All of the Good.

One year ago my job was a mess.

And I hadn't exercised in 7 years.

And I was having severe stomach pains and migraines, completely unaware of what was causing them.    

And we were making plans to move to Kansas.  

I was depressed.  

I am not joking.  

That was one year ago, almost exactly to the date.  

I don't think we stop often enough to realize and recognize the good that has happened in life.  And today I just can't help but sit here, almost in near shock, as I think about everything that was going on a year ago-- 

--and now where we are today.  

It seems like it's all very sudden--  until I realize how crazy hard the past year has been.  It has been a year of settling ourselves-- mind, body, and soul....  and working our booties off to get ourselves together.  

And now, officially, with my husband (the newly made Professor Sprague), we get to call Seattle our forever home.

Do you know what that means?  It means the world.  It means I get to wrap myself in the amazing community of friends we've made here over the last several years, and hug you all and tell you that we get to watch our kids grow up together.  It means I don't have to figure out how to participate in this beautiful business painting shoes from 8 states away.  It means that we maybe eventually might possibly move out of our tiny apartment, and find a little house and buy a paddle boat for the summer evenings.  And adopt a dog, and have backyard birthday parties.  

It means I get to watch Tyler do what he was put on this earth to do.  And I get to dream of a real studio space that is larger than a computer desk.  

I am in love with my job.  I am in love with this city.  I am in love with our YMCA and the way it has made me feel alive in my own skin again, especially through these stressful months of uncertainty and medical issues (especially recently).   

Mostly, this week, I am in love with my husband who has spent the last 6 years pursuing his dream of becoming a professor at the University of Washington.  He never gave up.  And now, after so many years of worry-stress-uncertainty, we get to breathe, and plant our feet into the ground.
Afternoon champagne??  Yes please!   

Waiting for Spring

Thank goodness spring comes.  Every year.  

Something consistent is needed right now.  

What joy to see the tiny turned up noses

of the flower bulbs from fall 

just sniffing the air, ever so slightly out of the ground this past week.  

As if testing and asking the question 

is it safe to come out yet?  

Yes, by all means.  Yes.  Come fast.  

We are so very ready for winter to finally end. 

Come by bike, by train, by bus-- 

Use the trail 

we live right near the bakery.  

We are watching out the window 

we are keeping on our porch light.  

We are ready.  Come on in.

Don't even bother taking off your boots.  

Sit down, that chair is fine.  I have lots to tell you. So much took place while you were sleeping.  

  

March 1st

The 1st of March, and I had the most wonderful day with Violet.
I'm not sure where this enchanting day came from; it was like waking up, and seeing snow.  How did it come so quietly without my knowing?
We went to the thrift store and found a huge sack of play jewelry for $2.  We potatoed on the couch with our lady cat (Pigeon), and watched cartoons.  She told me that we were going to have soup and corn, and grapefruit for lunch.  And so we did.  
She hovered over my shoulder for over an hour while I tried my darnedest to assemble this wooden penguin model (also a thrift store find).  And finally she told me that it was ok, and that we should just play a game instead.
We stopped by the studio and saw Lisa and Kira, and they gave her a purple balloon, which immediately flew away once we were outside.  So then they gave her two more, and she held on with every ounce of her being onto their yellow strings.

Fridays are always funny and fun because we don't have preschool, I don't have space or time to work, there's no ballet, we don't usually go to the gym, and it usually is raining.  Sometimes the freedom of having nothing to do, even for one day a week, is a little daunting (especially with an almost-four year old).
But today was nice, and I realized two things:
1) She is turning 4 soon, which means this will be my last year with her before she is sucked into kindergarden all day (for better and for worse).  
2) I could watch her eat a grapefruit half forever.

Seeing the Girl with a Pearl Earring

Vermeer's painting, Girl With a Pearl Earring, has played an interesting and ongoing role in my life.
When I was about 12 years old, my grandma Daisy (who loved art and was an artist and was one of the kindest and cleverest souls this world has ever known), cut a picture of the painting out a magazine and stuck it in a thrift store gold frame and gave it to me.  She said, Rachel this looks just like you.   


I remember sitting at the dining room table in my grandparent's house, and staring down at this magazine painting, and it honestly was like looking in a mirror.  But some sort of bizarro mirror, where everything I knew to be awful about myself was reflected back as beautiful.
I know this all sounds a little arrogant.  I mean, who compares herself to a famously beautiful painting and gets away with it?
Well, maybe I should preface this entire thing by telling you that I was absolutely and completely the embodiment of awkward when I was 12.  (Well, at least that's how I felt about myself). I was so incredibly tiny-- short and skinny and pale with eyes that were way too big for the rest of me and that weren't really any color at all.  Not brown, not green, definitely not blue.

Whether or not I actually ever looked like that painting, something about it struck a chord with me.  She was so odd and snowy, just like me.   And caught in this moment of having something important to say, but being a bit startled by everything.  And that large dangling earring, just hanging there like some secret life ready to begin.

Anyway, I hung the picture in the bathroom basement, next to my bedroom.  And looked at her while I brushed my braces (I mean teeth) every morning.  And I would try to decide if I was oddly beautiful (like her), or just plain odd.

Well, I pretty much grew up, and moved away.  Then when I was 20-something I was teaching art to these wretchedly over-priveledged children, the Girl  reentered my life.  One day, this kid (who was 6 and always sort of an outcast to his fellow classmates), was flipping through an art book and happened upon that picture.  He brought it up to me and said Why are you in this book?  
I kind of just stared at him speechless.  I think I sputtered out something about how it wasn't me, it was a famous painting.  He looked at me like I was nuts and walked away.

