ARE YOU GLAD TO BE HOME?

 

 

 

some of our last moments in Albuquerque 

I've always been a wildly indecisive person, dipping my toes into all sorts of hobbies, projects, places. I used to think that meant I was irresponsible. It was something I tried to stifle inside myself, especially after I became a mother. Even before my journey through motherhood began, I held onto a promise to myself that I would never make my kids feel like an inconvenience, that a day would never come when they thought that my wants were more important than their needs. The further I get into my relationship with them, the more I see this is as a delicate tiptoeing act. You see, my spirit longs to sample each and every bit of life like sips of wine. Some are swallowed with a grimace, but I'm glad to have tasted them nonetheless. Some are savored, so I choose to return to them. Some have been stored away, waiting for the right season of life to be opened and tasted. Some are tasted in good company and some are kept secret until I can indulge in them without sharing. I've been a lot of things and seen a lot of things in the past, some are still tucked away and some were just a breath, gone now. I've always thought of our journey as a linear one and pushed the idea of it being a full circle out of my mind, not wanting to end up where I started.

Where I started never felt like home. We've already done this once. It feels like something beyond deja vu and more akin to time travel, like we might be redoing our time from before, a time I was comfortable not visiting with again. Everything is exactly the same as it was before, and yet nothing about us is remotely the same at all. It's the same place with the same people and the same culture that almost buried me alive, and I was so relieved to have made my way out, and now I'm here again. Sometimes I wake up wondering if we ever really left, or were the last five years all a dream? A surge of gratitude follows as I accept that it was in fact our life and I'm thankful for all of the happy memories from all of our places we've made home.

The first thing people ask me when we reconnect here is, 'Are you glad to be home?' I never really know what to say. A lot of times I just look at Alex and let him answer, most of the time I just shrug, 'sure,' but what I really want to say is, 'Nope!' or 'Please don't say home.' or 'I don't really want to talk about it.' The older I get the more I admire blunt honesty. The truth is, this is the hardest thing I'ver ever done. Some days I wake up and make the best of it. Most days I wake up angry and contemplate hauling this camper out of here and driving as far away as I can until the damn thing falls apart on the side of the road somewhere. Leading up to the move, I just emotionally detached myself from the reality of it and buried myself into the newborn phase. For six weeks or so, I was Switzerland, neutral. Then as I stood out on our patio of our Albuquerque apartment watching Alex put the last of our things into a moving truck, the dam broke. I passed the baby off and hid in the bathroom and let it all come out. It was only a year ago today that we even left Brooklyn and then there was reacquainting ourselves with Albuquerque, saying see you in four months, being pregnant in Missouri, becoming re-reaquainted with Albuquerque, then saying goodbye to the beautiful lady all over again. You see, I hadn't even had a chance to mourn Brooklyn properly, so when I say I've been an emotional mess the past few months, I mean it. I feel like I should have a perpetual 'I would rather be in Brooklyn.' bumper sticker stuck to my forehead - because I would, and I will, always. After the mourning passed, I resigned myself to anger and that's sort of where I've been camped out now for the last few months. It's a hard anger too - it's the kind that eats you up, but you have no one to be angry at except maybe yourself and no way to fix it. Along with that comes a lot of guilt because oh my goodness - how many times have I moved my kid around now? And this was not the way I wanted to spend our first year with a new human in our family.

This is what we're meant to be doing, of course - building a home, giving our kids something stable, planting ourselves in a place where they can run barefoot and wild - and I've always known it, but it's confusing. Our barefoot and wild place was supposed to be off the coast of Washington, deep in the Oregon forest, or out in the beauty of Alaska - not among the haunts of our childhood. Does this mean I failed? I left with no intention of coming back, but here I am. We fought our way to Albuquerque and it effortlessly felt like home. We fought our way through Brooklyn and there isn't a day that goes by that I'm not reminded of her from some otherworldly force out there. No matter how hard I try, I will always wake up wishing I was in Brooklyn. So, I guess I've learned that home is wherever you fight like hell to be. I've been doing an awful lot of fighting here, so maybe this will come to feel like home after all.

HIKES, FORTS + FALL PLANS • HELLO OCTOBER!

A few days before this she picked up a random stick, held it like this and said, 'I'm dow-ing hite-ing!
You coming, Mama?' I have no idea where she saw that because neither of us use walking sticks when we hike.

 

'Wook! I have kitty cat ears!'

 

She hiked pretty much the entire trail at Carlito Springs Open Space.
The county just opened it to the public for the first time last month.

We once built a tiny fort for Ev on a whim in a Brooklyn park and she never stopped talking about it.

We thought we'd show her what real forts look like.

