Today's letter is from Dad: All the spring days are not bright and warm, sharp in flowering contrast and bluelike cloudlessness Some are still re-stretched with cooler whitishness, holding on to wintery soft soupysky. .Foggy remnants of yesterseason. I followed such an example once, Thinking it noble to breach the oncoming differences In the name of devotion to a picture(esque) of a time that had its time. But we have to look forward to look back. Go straight to return to beginning of a time always passing. Tell the winter to let go; it is springtime now. And the autumn will come always after the natural greens of cricket legs and duller browngreys of earthworms, digging down deeper and deeper to the core, the root of your childhood. Making fertile the coming back home again, through the front door of the screen porch every and all the summer nights.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Sweet baby, Autumn.
I haven't written you in a while. But not for lack of thought, or lack of love. I've been busy living life with you. You have grown so much! I'm afraid, if I turn for even a moment, your childhood will have passed us by. You are running and climbing. You are becoming who you are. There are things you love, and things you don't like at all. You feel sad, and happy, and excited, and frustrated, and proud in such a whirlwind I hardly have time to appreciate each one before it's on to the next.
You have a toy boat, and for some reason, you've decided that it BELONGS in the drawer of our side table. Only, it doesn't fit. Not exactly. It will lay down in the drawer (a feat you were so proud to accomplish) but when you go to open the drawer, the sail gets stuck. I watch you try and try, and sometimes you push me away when I try to help. And then you get so angry that you just sit down and cry. Then I will help you get it out, only to have you immediately open the drawer and lay it back in. For weeks, I turned the table around so the drawer would face the wall, but the day I turned it back around, you walked straight over to your boat, carried it to the table, and put it inside.
I know it's difficult for you. But I'm proud. I'm proud that you created a place for it on your very own. I'm proud that you remembered it after such a long time had passed. And I'm proud that you try so hard when it doesn't work the way it's supposed to. You get that from your Dad. You also get the short temper when they don't work from him too, but that's another letter.
I'm afraid I don't give you enough credit sometimes. You are very smart. And very kind. You share all of your food. Even the gummy crackers you've been working on for fifteen minutes. You share them with me and your Dad and all your stuffed animals. Currently, due to your overwhelming kindness, we are sharing an unfortunate stomach flu. It amazes me how you can feel so bad and still be so loving. You woke up with it. When we came into your room and realized you had been sick all over your bed, you were standing there, beaming at us because we came to you. Maybe it's something that happens when you become an adult, but I will tell you in this letter, we were not beaming. And today, when we were both ill with it, we certainly weren't beaming.
You are such a big girl now, that I do not have to rock you to sleep. You have learned to sleep on your own. And I will be honest in way that you will understand when you have children, I am very grateful. But tonight, since you are not feeling well, and were having trouble falling asleep (even with baby lamb, and your music box) I rocked you. And sitting in the rocking chair, your sweet head on my arm, I was overcome with a feeling I didn't immediately recognize.
I was sad.
I was overcome as I hummed to you the songs I used to sing as you fell asleep. And I realized these songs have no place in our busy toddler world.They've been replaced with faster repetitive songs. Ones with hand motions and lots of clapping. These lullabies somehow slipped into the past, like the footy pajama's I've packed away, and the baby bottles I no longer prepare for you when you're hungry. But the difference is, I realized when I was putting away your baby things that we were moving on to a new era, together.
There is something that happens sometimes when you are falling asleep, next to someone who cares about you, feeling safe and overwhelmed with love. It's like all time happens at once, and you are a child, and a lover, and a mother, and you are free from your body in a few dreamy moments to live your whole life over. You watch the sun patterns on the blanket tent your grandmother has hung from the clothes line. You lick birthday cake off your fingers while your mother sings to you. You bury tonka trucks in the dirt with your brother. You ride a bike down the big hill for the first time. You feel brave. You feel the flutter in your stomach that feels a lot like panic, but is really wonder, the first time someone kisses you. You marry your best friend and realize, oh, this is what love is. You move from city to city. You feel new. And you get to do these things because in those moments you are protected, and hopeful, and happy. And you are free to let go of your present worries, and your busy days and just be who you are and always have been.
