Gratitude, dropping

When I carried a bag out to the garbage cans in the street tonight, I stopped and listened for a moment to the rain dropping. We so rarely hear that phrase -- rain dropping -- not technically a phrase but different than the noun raindrop. The rain has been dropping for a few hours, slowly and gently, pattering on the metal awning on my back door. I am filled with calm.

I have no idea why I am filled with calm. There has been no effort on my part. Today was partly unbloggable, not because it was bad but because it contained private things that I won't discuss here. There is a lot going on, and I feel a bit like the Cat in the Hat who not only can balance ridiculous things while standing on a ball, but also maintains a kind of sense of the absurdity of doing what he's doing. He is goofy in his confidence.

I began the morning feeling nauseous as I scanned Facebook and saw a thread on one of my old high school classmates' page that discussed the election results. There was talk of doom and destruction, of arming oneself. Those who voted for Obama were called idiots. Evidently, we have no idea what's coming. Debacles of the financial sort. A different America. Debacles of the social sort. Let's move to Texas, one said. There was a photo of a young daughter with a semi-automatic rifle in her hands, its ugly, black force a grotesque contrast to her young beauty. She was out, I guess, for a jolly day of hunting or learning how to shoot, she and her father, exercising their right to bear arms. Raising her up right, said one of my classmates. Way to go! another one said. Girls and guns! with a smile emoticon next to it, said another. Better stock up on ammunition, said another. I don't think I need to say that these are all very successful, well-to-do people who went to an exclusive private prep school in Atlanta, Georgia. Or maybe I need to point that out.

A friend of mine encouraged me tonight that I'm doing a good job, balancing on that ball with all that shit in my hands. I told her that I had a heroin habit and put a smiley emoticon next to it.

I know many people use November to express gratitude. Gratitude schmatitude is what I've thought for the last month, obstreperous, refusing the tyranny of the zeitgeist. A woman with a hairdo and small ballet shoes with kitten heels and a simple lined notepad let me talk today about Oliver. She leaned over a balcony as I walked away and said cheerily, Tell him that help is on the way! Don't despair! I could suddenly hold my troubles more securely. Tipping, I got my balance.

As I drove down Wilshire Blvd. to pick up the boys from school, I was filled with gratitude. With no effort on my part, I was calm.

It doesn't look like it, but that's me

on the end. I'm good, right? A friend remarked that it's been a bit quiet around here on a moon, worn as if it had been a shell. Other than the carols I've posted daily and a few photos here and there, I haven't had much to say. But, as you can imagine, life goes on and it's a tad insane right now. From Friday to Monday, I made three cakes and four dozen cupcakes (each one decorated). I decorated the house and a Christmas tree; I spent time with my mother who was visiting from Atlanta; I finished up my slides for tomorrow's webinar on Epilepsy and Adolescence (have you registered? it's not too late!); I helped both sons with school projects and went to the grocery store about five times; I took Henry to his final baseball game on Sunday and sat through the pizza party afterward; I drove everyone to school because the carpool guy was sick; I went to acupuncture, thank God, and visited The Husband and The Mistress for lunch with my mother; I picked up one child and waited for the other to get off the bus and then picked up the third from his after-school post-season flag football party; I massaged olive oil into one son's head after reading online that the white patches and scabs were probably dermatitis seborrhea or something like that, and then I combed through the flakes and scabs and instructed him to go take a shower and wash it all out; I made Trader Joe's chicken chow mein for dinner (thank you Trader Joe's); lowered Sophie to the kitchen floor while she had a huge seizure and then picked her up and sat with her on the couch until she felt better. I baked some more cupcakes -- vanilla with vanilla frosting, white sparkly sprinkles and Hanukkah stars -- and cleaned up the kitchen, including mopping the floor. Oh, and I've still got a gruesome cold and sound as husky as a starlet -- tomorrow should be interesting. I think I did a fairly good job on nearly everything except eating properly, but if you peer at the photo above, you can see that I'm as fit as a fiddle, counting my blessings and acknowledging my hardships as the good Lord above would want me to. After all, you're never given what you can't handle, right? For those who don't know me and are perhaps visiting here for the first time, those last two cliches are my absolute least favorite and I'd go so far as to say that they're bullshit, and generally only uttered by people of immense privilege or addled brains.

Blog Gems #12 and Balance

The King and Eye has started another Blog Gems linky, where participants post something from their blog archives. Today's theme is Favorite Posts, those posts that we might love or that got a lot of unexpected attention. I immediately thought of Balance, a post that I wrote back in May of 2009 when barely anyone read my blog and before I met so many of the incredible bloggers that form my community now. The weird attention it got back then came from a journal in Spain, of all places, where they reprinted it in Spanish. I think it captures what a typical day in our household might look like -- in my usual dark-humored way.

Please visit the post and leave a comment there or here or anywhere or nowhere.

Here's to a balanced Sunday to all of you!