Crowing Away

This morning was the first annual Quiet Valley Rooster Run...


Tour the Quiet Valley Living Historical Farm property over hill and dale, past the farm ponds, pastures, apple orchards and historical buildings. Course has varying surfaces including grass, dirt, gravel and paved roads.


Claire and Michael took the dare. My niece, Reeve, and I were content to cheer from the shade of a large maple tree handing out cups of water to red-faced runners.


It was one of those steamy July mornings. 


It was a hard race. Over hill and dale was no joke. 












"At one spot there was a skinny path, Mom, we had to go in single file. Some lady fell in the mud," Claire said, gulping her water.
Michael said, "I could hear the rooster crowing as I was running through the woods."
"Was it the guy in the rooster suit?" I asked.
He'd come across the finish line, flapping his wings and crowing, in spite of having just run a 5K in a rooster suit.











"No, it was the real rooster, crowing away."

A Definite Lightness

I never thought I'd get married again. 


Ever.


"I am never getting married again," I'd announce to my mother. 
"You will,"she'd say. 


It began with a phone call on Thanksgiving day, 1996. 
Michael was driving from Los Angeles to San Diego to visit his mother. For some reason, Jesse and I were not with the rest of our family.


Because I was supposed to be home for the call? 


I was sitting on my bedroom floor when the phone rang.


"Well, I'm sitting here wearing lipstick and pantyhose,"I confessed. "This attire is highly unusual, but my daughter and I went to one of those buffet things. I was trying to be grown-up. We went to the noon sitting. It was very weird. We've eaten, now home. It's been an odd day."
"Well, yea," he said, "I can see why you might feel that way."


This is not the exact conversation. 
For a pair of strangers, we covered a lot of territory in a forty-five minute phone call. Family, work, books, how he came to call me. 
(a friend of a friend gave him my number.) 
He had a deep voice; a warm, gentle voice.
He lived in Santa Monica, California.
He practiced law, 
rode a mountain bike, 
loved the ocean. 
Golfed. 
Played the saxophone.
He visited his mother often.
"And where do you live again?" he asked kindly.


On the morning of our wedding, after a dreadful week of humid, stifling heat, the air shifted. I remember walking with Michael around our neighborhood; the air was cool and clean to the skin. The sky, a clear blue. The air change was a sign, a lifting-up of something heavy. I'd been worried about suffocating in my dress, having a claustrophobic attack in the middle of it all, stripping down in front of everyone. All those pretty buttons down the back of my dress had me nervous. I do not like to be closed in, pinned down, buttoned up. But that morning, just like today, there was a steady breeze, the kind you pray for when you're heading out for a long sail...


A definite lightness.

Kinda Sexy

On Saturday, after I'd gotten home from my yoga class, Michael and I climbed back into bed and buried ourselves under the blankets. 

(Warning! Parents will do this when child is at a sleep-over.) 


At some point, the yard was calling to us, come, my pretties, there's much work to be done! Or, it might've been Chewy whining to go out. We got our butts out of bed and smooshed around the muddy yard with our gardening tools and wheelbarrow. We raked up fallen sticks, pruned a bush, swept off the back porch, stacked wood, and tossed the tennis ball to Chewy eighty-seven times. At least.


All this together-ness had me feeling that warm fuzzy love thing which is like when a really good friend calls. You know, the one you don't touch base with often enough? I found myself gazing at Michael, jeans rolled up over his green boots, rake in hand, thinking God, I love a guy who rakes!
"You know something, Michael?"
"What, honey?"
"I almost like being outside in the yard with you as much as I like being in bed together."
Pause.
"Are you saying, you prefer my skills in the yard to my..."
He is grinning. "Gosh, honey, you really know how to make a guy feel..."
"No, no! See, I didn't say that right. I didn't mean it like that."
I slid my arms around his waist and leaned my head into his back. My husband is so much taller than me this backwards hug always feel like I'm hugging a tree? I love trees so...
"It's just that it's another way for us to spend time together."
"That's true," he said, "I'm having a very nice time, honey."
"I am too. Yes! And see how good the porch looks, all swept up, not so chaotic looking. It's kinda sexy."

