Minutes and Days

It is morning, quiet, the house still, holding its breath, anticipating the coming day. Three cats are curled beside me, purring commas, delighted to fill the space between me and the man sleeping next to me (turned on his side, deeply asleep, unaware of the world outside the dreams swirling through his head).

The room is shaded, but not dark, a sort of halfway light that could be dawn, could be dusk, could be any of the in-between times of day when the eyes can't tell the time and a clock must do the trick.

I pet the cats, careful not to startle them into frantic, charged motion - I don't want them launching themselves from my leg, or his, digging claws in for purchase, leaving behind unwanted racing stripes.

I close my eyes for a few more minutes, drift between minds and places, float a bit before returning. How long was I gone? It felt like hours, but only minutes have passed.

There are minutes like that in every day - minutes stretched to their limits, full to bursting, suspending their normal tick and tock to hang in breathlessness, endless. Bad news, good news, no news, minutes that take forever to unpause and get moving into the next hour.


Then there are the days...days that boom across the hours, racing in their anxiety to be spent, done, to push through and pass the baton to the next span of the sun's journey. I wake, on these sprinting days, and suddenly I find myself readying for bed - despite all the long minutes between times, the day is done and I wonder where it has gone.

It is March, nearly April, and the balloon from Bird's birthday still hovers at the end of its ribbon tether, depleted but proud. I am caught, still in January when the shiny Mylar was plump, and new, and now, when it hangs like a soap bubble, not entirely sure what is keeping it up.

I'm hanging in time like that balloon, like the bubbles, caught between the dawn of creation and the end that, with a surety, is a sudden pop! before it all begins again.

Whirling in a mix of eternal minutes and rushing days, year passing years, gone before I've had a moment to grasp them, make them mine before releasing them again.

Stolen Moments

I love my son. He is a brightness in the grey gloom of depression, a constant whirling dervish of joy in my world. His curiosity seems ceaseless, an unending litany of questions followed by confused facts followed by more questions, interspersed with songs full of muddled lyrics sung heartfelt and slightly off-key. He's a crazy quilt, a bundle of love and maddening little-boyness that warms the chill in my heart like nothing else can...and sometimes is a little smothering, a little overwhelming, a little more than I want or need just at the moment.

Every now and then, I find myself looking for bits of time that are for me.

Bits of time that don't include T, or J, or Bird, or cats, or Mum, or friends. For me.

I usually have them in the car, quick dashes to the grocery store or appointments or some other errands, a few minutes listening to the iPod and mumbling to myself, maybe working out plot points in one more story that I'm halfway through writing and will likely never show anyone because I'm embarrassed by them. But I write them anyway, in other stolen moments.

Minutes here and there. Maybe I managed to get up early, or maybe I am staying up beyond late, after the Evil Genius has finally played himself into exhaustion and sleep. That doesn't happen often any more, because no matter when I turn out his lights and kiss him goodnight, he will not sleep unless the whole house is dark and quiet. It's as if he doesn't want to miss a moment of what anyone else is doing. If I'm up, he's awake, and sometimes he's awake if I'm sleeping. If I could harness that energy, I'd never have another power bill.

Right now, I have a few of those moments. The cats are all curled up elsewhere, Bird is in bed, not quite asleep but not quite awake, T is not home from work yet, J is out bowling, and I am free to write, mumble, or go sit out on the front steps and feel the night around me.

The night around me is warm, a little humid, breezy, and thick with promise. It feels like a storm is brewing not too far away. I can smell it, taste it, feel it in my bones. It's a good feeling. I enjoy having it to myself for a little while, the anticipation and content in the darkness. I smell grass, and damp, and a wildness in the wind. Silent flickers of light flash in the far away sky, backlighting the growing clouds.

A few minutes of peace, a few stolen moments out of my regular life.

Back inside, cats want my lap, Bird wants a late night snack, there is e-mail, there are dishes, trash, laundry, constant pulls on my time and energy. I've had my little bit for now, and life won't wait.

I feel displaced again, like I don't belong here in this life, and yet I am content to be here, now, in this moment. This stolen moment.

Mother of the Year

How to feel like a complete shit-heel in 3 easy steps:

1. Call someone one the phone and start a long conversation.

2. When young child excitedly scampers into room calling out "Mommy! Mommy!! Mommy!!!" snap "WHAT!?!?"

3. Feel like a shit-heel when he replies in a tiny voice "I just wanted to tell you I love you..."

And then...

Tell the person you're on the phone with what just happen, using the phrase "shit-heel" and wait for it. Small child will laugh and say "shit-heel, that's funny", and then you get to give him the "You don't get to say shit-heel, shit-heel is a grown-up word and you haven't earned it yet, so don't say shit-heel, OK?" lecture, after which you may proclaim your parenting superiority in expanding your child's vocabulary one expletive at a time.

I'll be waiting for my check from the Nobel Committee on parenting. The Peace Prize can't be far behind.

Yeah Sure, Kid

"Mommy, when I'm one-hundred, can we buy a new house?"

Uhh...OK.

