Spring Rehab

It snowed in Chicago last week. The last two days have been hot enough to open windows and sport flip flops down the sidewalk. I still am not walking well, but my pink painted toes will be free for a few days.

Working for a Jesuit institution means that Good Friday and Easter Monday are official holidays. It is remarkable what two extra days can mean in the life of a nine to fiver when there is no division of labor. Today I made health care rounds, getting routine but necessary blood tests and scheduling physical therapy appointments. I gambled on some nine dollar hair spray--it's the sort of thing I use rarely, but this brand's claim to fame is "brushable, flexible hold". I hope that doesn't mean it won't work. I found a ten dollar cute slouchy cotton bag for the no-show socks and yoga knickers I will wear to knee "rehab". I should have had the blood draw in February and had I started physical therapy six weeks ago, I might be done with it. I am still wrapping this knee each morning and wearing flats for office days.

This spring rehab goes well beyond my knee and this new blog template, which is lighter than the last one that looked like the pages of a dark, dusty book, which it probably is. If anyone's been reading, I have more than a couple unarticulated experiences in me, but like this new template, they will come in dots, light and dark placed gently around these pages.

I am still struggling with disorganization of time. It is a tranquil hour, four in the morning and I haven't been to bed yet. I watched a cute but meaningful "coming of age" movie and an indie film that was a lot like watching a bad accident that you can't take your eyes off of. Sometimes I feel that if I sleep I will never wake up. That is how tired everything inside me is. A sensible person would say, then "go to bed!" In some things I am sensible, but "doing" time is a gritty challenge. If I don't feel I've accomplished much during the day, I think if I just stay up late enough, I will do so in the wee hours of the night. Sometimes I am successful in that, and it is a learned habit that is dying hard.

I spent much of my life doing homework, studying for Ph.D exams and wirting my dissertation after the babies, then kids were in bed. I wrote papers, graded papers, prepared classes and worked on my tenure portfolio after teenage phones and doorbells had stopped ringing and I found a quiet time and place to think. They went to bed later, which meant I was up later. Doing so has meant eighteen years of employment security. I never knew how much that would mean in unstable times, but I do now.

I do not keep my own calendar anymore. Doretha does it for me and I look at four hour increments to see where I need to be for the next meeting, classroom observation, lecture, gentle finger wagging with a student or "sit-down" to discuss next semester's schedules--all thirty teachers, prerequisites, classrooms, and some hundred and fifty classes. The coordination that calls for is an exercise in gymnastics or completing a Rubic's cube. Fall 2010 is already here and I am barely into my second day of a free pink toes spring.

Easter has always signalled the beginning of warmer, longer days and my new bathing suit for the year (which went by the wayside about the time I stopped wearing bikinis). It also often meant a family camping trip to get some fresh air and forget about everything. My heart is in too many places right now, so that, this exceedingly busy end of semester crunch and my bum knee lead to travel paralysis. It's a mild version of Sophie's choice. I did have a good conversation with someone who's important to me and felt a weight lifted for now that everything is as it should be, and I am happy about it.

It is now five a.m. and I will set the alarm for noon. Heaven forbid I should be lazy on what is supposed to be a lazy weekend. So I will allow myself those seven hours of sleep and see if I can get "it" done tomorrow.

Little Steps

I have appreciated the people who have taken time to respond to these musings. I write "what comes next" based on memory and inspiration and little else. It's that bubble in my stomach that somehow channels itself through my brain synapses and to my typing fingers. I have heard a range of responses from questions to not-so-subtle encouragement to get myself to the "here and now"; I've received beautiful and gracious notes or been urged to focus on positive things. I have included some dark experiences in these blogs while trying to maintain a sense of my own human imperfection because they too are part of life as I know it. I'll get to the 21st century somehow and sometime (Mom and Dad:). The next urgency I'm feeling is to write about the experience of "firsts", and how important they are to the direction of life's choices.

It's 12:22 am and I am tired, need to go to bed and am so tempted to stay up all night at this keyboard, but I will allow "it" to sit and grow because I need sleep. . . . badly. This has been a heckuva week, starting with a Monday that began at 3:30 am and slowed down at 9:30 pm when I arrived home. Tonight was my night class and I had to go to the pharmacy afterwards, so I didn't get home till 9 pm again (after arriving at work at 8:30 am). I waited till the last minute to get my insulin refilled and injected the last drops in sight last night. I am insulin-dependent, so. . . there you go.

I cannot believe it is only Wednesday. It's been quite a while since I've lived for weekends, but that's the story of my last year and a half in the job I do now.

