Reality, head-on

We are driving home from a long day of swimming - first was J's swim lesson at the neighbor's pool, then a play date with my nieces at their pool in Mays Chapel. JBL is taking K back to her mom's, while I am shepherding J home as quickly as possible. It is already well past her bedtime.

J, however, is still coming down from her big day, and is chatting up a storm as per usual. I acknowledge her observations while flipping through radio stations and changing lanes on the beltway. Her tone suddenly changes and my ears perk up. I listen more closely, dropping my half-hearted 'Mm-hmms' to focus intently on her direction.

"I still have so many questions. I am waiting to see if you're getting tired of answering them." She has said this numerous times of late - she knows I take her barrage of questions as a sign of intelligence, and she brings them to my attention with a sense of pride. Sometimes, though, she becomes uneasy. Because...questions? Sometimes they bring answers you don't want to hear.

Last weekend we were driving home from another play date, and J asked, "Why do dogs have to die?" My stomach clenches even as I type that. Of course, as with previous discussions about death, I wanted to get the answer just right, but this time her tone told me she was Getting It. I took my usual all-truth approach, and tried for a light tone. All things die, but all living things create new living things, so the cycle continues forever. Even non-living things 'live' in cycles, like stars. She kept questioning, and I kept answering, and the whole thing devolved until she sobbed, "I don't want to die! I want to stay 6 forever!" I wanted to talk about heaven, but I just couldn't. She didn't want theories - she wanted certainties that she could sink her teeth into, and my glossing over how our bodies break down was no longer cutting it. She is not 3 anymore.

So as she hesitates on this evening's ride home, I brace myself. She wants to know if she will still be alive when our Sun dies. I am immediately taken back to a similar question I posed to my father (but I was in 3rd grade before the idea occurred to me), and I recall the feeling of fear and panic at his answer. No, you will be long-dead, he told me matter-of-factly. We all will. But that's OK - it will be hundreds of billions of years from now. My dad, the scientist.

I again answer her gently and simply. And again she is brought to tears. Why can't I just lie? Why can't I conjecture that there will be a way for us to live forever, perhaps to be discovered in her lifetime? It feels wrong, that's why. And why does the Santa Claus/Easter Bunny thing feel right? I wish I knew, dammit. I wish I knew. The only comfort I can offer is an assurance that that she will live a llllooooonnng time (something a voice inside me says may not be true), and I distract her with the fact that she has family members who have lived well into their 90's.

The rest of the ride goes smoothly as sleepiness begins tugging at her. The sunset facing us as we head west on 70 is spectacular, full of pinks and oranges and bright blues. We talk about God and natural beauty. She asks about chasing the sunset, and the speed we'd need to catch it. We stop in the grocery to use the ATM, and she is shocked that it is open after dark. She has never seen the lights inside the store shine so bright in her tired eyes, and she is confounded that there are customers and workers awake and functioning at this late hour.

Back in the car, we are headed north to our neighborhood. The sky is a deep indigo, and the trees to my left are black against the faded sunset. To my right, a fat, full moon slowly rises above the horizon. It glows a dull orange, but is an enigmatic celebrity. J's mouth is agape.

"WOW, MOMMY! LOOK AT THE MOON! I see the face!" She peppers me with another slew of questions about the moon and distance and gravity. She is still sleepy, but cannot contain herself. Her wonder at absolutely everything pours out of her like rays of sunshine. And I am again relaxed as she consumes reality head-on.

Rut

Have you ever gotten in a mode where you ignore little tasks and chores? I have gone through waves of time when I let papers stack up next to my computer (medical claims to be filed, creditor statements as reminders to move to online billing, etc.), when I walk past all the little dry cleaning tabs my husband has ripped off his dress shirts and thrown on the closet floor, and when I let the clean clothes sit unfolded in the laundry room for days. The thought of processing any of these things seems overwhelming, and I get tired just looking at them.

Over the past few days I have tried to pull myself up out of one of these ruts, and I have to say it has been a challenge. Just bend over and pick up that piece of paper! (I yell at myself). Start now and the clothes will be folded and put away by 11 (I encourage myself). Just effing write the check already! (I chide myself, then soften). You'll feel so much better when it's done.

Unfortunately I am still missing that burst of energy that can accompany the tackling of these tasks. It used to be mind over matter, but I just can't dredge it up this time. It's during ruts like this when I recognize the use for 'life coaches'....

Slowly Moving On

It is evening, and JBL are sitting quietly outside after putting J to bed. There is still a hint of light in the Western sky. The moon, however, is very bright and tinged with the peach tone of sunset. And I think of time passing.

We have gone from a time of cool evenings filled with silent lightning bugs festooning the woods at the bottom of our hill to a time of thick warm evenings filled with the uproarious chatter of crickets, along with silent darting, swooping bats. We have gone from the time when everything in the house was new to a time when appliances are being replaced and perennials are being relocated around the property.

We have gone from a time when JBL worked frantically from home at a technology company that sucked the life out of him (oh, wait, which one was that?) to a time where he has a challenging position in a just-the-right-size firm, working with a great friend. We have gone from a time when I questioned my choice in becoming a stay-at-home-mom to a time when I am pleased with the path that lead me to my life of work and love.

