{my topography}

Beneath the covers when the day first sets in, I’m not quite here, not quite anywhere else either. Hello, Monday. It’s already 6:03 and the night was a slapdash mess of wake ups. The teeth, they keep coming. Arched back wailing at 3:27a.m. for ten stagger-around-the-room minutes, searching for Tylenol, and then again at 5:06, too early and too late for more or better sleep.

I lie awake, face in the pillows, the thudding of my heart reverberates in my head. My breath moves my ribs up and down, up and down, but I am not here, not all of me, not yet.

Under the weight and softness of my stomach my wrist bones, carpals and metacarpals, are crumpled like soft bits of clay and as I flex my fingers, pins-and-needles set in.

Somehow our boys, both of them, are already in bed between us.

This morning I can feel the way I’m sort of pushing around at the outline of myself with my mind. Hello, day. Hello, memory. Hello, this life of mine. I feel myself begin, reluctantly to inhabit my vertebrae, lungs, buttocks, thighs; in the nick of time I roll out of the way. Bean’s at it already: making a pirate ship out of the covers. Sprout, miraculously stays asleep (of course, now after a night of it) and he is perfect, perfect, perfect here beside me. Rosy, tousled. His hair smells sweet like only him.

The day comes fast then: wooden slats of window shades pulled up; snowmelt; shower steam; the fragrant bar of French lemon soap slipping from my still slack-fingered grip; coffee. The boys are both underfoot (vacation until Wednesday) which gives new meaning to the phrase “work from home,” which is what I try valiantly to do, meeting four deadlines, non-stop screen time, CS4, phone calls, 37 emails, everything interrupted by the repetitive cacophony of BOY.

The day is gray, and the is light translucent and dull, but I like the way the thermometer climbs to 38 before 11am, and how on the south facing fields I can see bare patches where the grass pokes up. I’ve been looking at the trees for signs every day now: the buds are swelling with the secret lives of leaves that wait for chlorophyll, for sun.

Inside, the boys and I are barefoot, and I look at them and feel the fragile container of my ribs nearly snap open with the thunk-thunk-thunking of my little hammer dulcimer heart. Bean with his thin arms and messy hair and growing-in-crooked teeth and ski-jump nose, and Sprout, who has been trying to run from the minute he learned to walk and whose gait looks a wee bit like a cross between a high stepping horse and Frankenstein. Some days I hardly have words. I have two sons. I don’t think this wonder ever goes away.

And so without stopping it’s night already. We visit friends after work and arrive home late. The sink is crowded; the cat wants fresh water; the refrigerator needs to be cleaned. Instead I let the boys stay up another minute. Bean and I eat toast with cloudberry jam.  Sprout carries pot lids around the room. Nonstop, there went Monday.

How was your day?

PS–I have a super-duper exciting giveaway for tomorrow, that I can’t wait to share!

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”–Annie Dillard

Maple sugar on the first snow of the season…
TEETH!
Our advent wreath with a little twirly mobile from Germany (a childhood tradition.)
Our first gingerbread house attempt this year. Bean cut out the templates and the dough. And mixed everything.
Bean was hilarious to watch decorating these. He was so careful with the icing… then DUMPED the sprinkles on.
Lots of snowflakes have been cut this year…Bean made this one entirely himself.
Bundled up. Getting ready to do our annual holiday photo…

PS: I’m sort of sick and am hating the general anxiety of Sunday night. There is always a to-do list bigger than my brain waiting for Monday. What’s on your to-do list this week?

We made cinnamon rolls this morning: Bean measuring the flour out, his eyebrows getting dusted as the mixer kicked into high gear; going to gather eggs first. (We have an interesting flock this year: Aracunas, New Hampshir Reds, Cuckoo Marans, Barred Rocks and a Buff Orpington rooster.) While the dough rose in my favorite vintage Pyrex bowl, we started hanging lights: big fat colored ones, like I remember from being a kid.

Back inside it was all about tinker toys and cinnamon & brown sugar filling (with walnuts too) and leftovers for lunch. Hard cider. Turkey + cranberry sauce + coleslaw on raisin bread. (Of note: DH butchered our turkey this year himself. A Heritage breed, raised by a friend of ours.)

Later: A fire in the wood stove. Inclement weather, but the best kind. Going to get the mail wearing rain boot. Sprout trying to stand all on his own (and cutting two top teeth.) Then making pasta from scratch: the dough gorgeously golden with fresh eggs. Linguine never tasted better: served with Parmesan, sausages and swiss chard sauteed with garlic.

Finally, in the quiet of a post bedtime house: the crackle of logs burning in the stove, getting words down on the page uninterrupted. A glass of red wine. The cat curled at my ankles. Looking forward the inevitable sweetness of bed: the curve of his back, warm, and muscled against me in the dark.

There is something about October light.The way the skies are stormy and squalls blow in with snow flurries in the mountains and sleet sticking to the grass. The way V’s of geese and airplanes look like embers against the sky as the sun sets. The way every leaf becomes fire falling to the dying grass.

I took these pictures tonight, right at dinner, as the sun burst from under dark clouds. It was another long night again last night. Sprout might have an ear infection–that or he’s just in a new sleep phase and has discovered his ears (he was tugging on them a bit today.) I watched every single green digital number in the hour flip by from 3 to 4 a.m. and this morning I was no less of a mess than yesterday and yet somehow the day wasn’t all that bad.

It was a day where I tried to just let myself notice the small moments and breathe. Mostly I succeeded. And I cleaned the house. What did you do?

Tonight rain came from a sunny sky, and persisted. Big fat drops falling hard among the sunbeams. We went out barefoot, twirled, stuck our tongues out, turned grateful palms and faces towards the sky. Sun on our cheeks, and rain. Bean gathered water in a small cup for the fairies. Sprout giggled on the doorstep with me. And then all four of us watched in wonder as a rainbow made a sudden perfect arc before us.

…And we were right there, at the end of the rainbow.

These photos are best enjoyed BIG. Click & enjoy: