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Today I stepped outside and it was just gorgeous. I grabbed my nursing tea and Har and decided we would head down to the forresty area of our property to gather incense-cedar to build a big beautiful fire. I had him in the wagon and we got down to a clearing where a lot of wood is already cut and piled amongst the trees. I set him on the ground so he could toddle off and gather his little pine needles and stopped, nostalgia. Pure nostalgia.
We live in a place that is in the same area that I met some of the most important people in my life. I was a raver in the 90's (yeah, yeah I know), they were too, and by chance we all attended a phenomenal outdoor camp out rave where we met in the oddest of circumstances. I am not going to trot out the story, no one really cares about it but us (and this has been proven because any time any one has a couple too many beers, it comes out and the only one who wants to tell it is us girls, not the guys-they like to tease us and roll their eyes). The people I met there were an established group, they all went to high school together for the most part but I just fit in. We spent years going to parties, then made it past the rave friend stage (that says a lot) and into marriage, death, kids. They are my best friends and I love them to pieces. We have been friends now for going on 11 years.
Something about the air today, the temperature. It put me right back to when I first met them.It made me a little sad that we aren't closer so I had to call the best of my best friends and had a nice chat with her, we try to talk once a week and we are both stay at home moms. She has a 10 month old boy and we need to keep in touch to keep our sanity.
Nostalgia. Not necessarily a bad thing though, a whisper of some point in time. Har helped me build the fire, well he added his precious pine needles, and it has been burning all day.
Big beautiful wisps of cedar smoke sent out into the air. I go outside to throw some fragrant rosemary on, sage, bright green bay leaves. I cracked a beer as an homage to friends who would be here if they could. I drank with the trees, the sky, the woodpeckers and blue jays who eye me warily.
Something about a fire, does it remind everyone else of friendship too?
Yes, today I am nostalgia embodified.
The rest of my life consists of weaning which is not going so great, that little stubborn boy will not give up his prized "lovey". Money worries which still seem kind of in the back of my mind and are made much worse by the fact I know my husband is seriously stressed. It is even harder today since he ran into the Realtor yesterday and she told us if we came up with 10 grand she could guarantee getting our landlady to carry the paperwork for the mortgage. That is not a lot of money at all, we would have had it, we should have had it had we not gone through all we did. It just makes us feel kind of miserable about all we have had to go through.
No wonder I am nostalgic. Sometimes it is just nice to think back to an amazing time while a sweet fire slowly burns.
Now I think I am going to head back out there, Dust is running around playing in his little way and I want to sit by that fragrant smoke and think a little more. Remember a little more.
Before I do, I would like to take a moment to thank the two wonderful women who follow my blog and have commented on my posts. Thank you for your words, they really mean a lot to me. I enjoy reading your blogs and I thank you for taking the time out to give a little inspiration, support or humor. I would like to encourage anyone who is reading but hasn't commented to do so and I will make a space next to that big great fire I built and we can sit virtually, clanking beers (or wine, or water) and talking about the great moments in our life, or maybe just about the stars or something mundane but comforting.
Cheers,
Diana
Went to bed last night and an overwhelming sense of peace washed over me. Who knows where it came from but I am so very thankful. Today is cloudy and grey and seems like the kind of day the boys and I should tiptoe through, taking our time, enjoying the birds, the trees, the flowers.
It almost seems as if some kind of response to stress on days when I am lucky enough to feel that way. There are certainly days I wish I could channel this but it seems to be somewhat beyond my control.
I should be a ball of nerves. The last few years have taken it out of us financially. We used to have so much materially, stocks, land, a home, retirement, 401K. All of it has been wiped away and we have yet to recover. We haven't been fiscally solvent in years, and are a few months from that. Today we took money out of our savings to pay rent, a lot more than we thought we would have to. It was hard but at least we had it. We always try to have enough to cover the next 1 or 2 months which we about have. I know we are lucky to have that but it still stings.
