Thankful for the week

With each day of Thanksgiving week such a departure from routine, I've been procrastinating reporting it since there are so many little details. I want to remember them all. Except for the part about me thinking "something bad is going to happen, something bad is going to happen," it was all so peacefully sweet.

Robin's parents came up from Portland the Thursday before Thanksgiving to take the kids back home with them. Robin and I would drive down the following Tuesday. Alone at home, the two of us enjoyed a four day honeymoon that rivaled the one in Maui nine years ago. Might I recommend this for anyone with young children.

Being together without the kids is so much better than being together before having kids. Back then, we really had no idea how relaxed we could be if we just exhaled or how much time we had if we just turned off the TV. We took time, freedom and sleep for granted. But after years of babies, you can't believe the fortune of having a few days off.

I spent all day Friday washing and scrubbing the house so I could relish the sparkles all weekend. I cleaned out the kids' rooms (even under the beds) so I could walk in every few hours, grin, and walk right back out. If anyone was going to spread crumbs over every inch of the floor, it was going to be me, carrying a baguette smeared with brie. That night we watched La Vie en Rose and went to bed really late. Because we could.

Saturday was indulgence dotted with a chore or two for good measure. After working on a bathroom re-grout (not as fun as it sounds) I got my nails done in preparation for the thoroughly delightful engagement party of our friends Rebecca and Jascha. It was held at Marco's Supper Club, which we hadn't been to in years, but had fond memories of. Not sure what I'm looking at in the picture.

We spent the rest of the weekend reading, running errands (the fun kind) and lunching out. I was treated to sushi one day, which despite Wasabi Bistro's cold ambiance, was about the most agreeable lunch I could remember having. It was incredibly luxurious to eat without having to get up every 10 seconds to give in to a demand or clean up a spill or get that thing that you forgot to get so everyone could start eating already.

I must admit I spent a few moments every day wandering through the impossibly clean house, wondering what exactly I was supposed to do in the deafening silence. I suppose I was feeling what most mothers feel when their last child goes away to college. It was an early but melancholic taste of Empty Nest. I was glad I had more time.

We arrived in Portland Tuesday evening and the kids were happy to see us. Cuddling is different when you've had time to hunger for it. Yummy hugs and scrumptious kisses.

On Wednesday we met our friends Chelsea and Brian's new baby, Clark. Gigi was especially enamored and figured out on her own how to interact with a baby. She spent much time gently caressing his head and touching his leg. She did try to feed him a strawberry when no one was looking, as was evident by the red juice around Clark's mouth. Oops. I hope their Thanksgiving travels were as tranquil as they could be with a newborn.

Thursday was lounging in jammies followed by lounging in gravy. Our contribution to supper was our annual pumpkin gruyere soup. It's really Robin's dish. I just grate thousands of tasty little strands of salty gruyere. Sometimes I chop the chive garnish too.

Right before everyone sat down to eat, cousin Ian puked at the kiddie table. Then again on the way to the kitchen while his mom carried him. Then again in the kitchen. I felt sad for the little guy, but it did add a dash of excitement to go with the first course. My appetite was not diminished in the least. (In later days both Harrison and Gigi would prove the tenacity of tummy bugs. The rugs needed to be cleaned anyway.)

Friday we visited Pittock Mansion at the top of a hill near downtown Portland. I'd never been there before and I don't know if it was more of a treat for me or for Harrison. His face was lit up the whole time.



It was decorated floor to ceiling with themes from children's stories and Disney movies, all with shimmery Christmas magic. There must have been thirty Christmas trees throughout the mansion. I do want to go back when it's not decorated so I can admire its architecture and decor.

The view of the city was spectacular.

After Pittock we met our friends Chris and Bev who had arrived by train to spend the weekend shopping. Robin and I tried to think of a fun place to dine and found out that our favorite Portland restaurant hadn't closed 5 years ago as we thought.

Montage was open and even livelier than we remembered. They specialize in mac n' cheese, but they make it as interesting (and surprisingly inexpensive) as it can be. See menu here. Eating there felt like having dinner with an old flame you thought you'd never see again. Or, uh, like dating your husband as though you were ten years younger. heh.

Saturday morning we went to a community theater to have "Breakfast with Santa." A group of high school students does a little holiday show with songs for the kids, then you get to sit on Santa's lap, played by Robin's dad. When Santa came out on stage to read The Night Before Christmas, Gigi eyed him for about five seconds before yelling "Bumpa! Bumpa!" for everyone in the audience to hear (Bumpa means Grandpa). I had a hard time muffling my laughter. She can't be fooled.

