Evergreen

It is pouring rain. I have a stomach virus from four babies at my preschool that shot diarrhea out of their extremely small bottoms like miniature canons all day Friday, one by one they went home, bellyaching and cleaned head to toe each time the diaper didn't work for a living. Friday night we used a gift card and went to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen and picked our Christmas tree. It was my favorite kind of night to pick a tree, slight rain and cold but not windy. We stood in the rain for an hour picking the tree and then waiting for the thick stump to be sawed and the tree to netted. Mr. Curry pulled the entire tree manfully over his shoulders and carried it to the car. The boys tied up Lola with tree floss.

Lola gathered a small tree branch end and named it Ever, which happens to be ( so far ) at the top of the list for Girl names if Mr. Curry and I are so lucky to have another baby. Ever Elizabeth, the Elizabeth being after my Grandma Elizabeth who passed away a few years back. It is essential for me to hear and feel rain. When I was a child if I was afraid, I would sneak out my window and hide underneath the big bushes and trees in our yard. I did this when it was raining. The kind of fear that darkness, rain and trees bring a child is a pure fear. It is not the same as fearing your father. I stayed in the rain and inside the leaves and I felt embraced by the world and it's cycles and fears and beauties, and that feeling took root in me and has remained a crucial part of myself ever since.
When it rains I take the family on a rain-hike at least once. We go into the canyons that Mr. Curry and I played in as children and hike in the pouring rain, mud, tree, dunk our soaked feet in the swollen river and fall and slip on the banks. It is a cleansing ritual and something to remind us we are alive. And we are together.

In Other News, Nie has a series of articles about the plane crash and all that follows which I highly recommend reading here. I am sure ( although it has not been said ) that the young reporter who has done all this research and personally followed Nie through her trials is planning on writing a book, and I will be first in line to read it.

Comptine d'un autre été: l'après midi

dakota wolf, i love you

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction - Anne Sullivan

Babies, The Movie

loosen my heart, until it becomes a wing

transcendence, today!

Today I was in my car driving and the sunlight came through the window in a thousand scattered flowers but still I was the blossom and unfolded and my freckles darkened and my blue eyes were bluet and I was at risk of crashing my car. Crashing always a risk in ecstasy. The sky was in my favorite form, violent, full fathom five, deep and morose grey blue. Some old song came through the radio ' I'm burnin, I'm burnin for you.... burn out the day, burn out the night...' and there were tossed on the wet face of concrete and pavement, thousands and thousands of dying leaves, just pulled and snapped from the branches of the only home they had ever known, into the fluttering open bodies of thousands of other leaves, to have their orange and red and yellow paints pounded into dirt, street, underneath the tires of my car, tearing down the road with the window rolled down, so that the rain came smacking and leaping and hitting on the right side of my body and face, so that I could remember that I am alive, I am alive. I felt my heart take a deep breath and turn it's tired self over, to face the exhausted and scared side toward dark, and rest, and the blood mouth filled red blossom toward sunlight, toward my eyes, which themselves turned toward the dim light in the sky, hardly to be seen past the rain. The wind was so cold. My skin and my arms and my breath leapt and I was aware that December had come with this great grand storm of pounding rain, rain, rain and wind and cold and leaves and offered me a redemption, and where I had seen only the dark and rolling tires, I could open my arms and eyes and roll clean out to the ends of my stem and see that I had again, just begun. Every time this happens and I realize this is possible, still possible, I have a deeper and more profound gratitude that I still, in the moment, live a life where I am capable of this. I do not take this new breath of life for granted nor do I expect that it will continue to fold and unfold this way, as it has for the length of my life so far. Yet I hope fervently that it does. If there comes a day when my mind , spirit or body is

' so beaten and so battered... ' not capable of responding to the world around me this way, I will be either a new person I am not capable of seeing or understanding now, or I will be gone.

Isn't it the strangest thought of all, to imagine tires rolling down a wet road, leaves sticking to the black rubber, making that delicious scrunch-crunch noise on the tar...without your life on this planet to see them feel them or hear them again? They are there. You are not. Beyond my understanding. It leaves the echo of that noise in my head, as if death, instead of being a great void, is a great void between. Not nothingness, but the sound and crunch and move of those tires down the road, far away, where you can hear them and remember them, but never find them again. You either stay looking forever for those wet December roads, or you move forward to something completely new. I admit, I think I would stay a long time- I love moving cars on rain soaked, tree lined streets.

'

image, nikki jane

There Are Some Things You Only Laugh About Later

Today was a thing, an entity in itself. I hold it up for you.

Today forgot to eat breakfast and slept in late. Everyone, especially Lola's 2cd grade teacher, knows that getting a late start sets everything off on the wrong foot.

I woke and stepped out into our Christmas explosion. The living room is inundated with kitch I inherited from my mother-in-law, half of which I am packing up and storing, but which is meanwhile making merry in my home. Mr. Curry lay on the couch, hoodie up, watching a TV documentary about the Colombian mass murderer and drug lord, Pablo Escaban. The boys, both of which were raised without toy guns or violent images allowed, played an M rated video game in Dakota's room. I could hear their howls of violent glee. The dog raised his head and barked at them before settling his head back into the couch pillow that is absolutely not allowed to be on the floor, which was next to the cream colored faux fur blanket that is absolutely not allowed to be on the floor either. Lola was still sleeping at 9:40am. We were supposed to be leaving at about 9am for taking the Christmas picture and buying the Christmas tree.

