zydeco Playboys at Chick Hall’s Surf Club. Chick’s is one of those authentic and wonderful places: A real live roadhouse set next to a tire shop on a road to nowhere. The crowd at Chick’s is not the shiny, new and sparkly crowd. They are wrinkled and dented and a bit rough around the edges. They dance like there is no tomorrow. Feeling a bit beat up myself lately, it was exactly where I needed to be. These are my people.
If you EVER get the chance to see this band live, you must. The energy coming off the stage is raw and beautiful and gritty and real. Rosie’s voice so luscious, I wanted to dive into it. Her sound is part blues, part zydeco, part funk but all completely and utterly sensual.
I searched for a video that would capture the experience but not one could. Its a live thing, y’all you just got to trust me on it. But here is a little taste.
Last night I left a crying child at home with a sitter, put on my favorite jeans and best blouse, and headed out to listen to live music with a couple of good friends. Max needed me to stay home with him he said, he just couldn’t live without me. I knew he would be fine, and I knew I might just not be if I didn’t get out. I closed the door on his tears.
While my autumn blues have faded and I am cultivating excitement for the upcoming holidays, the reality is that something has been missing in the patience department. I come home and head straight for my computer, to write, to check email, to delve into a project. I don’t seem to have the time or the energy to play with Max the way we both like. I am short with him, his fears and insecurities annoy me, his endless yearning for “Mama, mama mama” are like nails on a blackboard some days.
I am short on reserves.
And of course, there is nothing like listening to live music to fill me back up again–to the top and overflowing. As we danced and sang and drank rum and tonics, the part of me that is not a mother, that is not an ex-wife, that is not trying to hold it together every day (however miserably or triumphantly) found her voice, felt her space and just soared.
This morning I woke up and played hide and seek with Max for two hours straight. I have been to the well and am filled again.
Today Juan and Max were sitting at the kitchen table playing a board game. Juan is attempting to spend more time with Max, something that makes us all very very happy. I sat on the couch and practiced my guitar some, but after awhile my hand cramped up. I needed a new diversion.
Last week, late one night I made a splurge on-line purchase. I ordered myself not one but two fancy party dresses, the kind I could wear to a cocktail party if I had one on my social calendar, the kind I could wear to a Bat Mitzvah. (I do have that on my calendar).
I ordered them against my better judgement. But I ordered them anyway because the last time I purchased something fun, beautiful and decadent was for a wedding over 5 years ago. I was married back then and the dress, while still in fashion says “elegant married lady”. Don’t get me wrong, I like my elegant look. But I wanted something a bit more…flirty.
I wanted something new to wear to Christmas parties and New Years balls. I wanted something to throw on just in case someone called me up and invited me to put on 3 inch heels and drink fancy fancy drinks.
The dresses arrived yesterday and sat in a box on the couch. I was having instant buyer’s remorse. Afterall, the only holiday party I am sure I am going to is for work. Oh, yeah and I am pretty certain we will go to Jackie’s neighborhood party. Last year I wore jeans to that one. I almost sent the dresses back, sight unseen immediately, disgusted that I wasted money on something I clearly did not need.
But Max was occupied, dinner was done and I was bored. I decided to try them on before sending them back. Decided I would do it so that I would feel better when I returned them. I was certain I would hate the way I looked and that would make me feel so much better about letting them go.
I slipped the first dress over my head. Just at that moment, my dear dear housemate who had done a load of laundry and was bringing me some clothes walked in. I jumped up on the bed so as to better view myself in the mirror. She immediately “oohed and aahed” as if on cue. Women housemates are worth their weight in gold just for their uncanny ability to “ooh and ahh” just when you need it most. I spun around and shimmied just for good measure. Yes…I thought. This dress is good. I am not certain I will send it back.
I stripped and put on the second. There was more oohing and aahing …But I wasn’t convinced. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the plunging neckline, the fitted waist, the bold red color and black polka dots. Did I look flirty or did I look like a woman trying to be a girl?
I took off the dress and put on the first. Back and forth we went, scrutinizing each dress…Did it fit properly? Did it make me look curvy or fat? How would it look with this bra? These shoes? I put on my very best underwear just to see how it changed things. Everyone knows that dresses always look their best with good underwear.
I paraded into the kitchen in the first dress. There was consensus all around that the beautiful black dress was a keeper. It was ideal for the Bat Mizvah. It was elegant and really only a little bit flirty.
But the red dress…I just wasn’t sure. I brought it out on a hanger. Juan looked at me skeptically. Max said he loved it and begged me to try it on. I asked Juan if he had a minute. Juan was always my personal shopper when we were married. He knew exactly what looked good on me. I trust his opinion. After all, he once thought I was hot.
I ran into the bedroom like a little girl playing dressup. I threw on the dress and came out. Max told me I looked like a princess. “You look awesome mommy” he said. “Please keep it. And please wear it everyday to work!”
But the real judge was the guy in the coat, on his way out the door. ”Wow” he said. I looked at him with a little smile and said, “I am not sure your opinion counts…You married me once. Pretend you never married me. What would you say if you saw me in this dress? Like for the first time.
“Its a beautiful Meg…Just beautiful. I think I would say–wow”.
I am keeping them both. At least I think I am. Juan left after that and I had to get on with my evening. I kept the dress on. I put on a pair of three inch heels and emptied the dishwasher.
There is nothing like making your own party.
This weekend, my friends Jill and Jay, two of the most beautiful people I know, took the leap and tied the knot. A relatively small group of us gathered on a farm in Western MA to witness it all and celebrate with them. The weekend was glorious in more ways than one. I will need weeks to process what I felt there amidst old friends, great music and beautiful country. I will need weeks for it all to sink in.
For now I am just buzzing with the joy of it.
During my most lizard-like days over the last 3 years, Jill and Jay have been my sun. When I am cynical about love, relationships or silly notions of hope, I lie down on a rock next to them and just soak in the energy from their partnership, bask in the glow of the way they care for each other. Theirs is a simple, honest, modest true love which radiates out from their little inner world and makes us all feel warmer. But it also buzzes with tremendous passion, a hot white streak, a super nova.
It is something extraordinary to witness. It is simply light.