I can only promise two things: 1) that I will keep on blogging, and 2) I will continue to go where the muse takes me while editing for sensitivities I think others might have--especially my daughters. Sometimes this is a tough place to be. I hope anyone who reads will be patient with me and understand that I have the deepest respect and love for the people who matter most to me--especially anyone who shows up to read what I'm trying to say. Good night for now. I'm thinking about that bubble bath that awaits. And thank you for reading. It means a lot to me.

Sista Deb

I cannot think about Debbie without smiling. I think that is probably the reaction many people have to her. I first came to know her when we were teenagers. We had both dated the same guy (not at the same time, and when dating really meant "dating"). Most folks in town knew him as a good looking, but wild guy of Native American heritage; girls loved him and guys gave their half-finished, warm beers his last name for his careless tendency to leave his that way. All had a good time with him, but said he was full of tall stories. He was. He had one brown and one green eye and was sweet, devoted and a lot of fun. He was my first high school boyfriend, and I was gullible as the day was long, so I believed a lot of things he told me, including that he had to leave to go live on a reservation in Florida. I cried for a day until I realized that there was no truth to the story. Whatever happened eventually, I have little memory of, but we broke up and went our own ways. I was too young for a serious relationship and he was old enough to be ready.

I don't know where he fit into Debbie's life. But she was then and is now loved by women and men alike. I have never heard her say a negative thing about anyone in the time I have known her. Our paths crossed again in high school when we went on double dates with Etch and B.J. It is possible that both guys were our first "real" loves. Then I had no idea that eventually I would become her sister in law or that B.J. would die violently from a car accident three months after I left for college. I just remember going places in "Etch's" car, sitting in the back seat with B.J., with Deb up front keeping things lively, laughing and chatting the night away.

Deb is one of those women who can make a room go silent when she enters because of her unique and ravenous beauty that begins with sea-green eyes, full head of nearly black hair, distinct style of dress--always a little fun, sexy and funky, but never distasteful. Her straight white teeth and giant smile almost finish off her face, but right next to her beautiful, laughing mouth, she has a triangle of beauty marks that no one can forget. Her physical make up is the stuff of heroines that grace covers of romance novels.

If Deb understands her beauty, she comports herself as if she is unaware of it. Her Grand Canyon heart and sweetness overpower the exterior. The room that goes silent is then engaged by her genuine kindness and charm. I really believe she loves everybody on their own terms, full of grace, generosity of heart and acceptance. I never felt any other way in her presence; this is so despite my awareness that she has had her own trials as her life's path has taken her many places.

After I left for college, I found Deb again one summer night back at home when I went with my sister to watch her sing in a band that my sister's boyfriend worked for as a "light man". That is the night I "met" my childrens' father, Deb's brother, who was also there to watch her sing. The way he tells the story is he asked for a chair and I said, "yes I'll dance". In retrospect, it is a strange convergence of events. The "light man" married my sister and they had my nephew together. I married the man who asked me to dance and became Deb's sister in law. Deb spent the evening singing on stage, entertaining a room full of genuine admirers with her throaty voice and beauty that shined through everything else in the room.

I had known of her brother in high school for his good looks and generally shy demeanor. He was a couple years older than me, so I'm not sure we even knew each other well enough to greet each other passing in the hallway. Deb knew everybody and everybody knew and loved Deb. She was elected homecoming princess. At our school, students didn't "run" for election, but those honors were bestowed by the collective faith of a general voting student body who recognized the beauty, light and kindness of that person. Deb deserved every vote and received the admiration of all who knew her.

After I married her brother, we shared holidays, simultaneous pregnancies, time with our babies, days at the pool or beach, and our entries into motherhood and marriage. There is no other woman my age that I shared all of it with. I had my own sister, but she would start her family later. I had other girlfriends, but they would start their marriages and families later. Our parents befriended each other, and through our family connections, I noticed Deb's special relationships with her brothers. She and my kids' dad shared a lot of loving banter and laughter about each other, and with her brother ten years her junior, a protective, nurturing and lively friendship.

This is why I cannot think of Deb without smiling. She reminds me of happy times, familial love, the coming together of little children into the loving arms of their respective grandparents, laughter, sisterhood, and the bountiful affection for my daughters she bestowed on them. When you are with Deb, you feel like the only person in the world. That is her magic. She also reminds me of my adolescent years, coming of age and knowing what it meant to be a good person. She did not gossip about others or do any of the "mean" things that teenage girls tend to do to each other. She was her daddy's girl as I am, and the first born daughter in her family as I am. We both gave our respective parents their first grandchildren. Each of us had the support and love of strong (and ladylike) mothers who taught us good values and modeled strong parenting.

