Short. and sweet. Like Spring Break

After an entire week without my kids, I prefer spring break with my kids.  Road trips, beach stays, shell finding, family visits, that's how I want to do spring break, because that's how it's done best.  After all, I'm not 21 anymore and I'm not yet 60.

But, guess what? Every other year for the next 14 years, I won't be with my kids on their spring break.  So what then?  I suppose there will be a biennial trip like, or perhaps quite unlike, this one.

A weekend in Charleston.  Two days of business at home that needed to be taken care of and 4 days and 3 nights in south florida, a great night in Orlando, and just enough of Sunday at home to feel like attacking whatever comes next.  A big change is on the horizon of my life. The biggest part of the change is that I have no idea in which direction it will take me.  It is most literally a leap of faith.  That's a big deal for me.  I love the illusion of control.  I love for things to go my way.  If I have no idea which way that actually is, oh how great the trepidation for the out of control nature of it all.  It's exhilarating at this very moment.  It may be debilitating tomorrow, but right now, the possibility and impossibility of it is pretty exciting.

I relaxed on the beach, floated on the waves, met some old folks, ate and drank at new places, had a lovely evening with a beautiful man I will never see again, saw the sunset and sunrise, made new friends and saw ones I hadn't seen in a while (unfortunately, I missed a couple of them I really would have loved to have reconnected with...but there's always time) and indulged in some "girl talk" and "me time" (two of my least favorite terms).

I'm learning some things this year: patience (this is a lifelong lesson), flexibility, allowing both the trouble and pleasure of the day to suffice for the day-allowing myself to be in the moment rather than dwelling on the past (which I don't do often but we all can get caught pulling a Lot's wife from time to time) or trying to figure out the myriad of potential futures that lie ahead of me behind each and every possible dizzying choice I could make anxiously attempting to map out every one of  the endlessly countless iterations of what if's, as if I can think my way out of every situation that is currently not the most comfortable for myself.

And on this Lord's day, Lord, hear the cry of my heart:

"Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me;
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.
Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me.
Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me. 

Spirit of the living God, move among us all;
make us one in heart and mind, make us one in love:
humble, caring, selfless, sharing.
Spirit of the living God, fill our lives with love."

A Saint Patty's Day Vignette About the Luck of the Damsels Who Aren't Necessarily in Distress

Yesterday afternoon, my friend Julie and I were driving home from an absolutely marvelous weekend in Charleston, SC.  I don't ever have a bad time in the Holy City, but this particular weekend was as perfectly blissful as it was necessary to my own sanity at this precise moment in time.  Two nights and three days of thinking as little about the negatives in my life as is actually possible for my mind.

Friday, I received some excruciatingly bad news, the details of which I am not ready to share aloud, yet. The news was delivered swaddled in the thick blanketing of kind words and hoping the best for me, while their actual meaning cut to the very quick and simultaneously sliced my feet off at their ankles and tore my still beating heart out of her chest, the messenger hugged me and sent me on my zombie way.

I immediately left the scene of the crime, heart in hands, crawling back to my home as my feet refused to carry me, packed myself a weekend bag and waited for Julie to pick me up.  We ate sushi and hit the road. We got to Erin's house on an island in Charleston, and things began to right themselves.  Our hostess is a marvelous tour guide, always knowledgeable about the best places to see, things to do, restaurants to eat. Plus, she is the queen of making fast friends of all she encounters, so there isn't a person she doesn't know, it seems, and of those people they all love her without exception.  Friday night, we ate at an Italian restaurant downtown with big wooden tables that lent themselves to the family style surprise menu the chef created for us.  The food, the ambience, the experience, the waitstaff, were the exact panacea to what ailed me (figuratively of course, as my health is not the real issue here) at that point.  A little late night entertainment and then we went back home for a relatively early bedtime, because we had a ferry to catch at zero dark.

The next morning we packed beach cruisers on the backs of cars and headed to the dock where Capt Will, another who was happy to see Erin return with friends in tow, was waiting to navigate our crew through the class 1 wilderness of the South Carolina intracoastal.  He was adorable in a way that reminded me of a debearded, slightly older, hippy leprechaun.  And it certainly didn't hurt that he was quite knowledgeable about Biology, especially as it related to the local ecosystem. The water was pristine and the air was fresh in a way that cleared the head, but only long enough to allow a new tide of thoughts regarding my recent misfortune to rush back in.  Half an hour later we were on Bulls Island and ready to ride around the entire island in search of sand dollars and sea shells.  After nearly eight hours of bike riding and shell hauling, wind and sun burn, isolation from civilization and the fresh ocean fragrance had rendered me exhausted to the point where I almost had a silent clarity in my mind.  While my ischia are still recovering from the first bike ride I've been on since my tragic triathlon accident of 2002, my heart and brain and soul are so grateful for the release and relief that this excursion brought.  Plus, we scored some pretty sweet souvenirs from our search efforts.

