I'm a big picture person. I don't do details, I don't don't fret over minor bumps in the road, and nothing makes me want to scream more than the little repetitive tasks of life. I have to confess that when I dreamed about having kids, my dreams were all about back-to-school shopping and passing on my favorite books and playing games together and late night heart-to-heart talks. They were dreams about my kids being big. I knew they would start small, but in my mind, I just sort of glossed over those days.
Six years and three c-sections later, it's still those days. My life is full of details, of minor bumps in the road, of little repetitive tasks. My life is full of small things.
Toy cars, racing up and down my legs and occasionally across my face, lurking in wait upside down on the kitchen floor, ready to scare the life out of my in the middle of the night with their uncanny resemblance to roaches.
Colored beads, strung together in random patterns as necklaces and bracelets, gathered and hoarded in boxes as the rarest of treasures, assiduously hunted down to keep them out of the reach of a grasping seven-month-old.
Sturdy plastic cups, designed to quench the thirst of clumsy-handed preschoolers, but also eminently suitable for rinsing shampoo out of hair, building sandcastle turrets, and bathing ponies.
Pebbles of all shapes and sizes, each one a historic discovery, some to shine in the treasure chest, some to make chalky marks on the sidewalk, and even to fill my pockets and tumble out in the washing machine or roll under the couch when no one is looking.
I could go on. Odd socks, empty toilet paper tubes, plastic army men, broken crayons, hair bands, dried leaves, raisins, wilted dandelions.
But most importantly small hands. Fat baby fists, gripping the back of my shirt in a feat of cuddly strength. Three-year-old fingers, mastering the skill of standing each guy up exactly where he needs to be in the line. Capable schoolgirl hands, washing dishes and rubbing backs and always ready to help.
Small things. A whole big life full of them.
sábado, 2 de enero de 2010
martes, 9 de junio de 2009
I'm sure it wasn't really a pea coat
But I remember distinctly how it felt. Probably because it's a feeling that's haunted me over the years.
I must have been eight years old. I can always calculate my age in these stories by which year we were in THAT house and also at THAT school. It's one of the underrated benefits of moving around so much. In this case, it could only have been third grade and a conveniently cold October in Oklahoma.
There was a Halloween carnival at our school, which meant costumes, which meant Insecurity. I'm not really even sure why we went. We never celebrated Halloween much. But for some reason this year we got all excited and requested the costumes dearest to our hearts (a robot for big brother and a princess for me). My mom went to lots of trouble putting these costumes together: shopping at thrift stores for the perfect ball gown and shoes, cutting out a cardboard robot and gluing on toothpaste lids and shiny foil, liberally applying the glitter and silver paint.
I remember how proud she was of those costumes, and rightly so. I remember getting dressed up, the high heels, the floaty blue skirt swishing around. I remember how delighted we were with our fine selves. I remember bundling up for the cold trip to school. I remember arriving at that place where I still felt a bit like an outsider. I remember that school carnival smell of popcorn balls and too many people.
And I remember the moment when it hit me. I am in public and dressed up like a princess. I remember the overwhelming shame. Why? you ask, when every girl in the world dresses up like a princess for Halloween? Who can understand the workings of a little girl's mind? All I can say is that I felt exposed. Because it wasn't just a costume. Being a princess was a long-cherished dream of my innermost heart. And now everyone could see that I imagined I was a princess. And they were surely going to laugh at me for being so silly. There was no doubt in my mind about this. So I took the only escape route available to me: I refused to take off my coat. Crowded into those classrooms with hordes of screaming kids winning candy and running around on a sugar high, I insisted that I was much so cold, freezing really. I'm sure a trickle of sweat ran down my face as I said it. But self-protection has always been much more important than comfort, so I stuck it out through two miserable hours.
And that pretty much sums up the pattern of my life. Keep the dream world under wraps. Never betray those hundred (million billion) other lives I try on in my head. After all, someone might laugh.
But I'm all grown up now, and that old second-hand coat is much too small.
Besides, some of those embarrassing little dreams have actually come true. And I've put enough tentative feelers of imagination out there to know that no one is mocking them. So this blog is me taking off the wraps and letting loose all the sparkly, filmy, delicate layers below. I hope you do laugh. I also hope you sigh and smile and gasp and maybe even wipe away a tear. I'm probably not a good enough writer to pull that off. But this is where I'm going to try. This is where I'm going to learn.
And Mom, if you're reading this (and you're probably the only one) I'm sorry for being ridiculous about my costume. Now that I'm a mom, I have an inkling of how you must have felt about it. I was never ashamed of what you had made for me, just of how much I loved it. And I didn't know how rare it is to find a mother who will help you achieve dreams you won't even admit you have.
I must have been eight years old. I can always calculate my age in these stories by which year we were in THAT house and also at THAT school. It's one of the underrated benefits of moving around so much. In this case, it could only have been third grade and a conveniently cold October in Oklahoma.
There was a Halloween carnival at our school, which meant costumes, which meant Insecurity. I'm not really even sure why we went. We never celebrated Halloween much. But for some reason this year we got all excited and requested the costumes dearest to our hearts (a robot for big brother and a princess for me). My mom went to lots of trouble putting these costumes together: shopping at thrift stores for the perfect ball gown and shoes, cutting out a cardboard robot and gluing on toothpaste lids and shiny foil, liberally applying the glitter and silver paint.
I remember how proud she was of those costumes, and rightly so. I remember getting dressed up, the high heels, the floaty blue skirt swishing around. I remember how delighted we were with our fine selves. I remember bundling up for the cold trip to school. I remember arriving at that place where I still felt a bit like an outsider. I remember that school carnival smell of popcorn balls and too many people.
And I remember the moment when it hit me. I am in public and dressed up like a princess. I remember the overwhelming shame. Why? you ask, when every girl in the world dresses up like a princess for Halloween? Who can understand the workings of a little girl's mind? All I can say is that I felt exposed. Because it wasn't just a costume. Being a princess was a long-cherished dream of my innermost heart. And now everyone could see that I imagined I was a princess. And they were surely going to laugh at me for being so silly. There was no doubt in my mind about this. So I took the only escape route available to me: I refused to take off my coat. Crowded into those classrooms with hordes of screaming kids winning candy and running around on a sugar high, I insisted that I was much so cold, freezing really. I'm sure a trickle of sweat ran down my face as I said it. But self-protection has always been much more important than comfort, so I stuck it out through two miserable hours.
And that pretty much sums up the pattern of my life. Keep the dream world under wraps. Never betray those hundred (million billion) other lives I try on in my head. After all, someone might laugh.
But I'm all grown up now, and that old second-hand coat is much too small.
Besides, some of those embarrassing little dreams have actually come true. And I've put enough tentative feelers of imagination out there to know that no one is mocking them. So this blog is me taking off the wraps and letting loose all the sparkly, filmy, delicate layers below. I hope you do laugh. I also hope you sigh and smile and gasp and maybe even wipe away a tear. I'm probably not a good enough writer to pull that off. But this is where I'm going to try. This is where I'm going to learn.
And Mom, if you're reading this (and you're probably the only one) I'm sorry for being ridiculous about my costume. Now that I'm a mom, I have an inkling of how you must have felt about it. I was never ashamed of what you had made for me, just of how much I loved it. And I didn't know how rare it is to find a mother who will help you achieve dreams you won't even admit you have.
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