For reasons that don't need explanation, Deb and I hadn't seen each other in a little over twenty years until we met again at my first daughter's wedding, knowing that in the not too distant future, my first grandchild would be born. It goes well beyond words to explain who Deb is to me or how she seems to show up at the most meaningful times in my life. I had missed her more than I can describe, but had always asked when I spoke with my daughters or their father how she was doing, and always hoped she was okay. When her first born son was in Iraq, I worried through the universe that he would be okay. Despite our distance, the abundance of my memories of her are filled by no one else because we entered each others' lives when every dream was possible.The ways and times our lives criss-crossed can only be the work of God because there is no other explanation for that gift of a Sista like Deb.

My Seester

Somewhere along the way, Jodi and I started referring to each other as "my seester". I don't remember when it started or why, but it signalled a closeness as we became women, mothers and both had survived some rough times. My first memories of her are of me being the big sister by three years and she was a toddler learning to walk. She was feisty, determined, strong and didn't want much help. I have been told that I am too sensitive (and admit this is probably true), but her exterior is made of steel and genuinely felt righteousness.

My first memory of Jodi is trying to give her help when she didn't want any. I remember feeling hurt at the time because I wanted so badly for her not to be hurt, to protect her and for her to like me. We were in our backyard on Durkin Street on the patio and she had fallen down. I tried to help her up and she pushed me away. I thought nothing less of her (as if it would matter to a toddler), but felt helpless because I wanted and needed her approval, as I have all my life.

I wonder if she has ever felt helpless; I think so, but she rarely "goes there". This is how Jodi and I might be different. Where I am probably annoyingly open about my feelings, Jodi has a "let's go kick some butt" attitude toward life. She is also fervently loyal, smart with a quick wit, and not chatty as I am. Her words are like darts and are usually aimed at getting a laugh out of me, and she usually does. She is also a good listener and well tested mother whose homespun cooking and baked goods are generously shared with family, neighbor kids and anyone who shows up at her house.

When I went to summer school in about second grade, I asked her if she wanted to come with me. She said yes, and I was so proud to hold her hand as we navigated the sidewalk over the cracks, both of our long ponytails swinging with each step. We learned about pollywogs and reproduction. My teacher loved her, and I was elated until I found out that my mother didn't know she was with me. I assumed my mother knew and Jodi was brave enough to think she didn't need to ask or tell her. In those days it wasn't unusual for mothers to allow their kids to walk the two blocks to school alone. It was a different time. I loved her company. My mother was frantic, but relieved when she found out what had happened.

We were fast friends in hula-hooping, Easter egg hunts, swings, carroms, hopscotch, tetherball, dodgeball and all those kid games that easily happen in year-round sunshiny outdoor California weather. We were "regulars" at after school recreation programs, and it was a simpler time when neighbors all knew each other. Mothers would get together for coffee after the kids went to school and when we came home. We were sent outside to play till the street lights came on or dinner was ready. In all of this, Jodi was there, my faithful companion and fiercely independent sister.

When she learned how to ride a bike, at first she only stopped with her feet sliding on the sidewalk. It took her awhile to learn to use brakes. One day, knowing she could not stop quickly enough, she barreled in between two elderly women walking on the sidewalk, shouting "beep beep". The women were angry because one of them had a heart condition. My brother and I had witnessed the event and the women who asked Larry Stevens, the boy down the street if he knew who her parents were. He denied knowing her, though he knew all of us well. My brother and I fessed up and rounded up my father. When he came out to talk to the women, they angrily explained what had happened, my dad asked, "what do you want me to do, beat her?" and Jodi perked up to defend herself. "I said, beep beep!" I would have been melting to my knees with tears and apologies, but Jodi had moxie.

Jodi was tough and smart, so at middle school age, my brother and I made a significant error in judgement one night when were supposed to babysit while my parents went out. Mike and I were feeling our oats at the beginning of those "hanging out" at the local baseball park years. I wanted to go meet up with Foster Campbell, whom I had a crush on, and he had a girlfriend he wanted to see. We left Jodi alone at home with our friend Rusty McTague's phone number. He lived across the street, we trusted him and knew she was smart enough to pick up the phone and call if anything happened. We arrived home, and as Mike opened the garage door, we awoke to the horror of our parents' station wagon sitting there. Mike's first words were, "want to run away?" It didn't take too much convincing, but I suggested we ought to go in and face the music. We were in bad trouble and Jodi HAD been scared. She had called Rusty.

Despite whatever punishment we received, the worst part of the situation was knowing my sister had needed me and I had not been there. I really didn't think she would call Rusty. That day I learned that my sister could be frightened and it surprised me because I had never known that about her. She had such a fearless exterior. She beat up Bob Foster, who had called her a name. She stood up to two elderly ladies and she went to summer school with me without worry about what my mother would think.

I really don't know if I changed my behavior toward her because I entered those oh-so-selfish and active years of high school after our family had moved across town. We shared a room; her side was neat and clean, mine, a hot mess. She came home and sat down at the dinner table every night to do her homework. I sprawled on my bed with stuff all over, sorting through what I might need to get turned in. She never complained about my messes and most of the time let me borrow her clothes until I had ruined a few of them. Then she drew the line.

I lived my high school years with friends, dates, dances, cheer practices and summer camps. I worked at a local pharmacy for four years as a sales clerk. She never seemed to need anything, but I was probably too self absorped and occupied to notice if she did. Yet despite my inattention, in the stands at a football game, she overheard some of my peers saying bad things about me and gave them a few choice words to think about.

When I left for college, I didn't consider that she made a sacrifice to wait to go away until I finished. We did conspire, however on one of my birthdays around that time. She wanted a puppy after our beloved bassett hound Hector died. We went to the animal shelter on my birthday to pick out a puppy, and she told my mother it was my birthday present (though we both knew the dog was hers). After much protest from Mom and Jodi's stubborn refusal to return the puppy, Nikki lived at my parents' home and became my parents' faithful companion until she passed away several years later.

Over the passing years, Jodi has bought bikes and clothes for my girls when I could not afford them. She never missed remembering them generously on either of their birthdays or Christmas. She was there for Steffie through her college years in California. Though she and Steffie are bosom buddies because of those years and a certain "likeness", she has never stopped being there for both girls and treating them with equal love and respect.

No mother can deny the importance of a loving auntie, who holds her sister up when things are hard, stands up for her when she is not around, who gives and gets accurate information on the phone when my folks have things a little wrong, who is my emergency "go-to" person from states away when I have a situation that requires one. This list could go on forever, beginning with sharing a king sized bed with me because of a hotel snafu when Steffie graduated from USD, driving 14 hours with her family to attend Amanda and Todd's wedding in Ashland over the span of a short weekend, shopping for a bridal gown with my daughter when I could not be there, hand-crafting a cake tower for the wedding, spending countless hours sorting through to-do lists and plans with a nervous bride to be, sending me flowers on Valentine's Day or Easter or Mother's Day on a hit and miss basis because sisters understand.

Different as we are, I have never doubted her loyalty to me, rock-like support, practical good sense, and infinite love for my daughers as we grew from children to women to mothers to aunties to daughters who know they will be there for each other when either of us are in need or our parents need us more. That's a seester. That's my Seester.

Bigger than Me

I have studied language for about thirty years, and there are two things I know about it: 1) it is exuberant (says more than one wants it to say) and 2) deficient (cannot express all that one wants to say). This simple but remarkable insight came from sociolinguist A.L. Becker, whose work has influenced my views and understanding of language. I have also been writing academic work for the past couple of decades, and this site has been liberating because in academic worlds, I struggle to stay within a certain set of conventions, editorial comments and well researched claims and arguments. If not for publication, then I write for "public" professional situations in the form of reports and proposals, which are necessarily constrained to a "professional" voice.

I have diaries, but this work is different from those entries, which tend to be stream of consciousness details of daily thoughts, feelings and occurences. With a diary, there is an expectation of privacy. With a blog, there is an expectation of interactive responses. I have never written a blog before, so this is an experiment in writing what is true while being conscious that others may read it. That means I want to find the necessary sensitivity, thoughtfulness and care in it when there is a potential "audience" out there. I have given very few people this address with that in mind. And unlike other peoples' blogs, I am not hoping for a wider readership, but only for readers who are genuinely interested in what I would like them to know about the soul (and writer in me that is part of that soul) that guides my choices.

This writing process is far bigger than me. It is like a painter who cannot live without expressing him or herself on a canvas. The difference is that a different medium is used--paint, colors, shapes, lines, perspectives. My canvas is a blank white page and my medium is lived experience, language and some formal training. No painting is ever quite "finished"; the painter needs to cover something up, add something else and at some point, temporarily "arrest" what has been done to call it a finished product. When I write, the process is similar in that and I don't "write" as much as "experience writes me", and at some point I have an intuition to stop-for now. It comes out of deep places, old and new but the language channels where it needs to go, so writing is surrendering to a flow of truths that are being or have been lived.

