We've had a tornado touchdown about 35 miles to the west.

Already we've had so much rain in the past month that our roof, ceilings, and walls are permanently wet.

It's too much.

Bear is, at this minute, saying prayers that 'only bad guys and mosquitoes' get caught in it. Oh, and that 'it doesn't water inside the house'.

If you're the type that likes to listen to the rain, or thunder, here is the view out my front door about 1 AM. I just let the camera record for a minute...

Posted by: Elizabeth at 09:08 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Since my powerful trip, fall, twist, and rise a couple of weeks ago, I have come to a very Zen place.

Somehow, believing him when he said that everything was going to be all right... made everything all right.

You'd be shocked.

SHOCKED.

I somehow took a shovel and cleaned the house. Gathered up the rest of the construction materials and got them put away. Emptied out, packed, trashed, and dusted the clutter. Got a couple of handymen in for quotes. Started pulling together the upcoming school year's homeschool materials. Dishes. Laundry. Play dates, swimming, meals of some kind (even though I have the dishwasher, the sink had to be pulled out again so the plumbers could get in). Even found the courage to open up all the bills and do the math with my bookkeeper.

"You're so calm," she noticed.

"And unmedicated," I added, a little surprised myself.

I have dutifully taken a sleeping pill each night with enough time to get that 8 hours. I have begun packing to drive out to Boston on Thursday. My son's teeth are brushed. The menagerie of animals is tended.

I mean, it's not all gleaming like in a movie.

But it is solid, and finished. Slightly disconnected but very decidedly productive. It is a shrug, and a 'keep on moving'.

Friday and Saturday night, the rains came and the patch on the roof gave. In it came, in it sprayed. Buckets and pots and pans overflwoing. Bits of plaster and lathe crashing onto my desk, trashing the fax machine and the speakers.

Yet somehow we got through it. Him climbing up to do what he could as I pulled things out of the wet and cleaned them up.

Sunday morning, I tracked down Bear's babysitter, who's been strangely out of touch for a couple of months. There she was, answering the door, with a timid smile and a huge bulge.

Due next week with a daughter I am only now realizing will be born.

I rested my cheek on hers as we left, trying to say all the right things. Intensely grateful I knew how to say 'I love you' in Spanish.

My Uncle and Aunt visited our home for the first time in my life on Monday and there were dirty dishes where the sink used to be and I just smiled and said 'Welcome'.

This morning after they left, I rested on the front stoop and watched the world go by over my coffee cup.

Thick warm mist floating above the grass.

Young couple walks by, holding hands. Their long legs in a matching stride as they head to the train station.

An older woman, with her little dog. She waves and I wave back. And her dog pees on my tree.

A couple of kids on skateboards and roller blades, down the middle of the street and shouting bits of conversation to each other.

It is not a refrain of 'In My Life'. It is the real shadows and sun trying to beam through.

And on this random Tuesday, it is the tidy house, it is the quiet of being the only one left awake, and it is the cat on my lap purring. And it is finally finishing a day feeling stronger than I started it.

Maybe this is what they were felling when they played violins as the ship sank. But even so, tomorrow I intend to play on.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 05:06 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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We go to this wonderful HUGE town pool that could easily fit 1000 giggling kids and their parents.

But there's this guy. He's got to be in his 70's. He's got a beer belly.

And as GOD as my witness, he wears itty-bitty day-glo daisy Speedo's.

Just...no.

No.

I have to go scrub my eyeballs in acid now.

Posted by: Elizabeth at 02:31 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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1 This post is useless without pictures.

Posted by: serena at August 18, 2007 08:43 AM (c8Zlc)

2 I admit it - I tried to take one. When he dipped into the pool (with kids swimming in other directions in fist of giggles) - I pulled myself out of the pool and the scampered over to my bag and got my phone (it takes pictures), scampered to find a well-placed pool chair, and waited. Then my son, who is a beginner-ish swimmer, reminded me that drowning is no fun. I skulked a little longer, but the guy still wasn't coming out of the water. Eventually I gave up and got back in the water myself to help Bear. I never did see Speedo man get out himself. Next time, I'll be armed and ready!

Posted by: Elizabeth at August 18, 2007 08:48 AM (hiOoK)

3 Um...and thank you for sharing?

Posted by: sue at August 20, 2007 04:51 AM (WbfZD)

4 Oh, Lord. That's funny.

Posted by: Janie at August 21, 2007 05:00 PM (EKMxC)

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You've got your ball,

You've got your chain

Tied to me tight, tie me up again.

