All in, All out, On the Sidelines

I've been benched. No running for the better part of the summer. As usual, my timing is impeccable. And since I'm no longer running my angst and blues and words and time and ice cream away, it means I should probably start writing again. Quickly.

The onset of this particular stress fracture and running hiatus happens to coincide with my son's first major soccer tournament. Awesome.

I'd like to say I'm still totally zen on the sidelines, but at 9 am this morning my voice could be heard bellowing across the pitch at my son.

"When the goalie comes out of the box like that, RUN THROUGH HIM!"

Ummmmm. Sorry, opposing team goalie's mom. If it's any consolation, my son weighs all of 20 pounds soaking wet so he would mostly just waft across the keeper like a dandelion seed. But also, he'd score a goal. And that's really what I was going for in that little tidbit of advice I offered.

The boys lost that game. And you'd never know it from their faces. I love the half smile, tongue hanging out, crazy-eyed face my son makes when the ball is at his feet. I love watching him play.

But I miss having my own game to play. I miss the joy of running through a rain shower, the relief of nailing a final 800m rep, the satisfaction of sore legs, the high of a breakthrough race, even the low of a disappointing finish.

I don't want to live vicariously. I just want to live. To get out there and run things down and over and away. 

But I won't be benched forever. I'll be back in the game eventually. In the meantime, I'm determined to enjoy this season on the sidelines, cheering for the people I love. (I'm also determined to be a bit less obnoxious and refrain from promoting violence against innocent 10 year old goalies.)

I told my son tonight, as I tucked his tired little legs into bed, that losing teaches us so much more than winning ever could. And I'd say the same thing about struggle and injury and disappointment. Of course I want to skip right to the overcoming part, to the victorious part, to the happy clappy celebration part. Who doesn't? But as skipping is forbidden (literally) while I have this stress fracture, I'm going to have to settle for the long slow plod through this land of injury and frustration. It's a path that will make me stronger and the eventual victories sweeter.

(It might also turn me into a total head case on the soccer sidelines, but let's just focus on the "make us stronger" part right now, mmkay?)

Win, lose, draw, DNS or DNF, I know what matters. And it has nothing to do with the score or the time or the record. What matters is heart and grit, perseverance and optimism, grace and gratitude. And I can do and be and cultivate every one of those things from the bench. When it comes to pursuing what actually matters, I have no restrictions, no limitations, no excuses, and every reason to go all in and all out on the sidelines.

In Which Not Everything Was Ruined

On Mother's Day, I wanted two things.
1. To sleep in.
2. An entire day of happy hearts.

It was more like this:
1. Dog wakes me up at 6 am and doesn't leave me alone until I let her outside and feed her.
2. Back to bed.
3. Daughter wakes me up at 7 am. She falls back asleep (in my bed!). I do not.
4. Son gets up at 8 am, just as I am sneaking my way out of bed in search of coffee (trapped between daughter, dog, and the husband who is still on the night shift schedule).
5. Son bursts into tears because the surprise he had planned is forever ruined by my presence. Son goes back into room to sulk.
6. I get my own coffee.
7. Daughter comes downstairs, cranky as heck, asks for a bagel. Not nicely.
8. Son comes downstairs, still sulking, tells sister she ruined the surprise by waking me up too early. And also, you're not supposed to demand breakfast on Mother's Day. At least not from Mom.
9. Daughter bursts into tears, highly offended by the accusation that she has ruined mom's special day.
10. Fighting, crying, and everything is apparently ruined.


But not everything was ruined. Not even close. Not even when you count the hour long nail polish mishap and dishonesty-induced drama with the girl that followed shortly afterward. Or that we missed church entirely. Or that the husband barely got any sleep before the 10 hour shift he was about to begin.

Not everything was ruined. For starters, my coffee was perfect. (If you want something done right....)
And the boy finally pulled off his surprise--at lunchtime, but still. The salad he made me was delicious. And no one yelled or screamed or demanded at lunch. So there was that.

But here's what I was thinking this afternoon as I held my daughter, pressing my nose into the strands of her hair, smelling the tears she'd collected on her cheeks. I was thinking that it's always going to be messy, and not just because the nail polish spills. I was thinking that there's never a day where you take a break from all the hard stuff, the misfiring of good intentions, the blocked goals, the cranky moods, the harsh words and rolled eyes, the disappointment. Sure, sometimes you get a day where it's a little less of that and little more of the sweet cards and surprise lunches. But usually, I mean almost always, it's really hard work to stay above the fray and to keep the kindness in your voice.

