Eddie and AJC, my desert co-conspirators, eating by candlelight…
Sometime last November when the blustery winds were biting I started to dream of the desert. I have always been a coastal girl–someone who relishes the smells of the seaside, the feel of salty oceans spitting into the air. But for some reason I felt the desert calling me.
I started to plan and conspire. I emailed my friend Eddie and suggested we make a trip to the California desert. He never replied. He thought I was joking. But my plans continued to churn.
In December as the days grew unbearably short my desert dreams grew more frequent. There was something I needed to feel there. Something I needed to see. While walking to get coffee on chilly and dark day I convinced my dear AJC to go with me. Together we worked on Eddie.
Before we knew it in January we had a whole gang of us signed up and AJC had found the perfect haunt. We were headed to the desert.
All winter long this trip sat like a light at the end of the tunnel for me. Three days in a desert I didn’t know but longed for. I knew it would be magical.
And it was. I will write about it for some time I am sure. There was so much packed into those three days. So much food, so much laughter, so much silliness and so much joy.
As we sat around a table on Friday night and dug into a gratin that Bahar and I had made (eggplant, onions, garlic and potatoe in gruyere and cream) we giggled and told stories and poured wine. These friends are like a little mirror for me. In their beautiful eyes, their warm stories and their crazy jokes, I see myself reflected and I love her alot.
I am writing this post from a glass walled conference room named the “Hollywood Room” named for its view of the Hollywood sign on the hills. Ahhh…Los Angeles. Can you feel the glamour?
I am here for a rare work trip. Pre-Max I was a road warrior–on the road almost weekly–jetting back and forth all over the country in the name of social-justice. I have traded in that life for the sake of mommyhood and I am tied to the home office, reluctant to travel, happy to mind the budget and supervise staff and leave the exciting campaign work for others. I am starting to loosen up on that restriction in bits and pieces–for the right meeting, for the right project. Leaving Max at home still leaves me tied up in knots even though I know he is held lovingly in the arms of our community–that I am leaving him with more sets of substitute parents than most kids will know in a lifetime. But now that I am here, this little business trip, the conference room, the morning breakfast with colleagues, the laptop computer that I whip in and out of my backpack like a pro–it all feels a bit like heady–it is a window onto my old life when “Very Important Work” was front and center in my life and I was brilliant and bold and exciting and adrenaline flowed through my veins from 9-5. Now don’t get me wrong–adrenaline still flows through my veins but the surge comes 5-9–my key hours with Max, my truly very important work. No matter how exciting the work project, coming home to Max each night is entering a special kind of heaven.
But still I have to admit that I am loving being here. From the minute I walked into the Echo Park home of my old colleague and dear friend Eddie to a spread of cheese, olives, apples and veggies from the farmers market and good red wine I have been in a different kind of heaven. Being away from Max, I am more comfortable stretching my brain and wrapping it around the work problems, even as I pine for him.
And then, after this meeting is over, I will be off to a different kind of glamour. I am headed out to the desert with five of my dear childless friends for a grown-up weekend. We have rented a cabin on the edge of Joshua Tree National Park. We will hike all day and then come home to cook crazy gourmet meals while we drink bottles of red wine and sit in a jacuzzi under the stars. It feels decadent to think of this and I have to admit my Catholic school girl guilt is bubbling up as I think of it. How can I call myself a mother?
But what occurs to me as I sit here, as my colleagues stream in, as I need to sign off now to shift gears is that I am more than a mother. Even though it is my proudest title, it is only one and the other pieces of me need to stretch from time to time. So let us raise a glass of wine to all of us and our full, juicy selves–the women, the brilliant strategists, the ones who need to stretch their arms up to the moonlight in the desert.
I am back from a magical trip. I was away for three days, but it seems like three weeks. I went to Miami Beach with two soulsisters and for every second of the trip there was nowhere else I wanted to be, nothing else that I would rather do other than what I was doing exactly at that moment exactly where I was. The beautiful thing about living entirely in the present is the timelessness.
Dolores and I traveled with Jackie to her hometown. We were there to get away, leave the children, the men, the houses and just be. But we were also there to discover a bit of Jackie’s past. It was a once in a lifetime experience to walk the streets with a dear friend and soak in the settings of her growing up. I feel I know my beloved Jackie just a bit better having seen where she bought her tunafish sandwiches, to have peaked at the house where her highschool boyfriend lived, to see the elementary school playground where she played when she was as old as our children are now. It was a journey I would gladly take again, to bear witness to the past if only in the simplest of ways. Walking down memory lane with someone you love and watching their face as they rediscover it is an odessey in and of itself.
