Commited

A sickly sweet stench fills my truck. I can smell it each time I climb in. It’s origin is a mystery but I’m sure W has something to do with it…discarded fruit roll up, half emptied apple juice box, baggie of orange slices stuffed in a crease in the seat. Must dig around before it evolves into a homemade penicillin specimen.

Communication with the sprout has been so delightful lately. Seems like just overnight his infantile babbling has shifted to subject-verb or subject-direct object with real meaning and desire. “Larder (water), pwease.” “Hep up!” “Mumma big truck.” “Raycar fast, varoooom!” The other evening I was enjoying some soup that the Hubs had made earlier in the day and I was telling W that it was hot soup, yummy soup, that Dada made the soup, etc. W chimed in saying “Soup hot. Hot soup. Mama soup. Hot mama. Hot mama.” Fantastic!

Lately I’ve been more torn than usual between my responsibility to my job and to my son. I think all working moms go through this. It might have more to do with the longer daylight hours, that childhood sense that school will be out for the summer, and wanting to climb into a car or plane and go away with the family for a long while. Realistically though I feel like I’m missing out on so many small things that he’s doing now in leaps and bounds. Everything he does is like receiving a little gift, each one different and unique from the other. I want to be there for as much of it as possible. His teachers are the main recipients of said gifts and although they love and adore him, he’s not their child so they don’t reel with wonder and amazement at his small feats. Tearing myself away from him each morning is still just as heartbreaking as it was the first time I took him to daycare except now he says my name and runs to attach himself to my legs like a baby octopus or just flops in defeat into the lap of Miss Amy and sobs. In the mornings, I can hear his little voice calling out my name like an urgent request. He immediately heads upstairs to find me getting dressed for work. The sight of me is a relief to him. I can see it in his lit up expression but I hate knowing that his lovely squinty-eyed smile will soon be replaced with tears.

Then there’s the other side of the coin, the one that makes me wonder if I could actually spend all that time at home and surrender my professional self…and sanity. I go stir crazy when I don’t have projects of some magnitude on my plate. There’s only so many weeds, so much laundry, grocery shopping, tiding up and isolation one can experience before the mommy madness sets in.

I guess I’m looking for some flexibility but what I want to ask for I need to be committed to like a religion to make it work. It’s all a balancing act, a very complicated and stressful balancing act.

Marfa On My Mind

I had every intention of blogging daily during my recent trip to West Texas but I never had the energy or gumption to follow through. I needed more time to process, to weed out, to lighten up.

It’s a six-hour drive to Marfa from Austin. Five of them have to pass before I start to let go of the things that crowd my mind and fray my nerves. The hill country landscape shifts from low-lying mesquite and sage to massive buttes and plateaus as far as the eye can see. Your mind surrenders to the vastness. The road looms ahead of you in an endless straight line and you settle in to autopilot, the cruise control locked in at a legal 80 mph.

We got there in time to freshen up and check out an art opening. The usual and talented suspects were present…Julie Speed, Boyd Elder, Vance Knowles and more. The energy is always lively and friendly at these things. Later, we were thoroughly entertained by a band called Japanther. They began their set by laughing and shoving each other up and down two ramps flanking a small stage, sometimes causing spills and colliding bodies. Two guys and two girls. The girls performed a sort of dance routine that involved lots of jumping, a couple of bananas, hands covering bouncing boobs and disappearing moments into the crowd. You can always count on refreshing creativity here in this strange little town.

The next day we lazily walked our buns to the Pizza Foundation for some rockin’ pie and mild sightseeing. We spent the rest of the afternoon lazing around the casita, reading, napping, and gazing in to the horizon. Pure bliss. I laid out in the tiny yard most of the time and just looked up at the flawless sky while watching crows soaring in long, circular patterns, their wings never flapping. What an opportunity to empty the mind and refill it with things that need serious attention and thought.

Later, we staged a cocktail/nosh hour complete with Prosecco, a juicy New Zealand vino and lots of uppity snacks in our little yard. We invited our hosts to join us but only Tom and his sassy little RCA pooch, Clifford, came. What a fun we had telling tales, sharing a bit of local gossip, and laughing out loud in the open air. That evening we strolled back over to the gallery and watched Sam Prekop and Archer Pruitt perform. Kind, gentle, lovely. We mingled with old and new friends before heading home in a slight wine fog.

