1st grade.

Pre-school.

Pre-pre-school.

Bus.

Car.

Office.

Memberships.

Committees.

Bands.

This doesn’t even touch on health. Granted, I am still recovering, my energy slowly, so freaking slowly, inching its way up. I had set a goal of designating time for me to do yoga once we moved. The girls were going to learn to swim. Go to camp. Sean was going to work out. So many things I wanted to do, but in the same way that emotions get twisted up in actions, hopes gets tangled up in obligations.

When does my duty as a mom trump my responsibilities as a business owner?

When does wife precede mom?

Mine beat theirs?

How do I allow myself to rue certain losses as a woman while teaching my daughters to accept when things don’t go their way?

Black and white seems to be doing battle with grey and all that is left is this very unsatisfying yet indisputable watered-down and disappointing film, no color, no texture, just weight and impediment.

I have dear friends writing letters soliciting prayers for sick loved ones, friends right in town enduring the passage-before-their-eyes of loved ones in the palliative leg of illness. For every complaint I have, there is a blessing.

I am finding myself beneath a craggy tree, equal parts wondrous and hideous, ungainly limbs protruding at unexpected angles, but from their farthest points swing succulent fruit. I am torn between hoarding the fruit, its sweet juices dripping down my arms and sating the deepest corners of my soul and attacking the branches and cursing them for their refusal to grow the way I want, for eclipsing the sun from the direction I had wanted other limbs to grow.

A friend directed me to an article today

But I am glad. No summer lasts forever, and no childhood does. The sweetness of the time springs from its short supply, like the three or four raspberries I sometimes find dangling from a single plant along my driveway.

I know that this is the truth. It is all worth it, all maddening, because of how it is. I do not apologize for the young girl in me that is standing, fists clenched and nose wrinkled, glaring at the stars for not getting her way. I think that in the same way that the time is sweet for how fleeting it is, the passion is that much deeper for how hard we fight for it, how fearlessly we dive and how long we freeze the frames.

It is.

Every decision I make is one more than I should. I need to be still, have little to no investment in the way the day-to-day minutia gets sorted out and the answer, as Sean has lectured into my head is, “probably shouldn’t.” I need to be smarter because as much as I adore many of the people that fit this group, I am hoping to behave myself into not being a member.

Blogging has been a part of my life for 6 years. I remember the first time an entry of mine was posted in a BlogHer column (of course it was on deleting a post…blush) I remember taking my last baby to my first BlogHer

I want to go to NYC and hug so many special people, maybe not like this, but close.

I want to prove to my daughters that I made the sacrifices to be able to go. I want to show Sean and the rest of my family that I understand how serious my injury is/was and that I will do what it takes. I want to deserve it and be ready for it.

I want to be at BlogHer. I will wear shoes. They won’t be running shoes, as I will not run for Tanner though I have a tutu and everything. They will not be stilletos and I will not shop til I drop, for chances are I’d truly drop.

But there will be something on my feet, which are pointed directly toward BlogHer.

So here’s to resting and making it, with my family’s blessing, to BlogHer 1 week from today! Pardon me if I end up being the slow walker in the Hilton. Stop and walk with me, I’ll share a story to make it worth your while.

I have begun to forgive myself the occasional slip, not saying I like it or broadcasting it, but I feel the weight of time so firm and unyielding on my back, I press forward to stay present. It isn’t perfect, but it is how I travel. A few weeks back I didn’t land so softly. Not only did I not find a gentle cushion, I continued to bounce upon surfaces harder than I could handle. Reliving the first was enough, being grateful for the care during the aftershocks is all I’ll do here. My blood volume is improving, my color is following suit, but the warning to proceed slowly hangs heavy over my every move.

I do not hurt, but my body is leaden. My mom and sister have flown in to care for the girls and the house. Our business surges ahead, meetings being booked and clients calling every day. I track the calendar, beg for scraps of news, but sit wearily as the days and hours pass without my involvement. There is no scooping kids up or sparring with Sean, I am sitting, not doing. I understand that it is what I need to do, but it feels so much less than natural.