Throughout this process I am making edits--taking words away, making conscious omissions, and leaving in other things that I believe are necessary for one sentence to work its way into the next one. This blog is more about an important process that is greater than I fully understand or can explain. It is much less about informational content than actually "doing" it. I have heard poets say that they don't write poems, but the poems "write them". I am trying, however inadequately to distinguish what I am doing here from writing a gossip column or "only" going through some kind of catharsis, regardless of how it affects others (I save that for my diaries, which my daughters can read when I'm dead and gone).

I am hoping to say serious things about marriage, womanhood, motherhood, tough choices, survival strategies and negotiating a professional life in the midst of maintaining those roles. I do not expect to get it all "right" every time, but do hope to post things that are as true and nuanced as life itself is.

No human being gets through life unscathed, without having made mistakes, experiencing regrets, great joy, or misfortune that is not anybody's fault, but simply a challenge that God has placed before us. I and others strive for a kind of goodness and integrity where who I am is consistent with what I do. But anyone who is human will always fall short of perfection. If I don't take the time to relect on my own shortcomings--especially with writing, then I may cause harms that I don't notice, are unintended and/or show up as blatant neglect of others' sensitivities. I am most vulnerable to those who matter most to me. I live in a world of about eight billion people, and it is clear to me that I am no more or less important than any other person.

Here, I have tried to focus on a "present" defining moment, this empty nest, and other definining moments that guided me into a life in academics while negotiating parenting and womanhood. I am trying to write this life in a way that is sensitive to others while still telling the truth. I am finding that this is a hard line to negotiate. I could do "creative writing", drawing on fictional characters grounded in life's experiences, but as I have gotten older, I find I get more out of documentary films, biographies and "true life". I could also write only of happy times, but we only know light because it is sometimes dark, and only know happiness because difficulties arise that prove to create unhappy or unjust outcomes, depending on whose point of view is at stake.

All I am asking from anyone who chooses to enter this space is thoughtful reading, patience and understanding. In return, I hope there is some gift of insight, identification with an experience, a reader's location of meaningful memories that had long been forgotten, or some human lesson taken from details that "ring true" and can be shared, ultimately connecting one's humanity to another's.

None of this may square with people who know me "live"--yet I am this person--serious, inwardly guided, constantly thinking, and that one, too, whomever you think she is. My life has been bigger than me, more far-reaching than I have been able to make sense of, and burdened with self-doubt, detailed memories, and painful mirrors of silence that speak loudly of a need to be recognized and acknowledged in ways that others may not be able to imagine.

Finding My Feet

An earthquake doesn't happen overnight. It is a culmination of the earth's fissures that hiss and crack quarter inches at a time over years as one tectonic plate moves slightly northward while the mainland sustains its place. The ground of my happiness was moving without much awareness on my part as I had one foot in a marriage that was sliding northward and a life at home that began to show deep cracks in its foundations. I was happy waddling around with my second pregnancy, sharing days at the beach, in backyards and sideyards with my sister in law and other young mothers starting families. We drank wine, fresca, diet pepsi and packed picnics, visited our families in town, compared potty training stories and managed to socialize between naptimes, errands and visits from loving grandparents, aunties and uncles.

It was a time of sunshine, swimming pools and barbeques, playhouses, fisher price musical instruments, trikes, foggy mornings and occasional rainy days. My daughters were happy girls and I was an ecstatic mommy, finding pleasure and humor in simple things--attending church, going to aerobics--and their blooming personalities. Steffie loved her baths and being in any kind of water. She was like a round little buoy, bobbing around in jacuzzis, bathtubs and swimming pools--concrete ones and plastic blowups, a garden hose or sprinklers. Amanda constantly donned belts, snowhats, two different shoes, purses and costume jewelry while showing great skill in taking things off and putting something else on with each trip to her room or toybox. Her curiosities were boundless. She was about thirteen months when I left my job and did not enter day care except into the loving arms of family members until she entered kindergarten. Stephanie was almost three.

Throughout those easygoing days and joyful routines, I began to notice cracks in my marriage marked by silences, my own growing dis-ease and sudden spurts of great distance that created an internal conflict between the real happiness of my days and shadows that crept over our ties as he worked harder and I hung on by my fingernails to the man that I loved. I could not reach him, but could feel a groundswell of necessity growing that led me to consider ways that I could bring income into the home. When I was eight months pregnant with Steffie, I applied for a job as a department store Santa, but was told that my voice was too high for the position.

