OH, the very young!

I have to say I have been feeling more hopeful lately. I'm not sure where it is coming from, but Jon has been a star and his kindness just pulls so much glory out of everyday life. It makes such a difference to me when I feel wanted, when I feel like I mean a lot to him. We spend hours in irate rants about the horror of what has happened to loved ones, we beg each other, let's always be honest, please tell me if/when you have feelings for someone else. It took so long to get the kids to go to sleep tonight. Earlier I took them to the playroom at FSTC, and it started out lovely but when we had to leave, Chai's brain melted and he roared and screamed his displeasure and Joy was in the lobby talking to a board member, and I was sore embarrassed. Then he screamed all the way home. I feel badly when I try to have fun with them and it seems like the leaving is so devastating that it negates any of the good bonding from the activity in the first place. Craig Wilson has forsaken us. We're still tripping around all the junk in our house and constantly reassuring each other it will get better when the basement is done...we loved to ask our Sparrow questions, like "Are you my lady? Are you very nice? Are you very kind?" She will sweetly reply "Uh-uh," or "Yeah" and if we ask why, she will say, "Cuh!" She is so adorable with her trompy little run and her attentive cradling of her baby. After yelping "Meee! Meeee!" whenever she wants to be included in anything, she will ask "Baby? [coming too]?" We've been sleeping together like two little peas in the cutest pod; her arm flung across my chest and me always kissing her face and hair, saying my baby, my baby, my very good lady. I love it when Chai sometimes wants me to snuzzle him, too, and he'll yell, "I just want you for a little bit!" I want to always go to them. I was watching Anne of Avonlea tonight while Jon was playing and he kept laughing bc he said I was exactly like her..."You are some kind of archetype," he says. It made me so happy.

Stars that clear have been dead for years, but the idea still lives on

I was stunned to see our beautiful cat laying on the rocks in permanent pause, her brown eyes open and still. She was stretched out so perfectly, no blood, nothing obviously damaged, I kept blinking and wishing she would transform into an anonymous raccoon, not our sweet kitty. This is the second time I felt that cold shock go over me when we lost a beloved animal, the first time was our lovely engagement bird. We never understood why it died. It was such a sudden stop. When I told Jonathan, he cried and kind of collapsed into my arms. "This is so sad, it's too sad!" We both cried all the way to salt lake, and talked about all the animals who are neglected and abused and treated cruelly. Jon decided to be a vegetarian in honor of Amber and then ordered sausage patties for breakfast. It was good to see Adam and Amy. Their experiences dovetail in such a nice way with ours. Amy brought us a card and told us she was pregnant. Upon finding out, she immediately sat down and wove a tapestry. We told her this was a very ancient thing to do.  I really like them and wish they lived closer. I asked Jon when we were alone in the car if he thinks there is anything we can do to lessen the strain another baby (Oh, God, WHY?) will have on our relationship. He said he thought setting regular bedtimes would make a big difference, so we could have time alone to connect. I agree, but I want to help him understand the thousands of other pieces, like taking time to hold hands, pointing out the good that the other does, especially when they're handling something stressful, using soft voices and validating during a disaster and not just after, eye contact, expressing affection verbally, sleeping in the same room...our relationship really is the most important in the world to me! I would do anything to save it and strengthen it, but our current reality shakes me and makes me feel doomed to wrath, to moving farther apart. That's not what I want, but I have a hard time believing we can be focused enough to resist natural decay.
We came home and packed and sprinkled holy water on our pretty kitty, told her we had loved her and would miss her. Jon kept putting off taking her away, so I finally did it. It felt so wrong, like she was just any other thing. Her eyes were closed by then. Jon kept saying of Sage, "I'm all she has left in the world." Chai suggested we "wait a few minutes until she comes alive again." 

We drove up Cottonwood canyon and it was so gorgeous, the mountains and trees feed my soul in a way I couldn't receive when I was younger and they were associated with cold and forced hikes and the only glory was the beach. I associate canyons with falling in love with Jonathan and the security of being wanted.
We met up with the Science Twins and their parejas and walked around the glowing lake. Abby was very attentive to Chai and it was so easy and summery and fragrant. We spent the night talking around the fire, about the family, about what will happen,  about how the stars we can see are already dead. We watched a Lion King VHS with a preview for Angels in the Outfield and I was like 1995 was 5 minutes ago! But no, it was almost 20 years ago and I don't understand.