As we try to find our 'new normal' here in Albuquerque again, we've been spending a lot of time outside hiking and building forts. The weather has been beautiful, but you can feel the chill of Fall beginning to set in. Even after being gone for a year, we've sort of gone straight back to our old routine. We've picked up where we left off and have been making plans to frequent all the Fall festivities that used to be tradition for us. The Balloon Fiesta starts this weekend and I'm hoping I'll be able to drag Papa Bear out of bed for the early morning ascension. We've usually always gone at night when the balloons flicker, but don't fly (and they have fireworks) because it was easier with Ev, but I think she's old enough to really enjoy seeing the balloons ascend and make the 5:00 A.M. wakeup call worth it this year. The Pumpkin Patch is, of course, on our list for this month too (a little video of last year's Fall festivities). We've also made plans to head up to Los Alamos with some friends of ours for a resale we always attend and get the majority of Ev's clothes at. We're usually able to fit in a few hikes while we're there and the Fall colors are always gorgeous.

What kind of Fall festivities do you have planned for this month?
Happy weekend!

P.S. from the archives:  a Fall book list for toddlers • a leaf craft • another leaf craft

THE LAST OF NEW YORK

 

It's been a tad bit quiet over here as we're all trying to adjust to life in New Mexico again. Instead of blogging, I've been using the majority of my down time reading or organizing pictures, but I'm starting to ease back into my normal groove and catch up on posts. The week before we left Brooklyn, my Mom came for a visit. We were really more focused on spending time together than giving her the grand tour, so we didn't get around to showing her much. We did manage to take the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty and I was pleasantly surprised. I'm usually not impressed with the tourist attractions, but something about the open air, city views, and magnitude of it all made Lady Liberty worth it. We had been admiring her from afar for quite some time now. Anytime we got a good sweeping view of the skyline, Ev would point out the 'Satch-oo of Wib-tee.' No view compares to standing under the real thing though. At some point I'd love to got through the museum at the base and climb to the crown, but the museum wasn't feasible with a toddler who needed a nap in tow and they don't allow kids under 4 in the crown. Though we're no longer Brooklynites, we aren't done with New York. We still have a long list of things we would love to do, so a trip in the near future is inevitable. Before going, it didn't seem like there would be a lot to do and I wasn't sure how enjoyable it might be for Ev, but she was surprisingly excited about the whole thing. She loved the ferry ride, the walk along the edge of the island, looking at the skyline through the view finder, and standing under the 'big lady holding an ice cream cone' as she liked to call her. After my mom's visit was over, we set to work packing and headed out just a few days later, so these are the last of our New York pictures. Each time we move, it's even more surreal as to how fast your life can change with just a rental truck and a drive.

A QUIET WEEKEND

I purposely didn't bring my camera with me this weekend, so these photos are from a mid-week beach adventure

with a good friend of ours a few weeks ago that I never got around to posting. Hashtag slow blogging.

This weekend was nothing to write about, but everything you want to write about and can hardly find the words for. It was slow and peaceful and rejuvenating, but tiring all at the same time. We didn't do much, but I found myself taking in the beauty of it all, the beauty in doing nothing. Oh, what a wonderful day Saturday is in Brooklyn. I'm sure it's wonderful anywhere, but here in Brooklyn it's like a holiday. All the rigidness of the weekdays are gone and people pretend they have the money to buy things - they eat well, they drink well, they say hello to their neighbors, they go on dates, they stay up 'till all hours of the morning just celebrating because tomorrow is another free day. You can feel it in the air as you listen to the city coming awake from your open windows and when you walk the sidewalks. The brick buildings have a way of turning colors as the sun rises and spreads its rays upon them. That golden color seems to stick around a bit longer on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

This Saturday we woke and agreed that we didn't want to do too much today. We just wanted a simple day together, so we packed up our beach things and hopped on a bus headed for Staten Island. We have a secret little beach spot over there that we rarely share with many people even on weekends. It's quite a hike from the bus stop to the sand, but it's always worth it. We grabbed a quick New Yorker breakfast - bagels - and headed to the shore. We gathered up a few pieces of driftwood to build ourselves a shady spot and let the day pass. We walked up and down the beach countless times, collecting sea glass for our jar we've been trying to fill. We all wandered out past the ocean waves and listened to Ev squeal and scream in delight watching Alex swim. She's never seen anyone swim before - I'm not sure she knew it was possible. Ev flew her first kite and was more excited about it than I could have imagined she'd be. We saw a one-legged seagull which she was equally excited about. We even saw a proposal written in the sky with an airplane. We read books under our tent and attempted to get Ev to nap in the shade, but realistically she screamed bloody murder until she passed out for a brief moment then she was up and at it again, making sand castles. It was one of those days that, at the end of it, it was apparent that too many hours were spent in the sun no matter how much sunscreen you applied.

While Ev napped, I walked down the shore and struck up a conversation with a nice retired man who came all the way down from the Bronx. We talked about how the R in 'R line' stands for rare and pondered together about the reasons people walk up to the edge of the tracks and peer down the tunnel every few seconds until the train comes. It's like a choreographed dance - the same people doing it in the same order every few minutes. A few weeks ago, we were entertained by this as we spent 20 minutes waiting for a train to come by the 9th street stop and when it did, it just passed us honking. I had a thought not too long ago as were riding along on the R train - riding the subway is like washing dishes. All the life figuring out that happens in this city, all the meditating that goes on happens on this rickety subway trains. You can look around and see that this is the only time anyone here is forced to be still.