So many people are struggling. I have mentioned a lot that I grew up in the Bay Area. All of my friends are there, my family is there. Whenever I talk to them the biggest complaint is always money. I always tell them I know exactly how they feel. We felt the same way when we tried to raise Dust in Alameda. $900 a month for a 600 square foot one bedrooom apartment in a sketchy neighborhood. Groceries killed us. We split, we went to where it is cheaper. I wouldn't be completely surprised if we had some people follow us.
Who wants to think about money on a Monday morning though, right? As far as money goes we have found it comes and goes. The good thing is it usually has a tendency to come out of the blue when you most need it. This has happened to us several times, down to our last $100 or so dollars and something we had listed sells, boom, money for the next 6 months just like that.
Maybe that is why I still feel peaceful about everything going on. My mom is a worrier so I have always been the opposite of that, worrying doesn't help. Worrying is bad energy.
The picture I put in this post is one I found somewhere on the internet. I am not necessarily a religious person, I don't go to church or belong to any organized religion. If I had to choose a path to follow it would probably be along the Buddhist lines but I like this picture. I like the imagery, a talisman of faith on a road to who knows where. Just what is needed this Monday morning.
It occured to me that I could probably name every post I do either a Stone's song name or lyric. There is really no shortage of material there.
I am doing better, especially after my big ugly day a few days ago. We seem to be on the mend although 9 days of solid flu in our house has really wrecked everyone. Now that we seem to be healing and I write this blog nodding in and out after waking up no less than 4 times last night to nurse Har baby, I have absolutely 100% decided it is time to start weaning.
I have felt this way on and off since the time a few months ago that I made cookies and Har, cookie in hand, made his way over to me and pulled up my shirt and decided to add some milk to his snack. Um, too much information? Sorry. Anyway, I looked down at him and thought "Buddy, your days with this are numbered."
The problem was I couldn't manage it then, or maybe I wasn't really ready. It was still snowing quite a few days and still flu season, Har is woefully behind on immunizations since we lost our health care (President. O- please fix this!) and I wanted to keep nursing him through the snow and flu season. Well, that totally backfired because due to my lack of sleep my immunity is shot and Har got sick anyway.
I am so sick of not getting a full night's sleep. I could be such a better mom if I slept. Having fun! Baking! Running around! Firm voice instead of screaming time outs! I do manage most of those things but it is only due to the magic of coffee. I want to sleep. I want my bed back, um our bed back. If Har slept I could keep nursing him but not sleeping and still nursing is hand in hand for him, so I begin.
17 months, such a stubborn age. He is just finding his voice for what he wants. He hates bottles, he also hates cow milk. I need a plan, and I may have to do the geeky former Admin Assistant thing that I would do for our Sales Reps, a spreadsheet.
They say to cut out one feeding a day, I decided to start with all feedings between his favorite 10 am one and any before 4pm. Just writing that I see how hard this going to be. I feel I am ready though, he will probably never be so I just got to do it.
I need to power through the stress of his crying. Maybe I should take up meditation, that might help. Or medication, I could have titled this post "Mother's Little Helper".
Other than that E took Dust for a very special father and son day, sitting on the tractors at the Hardware store. There is nothing Dust cares about more right now than hanging with his hero so hopefully they will both come back in a good mood. As for me and Har, operation W has begun.
I want to be sensitive to my wonderful readers so here is a warning, if you aren't up for reading this today. This is a post about dealing with the death of my friend. I know some days these things are easier to read than others.
After I wrote that seriously cleansing post yesterday I decided to go outside with the boys and get some sun. I have this habit of going outside when I want to be uplifted, it is something that I only started doing when we moved up here and is because there is something magical about this little place we have found. I dried my frustrated tears, went outside and headed with the boys down to the rosemary and tarragon fields. In moments like these there is always something that lifts me up, I am never sure if it is a sign from my friend Kathy that I mentioned, my aunt who passed from ALS a few years ago, the spirit from the lady who ran this farm, or anyone else for that matter.
Yesterday, a monarch butterfly.
It flew around us making sure it was known. This was most surely sent from Kathy as she was still very much on my mind. Butterflies are her thing. I started thinking how I was so surprised that I would think of her in that post yesterday and in general. How it can still be so many years and some days I just really miss her.
