First Flight

Sonora looked in her rearview mirror for what must have been the hundredth time since she and her daughter had left their house in the middle of the night.  She wanted to get there before any of the other nervous mothers.  She didn’t need to be reminded of her own fear.

They had been parked at the dam for nearly twenty minutes, the car still running, facing the path to the lake.  The sun would be rising in a little less than an hour.  Umbria was still strapped in her car seat, her legs kicking slowly and distractedly up and down, sucking her thumb, and looking out the window at the lightening sky. 

Sonora took a deep breath before opening the door to her Jeep.  When she got out, she stretched her arms above her head and unfurled her wings which had been cramped behind her for the entire four-hour drive.  As she walked around to unstrap her daughter, fighting back tears, and trying to calm her nerves, she thought to herself: I did this.  My mother did this.  Every woman I know has done this.  She will too.

Umbria had been so small when she was born, fierce and bloody when finally laid upon her mother’s chest, the two small nubs at the top of her shoulder blades, bald and featherless.  It didn’t matter then if she could fly or not.  She had years before she had to worry about that.    

            Sonora couldn’t get this image of her tiny child out of her head as she picked her up out of the car seat, her daughter’s wings beating in excitement at being taken to a new place.  But those wings.  They were so small, so frail and the feathers so sparse.  Over the past few months, when she was supposed to be exhibiting signs of flight and developing her weightlessness, her tiny form seemed magnetized to the earth.  Every time she had tried to skip around the house, she couldn’t get more than an inch or two off the ground.  Sonora smiled and cheered her little girl on with every effort, but inwardly, she panicked. 

What if she couldn’t do it?

            The dam had been built centuries ago, by men taller than trees, stacking the stones wider than houses, one on top of another, stopping the river to create the lake.  And it was here, at this sacred space where daughters proved to their mothers they could fly. They had until they turned five.  If they flew before then – they would make it, they would live, and they didn’t have to come here.  If not, like Umbria, they received one final chance to soar over the dam and across the magic water on the eve of their birthday.  But sometimes, they didn’t.  Should a girl not fly, there eventually would come a day, after falling asleep, their useless wings resting softly behind them, they would not wake.  Remaining silent, in sudden sleeping death.

            Sonora could feel the impatience in her daughter as they approached the dam.  She set Umbria down, and placed the soft, woolen blanket on the ledge to wrap her in if she failed and fell.  Umbria, however, was not afraid.  She bounced up and down as she peeked over the edge.  With each eager hop, the lights in her shoes blinked a fluorescent red.  She was just tall enough to see the lake, glassy and dark beneath the surface.

            “What’s in there, Momma?”  she asked, looking up at her.

            Sonora smiled, remembering what her own mother had told her.  She remembered fearing what lay beneath the surface.  She wanted to save herself and prove she could fly so she could return quickly to the safety of home.  Umbria, however frail, wasn’t fearful like her mother. 

“Mermen and whales.  Seaweed and sunken ships.  Entire cities made of shells and glass.”  She told her, tickling her chin.  Her daughter’s eyes got wide and then a small smile crept on her lips.

            “Nu-uh, Momma. I don’t believe you.”  However, Umbria quickly looked back at the lake, looking for a swish of a tale.

            The sun had just crested over the edge between the lake and the sky, cutting it in two.

            “Ok, my darling.”  She lifted her up to stand on the ledge.  She turned her small body and placed her hands on her face, cupping it and drawing it close so their noses almost touched.  “Are you ready to fly?”  Umbria nodded, her cheeks flushing and her thin wings trembling behind her in anticipation. 

            “Remember, push the air down, towards the earth and away from you.  Breath in as your wings come up and breath out as you rise.”  Umbria was trying to turn away from her mother, shifting impatiently, straining towards the lake.  Sonora was petrified her final words of advice would be missed and her last chance at ensuring her survival would be wasted.

            “Ok!  Can I go now?”  Umbria begged, her blinking toes stomping eagerly towards the edge.

            “Yes.  Yes, you may go.  I love you.  Remember, I’ll catch you.”  And with that, Sonora let go.  She wanted to cover her eyes, swing her hands to her face and bring the warmth of her daughter’s cheeks to her own and miss the fall she was almost certain she was about to witness.

            Umbria turned and launched herself from the ledge, her wings fanning out so much wider than Sonora had ever seen.  As quickly as her body had flung forward, it disappeared, plummeting down towards the water.  Sonora leapt to the edge, her own wings wide and ready to dive.  When she looked to the lake, searching directly beneath the space where her daughter had fallen, she didn’t see the water swallowing up her child as she had expected, but found her when she looked straight ahead at the increasingly shrinking form of Umbria, riding the air inches above the lake, gaining speed towards the place where the sun split the water and air.

           

The Day the Earth Shook

My darling girl, 364 days and 23 hours ago, I was trying desperately to go to sleep.  And as anyone who has ever stayed in the hospital for more than a day can tell you, that feat is nearly impossible.  But as the clock crept past midnight, my usual discomfort began to change and morph into something unfamiliar and more difficult.  I have never known such pain.  My body seemed to lengthen.  My mind tried to convince me that from the crown of my head to my toes, I had expanded a mile.  I never got wide, barely putting on weight with your small body.  But the pain seem too huge and too great to be held by my 66 inches, and if I we're to look down, I would not be able to see my toes, so far away with so much aching and ripping and thrashing between.

