body.

i'm writing this standing up, in my kitchen, making butternut squash risotto with toasted sage.  i'm wearing my pajamas and my coziest socks, and i have just finished listening to "the moth".  i am feeling content.  happy.  peaceful.

in a few days, my husband and i will renew our vows in front of our Los Angeles family.  it's an excuse for a party, really, but why not throw in a ritual on top of it?  i'm especially looking forward to the part after all the business stuff when i can throw it down on the dance floor with all of my people, mixed together in one glorious, sweaty mashup of dance fever.  

i love these people.

in the midst of preparation for all of this--making lists, ordering tables, checking on rsvp's--i've been struggling with the very ridiculous dilemma of what to wear.  in my mind, this time i would wear white (since last time i wore blue and shocked my grandmother; not sure she even considered it a real wedding).  i thought maybe i'd buy a new dress, which didn't seem feasible until my best friend gave me a gift certificate to modcloth (i am truly spoiled by my eternal best woman) and then alex helped me pick one out, and it turned out to be blue again.

hell, it worked the first time.

it hasn't arrived yet, but i'm not hopeful it's gonna fit me. the warning was there, in the review section: "this tends to run large in the bust."  HA!

it turns out i am not PROPORTIONAL.  this is the fancy way of saying that i am crooked through and through, and out of whack like a broken teeter-totter.  in short:

my hips are very wide

my middle is expansive

my breasts are tiny

and my heart is askew.

here's the thing, damnit:

i know, I KNOW, that all of this meandering and mucking in my mind is bullshit.  Bullshit.  i know that my body is a good one, a damn good one, actually; it has served me well and treated me to a life of strong movements.  i can dance, i can run, i can stretch, i can be turned on, i can cuddle, i can snuggle with my children, i can comfort with these arms of mine.  it is a good body, and decidedly deserves better than me.  however, it's stuck with me, so i must continue to strive to love it, above all else.

i am a size 8-10-12 from top to bottom, and they don't make dresses like that.  my husband likes to imagine me in flirty dresses from the fifties, but all of those women had waists, honey; mine left around 2011.  i daydream about having the bustline to fill out those dresses as well, but my little breasts are just not going to do me the justice of growing up.  

(although i once heard someone say breasts can grow during menopause: can it be true? do i dare hope?)

no matter what, this saturday i will tell my husband that i'll spend more time with him, that i am in for another chunk of time in this marriage, that we are too good to not do this for as long as we can.  forever, if i dare say so.  he loves me and i love him and we have a great family and saturday is about celebrating that, no matter what i look like and what dress i can squeeze into.  

he thinks i'm beautiful.  i think i'm beautiful, too; at least i try to.  today i'm trying to.  i'd like to feel beautiful in a dress that fits my body well.  

i know i'm better than this post, but i need to talk about it; if i don't, the quiet little crappy-ass voice in my head will work its nasty magic and make me feel shame-y about this little body o'mine.

i think i'll be okay.  i have women around me to help me figure this out; i have the words of jena strong and anne lamott to fall back on (like i do, again and again); i have a family who loves me no matter what; i have the ability to rise above this societal machine that makes me feel less than--or more specifically, more than i'm supposed to be.

this is all me; these hips, this belly, the wideness in my shoulders and back, the small breasts that fed two babies so frickin' well, the shoulders that alex loves, the thighs that touch--they fucking rub against each other all day long, people, just like they should!--this is all me, and i claim it, over and over again.

i just had to remind myself out loud here.  thanks for listening.

on forgetting i have a son.

he's been gone since monday, camping with his school.  i gave him a big hug that morning, felt his ribs press back into me, his shoulder blades living up to their name; he allowed me to kiss him on the cheek, and then he was off.

i wasn't sad.

one kid is easier to maintain, to manage; even when she is a feral creature.  one kid means one pick-up at one school, one extra meal to make, one person to read a book to at night.  easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.