I made her dance with one of the actors and you can see from the picture how happy she was about that.

The house was still clean when we got home but not when we all went to bed. That's okay because I got my break. Getting back into routine is always easier when you haven't seen it for a while.

Evening Movie

Having read the book, I had to see the movie. Although I probably would have rented the movie anyway, not wanting to miss such an impressive cast all in one place:

Toni Colette - POW!
Glenn Close - POW!
Claire Danes - POW!
Meryl Streep - POW!
(plus her daughter, Mamie Gummer, playing her younger self)
Vanessa Redgrave - POW!
(plus her daughter, Natasha Richardson playing her movie daughter)

Turns out five rights sadly make a wrong. Not sure how this happened since Michael Cunningham (wrote The Hours) adapted Susan Minot's book, which was a best seller. How could that get screwed up?

The script was awkward in many places and the movie didn't flow well. It could have been an epic with notable Oscar performances, but it just fizzled. I even fast-forwarded through some parts because I either lost interest or felt uncomfortable about the bad acting. I felt sorry for these incredibly talented actresses. With the exception of a heart wrenching moment from Glenn Close (thank you for throwing her a bone), the actresses weren't given a fair chance to shine. Neither were the male roles, played by Hugh Dancy and Patrick Wilson.

If there was any reason to rent the movie, it would be to admire the magnificent coastal mansion that half the movie is shot at. It doesn't look real until you step inside and gawk so hard you can almost touch the dreamy murals. The decor is perfection and the view is sublime.

Other than that, the movie is mediocre and soporific at best. The book is definitely the better bet.

Evening

I've only imagined myself on my deathbed a handful of times. I see myself - a shriveled old Italian woman - lying on a rickety bed surrounded by my large, loving Italian family. Not sure why the Italian thing, maybe it's some reference to The Godfather, maybe I was Italian in a past life, who knows.

Anyway, I see myself from the outside of my body looking at it. I never considered looking up through my own eyes or inward to my own thoughts until now: I just finished Evening by Susan Minot.

It's a story about the last thoughts of Ann, an old woman dying of cancer. She remembers her past in between bouts of present time. Her four grown children have conversations in the house, but mostly the reader is living in Ann's memories, some of which are happy, most of which are not.

At first I was annoyed by the way the book is written. It jumps around and I was having trouble figuring out who was being remembered or when it was happening or if it was actually the present. About a quarter way through I settled down and accepted that this was the best way it could have been written. How else was I to internalize the fragmented thought process of a dying mind?

After all, there are millions of thoughts to sort through. With only days to live, where does one begin? Do you try to re-live the best moments as much as possible? And how can you do that with those nagging tragedies and years of habitual drudgery taking up space in your deteriorating mind? The author does an interesting and commendable job of showing us how.

I know, where can you sign up to read this delightfully uplifting tale. Yes, there's the part about the certainty and sadness of death. But I think it's more about the bittersweetness of memories and what could have been. For me the story was another reminder to live my happy moments as though they were already long lost memories that I wished I could live again. Maybe if I live each happy memory instantaneously twice, they'll end up taking all the space in my old muddled mind.

La Vie en Rose

If I measured my favorite movies of all time by the number of tears lost in the viewing, La Vie en Rose would have to be in the top three, and I can't think of the other two. But don't let that dissuade you from renting this intense biopic. Marion Cotillard gave a brilliant performance and the direction was superb.

It served Robin and I well that we didn't know anything about Edith Piaf's life except that she was one of the most, if not the most, beloved singers in France. She was a tiny woman with a monumental voice that came from deep within. That I knew. What I didn't know was how painfully tragic her short life was. I won't go into details because I'm recommending the movie and I don't want to ruin it, but we were continually shocked by the sadness of her life and her ability to make the most of it.

Children with difficult lives can be incredibly resilient even if they only have one or two angels in their lifetimes who raise them up over dark times and nudge them in a brighter direction. Or maybe their difficult past is an asset that motivates them beyond what a happy person is capable of. I've actually been thinking about this lately:

At what point do your hardships become assets instead of hindrances in your life?

For Piaf at least, it seems she was more adept at the transformation than most of us can hope to be.