Casual dinner at a taco truck turned sit down restaurant and an introduction to the series House of Cards finished saturday off. That night I slept like a baby.

After a Lazy Sunday, we headed back to Jacksonville.  The low tire pressure signal came on in Julie's car. We stopped, she added air, there was a bit of a bubble on the tire, but we pressed on, mindful to keep an eye on it.  About an hour and a half later we stopped and repeated the process.  Less than a mile later we heard the loud flappety report that the tire had gone completely flat.  Julie expertly crossed the three lanes to the right shoulder and called roadside assistance as it was raining, and we didn't necessarily want to mess with the tire change when it was covered by insurance.

Then we got the text from the tow truck driver: he wouldn't arrive for another hour.  The girls sprang into action.  Wearing skinny jeans and light billowy cream colored shirts, she in high wedged sandals and me in flats that may as well have been bare feet, we set to work.  We moved everything out of the trunk to the back seat, opened the well and lowered the full size spare.  It has been nearly a decade since I changed a wheel solo, and probably 3 or 4 years since with my ex doing only a nominal amount of work, I changed a wheel with help. I feel fairly confident in doing what must be done even without recent experience in the arena.  But Julie fortunately had recently changed this tire and was not only familiar with the process but is an expert about her car.

We propped the car up with the jack no problem and had all the tools we would need for this quick change. The only difficulty we really encountered was the fact that neither of us had on thick soled shoes-boots or even sneakers would have really been better footwear for this scenario.  Neither one of us are hulking brutes, although we are both pretty strong in our own right.  We both gave a turn at the wrench, but these arms were falling short of the task of loosening the lugs nuts.  Each one of us then took a turn at standing on the wrench, I guess the fact that the lugs still didn't want to budge was a testament to our fitness? (Sure, why not, silver lining, half full, rainbows and unicorns.)  With sneakers on we would have just kicked the wrench and that would have loosened it no problem. The car's owner was determined that she was not going to let five tiny lug nuts defeat her, so she repeatedly jumped on the wrench until she finally achieved victory in the form of a little budge in the first lug nut.  She had loosened three or four of the them when two young gentleman pulled over and offered their help.

They, with their thickly (though not particularly cut) muscled arms made quick work of the tire change, and Julie (with minimal assistance from me) strapped the flat tired but up under the car.  In the waning moments of the tire change, another car stopped.  Out floated a tiny leprechaun of Asian descent, wearing a tweed jacket over a green crew neck tee shirt and bearing a small black umbrella.  He glided up to us and said, "I noticed you didn't have an umbrella."  The four of us who had been out there for less than ten minutes had not noticed, as the rain was barely heavier than a mist at that point. In fact Julie replied with a laugh, "Actually we have two, but we were so busy we didn't even think of it!" He stood above the young man who was tightening the lug nuts on the newly installed wheel, as he rightly wanted to protect the person doing the yeoman's work from the elements.  I looked over at him and could read a portion of the caption on his saint patrick's day themed shirt as it was revealed by the opening in the top of his elbow patched smoking jacket; it read "Keep Calm..."  and no doubt obscured by the buttoned lower portion of the jacket were the words "...and Carry an Umbrella."  The wheel was on and we began to clean up the tools and lower the car.  Our parasol provider looked around and said "seems as if you've got it under wraps."

And with that he was gone, with a tip of his umbrella.

A minute later after a brief inspection of their handiwork, our gentlemen helpers were also on their way.

Less than fifteen minutes after stopping, we were back on the road.

The moral of the story is twofold:  b!tches do be doing it for themselves, but it doesn't hurt to have a few extra man hands in the mix to make light work of a messy situation.  And if you don't have the presence of mind to get the umbrella you DO have in your car out whilst performing a tire change in the rain, "Keep Calm and Call a Leprechaun."

Pine Boxes

I'm lying in a pine box of sorts.  It is a lovely, soft, knotty pine.  There are carefully carved, honed and sanded sleigh sides.  There's a headboard with finials and scrolls, one with a particularly large, dark knot with a space in it where you could put a finger or a penny or a small toy.  There is a pillow under my head, and I stretch my feet out to tuck my toes between the mattress and the footboard.  There's a warm breath in my back, and I roll over to find it's source.

Staring back at me, and strangely I am not surprised by this or disturbed in any way, is my long deceased brother, Ben.  In his eyes, those deep dark pools of blue with rings of black, so full of love and innocence, I see my reflection and his eyes seem to drink me in.  He is six, as always, and he has the Cat in the Hat in his hand...for the seventy millionth time.

"The sun did not shine, it was too wet to play, so we sat in the house, all that cold, cold, wet, day.  So I sat there with Sally, we sat there, we two, and I said, 'how I wish we had something to do.'"

My mother and my sister read that book to me, and I read it to all my younger siblings, but it was reading it to Ben, over and over, that has emblazoned its rhymes on my memory.

