Where we are

Imagine that your child has a unique kind of cancer, and the best way to save her is to treat her at home.  Sure, there are hospitals that offer the same treatment, but the cancer hides while the patients are there.  It comes back with amazing strength as soon as the patient walks through the doors of the facility, back out into the world.  The long-term success rate for permanently removing the cancer when relying on hospital treatment isn't exactly known.  Patients with this kind of cancer can live with it for a long time, but upwards of 20% die prematurely (up to 10% within the first 10 years of contracting the disease), and only 30-40% recover entirely.

Even with home treatment, the cancer could return at any time, and long-term success is only around 75% likely.  Again, there aren't many studies yet to confirm this.  As of now it is a 'hopeful' statistic.  The treatment - akin to painful radiation and chemotherapy - is to be administered 5-6 times PER DAY by you or your spouse only, and the administration continues until she is healthy.  How long?  It could be 3 months, or it could be a year.

Now imagine that this kind of cancer makes your child think you are actually trying to harm her every single time you administer treatment.  And the stronger she gets - in fact the closer the cancer gets to being eradicated - the more the child distrusts you and tries to avoid treatment.  You find her letting ever-increasing amounts of the cancer-fighting chemicals dribble onto the floor.  You discern she's found ways of shielding the cancer from radiation.  You find her conducting activities in secret that make the cancer grow.

You know she can't help it - it's the cancer itself that's making her do these things.  And yet, sometimes, you fight her, because she is a teenager and you can become overwhelmed with the need to correct disrespectful and/or deceitful behaviors.  You try to see the cancer and your daughter as separate entities, but it's not always easy.  And every time you slip, the cancer whispers to her, "See - I was right.  They don't trust you.  They do want to hurt you."  And even worse: "They don't love you.  No one could love you.  You are a TERRIBLE, WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT."  And she believes it.

Only when she gets dangerously weak and frightened does she realize what you had been really trying to do all along - love her, save her.  And then she'll let you start again.  But every time, her health is dramatically compromised.  The cancer may not succeed in what it wants to do each round - kill her -  but each time, her heart has been significantly weakened.  She hasn't had a menstrual cycle in a year and a half.  She's lost months and months that could have been spent doing happy teenager things and looking forward to the future, but instead she's been enmeshed in a cloak of debilitating self-hatred and crushing anxiety.

Every night you go to bed combing over the day, looking for ways to make tomorrow better for her.  You analyze every treatment session and resist the urge to give her just a little bit less because she cries that it hurts so badly.  You resist the urge to give her too much, hoping to get her to healthy sooner - because though too much won't hurt her physically, there's always the risk that she'll run away from home.  You make plans for activities that you hope will distract her, but are careful that they are not ones to encourage the cancer.

Meanwhile your child has trouble seeing the appeal of anything she formerly enjoyed, and expresses feelings of hopelessness regularly.  She distances herself from you and her siblings.  She has a therapist who helps her with relaxation techniques, but the cancer tells her she doesn't have time to try them.  Your child is 100% emotionally and physically exhausted, and sometimes?  Sometimes she tells you she just wants the cancer to win.

Imagine you're in your second home-based round of the battle for your child, and it's just reaching the predictable place where the cancer has hidden her from you.  You are aware that this could be one of many rounds, but that the only thing that matters is getting her next treatment administered without letting her cheat it, and without forcing her to run.  It's a game of inches each time, and you have to stay focused even though you want to take a break. You have to go on with the rest of your life and do your job and care for her siblings like nothing else is wrong.  You have to ignore the whispers in your mind that, even with all the effort you exert and all the love in your heart, she could die anyway.

This is where we are.

Reality check

The slowest train wreck in history finally happened, and she's back in a safe place for now.  With the breathing space this time allows (easy for me to say, I know, having been separated from the trauma for weeks already), I look around with weary eyes, and struggle to contain my angry reactions at the correlating factors in our world.

Recently, I informally polled a subset of my peers. "Look at me - I'm 42.  I exercise 5-6 days/week and eat healthfully whenever possible, but really focus on moderation more than anything.  I'm relatively thin, but still find myself focusing on my 'flaws' when I get out of the shower.  My belly, my arms.  When is it OK - at what age - for women to stop obsessing about their bodies?  When is it OK to just...relax?"  Granted, I live in a circle of fairly well-off people, so these are women who have leisure time, and like me they all place a high value on physical fitness.  It's almost like asking a chef 'when do you stop caring about food?'.

Still, I was saddened to hear advice on flax seed to combat belly fat, with it's plant version of hormones that trick the body out of reacting to decreased levels of estrogen.  I was disheartened at the laughing eye rolls, and exclamations of 'never!'.  But I wasn't terribly surprised.  After all, look at the messages on TV and in magazines.  This has all been said before, I know, but it's hard to break out of self-enforcing cultural messaging.

