How We Do It: Part LIII

So, it's Women's History Month, I think, or something like that. I'm not one for the holiday marker on a day. It's enough sometimes, just to get through them, much less mark them. This is also the last week that Sophie is in her teen years. She'll be twenty years old on Sunday. I used to have muscle memory of each year that passed. I remember the sixth was a particularly difficult one. The Husband a few years before had said confidently, I think she'll be talking at six. Even before that, though, some magazine like Time had a picture of a window on the cover of an issue about brains, and somewhere inside some scientist stated that the window slammed shut at three years old. Those years are blurry to me, now, except when they're not. The muscles have atrophied. I might be making up the cover of the magazine, but I'm not making up the window. I heard it slamming for years before They (it's always They, isn't it?) discovered it actually stays open well into Old Agedom. I think the tenth year was another one where the muscles ached. Sophie was sick then, so sick. I didn't think she'd live. There might have been some muscle aching at twelve and maybe some temporary paralysis at fifteen, and every year in between and afterward seemed a cause for celebration. There was incredulity for each one, though, and not a small amount of gratitude. My muscles don't seem to have memory now like they used to. I've always hated to exercise. So, Sophie will be twenty years old on Sunday. The window is open, and it looks beautiful outside.

The Weighing

The heart’s reasons
seen clearly,
even the hardest
will carry
its whip-marks and sadness
and must be forgiven.

As the drought-starved
eland forgives
the drought-starved lion
who finally takes her,
enters willingly then
the life she cannot refuse,
and is lion, is fed,
and does not remember the other.

So few grains of happiness
measured against all the dark
and still the scales balance.

The world asks of us
only the strength we have and we give it.
Then it asks more, and we give it.

Jane Hirshfield

How the day whiled

There was make-your-own-sub-sandwich lunch time:

and there was play Monopoly time

There was a long walk on the beach with my father, under stormy skies:

There were pelicans doing synchronized acrobatics in the sky:

There was a surprise for those of turning forty years old (my little sister, Jennifer) and those of us turning 50 years old (yours truly)

Then there was sunset on the beach --

There was the usual high drama, too, but I'll leave you with the illusion of perfection. Usually, it's the fine line between them where most of family relationships lie, and our family is like most, I imagine, in that respect.

Birthday Number 49

My first birthday, August 27, 1964

Who knew?
(thanks, Dad and Mom, for giving me life)

Happy Birthday, Sistah!

Me, Our Mother, My Little Sister, Melissa

Weekend Cake Number One

Yellow Cake with Bittersweet Chocolate Buttercream

(for Angus, a boy dear to my heart for his loving behavior toward Sophie that goes well beyond his age)

Yosemite - Part 1

I have so many photos and so much to tell you about my trip to Yosemite that I'm going to break it up into parts. That way it won't be like the endless slide show you might have been subjected to as a child or even adult, if you're as old as I am. Which brings me to the fact that I didn't announce my birthday either, which was on the 27th. I'm a big one for birthdays, welcoming all greetings, presents and treating me like a queen for a day (which seems to happen less and less in this my 48th year).

We've been coming to Yosemite every other year for the past eight years or so with my good friend Cara and her two daughters. The four children get along perfectly, and Cara and I "travel" well together -- we call ourselves the Marmots.

Here's a picture of a lamp, one of many that hang in the dining room at the Wawona Hotel, where we stayed. It's not just any lamp, though, as it's completely fabulous and has been there since the early part of the last century.

Here's the beautiful dining room where we sat every morning and every evening.

Here's a great shot of the Wawona, shining in the sun. The Lodge has been in existence since the early part of the last century -- maybe even before that -- the late 1800s, actually. It's very low-key, very rustic. The rooms are quite reasonable -- most don't have bathrooms, so you share.

Here's what's called The Annex, where we've stayed four times in the last eight years. The tables set out on the lawn were put there in preparation for the Saturday night barbecue.

We sit on these wide porches outside our rooms for hours, reading, playing Sorry and Scrabble and Yahtzee:

When it gets really hot, we refresh ourselves in what's fondly called The Tank, a rectangular pool built in 1913. The water is very, very cold. People wore more clothes back then.