Watching the girls run laps, zigging this way and that, kicking up sand along the southern edge of our yard and then leaving emerald wakes of fluttering grass on the other end, I very nearly twitch. They go without stop, playing soccer, running races, practicing yoga inspecting morning glories. I want to give chase, all the more so seeing my mom and sister gallop and exclaim along with them. There is, in the very farthest corner of the yard a complex system, a tunneled river of sorts, that Abbie has made for their Barbies. The ringing of another time meeting in a glorious summer’s day crescendo tortures me.

I am back in Eugene, Oregon. I am 5, crying on a rainy soccer field. I am 6 playing beneath a forthysia plant, pretending it is my house. I am 7 and arranging Star Wars figures inside a rhododendron bush. I am 10 at Hayward Field pretending to be Mary Decker. As the sun shines through the slats of the blinds and warm my arm, I cannot tell if the sounds and smells are now or then.

The mother in me keeps me still, the daughter and spirit inside of me want to lace on a pair of running shoes and race the wind and spin with those girls until I am dizzy.

Saturday I will be 37. Today I am living in minutes, not years, biding my time until I am whole again. I am choosing to be grateful for the minutes, rather than resent them. It isn’t easy and so I think of things that make me smile. This song always has and its my internal song right now as I think about moving again.

Go run!

PS My plan is to be at BlogHer…

Watching the girls slip from their baby forms like snakes from a skin, I am, if not in total acceptance, mindful of the months and years ahead. There will be a bus as the air changes in September, it will carry Briar away to see faces I won’t and hear and share in conversations I’ll never hear. There will be name tags on cubbies and lessons I won’t teach, hours will pass each day when not a single girl is waiting, pining for her turn to leave. It’s only preschool and elementary school this year, but each coming year builds speed and each time the door closes behind them we get ever closer to the time when they go to not come back.

I want to hold them tighter as they become more, more funny, more inquisitive, more themselves and less echoes of me. The scurry further away, darting this was and that. I am slower, sometimes to let them win, other times because I am less and less the girl and more and more the rememberer.

I was thinking the other day as Sean explained the concept of back-to-school shopping, that there was a time when each September was a heady mix of promise and intrigue. Sometime around late August a switch would just flip and mourning summer quickly became counting the days until autumn. Which teacher, which friend, argyle sweaters, new erasers, Halloween!

I wonder when that goes away, why the potent blessing of summer’s end and autumn’s return is not celebrated. I try so hard to find ways to hold onto gratitude, patience and acceptance, but why aren’t I trying harder to reclaim the fervor? Having spent the last two weeks careening between a place of grievous harm and a zen state of recovery, I keenly want to revisit those joys of old.

Rather than expecting the same failures or assuming a repetition of the previous year, I am going to hurl myself headlong into the potential of a new season. I am alive, battered and exhausted, yes, but with a renewed passion for this unpredictable life of mine that is as resilient as it is fragile.

I suppose when the newness of this brush with death passes, fervor may be hard to sustain, but I know I’ll never fear or feel shame for my delight or my questing. As the wind carries the scent of wet leaves and singed pumpkin skin, I’ll be standing with my girls, costumed and bright-eyed, witnessing their joy and unleashing my own exclaims of “Oooh” this and “wow” that.

This is the season of back-to-trusting in life’s magic. Can you smell it?

I want to go here with energy and a sparkle. I want to go for runs, swim in the lake and be able to lift whatever or whoever I want, when and how I want.

Luckily I have slightly more commonsense as 37 looms ever closer and I have comedy. Pure, ’round the clock, irresistible slapstick and mayhem. Fin, the Mama Whisperer , is keeping me smiling despite my maudlin tendencies.

Just now she sidled up next to me, turned over on her back with her arms crossed behind her head, looked at me and said, “Mama, Humpty Dumpty couldn’t get it up.”

Damn, if I’m not feeling better already.

I want to have the grace to be thankful for the way things turned out, but the truth is grace falls to the wayside with three kids. There are questions to answer, scrapes to kiss and things to do on the floor, on your side, upside down and beneath three bodies.
I want to be there. In it.
I am realizing that I am, even though it doesn’t feel like it.

There is a pirate’s cure on an imaginary boat with a pirate’s cap.