I would never have believed someone so small and so perfect and so helpless could cause so much pain and fear and anxiety and terror. But you did.  You came into this world quickly and ferociously.  Too quick for medicine and drugs and deep breaths and quiet, numb entrances.  I gnashed my teeth and screamed out at the woman next to me telling me to be quiet.  I couldn't understand her words telling me to direct my screams to my belly and push push push.  Screaming didn't help, she said.  Screaming distracts the body, she said.  I never went to a class or read a book or a website or talked to another woman who had made it out of this room alive.  I feared I wouldn't as I screamed and cried and yelled anyway in the face of the woman chiding me for my noise.

But then it was finished.  Your tiny lungs, smaller than the size of a not-yet inflated balloon let out a cry I can still hear.  And the fifteen doctors rushed around you and put a tiny hat on your head full of hair and a mask on your mouth to help those too-small lungs, setting you gently but swiftly into a plastic box you would call home for the next two and half months.  But before they took you, before they wheeled you away to make sure your brain and your eyes and your heart and your lungs were safe and sound because my body couldn't keep you anymore, they let us hold your hand.  And you reached up.  You stretched high with your translucent skin and your needle-thin fingers and you grasped ours.  You clutched my finger with your whole hand and you held tight.  You let me know that it was ok.  You let me know that you would be kept safe and to not be upset I couldn't hold you inside of me anymore.  You let me know you knew me.  You let me know you would fight and fight hard.

My darling girl, you are destined for greatness.  You have already overcome the hardest part, and beaten the toughest odds.  Every. Single. Day. You show up and give me the million reasons to do the same.  When the cards are stacked against us and things can sometimes seem really really hard, you still show up.

It's been a hell of a year.  A stranger asked me the other day how old you were.  I answered, a year next Thursday.  They congratulated me for surviving the first year.  I smiled.

We survived, baby girl.

We made it.

Tomorrow we celebrate you.

Tomorrow we remember the day the earth shook.

Tomorrow marks a year since the first time you changed everything.

Happy Birthday

It has been nearly six months since I've posted anything on this blog and it's been even longer since I've written anything creatively other than a jotted-down line or paragraph in my phone's Notes section which I hope to come back to and use later.  But I haven't.  I've simply been storing them up.

It is also interesting, to me at least, to look back and realize that a year ago, I was sitting in a hospital bed, my back aching, eyes red and sore from constant crying, and my brain fuzzy from the information and weighty news it had received approximately a week before.  The constant oceanic pulse of my daughter's swift heartbeat filling my small room, the flowers and balloons I had received for my 29th birthday already starting to wilt and deflate.

I didn't know then, that she would come so early but also so perfectly on time.  I didn't know I would be flying to what would be my future home in Pittsburgh to stand next to my best friend, my sister as she vowed to love her husband forever.  I didn't know this kid would turn out to be one of the best things that has ever happened to me.  I didn't know how much I would be changed, how much of myself I miss but also how much of this new self I am proud of and impressed by.

I have always worked hard.  I was and am still the girl you call to pick up a shift or ask to help out with some favor or another.  But raising this tiny human has given me so much more pride in the work I have done, am doing, and will still do to be a better person, partner, mother and creator during my short time on this earth.  She makes me want to be better, work harder, eat kale, run longer, and create.  Oh god, does she make me want to create.  Now, don't get me wrong.  More than anything else, she makes me want to take a nap.  However, when it's quiet here in the house, and I've just begun the third load of laundry at 12:47am, I think to myself, if I was able to ACCIDENTALLY create such a magnificent and incredibly wonderful kid, what else am I capable of doing intentionally?  How else can I return the favor of being alive and having the joy of mothering this person than to continue to produce other things to bring the same happiness she brings me?

I got my best birthday gift, ten minutes before writing this post.  I was given the peace which comes from knowing there is so much beauty left to make and see, because I have the evidence of its existence right now, sleeping in a crib above me.

France

It’s like we were told we had to move to France.

“You’re leaving in 2 months. You are vacating the home you had built for yourselves, walls bursting with plans and dreams and paintings and pictures of the life you wanted to have for yourselves. You may never return to this house. It has been burned to the ground and swallowed up by the sea. From this point on, you will be ex-pats of this single and childless house. You will now and forever be responsible for this new house which, in turn, has new rooms. It has new paintings and windows and furniture and beds for those who will lay relative claim to it. They now have the right to come visit you in France, whenever they want. Your dialect will be your own, you may paint your house. You may paint it any color you want. But that too will change. It will fade or brighten depending on the soil in which you set it and the sun that will shine upon it. It will grow and create new rooms which you do not have access to.”

That is how it felt when we were told we were going to have a baby. We were told we were going to
have a baby nine weeks before we were going to move to another city. We were counting down the
weeks like pregnant couples count them down and up and away. We were nine weeks away. We had
begun to pack. We had made a reservation for a U-Haul (for which I received a confirmation the day I
went into labor). But. However. Although.

There were so many endings wrapped up in that beginning. So many stops to that start. So much more pressure, so much more. Still, sometimes, I cannot breathe thinking about it. Still, I shake my head and wonder if it is all some sort of elaborate joke, a prank, a story about someone else who isn’t me. But no. This is my reality. This is our life. And it will forever be something I didn’t plan on or prepare for. What am I supposed to do now? I had planned on so much. I wanted so much. I needed so many other things to happen before (instead) of this.

Life by Numbers

905.

96 92 87 88 84 77 62 83 88 94.

27 and 4.

17.

733.

1,216.

3 to 5.

14.

