Gather. Discover. Cultivate.
Baby I have been here before
I know this room, I’ve walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I’ve seen your flag on the marble arch
Love is not a victory march
It’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
—
Hannah Trigwell sings Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llyADThAg5o
And so I heard this tune for the first time on the drive home.
Like every other lonely heart on the planet, I could hear my own You whispering these promises into my aching chest. I am a fool, of course, because Giovanni was the one with six strings tuned exactly to the key of me. He is gone now because I was not ready to let him make this place our home. These were his vows to me, re-written in a language I am only just beginning to comprehend.
The trouble it might drag you down
If you get lost, you can always be found
It’s just this: greater than the longing to be lifted into someone’s love is the need to learn to do the lifting. Despite steady practice, the skill forever eludes me. It is a strange thing to come this far in a life and still be such an amateur at giving. I keep turning the key this way and that, and still, I can’t quite seem to fall open.
(I just want you to fall into this, Baby. Fall into me.)
And so when the song ends, I change the station and coast for a minute on some cheesecake pop. It does its job distracting me from the low-down pulse in that place of brine and skeletons. Crying is out of the question because I’m stuck on I-66 and need my wits about me.
Then, wouldn’t you know it? The song kicks in again on the new station. Phillip Phillips (I now know), weaving ribbons of comfort around his You just a breath after he had already tugged her in.
Hold on to me as we go
As we roll down this unfamiliar road
And although this wave is stringing us along
Just know you’re not alone
And against the shiver, I hear the echo of Paul Simon singing, Sometimes even music cannot substitute for tears. So I let it roil and it the current pulls me under for a minute.
Then, Okay.
Yes, okay. That’s enough.
No one will come. Rather, I am the someone who will.
I decide to let the tide recede and lift my own voice under the ice-white moon. If I could not learn to lay these promises into the open arms of Tee or Giovanni, then I will give them to the one You I do love. I give my word to my son. What I have to build, I build for him. I still have a lot to learn. Bug is where I begin.
If you get lost, you can always be found
Just know you’re not alone
Cause I’m going to make this place your home
I climb in and wrap
my arms around the boy I know
is forever mine
and forever
my only.
I use these secret lies
to balm the places
that will be pruned
without my consent
and without fair
warning.
—
He is still fidgeting, clicking his tongue’s metronome against the verses of the song.
“Shh, baby. Take a deep breath.”
“Why?”
“Because we are helping the little whale get ready for bedtime.” I speak in a whisper. Bug turns, his pajama top riding up over his belly. I tug it back down, stroking my fingers against his back and side as he rolls yet again. He is a porpoise, rifling through the sheets and leaving a storm of tangled linen in his wake. He shivers. “Shhh.” I take in a deep breath and let my chest rise before easing the air out. I watch him do the same. “That baby whale is gliding in the dark water under the starry sky, slowly, slowly, until it’s just the waves bobbing him to sleep.”
Bug presses backwards into me and sighs. His lungs flutter like fins before finding the rhythm of the lullaby. He is half awake and then not and then he has slipped down below the surface where I cannot reach. I finish out the final verses. The song is a treasure chest I have to close so nothing precious escapes.
With the morning sun
Another day’s begun
you’ll soon be waking. . .
I breathe the tune down low, voice vibrating out through my ribs and into his.
In the face of these legacies his daddy and I leave him to bear (the poor eyesight, the tempest heart) at least the lyrics I have stashed away in those underground caves will be there if he chooses to seek comfort there. With song, even the deepest places will retain one small portion of light. He will learn, should we not fail him completely, that this will be more than enough to find his way.
This morning, the boss-lady walked into my office to wish me a happy birthday. I reciprocated by wrapping her in a giant hug.
“Thank you so much,” I said.
“For what?” She laughed as she tried not to spill coffee on me.
“For being the best supervisor a girl could ask for.”
“Oh!”
“You help me realize there is no limit to what I can do here. You encourage me to find my way to do great work while giving me room to take care of my family, and you are also just a super nice person who is fun to work with.”
She started to tear up. It was really sweet. I told her that I have conversations about work with friends. Every time I mention something about the way my boss has gone to bat for me, given me flexibility in my schedule, or helped me think through a mistake, I watch my friends’ faces fall open in amazement.
