The Home Stretch

May 24, 2010

Endings and beginnings.

Progress always involves risks. You can’t steal [home] base and keep your foot on [third].

~Frederick B. Wilcox

This is the last week of school for the kids. It seems like both an eternity and a whirlwind, like most things. Except for the packing of the lunches daily, that seems like an eternity plus a few centuries.

It also marks a year since I bought this house. There are only a couple boxes left to unpack. Boxes which have moved from the garage into my dining room (or what would be my dining room if I had dining room furniture) I thought doing so would motivate me to unpack them. Finally.

But, nope. That hasn’t happened.

Baseball is also coming to an end. The teams of my 5 and 9yr olds are playing their final championship games tonight. Unfortunately, they are at the same time so I will be running back and forth between two fields. Hoping not to miss much, but in reality probably missing the best of both games.

Yes, I will be running just like this. Complete with the oh shit look on my face, too.

Safe!

After the Storm

May 18, 2010

Yesterday it was hot and oppressively humid. Last night, I was at the baseball field (wow, really, Chris? You are never there!) watching my 9yr old son’s game. All of us parents were trying to stand in the little bit of shade available while still being able to watch the game. It was one of those nights where the air felt heavy. It weighed on your shoulders. Even breathing seemed like a momumental effort.

Suddenly the wind began to blow. And by blow I mean, BLOW. We all started looking around wondering if there was a tornado pressing down upon us. There wasn’t. The wind kept blowing.

The kids’ hats blew off of their heads and we laughed as they chased them across the entire field, oblivious to the fact that it was in the middle of a game that they should have been paying attention to. But as serious as they are about playing the game, they are still just little boys. And it is still just a game.

The wind was cold and the temperature dropped rapidly. The sky grew increasingly dark. And even when the rain began to fall, we all couldn’t help but remark on how great it felt. The cold wind and rain felt refreshing. Would it have felt that way if we had not been suffering in the heat just a few minutes before? Would we have been thankful? Would the kids have been running around, laughing, playing tag while cold rain pelted them?

No. We would have all been complaining. About the cold and the rain. About how inconvenienced we all were. About the rain delay. About having to make up the game at a later date. About the dinners we all still had to make. And the homework that still needed to be completed.

And.
And.
And…

Because once the complaining floodgates open, there is no holding back. One complaint leads to another, which leads to another, and before you know it that is all that tumbles out. Everyone is feeling sorry for themself. I hate to admit it, but I am a master at this.

Last night I was reminded of an important lesson.

It is all about perspective.

We all sat under the pavillion waiting for the rain to stop. We sang happy birthday to two kids on the team. The boys all ate cupcakes and then ran around squirting each other with water pistols. I guess when you are 9 and 10 years old your clothing can never be too drenched. I didn’t hear a single complaint.

The baseball game was eventually called due to lightening. As we got into our car to leave a rainbow appeared in the sky. And then a second one.

The Universe just wanted to drive the point home, sometimes you have to go through the storm. Keep it all in perspective. Persevere.

Don’t Knock, Just Come Right In

May 14, 2010

Do your remember the feeling you had when you were a kid in the days leading up to Christmas? Lately I have had that feeling, a feeling of anticipation. There is an electricity in the air.

Except that I don’t have anything big on the horizon. No Santa Claus coming to bestow untold gifts upon me. No big plans for the immediate future. No big career plans. Truthfully, I have nothing going on in my life at this moment to be overly excited about.

And yet.

*****

The past two days have been windy. Really windy. Yesterday morning Miles and I were looking out the breakfast room window at the trees bending and leaves swirling. Oh let’s be honest here, we were also looking at the random papers and brightly colored plastic IKEA cups rolling around the backyard, too.

Miles grabbed my hand.

Let’s go stand outside in the yard, Mommy.

We walked out the door, hand in hand. We stood on the patio for a few minutes. He pulled his hand out of mine and ran into the middle of the yard. He threw his hands up in the air, leaned his head all the way back.

He howled into the wind.

Wooooooooooo! Do this, Mommy!

I went to him in the middle of the yard and stood exactly like he was, the wind whipping my hair into my face.

Do you feel it, Mommy?

As I stood out there barefoot, wearing underwear and a tank top next to my son who was clad only in pajama pants, thankful none of our neighbors can see us in our yard, I thought that if this were a movie it would be foreshadowing. The camera would zoom in tightly to our faces as we looking knowingly into the wind. Dramatic music would swell. There might even be a voice-over telling you that this scene was foreshadowing something big. Just so you wouldn’t miss it.

Something is blowing into town. Prosperity? Happiness? Good fortune? Mary Poppins? I don’t know what it is.

Just that it is.

*****

Every night I pack my kids their lunches for school. Their lunches are fairly predictable. We rotate through the same favorite snacks, sandwiches and fruits. Every once in awhile, though, I like to put something in them that they don’t expect. Maybe a candy kiss, or a Reese’s peanut butter cup, just a little something special that they usually don’t get.

Last week when I was grocery shopping I came across a box of fortune cookies. Who doesn’t love fortune cookies? Not the actual cookie, but the little fortune that comes inside.

I stuck a fortune cookie inside each of their lunch bags. And then I grabbed one for myself.

I can’t wait to find out what it is.

41

May 6, 2010

This is how I want to remember yesterday. Happy. Sun drenched. Loved. Content.

It was those things.

It was a perfectly normal day, the sort you are only thankful for in retrospect.

Except underneath all of that is a melancholy that I am not sure I can even articulate. I have never liked celebrating my birthday. It feels like a day of inevitable disappointment. Disappointment over what I don’t know. That a unicorn didn’t fly over my house shitting rainbows?

Today I woke up with a fresh perspective, like I do every sixth of May. I can look back on my birthday and say, without hesitation, that it was a good day.

Play Ball

May 2, 2010

One Saturday.
Nine hours at the fields.
Eleven different baseball games.

They really should think about replacing the slushie truck with a margarita truck.