Anna day. Determined to breathe some energy into these days. Made it her birthday – brought balloons and went to breakfast with a blueberry walnut muffin to go. After breakfast we’ll keep moving and I’ll keep remembering that even the smallest things are important to someone.
Neck injury persists despite all of my longing to the contrary. The rainy day implies that it’s okay to lay low. I can feel that in these moments I’m lacking intention and my breathing becomes shallow. Hard to focus on purpose when my head feels so heavy; neck taut. Back to basics.
Case of the Mondays. Dumb morning.
Flat white coffee making it 3% better. Elliot Smith radio on Pandora making it 2% worse. Maybe this is the best I can do for now.
Sun roof open. Modest Mouse. Sam singing along. New dirt smell in the air. These are the moments that make up a life.
My God, I was right.
First warm day.
First “blast the music, open the sunroof, let the wind whip through your hair” day. I feel like I’ve won something. It’s blue skies all around. I think I believe in angels again.
When the kids get home from school, they’ll be outside until dusk. I’ll make dinner to the sound of a basketball bouncing in the driveway harmonized with the strained, defensive chatter of my girls. We’re beginning to stretch and move again. We’re finally arriving on the other side. We’ve made it.
Cold day. The last cold day, I’ve decided. Because of this I’m embracing all the things I’ll miss when it’s hot and sunny every day: my super warm cozy coat, hot coffee, melancholy. This is easiest to do on a day like today when it’s snowing but smells like spring. Everything will be new again soon enough.
I’m getting better at handling the anticipation that occurs before I jump into something I’ve never done before. I’m no longer:
Instead I’m:
But also, I’m getting my workouts in and eating protein. Drinking just the right amount of coffee, wearing comfortable clothes, getting one good chore in before I launch (today I mopped the kitchen floor).
This is today’s status. It’s true that tomorrow I could once again be preparing for our eventual destitution – feeling those phantom rats gnaw on our toes as we sleep in boxes in the corners of tenement houses where the heat doesn’t work. But this is not tomorrow; I do not live in tomorrow; this is right now.
Driving to brunch with my family. Car Talk on the radio transports part of me back in time to a blip in my childhood when we’d drive seemingly for hours. My dad would turn the volume way up and we’d hear the laugh of “Click and Clack” in harmony with my dad’s as he smacked the steering wheel for comedic emphasis. I didn’t get the humor back then just as my own kids don’t get it now, but there was something vaguely comforting about hearing my dad laugh, unabashed and carefree, like he left the door cracked open to a secret world. So now on Saturday mornings I leave the show playing even though everyone groans because I want them to pick up, somewhere in their subconscious, a glimpse into that same secret world that I got a glimpse of everytime my dad laughed.
Nora missed the bus again. Snowing. It’s a set-up for a frantic morning. Threw on the same clothes I wore yesterday – can still catch whiffs of last night’s dinner. Deep breaths and a treat coffee as reward. Maybe a nap later too.
An Absurdly Magnificent Life 