On the Mat

Dude. I almost lost it at yoga tonight.

La and I have started a 14-day yoga blitz, trying to jump start a habit and also see if we like the studio. Tonight was day four; we missed class this morning, so we decided to take this evening's "TGIF" class, a mixed level, vigorous practice.

So we were moving from standing poses to handstands towards the end of the 90-minute class. Handstands in the middle of the room, not against a wall.

The teacher walks us through the pose and its modifications for those of us who have never done handstands. Then she starts talking about trusting your ability to support yourself.

My hands are on the mat, wrist creases parallel with the edge of the mat.

My shoulders are on my back and engaged, and I am on my hands and knees. I straighten my legs, walk myself up until I am transferring my weight from the back of my body to my hands, sort of. I stand on the tops of my toes, like a ballerina en pointe. My arms are strong, my gaze is at the floor slightly in front of my hands, and that's as far as I can go.

I can't support myself on my hands; to let go and lift my feet from the floor would be disastrous.

It's a stupid fucking metaphor.

The best I can do at this point is come back to the mat, and support myself on my hands when I can.

And isn't that just the way?

#Time

Part Two: Things I Need to Teach My Daughter + Real Change

Okay, so the months are blurring together, and in just six weeks it will be a year since Dane died. I wrote about some things I would need to teach our daughter since he isn't here to do it, and I am steady adding to the list.

Most recently:

1. You need to know where the water shut off is in your house. And sometimes shutting it off at the street is not a possibility, so you need to know where the valve is in the house. If there isn't a valve in the house, call a plumber and have them install one. It will be $300, approximately, and worth every freaking penny when there is water gushing out of a pipe under your house, in the dark, when it is 20 degrees out.

2. You need to know how to flush a toilet without running water. Good knowledge for boating also.

3. You need to become one with the whore's bath, or as my friend Kerry calls it, the PTA bath. Especially after three hours of yoga in a house without water, and another hour and a half planned before there is water.

You may have guessed that a pipe burst in our house. Last night. In the dark. After hours.

And the best part? Seriously?

My first thought when the pipe burst (after, "Oh, shit.") was thank god I know where the shut off valve is. This may seem trivial, but if Dane was alive I would not have known that. And if I had not known that and Dane was alive but out of town like he frequently was, then I would have been royally screwed.

And then my second thought was that it is a sign of real change that my first thought (after, "Oh, shit.") was one of gratitude. And then I put on the knee pads, grabbed the headlamp, threw on the Carhartt, and dragged myself the length of the house to stop the deluge.

So there's that.

The List

So Sicily is a teenager, and this can be difficult.
 
Here is my list of things I cannot stand, and beside those, in parentheses, are the most important things that I am trying to focus on when she does those things I cannot stand.
 
(this is all part of trying to keep the most important thing the most important thing)
 

• She is addicted to sugar (She always gives me the first bite if I ask, like her daddy).

• She is blind to a filthy bathroom (She will clean it if I ask)

 

• I ALWAYS have to ask (She will clean it if I ask)

 

• She watches dumb crap on YouTube/Tumblr (She has a wide knowledge base on surprising things, like the times she is able to interject with information in conversation, and she is able to hold her own in conversation with pretty much anyone on nearly any topic, and she isn't afraid to say she doesn't know something)

 

• She talks back (She talks back. She doesn't take shit. She stands up for herself.)

 

• She is a slob (She already knows that an impeccably clean house isn't the most important thing)

 

• She leaves her crap lying all around (She will share anything she has with you)

 

• She is unmotivated (Well, shit, aren't we all? Let's not walk around all high and mighty like we somehow sprung full-blown motivated from Zeus's thigh. That's bullshit. Any time someone talks badly about adolescents and motivation I want to poke them in the eye. Do you remember 13? Probably not, but there wasn't a whole bunch of popping out of bed and tackling the day at that age for you either. So shut it)

 

• She spends money on dumb stuff like endless amounts of makeup (She earns and saves her own money, about twice as much as the allowance she gets monthly, and she told me last night that when she is rich she is going to buy me a car)

• She doesn't do what I would have her do (She is her own person and is okay with figuring out who that is and following what she wants)

 
When Sicily was going through a particularly awful time around 18 months, not sleeping, screaming and being generally horrible, and my patience was particularly thin due to exhaustion, I made a list of all of the things she could say and do, and all of the things she liked. Every time we would have little spurts like that, I would go back to the list and read over it and that helped me gain some perspective on the speed bump or whatever was happening. This is sort of like that except there is nothing particularly bad happening, just me watching her grow and finding myself getting impatient at times and being irritable (probably more about me than her) I love her. I have faith in her. I know she is going to be amazing. Never hurts to have a list.

Haiku: 2013

Haiku: 2013

These are things I have

Lost: a child, a husband, a
House – in that order.

What I have: at night

And quiet times not much, but
Sun in the morning.

Next up: joy. Seeking.