Princess dreams atop layers of pink with smatterings of sparkles and cuddles.

I don’t like the naps, resent the sedentary orders and want to be doing, doing doing. Just when I feel as if I have missed something, I am reminded the only thing that I’ve missed is that they are willing to wait.

That I am worth waiting for.

That I am ever so lucky to be in this embrace.

Now is for living.

For me it wasn’t until…

They shielded my babies.

The clots filled my hands.

The blood flowed over my lap.

I couldn’t move as fast as their faces showed I should.

My friend said in a faraway place, “You are still bleeding.”

I didn’t get it until the blood wouldn’t just wash away as I expected, instead it plumed around me in the water. The color as dark as the shadow Sean cast over me as he said we had to get to the hospital.

We drove in near silence, I occasionally told him not to worry. “Are you still bleeding?” he’d ask, and I would lift myself gingerly and more blood would gush out of me. “Yes.” He’d nod almost violently and say under his breath, “Then I am still worrying.”

The girls were calm and I remember softly telling each one that I loved her, all the while thinking it was a silly and unnecessary step, but one that I took for the set of Sean’s profile.

“I saw the blood, mama,” Ave said. I was startled, “Well, what exactly did you see baby?” I asked as I remembered the bright scarlet smears along the inside of the boat and of the rivers of it that coursed passed my legs and waist and covered the seat. “Just a little bit on your finger and on Finley.”

I closed my eyes, reopened them and said, “It’s ok, look how big I am. I have a lot of blood and daddy is going to get me fixed.” She nodded, smiled and said, “I know, you’re going to the hospital and we’re going to Nana’s and you are going to be fine.” Sean’s eyes welled. The rest of the ride was quiet but for the odd chirp of  ”I love you, mama,” from the girls.

Nana and Jeannie were waiting outside of the ER as we pulled up. There was talk of switching cars and of getting me into the building. “If I stand I’ll lose more blood.” A wheelchair it was. Sean rolled me into the ER as my babies were driven away. It began to sink in then that I was way out of my depth, that it didn’t matter that I was strong, tolerant of pain or a good person. Life, as I knew it and as it might ever be, was, for the moment, completely out of my hands.

They moved me into triage with lightning speed. The nurses called me “Baby” and “Honey” and “Sweetheart.” They moved us past the scanner and straight into a room. I thought about my friend joking earlier as she stood on the dock about “not grooming this morning” and pointing to her bikini area. I had laughed and said that I had for once. I’d painted my toe nails too. This all washed over me as we cut away my suit and arranged my feet in stirrups. I had no idea how long they’d stay that way and how so much life would escape from a place I’d come to think of as a source of life.

There was some amount of comedy as the two things most necessary to examine my wounds were missing or taken. My doctor was pissed. I was happy. You want a pissed off and focused-on-you doctor. Maybe pissed off is too strong.

Emphatic.

Deliberate.

Clear-as-day on what he needed when, where and how to fix me.

Anything between him and those things was an unwelcome impediment.

He and Sean talked to me. I remember thinking deliriously that it always seems to be men looking between my legs (we can laugh, right? I mean, c’mon. I’m alive. And I had shaved!) They laughed, not so much at what I said, as at how not in step with the severity of my injury I seemed to be. Reality didn’t hit me again until…

I looked up at 7 faces and saw terror.

I watched Sean forget that I could see him.

I whispered, “Hey, I can see you,” and he smiled, a smile that spoke untold words.

I blinked, finally really startled as they put oxygen tubes in my nose, stuck monitors on my chest and belly, and pumped bag after bag after bag of saline into me.

I watched as they drew blood from me even as I realized the blood I thought I’d been losing could actually have been my life.

When the doctor looked at me and told me he was removing the equipment because it couldn’t reach the wounds and apply the pressure the way his own hand could I nodded. Silent. Obedient. Sobered.

“You tell me if I hurt you,” he said directly, but gently.

He told me story after story as his hand trembled from the exertion, stopping only to call out “How long before the doctor arrives?”