And the three of us discovered new places too. We stayed in South Beach, a place that was barely on the map during Jackie’s Miami days. We found places new to us all and we discovered it together, forming a bond that only traveling can form. We have now our store, our hotel, our restaurant–the places we went time and time again, walking over that turf until we could claim it as ours, all ours.
I am home now, ready to sink back into my life–the one with a child, a messy house, a busy job. I have hit reboot and can channel some of that living in the now energy back home.
I have been thinking alot about traveling.
And about how stressful it can be when I just am not sure if I have the right directions–if I don’t know the right way to get there. If I am not sure I can find my way to where I need to go.
I have also been thinking about how great it is when I just know that I am going to get there and am able to relax into trust. Maybe its because I am riding in the passenger seat and I have faith in the driver. Maybe its because I just know I am going to find it if I just keep moving along in this general direction. But its always then that I am able to relax, roll down the window, crank up the music, breathe and take in the scenery.
When I am confident I am going to get where I am headed I am able to enjoy the journey.
When I am not, I am a mess. I scrutinize every marker, analyze and reanalyze and second guess every decision that I make (to turn left or right?, to take the HOV lane or not?). I am up and down and all about and not at all seeing what is good about the getting there. I am obsessed with making it there finally.
On the otherhand if I can just have trust in my own inner compass, if I believe that I will get where I need to go no matter what happens on the road, suddenly the road is an amazing adventure–full of bumps and tunnels and unexcepted turns sure-but also full of amazing scenery I may never pass again. As amazing as the destination, even…
It would be shame to miss it because my head is in a map worrying about my next move, don’t you think?
Just a thought…
Tonight it rained. I sat in wonder and listened to the sound of the rain against my windows. I stood out on the front steps and let me feet get damp. It has been such a dry summer. The rain smelled miraculous and hopeful, the harbinger of good things. Life giving and cleansing. Just what we needed.
Nighttime in Rio, just after the storm passed
I have thought alot about my trip to Rio –the one I took two Octobers ago. We took this photo our first night there. Eddie’s friend, an ex-pat who had settled in this magical city, had taken us for a walking tour and showed us his favorite spot, a park across a lake from the hustle and bustle of this city. A rainstorm rolled in suddenly, unexpectedly, catching us on the wrong side of the park. It fell in sheets soaking us all as we ran for cover under some trees, laughing. I laughed harder than I had in months. At that moment, laughter bubbled up unexpectedly, as unstoppable as the rain. It was so absurd and silly and joyful. We were dressed to the nines for a night out on the town, with water running down our noses, with my chic outfit dripping and misshapen, my “oh-so-Rio” sandals squishing and making ridiculous noises. It was the funniest thing ever to be in Rio in the warm rain. I jumped in a puddle and lost my shoe. Pretty soon we were all laughing because I couldn’t stop laughing
I had felt so heavy and stressed when I got to Brazil. I was at the height of my financial panic and I had just started to wrap my heart around the idea that Juan was not coming back. I arrived at the airport after flying all night with only $20 American and a three day training to run in Spanish. I went to the cash machine at the airport to take out money for taxi fare and found my account was overdrawn. My cell phone was out of batteries. I had forgotten my credit card at home. I had no idea what I would do next. I went up to the money exchange counter and cashed in my $20. I hoped it would be enough to get me to the hotel where I could regroup and figure out my next move. I thought I had hit rock bottom. I felt so alone, like such a failure. To keep myself from breaking down in this strange city, I repeated a mantra “It is going to work out all right” and then I added a fervent “please” and threw in a prayer for good measure.
The taxi fare was exactly what I had in my wallet.
I got to the hotel and they told me my room was already paid for. I slept a heavy deep dreamless sleep. I woke up to find lunch. A a friend of a friend living in Sao Paolo who had come to meet me. A fully charged cell phone and a Dad on the other end able to wire some cash to get me through the week. And best of all when Eddie arrived that evening he had two airplane tickets to Rio.
Four days later I was standing in the rain in Rio, laughing as the water poured over my toes and ran down my fingers. I remember thinking that the rain washed some of my grief away that night, just let it slip right away and run into this lake, leaving me feeling a tiny bit lighter and ready to start healing.
Today I am filled with a yearning. A sort of mellow sadness. A tightness around my heart.
Last night I slept a deep, delicious sleep. But in this deep relaxation a dream came to me—a dream which won’t let me go.
