Toddler Teeth

Broken sleep for Baby Beckam.

He is a puzzle to which I will never have all the pieces.
It is 3:30 a.m.
I am trying to ignore his new found voice.
Especially because it sounds an awful lot like he is saying, "Mama."
This gets my instinctual adrenaline racing and my whole body is on alert.
It is impossible to sleep in this state.
All of my biology propels me out of toasty bed with toasty husband to the cold hard wood of the floor.

 It is also worth noting that last night was the first time Pepper has slept all night in her own bed in months.  When we snuggle in to say prayers I ask,
"Please help Pepper sleep all night long, in her own bed."
She looks up at me from pillow and her Bambi eyes ask,
"Is that what God wants me to do? Sleep in my own bed?"
To which my eyes affirmatively respond,
"Yes."

 I wonder if Eckhart Tolle has kids.
I am telling myself, 'Be here now.'
And it's not working.
I don't want to be here now.
I want to be asleep now.
So does Beckam.
He is a solid lump of agitation in my bed.
I snuggle him deeper.
This is not like him.
I look into his face for some sign of what is bothering him.
All I get is, 'Please help me.'
I don't know how.
We both fall asleep, and dawn arrives.
Even though I am exhausted, I am relieved by the light of the sun.  At least I don't have to try rest anymore.

I find his smile and his voice anew with the morning.
This happens without fail.
I can speak softly to him.
Pepper comes in triumphant, strutting her tiny butt through her  jammies.
"You slept all night long in your own bed!"
"Yep!" she exclaims and beams at me her toddler teeth.

Now my headache is minor.
And my only comfort is that everything is temporary.
My only understanding of God is the undecided possibility in front of me.
I find it in the wide open sky during a run, when I realize that I don't have to get old.
Because this work ages me quickly.
As I watch Pepper prance around the top of our leather couch... the one we were supposed to keep nice and never let kids jump on...I realize my ideals are being trashed by my children.

My ideals about ambition, myself, my body, the use of my time, my marriage, my food, my music...
"Destruction of self"  This is the spiritual path.  I asked to be stripped of all my self-identified suffering.  But the application of it is not nearly so romantic as when I read Siddhartha.  Lucky for me, my heart will not be denied.  It knows love too deeply, and I always have one more hug for my children in the morning.

Children are Painting

I woke up with a tight back and bleary eyes.
I stretched, felt the age in all my muscles and I am only 32.
I rarely wake up without remnants of the previous days' work.
I heave hunk of baby out of his crib, red hair fuzzed up as if he got spun through the washer and dryer.
Push button on the coffee pot.  What would I do without the coffee pot?
My imagination doesn't work this early.
Not so for Sophie and Beach.
They spot the new plein-air easel in the living room and must use it.
They have very different painting styles and the compliments to each other are flowing freely between them.
It is beautiful to watch.

 Kid Magic.  Give a kid one day off of school, and look what happens.  Spontaneous Art class.
Beach just asked me,
"Would you rather have fun painting and not be that great of an artist, or not have any fun and be a really good artist?"
"I'd rather have fun,"  I said.
"Same," she said and skipped away.

 Pepper paints with no pants on.
She sings to herself and asks me if I need any red.
Then she tells me her rocking horse Lazy Boy needs to grow and I hand her an apple to feed him.
"Try this," I say.
"Okay," and she waddles her little butt down the stairs to convince a wooden horse that he needs to have his breakfast.

 Next year Sophie goes to the Salt Lake Arts Academy.
I am relieved.
Maybe she will find her way to learn.
I see in her concentration the same expression I've felt on my own face.
I tell them its okay to let the paint do what it wants to do.
"Stay here and talk art with us, Mom.  I like it when you do that," Sophie chimes.

It is true that responsibility erodes me into raw joints and ages the skin under my eyes
When I lay down at night, I am an empty vessel.
Now at 10 a.m. I am full again.
Full of reasons to keep on going, and the aches have passed.
I can never thank my Sophie enough.

 I have been taught that I need an adequate substitute for food obsession, body obsession.  I need to place my feet on a different ground.  I need something to be more important, more true.  I cannot sit in the same space and simply say no.  I have to walk away.  I give Lydia a hug, tell her I am sorry for her suffering.  I hug her bony torso, and mean it.  I walk away into the light of my living room where children are painting.

Swift

After I run it feels I could walk into the sky.

My body takes in so much air around me.  There is no separation between Sarah and the huge space over-head.  My breath takes me to a place of doing one thing.  I am free to notice and to feel things I would otherwise miss.

Yesterday I saw a swift.  A swift is a bird my x-husband always pointed out to me. 

Swifts have very short legs and never settle voluntarily on the ground.  

Instead, they cling to vertical surfaces.   