I felt that tonight with you. I hummed your lullabies and found myself in our hospital room, watching you sleep and hoping to God, you didn't stop breathing. I was in our apartment in California the first few chances I had to be alone with you, setting up your nursery. Trying to remember the words to Hush Little Baby. And singing Flying Dreams to you, realizing how perfect the lyrics were for your first lullaby. And feeling like, when I sang to you, I was somehow being a mother despite not having the faintest idea of how to.
And tonight, when I was singing those songs to you, I realized they had somehow been lost. Like moments from my childhood that can only be remembered in that dreaming place. And I was nostalgic in a way that ached for you to be small enough to rest against my chest again. For those sweet moments where we were learning together what it meant to belong to one another.
When you finally fell asleep, you were almost too heavy for me to carry to your crib and lift you over the edge. And when I placed you inside you woke for just a moment, and looked me in the eyes and held my arm before you turned over and hugged your baby lamb.
I haven't written you in a while, because I've been busy living life with you. But I promise, to never get to busy living life, to write you. These are moments I will remember. Snapshots I will carry with me when I am old, and you are older. I want to cherish them all.
I learned this morning that two of my friends lost children last night. One sweet little girl who had been fighting a hard battle for a while now, is finally at peace. And another little girl, taken by surprise in a horrible and unfortunate situation. My heart feels tight in my chest, and my arms keep searching for you every time you crawl away. My love keeps reaching out to places barren out of knowledge of need. But it cannot touch the dark vacuum of absence losing a child must cause. Just the smell of your hair pulls this grasping on the verge of desperation that I have to anchor down with routine. The dishes, the floors.
How brave these mother's are. To face the world. The possibility of life after death, both spiritual and on this earth that goes on without their little girls. How brave to accept love in light of questions about the loveless act of losing.
How brave any mother is, to love someone so much at all. You, daughters, causing so much abandon in cautious hearts.
As a mother we learn to be careful of everything. Of every sharp corner, of every mean word, of every reach you make. What a dichotomy to question everything but my love for you out of love for you.
Today, you learned how to point to the nose on your teddy bear. Because of the night, I'm not sure there will ever be a lesson you learn, that I will cheer for with more gratitude.
Sweetness
Just when it has seemed I couldn't bear one more friend waking with a tumor, one more maniac
with a perfect reason, often a sweetness has come and changed nothing in the world
except the way I stumbled through it, for a while lost in the ignorance of loving
someone or something, the world shrunk to mouth-size, hand-size, and never seeming small.
I acknowledge there is no sweetness that doesn't leave a stain, no sweetness that's ever sufficiently sweet...
Tonight a friend called to say his lover was killed in a car he was driving. His voice was low
and guttural, he repeated what he needed to repeat, and I repeated the one or two words we have for such grief
until we were speaking only in tones. Often a sweetness comes as if on loan, stays just long enough
to make sense of what it means to be alive, then returns to its dark source. As for me, I don't care
where it's been, or what bitter road it's traveled to come so far, to taste so good.
Sweet Baby Autumn, You are sleeping right now. This morning we woke up and you had your breakfast; peaches and raspberry oatmeal. We've made it to New Jersey, and are finally settling into a routine. You love the new place. You are becoming more and more mobile, crawling and standing and side stepping! You will be walking soon. You have a walker that lets you move about exploring. Our floors are hardwood so there is no place you cannot see when you want to. I love to watch you learn to trust your independence. To touch, and see, and hear all of the new things around you. Sometimes, I cook for you. I make soft foods that you can feed yourself. I spread out scrambled eggs, or kidney beans, or pasta on your tray and you mostly love to smash it with your hands and smear it in your hair. But you laugh, and you love to eat. Except for the eggs. You don't like the eggs at all. It's the only food you've ever turned away from, wrinkling your nose and pulling what made it into your mouth out with your hands. You love the beans. And you love cheese. You also love the splat of spaghetti on the floor. You've learned how to clap, how to wave goodbye, and how to sign that you want something to eat. But most exciting, is that you are learning to talk! Your first word was my name. More like, "Mamamama..." But you eventually dropped the extra mamama's and call me something that sounds like "my mama." Which I love. You can call for your Daddy. And you say "Babi" for baby. You also say "uh-oh" for everything. You fall down, you say uh-oh. You drop your bottle, you say uh-oh. You pick up a toy, you say uh-oh. You point to a dog, you say uh-oh. You get the idea. This is letter is not going to be full of wisdom, or lessons I hope you learn. It's just a brief I love you. And am happy to share my life with you. When you wake up, we will go to the park and you can swing on the swings. Love, Your Mamama.