I spent the next year in ignorant bliss and my first step toward self-liberation when I bought a forty dollar double stroller so I could take walks outside with both kids, whose little legs could only take them so far before they needed to be carried. I did not want to return to the insurance company, so began to consider options for making a living while being available to my daughters. I settled on the idea of going back to school to qualify myself to teach--only imagining myself in a high school or middle school, but found out that it would take one year less to become qualified if I just earned a Master's degree to be able to teach Public Speaking at local community colleges.

I started slowly, signing up for one class as a non-matriculated student. I barely got off the ground, having to drop the class when I ended up in the hospital bent over in severe pain, walking as if I had a lawn chair glued to my backside, only to be admitted to undergo surgery for kidney stones that would not pass on their own. While I was in the hospital I noticed the first serious crack in family unity. I pleaded to see my kids after several days in the hospital, only to wake each hour to an empty room and my maternal need to see their cheerful faces.

After returning home, I was in a weakened state and what happened next does not bear repeating. It is enough to say I was alone, without money, job, groceries or knowledge of where my husband was for weeks. I borrowed twenty dollars from my parents to sustain us for a short time, but something had broken that could not and would not ever quite be repaired. We had bumped up against our limitations of tolerance, understanding and meaningful communication. There was a giant billboard staring me in the face with a message that I needed to engineer the start of a motor that would spurt and pop and then die. In order to sort things out, I made an appointment with a counselor and I remember telling her that I didn't quite understand what was happening. I wasn't sleeping well, had two beautiful children and a husband who loved me. What was wrong?

After I regained my physical strength, I found a waitressing job with perfect hours to pay for my school without leaving the kids during the day. I worked a 4:00 to 8:00 p.m. shift four or five nights at a local seafood restaraunt. The conditions of reconciliation with my husband consisted of counseling, eight months of virtual strangers passing one another long enough to hand off the kids between work shifts, my re-entry into school on the weeknight I didn't work and my husband's periodic disappearances marked by nothing I was aware of and/or a hand-scribbled note in my mailbox ending our marriage.

The disappearances became unbearable as I had to explain the inexplicable to myself and the girls. The happier I got, the more frequent the disappearances occurred. It all came to a crescendo when I got my first teaching post--a part time gig that was an extension course run by a local community college to teach Public Speaking to non-traditional (mostly female) students. It was my second night of a once weekly class, and I had been with the kids all day. Something went terribly awry when the child-handoff began. It was the worst moment of my life to this day and my greatest moment of clarity before or since then. I realized I had no choices left. Any options I had dreamed or imagined were starkly, brutally, permanently stolen, forcing me kicking and screaming down a new life's path that I wasn't sure I wanted, but knew I had to fulfill.

As I drove to my second night of teaching ever in my life knowing I would arrive late, I gripped my steering wheel with all the care and concentration I could muster at the time, only to be brought to hysterical laughter and tears when a tailgating driver passed me angrily and flipped me the bird. That was the cherry that topped the day. I made it through that class on autopilot and found my children at home with their grandfather, safe and sleeping in a crib and a bed as I hovered over their peace, wrought with concern about how I would do what was needed but knowing that as their mother, I would find a way.

There are two sides to every story and I am wary of this post, having tried to convey the struggle I experienced while trying not to demonize or speak for my husband, who was then and is now a good man who loves his daughters. I have attempted to convey my confusion because I never stopped loving him, but was unsuccessful in finding a way to learn why he disappeared or where he went, understand what was never explained to me, or to be able to pretend that what had just happened did not. Couples who can talk to each other would have been able to sustain a marital longevity I had expected and longed for. It's not possible to do "better" when what you're doing wrong or who you are to the other is a complete mystery.

A California Earthquake

I will not write about the earthquake that shattered that time of great happiness at home with my daughters. It would be about events that took place within the sacred bond of marriage and an account of things that shattered everything I thought I knew at the time. It is enough to say that my whole world was rocked to the core in the way that a structure of a building affected by an earthquake becomes uninhabitable when its foundations are shaken. I post this not to inspire curiosity, but to explain this gap of written memories, demonstrate respect for loved ones and hopefully, live out my integrity as woman/wife/mother of many years ago. Mothers have to keep many things in their pockets to help the people around them stay strong and happy, and this is one of them.