What was disturbing, to the point of shocking, was something that came after my poll.  One of the two Flax-Seed Women went on to talk about her concerns about her daughter's weight.  AFTER hearing about what is going on in my family.  In the exact same conversation, no less.  This woman talks about the girl's thighs being thick.  She says that she's set the girl up with her own personal trainer once a week.  She smiles at her own cleverness, swapping out healthy ingredients into her daughter's milkshakes at home. Her daughter is 14.  I hadn't seen her daughter for several months around school, so wondered if she'd been overtaken by a period of early teen flab (I remember gaining and losing weight over my teens for no apparent reason).  Obviously not much below morbid obesity would justify such a heavy-handed intervention by a parent - a mother - in my opinion.  At the school's closing ceremonies a few days later, my jaw dropped when I saw her - stunningly beautiful, and from where I was sitting, not even 5 pounds 'overweight'.  I was filled with fury on her behalf.  There are not even words to describe all the things wrong in the situation, swirling through my mind.

But worse. During a phone conversation yesterday I hear about a mom just outside my immediate family setting up an app on her and her daughter's phones that monitors caloric intake each day.  It has you input all you eat along with your exercise, and identify your target daily number of calories.  If you eat something high calorie, it tells you how much additional exercise you should do to offset it.  This sweet girl, who now is bonding with her mom by obsessing over daily calories, is 13.  ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

I really, truly understand that mental illness is not caused by messages or activities like these, but... what in the name of God do these mothers - some of the smartest women I know - think they are teaching their girls with them?

Two months

Two months since my last post, and I am feeling terrible.  There have been moments of panic, moments of encouragement.  There has also been laughter, tears, fear and peace.  Today is a low point in the continuum because I truly feel robbed of all hope.  The direction of things is spiraling slowly downward and I have no control over the outcome.  I've extricated myself to a certain degree, but every time I attempt to help, I fail and make things worse.  I'm not even helping JBL, who has taken to sheltering me wherever possible.

Some look in from the outside and say, 'Things seem to be going well - she's still eating.'  But they don't know that she's backing towards the cliff again, yelling at us to let her jump.  No one seems to be doing what it takes to really help her (knowing our job is simply to administer the medicine, but that's less than 50% of the battle).  I don't know how much more I can take.

At a loss

I am simultaneously a shell of jagged, bleeding edges and a bottomless well of calmness and determination.  More of the former, but the latter when it's required.  This is so unbelievably hard, I honestly don't know how we're going to get to The Other Side.  But as I told her all weekend, there's no way around it.  We just have to go through it, together, and there is no failure allowed.  We can't bear to think of that option, even when she begs us to consider it.  God, please, please help us.

Privacy

I just deleted several recent posts.  Though it felt good to write them (necessary, in fact), it didn't feel good to leave them up.  I may continue to do this over the coming months - exercise some demons through writing, save the privacy of my loved ones by deleting.  I'll try to think of it as burning confessions over a camp fire rather than stifling emotions that need to be expressed.  It's hard to have healthy boundaries with such extreme circumstances - for me anyway.  But hopefully I will have some good things to write about soon.

The key

Well, we've come a long way since that last post.  Life is fairly settled, and we're back to just worrying about the house and when we can rebuild.  Then again, that's not entirely true.  I've also been helping J deal with some crappy schoolmate drama.  Girls are MEAN - this is something I learned with K way back when she was in second grade.

I am struggling, as you might imagine, with how to Fix It, knowing of course that I can't.  The game now - heck, since the beginning of preschool - is indirect help.  Planting seeds that grow.  I want her to grow confidence and clarity and resilience.  I want her to know sometimes a good cry can help short-run, but listening to that little voice inside usually helps in the long run.  Oh, what do I know?  There are countless blogs out there with all this drivel already well in-hand, and more succinctly put, I'm sure.

Really what I wanted to capture, though, was this little ray of sunshine: J had a sweet girl choose her as her 'special valentine' at school.  I'm sure this is true world-round, that kids have to give valentines to every classmate lest anyone feel left out, but J's class also draws names to give a special valentine.  They are told to write on it 3 traits that describe this class friend.  3 things that make their special valentine, well, special.  Here is what J received, written on a piece of red construction paper festooned with candy hearts and stickers:

To: Juliet From: your special friend Jadyn R.
HELPFUL: You're a helpful girl because you make sure friends get along.
KIND TO OTHERS: You're a kind girl because you share things with others.
JOYFUL: You're a joyful girl because you're always happy.

This is, not surprisingly, how I see J every day - it's why JBL and I often refer to her as Joie de Vivre.  But the timing of this message, read first by J independent of her parents' predictable praise, was like a hug from God.  And as a completely non-religious person, I say this quite seriously.  It reiterates everything I've been telling her.  Be a good friend, and you'll make good friends.  Be yourself and people will just naturally come to you. And a million other desperate and hopeful things.  It's all true.

So fuck that snot-nosed brat who makes J (and others) feel like shit every day.  J has the key to the door that opens so she can walk away from the pain of manipulation, and it is her own heart and character.  And I'm glad it didn't take Mommy to fix it.