It is a dream I have had before. I am fixing up a new house, a house I bought in a burst of enthusiasm full of hope and expectations. It was so much bigger than my old one—so beautiful and spacious. But now I stand in all the construction rubble and I don’t know why I left my old one. This house that held the promise of being more is a disaster. Rotting plaster, rooms that seem so suddenly small, an old kitchen and bathrooms that barely work. It is dark an chaotic and smells musty. I miss my old house, cheery and warm. I am angry that I sold it—that I let it go. I want it back. I don’t know why I paid so dearly for this mess of a house, this house I only sort of want now, this house that seems like it will never rise to my expectations. I wake up with the taste of a longing in my mouth. I can’t shake it.
I have this dream only when I am at peace. It is though, only in these quiet and happy moments when my heart is most relaxed that I can face the truth. I am in the middle of soul renovations and I am feeling a bit restless and regretful, wondering why I started on this project–why I dare to look within.
My heart, my life—it is being reconstructed after the hurricane that was my failed marriage destroyed the place where my heart last dwell. The blueprints laid out are ambitious plans—plans that hold promise of space and beauty, but seem so far from completion. I am tired of construction that never ends. I am impatient. I am questioning this new dream of a house—the wisdom of it all. I want my old one back. Sure it was too small. But it was comfortable. It was home.
I have sat with this dream all morning, all afternoon as the children catch frogs and feed ducks. As I pack up our cabin to ready ourselves to leave tomorrow. As I run errands and watch the wind blow through the pines and whip up waves on the lake. I don’t know what to do to shake it and so I don’t. I sit with it until I am at last ready to let it blow away in the Maine breeze, the comfort that I can recognize what is going on in my heart at last what allows it to fade
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”
Chairs at the beach in rain: Woods Pond, Bridgton ME
Stumbling over gnarled roots I traipse back home after the rain. So tired. Not the content sort of tired that seeps into your blood after a day of lounging but an ugly sort of, perhaps I am getting sick, I can’t think straight sort of tired. The fact that I am feeling it here in Maine, in a place of perfect peace is what convinces me that I am indeed suffering from something more than just regular fatigue. That I am not imagining this physical tiredness struggling to be acknowledged.
I don’t like to talk of this fatigue much. I don’t want to validate it, as though talking about it to anyone but my doctor or my father will somehow define me as the tired girl. I don’t want it to define me—I am –I want to be– vivacious, active, full of spunk. I want to live life to the fullest and to expand into every blessed moment. Somehow dragging wet feet down the lakeside path doesn’t feel like LIVING to me. The days when I just can’t lift my head, when all I want to do is crawl into bed, they feel to me like an insult or perhaps a traitorous act—my body and my mind set against my heart and soul.
These days have passed so quickly. Time moves fast when you move slow. I am sad that I have not been able to savor each minute of this precious time, waking up long past sunrise, going to sleep while the bonfire still roars and my cousins’ laughter echoes across the lake. Sneaking away from the communal dinner making because I can’t do one more thing.
But it has been precious nevertheless and that, I must remind myself, is the gift. The lesson is to take what I can from each moment—even the imperfect ones, even the ones that seem blurry and dull and foggy with fatigue. Living in the moment means accepting the moments when you are less than your ideal “living in the moment” self. Now that’s something to get your mind around, huh?
Its rained a little everyday now. Not all day, just a bit. Enough to drive us all indoors for awhile to pop popcorn, or eat lunch inside before the sun comes out from behind the clouds again. And I have too admit, I have been a bit draggy and gray myself. Not all day. But I’ve been a bit more tired and grouchy than last year. A bit more foggy and tired.
Last year, my first year at the lake it didn’t rain at all. It was a picture perfect week—for both of us “the lake” and me.
Last year, the lake and I, we were like new lovers putting on our very best for each other. Every day I woke full of energy to witness her brilliant sunrise, the glassy stillness of the water at daybreak. Every day she sparkled, all blue skies and sunshine while I dwelled fully present in the marvel of every hour—“Look how lovely the trees look in the 2 pm light—how different from the way they looked this morning.” “Oh! The air smells so beautiful right now? Does it always smell so clean here on a Tuesday?” And every night we stayed up late together the lake and I, a chorus of thousands of grasshoppers playing along with the soundtrack of the restless waves rocking the boat knocking it against the dock, as I lay on my back on the green green grass and counted stars with my son.
But this year we are sure of our love for each other and so we are no longer pulling out the stops. I am too tired this year for sunrises. I wake well past dawn when the lake is already busy with swimming and kayaks. The nights are not always clear and bright. The grasshoppers are not always singing. And sometimes this lake she is even gray and choppy. And sometimes we both rain a bit.
