I Went into the Wilderness and Survived.

Packing for a trip is always stressful for me. The promise just over the horizon of whatever relaxing destination awaits me is never enough to assuage the bile of tension that is rising like butterflies soaked in syrup and then put on a rickety conveyer belt that stretches from my pussy to my throat, the butterflies able to move in the confines of the syrup but only in tortured twitches and sticky thrusts.

Yep. It's that bad.

Regardless Jeremiah and I took Elijah on a weekend trip to the mountains. It was mainly uneventful, generally wonderful and very much needed. Jeremiah conquered his fear of horses (somewhat) and befriended a very old horse named Toro that wandered free around the vast acreage of our 140 year old farm house. We fished in a pond and didn't catch anything, had to drive for thirty minutes just to find a farmer's market, hiked through woods along a creek and marveled at the fact that people actually live an every day existence out there away from everything with horses and turtles and strangely the sound of non-stop gunfire all night long.

We cooked out on a bonfire and I was so proud and impressed by Jeremiah's fire building skills, we watched movies by the wood burning pot stove/fireplace thingy and I was again impressed by Jeremiah's fire building skills and we ate apple cider donuts and talked about how very dark it was outside.

At some point something magical happened in my stomach. Right after we put Elijah to bed, after I turned off most of the lights and after Jeremiah made room for me on the couch something went pop in my tummy and the grinding rickety conveyer belt with the sickly, sticky butterflies stopped. I felt Jeremiah's warmth behind me and we watched Pacific Heights on HBO and laughed at the silliness of it. We brushed our teeth together and went to bed together. We made love in the ancient bedroom of this ancient house where generations of love had been made, babies had been born, people had died.

Jeremiah went to sleep and despite the chill I went outside and sat in the pitch dark just to revel in the amazing life I have been granted and the gifts I have been given. Trials and tribulations have come my way but there is always good that comes out of the bad. I sat there contemplating these things until the gun shots resumed again in the distance and I high tailed it inside, locked all the doors and woke up Jeremiah just to be sure that he was aware of my frightening experience.

Love Makes You Crazy in the Head (thus spaketh the six year old)

And now on to something completely different...

If you've read my blog from time to time you might notice a reoccurring "I have a hard time with Maxine Jane" theme. She's is my six year old daughter, the sometimes bane of my existence, always the love of my life but most often difficult and precocious.

The other day she got in trouble and wasn't allowed to go somewhere with Jeremiah, Elijah and Olivia while Rose was at soccer. She had to stay home with me which is tantamount to being gravely punished. I decided to take her for a walk just the two of us and five blocks away she said she had to pee. We turned around and walked back to the house.

"Maxine Jane, sometimes you make my head spin like crazy." I looked at her and smiled goofily to let her know I wasn't mad, just crazy.

"Hmmm, that just means you love me a lot." She's crazy smiling now too.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yep and that means you must really, really love Jeremiah because he makes you the craziest in your head."

Six years old and wiser than I am. I wonder when that wisdom starts fading? I'm guessing 11 because when Max recounted the story to Rosey she just rolled her eyes.

"Making someone crazy in the head isn't going to make anyone like you more ever. They're just going to be annoyed and nobody likes someone who is annoying." Rose speaks these words with the emphasis on words like AN-NOY-ing and NO-body.

Is Rosey more or less wise than Max? Or is it just dependent on personality? It is a dichotomy and maybe even a mystery.

Grief

The sun glared through the windows and into my eyes but I did not look away. I did not close my eyes. They watered and even hurt a bit and I still did not care. The spots formed and I felt nauseous and faint.

I finally closed my eyes and sat down on the pale yellow window seat, the cool painted wood under me woke me a bit from my state and I tried to form thoughts.

Nothing came.

The days' consistencies meant nothing to me. I spoke words to concerned people and did not know what I was saying or remember why I was saying them. I went to bed, got up and vomited in the toilet and got back into bed over and over again for days on end.

Or at least it felt like days, it could have very well been moments, seconds, fleeting incalculable snippets of time flying over my head like electric beams of fast moving nothingness.

When this melancholy lifted I began to see small random things in focus. The water I drank for sustenance seemed so much better when I mixed orange juice and lime juice in with it, I remembered I loved that so much.

I changed my clothes and got in the shower, used the kids coconut shampoo and scrubbed and scrubbed my body with Dove soap over and over again until the water started to turn cold. Dove soap reminded me of being in the hospital after giving birth. That first tender shower with a nurse outside your door and your mother just beyond her, making sure you were OK. The sweat and the medicinal smells of labor and delivery wash over you and are replaced with Dove soap. Your breasts ache and your asshole aches and you feel like you might just pass out. Thinking the posted nurse outside your door wasn't such a bad idea, gingerly stepping out of the thickly tiled shower without lifting one leg too high.

After the shower things were clearer. I turned on the small cream lamp on a very short table next to my bed and laid myself down. The sheets smelled of spit and greasy hair. I got up, stripped the bed and put new sheets on, took a basket of clothes to the basement and began to do laundry.

The sun outside had turned to clouds and rain in an opposite rendering of my present state of mind. The clouds in my head were clearing, but I was not sure of the weather that would present itself once they did.

I went back to my room and laid in bed once more. I smelled nothing but coconut and Dove soap. The tears came again but this time I did not vomit. I sobbed gently and fell asleep.

When I awoke the sun was again in my face, but this time I looked away. I turned my back to the window and stripped off my clothes, let the warmth play across my naked back. I took another shower, brushed my teeth and drank more orange juice with lime. The bitterness of the first few sips mixed with the remnants of tooth paste made me aware suddenly of the day and the time.

I made phone calls and plans to begin my life over again. I never felt the same again.