My life has been ruled by numbers since June.  The number of grams my daughter weighed when she was born.  The fluctuating oxygen satuaration in her small body causing my own breath to catch and alarms to ring when it dipped below 86.  The number of weeks and days when she was born.  The day she was supposed to be born.  The lifeline of social security her birthweight qualified our family for. The number of miles from here to our new home.  The number of years I was willing to give Austin.  The number of days I have left here.

I never expected to leave this city with two more people than when I came.  A dog, sure, and she's coming along too.  But a life partner and daughter?  Never.  It would have been a fool's bet.

You couldn't have told me I would be choosing another cold state after leaving this warm and sticky one.  I would have argued and smirked saying never under my breath.

We were supposed to be living in Vegas by now, you know.  That was our plan.  We were going to work hard and stack cash and reset our accounts and stroll hand in hand under the bright neon lights in the middle of the desert.  We were going to get off work at 2am, run home to change and grab the dog and then drive 5 hours through the night, trying to outrun the sun at our backs to the Pacific.

While I may not be strolling Flamingo Ave., I do see the hours before the sun now, the night and I so friendly, so familiar.  But instead of heading to California, humming along to Ryan Adams on the car radio with the windows rolled down, I am crooning the Lumineers to my newborn, my daughter, with the widest and most restless eyes I've ever known.  Hers are the color of the Atlantic, gray and dark blue and stormy.  They are pulling us east, not west, towards family and financially easier footing.

I fought it. I wanted to continue on with our plans.  I wanted to see it through and carry her along with us.  But our daughter is mighty.  She has changed our course.  And I feel now, so much more than ever before, like I have absolutely no control.  I have no say.

I do not know what to do next.  I was not prepared for this shift in the direction of my life.  And while I am in love with her, I am in awe of her, and I am forever grateful for the universe telling me and my plans to take a back seat and let it drive (because I never really had a hand on the wheel in the first place), I still grieve for the life I wanted for myself that did not include a baby.  And I accept and expect judgement from that statement.  However, I believe we are complex enough, multifaceted enough to hold two (or more!) feelings within us at once.  I can love my daughter endlessly, and still wistfully look down the other path and life that could have been.

We're leaving this town in two weeks.  There are so many memories here, good and bad.  So many experiences that have forever changed me.  I'm a Mom now.  And I have to take it minute by minute, second by second, placing one unsure foot in front of the other until the next chapter unfolds itself, presenting my humble little family with its next set of challenges and opportunities.

I accomplished the one thing I wanted in this town though, one which will allow me to leave without any regret:  I lived the last 46 months the best I could, and in such a way that allowed me to continue writing a truly interesting story.

Pop

Blake was checking the perimeter, the sun having just sunk beneath the horizon.  When he heard the shots, he cut into the field.  Finding immediate coverage overruled his desire to go back for his gear.  Instinctually, he disappeared quickly and silently. 

The shots rang out from the west. 

Pop. 

Pop. 

Pop.

One shot every five seconds or so.  He began to run, steady and measured.  Several minutes later, he heard another round of gunfire, closer and clustered together coming from the southeast.

Pop pop pop pop pop. 

He stopped and sank low.  The stuttering noise of what sounded like automatic weapons caused his heart to sink.  He only had his Beretta.  However, even though he was hidden at the moment, crouching near the soft ground, a single spray of bullets would eventually find him. 

He hunched low and began walking quickly north.  Pop pop.  He had to keep moving, only hoping he was headed in a direction away from the gunfire. 

A rigid branch crunched quietly as he shouldered his way deeper into the field, soft tassels brushing his cheek.

He thought about the last time he saw Tommy; he had been coloring at their kitchen table.  When Blake placed his hand on his son’s small shoulder, he looked over and saw the picture was of the American flag.  It was messy and child-like, but there was no mistaking the reds, blues, and blank white spaces marking the familiar stars and stripes.  He could still feel the softness of the boy’s husk-colored hair, streaks of blonde brightened in the summer, just like his mother’s.

There was a sharp pain behind his right eye pulsing with his heartbeat, his vision beginning to blur.  Shaking his head and looking behind him, he saw the field went on and on with rows like black tunnels, bordering high stalks stretching high and thick.  

Boom. 

Boom. 

Boom.

He felt the explosions in his chest, rattling his ribcage.  The early July heat was fierce and unrelenting, his undershirt soaked in sweat.  The sky was now black, and the vegetation so dense and straight and unmoving in the still night air.  Suddenly, there was beam of light, quick and fleeting.  It was yellow and artificial, swinging back and forth quickly, searching.

He decided to run in the opposite direction, and after fifteen seconds, he heard their voices.  They were yelling, high with tongues rolling.  He figured they were about a hundred yards away.  Because he only had his handgun, he was able to run much faster than he would have with his rifle and full body armor.  But because of this nakedness, he needed to find somewhere to hide before the band arrived.

Blake cut in and out and between the high growth of the field, trying to avoid bending any stalks and branches which would leave a trail.  Then he heard Sara’s voice causing him to stop.

“Blake!”

This happened all the time.  He imagined hearing his wife at the worst of times, usually deep in the middle of combat. 

“Blake! Where are you!?”

It was both distracting and comforting.  He pushed it away and started running.  He couldn’t afford to be distracted, not when he was this vulnerable.

Pop.