I like to write. I like to write poetry, and stories about when I was little. I like to write presentations for work. I even like to write boring business emails I know most people will just skim through and delete. I like to write letters, like these to you.
But I don't write like I used to. Because life is busy. And I have bills
to pay, and tasks to finish. I love your dad, keep our house, try my
best to raise you to be strong, and smart, and kind. My days are full of
verbs. All the practical littles that
make up the hours.
I don't write like I used to.
Because I've grown up. And feelings, and sense of self fall into the
cracks left behind by the hardening of youth. Because we do that, don't
we? Spend our younger years finding a place, a shape, a person we
think we are and mold ourselves meticulously into it. Waiting to be
solid and complete. A finished work.
But the unseen
hazard is that most of those molds turn out to be complicated systems
set up by millions of those who grew up before us. Tunnels and ladders
of default that you may not want to navigate but will be held
accountable to anyhow.
You don't realize when you have
it, but there is a give that comes when the whole world is ahead of you,
when you haven't learned yet the value of sturdiness and the ease of
know how. A pliability that lets who you are move about in lumps and
grooves. Leaving plenty of room to let your feelings sit tall over
logic; writing poetry, singing songs, painting on scraps of wood found
behind old buildings. Loving aimlessly everything, raging against
without the fear of being wrong, or worse, misunderstood.
Growing up, I'd
always been indifferent, leaning towards partial, to the systems we
live in. Because they served me well, and I was a smooth stone under rushing
water. I liked games with clear guidelines when I was little. The kind
where everyone is given the same set of rules and then asked to
perform.
When I was in my first creative writing class,
in the sixth grade, I remember my teacher giving us a short story
assignment. She told us about Ernest Hemingway and his six word story,
"For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."
And she praised his cleverness. She
explained that words were tools, and with them we could express
anything we wanted. She talked about how he was gifted because he was
able to work within such limited confines. I wanted to be that gifted, I
wanted to be able to express myself so well. I was shy, but cerebral,
and dreamy in a 12 year old sort of way. The possibility of an outlet
for the way I thought was appealing. I remember the assignment opening a
world to me. As I got older, I learned about the archetype for
classical poetry. About cadence and measure. I liked it when someone
was able to express something delicate inside the rigid discipline of
structure. Sonnets, haiku, everything in the daDUMdaDUM of iambic
pentameter.
I became obsessed with finding the exact right word for everything.
The girl was "lovely."
His tone was "candid."
The directions "precise."
The colors "vivid."
When I got older, there were things
in my life that happened, and hurt. There were things that left me
confused, frustrated, and hopeful in turns.There were things that filled
me up with so much love I thought I would drown in it. Your dad wrote
me a letter when I was eighteen, and in that letter he told me I was a "woman becoming." And
that felt right. I was becoming. And unbecoming. I was always running to and
fleeing from myself like the tides. Like a child on the beach. Life was
complicated, and beautiful in a way. I realized how small I had been and how
much there was to experience.
I felt overwhelmed a lot
of the time. I was at bursting capacity underneath, and still a smooth
small stone outside. I fell in love for the first time.