I have no idea where these things come from.

He also informed me that a flood was coming (we recently saw Evan Almighty) and a giant squid was going to swim in the flood and he needed to warn everyone in the state of Georgia about it. Just Georgia - I guess the rest of you can go whistle.

He took the phone book into his room, and his (non-functioning) cell-phone, and started dialing. No kidding.

He told T that he didn't want to sleep in our room with us any more (not that he does that often, maybe twice a year) because the clock annoys him. Both clocks- when I'm in there with him, my clock annoys him, and when T is in there with him, T's clock annoys him.

Uh-huh.

He's OK with hanging out on our bed and watching Spongebob, though. Good to know, that.

"When I'm eighty-six, can I buy a car?" And crash it into a bus full of nuns, probably. He is, after all an EVIL genius. Way to plan ahead, kid.

A Moment

Deep blue sky reaching past the boundaries of sight, uniformly blue, blue in three dimensions; clear of sulphur yellow, of jet fuel brown, of traces and trails, marks of human restlessness.

Trees greening into Summer, pale Spring lace forgotten, left behind for shades of deepest verdure, marking their territory with shadows.

Wind softening to breeze, apology for home-and-hearth battering storms, trees shivering and shaking with the memory of last night's angry blows, whispering of roots tested and tried, of bending without breaking and next time, next time, maybe...

Wrapped in the moment stand I, head tilted slightly back, slightly sidewise, eyes slitted against the brightness of the blue, self welcoming the softness of the air's motion, breathing in the scent, soaking in the silence that is not silence but rather lack-of-human sounds that is defined as silence in this cellphone punctuated, bass-heavy-angry-music fouled, horn shattered modern life.

Without child stand I, a blessed moment alone, no one to answer to, to chastise, to love so noisily that it sends Nature scrambling back, away, except the insect kin who don't hear us as we hear ourselves and so continue on their intersecting spiral pathways, seeking or returning with food, defending, exploring, wondering why the sudden darkness or crush and smush, bewildered by the colorful lines of chalk that keep them from their way with designs to grand for their tiny selves to comprehend, so much like us in our effort to ravel the chaos beyond our ken.

Just that one little span of time, but timeless enough that it could have been hours, days, a span equal to the one note that sounded before everything went from nothing to all.

When we look, when we don't look, when we forget to look, life is replete with these small moments, grace notes to the busy, busy, busy...

A Zen Thing.

I was driving to my friend Sam's house, thinking about Julian - his life, his death, and his mum. You know, nice light fare for a jaunt to a chum's.

I don't really feel too sad for Julian...he was sick, weak, in pain. How is death a bad thing, when you have all that to juggle? I've been with cancer patients from start to finish...and the finish is always a relief for the ones experiencing it most intimately. I'm sorry the little guy won't know some of the joys of growing into an adult. No first kiss, no prom, no fumbling a bra off a girl for the first time...all the things that help shape a lad into a man.

More, though, I feel for his mum. Could I share with y'all, if my beloved were sick, dying, gone? I have no idea. I doubt I'd be coherent enough to use a Kleenex properly, let alone write a beautiful post for everyone who'd been following along with our journey. Although grief fades, until she dies there will be a sore, empty place where Julian's life should be...dances, dates, loves, triumphs, graduations, wins, losses, sorrows, fiancees, wedding, children...a whole long life's worth of empty.

Sigh.

I was also thinking a sort of Zenish thought about yesterday. I figured it out...around the time Julian was passing through the veil, I was catching snowflakes in front of my house. My head was tilted back and I was letting them fall into my mouth, onto my tongue, brush cold feathery kisses across my cheeks and eyes. I was delighted, brought right back to my own childhood and the taste and feel of fat wet flakes. I was grinning (a sight to behold I'm sure, since I know I don't do it often) a big silly grin, and my hair, face, and torso were covered in the melting miracles. The snow tasted clean, the flakes were magnificent and massive...I caught them on my palm and ate them, tipped my head back and caught them, blinked them out of my eyes and giggled when a few went down the back of my shirt. All while Julian lay dying.

I didn't know he was failing...I've been keeping passively up with his regression from life, and only knew he was still hanging on through Xmas. So I was uncomplicatedly happy for a little while. In the same moments he and his family were uncomplicatedly sorrowful. We were in the moments together, experiencing different parts of the same whole, hearts beating together, breathing together, being in our moments together even as were were as far apart as strangers can be...in so many ways, so very far apart...but we were still sharing those moments. Some of Julian's dying was mine, and some of his mother's grief and relief were mine, and some of my simple snowy joy was theirs.

Right now, in this moment, as I type, Mimi (Julian's mother, although I have no right to be so familiar with her name) and I are sharing existence - she with her heart full of her experience, and I with mine. Along with us, there's you, dear reader...you and everyone you know and the even greater number of people you don't know. We are all in our moments together. There is no different time for one or another...we share it all, together...it's only our experience makes us different in these moments.

If that doesn't make you feel connected to it all, I don't know what will.

Or maybe it's just me...or a Zen thing.