and i'm not missing him, even now.  except for the times when i am.  and those times hit me like a brick to the head, because they come just after the moment when I FORGET I HAVE ANOTHER CHILD.

i'm serious.  

there is a moment that has come to me repeatedly in the past couple of days where i simply forget about him.  it's almost as if he was never here, never made, never my boy.  his converse on the floor look like my converse, so there's no confusion there.  he doesn't leave his shit around the house like his sister, so there is no evidence of him.  the pictures on the wall could just be a kid we used to know, or maybe a cousin in massachusetts.  

this is the moment, the second that lasts enough for an inhale and then just as quickly escapes me when i jump back on the reality-train and feel like the worst parent in the world when i remember him, remember. my. son.

and it all floods back to me in a wash of hastened heartbeat and rescuing relief:

my kid!  my firstborn!  my boy!  

he called my breasts "big ma and bop" for the last year that he nursed. 

he used to wear pajamas to school with a superhero cape for good measure.

he knew every snake on the planet.

he made friends with everyone.

he swung a bat with such grace and ease that it made his father cry.

he loved his baby sister with ferocity and protectiveness.  he was the first to make her laugh.

and now:

he lays on the floor with the dogs; they stare at each other with respect and understanding.

he rereads "calvin and hobbes" every couple of months.

he listens to coldplay and says, "have you heard this song?" like it's brand new.

he climbs up on the roof and sings a chorus from a lumineers' song, and the neighbors next door join in.

he still hugs me, still wants me near.  still loves me, i'm pretty sure of it.

he says every night, as he has since he could talk, "goodnight, sleep well, come and check on me soon."  actually he says, "come and check on us soon", because he always, always remembers his sister.

and now, here i am, after forgetting for the slice of a heartbeat, remembering my Milo; the boy who turned me into a mother and makes me rejoice for the future of this planet, because all saints be praised, 

he is actually on it.

shazam!

this is what it feels like to be in process; to have your brain letting go of the foreign stuff embedded within; to have nothing but yourself to balance you out, a few days after the last tiny half of a pill has been ingested:

there are hourly electrocutions! double-takes of the mind!  a little shiver, a little shake!  holy shit, it's like a frickin' rollercoaster on acid up in here!

i look down for one second and my mind just skips a wee bit.  not enough that you'd notice it, but enough that i am disconcerted, completely and utterly.  it's almost like being dizzy, except that i can't claim that lovely physicalness of motion.  it's sort of like when you get a shiver in the cold and you can't control the shake; this, my friends, is all in my mind.  

mostly.  sometimes it shoots a little arrow down my hands and arms, tingly all, the way you'd feel if you touched a bit o' electricity.  static cling in my body; this glorious thing that is jonesing for the meds the way i search out good bakery items.

i'm trying to ride this out.  i know it's only been a few days, and i'm in at the tail end of my little experiment, but man, these fried-brain moments are most unpleasant.  i am here, but i am not here.  i feel okay, but i don't feel so good.  i am drug-free, but i am still bucking along on top of the bronco called "zoloft".  

yee haw!

i love myself enough to know that this whole thing might not work, and i might need those meds again.  i might decide it's better for me, and my family, and my world.  and that's okay.  it really is.

but i also love myself enough to want to try to find out what it's like to be in my own head again, without the little foreign do-gooders messing with my junk.  i might be able to take care of my own junk, damnit.  it might just be okay, as long as i keep meditating and exercising and eating lots of ice cream and chocolate and laughing raucously, without fear of reprisal.

for now, i'm just going to cradle myself as much as a person can who's about to embark on a 3-day open-air camping excursion with 37 ten and eleven-year old students, 8 parent chaperones, and three other teachers.  what better time to wean myself from my smack, i ask you?

what better time?

i ask you:

what could be more beautiful than me, just ten minutes ago?

what could be more stunning in its specificity of purpose, of its determined nature and focused bones on the task at hand?  what, i ask you?  