I found new ideas that made me talk late into the night with friends
who were also discovering themselves alongside me. I lost family
relationships I'd planned to harvest love from for years. I lost trust
in religious authority I'd hoped to follow through the dark. I pleased a
lot of people. Everyone remarked how calm, and insightful, and strong I
was for my age. But mostly, I felt helpless.
And no matter how much bad poetry I wrote, I could not find the exact
right words to weigh down my heart and keep me from flying away. There
were no words to do justice by this big and beautiful world. There was a
complicated and twisting landscape of need to navigate, and I felt ill
equipped.
Then, my freshman year in college, an English professor drew a man on
the board and explained nihilism to me (we'll talk about that when your much older). In a way that didn't ask me to
believe him, only to know that the concept existed (which is a funny way
of saying it if you think about it). I liked the idea of a clean slate,
and wiping away of all the nominal nonsense I'd collected and assigned.
Like knocking the blocks over. Later in the semester, he slipped an
extra sheet of paper underneath a test he was returning to me in class.
On it was a poem by e.e.cummings.
I went out and bought a collection of his poetry.
e.e.cummings didn't follow the rules of basic grammar, let alone iambic
pentameter. Nouns were verbs were adjectives were adverbs, and they were
all personified. He would throw a parenthesis in the middle of a word
and add an extra set on the end in a way that made me panicky. I had to learn to read his poems with
new eyes. It made me giddy at times, exasperated at times, and reverent
and humbled at others. He said things like,
"since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;"
And I agreed....
And then he talked about how I was feeling, in a way that cliche's couldn't.
"when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because"
And he used words the way he wanted, like Hemingway had and hadn't all at once.
"pity this busy monster, manunkind"
...and...
“the coolness of your smile is
stirringofbirds between my arms”
(The last of which I particularly feel while holding you. in the sweet minutes before you fall asleep, little baby hands holding my sweater, little baby breath warm on my chest.)
I learned through being introduced to e.e.cummings that you could take a feeling of being misplaced, of being misfit and produce something functional and beautiful in it's own regard.Without limit.
I am writing this letter to tell you that very soon, we will be moving
to New Jersey. You have lived in California for seven whole months, and
next week will be your last week having the redwoods as neighbors, the
last week to see the seagulls fly in front of yellow wheat mountains, to
wiggle your little toes in the cool waters of the bay, and the last
week to watch the family of deer who live near by growing up together.
Do you remember when I told you how your Dad loves school and learning new things. Well I suppose I should also tell you that your Dad is an unusually smart man. (I'm sure he will spend a lot of your life telling you the same thing for different reasons, but I am saying this to you because it is true, and I want you to know that he is smart because he has studied and worked hard to learn and grow. Because he has not wasted his intelligence on small pleasures but built up a good man inside instead. Also because he married me. And I gave him you.)
Because your Dad is smart, and works hard, he has been accepted into Princeton. Princeton is a very good school. One of the best. But, it is far away, so for the first time in your little life, you will leave what you know, and learn to love a new home.
It won't be the last.
When I told people here that we would be moving across the country, they always asked me, "What about the baby?" Because they thought moving to New Jersey would uproot your life. Or maybe they were concerned that such a big change would be difficult with a child. People who are closer to us asked the same thing, but with a different tone. Maybe because they see a pattern beginning to form in our lives. We seem to find big changes to make often.
There is something about leaving everything that makes people panicky. Especially when there doesn't seem to be an immediate need to go. Because you are too young to remember, I want you to know that we live a good and happy life in California. It is beautiful here. We have a nice apartment on campus. There are lots of other babies for you to play with and grow with in community. We have a good church, and good friends close by. It is easy for your Dad and I to love one another here.
But there is a part of us that doesn't belong too.
I don't know if people will be still be talking about it the same way when you are older, but there is an idea that your Dad and I grew up with that says we should secure for ourselves, and most importantly for you, a nice home with as many nice things as possible. (before you worry to much about where this is going, don't. we will provide for you.) But that provision may not always look like what the culture we are in tells you it should look like.