“What?” I always ask. “What’s the big deal? That’s not normal?” They look at me like I just announced I’m dating Matthew McConaughey.
I realize how good I have it. My job keeps getting better. The main reason for that is because I work for a superstar with a big heart.
“You’re just really good at what you do,” I said. “I appreciate you making this a great place to work. Thank you.”
“It is a great place to work,” she grinned.
“So you can’t leave. Ever.”
A pause. “Yeah, well.” She took a sip of her coffee. “I am contractually obligated to be here through May 2013.”
I’d better make the most of the next six months.
Today is a good day to die
they say
Crazy Horse hollered to the sky
before charging into battle
he may have lost, winning
the chance to hear Mozart
call back across string and reed
under a November mist
on the eve of a birthday
he never reached.
Happy News of the Day: The Powers that Be approved the promotion! This was my official first day as Director of PhD Student Services. The real fun begins tomorrow when I cruise the main campus schmoozing with folks in the know about future projects. Onward and upward!
So-So News of the Day: For all his sweet talk, the sexy condo is out of my league. The seller’s broker came back today with word that a $6000 special assessment for new staircases has to be included in the purchase price. The gal who owns it was supposed to have been making monthly payments but has not paid a single penny. The bank will not approve the short sale without the buyer taking on the assessment. That would be me, except that it won’t be me. Also? The condo fees were listed incorrectly. They are actually $117 higher per month than advertised. A chunk of change that size can choke you in a year or three, never mind a few decades.
I would have to live on credit cards and ramen for the next 10 years to afford it. So, today, I bid this dream a sad farewell. Goodbye, bamboo floors! Au revoir, living room dance space! So long, staggering mortgage and second job!
It’s not quite a heartbreak. A little heart-squeeze, perhaps? The regret is mixed with a dollop of sweet relief. It’s nice to be able to imagine a Christmas with gifts again.
I met my agent at another cute little place this afternoon. The price is right and it’s a decent location but the traffic NOISE NOISE NOISE is unbearable. Tomorrow, we head out west again to another property which would require a commute. It is not quite as burdensome as many of the places in my price range, though, and the neighborhood is close to several of Bug’s and my favorite parks, shopping, and rec centers. Also, it is 1140 square feet with fireplace and a fenced back patio. We’re still talking condo-ville in a car-clogged area, so I’ll have to see if the property itself is enough of an oasis to make up for the shark-infested surroundings.
Rain and snow are churning just beyond tonight’s clouds. Once the slop starts to fall tomorrow afternoon, I will have the perfect opportunity to see just how much road-time those two hundred square feet are worth.
When I picked Tee and Bug up from the airport on Friday night, the kiddo was on the brink of tears. In the car, I finally pried it out of him. “I don’t want to go to school tomorrow,” he sobbed.
“Oh, buddy,” I smiled. “It’s Friday today. Do you know what that means?”
“No.” He was rubbing his eyes. The flight was five hours from Seattle.
“It means the whole weekend is still ahead of us. You were just away for a week of Thanksgiving vacation, and we have two more days before school.”
“Two WHOLE DAYS?”
And so it was that this morning, Bug crawled into my bed at 5:54 and told me he had been awake “for hours.” I told him my bed was only available to sleepy people. Funny how quickly he gave in.
These little dawn cuddles usually don’t last more than 20 minutes. This morning’s lasted for nearly three hours. We snored there together, right on past sunrise, right on past the honking geese and the snoofling dog. We had the yummiest, snooziest lie-in we have had in all of the six years Bug has been on this planet. When we finally roused ourselves, we stayed put, smooshing and talking about dreams and such for the other half of the morning.
It was a day of firsts, apparently. The sleep-in kicked off one of the most therapeutic home-bound Sundays on record. I didn’t even have weekends like this before Bug was born. We did watercolors and coloring books, made soft pretzels from scratch, built a railroad station out of legos complete with a border guard and a city park. We both enjoyed completely unplanned sleep-where-you-fall naps sometime around mid-day. We stayed in our pajamas until nearly 3:00pm, and we only dressed then so we would be warm enough to romp around the playground in the afternoon sun.
We never got in the car. We didn’t spend a penny. We only argued once, and it was finished in minutes with a hug and dinner.