The gunfire sounded further now and less frequent.  Feeling he was in a good position, he slowed to a walk, his shoulders hunched, his pistol raised.  Suddenly, gunfire was everywhere.  It was closer now, above and behind him, no more than fifty yards away.  He stopped, unsure which way to run.  There was a snap of a stalk broken behind him.  He spun and fired once.  Nothing.  There was only an empty row staring blankly in front of him. 

A searing pain abruptly shot behind both of his eyes followed by a wave of nausea so intense he doubled over and nearly fell to his knees.  He tasted char and red meat.  Five seconds.  Ten seconds.  He was wasting too much time.  He knew he had to keep moving, they were too close, there were too many of them.

Boom.  

Pop, pop.  

Boom.  Boom.  Boom.   

His mouth was sour with sick, his head pounding.  Every direction he ran, it seemed he was running towards a new enemy with the others right behind him.

His right eye went dark.  The pain in his head was so severe he thought he was going to pass out. He stumbled half-blind, feeling a ridge on either side of his feet.  He didn’t know whether to trust this path or try and fight his way through the thin trees on either side.

“Blake!” 

He wished his wife’s voice was real, feeling the tears stream down his face.  Something caught his foot and tripped him to the ground, his face slamming down hard.  His breath caught in his chest, and he wondered if he should just lay there, waiting for it to be over.  He was so close to giving up.

“BLAKE!” 

He flipped over, the yellow light blinding his remaining left eye, and fired.  POP. 

The light swayed for a moment, slightly right then left, then fell to the earth.  Blake sat up slowly, and crawled towards the body.  The flashlight was pointing at the person’s feet.  They were small and narrow, wearing red Keds.  He followed the lean tan legs to a denim skirt, then a white tank top with an American flag, blood staining and stretching out from the dark hole in the center of the chest.  He couldn’t see her face at first.  Then, it glowed red.  Pop.  Then blue. Pop.  Then green into purple, pop pop,, and with a deep and overhead boom, it glowed white.  Sara’s eyes were wide, staring up from the ground of their Iowa cornfield, the fireworks scattered in the sky. 

Homecoming

For the past 89 days, I have spent some portion of my time, every day, in a hospital.  For the first 14, I was the patient.  Then, for the next 75, I would spend visiting my daughter, waiting for her to grow from one pound, fifteen ounces, and fourteen inches long to where she is now, six pounds, three ounces and eighteen inches long.  I am sure I will recount the struggles, the challenges, the battles, the victories and all the moments experienced in between someday.  But, for now, I will simply celebrate the homecoming of my daughter.  She is not sleeping at the moment even though I fed her by bottle and by breast and bathed her and sang to her and changed her and swaddled her.

And that's ok.

I will look into those deep dark blue eyes taking in all that is new and unfamiliar and undeniably home.  There are no bright fluorescent lights here.  No beeping monitors or laughing nurses or hourly vitals to be taken.  There is just us.  Just the four of us (Roxy is still getting used to her - her hands and feet have been licked all in good measure).

Here's to baby.

Here's to a new life.

Here's to the next great adventure.

The Year of the Rabbit

The stairs to the basement creaked loudly.  The light switch at the top had stopped working earlier that year so the light had to be turned on at the bottom.  Jin had been meaning to fix it for months, Danielle too nervous to walk downstairs in the dark while she was pregnant, avoiding all trips without Jin leading the way.  He cursed himself for waiting so long as he stumbled down in the dark carrying the heavy and awkward glider. 

“There are always miracles.”

It was the year of the rabbit.  Danielle didn’t believe in signs or God or fate, but Jin did.  He prayed to both the Christian God and to his ancestors every day since finding out about his son.  She called him old-fashioned.  He could picture his son, James, a strong and handsome and funny young man.  Her due date was on Easter.  She had chosen the name for her father.  He liked it because it was the name of Jesus’s most beloved disciple.

“He is a fighter...”

There were dozens of bags from Danielle’s most recent shower.  He set the last of them down in the corner of the basement, overflowing and haphazardly filled with blankets and onesies and crib sheets and diapers.  He began with the bedroom because he knew it would take the longest, and there was very little time. 

“…but we want you to be prepared.”

He moved on to the kitchen.  He couldn’t decide if he wanted to put the champagne that had been chilling in the kitchen’s refrigerator into the one downstairs, or allow it to come back up to room temperature, or throw it away altogether.  The checklist in his head was getting crossed off, one room after another.  He found the box for the breast pump and the Baby Bullet broken down and folded behind the washer.  He reassembled them and carefully placed the equipment back in their boxes.  Danielle had given him such a hard time when he came home with the Bullet.

“He isn’t even going to be able to eat solids or baby food for months.” Jin remembered their small fight perfectly. 

“Why did you buy that?”  They were folding all of the recently washed baby clothes they had been given in the basement, when suddenly Danielle let out a little “Oh.” 

He remembered her looking down and then up again, her face sheet-white.  She looked so scared.

“We never really know why things like this happen.”

He scanned the house once more, looking for all traces and triggers.  He grabbed the What to Expect When You’re Expecting book from her nightstand, leaving nothing in either of the bedrooms.  As he turned to head back downstairs, he noticed the overnight bag sitting by the front door, forgotten in their haste.  He slung it over his shoulder and headed down.

“I would give him about a week.  His liver is no longer responding.  His organs are beginning to shut down.”

Danielle would be home tomorrow.  She hadn’t spoken since they had taken his small body away, all 800 grams of him, just under two pounds.  Jin had tried to comfort her, praying silently to whomever would listen, but she would not be consoled.  Her eyes staring empty, her mouth set.  The tears never stopped streaming down her cheeks and into the soft creases between her neck and chest and engorged and useless breasts. 