Technicolor

When Chris waxes poetic about Philadelphia, I cringe and roll my eyes and laugh (fondly).  And I remember.

I remember how I felt when JBL and I first got together - like that night I walked into his apartment to find him playing the guitar in his boxers with candles lit all around, waiting for me.  The afternoons we would sit and look out over the lawn into the trees, listening to music and sipping cocktails.  The inner calm.  This experience of being with him was more than realizing the miracle of finding the Big Love, but also as being apart from the pain in the rest of my life.  It was an escape.

This was the time when the shit was really starting to hit the fan with my dad, and as much as I compartmentalized the trauma so I could continue to function day-to-day, I still needed a break.  I needed a buffer from the constant onslaught of my mother's demons, and space to safely fall apart with despair.  But mostly my time in that apartment, and then eventually in his townhouse, was a chance for me to feel like my true self for the first time in my life.  My love for JBL was a fantastical finding that also filled me with the technicolor joy of being at home in my own skin.  And I recall that feeling as being tied to the places he inhabited.

There was a mysterious pull to the paved paths around Tamar Drive.  And later, I communed regularly with the wooded running trails in Clary's Forest.  The may apples poking up in early spring on the forest floor, the vines that hung from the trees, the small lake over the hill.  As I returned to the house and walked up the front steps, I would gaze for long minutes at the patch of dirt in front of the basement window, smelling its minerals warmed by the sun.  I would think about planting daffodils.

And I know when Chris speaks of cobblestone streets and great local speakeasies with a sparkling effervescence, I know he is feeling all these same things.  Putting aside my discomfort, I am warmed by the thought that he is feeling the weight of 'supposed to be' lifting from his strong shoulders, and that he is feeling joy for being who he is right now.

Impending

I used to be afraid of the dark. I insisted that the light in the bathroom at the end of the hall be left on all night, and I kept my door wide open. Did nightlights exist in 1976?  I don't know, but I wish I'd had one to further protect myself from the unknown creatures that waited for me until everyone else slept.  My brother, whose room was immediately adjacent to the bathroom, had no such demons, and was compelled to keep his door closed to block the bright light that would have otherwise shone directly onto his pillow, keeping him awake like a Guantanamo prisoner.

Meanwhile, my fear kept me awake for weeks at a time. I would walk down the hallway that seemed so long, down to the cheerily lit bathroom. Even now I can feel the soft flannel of my long nightgown brushing my ankles as I walked, exhausted but with a tingling inability to sleep. I would touch the cold white tile around the sink and stare out the black window facing the back yard of our wooded lot. I would turn and walk back down the long hallway to my room.

Entering was easy - the smell comforting, the light from the hallway illuminating familiar objects. I would crawl under the covers of my twin bed against the far wall, under the window. And I would stare back out at the doorway. From this vantage, everything in the room was dark and malevolent compared to the safely lit carpet lining the hall. Stuffed animals or discarded clothes took on dangerous shapes, and the air about me swirled with the potential for harm. I felt the weight of the air right above my face as though there was a hand ready to touch me, to rip my covers off without warning, at any moment. My heart would pound in the otherwise silent house, and a light sweat would break out on the skin of my body from head to toe. I would contemplate throwing back the sheets to step out into the safe light of the hall once again for what seemed like hours.  The fear of something coming at me as soon as I closed my eyes was so strong that I often resorted to covering my head until I nearly suffocated.

But nothing, NOTHING was as frightening as the dark that hovered in the space above the stairs leading down to the living room below me. During that childhood time, my mother had a painting along the wall that lead downstairs, a painting of trees backlit by a fiery orange dusk sky. I would stare at the dark branches and at times they seemed to move. At times the orange and yellow would undulate under my unwavering gaze (heart pounding). And the dark from the unlit living room, in the quiet house where everyone slept soundly save me, seemed to move and undulate as well. Was it creeping up the stairs?

I would rise once again and move silently down the hall, but rather than enter the garish, formerly calming brashness of the bathroom, I would turn at the top of the stairs and look down. My left hand holding the knob of the banister would be clammy, and the spit on my tongue would take on a vinegar quality. The steps descended to a landing whose white carpet was barely gray in the dim light. I knew the living room just to the left of the landing was pitch black. Would something pop out of that blackness and rush up the stairs to pounce on me? Would a breath of angry whisper meet my ears if I listened hard enough? Oh, and how I listened.

This pattern of waiting and watching, testing and wondering, went on night after night. I never told my mother about it, though I wanted to. I remember opening my parents' bedroom door from time to time - very slowly. I walked up to my father's side of the bed (closest to the door), and listened to his deep rumbling breaths. The smell of sleep hung heavy around them both. I would creep back out and silently close the door without disturbing them.

Finally, one night I found myself, beyond exhausted, sitting at the top of the stairs with my chin resting in my palms, elbows on my knees, staring unblinkingly into the darkness at the landing. It was as though as long as I looked with my eyes wide open, nothing could get to me. Feeling desperate, I resolved to give myself up to the spirits that haunted me in the dark. I stood and grasped the handrail that ran along the wall with my right hand, and slowly descended.