I washed my face and told the boys to turn off the game and brush the dogs. I woke Lola and asked her to get in the bathroom for a shower. I rubbed Mr. Curry's head and kissed the dog.

20 minutes later I rose my voice at the boys and demanded they get off the game, told Lola to hurry up and dry off and what WAS she doing with my makeup in the steam filled bathroom? and asked Mr. Curry if he was ready to leave. The television yelled loudly about the imminent death of many innocent Columbians in 1992 and I realized the dog brush had broken last week and the boys could not clean the dog coats for our Christmas picture and then I stepped in a wet spot on the floor and realized I had wet my last pair of socks on the kitchen floor.

5 minutes later I marched into the boys room and turned off the TV- which they are not allowed to have in their room as I have told them their entire lives- said in an even but POWERFUL voice that they should get up NOW and get ready. Dakota smiled at me. I felt the smile as a woman feels a 'friendly' slap on the ass from a man she has just cursed out. I licked my chapped top lip and the downturn of my mouth let tears leak into my eyes. I turned quickly before the boys could see them. I'm supposed to be even, in control. You don't let teenagers see you sweat. They are like sharks who smell blood from miles away in salty stormy waters.

Mr. Curry got up off the couch and Pablo Escaban was escorting his family to the airport in attempts to flee the Los Pepes who were killing everyone associated with Pablo. I escorted my family out the door and into the car. Lola sat between Ian and Dakota and yelled loudly at Ian for poking her in the side and Ian laughed at her and I told him to stop and Mr. Curry sighed very loudly but not loudly enough for the kids to hear. Just me. The sky was grey and overcast and wrong for taking cheerful ' California Christmas ' pictures, as our cards usually say.

We got to the parking lot of Wal-Mart and I hurried inside, purchased a dog brush and dog treats as bribes to get them to look up and happy at the camera for our Christmas pictures and hurried back to the car and as we left I realized Dakota had worn the wrong color sweater. I told you to wear black or dark blue, I said. Mr. Curry drove us back to the house and went through his own sweaters, found one for Dakota, who was loudly/softly ( this is the definition of passive aggressive in case you were unsure) complaining about how I was ruining everyone's day. Lola began to begin to start to maybe cry, because she was starving, because I forgot to feed her.

We drove to the park, got out, and Dakota began to very slowly bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuush the dogs. Hurry, please, I said. He shrugged, and bruuuuushed the dogs. Lola began to collect the large clumps of dirty dog hair in her hands, while jumping like a bunny on the very dirty parking lot cement. Lola stop that, I said. Dakota I'll just do it, I said. I brushed the dogs and Dakota snickered at me. Ian began to also snicker at me, because Ian is 13 and thinks that Dakota is pretty much the Boy that created Boys. Lola kept hopping and playing with dog hair, ignoring me. Why are they ALL ignoring me! I thought. Lola that's enough! I growled, and grabbed her by the arm, pulled her toward Mr. Curry. Go to your dad, right now! Lola looked at me with surprise and hurt and I felt like a piece of shit. Mr. Curry, who was feeling very bummy and sad today and trying to take perhaps a few hours off of being an enforcer ( which he has more than earned, trust me ) leaned against the car.

Thanks A Bunch

San Diego, California 2009 My cousin Amalia who I have loved more as a sister for all my life, brings her son Elton from LA where she lives with my BIL Tim ( who is to graduate film school any day now, look out world! ) and I get to hug the beejezers out of her. Amalia is one of those very special people who have what I can only describe as purity of heart. She has a shining, clear goodness about her that has survived many a hard place in her life. She is a true good heart and one of a kind, and I love her so much. You can also see she is GORGEOUS!

Elton is too cute for me. I can't stand it.

Ian, Dakota, Amalia, Elton, and Lola sneaking round the corner.

No, really. I can't stand it. And Elton is clearly terrified by my affections. I suppose I'm turning into THAT AUNT. The one who kisses your cheeks and smacks your hiney and says you are cute, and you would like to die, on the spot. But look at him!! Also witness the state of my nails.

Dakota and Mr. Curry eat while laughing. Dangerous.

Ian is notoriously hard to photograph. He hates it, and is usually covered or making a very grim and dire face as if he were waiting in line for prison food. Here you see part of my family in collapse from Thanksgiving overload. Also, Lola licking her plate. My children have excellent manners.

They also have two dogs.

Lola's Galleria

Lola took the following pictures. I think my breast looks unfairly diminutive in this photo but place it here all the same in accordance to Lola's rules of fair play.

Lola's Self Portrait, Age Seven

Grandma Mary

Peace, Peace xoxoxo

the good green earth in home

These are some of my most cherished images of home living I have ever found. I adore green in home. I added a large leafed fern in pot to Lola's room, a green plant in a beautiful planter to our kitchen, and I'm working on a fern project I plan to post here at Flux.

I hope you all have had a beautiful day. Today was the Due Date of our lost Curry baby. We mourn today. It has been long and hard and deeply sad to have empty arms today, and blessed beyond words to have my children and my Mr. Curry to fill them.