I listened, then listened harder as my body started to fail, limbs trembling, color draining, numbers plummeting, Sean grabbed one leg and a nurse grabbed another holding them steady while my driven doctor shouted, “I need that second OR set now!”

I began to rest, easing up on the trying to understand, trying to focus. Sean leaned his head toward me, “Manda, baby, you still with me?” I tried to keep my eyes open. “Yup, still here. Just sleepy.” I have bits and pieces of being wheeled to the OR, there might have been joking about the resident that pushed the table being my doctor’s lawnmower, but that seems wrong. I can’t be sure.

The anesthesiologist talked to me about the unfortunate reality that I had eaten (mac-n cheese at noon, chips and salsa an hour before the ER) and consumed liquids (a seltzer and 1 Coors Light-blush)  and that made putting me under dodgy. They asked me what sports I did and after answering and complimenting them on the quality of the OR (ever socially gracious, don’t ya know?) I remember waking to a tray of food. Knowing enough about how and what one needs to do before being discharged, I ate that ham sandwich, Fig Newton, applesauce, warm milk and juice like it was a king’s meal. “Feel any nausea?” to which I responded, “Not a bit!” (burp)

I knew that they had saved me, now I just wanted to be home.

####

Cut to the chase, somehow after an unremarkable fall as I water skied, I incurred two lacerations to my vaginal wall measuring upwards of 1.75″ each. The time between the incident and arriving at the ER was approximately 45 minutes, My blood loss exceeded a liter. My numbers dipped to places you don’t want them to go. The ER staff kept me warm and calm, the OB, nurse and anesthesiologist tended to my wounds with precision and speed. My friends and Sean deciding to take me to the ER saved my life.

Now I am at home, moving gingerly, if at all, and doing everything I can not to replay the images of a decision I never considered dangerous, of a fall that never truly hurt and of the memories of the massive amounts of blood that I nearly tried to rationalize away to the point of not mentioning.

Today I am grateful for all the minutes I have so recklessly enjoyed as being my right. Knowing the gift that they are makes me dizzy.

Sean looked at me today and said, “Why don’t you get out of here? Hit the gym or something.” When I looked at him forlornly, book intended to transport me from my awful mood to a small town in Wyoming clutched to my chest, he said, “Babe, go to the gym. I’ll watch the girls and give you that time and another 45 minutes to read when you get back. You *can* do both.”

I let the thought wrap around me, the decadence of working out and then taking a long, luxurious shower and then reading, it was almost enough. I flirted, in the ten seconds that he watched me, with saying yes. Enter Sunday morning funk self-sabatoge. “No, I don’t want to go anywhere. I just…” I filled the space between us with a litany of reasons why it was better to stay. He watched me, waiting for the haze to clear and for me to pop up and say, “Thanks, babe. On my way.”

It didn’t.

I didn’t.

He turned and closed the door.

I let myself steep in the loss. Flashes from two days before when he’d told me I was beautiful and I for some reason had slinked away, shaking my head saying it wasn’t true and that I felt gross as I stepped into the shower. When I stepped out of the shower my face erupted into a shameful blush, all the things he’d said reflected plain as day in the mirror.

Today, unshowered, sullen and alone, I realized I was once again allowing something other than reality or truth to influence my actions. What am I getting out of this? How am I going to walk downstairs after acting the fool?

I set down my book and made a decision. This one thing made me feel stronger, smarter and better. I pulled my hair back and slipped into a pair of old Williams College shorts, a sports bra and singlet. Grabbing a pair of socks I walked downstairs, plunked myself down on the stairs to put on my shoes and said, “I’m going to go after all.”

He smiled at me, his expression lacked any recrimination and he smiled as he said, “Good, have fun.”

I did.

A brisk walk to the gym, 45 minutes of weights and cycling and then a quick jog home freed everything that had been suffocating beneath my moody cloud.

Before kids we used to play basketball, one-on-one at various courts. It was always competitive, yet playful. We’d inevitably walk home, sweaty arms wrapped around slick shoulders and joke about who schooled whom. Today, there was no court and we didn’t get the time alone, but nevertheless he schooled me.

I am grateful for having a partner that supports me, sometimes by challenging me, always by loving me.