Sunday we drove to Big Bend. It was my first time. A Big Bend virgin. Man, oh man, what views! And Texas is freakin’ huge. Luann and I started out on a smallish hike, the Lost Mine trail, but it got cut short due to rain. One minute we were gregariously tromping through the woods and tolerating the droplets but as soon as we reached the edge of the summit, we found that wild weather was just on the other side, waiting like a preying tiger and it assaulted us with strong winds and heavy downpour. We drove further in to the park in search of a dry hike and ended up doing about three miles to what is known as “the Window” or something like that. Getting out, stretching our legs and breathing that sweet air was the best. We journeyed back to Marfa and whipped up a lovely vegetarian meal before heading to a get together on a nearby ranch. We drove in the dark thirteen miles north of Marfa in search of a cattle gate flanked by two reflectors. Looking for said landmarks in the pitch with no streetlights was no easy feat. After finding the gate and puddle jumping the aftermath of the earlier rainstorm, we finally arrived at a lovely house set way back on the land. Its windows glowed with the warmth of the candles burning within. We found dinner to be over and everyone lounging comfortably either at the old farmhouse dinner table or out back around the campfire. It was a motley group of artists, musicians, dreamers and doers. Liz Lambert was our most gracious host. We listened in on tales of her family, life in a small town, and the characters that made it so special to be there. After a while, we all converged in the dining room and cozied up as a guitar was passed. Beautiful songs filled the empty spaces of the room like warm syrup in waffle divots. It was organic, captivating, and just plain wonderful.

Our trip home yesterday was a wet one and we got back to Austin just in time for the drive time traffic jam. Reality of city life came crashing back much too soon as we tried to cling to the mental memoir of our fabulous mini vaca.

I have pics to post but have to find the cord to the camera first.

Halloweenie

Ugh. It's been hard to get a post up. I've started a couple, don't finish them and then they're outdated just like that. I've been too tired, too. And it seems like, somehow, daylight savings has taken an hour or more out of my day. Maybe it seems that way because it gets dark so dang early. There's not enough time to get everything done and like I said, I've been tired. Pooped. Worn out when I finally leave the salt mine. By 10 p.m. I'm sawing logs. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Maybe I'm not budgeting my time well. Maybe getting up at 5:39 a.m. just isn’t early enough (this is what time W decided to get his Halloween day started…yeay for me!).

I have committed to exercising at least three times a week and this morning I walked good and hard for thirty minutes around the 'hood. I got a stitch in my side 20 minutes in but I pressed to finish the walk at a steady pace. Yeah, so I was only walking but it's been over a year and a half (or more) since I got my heart rate up over 30 bpm. I'm starting out slow so I don’t scare myself away. It felt good though…walking in the sunshine, taking in the window of time to myself. What sucked about it was the catcalling from construction workers (who must all be seriously lonely because I was wearing a t-shirt with my kid’s face plastered as big as a billboard on it), the cars trying to run me over, the bus exhaust, the demons in my head that won’t shut up for one damn minute and let me just mentally coast. Exercising is hard.

And no, I didn’t get W a Halloween costume this year. How could I top this? This was last year.























Instead I dressed him in his short black pants (girls section at Old Navy) and a black t-shirt that says, “I do my own stunts” with a stick figure falling over so if anyone one asks, he’s a stunt man for Halloween. Yeah.

W is FINALLY getting over the daycare disease he absorbed over 3 weeks ago. It raced through the family (and then some) like wild fire but we are all on the mend (knocking on wood). He’s still ingesting that sugary, thick pink liquid amoxicillin so I’m guaranteed a few more days of a healthy child ‘till it runs out. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep this kid healthy. Anything. Seriously.

This is W texting some hot baby he met on the internet..."Yeah, baby, yeah!"
















Grabbing the remote because Elmo's World is about to come on...
















"What? You're interested in some other baby? Aww, baby!"
















Our Halloween porch. Real World plastic chairs gone good.
















Baby in lights.