A Saturday

! Today is so beautiful here in San Diego, breezy and sunny and perfectly open grinning sky. Lola went with Grandma Mary to a birthday party of a friend, Ian went to his Mom's and Dakota, Mr. Curry and I went to Japanese for lunch. I had delicious veggies, brown rice and chicken. Then I walked with my arm swinging toward the Starbucks and caught the eye of a good looking young black guy working outside. He had seen me swing my arm and smile, and was smiling at me with all his teeth sparkling. Awesome.

Mr. Curry and I are going to dinner to see my cousin Amalia and her new baby, Elton. I am so excited! My cousin and I are like sisters. We lived together off and on growing up. She is one of those rare birds with an easy soul, she remained loving and hopeful and beautiful despite many hardships growing up.


This morning I woke late, after sleeping in ZZZZzzzzz After a bit, I wandered into the kitchen and found Lola Moon of the Moon Clan sitting buck naked at the dining table, gluing together a horse she made out of shapes she cut out and colored.


The harder I focus on what is in front of me, the more in focus it becomes. I have learned that one of the legacies of a  painful childhood has been that my mind stutters and misfires and replays old images and feelings over new experiences. Time becomes slippery when your mind is tethered to the junk in the attic. As much therapy (four great years with an Angel) and medication and prayer (although I not a 'believer', I am a 'flounderer') and love as I have used to heal, my mind is still capable of reverting in an instant to that panicked, lonely child. What I struggle to do each and every day is turn from that child, to my own. To accept who I am and what I have been through. The shame alone can be obstructive...I am not the woman I think I 'should' be. I am the woman I am. I am always trying, always failing and succeeding in the same long breath. I love well, and deeply. This must count for so much. I have provided all the resources for emotional and mental health I can think of for myself and my family.

Sometimes my son asks me why I have to be weird. Why, Mom, do you have to sing opera and dance with Dad? Why do you have to be a writer- no one else I know has parents who write. Why Mom, do you have to care so much about organic and whole foods eating? Why do you have to make us sit outside and stare at the stars, or take night walks, or snort when you laugh?

He is 14, you know. It's a hard age to have a liberal writer for a mother, especially one who was 19 when she was pregnant with you and is now 33, when all your friends parents are more...shall we say...settled? Suburbia wears it's inhabitants out this way at times. Conformity can be survival in the social structure of middle schoolers.

But other times..other times he looks at me a certain way, or listens with a certain tilt to his blonde head, and I know he is grateful for the love and support and wackiness of our family.

One of my favorite childrens books is 'We're Going On a Bear Hunt' because it is a great metaphor for life, something like:

' oh no! we can't go over it,
we can't go under it
i guess we'll have to go through it'

Avoidance is not an option. My spirit trembles in it's boots before the immensity of life's mysteries and suffering, but it stills in the hands of love.