I would huff and puff to the top of a climb and sit beside him.  My feet cramping in my black rubber shoes and fly-away hairs spindling into the breeze like tiny wind socks.   He would be sitting still as an Indian watching over me.  I always noticed his hands, how they calmly held my life by a rope.  He laced his fingers over his belay device as if he were praying.  I think actually, he was.

"You see the swift?"  He'd say.

"Yes.  I see it."  I'd say, a bit confused about why he'd always point out the same bird to me.

"They can fly over 100 miles per hour and they never stop.  They just live  to play."  He'd tell me.

"Wow."  I'd say.  "My feet hurt."

"Look at 'em go..."  His eyes were up there, with the swifts. 

Now I get it, and the swift I saw yesterday made me cry.

I walked back to the house and cried and watched the bird.  I watched it until it was gone, and I looked for another one.   I wanted to ask him, "Look.  You see the swift?"

I see it.  I see it now, Jeff.  

Lil Tummies

Eyes on fire.  No sleep.
I am a zombie this morning.  I just spent the last 10 minutes on a celebrity gossip page scrolling through images of Brittney Spears, Rihanna and Bill Murray in 4 different types of plaid.
I am drinking coffee although it can't touch this exhaustion.
It's just for comfort.

Beckam sleeping.  Pepper pondering puppies.

Pepper threw up violently for 7 hours last night.
She'd cry, "Mom!" then her tiny body would heave into convulsions.
I held her.
I caught her puke in my hands with a towel.
I smoothed hair along her forehead.
I let out a vast sigh in preparation for the night ahead.

Now it is past and she is drinking soda on the couch watching 101 Dalmations.
Beckam is keeping her company.
He's had the same sickness but he gets it out and keeps on smiling.

I threw up yesterday too.
I have done this before.
When I can feel that my stomach is ill, and it needs to throw up.  I can't throw up on my own.  My body can't get permission.
I came home from a run and my mouth filled with saliva.  My torso cramped.  I ran to the toilet, but couldn't let it happen.  So I made it happen.  I felt a lot better, although still queezy.
I went about my day for a couple hours...ate a little bit.
Then Lydia hissed at me. I've already thrown up once today, I can get rid of it all.
It'll a free-bee. I can just stay empty all day.  After all, everyone is sick.

Scrawny Pep trying her best to play with a "lasso"

I went into the bathroom and locked the door.  Put a hand on the toilet and then stopped.  I stood up.

This is not the same.  This is not me being sick...this is me purging.  I know it.
I walked away, leaving the water clear and untouched.
I stood up, expecting the traditional self-loathing and dark eyes.

Instead...I smiled at myself.
This will not make me feel better.  I don't have to do this.
I didn't hate myself at all.  I felt love for myself.  It sounds odd to say it that way, but I did.
I looked in the mirror, and I liked who I saw.  I did not need to change her or lie.

Now after 1 day of sickness I can see it in Pepper already.
Her skin is sucked up close to her bones.
I don't want this for her, and I don't want it for me.

"My tummy's all better!" She announces.
"My tummy's all better too,"  I tell her.

a little slack

Cookie tally for breakfast = 3.2
Awesome.
Not exactly the Moab diet I was going for.
Bikini time in 3 weeks.
This morning I am not at all skinny.
My hips and belly swell and scream, "Cookie!"
My nursing breasts sway under my sweatshirt like an African woman who has never worn a bra.
When I wake up choosing not to eat, it is not so much to loose weight.
It is because I fear the battle between zero food and ALL the food.
I want to forfeit the fight.
I still do not know how to find balance.
Silly - that I expect balance to be a constant.
Balance is the trickiest state to maintain. By nature, it requires a constant adjustment of weight and a letting go.

When I lived in Big Cottonwood Canyon, we had a slack line stretched between 2 pine trees.
Slack-lining is essentially tight-rope walking on a dynamic length of 1" webbing.
The first time I put my foot on the line, the whole thing vibrated with my anxiety.
I was taught to let the line's tension be absorbed into my leg, and to step up in one fluid motion.
I chose a spot on the pine tree for staring into.  The longer I stared at it, I saw a mermaid.
I spent many canyon evenings walking, balancing, easing into the sunset with each deep breath.
It makes me want to cry to remember this feeling.
Because I struggle so often, still.  And I think I need to try harder.
But this is not true.  The truth is, I have all I need, if I can just breath and look around.

I became adept at simply stepping up onto that rope, as if it were a sidewalk.
I miss that luxury.  The luxury of a quiet life.
I tell myself perhaps my life will slow down someday...and it won't.
My only chance is to slow down inside.  To let it all be absorbed into my leg and stand up.
I lived in the canyon for about 6 months.  The times which stand out are the delicate ones.
The shoveling of snow into quiet mounds all around me.  The twilight walks when I couldn't hear a man-made sound if I tried, and it was only air.