Kathy died at what we thought was the height of her life. She had just turned 21. She wanted to go to B-Man so bad (I normally wouldn't abbreviate anything but there was a lot of junk surrounding her death and I don't want anyone to find this blog by googling that "August-week long celebration in the Nevada desert"...you get the idea for what festival I am referring to). She went by herself, all of her close friends stayed back here. She was a talented photographer, made it to almost the end of the festival. Then she suffered a terrible accident while trying to get a closer look at a temple she wanted to get a picture of.
All of our friends and me included went through a lot when she died. It was really hard having someone die who you love but their death is permanently attached to such a famous festival. When you tell people how she went and they say, oh! I was there that year/I met one of the paramedics who worked on her/I met someone on the bus who had her scarf...blah blah blah.
Then that week comes and you are living in the Bay Area and there are legions of cars so proud to show off their playa dust. I am fascinated by that dust. Her stuff came back covered in it. It is so otherworldy, and seeing it on cars is such a bittersweet reminder.
I guess I just want to remember her today. It can be such a minefield when you lose a friend and there are all of these close friends involved who are grieving in such vastly different ways. I learned very quickly who I could talk to about the signs I would see or the dreams I would have. I learned who wanted to celebrate her life or talk about how this all sucked so bad and she should be there with us getting married and having babies and taking shots of tequila on New Year's Eve. I learned who didn't want to talk about it, who would rather keep quiet.
Her long time boyfriend/fiance really took it hard. I tried to be there for him after she passed as much as I could, I sent cards for months, I called to just see how he was, I sent little gifts. Then I couldn't do it anymore, I needed to grieve myself. I was always worried he didn't think I had kept that up long enough. We have recently reconnected and he was visiting us with our other best friends on New Years. Almost 6 years and with me and my best friend there he started crying, worried he had missed his chance with who was supposed to be his wife. We tried to soothe him and tell him, no, there was someone out there for him. It is still so damn hard sometimes and the hardest part is we didn't know the answer for him.
What I was thinking about yesterday was how I am 2 people, and it isn't "before kids" and "after kids" like I thought it was. It is "before death touched my life" and "after". I hope that doesn't sound morbid to anyone reading this. I always have had a thing for Day of the Dead and my beliefs on death pretty closely mirror that, celebrating life. Death as a passage to something. A passage that sometimes I can take and sometimes I want to revoke, preferring to have my talented friend here with us instead of sending signs.
Before her death touched my life and touch is a mild word (I would probably use something more vivid if I could think of just the right word) I can't remember exactly who I was. Probably happily unaware that life is so tenuous. If I try really hard I can imagine that Diana, skipping along, hoop earrings and a long brown ponytail, cool jeans, a white tank top, beers and music in SF bars, doing way too much partying, being way too hard on herself and seriously lacking direction. Kathy's death saved me from heading down a slippery slope. Now I look in the mirror and I see me, weary from a different kind of all nighter, much more peaceful, always with the taste of death in the back of my throat but knowing there is not a thing I can do about it. Loving and crying all in one breath, even crying because of beauty sometimes.
Don't get me wrong, I would love to have her back. One day, grabbing coffee and catching up before she had to head back to wherever she is. I am thankful for how her death shaped me but no one ever wants to be shaped that way, baptism by fire. I would much rather have her here, taking pictures of my family, she was such a talented photographer. Instead, I am learning how to take pictures myself.
Almost 6 years later and I still think of her so often. Other people close to me have passed but she was so young that it is much harder. Thank you to the universe for allowing me to remember her this morning.
I want to include some of the pictures she took at B-Man that we got from her camera that came back with her stuff. Also, a picture of me and her (she is on the left). The very last picture is a picture of her at the festival and she is in the red.
Now, on to the day. Whatever it brings.
