That's it, every day.

I sit here at my computer and 10 feet away he sits with his guitar across his knees, seated on a zigzagged ottoman that accentuates how much he's grown in the past few years. He's knees and elbows and huge brown eyes and a gorgeous smile. As we were leaving the orthodontist's office today, I kept telling him how weird it was when he turned 6, when he went into first grade, that first grade was the first shred of proof for me that he was going to grow into a young man. "And, today here we are, amore," I said over my shoulder with a smile. "Today and you are a middle schooler and we are on to braces." He smiled his gorgeous sweet smile and leaned forward and put his hand on my shoulder, which would have been his head if the distance of the seats had not been such.

This boy is a favorite teddy bear wrapped in an enigma. He's honest and disclosive in one minute, difficult to gauge the next. He prefers, almost any day, to recline right on top of you in the cold Fall wind. He hasn't figured out that that's uncool. He's just starting to sense what is uncool. I don't know when he's going to grow into that uncool thing and I alternately feel like I haven't done enough to middle school him up and thankful for the buying of time that his sweet nature has given us.

He converses easily with adults. He's building his own style of humor that he tries on with his sister, dad and me at every turn. He loves a turn of phrase or a double entendre. There is no bad fart joke. He cracks up when he talks about butts. To match that, I showed him Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back" and he spent most of the next day commenting on the fruit, and less on the back, or being a little "uhhhhhh, that was weird" regarding the ardent appreciation of the female form through Sir Mix-A-Lot's voluptious stylings. I think the giant buttcrack was perhaps the biggest hit. So it goes at this age, I've kept reminding myself. So it goes.

This is the kid that still likes me to tuck him in at bedtime, who is happiest when he can reach across and touch your hand. He is tactile and yummy and stinky and kind. When I found out I was having a boy, I thought "Good, I know nothing about what it's like to be a boy. I can see him for himself, in all of his dimensions, without clouding my

[Ok, so he just walked over as I was typing this, gave me an enormous, lingering hug]

without clouding my view with all of my own stuff." And that's it, every day. He's still a mystery to me in so many ways, such a beautiful thing to unwrap, like sitting waiting quietly for the birds to come out. They come and you get to see beautiful things, but sometimes it's just the stillness that brings them, the moment of breathing with whatever is there. Or, the time that those same creatures catch you unawares, explode into view, fill you with delight and catch your heart with laughter. That's what D is like. He's deep and sweet and hilarious.  He is golden. I love him so.

Memory Kit

Gran's mushrooms cooking in butter

Mom's scent
The feel of a cheek on my cheek that lingers after a hug goodbye

My mind has been on this idea that Andy Warhol had about his cabinet of scents. He'd wear a scent for three months, then force himself to stop wearing it and would put it away in a special cabinet so when he smelled it again, he would remember things that happened in that three month period of time.

A little body warm and curled to mine

The view of Seattle coming over I-5 in the breaking light

Hunter waiving goodbye, basketball tucked under his arm

Three months. I can't imagine even being able to pinpoint things in such a short period of time. Another thing I've been pondering is this idea of memory, particularly sensorial memory and how it fades over time and what could be done to keep it. Smells, skinfeels, tastes, visual snapshots. Like the movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" but collapsed into a life museum where you could sit and visit. It would be a blessing and a curse, something that would keep you so mired in the past, like an addict almost. This may be why memory fades, because our heart and mind cannot bear the rawness of the feelings that we experience in those moments. Or, perhaps, constant access to those moments would tend to erode the impact of the feeling of these experiences when they come upon us suddenly. On one end, it's a soft blanket. On the other, it's a meth addiction. You could have your own little kit of memories, a set up that would put you under, just for a minute.

The smell of scotch and water

The feel of Ava's warm, newly born body on my chest

Dew-kissed sunrise over rust-colored earth

And then there's the difference between the memory as it was and the memory as you remember it. Which would you want, if there was a difference? Would you include shitty memories like the vomity smell of saline that they used to clear your port or the smell of incense that made you nauseous at your brother's funeral? 

