balancing acts
Photo by Billy
My life is bound as tight as those contortionists I saw once at Cirque d’ Soliel. Twisting here, reaching there, I struggle to puzzle everything into 18 hours of wakefulness.
The days are dry, too warm, and gorgeous; romping in the leaves in the yard, William takes it all in. At seventeen months old, he is ecstatic at the sighting of a “kiddycat”; giddy at the existence of apple juice (its lovely sweetness); comforted by the revelation that “two” follows “one”, whether it be sleeves in, shoes on, or steps down to the living room.
There is a begonia in our shady living room window; I noticed yesterday how freakishly long its stem has grown, arching its jagged purple leaves toward the muted light. It had even managed to flower there.
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Filed under family matters, motherhood, photographs | Comment (1)eat!eat!eat!
Photo by Billy
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Filed under photographs | Comment (0)recycling
Photo by Billy
I hate writing.
I mean, I love it, but I struggle with finding the time and accepting my flaws so plain on the page. I am constantly shifting words around, trudging forward, fantasizing about giving up completely.
But if I quit writing, what would I do with all those moments?
Like when I pass the old crooked man walking his young, spry dog, and my dog lunges at his–even though I don’t want her to– and the leash digs into my hands, and it really hurts. What would I do with that?
Or that time, in the seventh grade, when Dawn and Danielle, my two so-called best friends, told me that Greg Baltimore wanted to “go” with me, and badgered me until, terrified, I called him. “You wanna go with me?” I asked. “Go where?” he said.
Or on a bus in Peru, when that older brother kept socking his younger brother–both tough looking raggedy kids with a snotty noses–rather viciously and for no apparent reason, and the younger boy just sat there teary as hell but refusing to cry.
All those times and people and what I imagine about them—their impatience, their vulnerability, my own–peculates in my head. It’s useless really, rotting flowers, except I can try to compost it, make it into something new and useful in my stories.
I’ve been reading The Collected Ctories of Flannery O’conner who makes the most vivid and harsh moments come to life for me.
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we put a book on william’s head
Thanks to Jeremy for putting the video together
What more can I say? Watch the video.
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Filed under video | Comment (1)grand-ma-ma
Images by my grand-pa-pa Johnson
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Filed under family matters, photographs | Comment (0)night drive
William and Molly (the Labrador)
Photo by Billy
Sunday morning at 3:41 am, William wakes up screaming.
Alarmed, we hold him, rock him–his is not feverish—but he is inconsolable.
We were staying overnight at a friends house in Arlington, sleeping in their finished basement guest room.
After 20 long minutes, we feel compelled to leave their house (they have their own young boy upstairs). We fumble in the dark trying to put shoes on the right feet, groping for our car keys, their house keys, while William shrieks and jumps in our arms.
We drive aimlessly, in the dark night, circling Crystal city mall, shimmering like a Christmas tree. William is still whimpering when we wind up at National airport: all those terminals lined up and people in wrinkled dress clothes pulling their luggage behind them. William settles in his car seat, his eyes big on the lights reflected in the windows.
“I can’t believe he’s still awake,” I say.
“Where are we going?”
“What do you think is wrong with him?” I say.
“I don’t know, what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. what do you think?”
We circle the airport several times, passing places we’ve never been, like the employee parking lot. The sky is dark and the moon is high and full, and a surprising number of cars (leaving? coming?) float down the road. We are all dreaming with our eyes open, startled, exhausted, and out of place. It seems impossible that we will make it even through this one long night.
We pass a police car, shiny, black, positioned like a sentinel at the edge of the airport grounds.
“What if they think we terrorists?” I ask Billy, “and they blow up our car—Do you think Joo and Bob will be able to figure out what happened to us?” I rub my eyes and laugh. I look back at William, still awake, but his blinks are getting longer.
We drive forever. We drive because we know that William is sick, or hurting in some new way we cannot pin point or fix. And we are not at home. And we do not want to disrupt this other home. Our limbs are heavy with sleepiness, our eyes burn, and we try not to think of the things we must do tomorrow and the day after, or even how we will stay safely on the road.
We drift into the city; it looks ethereal: the national monument glowing in orange light, the mall, empty and spacious below it, with dark clumps of trees.
We drive.
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