“Sometimes these things just happen.”

After coming back downstairs for the last time, Jin sat down in the glider, surrounded by everything they had bought and been given and made in preparation for their first and only son.  He began rocking slowly back and forth when he noticed a small gray rabbit lying face down on the floor.  It must have fallen out of one of the bags.  He remembered buying it a few weeks earlier, gently placing it in the corner of James’s crib.

“Lay your hands on him and let him know you are there.”

He got up and walked towards the toy.  Picking it up, his breath began to shorten as he felt the softness of its ears and arms and legs, reminding him of the gentle blonde fuzz all over his dying son’s body.   He squeezed his eyes shut and clutched the rabbit to his chest, sucking in a shallow and sharp breath and then letting out an anguished sob.  His head hung low, a stabbing pain shooting behind his right eye.  He started wringing the rabbit’s body, twisting it in opposite directions.

“He can hear your voice.  The ears are some of the first things to develop.  Talk to him.”

He threw the rabbit with all of his might.  Silently it fell to the floor, as if caught by something invisible, too light to carry the weight Jin needed.  The unimpressive result of this violence enraged Jin.  He turned around and picked up the glider and heaved it at the entertainment center.  It crashed into the TV and dented the wall deeply.  He moved on to the boxes and bags, swinging them in every direction.  Onesies with “Mommy and Daddy Love Me” and “Little Rascal” stitched on the front, blue bibs and tiny hats and swaddlers and pacifiers falling all over the floor.   He grabbed the bottle of champagne he had decided to leave out to warm, and hurled it against the wall near the stairs.  It hit the switch and the light shut off, leaving him in complete darkness.

“He isn’t in any pain.”

  

Sunday Best

It looks like a beautiful day out there.  I'm sure it is hot and muggy, the breeze only strong enough to annoyingly move around the pieces of hair not sweating and clinging to your neck.  But it looks beautiful.

I was able to spend a glorious thirty minutes in the hospital's courtyard this morning.  I had been up for over three hours, but it was still early and cool and the birds were out, flying all around the enclosed space.  Before that, I had blood drawn, prenatal supplements and iron distributed.  I had been visited by three nurses and one attending doctor.  All of them asking me the same questions I hear every morning, afternoon, and night.  Any tenderness when I press here?  Any nausea?  How about blurred vision?  Can you still feel the baby move?

I read an article last night about birth control.  Apparently, my situation happens in only 6% of cases.

The bracelets on my wrist make me look like some sort of ACL attendee.  Except instead of getting me backstage, they alert doctors of my penicillin allergy, my blood type, and a bar code which is scanned a dozen times a day when any one of my fifteen nurses flushes my IV or gives me Tylenol or hooks the baby up to a heart monitor for 20 minutes (which always turns into over an hour because they have other patients too).

I have finished two books so far.  I wasn't very impressed with either of them.

I am trying to keep my spirits up, read books, write and think about baby names.  I'm trying to do my best.  But this week, I am going to allow myself to wallow a bit.  Just this week though.  Because had my life continued on the way it was supposed to go on, the way I thought it was going to continue, the way any just and kind God or universe or supreme being would allow it to go on, would still have allowed my boyfriend and I to be driving somewhere through Arkansas at this time.

I can still picture it.  I would be driving and looking for a friendly, grassy area to stop and walk Roxy around but edging myself just a bit further on,

Make it to 6:00pm.  

Keep going until you get to the next exit.  

Go another thirty miles and then you can stop.

I would be so excited and anxious to get there, to have a vacation from both of my jobs, to be able to get out of town and the heat and spend days and days with my family and old friends I haven't seen in years.  We would stop in Nashville tonight.  We would check into a cheap hotel, sneak Roxy in and walk around the city for a bit.  Then we'd crash and sleep hard but not long because I'd want to get on the road again.  We'd go to this little restaurant the boy had found, Biscuit Love (http://biscuitlove.com/) right as they opened and I would have bought a coffee mug.  We'd push the critter around the block once more before hitting the road again, our bellies full of benedicts and coffee.

Then it would be a race.  I wouldn't want to waste any time.  There is so much I have to do as the MOH and I would want to see my sister.  I would want to get this wild circus of a wedding week underway.  I would want to get everything started that we have been talking about for a year.

But instead, I can do little more than pick up a new book, read the first few pages and put it down again.  I count down the hours until I have to order another meal from the cafeteria.  I wonder what everyone else is doing today.  I've texted many; the boy, mom and sister and a few friends but haven't heard back from anyone yet.  It's so quiet.

My flowers are starting to die.  Some still look great and happy and beautiful.  But some have given up, no one to change their water, the window probably very warm there as they sit with nowhere to go.  It's been a week since they've all arrived.  But I don't want to get rid of them yet.  They add a lot of color.  They remind me of those who sent them, still out there, living their lives.

Unexpected

Of all of the posts I've written, of all of the words, these will absolutely be some of the weightiest and life-altering.

There really is no other way to say this except: I am pregnant.  I will be having a child.  It wasn't in the plan and any of you who has known me for more than five minutes knows that having children was not in my future vision for my life.  At all.  But, as many of you and now especially I know, life doesn't really care what our plans are.  My boyfriend and the father, is the only one I could imagine to be the one who is here with me now, next month and for whatever happens for our little family in the future.