Maybe this time it's different

We've been married four years ago today, and I was right, it was better than 3 in every way! I feel part of me resisting accepting the reality that we couldn't be together last night because we were too exhausted after having to woo sweet Sparrow to sleep (on the living room floor, so it's not like our standards are super high) and getting up at 7 to search for Chai's bottle because the little Lord wouldn't accept the smaller one.  When I think of all the babies that have crashed into our lives in such a short time, I am amazed that we have done as well as we have, that we ever think to drop kisses on each other's faces or snuggle forward or back. When we climbed back in bed this morning after convincing Chai to take the smaller bottle, we talked for two hours about this icy dark tragedy. I told him I'm afraid of what could happen to us. I think four years ago Jon would have earnestly promised me that he'd never go, now he says, we never know what will happen, but that he has hope because we talk and are willing to feel our emotions. The understanding and fevered insight we've held through this whole ordeal is a warm and kindly hand in the abyss. I worry for my friend, that she will be confused and hurt. I still feel angry for the deception, possibly the continued deception. Such destruction for two families. It terrifies me. It seems like such a brutal coming of age, so different from the soft autumn folklore I was introduced to. I can't remember our beginnings without remembering all of them, no matter how rotted and explicitly disappointing it became. Jon arranged for the Stranges to watch the kids while we went to Happy Sumo. I felt so light while we were there. I kept looking at him and thinking, he likes me, he chose me, I've had his babies/I'm carrying his child. When I can stay with it our intimacy feels so amazing. I told him I love him for having a brain that pulls things apart.For some reason, I woke up this morning (27 weeks) feeling one thousand years pregnant. I'm starting to need more support for this heavy bubble, for my fragile birdcage pelvis. It didn't help that I slept for about four hours. I dragged myself through the day just aching for sleep and still managed to feed the kids, read and look at baby pictures with Chai, clean out most of the car and the bathroom counter.  I wish I were more patient with the kids. I hover between being loving and screaming lately. Sometimes I connect so hard with my gorgeous, bright boy, and he will tell me he loves me and other times I can't handle the "why" for everything I ever say. Sometimes I can't get enough of Sparrow's blue-eyed stampeding and her wanting to always lay close, pat my chest, cradle her baby. I take them to the park and affirm and narrate. Other times I just want to lay on the floor and pass out. I want them to go to sleep for hours and just leave me alone. Looking through Chai's baby pictures with him today made me feel two degrees warmer toward the idea of having another baby. "Mom, I have to say why. Because I do."

King of the Carrot Flowers

This morning Chai came up to me, beaming, and told me, "Mom, I love your heart. And I love Sparrow's heart, and I love Daddy's heart!" Work was gentle and facebook was dull. I have a new child client who is speech delayed and indiscriminately affectionate. I remember times when I didn't notice that, children seizing my hands or climbing in my lap just felt so good to me. I'm happy to get to know and work with him even though I'm weary of play therapy, I feel so badly for children who are scarred by inconsistency and shame. In the evening the rain cooled the angry earth and when we walked to visit the horses I could smell every plant on the street. We went to the park and I felt like running in the field (not very far because my pelvis is a delicate cage, I can tell it's eager to twist with a little more weight on it) and stood in the clover circles and Chai and Sparrow chased me. I made them crowns of clover and they looked so beautiful in their tangled wild baby hair. I wanted a rich black and white picture. We lay on our backs and watched the gray clouds moving, Sparrow climbed all the way up the ladder apparatus and is fearless on the slide. Chai told me he was Captain Hook and that we had to stay on the ship so he could take our orders (pirate cheeseboogers, pirate tacos). We sang "Pirate mokey, pirate mokey, just for you, just for you," and practiced swinging on the big swings. My friends really are gone, they're not part of my life the way they were. But most of the time, I still feel happy. Chai was explaining to us in the car, "Remember when I was a baby, and I played by the bridge, and you were holding me, and Sparrow was taller than me?...but Baby Tarzan doesn't drink milk because he isn't born yet. He's still in your belly." Do you think it's possible that maybe at least part of it will be nice?