When I reached the landing, I turned to the left and stared into the dark living room. It wasn't as black as I had imagined it would be, but it still filled me with terror. My hands were now icy and my breath came in gasps. I took in the shapes of the sofa and chairs and coffee table. But the most foreboding specter was the utterly black fireplace set atop the brick hearth. It seemed to be the core of the room, and I could almost hear breathing from within it.

I don't know what made me act then, but I took the two steps down into the living room, turned my back to the fireplace, and lay - stomach-down - on the steps with my head on the landing. I thought to myself, "Just come and get me. Get it over with, because I just can't take it anymore." I shut my eyes tightly and thought of what might come up, to strike. I even imagined I felt knives or claws tearing at my back, but the more I focused and held my breath in anticipation, the more those imaginings dissipated.

Gradually, all I was left with was utter silence and calm. I began to notice the wooly feel of the carpet under my chin, and how my arms - scrunched up with balled fists under my chest - we're beginning to fall asleep. I pushed myself to standing and took a deep breath. Without looking back, I walked up the steps, down the long hallway, and into my room. I crawled under the covers and promptly fell asleep. That may not have been the end of my fears, but something fundamental eased within me that night.

 I know a couple of little girls who will have fear delivered to them unexpectedly tomorrow, and I wish I could help them skip to the end of the story and see there's nothing really to fear. I want them to magically pass over the pain and land at the place where they realize the people who love them are nearby, and the demons of devastation can't get past the bond of love that surrounds them - though it may appear their parents are asleep and unaware. I wish I could do all this, but I can't.

Don't say it out loud

I still work from home, part-time, so why am I so exhausted?  Yes, it's the holiday season.  Yes, I have kids.  But I have 1.5 - my daughter, and my step-daughter, the latter of the two only here half-time.  It's not like have 19 Kids and Counting.  And I have a husband who often works from home, and is therefore around to help with This and That.

And yet, at the end of the day, I 'flop' on the sofa and watch TV and think, "Thank GOD that's over.  Soon I'll be sleeping, but only after I lounge here and see if these idiots pick house #3."  I feel like I made it through  something, but.... Why will tomorrow be any different?  And what really did I get through, except being alive?

KP posted on Facebook a cocktail conversation question - if you could take a pill that would allow you to live forever, would you?  Some answered, 'If it was a gelcap,' or 'If I could keep my 29-year-old body.'  I replied something goofy, like, 'Are you crazy?  Who wants to be here the day the sun explodes?  Not this gal.'

When we went out to dinner, I asked her what her answer would be, and she replied, 'No WAY.  Death is the point.  You only get one shot and you have to be able to say you either did something with your time or you didn't.'  Good point.  I just can't imagine being here forever, but didn't elaborate.  She didn't ask.

I look forward to sleeping.

An unenviable place

There are numerous rites of passage in life.  When I was younger, I thought such rites were limited to the very small, but first steps and first words leap with lightening speed across time to the first lost tooth and first 2-wheel bike, and then even more dramatically to events like your first kiss and first car.  The universe of common experiences is vast.

As my college career waned, I realized there were other milestones my peers were beginning to experience.  Landing the first grown-up job.  Getting one's own place.  Having enough money to invest, or maybe go on vacation.  But none were so inspiring and influential among the fairer sex than that of getting engaged.  Now, as an awkward and introverted teenager, I had struggled to keep up with social norms.  While some girls had new cars waiting for them on their 16th birthdays, I waited tables at Friendly's till I could scrape together enough money to buy my own car - a 1981 Toyota Celica.  (My treat to myself: a wood bead seat-cover.)  And while other girls had boyfriends throughout high school and college, my one high-school crush went nowhere, and my first boyfriend in college was a creep who alienated me from my family and  pushed me around.

Once I left my polyester waitress uniform behind, I took up retail sales as I looked for my future direction (changing my major 4 times in under-grad).  I sold bridal gowns.  The girls who came in the store - from the overweight and pimple-covered to the pregnant and tattooed to the sorority sparklers - all seemed Together.  Confident and Complete.  Oh how I envied their places in life.  After all, who else gets engaged but women who have a defined sense of style, know who they are enough to be loved by someone else, and have enough intelligence to take care of themselves?

No one was more surprised than me to find myself among their ranks a few years later, engaged to a very nice man who would have been happy to take care of me for the rest of my life.  The trouble was, I realized you can get engaged without being confident or self-sufficient, and through a further series of missteps, I found myself at yet another milestone, and waaaaaay earlier than any of my so-called peers.  At 26, I was divorced.