I think you would have to lock these away too, happen upon them from time to time like the disgusting buttered popcorn jelly bellies that sneak into your handful of yumminess. Then the kit becomes real, a record that reminds you that life is not meant to be lived in perfection, that you survive and make it through. Triggers, these are all triggers and for some it would be a nightmare while others it would help them heal and thrive. 

What memories would I put in my kit if I only had 25 spaces to fill? 10? 5? What experiences would I carry with me? What is essential to what has made me? What is worth remembering and what is worth letting go?

Grasping

My chest felt tight and unusually heavy as we swung out of Panera, coffees in hand, to make the 40 minute drive from Oklahoma City to my childhood home. This was the trip home that ended things, most things left being sold, my mother's house contracted for sale, the end of my time of having a place to land should I need it. This all ended long ago with my mother's death and our inevitable dividing of things and the eventual acknowledgement that our childhood home would be bundled up for someone else to own.

But it's been a tender couple of days. I walk past all of the tables in my mother's house that are laden with memories in the form of glass and silver and ceramic and oil paint and I feel a tug, a grasping for these items that remind me of my grandmother's home or of some piece of family history that I'm not quite ready to let go. I suddenly think that I haven't taken enough, that my parsimonious view when we were dividing things was short-sighted, that now I need these things to fill up a certain void left by dividing and new space and the time when my own children might want something of their own. I have a moment when I believe that I have bankrupted their future with a few fickle objects, which is total bullshit because these things mean nothing to them now and will mean nothing to them in the future because they don't know the people for whom these pieces had value. Still, I feel the tug and want and I sit in these feelings for a moment just letting them come and go, come and go.

The most interesting feeling that I am having is the feeling of grasping at something, fine threads of memory that are silken to the touch but so fine that they are hard to feel between the calloused fingers of my memory. I pick up my grandmother's wrecked suitcase, I take my dad's toy monkey, I find an electric razor that may contain DNA that would help me unlock who I am through where my dad came from. This all lands for me at a remarkable juncture in my life. I am losing the emotional security of my childhood home just as I have moved into a new place of my own to live. I am packing up a lifetime of memories just as I am launching into a new sphere of work. Never have I been in such a transitional space in my life, all by choice, all completely without a concrete plan or emotional safety net.

A strong vision or the predictive power of decision trees have been my family's way of managing through some of the shittier events in life. Have a vision, you'll know what to aim for. Map out the predictable outcomes, you won't be surprised when the worst outcome arrives at your door. There is comfort in knowing what is going to happen and in a family that has had such wildly unpredictable loss, it's been a saving grace.

But wrapping up pieces of your life and closing the door on spaces that house your memories is terrifying. It means closing off the one thing that you knew you could come back to, no matter what. It also means that sometimes you just have to sit without a vision for the future, that sometimes you have to just be in it. And you think back across those people whose things you touch: remembering what a kind woman your grandmother was, or what a fiercely strong woman your mother was, or what a generous and loving man your dad was, or how you look back over your family history and realize that you come from perserverant and courageous stock.

And the grasping slowly subsides and is replaced by appreciation. And you muster your own courage and think about working without much of a net. And you can let go, slowly, and move forward, slowly. And so be it. Amen.

Harold and the Overlord Brain

Outside it's hot and damp with a rain surely coming up this afternoon while inside I alternately strip off my shirt or shudder from the air conditioning, the variation in temperature caused not only by the wonky HVAC system, but also by the freaked out feeling of writing, pounding things out, dipping in for short attacks on my memory that is part of this week-long writing intensive.

But I can't write or recall shit, my memory is bland sandy beige like the land where Luke Skywalker grew up. Rich things happening underneath with miles of dry camouflage on top.