there i was, naked; truly naked, not just laying-down-on-the-bed-looking-inviting naked.  full light in our tiny bathroom, bleach tile cleaner in hand, ready to do what needs to be done in order to fully clean our mildewed, rectangular phone box shower.  

i open the shower door and begin spraying wildly, hoping that somehow my strong conviction against bleach in homes will be forgiven by the eco-friendly goddesses around me; also hoping that the goddamn stuff works because nothing else has.  immediately i realize that the window that looks out over our neighbors' driveway must be opened for ventilation; my eyes are starting to water.

i rush to the window and try to push it open with one hand, realizing that i am nekkid but also grateful that my gay neighbors won't mind if they glimpse me, sprawled and jangly, trying to give myself some fresh air.  at least i think they won't mind.  maybe they will mind.  shit.  get it open, get it open, get it open--there, fresh air.

ha!  fresh air!  hahahahaha!  it's still 100 degrees outside, so "fresh" isn't exactly accurate.  opening the window feels like opening the oven door to check on some brownies.

but still, i need something other than bleach-air; heck, i need something for my eyes.

"alex?" i yell out, door closed.

"yeah?"

"can you get me some goggles, please?"

i hear rustling, walking, cabinet being opened.  i hear him approaching the door--and then the handle turning--and then i thrust my hand out to grab my swimming goggles, because no one, no one should look at me right now.  i am too stunning to behold.

but wait, i thought i was--until i put on the goggles.  then, and only then, do i truly feel that i have reached the apex of my adulthood thus far.  there is no other point in my life where i have felt more like an older person than when i glimpse myself in the mirror: bare, stomach swollen from the recently eaten nachos, dirty hair up in clumps around the band around my head. . . of all that is holy and true in this world, it was at this moment that i finally knew that i have grown up.

and then, kneeling down in the shower, scrubbing hard at the stains while my belly and arms jiggle along with the sound of the brush; changing positions and being vaguely aware that my nether regions are mixing in with the bleach fumes, wondering what kind of damage can be done to my special purpose ("vulva?  hang in there, lady..."); then marveling at the fact that hey, this poison stuff really does work!  man oh man, i've been trying to make things happen with baking soda and vinegar and meyer's clean day and method, but at this moment, all of those do-gooders can go fuck themselves.

me and bleach!  together!  a match made in bathroom heaven!

there is nothing more real than what just happened in there, people.  THAT is life; life on all fours, life that demands your grab the brush with both hands and thrust your way around the tile.  life well-worked for, life well-lived.  except for the bleach-poison that i've just inhaled.

all this, the gloriousness that is me, reveling in my beauty and the new sexy clean walls of my shower; and when my daughter asks to see what i claim is a very clean space, she peeks her head in and claims, "it doesn't look that clean to me."

i'm putting my goggles back on, just so i don't have to look at her for the rest of the night.

calm before.

i'm listening to the dulcet tones of "the simpsons".  

my kids, like all good american children, are enjoying "the simpsons" marathon on fx, and although we are about to park our butts in the large lot that is known as "the school year", we decided to give them one more night of all-out delight.  truly, their choice of show could be worse.  if nothing else, lisa simpson is one of my heroes.

anyway, tomorrow i begin as a 5th/6th grade teacher.  the room is ready, sort of.  i gave the wrong number address to the shipping company who is sending us new futon couches for the cozy/meeting area (giving them the number to the preschool where i taught over ten years ago) so it's been a crazy journey trying to locate said pieces of furniture.  they were supposed to show up today, but i stayed until 5:30, to no avail.

i've given over to the idea that the room is not perfect, nor would it be even if the goddamned couches had shown up today.  still, it's sorta a bummer, considering it was because of my own brain not quite working the way it should.

i've given over to the idea that my hair is not the way i'd like it to look, but since i cannot make it grow overnight, i am resigned to a quasi-louise brooks kind of thing.  whatever.  it's just hair.