You have shown me the sky, But what good is the sky To a creature who'll never Do better than crawl?

I have mixed feelings about Aldonza/Dulcinea. I see the insinuation, which I'm sure my grandfather loves, of the effect is can have on people when you see them "not as they are but as they may be/should be." Such elevating treatment maybe helps some people aspire to make needed changes or improve their quality of life. I'm sure my grandfather would state that this is how the Savior sees us, in our potential, not in our current reality. But it was difficult to watch how much this disturbed Aldonza. She keeps admonishing Quixote to "see me as I am!" At one point she begs "Won't you look at me, look at me, God, won't you look at me!" and Quixote continues to cover his face and plea with her never to deny that she is his lady. I also felt sad that the storyline reflected the virgin/whore complex so literally--Quixote describes her as "sweet lady, fair virgin!" to the obscene delight of everyone at the inn where she is prostituted. Why couldn't she not be a virgin and still be of worth, still inspire a knight to noble deeds (also problematic)?  There is some bitterness in the viewer recognizing that no matter how flowery the speeches made to her, she will never be high born, she will never be "pure" in the sense that he believes she is. I can see how there is something sweet about his insistence that she has value even when she is bitterly spitting that she is nothing ("born on a dung heap to die on a dung heap") and her eventual shift to believing in a higher way of life, seeing the beauty in the world and in herself, is touching. But she also shares with him her own raw, violent story, and she truly had some ugly things happen to her that he completely dismisses and is unable to hear. He invalidates her lived experience, and that was difficult to watch. I understand that his madness and inability to integrate reality with his delusion is part of the profound theme that the play explores, but I wish it could have been possible for Aldonza to be seen as a whole person, seen and heard, and still told she is worthwhile. That Quixote could have endured hearing her story and told her, your sexual history doesn't matter, I still see you as Dulcinea. What happened to you wasn't your fault and it's not who you are. Those are the words I would crave from a Savior...not someone with his hands over his ears.

Hoy dia...oy, dia! We left and I immediately missed the sun-spun angels. I can't ever let go and relax completely no matter how much I wanted to get away beforehand. But is there anything more lovely and more temperate than walking in the SLC Farmers Market with Jonny and picking out soap, inhaling rosemary and lemongrass? Sawadees for lunch and we talked about "getting organized." The immediate changes are to do grocery shopping once a week and plan it out, each cook twice a week,  clean the kitchen on the night the other cooks. When the basement is done we want to have a tech room and a toy room, never-to-be-seen-again this time. Those changes will come hard for us, but the way we've been is costing us so much money, energy, and time. I told Jon I'm scared about our relationship and he said the same thing as always, we should do more dates but no babysitters. I suggested we make the effort to carve out the time even if we don't leave home.

We stopped by Daniel's and met a squalling Samuel who triggered me. I don't want to do it. I just don't. I cried and Jon said he'll do whatever he needs to do, "raise it as his own," whatever. I don't need to search far for stories of more desperate situations than mine. I mean triplets, Gaza, watching your children starve, having your children be tortured in front of you. But I still feel such pain and resistance welling up in me and worst of all I know it affects an innocent child and very possibly even a fetus, so during this time of gestation, even my feelings aren't completely mine, I need to calm down and work through my anger and disappointment so the quiet cricket won't be poisoned by the salt of my wrathful blood. It is a complete invasion with no privacy and of course I don't want to hurt a baby, but part of me sees it all as submission this time. Submission to extra-concentrated motherhood, submission to losing more of my mind and my time with the sweet kids I already have, because that's what I'm supposed to do, who will do it save I? Jon reminded me that the baby didn't ask for this. I know, I know! but that doesn't make it easier. We are always so gentle when we get to be alone together. We touch each other and lean in. I miss the time we never had and the time we never will have.