My due date is September 17th.  Which is just shy of three and a half months away.  Without going too terribly far into the medical details but to also ensure I'm not grouped into the MTV-class of women eligible for a ridiculous reality show (Toilet-babies, anyone?), I had done everything I was supposed to, taken every measure to guarantee this didn't happen.  But, I ended up being the 1 in 100 for whom preventative methods just don't work, the less than 5%, the miracles or the ones who end up in a room being told something they never thought in a million years they would hear.  But I was that one.  I am in that small percent.  I heard those words at 1:34 p.m. on Wednesday June 8th telling me I would be a mother.

At this exact moment, I am listening to my baby's heartbeat.  It is sticking to a steady 145-160 bpm and much to my nurses' chagrin, he or she moves around a lot making the monitor unable to read as it should.  It is so surreal and so strange and so not at all what I thought I would be doing one day before my twenty-ninth birthday.  What a present, right?

In addition to being told I would be a mother, I would also be staying in the hospital...until the baby arrives.  We are both healthy at this moment but because of a small complication, I cannot go home.  I cannot work.  I cannot be out of bed for more than a few minutes at a time.  My full time job will to work through my reading list, write the next great American novel, and keep this little critter in my belly as long as possible which, best case, is two months but could be in the next two days (let's all not hope for that).

Someone, something, some great universal being or power or God himself wants me to have a kid, wants me to be a mom.  And know I am embracing this shift, this life-altering reality.  I am excited to TRY to be the kind of parent I've always said should exist to create the most incredible and respectful and just downright cool kid (because all any of us can ever do is try).  I have such an amazing support system and there are many things that are going to happen and plans (tentative because, well, you know, those can't always be counted on) we are so excited about.

I'm sure there is much to be figured out, steps to take, things to buy and favors to be asked but for now, know I am happy, we are healthy, and we couldn't be in better hands.

Much love to you all, from the three of us.  More to come...

Reentry

It has been months since I have visited this site, let alone written anything to be published and shared.  So much and so very little has happened, nothing really of note.  But I am peeking my head and my heart out once more to reenter this world of the written word.

I have been trying my hand at novel writing.  I will not say much about it because it is still so new and so precious to me that I feel I want to hold it close until it (and I) grow in strength and confidence.  But suffice it say, it feels very much like my own, and something I am excited about and feel I will be proud of.  And if nothing more happens to it than its completion and possible self-publishing on Amazon, I will be satisfied and continue trying my hand at other things and exercising my writing mind and muscles regularly.

The weather is perfect here in Texas.  It is warm with a cool breeze, the skies are nearly always blue with big puffy white clouds and the days are long, stretching late into the evening making the darkness so quick and fleeting that I feel like a small child again heading to bed not long after the sun has set.

I missed speaking here.  Writing this small bit out, I am realizing how much it did for me.  Even if there isn't anyone out there reading these words.  Even if they are simply dumped out into a void.  Even if nothing comes of it other than my typing fingers strengthening, I will find myself glad to have been here.

Happy Monday, everyone.  I hope you are all filled with as much hope and inspiration for things to come as I am today.

V

Bad Grownup

What makes one a good grownup.  How is it decided you are an official adult?  A 401K?  Children and a spouse?  Graying hair?  I have none of these (the last thanks to my brilliant sister - stylist and colorist), but does not having those things mean I am not an adult?

I remember my mother saying she would forever be 28.  It didn't matter how many times the calendar read October 30th, she always said she felt 28.  If asked, I bet she would still stand by that statement.  I also now know exactly how she feels.  Except I feel a little bit closer to 19.  

There is a running joke between my fella and I that I am a "bad grownup."  I forget to buy toilet paper, I fall (ahem) a year behind in filing my taxes, and recently have begun what I thought was only characteristic of teenager: bailing on perfectly good jobs without anything else lined up and no real plan or reason why.  

This June, I will enter the last year of my 20's.  And it's scary and depressing and I am filled with all kinds of insecurities about it.  

But I also feel like good things are going to happen this year.  Big things.  Life-changing things.  Because they have to.  Because things have been really really shitty.  And all things must come to an end, this too shall pass, blah blah, etc., etc.

And, I have decided I am the only one who determines what kind of adult I should be.  So tonight, I will eat ice cream for dinner.  Tomorrow, I will set the alarm for 8am but forgive myself if I want to hit snooze a few times.  I will start the day with lemon water and morning pages.  But most importantly, I will try to be present (because all any of us can do is try).  I will try to enjoy this week, this day, this moment because no matter how we may feel on the inside, the days will continue to pass, and we were never promised many.  

Sparkling Gold - Flash Fiction Challenge 2015 Story 2

Genre: Fairy Tale
Location: Funeral Home
Object: Spaghetti with Meatballs

 

 

 

Sparkling Gold

Rapunzel died on Monday.  Angela hadn't had someone this noteworthy in a long time.  It had been over a year since she prepared Sleeping Beauty.  But, because of their track record and tendency to only seem to die, various tests needed to be administered to any royalty, celebrity, magical creature or historically significant person before they were deemed “officially deceased.”  That was Angela’s job.  She was the resident Death Tester and mortician for the kings and queens and godmothers and just once, a beloved squirrel.

 

Rapunzel’s hair had not been touched by time.  It had stayed as golden as the straw she spun until the day she died at 104.  Only her face and hunched back showed her age.  She had deep lines around her mouth and crows feet branching out from her eyes.  But her hair still held the luster of youth, the golden trusses hanging low over the cold metal table.