This is painful but helpful in its own way because every time I begin down a trail, my overlord brain smacks it down. I can't write things down that somebody else might see. I can't write things down that may hurt another person's heart. I can't just let it out, so instead I scribble furiously about how my brain is seizing up, how moments of clarity about my life are opening up in this fight. It's not writing, but therapy underlined boldly so that it will burn into my mind. I begin labeling things: that was a birth canal, this is a life raft, the other is a black hole. All of the images make sense of the past few months of my life, of my fears of the future, of the worry of unmapped space. My overlord brain is scanning for ways to discount and deny everything good that has brought me to this place, digging deep to unearth the reasons why people and situations cannot be trusted. But I know my brain, and like Harold with his creepy-ass crayon, I run in front of overlord brain. I map it all out, the memories, the people, the stories, in order to let it go, these phantom limbs and unclosed circles. And god, does it feel good to just let it be.

Because the truth is that you will never make sense of it all, because that requires a type of honesty with yourself and others that exists in a special state of grace. Sometimes others are capable of that space, most are not. Sometimes they are already gone and not able to respond, sometimes your brain is just searching memory for clues to make it all make sense.

Antilamentation -Dorianne Lau

Regret nothing. Not the cruel novels you read
to the end just to find out who killed the cook.
Not the insipid movies that made you cry in the dark,
in spite of your intelligence, your sophistication.
Not the lover you left quivering in a hotel parking lot,
the one you beat to the punchline, the door, or the one
who left you in your red dress and shoes, the ones
that crimped your toes, don’t regret those.
Not the nights you called god names and cursed
your mother, sunk like a dog in the livingroom couch,
chewing your nails and crushed by loneliness.
You were meant to inhale those smoky nights
over a bottle of flat beer, to sweep stuck onion rings
across the dirty restaurant floor, to wear the frayed
coat with its loose buttons, its pockets full of struck matches.
You’ve walked those streets a thousand times and still
you end up here. Regret none of it, not one
of the wasted days you wanted to know nothing,
when the lights from the carnival rides
were the only stars you believed in, loving them
for their uselessness, not wanting to be saved.
You’ve traveled this far on the back of every mistake,
ridden in dark-eyed and morose but calm as a house
after the TV set has been pitched out the upstairs
window. Harmless as a broken ax. Emptied
of expectation. Relax. Don’t bother remembering any of it.
Let’s stop here, under the lit sign
on the corner, and watch all the people walk by.

Kindness

I've been thinking pretty much nonstop about kindness. Not your run-of-the-mill open the door kindness, but the kind of kindness that nearly sweeps you off of your feet, leaves you feeling like you've fallen on your back from the monkeybars, makes you look around the room to see who is smirking behind their hand. It's the kind of kindness that you wonder when the other shoe will drop because nobody you know believes that this sort of kindness can exist. It's grace and beauty and sadness and love all wrapped up in one big bundle that exists and moves forward; rolling, shimmying, pausing, picking its way forward gingerly and not always lucidly. Not that the smaller gestures of kindness aren't important...they are. But this is the kind of kindness that gets out of its own way. It is deeply, intentionally out of its own way. And not in your way either. It's the kind of kindness that holds space. There, I said it, it *holds space*. I never even knew what that really meant until I experienced this kind of kindness. It's that powerful.

All I have to say is that I just spent the weekend with a group of the kindest and most generous people I know. People who show up even though things are not clear, who are there for those they love, who are willing to be in the space of unknowing. People who do not make it about themselves. People who have their priorities straight by working with the needs of others. It's the most solemn gift.  It's amazing and breathtaking all at the same time.

Redolent with possibility

For Alvin, who inspires me and for Paul, who makes me a better person.

*******************************************************************************

It's hard to imagine what it is like to live in an environment where you don't have the weather to mark the passage of time. Seasons rise and fall in Michigan, none more so on the thumping, wet, cold darkness of Winter and none more delightful than the brilliant rays of the sun in Spring. We emerge, hunkered down from holding on through the most bone-chilling weeks of near desperation to a sky blazing blue and redolent with golden light. And for those months of light, we don't look at the sun as an advantage, we relish it. Seattle is like this too, as is Portland and all other climates I've lived in where people are deprived of the nectar of light. It's delicious beyond belief. It gives us pause. It renews us on a cellular level.