i've also given over to the fact that i am wading into unknown territory tomorrow.  i've come to grips with the reality of me never having taught 5th and 6th grade before, of me moving from Kindergarten to pre-adolescents.  watch me do it.  just watch me.  i don't know what it will look like yet, but i know it's going to happen no matter how much i twist myself up about it.

it's strange to think about the amount of anxiety circling around houses tonight, on the eve of a new school year.  i know my children will have trouble falling asleep.  they've already told me so.  and last night i tried to drift off but kept having visions of things i had forgotten to do, so i'd grab my phone and type a note and try to get back to some deep breathing and nice beachy visualizations.  it worked, sort of.  

i saw some of my new students today, as they came in to say hello, and i saw myself in their faces--saw our mutual nervousness and anticipation and hope, hope, hopefulness for a good year.  for love and acceptance and feeling smart and full of prowess and power and creativity.  hope hope hope.

tomorrow morning, i'll wake up early and try on a dress and cross my fingers that it fits well enough and decide which pair of converse to throw on with it.  i'll make my lunch and pack my bag and jump in my car and wind my way over to the correct address of 14702 sylvan street.  i will parallel park somewhere with extreme talent.  and then i'll walk in through the gate, my heavy bag on my shoulder, my sneakers giving me buoyancy and emotional support, and grab my key and open the classroom door.  

and i'll walk in.  and just like that, my new school year will have begun.  with or without couches; with or without overwhelming feelings of confidence--i'll just be in it, doing it, living it, with twenty-one other humans who feel pretty much the same way i do.

just like that, we begin.

trapped.

so much sadness over robin williams.  over those who choose suicide, and those they leave behind.

that's all i'll say about it.  many more have said things that are better.  more eloquent.

today i woke up early for the second day in a row.  i tried to grab hold of the dream that i was having to lull me back to sleep, but that never works for me.

i got up and put on my gear and headed over to lake balboa park, which is a big expanse of land near my house.  i figured i'd walk/run the perimeter, which is about five miles.  i was not feeling overly energetic, but what the hell.  what else was i going to do at 6:25 in the morning?

the sky was actually beautiful.  there were clouds to greet me, and the sun was just poking through.  it felt good to move.  i listened to "this american life" and laughed out loud a few times, and said good morning to my fellow early-risers.

i was behind a woman walking a gorgeous pit bull--the ones they call "blue"--and i lost myself in the daydream of stopping and saying hello to the doggy.  she started walking inwards towards the golf course which is in the middle of the park.  i followed her, figuring that she knew a path across that i didn't--up for an adventure--not in a big rush to get home.

she walked about fifty feet and then stopped, checked her phone and then turned around.  at this point i had walked past her but she wasn't in the mood for a stopgreet, so i kept going.  i didn't want her to think i was following her, which i was, but i didn't want to creep her out or anything.

so i kept going.  

i walked around the driveway, past some buildings with trucks and golf carts, out the other side, and suddenly i was on the golf course.  in the middle of the golf course.  i looked around for a way out--a path through--but there wasn't anything, so i headed for the other side of the course where there was a fence, and hopefully a way out.

i walked for a few minutes, my headphones on, when i heard someone screaming at me, "MISS!  MISS!"  i turned around and saw a man in a golf cart following me.  at this point i knew i was in trouble, but being me, i was also defiant.  fucking golf course.  fucking waste of good land.  stupid fucking manicured lawns and men playing a dumbass game.

these are the thoughts that went through my head.

he pulled up close to me and said, with a furrowed brow, "Miss, you cannot be here.  This is the golf course.  You cannot be here."

"I know.  I got trapped."

"What is that?"

"Trapped.  Stuck.  I'm looking for a way out."

"You have to go back--there is no way out."

at this point I knew that there was no way i was going to hop on his little cart and have him escort me off the premises.  i asked him in an incredulous tone if there was a little gap in the fence way over yonder--there had to be--but he told me no.  i then told him that i was going to simply jump the fence, as if 40-something women at 7 am jump fences regularly at his golf course.