 

Now Friday, Rapunzel had passed most of the tests.  Her body had been cleared for poison and sleeping elixirs.  Frogs and toads were pressed to her stiff lips.  Magic harps played on a loop.  Enchanted birds were brought in to whistle her favorite tune.  Spinning-wheel needles were confiscated from witches’ homes and screened for spells.  Prince Rupert had just left, the fourth and youngest prince of the current royal family.  It was his job to kiss each dead lady to rule out any bewitchment that might require a prince to awaken them.  He kissed Rapunzel quickly.  Needless to say, this “duty,” wasn't his favorite. 

 

After all the tests were complete, and the dead remained dead, Angela would prepare them for their glass coffin.  They were celebrities even in death.  Their stories remaining real as long as their bodies could be seen.

 

Now that Rapunzel had been officially declared dead, the world could begin grieving and await their chance to stand before the glass coffin, and say their farewells to the woman who inspired a century of blonde hair color and floor-sweeping lengths. 

 

But a year before, almost to the day, Rapunzel had come to Angela and asked her to do the unthinkable. 

 

“I want you to cut it all off.  And then I want you to burn it.”   The wrinkled woman had to look up at Angela during their meeting at the funeral home, her head weighted down, her neck no longer strong enough to support the weight of the hair. “Please, you must promise.”

 

Angela didn't want to do it.  She had been told her story as a little girl and she loved picturing the prince climbing up her strong braid to rescue her.  Angela fought within herself, holding onto the magic of Rapunzel and her hair, but also felt pity for the old woman and what had become of her.  She could hear the desperation in her voice and the fear that her hair would keep growing, turning her into even more of a spectacle than she had been when she was alive.

 

"I swear."

 

After receiving Rapunzel’s body, she spent five days combing it, running her fingers through the never-tangling locks.  It was cold, the telling chill of dead hair.  She thought while administering the potions and spells to safeguard against burying one of the famous too soon, that the temperature of the hair was the only test they ever really needed.  Living hair retains heat, stretching down to the very tips. But once a person dies, the hair will forever be cold, lifeless and still. 

 

She thought of their meeting a year before, and remembered her promise to do as the old woman had asked.   She waited until the end of the night, the harps and singing birds quiet under their covering sheets and cages.  She pulled out a pair of scissors, the same ones she often used to trim and style hair and beards and the curling mustaches of the villains.  She held up a handful of gold, allowing it to slip through her fingers like cool water.  Then she put the blade around the thin ropes that raised a man to his love, strong enough to support his quest and magical enough to inspire a story to be told again and again, imprinting a picture of true love on every girl’s heart.

 

“What are you doing?” Griffin asked while clutching a stained Tupperware of reheated spaghetti he brought in for his lunch every day, a half-chewed meatball in his mouth.

 

“Nothing!” she said, startled and dropping the scissors.

 

“Don't do anything stupid.” he said, eyeing her suspiciously.  Griffin was her assistant and a distant cousin to Sleepy, one of Snow White’s infamous seven.  “Whatever you're doing, you won’t get away with it.  You can’t sell it, you'd lose your job.”

 

“I was just trimming it.”

 

"Ya, whatever." He turned and left to finish his meal in the front parlor.

 

She knew she would never get away with what she was about to do, and she wasn't exactly sure what would happen to her.  But despite her hesitation to destroy something so famous, so integral to a story known by thousands, she felt compelled to lift the burden from the old woman trapped beneath the unbearable weight of her golden hair.

 

So she began to cut slowly, worried Griffin would come back.  But with each lock that fell to the floor, she felt more confident about what she was doing.  Soon, there was nothing more than a rough inch of hair sticking straight up on the crown of Rapunzel’s head.  And for a moment, she thought she saw Rapunzel smile.  But before she could worry she had been declared dead too soon, the old woman started to disappear and fade into nothing.  Only the pile of hair remained.  Angela stood quiet, and then slowly started gathering it up.  She walked to the furnace, careful to not miss a strand, and dumped it all in.  It burst and crackled like straw and sparked like gold. 

Nowhere to Hide

I read an article moments ago entitled "Why the Fuck Are You Writing?" and it made some really hard-hitting points.  It did away with the good-feel-y statements that most writers make about their motivations for writing and tapped into their true reasons.

And I related.

In the deepest of places and the basest of reasons, reasons that I don't often (or never have) told people:

I want to write to be validated.
I want people to know how smart I am.
I want people to know how much I have suffered and pity me.
I want to make money doing this and not ever have to work in a restaurant again.
I want my college years and DEBT to mean something.
I want to write something that I would like to read.
I want followers.
I want recognition.
I want.
I want.
I want.

The article's point was we should stop writing like the selfish and conceited assholes we really are and actually try and put something out in the world that helps people.


And after reading this article, and realizing I am a selfish and conceited asshole writer, what could I write today that would help other people?  What could I do that would be more than just my whiny anecdotes about just how hard I had/have/will always have it?  Still not totally sure but let's see how this goes:

Sometimes I have to remind myself of the most important lessons I have ever learned: you are your own barometer for happiness and the reason for my arrow tattoo, if you feel like you are being pushed or pulled or held back, sometimes it means you are about to be launched into something better, greater, bigger, and more wonderful than where you are now.

And I've been feeling pushed, pulled and held back recently.

I have never been very good at hiding my emotions.  If I am upset, angry, sad, tired, joyful, annoyed, excited, or bored, it shows up on my face like a bright flashing sign.  I walk into a room and I might as well scream "Hey!  I'm fucking pissed!" or: "I am so incredibly excited for x to occur that I can't even stand it!" or most often: "Am I the only one that's working right now?"