As I spent the rest of my twenties as something of a sad celebrity, my dating exploits gossiped about 'round many a corporate water cooler, I watched colleagues and friends move on to other happy places.  While I went back for my graduate degree and found a one-bedroom apartment so I could finally be alone, the Married Ones were moving into great starter homes and getting pregnant.  When I could finally afford my own townhouse, the Career Ones were finding their mates and buying big houses to match their big salaries.  And when I realized I had finally found the Big Love with (appropriately for me) tragically poor timing, Those With Small Families were up-sizing their homes.  At that point, my life became so rocky I mentally checked out of the Keeping Up game.

Fast-forward ten years, and I am now in an unusual place.  While I think (hope, pray) that JBL and I have come safely through the worst part of our journey together, I am witnessing the fallout of unhappy marriages all around.  I've seen the gamut, and it is far from pretty: the ones without kids who chose an open marriage to keep their Couple Identity, the ones who are Staying Together For The Kids, the ones who Muscled Through divorce to find peace after years of struggling while managing the mental health of their children, and those who Just Snapped.  Each road taken has fundamentally changed all parties involved, and some are slowly killing the so-called survivors.

That last group is the most shocking because, in my world anyway, the ones who snapped are Those People you never thought would do such a thing.  Queue the trite cliches: They seemed so happy.  How could she walk away from her children?  I never thought he'd do that to her.  One of these Snappers is someone very, very close to me, and I've gotta tell you, it's taking a lot to quiet the cliches playing through my own mind and support this person.  Me, of all people.

So here I am, vindicated.  I've now been told, "I don't know how you did it," and, "that took a lot of strength."  It does feel somewhat better to know I'm not the only one, and to be able to say I understand when someone needs to hear it most, but I wish it didn't happen so damned often.  And to so many wonderful people.  Is it the right decision sometimes?  Absolutely.  But.  Divorce is a tragedy like death, causing a hush to fall over the room, and making strong couples to look at each other and wonder.  Watching people I love reach this place?  It's not where I ever wanted to be.

Things Posed

On the run today, I noticed that the leaves are just at the point of turning. It seemed odd that the day should be so warm when the leaden sky hung over trees beginning to slowly exhale their chlorophyll. The air should have had a hint of crisp to it. But I'll never complain about warm temperatures, even on an otherwise stereo-typically perfect October day.

I ran past a very orange ball sitting against a curb, nestled among newly fallen leaves under a maple tree. Looking at it, I suddenly remembered that there was a time during my childhood when I longed to be an inanimate object. I thought there would be nothing more perfect than to be a picture hanging on my own wall. I could watch the breeze push at my curtains all day when the real me should have been at school. I could watch the sunlight slowly move across the floor and feel the room change and warm throughout the day. I could see the dust collect on my turntable in the nook, and on the pink cushion in my hanging wicker chair over by the closet. The calm and peace of being perfectly still, absorbing stillness around me is a compelling prospect. And today, something made me want to be that silent, unmoving orange ball. Yes, that would be perfect.

Up on the road, I passed an abandoned gate flanked by crumbling stone columns, beyond which lay a small open area filled with overgrown stumps, dead trees and weeds. The dead trees were populated with at least a dozen turkey vultures, hunched with heads hanging low, contemplative. I can't even make that up. The scene was of things posed with a Halloween feel.

I pushed on, neither inanimate or posed, and but still wishing for stillness.

Emotion

I have wanted to write so much. There is so much to say. I only have time for one thing at the moment: I shared this last night with J, as an example of how music can evoke emotions, and I think she got it. And I was happy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYCmUSDnxb4

(I have no time, but if I did, I'd figure out how to imbed this video. Maybe I'll come back to it.)

A Journey of a Thousand Miles

The running feels so easy, even on the hills, I am delighted to the point of ambitious optimism. I will do this every day, I predict (without pressure). The neighbors will see me and wave and smile. They will know me.

The mixture of emotions threatens to drown me, swirling, stinging. As I head down into the first valley where the stream is, I welcome the green cool, the humid gathering. The memories of J on her bike here just last month cause my heart to constrict. It's OK, though, right? As soon as the house is gutted and the rebuilding starts, we can bring her here with her bike all the time. It may be cold by then, but I want her to think of this as her neighborhood. I don't want her to get attached to the townhouse circle, packed with possible playmates though-it-may-be. To have her miss another house a year from now will be too much for me, for all of us.

Leaving behind the bramble and ferns, I crest the second hill on the loop and take in the smell of pines. I scoot under their shade and enjoy the crunch of dead needles under my slapping shoes. I gaze up the next hill, looking for the familiar giant poplars on my left. I memorize their gray trunks, wanting the feeling of belonging to greet me. I think of the discomfort of mosquitos, the disquiet of a house dreamed up by a couple who exploded their lives apart, and I pray I can find home in the remains of a tragedy - a tragedy on the end of which God stuck an exclamation point by introducing a lightening strike to a gas line with a pinhole leak.

I look up into the trees that hug the houses along the road. Gypsy moths have set up their tents in boughs that now droop heavily overhead. Their population is sparse compared to the parasitic bag worms I used to see in Woodbine, the interlopers who killed their hosts, and ruined their homes by living there. While I note that, in contrast, the gypsy moths simply mar the lush landscape, and only for a time, I refuse the impulse to dismiss them as unseemly. After all, who am I to disdain a creature who can only survive by opportunistic means?

