TheMommyBlog

Tuesday, November 24, 2009 Me, Me, Me, Family

Sitting on the deck at My Guy’s tonight… it’s odd. I’ve been here two days now doing my Fran Dresher thing (complete with botching one of the kids’ appointments showing up late to pick him up) and I’m noticing things that have been below the RADAR before now.

For one thing, this house is in a regular neighborhood in Santa Cruz County, busy streets, shopping centers, stop signs, traffic sounds; but there is also this constant, underlying sound of the surf on the beach nearby—I don’t know where, haven’t been to the coast near here yet, have to check Google Earth to see—the rush and the gush of the water on the shore that’s been here forever and will be here long after this house is flattened by time and pace and whatever comes next. Listening to the pound of the surf slowly focuses my eyes on the stars, so many of them, I’m actually recognizing constellations. Not that I am practiced in this, I grew up in Chicago and had to learn about stars and constellations from books, but they are so sharp and pronounced that I can’t help but draw imaginary dotted lines on a clear, creamy parchment, looking from Orion to the Dippers, and to King Kong, and all the others.

Looking at the sky, I saw.

I see that even after this second trying day of keeping My Guy’s kids alive until he returns from work that I have been rewarded. All that I have been missing, all that I have wished for whenever I passed a field with a white horse grazing in it, whenever I tossed coins in a fountain with my children (quintupling the wish when I threw in a nickel), all the times I’ve run a red light, kissed my fingertips and touched the car headliner for luck… it’s here. It’s here.

I don’t know how to describe it.

I’ve been happy. I’ve been comfortable. I have been in love, and wanted it to go on and on.

Now I just am.

I belong.

Whatever happens during the day—not that I condone violence, but I know what turns Mr. Hand into Mr. Fist—I have this to look forward to, this quiet time on the deck, perhaps having a smoke, because it gives me a reason to sit here for a set period of time where otherwise I would think of unfinished tasks and go back inside after a glimpse. I can watch the stars, trace where we saw the blimp chart its path from south to north this afternoon, put my feet up, and listen to the stars. I sense that the Universe is repaying me for my patience, faith, perseverance, and dogged hope. I almost can’t verbalize it, it’s so fragile and forever and hitherto unknown (not unlike purple prose on this site) that it’s enough to acknowledge it with a sidelong glance, and say thanks for what awaits me tonight, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

Thank you.

Thank you for not forgetting me.