Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Sobrinos

Post-wedding, I got to spend three glorious days enjoying the company of my nephews and niece.  The boys, S and L, are 11 and 9 respectively.  A, the littlest, is 4.  ("I'm four," she declares, "What number are you?")  Three glorious days with my sobrinos.

At the beach, I taught them how to jump waves and let them carry you.  S, who is strong, punched the waves when they tried to push him over.  L, who is adventurous, sprung forth into them and over them.  All of us played in the tide, digging holes for the water to fill and wash away.  A laughed and laughed, tumbling in the sand, until her fingers and lips turned blue from the late summer ocean winds.

At the park, we played pirates on the unearthed tree roots from July's storm.  We were fierce pirates, masters of strange seas, as we took turns making the others walk the plank.  When we were done being pirates, we climbed backwards on the slide and took a spin on the merry-go-round.  I was 4, and 9, and 11 with them, reliving my visits to the same park with my aunts and uncles and grandparents.

At the house, we drew elaborate hopscotch-obstacle courses on the driveway.  We played "Hug-zilla," a tag-you're-it kind of game with hugs instead of slaps or pushes.  Later, S read to me as I fell asleep.  My heart was full as I listened to his mouth form the words on the page.  I remembered when he was small, when we would cuddle over his board-book copy of Go, Dogs, Go.

What delight, three whole days with S, L, and A.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Three days after my 27th birthday

On February 8, 2006, I wrote the following poem:

The life I was carving out for myself read a lot like a poem
Sounded like a Lisa Loeb song.
It would play itself out in Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment,
iBook et al.
My bathroom would have two doors,
I would sit around in my underwear writing stories and poems and novels.
On Friday nights I’d go dancing, and Saturday mornings I’d wake up to your light snoring.
The life I was carving out for myself would peak 3 days after my 27th birthday.
It would be a Saturday morning, almost noon,
And I would roll over to find that for the first time in the past 7 years, you woke up first.
I’d find you in the kitchen, eating standing up over the sink, reading the paper.
“Bitte, ein kuss.”
You would smile at me, kiss me, point at the paper and say,
“It’s a jungle out there.”

I was twenty years old, a junior in college at the time.  Being the modern woman that I had convinced myself I was, I was in a not-relationship--you know, the kind where you are in a relationship, but you don't call it a relationship because the word "relationship" is too cliche and oppressive and...whatever?  Anyway, I was in a not-relationship with J at the time.  We did eventually agree to a relationship, sometime in March, only to break up on Palm Sunday a few weeks later.

So, needless to say, the future predicted in this poem did not come to pass.  This Thursday--not Saturday--marks the third day after my 27th birthday.  (Clearly, I did not consult a calendar when making my predictions.)  I will not wake up after a night of dancing--especially because I have to go to work on Thursday--and J will not be standing at my kitchen sink eating and reading the newspaper.

This poem, even then, was written in a minor key; it set my expiration date at 27.  The best moment of your life, my 20-year-old-self told my my future-now-present-self, will be you waking up hungover after a night of partying to a man who for the first time in seven years will exceed your expectations, and the two of you will have a superficial conversation over the kitchen sink about the world that exist beyond you.

Of all the alternate glories I could have imagined for myself: living in a mansion in the south of France, being co-founder of the most successful publishing house in the world, being press secretary of the President of the United States, sitting at the dinner table with a husband and children and a well-balanced meal...of all the alternate glories I could have imagined for myself, hungover and eating over the kitchen sink is the one I penned.

I'm not sure what all of that says about my 20-year-old-self, though in J's defense, I do think this poem has more to say about me-then and him-ever.  Thankfully, both for J and for me, we will both be waking up to a different reality on Thursday.

It would be nice, though, to have a bathroom with two doors.

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Cousins

My cousin, G, is getting married in less than a week, so for her bachelorette, we headed up north to T's house for a mini weekend getaway.  We ate food, we drank wine, we giggled, we talked, we played games...we even went for a morning hike, and a indulged a midday cooking class.

When we were little, in our recent-immigrant skin, with parents that worked too many hours because life in this country is hard, G, A, and I spent a lot of time together.  In the years between 1992 and 1997, we ran a lot of races, climbed a number of backyard obstacle courses, took a lot of trips to the public library, watched a lot of PBS, buried at least one time capsule, and put on at least one fashion show.

And then in 1997 a lot of things began to change.  Eventually, I moved away.  I arrived back to New Jersey two weeks before A's wedding.  I'd been gone for seven years, traversed three continents in that time, crossed international borders 15 times, slept in too many airports.  Sun-burned and jet-lagged, I returned just in time for A to walk down the aisle to the man she'd fallen in love with.  A lot happens in seven years.

I had planned to stay in New Jersey only a few weeks.  Wanderlust is powerful, and we had planned a journey through the Midwest and the Southwest, eventually reaching the Pacific coast.  But the love of family is powerful, too.  As we sank into the comfort of familiar faces, Michael and I realized we were travel-weary, too many years of too many planes, and the wanderlust faded.  We decided to stop, to rest, to learn to be family with these people who do it so well.

In these three years, there have been weddings, births, and deaths.  Some have graduated, some have started new degrees.  Some are launching careers, some are mastering managing homes.  All of us are settling into our adult lives.  This pace is different than the pace we used to keep when we were kids.  Things keep changing and we don't get enough long, lazy afternoons eating ice cream cups and watching cartoons.  So, our mini weekend getaway, as the youngest of the Viera-Flores girls prepares to march down the aisle, played out--inadvertently I think--like a "throw back" to the mid-1990s.  We changed the locale and added some new faces, with T and L and the little ones, Ab, E, and R, but we still overate, we still laughed too hard, we still shared secrets, and managed to include one obstacle course in the form of a morning hike through Tillman's Ravine.

How wonderful, after fifteen years of too many changes, to arrive back to the glory of childhood: adventures with cousin.