This morning I woke up and while sleepily getting Dust's vitamin I noticed somehow during the night the honey which had been sitting on the shelf undramatically for the past week had gotten cut. Honey was leaking out into the cupboard and dripping onto the counter. The sort of amusing part is I had set my coffee unknowingly under the leak and honey was dripping into the cup. I investigated the plastic bear container and noticed a clean slice. How on earth that slice got there is beyond me. I stuck the container into a bowl and went about my morning.
What a morning it has been. Let's just say when I got out of the hot, hot shower I had dragged myself into I burst into tears. I cried and cried and cried. I caught a glimpse of the bowl filling up with honey rapidly and felt that was me, somehow I had gotten cut and hadn't noticed it. Now my normal calm and happy state of mind towards motherhood was leaking out at a rapid pace and spilling onto the floor.
Sleep deprivation. Children crying to me to cure their terrible flus. A 3 year old boy who has decided not to listen to a word I say and only be happy when daddy comes home. Loneliness. Missing my friends and family, it has been so long since they have been able to visit. Having to write the rent check (a mortgage payment I would not mind, at least that has some sort of permanence). Not knowing any other moms up here. Not being able to keep the house clean or the kids fed because my own sinuses and head are so painful I can't think straight.
If there is anything that can do me in it is these things, all happening at once.
You have to be so careful in walking this minefield of motherhood, of 2 so close together (although it can and does happen as equally with those who have 1 kid or women in general.)
I have to fight and remind myself to take moments of "just me". I think I do a pretty good job although Har is so attached to me it can be too much sometimes. 17 months and he won't sleep without me. 17 months and he is still so attached to nursing. Daddy can't calm him down, only me. E has been working a lot lately which is great because it was even harder when he was here all day, but it doesn't help with the bonding between him and Har.
What does the "me" time look like? I don't need much, my favorite herbal tea, time to read my favorite blogs, drink a really special beer I have picked out, watch one of my favorite shows.
The problem is when kids are sick it is like motherhood x 4. They need so much more and it is so hard to just carve out time.
When I was sitting on the floor of the boys room, now turned into a playroom but to be turned back into a bedroom when the nights heat up, and I was crying I halfway hoped someone would call at that very minute. Someone would call and I could be a blithering, sniffling Diana so someone else could witness how hard it is to do this when you haven't slept in 3 years and 11 months.
Somehow I have to find a strength within me to make it through today. Writing here helps. A nap would really help if I can manage it. So would a plan, something to give me back some of me before I had these two wonderful boys. And they are wonderful. Har may be a study in attachment parenting but this longtime nursing, this co-sleeping have made him the sweetest little boy. He is so quick to dole out hugs and kisses. And Dustin? Well, he may have a total case of hero worship with his dad right now but ultimately that is good, healthy.
Where to go from here? Another cup of tea. I think we need some time in the sunshine. Taking away the syrup bottle that Har is drinking from. Finding out what Dust is up to with the strange noises I hear from the kitchen. It never ends. Planning my trip back to the Bay Area in April. Hoping against hope this flu goes away. Feeling good about being able to cry. And for some reason, really, really missing my friend Kathy. How I can still miss her this much after she has been gone almost 6 years is beyond me. Maybe because I know she would be a shoulder to cry on, or maybe because she reminds me of the wistful and free times we had before kids and before she died at B-Man.
Who knows. Maybe she can send some strength my way today.
These last few days have been miserable for our entire house. Like many other bloggers I have been reading, and friends I have been hearing from, we have the flu. Baby flu, toddler flu, mommy and daddy flu. 3 years of the cold season with a little one and I am still surprised when we get sick.
I expected it when we lived in the petri dish of the Bay Area but up here? Seriously. Somehow I think living in a county that has only one single town that is incorporated should keep you from getting this sick. It doesn't. The only plus we have is the fresh air, currently filled with the scent of warm earth and pine. If I could manage to drag my achy muscles outside, carrying the little one who has refused to do two things since he has been sick, 1. Stop nursing 2. Be put down, I could probably really benefit from that fresh air.