I am lying in a pine box, whispering sweet nothings into my little brother's ear, my neck enveloped by his too short arms on his stubby little body, him pretty much drooling in my ear as he told me he loved me the best right back. We are lying there underneath a woolen Hudson Bay blanket that we may have ordered earlier that year, or purchased years later from the L.L. Bean outlet in Maine.  I am strangely not suffocated and overly hot as I usually am under any bed coverings, especially such a heavy, insulating one.  But that is only because we are actually under the ethereally light lace coverlet from that dead artist woman's store...the one who painted our refrigerator, and whose cute art with hearts and doves and swirls and flowers has always influenced my doodles...what's her name, it's on the tip of my tongue...I even see her off in the distance through the eyelets..Lil? No, that's It's Only Natural's owner, Jill, Jen...And she's gone and her name escapes me.

I am lying there with Dr. Seuss  too, on his and dad's birthday, and speaking of dad, he's there too, and fits?  No he never fit in those little sleigh beds that were actually closer to the size of a trundle bed than even a true twin.  Perhaps death has made dad smaller.  No, even on his deathbed dad was remarkably large and strong and weighty and willful.  Maybe this is the king size bed down in mom and dad's bedroom and this is a childhood pileup revisited. Maybe he just fits because he's stacked three deep in a pine box-o-torium better known as Calverton National Cemetery.   That is it.  I look up, there's mom in her pine box, and yet a few feet higher is dad in his pine box.  Of course now that I look, again, Ben's is a furry faux funny rabbit box, mom's is a shoddily made walnut missing one of its handles  yanked off by Dave or Phil in the wrestling match that was getting it down the half spiral staircase of the Kittery Baptist Church.  And dad is chagrined at his finery as it was his express written will to be interred inside a simple pine box.

I wake up suddenly.  And it is the morning of dad's birthday...the one he shares with good ol' Dr. Seuss.  So there's a reason for the bizarre setting to the dream I was in the middle of having before some child kicked me awake with a Bump, and how that bump made me jump, jump, jump!  I'm in a deep tailspin, now.  I feel bummed, and missing all those dead people, especially Dr. Seuss; I have a tendency to feel deeper sadness over unrelated losses than those that affect more closely.  That's also a total lie, but, there's an element of truth.

My Aunt died a couple of days prior to this dream, and I'm sure the passing of my father's sister, and the sadness that death brings to the children of any mother regardless of her age and the thought of that for my cousins, I'm sure that this had some part to play in the maudlin torrential downpour I was lying in the midst of right at that moment. I can't even find the right way to communicate my sympathy and empathy and condolences to my relatives. So I don't.  And i regret it.  But i'm dug in now.

For the next week I am tired, and achey, and over reactive to everything.  And I feel a heaviness and it feels like a pine sleigh bed is tied to my back.  Because it is; two of them are.  In the midst of all this sadness, there is a string tied to those beds, and they are slipping away because they've been willed to someone who is not a member of the family, and never knew Ben, and they are pulling chunks of withered, dessicated, deteriorated, defunct heart out with them.  I have trudged through the week between dad's birthday to mom's birthday/deathday, lugging these heavy solid wooden relics with me and smashed everyone with them as I encounter people throughout my day.

I'm afraid to go to sleep.  I'm not interested in what this excessively emotional week in convergence with the always sneakily significant day has to bring me in dreams.  To make matters worse, Ray Lamontagne, Carly Simon, Carole King (with her recent songstress partner Sarah Bareilles) Gungor and Great Big World have been my mental minstrels and I can't convince them to stop singing their sad warbles to me.  My phantoms are strong ones, and they are my precious; I love that they are strong and will not quit me.  So, I'm going with the least negative of my current playlist songs, one that at least in addition to speaking of mortality points to eternity and maybe even a temporary hope here on earth as well: I am mountain, by Gungor. Happy day mom.  Happy weird week entire family.  And I'm truly sorry for your loss, cousins (couthins as another cousin Lindsay used to say).



I am mountain, I am dust
Constellations made of us
There’s glory in the dirt
The universe within the sand
Eternity within a man

We are ocean, we are mist
Brilliant fools who ruled and kiss
There’s beauty in the dirt
Wandering in skin and soul
Searching, longing for a whole

As the light, light, light of the skies, of the skies
We will fight, fight, fight for our lives, for our lives

I am mountain, I am dust
Constellations made of us
There’s mystery in the dirt
The metaphors are breaking down
We taste the wind inside a sound

As the light, light, lights of the skies, of the skies
We will fight, fight, fight for our lives, for our lives
As the light, light, lights of the skies, of the skies
We will fight, fight, fight for our lives, for our lives

Momentary carbon stories
From the ashes, filled with Holy Ghost
Life is here now, breathe it all in
Let it all go, you are earth and wind