A completely unrelated thought: there is a place down the street from us with a menu pasted to their window advertising 'ha ha noodle soup.' Now why are we laughing? Is this like 'Ha, ha, I got you to eat this?' I'm very curious. I may have to stop in and ask some questions soon.

TEN ON TEN • JULY

morning view from the fire escape • breakfast time • morning light • beauty on our walk • bubbles with a friend • chats with Papa after he comes home from work • a whole lot of joy for only two quarters • beauty on an evening walk • alone time • good night, Brooklyn

A HALF BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION AT THE BRONX ZOO

When I found out that I was pregnant, I was ecstatic of course, but soon I did the math and felt sorry for this kid. She was destined to have lame Winter birthdays the rest of her life - think skating rinks and noodle necklace making. I'm an early March-er and it's always a toss up, but if you want to have it outside you better have an alternate inside plan because chances are it will be raining. Because I'm always looking for a reason to celebrate and I figured there was probably no chance of good weather in February (except in glorious New Mexico), I decided on a compromise with Mother Nature. We'd celebrate half birthdays and she could have free reign do whatever she wants on the real day! Ev's half birthday just happens to fall on August 1st, so Alex took the day off and we made our way up to The Bronx Zoo. We're zoo people. We're the zoo-iest people you'll ever meet, I think. Every road trip we take, we try to fit a zoo in there somewhere, but man is The Bronx Zoo way up there. We had plans to be real New Yorkers and ride the subway all the way up there, but they don't open until 10, which means we'd be headed back past nap time and if there is one thing we've learned about city living with a kid is never be on the subway past nap time. You can be anywhere else, but if you're still sitting on a bench in a sub way car all hell is going to break loose. It's a law of the NYC universe, I tell ya.

 

So we drove across the Brooklyn Bridge and up along the edge of Manhattan with views of the East River on our right and the city on our left and thanked our lucky stars we kept our car because it has to be the loveliest drive we'll ever take. There's just something about crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, seeing the Freedom Tower just hanging out up there above the rest of the crowd, and spotting glimpses of the Empire State Building on a drive to somewhere as normal as the zoo that make you want to scream, "IS THIS REAL LIFE?!'

Anyway, the Bronx Zoo is the world's largest metropolitan zoo, so we had to take it seriously and how do you take a zoo trip seriously? By buying t-shirts, of course! We agreed that wearing them while we still live in the city is off limits, but once we leave it's free game - touristy zoo shirts all around! They had no pleasing designs on t-shirts for two year olds, so we bought Ev an extra small and said it'll be a sleep shirt. I cringed as I put it on her. I can't believe she's old enough to buy souvenir shirts for. My dad bought me at least five souvenir shirts a year as a kid, I swear, and it was so endearing in a dorky dad way that I swore I'd have to do the same for my kids.

I can't even stand how nerdy cute she looks in these sunglasses. I could eat her.

All in all, I would call the trip a big success. We got to see them feed the sea lions, which I always manage to miss by like two minutes at any zoo. I always wander up after everyone is clearing out and stand there looking around like, 'Hey, what's going on guys?' I think I may have been more excited to have caught the sea lion feeding than Ev - and who knew baby sea lions were so cute? I think they might win the cutest baby animal award in my book. Ev fell asleep on the way home in the car and when she woke up she said, 'Let's go see some more animals!' She was pretty upset when we explained we weren't going back today, but perked up a bit when she learned that she had two gifts to open at home. She's watched the little girls in the neighborhood zip by pushing their baby dolls in tiny strollers since we moved here and has even tried to high tail it out of the playground with a few of them, so I decided to get her one. She promptly took to stuffing her 'Tigger baby' in it and ramming it into the backs of my heels. It's worth it to see her smile, right?

 

 

It seems that her favorite part of the zoo was actually the part without any real animals. She loved the dinosaurs!

Unrelated tangent: The night before we woke up to go to the zoo, the sound of shattering glass tumbling down our fire escape woke us in the middle of the night. Alex's first reaction was that of course, someone had Spiderman-ed it up to our third story window and he was prepared to draw blood and even had plans to bludgeon someone with my sewing machine. I on the other hand thought someone was smashing out the windows of the cars down below and hoped they'd find what they were looking for before they got to ours. It turned out to be neither - an apartment two floors up was on fire. That in itself is not the shocking part. Alex stuck his head out the door to find a large group of firemen pulling a hose up our stairwell. When asked if we needed to evacuate, the answer was, 'It's up to you.' Alex stood there half asleep and confused for a moment like any sane person would do then was like, 'No, bro. It's up to you. I haven't been to the scene of the fire.' In the end, with no help from the nonchalant fireman, we decided to stay put because Evie had miraculously slept through this. You wake up at 6 A.M. to drink some coffee in peace and she's wide awake at 6:05. Forty three fire trucks park on our block and sound the alarms all night, sixteen firemen run up and down our stairwell and yell in the hallway, then bust all the windows out two floors up to send shards of glass careening down the side of the building and she doesn't budge. Go figure.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. If you blogged about it, feel free to leave a link.