I cannot promise you pricey electronics, or expensive clothes. You will probably not get a brand new car when you are sixteen, and when we go out it will be the exception, not the expectation to spend money where it isn't needed.
But, to make up for those things here are some things that I can promise you.
I promise you will have adventure.
I promise you will have the opportunity to make new friends often.
I promise that I will help you be unafraid of new places
and to teach you to be bold and confident in who you are.
I promise to encourage you to explore your world and your life
in ways that show you the only road to knowing, is asking the question.
I promise to respect you.
I promise you will always have someone to listen.
I promise to be reasonable, and consider your desires.
I promise to buy you a bike, and a pair of roller skates.
I promise to embrace the girl you are with enthusiasm,
and to cultivate healthy curiosity, not stifle it with the preconceptions I may have of what you should be.
I promise to celebrate you. And to recognize your accomplishments with pride.
I promise to hang your artwork on the refrigerator.
I promise you will have fun.
I promise your Dad and I will always sing songs to you.
I promise to give you the space you need to become yourself.
I promise to read you books when you are small, and buy you books when you are big.
I promise to teach you to understand need, to show you the world beyond the front porch so that you can better love others, and be grateful for what you have.
I promise to forgive you quickly and always.
I promise to always love your Dad.
And I promise to always love you.
Sometimes change will be hard. And you won't want to make it. I understand, it can be frightening. Sometimes, we may make changes only to realize we've made the wrong decision. But that is the good thing about becoming accustomed to change. It can be so many things, if you find yourself somewhere in a system you can't seem to fit into, change can easily become correction, and eventually transformation, metamorphosis, and revolution!
I am packing away your baby things this week. There are so many clothes you don't fit into anymore, because you are growing. While you were napping today, I was folding away a little sweater you wore a lot when you were smaller and it made me sad. Sometimes, I look in your crib and think, "who is this big kid in my baby's bed?" But then, when you are awake, you do something new that you've never done before and I want to cheer! I am bursting with joy at your growing abilities!
And that is what it will be like. Sometimes, it will seem as though the part you are leaving behind is so beautiful that what is ahead cannot replace the nostalgia you have.
But then. It will.
Here is to the next step in our full and rich lives together. To you, and Dad, and I. And all the places we will go together. ...............................................................................
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)
-e.e.cummings ...............................................................................
"Out there things can happen and usually do, to people as brainy and footsy as you. And when things start to happen, Don't worry, don't stew. Just go right along, You'll start happening too." -Dr. Suess
Little baby Autumn, one day I hope you find someone to love you the way your Dad has loved me. I am sure I will give you much more dating advice than you will ever ask for or need. But I want this to set the bar for you. These are the vows your Dad gave to me on our wedding day. I hope that as you grow, you will be able to see the love between us grow too. So that you will know what partnership, and companionship look like. "Endless volumes of I commit to you," and "page after page of .ibelieveinus."
"I was a man of freewill, Unbridled in all that I did.
But you’ve made me consider predestination and have faith in fate and faithfulness in all its earthy commitment .(I will never leave).
There’s no philosophy to you and me, Because love needs no introduction; No treatise to explain its existence, only consistency; only yeses that mean yes after we’ve lived through no’s that only meant not yet.
If God lives outside of space and time, then it would seem we have always been each others, Always been able to trust in the surety of providence because it could have been no other way, Unless perhaps we chose it to be; But we didn’t, we chose each other.
I know we’re not supposed to swear, but I give you my hand through all the seasons,
And I give you my bed, so you won’t ever be cold or half of what He meant us to be.
I give you my thoughts because they are yours to search, To read like literature, Like endless volumes of I commit to you, Or page after page of .ibelieveinus.
I give you my shirts because you have kept me warm when there was no comfort in logic or systems of religion; you were so often the proof in my life of Someone greater. Philosophers can never say there are no absolutes as long as there is you with me; you’ve been so faithful.
I don’t have a lot, but I’ll give you my body to you to do as you please, .I trust your touch.