It Won't Be Fatal

Three days ago, I was singing a joyful song, celebrating the one year anniversary of This Being Alive, feeling kicky in my red dress, all smiles, arms wide open. 


Remember her?


Then came yesterday.


"What's the point?" I said to Michael.


This is not a great place to land, but it happens. I wake up and the world feels skewed. I find myself saying I don't know what to do, as if there's some formula for this life, if you just follow these steps, isn't there a pill?


I rarely do this, the guilt alone, but I lay down on the couch in the afternoon and sank into my droopiness. Earlier, I'd had a full-blown weep while Michael listened quietly. He is a very good husband this way. He tunes in, especially when I am walking around the kitchen, sponging the counters, sitting at the kitchen table, head in hands, questioning myself, crying. He pays attention. 


"May I make an observation," he said. "A suggestion? Stop waiting to do what you really want. This whole thing is a risk, honey. Going to law school was a huge risk for me. Moving across the country to be here with you and Jesse. A huge risk. If I had failed, I would've done something else. Without risking, you'll never know. Whatever it is, you have to take the risk. If you fail, it won't be fatal."

The Beginning Of Us

This heart is a tad dusty and a little out of focus, which happens to love on the best of days.


Yesterday was Valentine's Day which is a funny, mixed-bag holiday for me since it's the day I got married to my first husband. I was a baby, twenty-two, pregnant with my first baby, Jesse, and honestly don't know what I was thinking. It's not like I had to get married. But I did. We did. 


Having Jesse was a no-brainer; she was destined to be an amazing teacher for me, all kids are. But it didn't take me long to realize that marrying her Dad probably wasn't the best idea I'd ever had. I won't go into particulars, at least not today, but suffice to say the whole damn thing got very messy until me and my girl ended up living solo in a skinny railroad flat on Teeter Street where we'd soak in the tub together and make up stories about our smelly, kind neighbors. 


We did okay.


So, yesterday I was flipping through a big, black binder called "The Book", and lo and behold, I opened to the page of sketches (un-revised!) I'd written about different Valentine's Days over the years. It was a warm pocket in the day, reading it out loud to Michael when he came home for lunch. In what's felt like a dusty and out of focus time in our marriage, it was a gift remembering 


the beginning of us.


Valentine's Day 1997
Santa Monica, California


I am greeted by Michael, my new love, at the LAX airport with a dozen roses. He is wearing a denim shirt, his hair is still long, still on his head. No beard. He has an innocent face, big, blue eyes, fair skin. His apartment is filled with red balloons; hearts, lips, I LOVE YOU balloons. He has an ice cream cake that says I dig you, baby!


I am swept away. Take me from my life in Pennsylvania, I think. Except for Jess, don't take me from her. But right now I'm in sunny California where people are long-legged and blonde and everyone is rollerblading with ease in short shorts and small tops. I am short, dark-haired, small-breasted, with a slightly crooked front tooth. I worry that I shouldn't have left Jesse alone with an 18 year old as her "babysitter". Not good parenting. I am across the country, drinking wine. I never drink wine. I am on the beach and driving up the coast to Neptune's Net, to Malibu, where Barbra Streisand lives. We eat shrimp over newspaper and drink cold beer. I am swept away by the ocean, sunset, this courtship. A plane draws a white heart in the sky over the Santa Monica pier. I think it must be just for me, for us. The ferris wheel spins at the boardwalk. Palm trees sway. We walk the streets and go into shops filled with beautiful things. I want beautiful things. I want straight teeth. I want a new life. Someone takes our picture outside the camera shop. Michael is wearing a straw hat. I am wearing the amethyst necklace he had made for me. He has his arm around my shoulder and we're both smiling at the camera/