And it's a problem.  I wish that I were a better poker player or I didn't let things upset me so much.

But what I am going to attempt to do today and tomorrow and for the rest of the week and month and year is realize that we are exactly where we are meant to be.  I am learning something, whether I realize it or not, from where I am living and working.  I will live in the moment and stop wishing away the here and now because the then and future will be so much better.  There are good things about this moment right now - even if I can't see or feel them.  And the better and greater and bigger and more wonderful "something" that I hope to be launched into will arrive in its own time.  Why waste this moment being miserable?  Things are never really that bad.  So here's to my attempt at turning my frown upside down.  And here's to trying to contribute something.  (Even though I still feel this post was nothing more than a selfish rant and inward pep talk.)

Flash Fiction Challenge #1 "Bollywood Bond"

On set, everything was scripted and controlled.  On location, Jasapal basked in the fact that his agents and producers and directors would not let anything happen to him, their golden child, their champion of Indian cinema, and their man who would put Indian film on the global map.  Jasapal had become a true star, routinely cast as the hero, the heart throb, and the champion.

But he was no hero.  And yet there he was, in a tuxedo and a black clip-on tie reciting his lines, standing on the edge of the bridge over Dudhsagar Falls performing the part of Jaikar Bond.  The train was not supposed to come that day.  The production company had been sending in requests and permits for months to be able to shoot a scene for the Bollywood Goldeneye.  Finally, they had been approved the week before and only from three until seven.  They were almost done with the second take of the standoff between Jasapal and the villain when they felt a trembling beneath their feet and a roar behind the turn of the bridge.  The train had come anyway, right on its normal schedule at four forty-five.  Jasapal, Saanvi, his love interest, and Jhumpa, the actor cast as Agent 006, had jumped.  Jasapal was a hundred feet away and had landed on a ledge jutting out from one of the bridge’s support pillars.  Saanvi and Jhumpa were both dangling from their safety harnesses (a precaution dictated by their insurance providers) about fifty feet below the bridge.  It had been their only choice, jump or be hit.  Millions of gallons of water churned beneath them, swollen from the recent monsoons.  Saanvi was screaming in her gown, torn and revealing her almond skin-colored thighs.  Jhumpa was unconscious, slumped and hanging like an unmanned marionette.  The film crew had also jumped, without safety harnesses, weighing the falls beneath to be better than the train coming on ahead.  Jasapal couldn’t let himself think about what he knew had happened to them.  He could only try to figure out how to get himself back up to the top.    

Saanvi started screaming his name.

“Help, Jasapal!  Help us please!”

There was a good amount of rebar sticking out of the side of the bridge pillar.  It was a slow process, some of the pieces of metal too loose to support his weight, some too far from the next place he might try.  Eventually, he made it up and over the guard rail.  Saanvi was crying uncontrollably now.  She was gripping onto her harness like a girl would grip her blanket after a bad dream.

Jasapal took only a minute to catch his breath once he reached the top before he began running towards Saanvi and Jhumpa.  Large pieces of equipment that hadn’t been scattered down into the falls, lay broken and smashed in the wake of the train.  He wondered why no one had returned yet, why the conductor had not stopped or sent help. 

The safety harnesses were nothing more than thin metal wires, invisible to the viewer’s eye and attached to a loop on a guard rail.  It appeared to have been damaged when the train burst its way through the crew, equipment, and dollies.  It didn’t look as if it could hold the weight of two people much longer.  Jasapal dropped to his stomach and looked down.  He could see Saanvi’s breasts, they were exposed as well after her dress had been torn during the fall.  He thought about how much he had been attracted to her during filming and his attempts to seduce her – in spite of her happy marriage to an American actor.

Jasapal could barely hear her.  It was easier when they were across from each other but once he was above them, all he could hear and see was the water, stirring and whipping up into a mist that sprayed his face.

“Is he alive?!” he screamed down to her, Jhumpa still not awake or moving.

“I don’t know! He hit his head when we jumped!” She wouldn’t reach over to touch him, afraid of letting go of the wires, digging deep red cuts into her upper arms and hands.

He went to try and pull them up but the wires were too thin and too sharp, slicing into his palms.  Even when he tied his jacket around them and tried to lift, they slid right through, the weight of them too much for him to pull over the edge.

He looked around, trying to find some sort of leverage or even another person who survived the crash.  No one and nothing was left that wasn’t smashed to pieces and strewn at his feet.  He heard a sharp snap and looked back to the loop where his costars were connected.  The guard rail was beginning to creak and bend and lean closer over the edge.  He knew what he had to do.

He grabbed a shard of glass that lay at his feet and ran back to the edge.  Saanvi’s eyes were clenched tight now and she was hyperventilating.  Jasapal’s eyes followed her wire up and over the rail to where it was connected.  The base of it was a simple mesh cloth, stretched taut.  He thought about what a silly design that was, metal attached to metal by a cloth band.  It only took one touch of the glass to the mesh of Jhumpa’s wire to release.  He lurched over expecting to see Saanvi dangling there alone.  But she wasn’t there.  Only Jhumpa.  Jasapal couldn’t believe what he had done, but had little time to think about it, the guard rail still shrieking from his weight as if alive.  Jasapal was now able to lift Jhumpa, a slight man, and once he had him over the edge, he was not able to find a pulse. 

Jasapal was no hero.