Be open to learning, it will always make you more than you were.

Are you hiding from something? Behind something? Step forward, I know you can.

And oh, these days, they attack me from the other direction, dawn coming after the first requests to get up, the emails pinging and clanging even before I take my first blessed sip of coffee. Before I make it out the door my heart is already racing, the weight of things put off for dinner together and bedtime snuggles, come back untempered by the break.

I twist and sigh and then they come. The flash of sunlight on shiny metal as the last bits of sundress and braid slip past and down the slide. The cool wet touch of bedtime water kisses. The third cup of my cheek (yes that one) until I finally giggle and let go.

My stories, my salvation in seconds.

We were on a getaway for Ave’s birthday when Briar asked me to go with her on an enclosed water slide. I shook my head distractedly and said, “Honey, maybe go with dad.” She broke me from my fog by standing still and facing me to ask, “Why?” I didn’t even think as I said, “Dark places scare me.” She squeezed my hand and immediately said, “I’ll keep you safe.”

I carry that squeeze and promise with me into the moments that feel like a battlefield during my day.

Sean was out of town for a few days and as we settled in for dinner Avery asked me about going to the playground the next day. Trying to balance a need to not do it all and a desire to not disappoint I said, “It’s hard to go with all 3 of you girls and only one parent. It’s tough because Fin really likes to slide and you want to get pushed on the swings and mama just can’t do both.” I stroked her hair and promised when dad came home, we’d go. Several hours later at bed time, “Mom, when you take us to the park and it’s just you, I promise to only go on the slides and pirate ship and other stuff.”

How can little ones be so wise, while us big people falter so?

During that same water park stay Finley began a complicated love affair with water. She swirled and swam, flitting this way and that alternately fascinated by the feel of water between her toes and the way the air cooled her arms as they hovered over the pool. Finally, wrinkly from swimming and playing in the water, she showed me her fingers with a worried look, “Wha’s dat?” I smiled, kissed a fingertip and explained it was from being in the water for so long. She looked confused, shook her fingers and then proceeded to try to lick and suck the wrinkles away. When they didn’t go away she gave me a another look, raised her eyebrows and kept licking.

Persistence, hope and wonder.

These girls, this life—security, cooperation and delicious wrinkles.

Now, I may be alone on this, but I doubt it. Diets, mandatory spending freezes and proclamations of celibacy all make you…

WANT WHAT YOU CAN’T HAVE!

I have been trying to rethink my wardrobe and find new ways to make myself feel good. For the first time in my life I am consistently applying some sort of something at night— beta this, alpha that, regenerist blah-dee-blagh. I am subscribing to the belief that if I take pains, I’ll reap rewards. Not sure it’s working, but as I slather the stuff on, I feel kind of special (note to self, maybe say “dab” or “apply” rather than “slather” to feel even better).

All this week I have been trying to infuse my outfits with something that makes me feel not almost 37, because certain five year olds have mused aloud that, “Maybe 37 is the birthday when you become a grandma.” I am tall. I have impossibly broad shoulders. Strong legs. Twinkly eyes. There are other things I could dwell on, but damn if that doesn’t just remind me of the turtle my host family in Spain had, she would crawl beneath the kitchen table and slowly bonk her head against the wall. Again.

And again.

And again.

I don’t want to be a turtle. And, while I may have dreamed of being 5′7″ with a size 7 foot and straight hair, I am not. The only thing I am going to change at this point is my attitude. The beauty of an attitude change is at literally changes how you look.

So when it’s time to dress this body of mine, I am learning to admire the way 33″ of saffron colored corduroy looks covering my legs. I slip into sleeveless shirts and instead of lamenting the way my shoulders are always too wide, I nod proudly at the curves of softly freckled, dramatically muscled arms popping deliberately from my shirts.

I stand taller, walk sassier and my eyes flash brighter. Don’t get me wrong, I’d almost be willing to sing in public* for a chance to get new clothes, but until I can go shopping, I can make some magic happen. And, in the elusive search for choices that allow me to do for myself while still setting a good example for my 3 daughters, finding ways to love what I’ve got ranks up there as one of the best.

How about you? Can you love what you’ve got?