Somewhere in there, I finally got around to creating a homework nook where Bug can plop down when we arrive home from school. This has been one of those lingering tasks I have deftly avoided for two months. I knew it would be helpful for his focus but I could not summon the energy to take it on. It is not easy to find a place on the first floor that isn’t crowded with stuff. Today, high on rest and vacation ease, tackling this project was a breeze. Bug now has a corner of the dining room complete with a bin of school supplies, two chairs, and a clear spot at our underused table. As soon as it was unveiled, Bug sat right down and went to work, covering four loose-leaf pages in pencil drawings.
Just before bath time, we took out a big piece of construction paper and some markers. We wrote “Bug’s Homework Station.” Bug decided it should be decorated with “all bright colors,” so we covered it with polka dots and lollipops. He took great care in taping the sign to the side of the plastic drawers on the table where his crayons and glue sticks now live.
While Bug was simmering in bubbles up to his chin, I sat on a stool at the side of the tub and watched. A little playmobile girl was fighting through the “gloop,” trapped and choking under the surface. His right hand was a giant sea-creature that would rise up through the froth and swoop down on her, “Chomp! Oh, bonk, argh my head!” Trying and trying again to catch her, the hand-monster was foiled every time.
It has been years since a day this good. It has also been years since I have seen my son so clearly. For this extended moment, I was quiet enough in my own head that I could look at Bug and imagine the world as it is to him. What a tilt of the glass! It is like stopping on the busy sidewalk where you walk every day, lying down, and looking up through the buildings and trees. The purpose of every angle, even the ticking of the clock and the throbbing of the human traffic, all shift into new alignment. Sometimes it takes an intentional pause to see things as they really are. In fact, such a pause may be the only thing that clears the gaze.
As he soaked, I felt myself peel open and marvel at the singular experience of the boy inside Bug’s skin and mind.
He looked up from his bath battle and stared back at me a beat longer than usual.
“What?” he asked. “Why do you look like that?”
I smiled. “Because I lo-o-o-ve you.”
He shrugged. “So?”
“And you’re my beautiful boy.”
“Arhh!” Another splash. The hand monster was about to break the surface again. The playmobile girl tried to swim away. “The gloop is around my throat and I can’t breathe!”
Neither could I.
For one fleeting moment, I understood the magnitude of my luck. It feels like waking up.
Being cross for a week does not make a lady enjoyable company. Every time my son goes away, my fretful nature hijacks the controls and takes me for a joy-ride (or a doomride, as it were). Solitude leaves me with too much time on my hands. The long-awaited freedom to “get some work done” takes me on a detour where thoughts spin out at 95mph and the engine burns into the red zone before sputtering out.
It is these sorts of weeks that have me deciding it is time to pursue a PhD or get a second job, start dating or never date again, expand my social circle or remove my broken self from the friendships I am surely already screwing up. Without the ritual of waking to his sleepy voice, without the practical choices the day sets before us (Waffles or pancakes, Buddy? Should we ride the metro to DC or go cut a Christmas tree?) I notice long-ignored pings in the engine and go wrestling the whole beast up onto the hydraulic lift.
What good does it serve, plunging my hands up in there? Still, who can resist? I poke into every dark corner seeking the missing piece and come out choking on grease.
Then he returns.
Every time my son comes home, I tuck my arms around him to sing him down to sleep. Everything slides back to ground level. The engine chugs to life.
It is a wonder how quickly I forget that Bug’s absence is the trigger for all my wrongness. It is a blessing how easily his presence restores me.
Less than 48 hours after making the offer on the condo, fear’s icy hands come to drag me down under the churning surface. A closer look at my budget squeezes the air from my lungs. The Wow of this has become the Ugh. What do you call buyer’s remorse before the purchase? Bidder’s remorse, maybe? If this offer is accepted, I have no earthly idea how I am supposed to make ends meet.
This is supposed to be the happy blog. I know. I will try to write my way there now, because nothing else is working. Thinking is getting me nowhere but further down in the cold dark.
Two and a half years ago when Tee’s job went away, all of our possessions went with it. Four-bedroom house, the shed Tee built for our tools and outdoor gear, furniture, appliances. All the little things a family collects over time had to go away, too: bicycles, books, dishes, linens, lamps, sleds, on and on. You can imagine. We sold tons of stuff on Craigslist. A massive yard sale that brought in $1000.