Dust started off with the flu first so he seems to be getting slightly better and I am thankful that he is a fairly good patient. I feel so bad that I haven't been able to take care of him like I would like to, I can't because Har needs me to carry him everywhere or attach him to me so he can eat and eat and eat. I don't think that Dust minds though, he was pretty content to help himself to popsicle after popsicle yesterday, commanding ownership of the living room and watching his favorite cartoons while either curled up in our comfy chair or drawing self portraits of himself with sharpies (thankfully on paper since the only pens he will draw with are sharpies).
I lay in bed this morning, sore throat, runny nose, trying to calculate how much sleep I got between arguing with E (because he loves to argue in the middle of the night, so much fun!), cradling Har and angling myself so he could attach himself to me and eat all night.
E, in the middle of the night, goes "Has he been nursing all night?" me "No!" him "It sure seems like it!" to which I want to smack him in the face because hello a really sick mini toddler (17 months- not quite a toddler, not quite a baby) is not the ideal situation in which to induce weaning, or sleeping in their own bed.
It is always at this point that instead of unleashing on him like I really want to I think about my sister in law in Florida who upon having her kids move out set up a room for herself to sleep in when her husband snores. Oh, to have a room to go to when E is grumpy and tossing and turning. Then I think about an article I read not too long ago about the resurgence of couples having separate bedrooms and how it can really help a marriage. That article was really funny because they had done a lot of studies and concluded wives sleep less better while in bed with hubby while hubby sleeps much better. Figures.
Anyway, I digress. Sleep has been hard to come by these last few days, but coffee? Nice and fresh, two cups doing me just fine. Sleep, who needs it when you have coffee. Of course right now Har is snoring away and has been for the past 2 hours. He really does sleep better when I am not next to him, this I know, but we have to wait until he is better before training him to sleep on his own. Oh, that is not going to be fun. I was terrible about teaching him to self soothe, he has zero ability to soothe himself and relies entirely on me to comfort him. A whole other blog posting, a whole other can of worms.
The only sort of silver lining about us all being sick is I have been finding a lot of great new blogs. I added a bunch more to my follower list. I am not a good commenter on blogs, I guess I only write things if I feel I have something to offer, but I love to read them and follow them. Sometimes I think people may think I am weird if I start following their blog and they have no idea who I am, I hope not. I wouldn't feel that way if someone followed mine.
I guess it is about time to wrap up this blog post, it seems to be heading nowhere fast. Hopefully we will have a nice quiet day today and can enjoy some of it, albeit it behind runny eyes and sore throats. I will close with a picture of my sick, sick boys. No pictures of me, I hate being in them.
Sitting here, 5 pm and in front of me is a nice cold Mexican beer in a glass with a salted rim and a fresh lime. The boys are very docile because of their colds. The weather has been very indecisive all day, bright sun then black clouds. It is unsettling me. I can't shake the feeling of being in some kind of limbo. The weather can't make a decision, and a large number of my friends and family seem to be hanging in a place where nothing is going on but everyone is waiting for something.
I wish I knew more about stuff like cosmos and planets and their alignments and what-not. Perhaps there is some kind of an explanation for why everything seems a bit off lately. Is it just me?
Tonight a fox was digging through our compost pile and we haven't seen the fox except for the first time we moved up here. It was so beautiful and sleek and absolutely aware of us watching it.
I never discount the feeling where you think something is going to happen. One of my best friends died when she was 21 years old. She died at Burning Man. It was the hardest thing I ever had to go through and I will probably do a post just on her sometime. The point of bringing her up here though is that one night about a year before she died we got to talking. I don't remember who brought it up but one of us mentioned feeling something really huge was going to happen that year. HUGE we would say to each other when we got to talking about it which got more and more frequent the closer we got to when she died. We would marvel about how we could always feel something just at our fingertips ready to happen, something we had never been through before. Then she passed and the feeling went away. I always felt that is what both her and I had been picking up on.
This feeling, this sense of limbo in the day today, I can't help but feel it is leading up to something amazing. So much went wrong last year, but it also went right. It was like waves all crashing against each other. Wild, one day black clouds and the next bright sun. It feels like things were unsettled and are starting to settle back again.
We just have to hang on, it is going to get wonderful. I just feel it.
