Sun Halos and Loose Moose.

First of all, thank you everyone for the support and wisdom you gave me on Facebook, Twitter and the comments on my last post. It was rather unexpected but I so love when people chime in like that. I am feeling better. The impatience and anxiety faded. For now.

Yesterday, a moose went on the loose in the town next to mine. I live deep in the woods, surrounded by acres of trees, and the moose was out in public like it was nothing. Perusing tag sales, maybe? Lining up for soft serve. I'm talking running through residential streets and lawns, so close to people that the YouTube videos that the locals posted on the town Facebook page picked up the clippity cloppity sound of hooves on pavement. It's one of my favorite sounds that originated from my horseback riding days.

I dream of Alaska. I have driven up to the parts of Maine that aren't even on maps just to see a baby moose drinking from a pond, and large antlers emerging from the trees. I have gotten up at 5:00 am in Jackson, WY to drive to a nearby town called "Moose" that rests against the Grand Teton Mountains and along the Snake River, to see a mother and baby huddled together in a light snowfall.

I have seen moose cross the road in the middle of the Canadian night, so large and dopey-looking that my eyes played tricks on me and saw Eeyore. I have camped out for hours against state parks in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, only to be rewarded with one blurry moose in one blurry night. At other times, I have seen 20 in one long drive. I named them all after Star Wars characters.

The last three moose I saw were on a bumpy road with friends in a pickup truck - and I was so pregnant with Scarlet that I thought she'd come out every time we hit a pothole. That was one of the only times I've ever seen a moose in the middle of the day, and not at dawn and dusk after hours of searching. Sometimes you really have to know how, when and where to look, and with whom. And sometimes, you can be sitting in your backyard with a cold one (beer? soda? ice cream?) and a young moose comes traipsing through your begonias. Right place, right time? Wrong place, wrong time? Sometimes Scarlet asks to see a moose, as if you can just meet up with one in your backyard the way we met up with five bears last spring. And I tell her it's unlikely. I want her to understand the gravity of the situation - of seeing a moose. I had to wait 24 years until my first mere glimpse of a grazing female in a meadow.

Scarlet will not need to wait 24 years. Her time is coming. Whether we work for it or whether one of our area's apparently numerous moose will find its way into our line of vision. However it happens, she will know how big of a deal it is. She will see it in my tears.

It's kinda a big deal around here. Around anywhere. I married the man who idled in a hot car for hours to show me my first moose.


(This is not yesterday's moose. This is one of mine taken with a film camera in late summer, New Hampshire. 2005 ish.)

And meanwhile, during the same time and under (in) the same sky - we had a sun halo for hours yesterday!











It was kinda a big deal too. Look who pounded on the door like a caged animal to get out of the house and see the sky:






He got his way to see the sun halo. And lastly, we recently celebrated the fourth birthday of a dear friend.










Everything's coming up rainbows and moose and cupcakes this weekend.

There Was An Incident.

There was an incident yesterday that let me know that I had lost it. I was done. The rest of the day was spent on auto-pilot.

I kept my kids clean and fed and happy and away from danger, of course, but I was just going through the motions with a very blank look on my face. I think it scared poor Scarlet. At some point in the late afternoon she called out to me, "Why did you get up from your new chair? You waited all day for sunshine." And I snapped back, "Because I can't get the smell of sh*t out of my fingernails!" Not my finest moment, huh? Let's just say a teething baby's digestion isn't ideal and leave it at that. Scarlet schooled me as usual:

"You need to take a long, deep breath and then let it out slowly." So I did. Again and again.

Then we lay in the long-awaited and short-lived sunshine together. She made up a great poem. "People are..farts. No, fart factories. FACTories. It's a fact. People are fart factories. It's a fact!" Oh, how she schools me. I have all of the tools I need to let the petty stuff and the bad moods roll off of my back. I have a three-year-old who is more wise and more funny at three than I probably ever will be.

Well, sorta. I've learned some stuff along the way. And she gets her scream on like any kid her age.

This has been an in-between week. I'm living it with suspended breath as if I'm waiting for something to happen. In between hot and cold, always. Obsessing over two weather apps on my phone and spotting very occasional patches of blue sky between heavy clouds.






I love that this perfect bubble hung out in his mouth for awhile, admiring the view of his eyelashes I'm sure:




I've been in a weird space between anxious and not anxious. Surely I've been better, but importantly - I've been far worse. I woke up a few times with a pounding heart while dozing on the couch during Food Network. It's always an unsettled feeling to wake up that way and not know why. Although it doesn't matter why to me, and it really only matters how - how I choose to cope with anxiety.

I choose to photograph the world when I need the space to look at it through a glass lens. I also choose to put down the camera when I'm ready to embrace it all - the good, the bad, and the funny feelings in between. Sometimes I feel I could go any which way.




This week I've been thinking about friendship. There are all of these facets of interpersonal life - romantic, kids, family, and friendship. Friendship is simply the most fascinating to me at this point in my life. Like romance, friendship requires timing, chemistry, geography, effort. Time. Quality. Quantity. When it works, it really, really works. Like a romance, in a way. Like therapy, in a way.

Sometimes I find it slipping away.

That really scares me. It has happened before and it will happen again. We all spread out. Sometimes at different times, in different places. We don't necessarily go to new schools, but our kids do. Some of us move. Some of us change jobs. Some of us have no time. Some of us have too much time. And where do I fit in right now - with a preschool-aged kid and a baby? A sorta career. Married. Here.