I give you my scarves because no other neck smells like you and me, And I’ll give you children if you want them, we will raise eternal persons made in the same Image we were made in;
Ill give them all that has been given to me, not neglecting to pass on the Grace that helped me get to you. And when they reject it, like so many children do, I will sit and cry with you until they come home (I will never leave).
When I was a child I took my brothers room where there was grey carpet, and I always said I would have it again; But I will never carpet any grey floors without you to love autumn with me, no more of my favorite grey skies will I soak in, without usbeingoneandthesame
I know we are made of dirt and that means we will pass away or be changed, But I’m choosing to only change with you. And changing in you, I’ll take your becoming who we are in constant admiration of what it means to be one.
I can’t sing, but I’ll write to you words and letters. And I’ll give you all that I have that’s good in the world. and even if I can’t hold a tune I’ll sing to you when its just us, Wrapping
you in the melody of what it is to make it through the hard times,
living daily in the earthy striving toward the perfection of what one
day we will be.
For now the world is torn with the unknowing of the One who came. so here I purpose to have only One love before you, and from you I will accept no less than the Same.
I commit to you as one in Three.
(.I will never leave.)"
We love one another.
We love you.
We will never leave
Today, you rolled over from your tummy to your back for the first time. I cheered so loudly that I scared you and you started crying. But I was so proud! We have been waiting for this. We know that you are strong, and that your little muscles are growing and growing with all the kicking you do, but now! Now you've got moves!
I've been watching you scoot and wriggle across the living room floor on your back for weeks now. You always want to be where you aren't.
Soon, you will be crawling, and then walking, and then running and
jumping faster than I can keep up with you. Appropriately, your feet fit
into your first pair of sneakers today. They are brown and purple, and
you think they are the coolest thing you've seen. You are sitting in
your chair laughing at them and swinging them in the air. Smacking them together like Dorothy.
You're on the move. And it's happening fast. Curious little eyes, curious little hands, curious little feet.
There's something you should know about moving. It always takes you one of two places. Somewhere you've been before, or somewhere you have never been. Sometimes, you plan it. You think, I want to go here, and then you do. And sometimes you don't. Like when you rolled over today, and it caught you by surprise.
I've seen you trying. Pushing with all your strength, stretching out your neck and waving your arms. Only to find yourself still flat on your back looking up at whatever is ahead of you. And you seem fine with that. You weren't even sure there was another way to be, but somewhere inside, you knew it was there. And today, you found it.
When I was a little girl, I moved a lot. I lived in a lot of different houses (eleven!). I went to a lot of different schools (twelve!). And I went to a lot of different churches (thirteen!). I was very shy, and sometimes, it was hard to make friends. And even after I learned to make them, it would be a long time before I learned to keep them for good. You have to learn what to take from one place to the next. And what to leave behind.
That is why I am writing you this letter. To tell you about the time your Dad and I moved to California. And what we gained, and we left behind.
When your Dad asked me to marry him, he was living in Lynchburg, Virginia. A busy city that we named over long phone calls, the conservative mountain. He had gone there because he loved school, and they had a big one. A big school that was supposed to let him read all of the important books he wanted, and that was supposed to teach him big ideas for a big world. It was a school that was supposed to show him how to love God, and how to teach other people to love Him too. And he thought, "Even if they make me cut my hair, I'll go to school here. Because here, I will find what I am looking for."
I was still living in Georgia, trying to decide just exactly what it was I was looking for. Which mostly meant, I spent my money as soon as I had it on art supplies and dinner out with friends. I thought I was very artsy...and very friendly.
I painted this giraffe.
giraffe.
...and I drank a lot of coffee.
coffee.
But your Dad and I were not completely satisfied with the way we were living. And it didn't take us long to realize that at least part of what we were looking for was one another. He came back and we had a big party, and I wore a white dress, and all of your aunts and uncles, and your grandparents were there. He picked me up and we moved to the conservative mountain together. I packed all of my things and thought with excitement about how this move to Virginia was going to change my life. It took my car, his car, and a rented truck to get all of my things three states north. We thought, now that we are together, life will be good, and it will be easy to know what we are supposed to do.