I turn down 'my' lane. I stop at the turnaround point, bending to pull up delicate weeds protruding from among the wet mulch and shards of glass. The generator prods me to check on the fish pond before I turn and resume my run back....home.

Realization

"Mommy, when are they going to call us up?"

"What?"

"The band! When will they call the little kids up?"

J is barefoot on the basement floor. Her socks are balled up between the cushions of the leather couch in the corner, now occupied by a 40-something couple. The naked black lights have replaced the incandescent bulbs normally scattered over the ceiling of the 1500 square-foot unfinished area. Some of the card tables set out for dinner have been folded up and put away to make room for additional chairs and a dance floor. Christmas lights are strung around the ceiling where the band is playing, behind a row of microphones. Extra guitars are lying in wait against the wall, and against the drum set. A projector sends alternating psychedelic images against a wall as the strains of Iko Iko float through the room.

I stand behind her so she won't feel self-conscious if she wants to dance. Other children are pouring into the room from locations in and around the house. The dozens of adults milling about smile and let them through as they spin and swing blankets and stuffed animals around them. It is J's first house party with a band, and she has assumed that the kids will be called forth for an activity, as with all other parties she has ever attended. She has no context. I shake my head and smile.

Just a few hours before, I'd met Kevin. At that point J was in the moon bounce, and Kevin and his 11 year-old stood outside it with me, chatting. Eventually Sarah could resist no longer, and tumbled into the moon bounce with the smaller children. Kevin and I chatted on.

He has four kids, and Sarah is his youngest. She is a direct (and unusually tall) girl with earrings and a first attempt at makeup. Blue eye shadow. Her hair is cropped short, even in length all over her head, as though it had been shaved some time ago. None of the kids in the moon bounce comment on the anomalous style. She lunges over to the net facing us from time to time to connect with her dad. "I see you!" she grins. "I see you!" he laughs back.

Kevin lives - as many northern Virginians do - a substantial distance from his work, and laments the lost hours he has spent commuting on top of long work days. "Not anymore," he says, "I've cut way back." I nodded appreciatively, volunteering how happy I am to work from home most of the time. We discuss being 'done' with early childhood years. I complain un-seriously about K's teenage tendencies. We compare and contrast home schooling, public schools and private. We bond over other shared experiences, and I am surprisingly comfortable considering he is practically a stranger. I divulge insecurities and challenges surrounding my job as a stepmother. His voice is gentle and his eyes are kind, encouraging me. A smile barely leaves his face as we speak.

He even half-smiles as he lets on about Emily. His now-13 year-old was 11 when she was diagnosed with brain cancer.

Brain cancer.

The phrase punches me in the stomach. How could I have set aspects of my circumstances out for pity or appreciation when this man experienced such a thing with one of his children? My face crumples into concern as I listen to the story of months spent at Kennedy Krieger. Of relief now that the cancer has been conquered for the time being. He expresses through his easy demeanor that the hard emotions have been processed, and he is grateful that he and his family have come out on The Other Side. Blithely he changes the subject just as the party's hostess grabs me to make introductions to other friends. I wave to Kevin as I walk away.

A short time later Kevin and his wife pass. "I'd introduce you," he says with a conspiratorial smile, "but she'll talk your ear off, and we have to get going for Sarah's sleepover party!" Kevin's wife is talking to someone else as he disappears into the house one last time. I note that she has the same short-cropped haircut as her youngest, and is wearing a hoodie with cargo capris and Berkenstocks. A circular dragon tattoo adorns the outside of her right ankle. I shrug as the whole look assimilates in my mind. Then I turn to see Kevin coming down the deck steps with Emily.

She is frail and still nearly bald, and immediately it occurs to me that her sister and mother shaved their heads to match hers. My heart constricts as I absorb her effort to get down to the walkway, even as her dad gently guides her shoulders from behind. They approach me, along with Jon who is now at my side. I hope that my face registers the same normal, congenial smile as his.

"This is Emily," Kevin says. I quickly take in her earrings - studs like her sister's - and green eye shadow. I glance over her stylish skinny jeans and Converse Chuck Taylors. Uneasy with the yawning silence, I do what I always do. I talk to fill the void.

"Bon Jovi!" I remark, indicating her concert shirt.

"Not only did we see Bon Jovi," pipes up Kevin, "he actually signed her shirt!" He pauses to let us express the appropriate approval and appreciation. "Emily has actually been to lots of concerts. It's sort of her thing." For her part, Emily continued to look down and into the distance, holding her head still with an obvious effort.

All smiles now, I did what I always do with kids. I asked about something I hoped would make her happy.

"What's been your favorite concert so far?"