Now don’t get me wrong…The lake is no less lovely to me. She is every bit as beautiful and peaceful as I remember. I am seeing a new side of her and finding new beauty in the rain rolling of the pines or the reflection of the dark clouds on the water. Furthermore, I am enjoying my time with my cousins twice as much as last year. There is a rhythm and a comfort this year—a routine that feels like it has always been this way—us here on the lake. We feed each others children and pick up our conversations exactly where we left off last year. There is not so much to catch up on. We can just look at each other and smile—holding hands while we watch our children play at the waters edge, helping gather each others books and towels when the storm clouds come.
And this comfort I think is translating to my relationship with these magic surroundings. The beautiful spot I call the lake–she knows I will come back each year a faithful pilgrim. And I too know that she will be here for me next year, a resting spot for my tired bones. This lake and I, we no longer need to impress one another. We are in that phase of a new relationship when you can relax and let a little of your imperfections show. I am really not that much of a morning person. She is not always sunny and bright. But we will love each other nevertheless. In sunshine and in rain. And that love is in the end better than a vacation full of sunshine.
Max and Zach fishing off the dock last year in Maine
Tomorrow Max and I are headed on a great adventure.
We are off to cabin #2 on a Woods Pond in Bridgton, Maine. We will be joined by a handful of my cousins on my mother’s side and their kids. The family will take over almost all of the ten cabins that surround Woods Pond. There is only one small pay phone there–somewhere between cabin #4 and #5 I think. Near the boat house perhaps. I never used it. There is no internet, and barely any cell phone coverage. At night it is so pitch black that you can actually see the stars. During the day you might see a bald eagle go fishing..
Last year was our first year “at the lake” although my cousins have been going for years. It was nothing short of pure bliss. I would wake at sunrise and sit on my front porch with my tea and my book watching Kevin come back from his morning walk or Eileen to float in on her kayak. Max would wake in the morning and skip out of the house immediately finding an “uncle” (read: grown cousin) to take him fishing or one of his cousins–perhaps 12 year old Zach or the teenage Al and Chris to take him out in a boat. Dinners were communal, and delicous and often followed by a bon fire in a huge outdoor firepit. I sat in an adirondack chair almost all day, reading, knitting, catching up with the cousins. Drinking in calm and relaxation and day after day of perfect sunshine.
Our crazy world with its swirling chaos melted away. There was only peace punctuated by the sound of wooden screen doors banging as little children ran in between the cabins or a cousin brought a cool drink out to share.
I needed this trip last year. I had been doing the single mom thing for 15 months and was feeling overwhelmed, tired and a little bit a failure. I need to sink into love. But was nervous. Aside from Eileen, I had really lost touch with many of my cousins. We hadn’t talked in ages. We didn’t know each other anymore. No matter how hard I tried all my memories of connecting with this crowd floated up from decades past. It had been a long long time.
I knew I didn’t have enough energy to put on a good face. I feared they would meet me at my worst.
But fortunately good faces aren’t required in our family.
From the minute we pulled in my cousins accepted that I just was–asked nothing from Max and I other than our presence. Reconnection came almost instantly and the love that was woven during childhood, the adoration I had for my big cousins, the fondness I had for the younger ones, it all came flooding back to me as though it was summer 1978. It rose up in me like a song I had sung years ago and upon hearing again knew all the words–but with a twist. They had all grown up into such amazing, brave and interesting people.
Eileen, Lisa, Matthew, Emily and Max on our dock
But what was even better was watching Max discover the joy of a big huge crazy family. We have been such a small unit of 2 down here in Maryland. Last year with each fishing trip, each frisbee throw, each search for minnows and dragonflies he was weaving his own blanket of connectedness and family. I breathed a sigh of relief. He will have others who call him family, even long after I am gone. I saw it with my own eyes.
Searching for minnows at the waters edge
By the end of the week, it pained me to say goodbye to my long lost loved ones now found. I knew that the distance and the craziness of all our lives would take over. We made lots of ambitous plans on how we would get together–meet somewhere between New England and Maryland–let the kids play, pick up where we all left off. But I think we all really knew it would likely not happen. So just in case we all just immediately booked another week at the lake in advance. I can’t believe it is already here.
Its true I haven’t seen any of them (accept Eileen- once- last fall) since we pulled out of the woods and hit the highway. But last week I had a message on my cell phone from Kevin. ”Are you still coming?” he asked the playfulness of a 9 year old in his voice. I know he is just dying to dunk me in a kayak.