But we weren't very happy in Virginia.
I had a very hard time finding a job. And when I did find work, I had to work very long days everyday. We didn't have much money. And the nice big apartment we picked out before we moved, turned out to be pretty lousy. There were noisy dogs, and noisy neighbors who yelled at one another. It didn't matter how many long hot baths I took to relax, or how many nights a week we sat outside of our favorite restaurant with our favorite people, we just did not feel like we were home. And all of those things were a byproduct of the fact that the big school your Dad was going to, turned out to be very different than we had wanted it to be.
After a year, we decided that we needed to move again.
We decided to go to California. Eight states westward. But we couldn't take all of the things we had collected. There were way too many, and a moving truck was too expensive. So your Dad made a brave suggestion. Sell it all, or give it away.
I liked my things. There were things I'd had my whole life, and new things that we had just been given for our wedding. Because I moved so many times when I was little, I held onto things that moved with me. I was nervous. Your Dad was confident. We had a bunch of stuff, and we didn't need any of it, and it was time to leave it behind. Shake the dust off our feet, and move on.
So we had a yard sale in someone else's yard. Sold what we could, and gave the rest away. We packed his little Honda with some clothes and a few special things, and we left Virginia.
First, we went home for two weeks, to say goodbye to family and friends. And driving into Atlanta was exciting. I could start to feel the hum of something new. I could sense the vacuum of routine, and empty days filling itself with hope and excitement. I could hear the world creaking as it opened up like a large gate for your Dad and I to come through for the first time.
Hello, Atlanta. It's good to see you.
We got to see our families, and spend time with our friends. We got to eat at our favorite restaurants.
that was my soup.
And then, we got to drive across the country. Together. We stayed in cheap hotels, and stopped at little diners in the middle of nowhere. We took touristy pictures, and listened to good music.We saw the desert for the first time. We saw so many kinds of desert.
Your Dad wanted a picture of a Joshua tree. And I took a picture of this
house.
the trees lean over.
Your Dad grew a beard.
...and I caught a tumbleweed.
We saw the grand canyon. It was beautiful, and I was overwhelmed. It was raining when we got there, but we walked around anyway. I was surprised and nervous that there was no guardrail to keep us from falling. It felt symbolic of this new life we were taking a chance on. I always knew there were big and beautiful things in life to be had. But for some reason I had been waiting on a tour guide to walk me through. I had been looking from behind the glass and gripping the guardrails. But here was this big open space that could not be contained or controlled or owned. I was in charge of how far I went, how much I risked. And your Dad was there with me. I felt like there wasn't anything we couldn't do or have. I never wanted to own "stuff" again. I never wanted to belong to my things so much, that I couldn't leave them behind to touch the unknown.
Your Dad took my picture when I wasn't looking, I look scared. And I was, but I was also determined to get to the edge and see out as far as I could.
There is a sensation that happens when you are walking toward something that is bigger than what is behind you. You know it when you feel it. It's like falling, and flying at the same time. And it is exhilarating.
When we got to the end of the trip, and drove into San Francisco for the first time, we were exhausted. We'd driven for eleven hours straight and it was almost two in the morning. The hotel we stayed in the night before didn't have any hot water, so we didn't get to shower. Still, we met your Uncle Gian in the city and made a few more stops before sleeping for the night.
The next day, we found the new school your Dad would be going to. We walked around campus, and drove over to what would be our first apartment in California. It wasn't ready for us to move into yet, but the men who were fixing it up let us in to see it. The view was amazing. I opened all the windows and let the wind in.
We walked around the building to a small lookout and talked about our new place, and our new life.
I didn't know you were coming yet. I didn't know how joy could be multiplied just by sharing it with you. But, I do think this move (the first of many) helped prepare me to love you a little better. It helped me to see the world with new eyes. To appreciate every little thing as a new gift and a chance to learn. A chance to grow stronger and gain perspective.
Like rolling over for the first time and being surprised I could. While all of creation, with arms in the air, cheered me on.