The light of the world on my
Skin. Bliss. Maybe love.


Blessed be,
Suzannah

Home

I think I have written a post with this title before; possibly not. At any rate, I have put writing this blog off for days but the concept of "home" has weighed heavily on my mind since February 17, 2013.

In my last blog about it, I think I said something sage about how the places don't change; we change. Everything is the same but our memory of it is distorted by distance, time and our own inevitable growing up.

Well, that's fancy.

Sometimes places change, too.

Seattle was nothing like I remember, except for the hour Sicily and I spent on the beach at Golden Gardens, or the walk down by Ivar's on the waterfront. Water is a constant for me; not a huge astrology buff, but if I were I would admit that I am every little scrap of everything about my sign. Pisces, if you're keeping track. March 14th, for those who don't know, and yes, I love presents and cards, so feel free.

But I digress.

So I have changed, and the place has changed.

And, like the Pisces I am, I feel all melodramatic about it.

When I was 17, I went on a sort of a moving spree, moving every six months or so for four years. I came to hate moving. Nothing felt right. I was antsy.

Then I started moving from state to state. More expensive and very inconvenient, but it was pretty nice to be able to pack up my whole life in whatever crappy little car I was driving and just leave. My parents had sold my childhood home by the time I was 25 and moved away, so I moved, too, to Colorado and then Seattle. Where I met Dane and had The Child.

And finally.

My home was Dane and Sicily.

I remember vividly one morning when Sicily was a week or two old, looking down the row of lavender pillows on our bed, watching Dane and Sicily sleeping, so full of joy and contentment that I cried (quiet as shit because GOD FORBID you wake a sleeping baby. Just. Don't.). I felt such gratitude for the feeling that I was, in that moment, completely at home and utterly at peace. The sun came in through the slats in the blinds, and I sat up in bed next to my little family and wept for the simple, unadulterated beauty of that feeling.

Home isn't a place. It's just not. It is the people in the place, which is rough because I am generally not too fond of people but when I am I totally am.

But it's not just the people in the place either. It's me in the place. And man, I still kind of suck right now. Which is fine, because that's how things go, and it is getting better but it is still rough being me some days.

So if what I am saying is true, then the planets need to be aligned, I need to be my best self, and I have to be surrounded by just the right people to ever feel like I am at home again.

Yikes. Tall order. I have high hopes for 2014.

The Most Important Gift

I am writing this sitting at Cousin Jennifer's kitchen table in Washington State; Sicily is wrapping a couple gifts that we bought when we got here, and Steve and Karlene are out delivering the food baskets that Karlene and Sicily put together on Friday. Yesterday we woke up to three inches of snow.

We are absolutely wrapped in the bosom of family right now; that's the best I can put it. I can feel how badly they want us to have a good time, to feel loved, to be comforted, and I am so grateful to have such amazing people to share the holidays with. It made me realize how much time we wasted over the years, not coming to visit for so long, always having an excuse not to come to Seattle or go to someone's wedding or baby shower or party or whatever it was that we chose not to do.

I am not beating myself up about it because it is done. But I keep writing about it and thinking about it so that I can continue to keep making the most important thing the most important thing. It is so easy to let everyday things take over (the small business of life, like running errands, appointments, keeping the house together, etc), but while those things are necessary, I really feel like they took over for too long. No more.

I have people in my life who will not understand the choices I am making (or will make) in the coming months/years. I hope that you have enough faith in me to support and respect them anyway, and if you don't I guess that's just the way it is. Just because it is not your path doesn't make it wrong (just like your path, though a disaster for me, fits you).

We are a big, fat walking cliché in Seattle because I really feel like just being here is present enough. After this crap pile of a year, I feel lucky. And that is a pretty amazing gift itself.

Choices

Choices suck (said the spoiled, first-world person).

Seriously.

The world is wide open. In my view, there is nothing we can't do, and now is the time to do it.

Well, we can't do the opposite of whatever we choose to do. So in choosing, we eliminate possibilities.

Example: if we move to Seattle, we won't live in Baltimore, and nothing is guaranteed, so for everyone who is thinking really loudly, "You can always do that later," yeah, right (see February 16, 2013 for evidence of how much say we have in that).

If I start the school again, we don't get to travel.

If we stay in Georgia...we are stuck in Georgia.

By choosing FOR, we are also choosing AGAINST.

It sucks and is nearly paralyzing. Those of you who really, really know me can understand how close I am to saying, 'Fuck it," and taking off with just a car full of whatever is important. Things will all work out in the end (and if it doesn't work out, it's not the end), so who really cares if we stick around?

(don't panic, softball people. I am also not in the habit of leaving people in the lurch. )

Life is uncertain and the longer we sit around waiting and planning and saving and otherwise delaying action, the better chance we have of doing NOTHING. We can't do it all, but I want to do more. Life is too short to settle down, and no place feels like home anymore anyway, so what the hell are we doing here?

Choices SUCK.