Some people I love, I see weekly. Some people I love, I see monthly. Some people I love, I see yearly. There are these half-friendships on Facebook. There are some I left behind long ago, only to find again in more vivid color. There are some that seemed unbreakable and unstoppable once, and still were subject to the unthinkable. They faded. It's heartbreaking. It's natural. It's sometimes inevitable.

I hope you'll stick around for a lifetime or two.

Eleven Freakin' Months.

Oh, my Des.

My mellow, dreamy, stays-in-one-place Des is now my mellow(ish), dreamy, never-stays-in-one-place Des. Except for once. Last Saturday. He used to always sit on the bathroom floor with toys while I showered. Every so often he'd pull the shower curtain so that I'd look out and we'd exchange grins. Then we'd both go back to our merry toy-playing or hair-washing ways. One day this particular honeymoon ended when I couldn't hear him anymore and looked out the shower curtain and out the open bathroom door to see him high-tailing to another room. Last Saturday for a blessed 20 minutes, he waited for me to finish my shower. Just like old times.

What can I say about him? What can we really ever say about the people we love the most who are changing the most rapidly? My Des is unique and brilliant and loving. His wide smile is still there for strangers (anyone who isn't me, Cassidy or Scarlet) but he makes them wait about a ten minute initiation period in which he looks out at them, and then burrows his head in my neck, and then back, and then forth, and so on. After about ten minutes, the wide grin and jabbering and laughter is widened to include the non-immediate family member in its presence. All is well with the world. Still so engaged, but with limitations. His version of stranger anxiety.

And I like it.

He kicks in his sleep, chuckles "heh" while he scoots, and sticks his tongue out at everyone. He has strong arms, steely eyes and floppy, heartthrob hair. He beats his legs down on the ground like a drum and holds all magic wands and sticks out like swords.

Perched in one hand, he holds them up, beats his chest with one hand and shouts, "Aiiiiiiiieeee!"

He has two (going on three or four or 18) teeth. His bald spot has grown in. He wears 12-18 month clothes. He takes baths with his sister and takes great joy in splashing all three of us. He says my name only when he's upset, but I know he really means it.

Ever-changing Des - always-loving, always-engaged, always-hilarious, always-handsome.










They really do love each other.












And it wouldn't be a true birthday celebration without someone's Doctor Who shirt in the background, right?

Rainbows For Mother's Day.

Early May means two things in this town.

It means Mother's Day, of course. And it means the annual Northampton Pride Parade & Rally. These two "holidays" have come to go hand in hand for me. Sometimes they're the same weekend, but often not. I've found both to be gloriously sunny and hopeful often.

This is a weird holiday. I don't contest that. I imagine it sparks pain, grief and loss in so many of us. I get that. Father's Day is a weird one for me. Both whole and incomplete, somehow. I lost my father before I got a chance to know him. I gained a dad who has stuck with me for life (lucky you, Dad!). As far as Mother's Day goes, I am a mother and I have a mother. I even have a mother's mother.

Life is not without struggles lately but I aim to honor the mothers who made me possible, and the children who made me a mother.

My mom has always been a "Yeah, and...?" type of parent. And that's fantastic. It's like this:


Me: "Mom, I broke one of my clay dolls!"

Her: "Yeah, and...? We'll fix it together. Thank you for telling me. Don't do it again."



Me: "I'm in love with two men and my life is truly, truly over. This time for real."

Her: "Yeah, and...? This whole ordeal exists inside your mind and will be remedied there with as little damage as possible. Your life is not over."



Me: "Mommy, I heard that sometimes men are in love with other men and women are in love with other women."

Her: "Yeah, and...? Sometimes I think I'm in love with my horse. All people are equal and all of them fart and sh*t too. Your Uncle Craig is in love with other men. Have we ever given a flying you know what?"


I was liberal with the paraphrasing but not AT ALL with the sentiment. Remember that. My mom is very grounding. And I wanted to honor her while also drawing attention to the Pride Parade & Rally that took place in my town last weekend. My mom is a true warrior and rebel. She got blackballed from a sorority for giving everyone in it a nice view of her middle finger. That to me, is pride. Once I called her in mixed hysterical laughter/crying because I quit a crappy job out of nowhere in the middle of the day. I just walked out of my office on lunch break on a 100 degree San Rafael, CA day and I never came back. Oh, and I left a nearly rotten banana hidden in my desk there. My mom? She was proud of me for standing up for myself in an awful situation. It shows pride in yourself, she said.

I'm an ally. My mom raised me to fight tooth and nail alongside anyone on this planet who feels inferior. We all feel it in different ways, but that doesn't mean that anyone should separate us in ways that shouldn't be separated. My mom will tell you that we all fart and burp and age. Thanks to her, I've taken that visual sentiment into an utter lack of celebrity worship. (unless it's Hornsby!)

In complete respect for all who feel loss today, and in bowed reverence for all of the fighter mothers out there, a happy day to all.













To you, parade riders:





And to you, so brave to march while in high school:





And to you, LGBT/ally horses:





These awesome grannies:





And to the parents and teachers and villages raising these great kids:





This church:





And to these kids:





To you, the most interesting man in the world and your friends and your chicken:





And a most happy day to you, gyrating man:





To Boston Strong:





And to you...





And you and you and you...