At one of our favorite Maine beaches, many moons and mother's days ago

If motherhood has taught me anything, it is this:
If there are people in your life that you love so much--so much that you'd rather be sleep-deprived and chronically frustrated and sometimes hurt and often annoyed and frequently worried and growing gray hairs at an alarming clip--if you'd rather deal with all that mess than to live without them, well, then you're a very lucky girl.

And I am. So very lucky.

Not everything was ruined. Not even close.

Nine {Just Write}

Oh, there are so many things right now. For one, he's going to turn nine this week. NINE. As in almost ten. My baby.

He has glasses now and we just finished Harry Potter number three. We usually read together, but he got so excited that he couldn't wait for me, and he read ahead on the bus. The first thing he said when he stepped off the bus was "Mom, I have so much I need to tell you."

I'm thinking, oh, field trip info for tomorrow or something happened on the playground, but no, he sputtered out a dozen breathless paragraphs, every last one about Harry Potter.

Tonight as we read the last chapter, I didn't hurry. I glanced up at least a dozen times to see his not quite nine year old eyes twinkling in the soft lamplight. I savored each page. Because it's not every day you get to read the last chapter of Harry Potter number three for the first time.

::

This weekend we went chasing the sunset and wound up in a place that reminded us of Maine. My birthday boy named it "Mainetown, because it's like Chinatown is for China people, a place you can go that reminds you of home." He's almost nine, and he's an old soul, and he's my baby.

I'm just writing again with Heather. Because of course.

In which I offer 10 not very practical tips for surviving a move (Just Write)

From a twilight run in Jasper, where I found my happy place / pace.

I know I said I'd be back with the rest of the story from Jasper onward, but that was before All The Things came, before my tail spin into a bottomless dish pack.

And just to be clear, dear Pedro--weakest link on the packing team--the box labeled "boys bedding" was actually a bunch of pictures and frames and old towels. That made me super mad, and I wanted to hit you on the head with the frying pan I couldn't find for two days. But don't take it personally. I've wanted to hit a lot of things with a frying pan lately.

On the bright side, I do have a chair now. Time to sit, however, not so much...

::

Yesterday, C had a melt down about not wanting to play the piano and about how no one loves him anymore, apparently because we were making him play the piano. This is quite atypical for my normally even-keeled boy. (The dramatics are his sister's bailey wick.)

So I told him to put on his shoes and follow me. As we ran around the block in the rain, I relayed the story about how earlier this week, I got so angry and frustrated and discouraged that I hid in the closet and cried and thought bad words and wanted to stomp holes through the floor.

"You did?" He looked up at me with surprise, like it was a relief not to be the only crazy one in the family.

"Yeah, I was a mess, Buddy. Daddy heard me and told me to forget about the boxes all over the floor and just go for a run. He was right about the run. It helped a lot. I cleared my head and prayed and thought about the good and beautiful things, like the cool weather and the fireweed and the mountains in our new backyard."

I squeezed his shoulder as we walked up the driveway. "So, did the run help a little bit?"

'Yeah, a little bit, I guess," he shrugged.

I rumbled his hair and moved his face toward me by the top of his rain-soaked little head. "Everything is harder right now, even the things that used to feel simple--like playing your easiest book on the piano. But it'll get easier, I promise."

"And Buddy?
You know I love you, right?"

He kicked off his shoes and cast me a sideways glance. "Yeah. I know."

::

You'll never see a post here touting 10 easy tips for surviving a military move. I seriously have no helpful advice on how to keep Pedro from mislabeling the bedding boxes. But if I had to give some tips, like if for instance someone held a packing tape dispenser to my head and said "MOVING TIPS! NOW! GO! That is, if you don't want this tape pulling every last red hair on your head...."

Then these would be my tips:
1) Blow off piano practice or unpacking or whatever it is that's making you crazy.
2) Then go for a run.
3) Find someone you love and
4) Give them a big sweaty hug.
5) Do the ugly cry together.
6) Say out loud just how discouraged you feel.
7) Then give voice to how blessed you are. (Reminder. Not being able to find your frying pan because you have too many boxes = first world problem.)
8) Write until you feel human again.
9) Go for another run. Give another big sweaty hug. Maybe take a shower too, if you can find the towels.
10) And when you finally find the frying pan, just put it away. Just put it away, and nobody gets hurt.