Who's got their claws

In you my friend?

Into your heart I'll beat again

Sweet like candy to my soul

Sweet you rock,

And sweet you roll

Lost for you, I'm so lost for you

Oh, and you come crash

into me*

It seems inevitable now, looking around me at all I have not done and wished I had and all I thought I could but never did.

Inevitable that so much wouldn't get done. That the race-fast years of having to be it all and do it all would give way to a quieter, slower, less-productive phase.

I am a failed SuperWoman. Failed.

Terrifying, to look around and see what needs to be done...stupefying. My energy sluices to my feet and the clock races with my heartbeats. Time, literally, flown.

Look back.

Listen to the song start. The up and down and strum of it. Sip iced coffee that drips into my lap. Shiver in the heat.

Remembering. In November, 2004, we hit bottom. The lawyer on retainer; divorce imminent. The life we'd built in tatters around us.

How we crawled back from that, I am still not sure. Slowly, painfully.

Who thought after all those times he rocked between failure and nothingness, wrapped up like blankets over his mind... that I would spend this summer failing him?

But I have.

I've been so lost for trying.

And then the stretchy skipped-along day curves into a soft afternoon. Bathing suit dripping in the shower. New freckles on our noses.

Then. Then, he comes in the door. Long and lean and his bag over one shoulder. Sunglasses reflecting the late summer sun, his strong jaw and the pressed neatness of his shirt.

Then he walks in and my heart leaps and then, I can.

For you, I can.

He crashes into me. And another slips between. And another. Lips and arms tangling. Fingers seeking. Giggling and kissing and that puppy's nose is....

"Daddy!" Rough shadow scraping our cheeks.

And he piles dog and boy in front of transforming television superheroes before coming back for me.

With those eyes naked to me now.

For you, I can.

I don't know how to even get there. To where we need to be. How to to get from here to there. And I have just about fallen apart in the past months, with fear of the unknown. Even though it was me that insisted we steer this ship in that direction.

Touch your lips just so I know
In your eyes, love, it glows so
I'm bare-boned and crazy... for you.
Oh, and you come crash into me*

What's next? I beg him, pulling into myself on the couch. Crumbling, shaking. At the end. Giddy with it, full of hope and loathing.

I don't know, he says.

Where's next?

I don't know.

I'm afraid.

Me, too.

I gave up on you once.

No, you didn't.

I gave up on us. How did I do that? God... I...

No, you didn't. I'm here. You're here. We're a family. Still. Again. We're a family. And it's going to be all right.

It's not. We're going to have so little left. Because I failed you. I failed....

Shhhh....

I'm so sorry....

No. Don't be.

I'm so sorry. I was so sure, and I made these decisions. And I said... and then, it was me, me who failed you. The spackling, and the laundry, and I was supposed to paint, and God....

No.

Look around! See what a wreck I've made of our....

Shhh. Don't look there. That's just stuff. That's just money. Listen.

I am so...

Shhh. Listen. Are we together? Are we a family?

yes.

Are we?

Yes.

Will we be together?

Yes.

And do you forgive me? For back then?

Yes. Oh, yes. And do you....

Yes. So we pack. We spackle. We ask for help. And we get as much done as we can. And we sell. And whatever is left over, we finish starting. Only, this time with some closet space - OK?

What if we have to rent?

So, we rent.

What if I have to go back to work?

So, you work.

What if....?

Shh. It's going to be all right.

But...

It's going to be all right.

Then he wipes away my tears and opens his arms to me. I nod. And a little, I believe. And a little bit, I can breathe. The lines at the corners of my lips are from the thousands of smiles we have shared. And from the thousands of times I have frozen, trying not to cry.

It's going to be all right, he promises.

We have had a lifetime, now, together. And I want another. And another. I hike up my skirt and give him a watery smile.

Everything is going to be all right, he repeats.

Long fingers catch my tears. I know he's as afraid as I am, but right now you can't see it. Right now, he speaks to me and everything that matters is in that faith.

I want to hide myself. For being weak, for being frozen, for all the days I have let us down. I want to say I'm sorry some more, as if it would matter.

And his face is forgiveness. And his skin is home. And his arms are still open, waiting.

And I crash. Into him.

*(Dave Matthews Band)

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