Slo-Mo

I've come to the realization that to get through a full day alone with the kids, I need to work it out in slow motion. Everything has to be done with the restrained diligence of brain surgery on a deadline. You need to move faster, but you just can't or someone will get hurt.

Yesterday Harrison had the day off from preschool. I was going to spend the morning working while Robin watched the kids, but I powered through work on Sunday instead so he could get a good start at his own job (you know, the one that pays the bills).

With ten hours ahead of the three of us, and windy rain outside, I set the morning free with uninhibited mess-making. I almost took pictures. There is no human alive today that could clean up as fast as the kids make a mess. But I figured, the bigger the mess, the longer it will take to clean up, the more hours will be used up. So I slowly folded five loads of laundry, trying to ignore the hurricane behind me.

Walking from room to room with the speed of viscous lava, I had that tunnel vision experience, where whatever’s in front of you keeps moving further ahead, even as you’re walking towards it. Must keep walking to get ... what did I come to this room for?

Whenever I talked to the kids, I made a real effort to enunciate and get all the words out, despite their shrill screaming and repetitive questioning. They want the answer NOW, not when you’ve had half a second to think about it. They want the juice NOW, not after you’ve thought about which drawer the cups are in. They’re never hungry except RIGHT THIS MINUTE, so feed me or I’m going to tell everyone you starve your children. It’s really in my best interest to have a cup of every possible liquid at the ready, and breakfast/lunch/dinner waiting with no heating required.

All said and done, with the right attitude, the day went by quite pleasantly. I was surprisingly productive and the kids were incredibly cooperative. Gigi even napped while Harrison watched A Bug’s Life so I could work.

I guess looking towards a long day with no help (even from the sun) resigns you to making it work no matter what. Sort of like finding out you’re pregnant. You just give in to the helplessness right at the start to conserve energy and prevent from going insane. It’s really the only option because like pregnancy, the day after is when you really need your reserves.

Chlorine

Last night while hanging up Harrison’s swim trunks from his lesson earlier in the evening, I caught a whiff of the chlorine emanating from the damp suit. I leaned in for a stronger sniff. I love that smell. It conjures nostalgia and relief at the same time.

I spent nearly every day of thirteen years - from age 10 to 23 - inhaling that scent. Too often, twice a day. They say the sense of smell brings up the strongest memories. It's true. Every time there’s chlorine in the air I’m back inside my two suits (one for drag, one to hold everything in), swimming miles in the training pool or stepping up to the blocks for a race. 10,000 hours condensed into one little smell.

One of the first memories that always emerges is morning practice at an outdoor pool in Simi Valley, CA. At 5am we’d walk out of the locker room and onto the cold cement deck, the sun still under the horizon. My teammates and I would stand along the edge of the pool and stare out into the fifty meters of water that was covered in shiny black beetles.

Someone would have to dive into the frigid water first, cracking the surface of bugs as if it were dirty ice. I’m fairly certain I was never that person. Maybe once to impress a boy. Over the course of our twenty-minute warm-up, we would only part our lips ever so slightly to breath so as not to let anything inside. The critters would eventually disappear until the next morning.

Another memory is that of boys in speedos. Back then being thisclose to so many was as natural as showering by yourself. But thinking about it now feels a little obscene. I used to be so immodest. What happened.

But the memory taking up the most space is one of the endless back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. A typical day included 10,000 yards of swimming, divided by the usual 25 yard pool, so 400 laps per day, times 5 days per week (I’m not including Saturday morning practice for averages sake), times 52 weeks per year = 104,000 laps per year. You can’t talk while you’re swimming, you can’t look at the view. There’s just you inside your little head and the black line on the bottom of the pool and the constant sloshing around your ears. It’s a wonder not more swimmers are insane. Maybe they are.

I can’t say I’m super fond of that memory, but if I think about it enough, it serves me well in my current life. Being jolted awake at 6am, relentlessly every morning, is still better than waking up at 4am with the dread of two grueling workouts still ahead. Instead of cold water, I get hot coffee. Instead of an unforgiving swimsuit, I get jeans and a hoodie. Instead of goggle eyes - red and burning with a used-up shade of black below, I get glamour eyes - shimmery pink with a fresh coat of concealer below.

I wouldn’t give up the experience of course. It instilled tough discipline, paid for college and gave me terrific friends. But I wouldn’t do it again, that’s for sure. As for my own kids, of course we'll be encouraging some sport that requires more energy and endurance than even they have. Because they'll never truly realize how hard they've worked until it's over.