The Wawona sits just inside the national park grounds. One morning we drove down into the valley, a forty-five minute, breathtaking ride. Here's a rare photo of yours truly, looking out over the valley, El Capitan and Half Dome:

Here we are, rafting down the Merced -- an experience that we'd never had before this summer -- and it was spectacular.

This stunning boy is my son.

Oliver proved to be an intrepid rafter -- completely in control and in charge. He also talked -- A LOT -- as we made our way down the Merced

Here's a shot of Bridal Veil -- a spectacular waterfall, given its name because of the effects of the water shooting off the rocks.

When we're not sitting on those Adirondack chairs, playing games and reading, we generally are down atthe creek that runs near the hotel -- I think it's part of the Merced -- or around the corner at the swinging bridge. The kids wade around, float on rafts and dive into the cold, clear as glass water.

Here's my birthday shot. I wore a Birthday Girl crown and received some wonderful presents from Cara and her daughters, our traveling companions.

It's time for a break, I believe. But I'd love to remind you to visit my "review" blog where you enter a giveaway to win a $100 gift card to Dick's Sporting Goods as well as learn a little about a nifty new project that Gatorade has going.

Teenager

Here's the sweetest boy in the universe.

Henry was born on July 25th, in one of the last years of the last century, and there hasn't been a day since that he has not touched my heart with his capacity for pure joy.

It was scary to get pregnant again, to contemplate what I didn't know, to have another baby and not worry was that a seizure is that normal is it starting, to hold him and Sophie simultaneously, like twins except that one was much larger and staying the same the other smaller and developing in miraculous ways before my eyes. I had thought I might be stunned by that development, stunned and saddened as he overtook his sister in every possible way, but I experienced the opposite and marveled at the simplicity of it, the simplicity and beauty of "normal" development, the effortless ability to swipe at something, to bend and crouch and fall down a step, stop and look back in surprise and try again, backwards. I thought him genius, of course, and admired Sophie all the more, her efforts double, triple, infinitely more difficult as they were stymied nearly continuously by seizures.

Henry came into the world screaming as all babies do who are fortunate to be strong enough to object, but his screams turned to smiles very early and there was nothing that didn't please him.

Henry, five WEEKS old

Henry did everything early -- smiled, sat up, rolled over, walked and talked -- and we used to joke that it was God's way of easing what might have been very anxious times. Either that or Henry was just eager, always, to get on with life.

Henry and his beloved cousin Mary with Pop Pop

He made his brother Oliver laugh for the very first time.

With Sophie, he shares the sweetest of all the relationships in our family. I really don't think I could do justice to the love between them with words only.

-- or the love and gratitude I feel for him. He's been the light of my life for thirteen years.

Happy Birthday, Henry. May you always be filled with joy!

Another birthday post for Henry is HERE.

Double Digit Dessert

Oliver, Ollie, The Big O, My Dessert is now TEN YEARS OLD. 

He went to bed last night saying that his last day as a nine year old wasn't so good. There had been arguments at school about handball and one kid mouthed the "F" word at him when Oliver objected to his idea for their group project. Today is the first day of California standardized testing at school -- who wants to take tests all day when you've been alive for a decade? When Henry reminded him that he was born at 1:15 in the afternoon on the 10th which technically gave him at least another morning until mid-afternoon to be nine years old, he perked up. Do you have a watch I can wear, he asked me. I want to tell the teacher when I'm ten.

Oliver, Ollie, The Big O was my Dessert, my little last baby who nestled his baby head in the space between my chin and shoulder and rested there for what seemed like years until he pushed himself down and became the fired-up, nearly impossible, brilliantly funny, thrilling child he is today. I've written about him here and here if you're new to my blog and need some dessert.

Happy Birthday, Oliver!

I love you so much it's outrageous.

Haiku my heart Friday

The old gray mare, she

ain't what she used to be, ain't

what she used to be.

Yah. It's my birthday today, and I'm forty-seven years old. I love birthdays and never feel depressed (except maybe the year someone gave me a windsock for a present). I like getting older and while I don't feel wiser, I do feel different, like I'm coming along. Most days, I feel a bit of that old gray mare thing, stiff and stubborn and perhaps a bit dim and dumb. Stubborn. But I'm coming along.

For more Haiku my heart click on over to recuerda mi corazon.