It was a conflagration. It was as complete as embers and ash.
We moved back to where we had started six years earlier. We rented a storage unit after moving in with my folks but soon realized the rent on the space would far outstrip the cost of the items inside. We emptied it, took several trips to Goodwill, and each tucked away what little bundle of marital debris we could manage in our respective borrowed bedrooms.
I had been out of the workforce raising Bug and being a camp wife in the mountains for five years. This set me back on the job hunt but it did not cripple me. In the wretched economy of 2010, I landed a decent job at an entry-level salary and am thankful for it every day. Even so, my paycheck does not stretch far enough to move Bug and me out of dependence on my parents. In those first panicked months of separation from Tee, I realized that no one was going to fix this for me. If I was going to climb out of my financial hole, I had to do it myself (with ample and very blessed help from the folks, of course. No way around that). Three options seemed to be available to me:
Options 1 and 2 were a bit too risky for my taste. I was fresh out of a marriage to someone whose perception of the world had never been based in a reality I recognized. I needed to place my bets on something that depended less on the whims of others. Sure, I would date (eventually) and sure, I would write (erratically), but I was not yet ready to morph into a Kardashian or JK Rowling.
I am a hard worker, though. I can kick ass when I put my mind to something.
Which is what I have done at my job. It helps that I love it and that working in higher ed is a great way to make a contribution while still drawing in decent benefits. I am pleased to note that 2 1/2 years into my job, I have received two small raises, a promotion, and am being encouraged to take on a greater leadership role at the university. My income has not doubled and it may never, but I have seen my effort and courage rewarded well. This gives me every reason to believe that if I keep on finding ways to grow and improve, new opportunities will present themselves.
It is just a little hard to remember all this when I picture being entirely responsible for mortgage and everything else my son will need to grow up safe and well.
A short sale can take somewhere between 90-120 days to close. This gives me a few months to tighten my belt. I think now about re-accumulating these possessions to make a home, and I see how the expense can sink a person. Tee and I took eight years to build up that foundation. It will take far more than that yard-sale $1000 to begin to re-furnish a life. If I move in the next few months, I will have to come up with stores of money I simply do not have to cover payments my parents’ largesse has helped me avoid. You know, those little things like food in the fridge, heat, and electricity.
I keep running and re-running the numbers in my personal budget. Where else can I shave? The internal chatter has been incessant:
If I bike to the metro every day, I don’t have to pay parking or gas. Can we get by on $200 a month in groceries? What about $150? The gym membership can go, of course. We will have to reel in Christmas and birthdays. No more eating out. I don’t need much in the way of new clothes for the next few years, and I know where to find decent used kid stuff. Shoes for Bug could be a problem. The kid needs a new pair every 6 months!
All of this, to make sure Bug and I have a home. It seems insane to do it. It also seems insane not to. With an interest rate of around 3.5% for 30 years in a high-growth area of the DC metro region, this place can be both a good home and a decent investment for our future. If I can swing it for a couple of spaghetti-years, I may be able to come up with other creative ways to bring in money.
This is where the happiness warms loose the cold grip of fear.The truth is that I have every tool available to me to make this work.
Just because I am tired and scared today and can’t think of how to make this work does not mean it can’t work. I was tired and scared in 2010. I was blind to a way forward. Somehow, we made it here. Here is a really good place to be.
The future is growing up and around me. Some of it is within my control. A great deal of it is coming here to meet me. I keep learning the lay of the land and how to move over it. Just keep walking, as they say, and the way will appear.
A gnawing worry about the coconut cream pie woke me up at before 7:00am. Meringue instead of the planned whipped cream, I was suddenly certain. This meant I was up re-baking at 7:30. No sleeping in. A power nap before departure, then.
(“Oh, to have your problems,” I can hear the billions sighing).
The rest of the day was given to chosen family. Hugs. A walk in the sun. Noise. Food upon food accompanied by wine and more food. Clearing the plates, drying the dishes, stumbling over one another to share in the cleanup. Ziploc bags pressed into hands. “Take some, go on, we could never finish all this!”
More hugs. Home, quiet. A happy dog. Tomorrow’s meal now in the fridge. A walk under the half-moon. A big, empty bed whispering its urgency. Just for me, this night.
Measures of wealth are relative.
Happiness, too.
Shannon E. Williams 