"Well," she replied slowly with a voice like that of the elderly Katherine Hepburn, "I wouuuuuullllld havvvvvvvvvve to sssssaaaaaayyy (long pause) alllllllllllll of themmmmmmm." She lifted her eyes almost to meet mine and let them drop again. Jon and I made murmurings of approvals, letting our smiles drift over her and up to Kevin. His look was almost apologetic, but strong. He then began walking Emily slowly down the long gravel driveway. His wife broke off her conversation to gather up Sarah and follow her husband down to the car. As they walked away, I noted a scar snaking up the back of Emily's head, from her nape to almost level with the top of her ears, and thicker than my thumb.

And I shook my head, realizing I have no context. I have experienced loss, and I have struggled to be a better person for both my girls. But I have no way to understand the depth of strength required to love a child through and after dealing with such trauma. Every day for the rest of their lives, Emily's cancer will be there like another person in the room, and will have to be dealt with whether or not it ever re-inhabits her body. Sometimes it may fade enough to be ignored, and clearly the family has done everything in their power to minimize its importance. But it will always be there.

Back in the basement, I watch J dance with her peers happily in front of the band (even without being called up). Occasionally she stops to catch my eye, making sure I am watching, that I haven't left. I soak in her healthy, shining joy. And I pray.

Lessons learned, the professional version

Boy, when I think about my plans to be done this government agency contract in February, I laugh and laugh. As of now, the first week of May, they have just told me they are pulling the plug, and I am not within sight of the finish line. I'm more like at mile 11 of this half-marathon, and the finish shoot is way over the hill behind a bunch of buildings (plus, those idiots on the sidelines screaming, "Keep going! You're almost done!" are liars of the highest order... but I digress).

It should be noted that only during the month of April did I begin to exceed the estimated number of hours expended on the analysis. That just tells you how much less I have worked on this than I planned. That said, I should have done a better job separating the forest from the trees.

I think mainly what I have learned is that I am not terribly good at just plowing ahead without planning, and really, no good consultant should be able to work that way. So it's no surprise.

I sincerely hope I can continue to work on on (smaller, finite) analysis projects because they stretch my brain in ways that make me happy. I have to say anonymously though that this particular agency has by far the most toxic, negative atmosphere of any organization I have ever worked with (8+). I will not miss that.

Anyway, I have '10 hours' to spend, though I will likely double that and eat the overage, to get my document to some presentable state. In all likelihood I will have to be done by next week at this time.

I wonder what it will feel like to not be frantic every morning when I wake up...

Irritating Things

Today I am irritated. I woke up exhausted, and struggled through the morning before succumbing to a power nap of insufficient duration. I think the smell of fabric softener kept me awake last night.

You see, since our house has sold, things have been breaking. First it was the hot water heater (confusingly named, as a friend pointed out, as hot water should not need to be heated). Then it was our RO system. There are probably several other things that went awry, but the most notable was the dryer. So what? Hang the clothes out on a clothes line, like they did in days of old. No big deal. But clothes that haven't been through the dryer with its accompanying dryer sheets are not soft and fluffy. No. They are coarse and crinkly.

But I, being a woman of vast and varied experiences, recalled my mother using liquid fabric softener, so requested that JBL procure some at the Ace where he also picked up the clothes line and pins. Following the directions on the Downy bottle, I put half of a cap-full in the washer's dispenser. The first time. This load smelled vaguely of fabric softener. For the second load, I was feeling emboldened and followed the instructions more closely, 'topping off' the softener in the dispenser with water. I basically took the softener cap and ran it under the water filling the basin and dumped it into the dispenser. This rinsing-out effect of the cap somehow quadrupled the amount of softener, or somehow magically enhanced the strength of its perfumes. The shirt I slept in (and am still wearing, because that's how I roll on days when I work from home) smells so powerfully of softener that I want to pass out. I want to, but I can't because the scent is so strong. See my conundrum?

At least the shirt is incredibly soft.

(And don't get me started about the crackers I ate for lunch - from a box that apparently was dropped several times - that broke into crumby shards every time I tried to schmear them with peanut butter. Or the fact that I have this for an earworm today.)

What I didn't miss

What I didn't miss by running outside today:

PERFECT SPRINGTIME

Last week in D.C. they celebrated the cherry blossoms, but it was still fairly cold and gray just a few towns north, up here. Today we caught up. Pear and cherry trees were in full bloom. I could barely comprehend the color of the spring grass on the fields around me, electrified by the sunlight. The air was balmy with the slightest of breezes. On the roadside there were bright yellow forsythia and unintended patches of grape hyacinth. Small white butterflies meandered with great intent but without great efficiency toward some goal just over the hill.

At the bottom of the road lay, of course, a river, and it moved thick and slow in the afternoon sunshine, its banks strained though happily containing the bounty after the recent rains. In fact everything around me appeared grateful.

A HILL TO QUELL THE INNER CRITIC

Though my overall pace was less than impressive, my run downhill on Gillis Road truly felt like flying. The return trip was more challenging, to be sure, but gave me time to appreciate the quiet and placid day. Above my heavy breathing I observed a Canadian goose staring motionless at a small pond bordered by cattails - still brown from the winter - but with reed shoots fresh and green enough to - maybe - protect a small nest of hatchlings.