We have gone from a time where the toddler version of J rolled naked in the grass after dinner, begging to stay up later, to a time where she practices lacrosse with her dad til sunset, begging to stay up later. We have gone from a time when K was a playful 5-year-old to a time when she is almost a young woman - as tall as I am, mature and wonderful as a companion.

I look up into the almost-night sky and see the moon has cooled to white, and has been joined by the first star (a planet, really) as the sun's light completely disappears. Change is slow, subtle. I drink it in while remembering all the pleasure of the day just past...

Appreciation

So I just finished a big project that has sucked the life out of my summer lo these past 5 weeks. Why? Not because I've been working furiously from dawn til dusk, but because I agreed to take on something which involved a Learning Curve (read: I didn't know what I was doing). Mix that in with trying to be a mom to girls home for the summer, along with other normal work obligations, and you have sheer hell. I got stuck about 2.5 weeks ago on something (inner versus outer joins, if you must know) and had to grovel to my husband who had warned me about such things when I agreed to take on the project.

After realizing I was stuck, I lived with the pressure of getting past the issue while trekking to museums in D.C. and celebrating holidays with family and...well...doing laundry. Let me tell you - worrying about a problem and resolving it are two different issues, but rest assured they are both stressful. I sent bright and cheery status emails to my client, who could not have been more patient or kind, while weeping quietly over my Access for Dummies book late into the evenings with half an eye on Criminal Minds. Meanwhile JBL avoided getting sucked into the project a la the proverbial plague. There were times when I subtly began conversations with niceties only to ask a vague question about permissions and user accounts, and he simply up and walked away from me.

Finally after living with me miserable for days on end he relented, and in about 30 minutes of skimming the reference book and reviewing my handiwork, resolved my issue and set me loose to wrap things up. After a busy weekend, I spent yesterday morning finishing up what security I could impose on the database, and documenting the process for using it. Suddenly I was at the client's presenting, and then *poof* I was done. They were happy, and asked for some reports.

Thus last night I had the most relaxing evening in what seemed like forever. Nothing looming like a dark cloud, no Big Black Box out there waiting for me. I will not take the rest of the summer for granted!

Making memories

Yesterday was the 4th of July, and along with the rest of America, we spent the day making memories.

The girls were restless as JBL and I did our chore-type activities in the morning. How much longer? What time will we go? Finally we set off en masse around 3pm for The Grandparents' (I had been worried for a bit that we'd have to take two cars, as JBL had threatened to work most of the day - luckily he blew off some tasks for the occasion) .

JBL's dad and stepmom's house is the de facto destination for many holidays, partly because my mother-in-law loves traditions and formal celebrations, and partly because they have a POOL. We'd had a brief respite last week from the heat, but it came back strong yesterday, with temperatures in the mid-90s. Thus a pool, along with a convivial meal, was just the ticket.

We spent the afternoon and evening enjoying our favorite activities. J: swimming, singing, playing, eating; K: napping, listening to her music on her iTouch, being quiet; JBL and I: lounging, chatting, partaking in festive adult beverages.

There was also the usual compendium of 4th-of-July treats: sparklers, cold fresh watermelon, A Capital Fourth on TV. But I was focused on the sparklers. J had never really experienced them before, and I wanted to see her expression holding onto...well...fire. I have such vivid memories of steamy evenings in July, running barefoot across my parents' soft grass with the gathering dusk and lightning bugs, clutching a crackling sparkler in my fist. I can remember distinctly the smell, the feel of the occasional spark kissing my wrist. There was magic in the light, the fire that I could make dance. I wanted J to experience all of this.

And so I encouraged her - at first trepidatious, then thrilled - to run through the grass with her sparkler. I had to stop myself, because creating an exact replica of my memory was not as interesting as experiencing it in the present with her. J's big brown eyes stared intently as she stood, and at first she merely watched the progress of the fire moving downwards on its metal stick. Then slowly she waved it around as she had seen her friends do at a recent cookout, and with her gaze, followed its path against a backdrop of lush green trees and deepening blue sky. Her face was still and contemplative. I drank her in, wondering what was going through her ever-active mind.



















I glanced around the back yard then. K had chosen to experiment, lighting one sparkler off another, watching the speed at which they burned against each other. She alternately monitored J's progress, dolling out new mini-torches as needed, and studied her own with solemn, scientific curiosity.



















The rest of the adults stood still, gazing at the kids and their sparklers, their faces masked with a mixture of delight and a knowing pleasure. The girls, after all, are sparklers unto themselves. Everything they do we have done and experienced ourselves, but to see them live it, well...you know. Can words really capture the love we feel when we watch our children? The empathy, the anticipation of inevitable pain and joy. It all rushes over us, and we can't look away. Like staring into a fireplace, all crackling and warm. Like holding onto tiny fireworks even as the sparks kiss our wrists.

The evening proceeded in a blur of grilled chicken, more swimming, citronella candles and music almost drowned-out by tree frogs. As we drove home through the night, I listened to the quiet in the car as I held JBL's hand. I tried to catch a glimpse of late fireworks on the horizon in the direction of the city. I saw only one flowering explosion, silent and distant. I fervently hoped that the clicking of K's texts behind me included happy stories of the day's events. I imagined J dreaming in her carseat of cool swimming pools, green grass and fire under her own control.