 But I got scared then too, and the noise screamed just as loud.  I was pregnant with my first child. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night, stand naked in front of the bathroom mirror, and cry.  I was afraid of my belly, of what it meant.  I'd cry until all the fear was out and I was tired again.  Then I'd put on my thick, red, towel robe and sneak back to bed.

My recovery asks me to absorb the 3.2 cookies and keep walking.  To breath in the fear of bikinis and stretch out my arms for the next step.  I will not condemn myself or rage at my body.  I will just breath and look up.

Not going to be me any time soon...enlightenment is far away.

Pandora' s box

pandora's box

What to report today?
I am weary of people.
Of the perpetual self-destruct going on around me.
It feels I'm on a battlefield watching my friends fall.
I stand in the middle of grey, helmet in hand, all muscles sore from effort.
I expect people to die.
To overdose.
To get divorced.
To cheat.
To implode within their snail shells and miss the light all around.

As a teenager I needed only my backpack and a bus schedule.
I roamed barefoot in baggy jeans hung low on hips.
I swiveled in and out of social circles with a chain on my belly.
Hurled too fast to be pinned down.
I ripped my heart from every home before roots could take hold.
I ate the heart out of every watermelon and left the rest in the gutter.
I read Beat poets and imagined myself Kerouac's lover...was his lover.

Now I teach art to junior high girls.
One student in particular flaunts her fuck-it in every gesture.
She painted over one painting 5 times.
Used up way too much paint, and pretended not to care.
I have done this.
She eats all the snacks I bring...stuffs them into her pockets.
It is not cute.

"My mom says I have issues.  She says I'm not right in the head."
The girl pops out one bony hip and digs her grubby fist into the treat jar.
I want to cry for her and tell her to get the hell out of my classroom.
It is all too painful.
This shit we do as human beings to try and guard a thing that is meant to be exposed.
The human heart.
It must be fragile.
It must.  I get that.
That's why movies are so good.
Why music is so good.
Why the sun can soothe my whole body.
Why I adore my husband so much I want to eat his breath...still.
Why I can't stop staring at my baby.
Why I can hardly stand to stay in one place.
But Grace asks this of me.  She asks me to stay.  And to love.
Some days I miss my teenage swivel hips...but not really.

summer shorts

Ugh...went shopping yesterday for summer shorts.

Now I am evaluating in a whole new way.

Things I thought were okay are unacceptable. 

Lydia has fresh ammo and she is pummeling me with it...on Mother's Day.

"How could you just go around thinking you look good?

Those shorts were Huge on the hanger, and even They didn't fit you.

No food today.  None."

Lydia is trying to place me in time out.

She is strong today.

Her intimidation is working.

I do feel scared.

It seems, upon impulse, she can save me from more suffering.

If I don't eat today, everything will be set right again tomorrow.

As I am writing this, I know it is absurd.

But it still feels true.

I have relied on this truth.  

The rut is deep and my wheels fall into it.  My mind wants it, because then decisions are not mine.

This is how tyrants are made.  

How abuse is doled out.  

Lydia does not force power from me. 

I give it to her.  

She has convinced me it is easier this way.  

This way is best.  

Because I cannot be trusted.

I am impulsive and messy.  Reckless.

I put things into my mouth that will make me fat.

She will take away that option, and make me pure.

It makes sense to fall back into these ruts.  But I do not have to stay.  As soon as I heard her hissing, I came down here, to my computer.  She will not take one more day from me.  Especially not this one. Not this day, where I get to celebrate my strength of heart, my motherhood.  My most honest work.

I eat my Wheaties

Coming out of the coma.

sick Beckam asleep

My family has been sick for 2 weeks.
Between the five of us, we have produced gallons of mucus.
It's gross.
I am the soldier posted in the center with rubber gloves, Kleenex and a beaker full of Tylenol.
Actually I feel nothing like a soldier.
There is no glory in my duty.
I wake up every time someone cries.
I hold my children and coo to them, 'It will be alright.'
Even though, they will have to sacrifice their own comfort for love one day.
The truth is, love demands I never arrive in the place where everything is alright.
My own body just has to go and go and go.

sick Beckam awake

On occasion Grace holds me.
For a brief moment after a run.
Or as I'm driving home into the shift of sky from turquoise to twilight.
She eases me into a hot bath after 10 p.m.
After everyone is tucked into footy-jammies and prayers are said.
She tells me,
"You are doing it.
And you are doing it well.
Don't think about tomorrow.
Because you won't feel this way in the morning."