"That would be bad.  You could get bad hurt--or fall.  Bad."

i told the fine gentleman that i would be fine, and then i took off running over the greens.

"MISS!  MISS!"

i ignored him, and kept running, turning my head now and then to keep an eye on the golfers.  what must they think of me, i wondered.  who cares, i thought.

i ran sort of haphazdly, trying to gauge ahead where the fence looked the strongest.  the course was bordered by a simple chain link fence, except most of it was pretty flimsy.  i needed something with a bar on the top, something that looked familiar to me, something i could scale just like i did when i was a kid.

i finally found my spot, dodging the large lawn mower in the process, and grabbed onto the fence.  it was about 10 feet high. oh shit.  the last time i climbed a chain link fence i was at least fifty pounds lighter and twenty years younger.  i began to panic, but i couldn't handle the thought that the groundskeeper was watching me, waiting for me to escape or fail or both.

i tried to stick my feet through the holes in the fence, but my toes don't fit perfectly into them the way they used to.  still, i managed to hoist myself up, shaking like hell, my hands hurting immediately.  i got to the top and swung my leg over, said "yup, yup, yup" to myself, got my other leg over and let go.  i fell to the ground on two feet and immediately started walking again, as if to show the cars and people passing by that my manuever was in my plan all along.  

my hands burned all the way back to my car.

as i drove home after finally finishing the five miles, i kept thinking of my groundskeeper friend, and how he was going to be sitting around his dinner table tonight, telling the story of the white woman who walked across the golf course and then jumped over the fence.  i hope his family laughed with him, hoped he told the story with glee and embellishment, making me even more combative than i was in real life, maybe--or telling them that as i jumped down from the fence my shirt got caught and ripped.

i hope they all laughed really, really hard.

i would.

those good old days.

my high school is being razed, replaced by a gorgeous building that will house generations of kids from franklin.

this is what my high school looks like now.  piles of old chairs, rotting wood, bits and pieces of nothingness--piled up to be carted away to the dump.  that building above was the gymnasium--known to us as the field house--and there was a giant panther painted on one of the walls.

it was there that i ran laps during PE and practiced tennis by hitting the balls against the wall and watched basketball games with boys i wished were my boyfriends.  

it had the smell of unproven sex, sweat and desperation.  it smelled as if john hughes had commissioned a fragrance called "high school".  it was glorious.

now it's gone.

i'm not really all that nostalgic about the building itself, but it does feel a bit strange to see it destroyed. when i pulled up to look at it, there were three guys in the parking lot, looking at it as well.  were we all there for the same reason--to pay our last respects?  did they have feelings of sadness or longing?  did they have the same impulse that i did--to jump the locked fence and make off with something tangible to remember it by?

i would've loved to pick through that pile.  that kind of stuff is my jam, anyway, but can you just imagine finding a chair and bringing it home?

if only home wasn't Los Angeles.

i'm thinking about all of those boys and girls that i was in school with--now men and women with prostate exams and mammograms and hair loss and trick knees and all the trappings of adulthood: mortgages, divorces, aging parents, children.

children who will be going to the new high school, never to know the sweet and sourness of that old building.

we've all changed so much, and yet we haven't.  our bodies have--my hands are proof enough, what with their age spots and veins and crinkled-up skin.  but still, these hands love to put my hair behind my ears, just like i did when i was 16.  my legs might have had trouble climbing up the fence--it sure as hell wouldn't have been graceful--and they have more cellulite and spider veins than i care to mention (but i just mentioned)--but they are as long and formidable as when i was a teenage dream.  and my head--the brain that resides in it--oh man, let me just say that i am so glad that my head has grown up.

'cause that girl back there, she didn't know what to do with that brain of hers.  now it seems to fit me  so well.  

except when it doesn't.  well, work in progress and all that.

it's sort of sad to see it gone.  those old hallways.  those front steps where i fell down in front of melanie when she told me about that kiss.  damn, that was fun.

time marching on, just like me in the franklin high school band back in the day.

sigh.