On the south side of the hill there was a large swath of tall pines, under which grew the first of the may apples, unfurling their leaves like little beach umbrellas. Closer to the stream were the beginnings of tiger lily leaves, bright and hopeful.

As the minutes dragged on and my legs began to burn with my lungs, I observed the cornfield on the north side of the road. Its trimmed dead stalks from last year were softened by the grass and weeds filling in the lanes between the rows. What just a week or two ago appeared like a graveyard of sorts now looked like a renewal, or a burst of something about to happen. I pictured pulling on those stalks to get me to the top of the hill.

A REMINDER OF THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC CONDITION OF MY ZIP CODE

As I neared the crest of Gillis, I heard a chain saw making short work of trees felled by recent storms. Its smoky, oily scent carried me quickly back to my childhood, and I could see my dad, sweaty and dirty in his t-shirt and shorts, cutting through large chunks of poplar, queuing them up for chopping on their inevitable journey to becoming firewood.

Further on I noticed a teenager pushing a lawnmower for perhaps the first time this year. He was fish-belly white and shirtless, and his capri-length baggy denim shorts covered the front of his privates (though precariously low) while allowing his entire ass to be exposed. Lucky for his boxers. But the effort to keep his pants from falling off entirely made his gate bow-legged and awkward. In front of his trailer, his progress was slow.

Closer to 94, I noticed a young woman emptying out a storage shed behind a squat and square cement house. Next to a mangled bike of unknown vintage, in place long enough to have grass growing tangled through its bent spokes, she set a poorly framed airbrushed rendition of a lion's head, tinged lavender. An older woman (her mother?) sat bra-less inside her red car, door open so her feet could rest on the ground. They spoke in animated tones.

GIFTS UNCLASSIFIED

As I approached my neighborhood, the sun's angle became low enough that its rays illuminated long spider webs, recently laid then liberated from the grass and floating like baby's hair in the afternoon air.

All the houses in my development sat prim and clean, nestled in their freshly-mowed lawns and landscapes trimmed with willows and knockout roses. Their cookie-cutter visages seemed excited for the weather like three-year-olds at a princess birthday party. They welcomed me.

Days like today make me want to name crayons and hug strangers and kiss the sun. Runs like today make me deliriously happy and thankful for my strong legs and lungs and heart. What a treat that I didn't miss any of it by taking myself for granted. Amen.

Losing it

Ah, yes. Real focus happened (so far) today, and I feel great. Now if only I had the whole day to start again so I could work on my *other* job before I start my mom gig. And exercise. Wait a minute, now I'm starting to feel overwhelmed again. AGH! AGH! AGGGHHH! (picture me running away, waving my arms)

Early Spring

I figured it all out on the run today. Bear with me while I babble crazy stuff.

Don't be confused about God and winter and destruction. God isn't about keeping you from being hurt, or giving you what you want, or punishing people for doing the wrong things. Easter may still be about eliminating the fear of death. But God is certainly about volcanoes and floods and forest fires. Lightening strikes and dying stars. What happens after these tragedies? Everything.

Everything keeps happening and moving and growing. Plants push up through ashes. Beautiful canyons are carved out where millenia before there were great oceans. New planets form out of the combined molecules that comprise metals and dust kicked off by the spent star that used to be the center of a solar system. Those molecules that were once simple hydrogen.

There's no remorse for the loss of what came before - only the continual opportunity for new somethings to exist. God is about endless second chances.

+

On the 27th of February, 2011, I noticed my tulips are coming up. I noticed lettuce - not known for being self-sowing - bursting to life in my garden. And again I am surprised by spring. Hopefully I earned it this year.

I am a sap for my girl

Yesterday was your surprise party, and it was perfect. It was perfect because I felt like I was giving you exactly what would make you happy - truly. Friends. Delight. Ice cream in the middle of the day. Freedom to celebrate Messy and Silly and Pretend. You were the pretty and popular one at the dance, and all the boys wanted to be on your card. Ok, so there were no boys, but that's not the point.

The point is that I love you with such a force that it is humbling. When I am with you I have no other desire than to surround you and absorb you and make the world exist for you, and if I were to never think of myself again it would be too soon. What parent doesn't feel this way?

But no one has a Juliet like I do. No one knows your soft cheeks, your humming, your frenetic productivity, your sunny-side-up-since-you-were-trying-to-be-born nature. How could anyone else understand the pleasure in carrying your weight up the steps at bed time, or the feel of your little hands around my neck? Surely no other parent becomes drunk like I do when you wrap yourself around me and sway and chant, 'My momma is so wonnnnnnnderful...'

It's you that is wonderful in every way. Full of wonder, brimming over with sparkling joy and wonder, rolling around every waking minute of every day in wonder. And your birthday party yesterday was a tribute to you - to give back a little of that wonder that you serve to me on a silver platter every second of your life just by existing. I love you.