What a shift from Lydia's hissing.
I rarely hear her anymore.
Yesterday I put on my bikini and stood in front of the mirror.
I hold bobble-head Beckam in my arms.
"What do ya think?"  I ask us.
I am trying to decide if my body is good enough for a weekend in Moab.
I pivot on ball of foot.

I woke up from my sick-nap to find this.
kitchen table plastered with stickers.
There was also a toilet clogged with toilet paper.
And 4 packets of sweet 'n' low opened and eaten.

Look over my shoulder.
Suck in my stomach.  Stick it out.  Try to stand normal.
Imagine myself playing with kids at the pool.
Beckam drools into my cleavage.
I laugh.  I see myself smile in the mirror.
This is what I want to do.
Smile and laugh with my kids...with my husband.

Not perfect.
But it'll do.
I can do what I need to do in this body.
I am healthy.
An eating disordered brain hears healthy, and winces.
Healthy is not a good word.
But to me - today - it is.

I am amazed at my own resilience.

Kitty Funeral

My eyes ache.

We buried Kitty at sunset.

So many ceremonies.

I am deflated by them.

My head hangs heavy like an over-ripe sunflower.

I sit on the wood deck, soaking in the last sun of the day, watching Andrew dig a hole.

He digs it far deeper then it has to be.

He came home and sprayed out the litter box with the hose.

He washed Kitty's food and water bowl.

He takes care of the things I would leave undone.

Sophie asks, "Why does he have to do all that?"

"Shh...just let him do it Sophie, it's his way.  It's his way of dealing with missing Kitty."

She gets it, and smiles, rests her head on my shoulder to wait.

Sophie's last goodbye to kitty.  She is not afraid at all to hug the box.

Sophie asked me to write a letter to Kitty.

I read it out loud over the cardboard box sitting in the hole that Andrew dug.

My eyes blurred, and I could hardly read.

Kitty, I'm sorry I wasn't more patient with you.

I'm sorry I threw you off the bed when you woke me up in the night.

Thank you for licking my baby's hair and snuggling up to them while they slept.
Thank you for comforting Sophie when she cried.
Thank you for letting Pepper carry you around by your neck.
You were the perfect Kitty for our family.  No one will ever take your place.

Sophie got this quote from Avatar.  It's perfect.  

Kitty Memorial in the flowers.  Thank you Chantelle.

Sometimes Grace comes along and trumps all my petty concerns.  She blasts through my delusions and shows me that I am just one life.  I am heaved up into the wave of her. I am taken far from my tiny boat.  I see that I have nowhere to go.  In spite of all my paddling, she is vast and blue and she has me in her cradle.

She holds not only me, but my family.  She catches the things I miss.  As I watch Andrew and Sophie lower the Kitty box into the ground, our family feels whole.  We are doing it together.  We are as gritty, rich, and alive as Kitty's resting ground.

Kitty

I am taking Kitty to be put to sleep in the morning.
She never had a name, other than - Kitty.
I wasn't nice to her.
Sometimes I'd talk to her though, when she'd sit on the edge of the tub while I was bathing.
And I loved the way she licked my newborn baby's hair into a DQ swirl.

Sophie got kitty for her 6th birthday

After gymnastics I took Sophie to Wendy's for a frosty.
We sat in the parking lot and watched the sunset.
As I watched her joyfully sucking on her straw, I wished there was some way I didn't have to tell her.
I let her sit next to me in the front seat.
I tell her as we drive.
"Sof, I gotta talk to you about something."
"Mom, you're freaking me out...like it's serious or something."
"It is serious.  Sof.  Kitty is sick."

Panic instantly added to her voice,
"No! no...no...no..what's going to happen."
Her fear is thick in the car.
"Well, her kidneys don't work anymore, and the vet can't help her."
I am a 6 foot tall adolescent boy trying to dance in size 13 feet.
This isn't going well.  I have no good words.
So I just start crying with her.
"I know," I say, "I know."
"I don't want Kitty to go!"
She just kept saying it over and over,
"I don't want Kitty to go."
The same phrase in all different colors and intensities.
Her face is contorted and beautiful.  She has no problem letting the grief pour out of her in heaves.
I will never forget her tiny body in gold gym leotard, with arms wrapped around it.
She is showing me, right now, the power of life.
I see it, and I cannot stop crying with her.
We have cried all night.
She made Kitty a goodbye box full of trinkets and a toy mouse.
She wrote her a poem and read it out loud to me.
She promptly wadded a blue fleece blanket into Kitty's basket and gently laid her there.
She hung a Christmas bell from the handle.
She sat with the basket in her lap, petting kitty with gentle hands.
We prayed, and thanked God for letting Ktty be with us.
Then we blew our noses.
I left a roll of toilet paper by her bed, just in case she wasn't done crying.

I am writing this now, because I don't want to forget...how effortlessly honest and beautiful Sophie is.