There's a lesson in this renewal, one subtle but worth exploration in trying to clear out the mental models that stand in our way. I sat at a bar the other night and explained to a friend how incredibly horrified I am of growing old, that there is something inside of me that shudders when I think of aging; that not enough of my life has been lived, that whatever shreds of youth I have had left will leave quickly, that I will never have again the time that I squandered when I was young. In my brain, this causes an odd inertia. I drag my feet, like some 3 year old who wanders the room because he doesn't want to leave, hoping time will stop or slow down.

But this year feels different.  Everything feels like it wants to be new. Clicking off miles on my walk to and from work, new skincare, new sunscreen, new bright running shoes on my feet, new music curated by friends, new writing, new reading, new perfume on my wrist, new, new, new.

More new this year than last. This year is about choices. This year is about vision. This year is about bursting with creative ideas, about curating again, about feeling the current of aliveness from discovery. It's the act of assembling and reassembling the parts to find the best combination. It's about paying attention to the little things as well as the big things. It's about being in it, swimming in it. It's about paying attention, having an avocation or two that sharpens your eye. Boldness and subtlety. Braveness and humility. Not being hamstrung by anything. Loving the process and expecting amazing outcomes. Humming at the cellular level with something that stirs your very soul and marrow. To choose to be alive in a fundamentally exciting way, to live a life powerfully evocative.

I love this feeling. I wish I could bottle it, the possibility of it all. In these moments, I often think of my friend Alvin and his ability to keep it fresh, moving, thoughtful; how he is always turning the dial just a bit to find the right frequency. Or my friend Paul whose practice of reflection and personal editing is not a task, but an essential part of his being. And Annie, and Sharleen, and Nicole. All of these people who have curated lives that are rich with interest and possibility. They remind me of how resplendent with interest the world is, how positive and alive it can be when your creative side gets to lead.

How to keep this feeling alive? How to carve out the time for energizing work? How to construct the next stage of life so that the cellular hum remains? Intention, focus, space, opportunity, running lanes, collaboration, courage, joy, choice. Yes.

Gravity pulls us back

My mother and I had a sticky relationship. Two people could not have been more different in many ways, our political beliefs unbending, our ways of arguing about things loud and confrontational. This was years in the making, journeying through high school and college and beyond up until the weeks preceding her death when the soft reality of a short time gave us the space to not so much talk things through, but just to be attentive to the love that we had for each other, the love that underwrote all these things.

People that know about my hard relationship with my mom always wonder, sometimes aloud, sometimes with their eyes, about how we wrapped things up. I shuffle my feet a bit, uncomfortable with the question that implies what it does, that we wasted many years in disharmony only to be robbed of a future together.

But in these past few years that my mother has been gone, I have realized that our relationship was what it was and would have continued to be so until something catastrophic happened that would have changed everything. And then likely changed nothing.

Because behavior in relationships is incredibly difficult to change. The gravity of the well-worn path pulls us back to what we know and are accustomed to, even if it's not what we want in our heart of hearts. That pattern may be the inability to admit that we are wrong or the hurt at another freezing us out. It may be the lack of courage to have hard conversations, to say that we are sorry, operate on a different level and in a different behavior pattern than we had before. But it's just really hard. And it may not mean that we don't love the other person, it may mean that we just don't have the capacity to make that change. Changing behavior in relationships takes time and near constant attention. It takes intention and tending. False starts and failures chip away at the surface. Sometimes it feels safer not to even start. Sometimes the disappointment feels like more than we can bear.

And you can live the rest of your life sick to your stomach that this never happened, riddled with guilt that you squandered your time with something so precious as your mother's time in your life. You can let that eat away at you, blame yourself, wonder what you could have done. Or you can realize, as so many relationships in life, that it was what it was, mine the time that you had for the good, push past the regrets and move forward. You can take this realization into your relationships that are alive today, have expectations for people and for yourself, live according to what you need and how you need to be loved and to recognize your own role in how that all works out. Because that is what she would have wanted, honestly. I think she'd appreciate that most.