If these tips seem lame, keep in mind, I was under hypothetical duress when I came up with them. Also? I was just writing. I feel a million times better when I do that.

Countdown {Just Write}

"Hey mom, look at this picture I drew. It's of you competing in Whisker Wars," he snickers. The facial hair jokes never get old to the eight year old. I hem and haw and protest in that over dramatic way that shows I think he's as silly and exasperating as he is adored and treasured.

She races down the stairs, breathless in her quest to tell her brother about an exciting connection. "You won't believe it, C. Did you know, did you know that Wose (Rose Wilder) had, had mah-nonia (pneumonia) just like YOU?"

::

I pick up one of my daughter's friends after kindergarten. She hops in the back, and they're barely buckled in before the stories begin.  My brother this and my sister that. It's a holy, precious moment, far beyond the figurines, as I listen to their tiny R-less voices practicing the art of conversation, trading facts about where they were born and what they like to eat for lunch. "Well, my brother had Mrs. L. for third grade, but for fourth grade, he's going to have a teacher at our school in Alaska!"

::

We sit eating cilantro-infested bean burritos, and the girl announces there are nine days left of school. "You mean nine weeks?" I ask. "Yes! That's what I said. Nine weeks!"

It's hard to believe. Only nine weeks. And today, an email came saying something to the effect of "90 more days until your move." I'm never ready for the countdown to begin. I feel like I'm always on eight when everyone else is saying five. Four. Three. Two....

::

I'm in a hurry, but I linger in the aisles long enough to look at the expiration dates on the bagels, the milk, the sour cream. It needs to be fresh. It needs to last. I think back to when I was pregnant and I started to see expiration dates that were after my due date. I used to think about whether I would have a baby before we finished the last of the yogurt. Now I see the expiration dates and I think about packing. And goodbyes. And how my babies are 8 and 6 years old, born so many milk cartons ago. And how I'm never, ever ready for the countdown to begin.

::

Just writing today with my fave free-writer, the lovely Heather of the EO.

Sugar Snow

The dog whines, circles, taps S.O.S. with her too-long nails against the hardwoods in the hall. She doesn't understand Saturday. (What you mean "sleep in?" I no have dis word in my language.) Neither does my six year old, the one who's been flailing and kicking me since 5 a.m. She claimed her room was too scary to sleep in, but I'm no fool. And neither is she. She knows the odds of getting carried back to her own bed are low when Daddy's still at work. She knows I'm a softy on Saturdays.

I rise, creaking, wincing. The dog, the girl, they spring. Yes, as in spring out of bed. That metaphor? Written just for these two.

I find the wall with my left hand, brace my hip with my right, pad gingerly down the stairs. You'd think I was the one aging in dog years.

I slide the door open to white-sleeved trees, flakes still falling. I want to pinch the sky for dressing the lawn in white on St. Patrick's weekend. Really, Winter, don't be that guy....

::

Sugar Snow: A late snow, falling after the ground has thawed and the crocuses have gotten their hopes up. Called such because the late snow gets the sap going in the maple trees.

Sugar Snow: A boon to the syrup harvest. An excuse to eat more pancakes.

Sugar Snow: A great big pain in the glute for the middle-aged mother who can shake neither the lake-effect blahs nor the bursitis from yesterday's 15 miler.

::

I'm prone to heavy-heartedness, to blink and find I'm buried under a weighty white snow on its way to slush. The melancholy stalks me, waiting for a run-less day when the endorphins aren't there to defend me. I wake up to snow when I was expecting a thaw. I struggle with a strong-willed screamer before my first sip of coffee. I look longingly (yes, I said longingly) at my running shoes. I want nothing more than to run away for an hour or two, to come back sweaty instead of shivering, to return energetic and hungry and smiling and like I accomplished one damn thing today.

::

My son, the eight year old, he gets me. He drew me a picture this afternoon. He said, "It's raining and snowing, and she's dreaming about a sunny day."

Sugar Snow: When even the heaviness and chill, the hope deferred, the three steps back from spring show themselves to have a sweet edge, a sweet ending.