Anyway, what I'm trying to lead up to is that over the weekend I actually got to see this painting in person for the first time in my life.  I was down in California visiting my family, and there it was too--  in the de Young Museum in San Francisco.
It's this whole exhibit of Dutch paintings.  It's all just gorgeous.  But they have her in a room all to her own, and when you see her, down the hall, it's this huge tunnel of darkness with her face just glowing, staring at you from across the view, as if you just called her name to ask when she'd be home, and she turns and looks and almost answers.
I have seen this painting in books, magazines, on busses, posters, mugs, puzzles... I have stared at it in my basement bathroom for years.... but seeing her in person.  There are no words.

It almost felt like I was 12 again, seeing her for the first time.  Could she really be that strange and beautiful?
I started crying, just a little.  The shock of seeing something you've always known, but then realize you're really just seeing it for the first time.
I don't feel like I look much like her anymore.  I've sort of grown up and into myself they way we do when we hit 30.  Which is not a bad thing.  But there is a huge part of me that is so protective and in love with that weird little person I was at 12.  Maybe it's because I have a daughter of my own now, and I want so desperately for her to know that she is gorgeous and funny and interesting at every age, even, and especially, when she is 12 and 20 and feeling lost and snowy and startled.

Togetherness.

When I arrived home the other night, my little V was already in bed.  Tyler said she had been awake only moments before and had been asking for me, so I crept inside her room to say goodnight.  

Her tiny half-dark room with the Peter Rabbit night light shining in the corner, her santa blanket left over from Christmas, her little pink face bundled in damp bath-time hair;  this is my beautiful daughter finding peace at the end of her day.  And she was sleeping, but maybe sensing I was there, she all at once looked up and said "mama, I was worried about you".  



I feel like lately she's been sensing my unease with the world.  She watches from the window while I take out the trash, as if I'm crossing the freeway--  just for 20 seconds I am gone-- and when I come back in she wipes her little crying eyes, saying I just want us all to be together.

We hold our children in our hands like tiny glass-boned birds.

--they are looking, longing for togetherness where ever it may be.
Because, at least for my child, this feeling of togetherness, is the food that fuels her day and settles her worried little heart.

I wonder of these people-- who hug their weapons close as second skin-- fighting for the right to fill each home with the artillery of armies-- and who think the answer to a tragedy is to make each man an island.
How could you stray so incredibly far?  --So far from that childhood longing to approach this world together?

You must have forgotten what it's like to watch from that lonely window as your mother takes out the trash.      

Kitten toddler road trip Christmas

Hey, January.  It's nice to see you.  I love the fall, all dressed up with pumpkins and magenta trees--  and the year's end with Christmas bells and lights and fa-la-las.
But January is nice in that way that most quiet things are nice; it just lets you be.  It is the return of everyday life.  Of making simple dinners; of working; of walking to the bank; of feeding the pets; of going to bed and waking up in the morning and making oatmeal.

And as we settle back into the everyday--  after being distracted for a good three months with holidays and honey hams-- we are given this unique chance to see clearly again life in its natural state.
January, you're a good friend who listens openly to hopes and concerns about the future.





But back to December.  We made the decision this year to take a road trip down to California for Christmas, and to bring our kittens with us.  Definitely an idea that was two parts wonderful and one part crazy.  In case there was any doubt, let me tell you-- kittens do not enjoy 13 hour car rides.  Neither do 3.5 year-olds. But, all things considered, everyone did very well, and California welcomed us with it's familiar open arms.

To everyone in Chico:  Thank you for providing my girl with endless walnuts to crack, and for sharing your sun spots (Sammy dog).  Thank you for welcoming me as a guest into your zumba class, and for providing endless warm fires in the stove.  Thank you for the rice chips, and for every thoughtful meal. Thank you for looking at my daughter with stars in your eyes, and for giving Tyler and me the chance to slip away and see a movie for the first time in over a year.  Thank you for the beautiful tree to decorate, and for the fun cousins to play with, and for the beautiful gifts.   Thank you for Penny, and for all of the wonderful community of people who care so much about us.  Thank you for the rainbow sprinkles that were the highlight of Violet's world that night.  Thank you for a trip to Coit tower; I have always wanted to go!  Thank you for your warm send off, it kept us going all the way home.

To everyone in Berkeley:  Thank you for the trip to the merry-go-round that remains a magical memory in my girl's little heart.  Than you for holding my kittens in your arms, and welcoming them under the Christmas tree and laughing when they were naughty.  Thank you for providing so very many loving cousins, but especially thank you for Rose.  Thank you for ensuring my girl that Santa would come, and for finding a stocking for Violet, and also one for me and one for Tyler (even though we are old and unsure if Santa really exists).   Thank you for making three batches of alternative flour cookies, even though you thought they tasted too much like beans.  Do you know how amazing it was for me to eat cookies again?  Thank you for lighting the Swedish candle thing every night for Violet, and for running a bath for me when I was too confused to figure it out.  Thank you for the endless warming meals at the big round table, and for several special eatings-out at Vic's and Lily's and Juan's.  Thank you for so much brother fun.  Thank you for helping me feel like Berkeley is still a place that part of me can very much call home.  I can't wait to see you again in a month!

Seeing Santa

I mostly didn't believe in Santa when I was little.  Although, there was one moment, right around Christmas, when I was 6, with my cousin Richard, helping feed a neighbor's cat one evening--  for two seconds I believed, in the darkness of the front garden, that a jingle sleigh was up among the stars.

Richard would get excited and terrified about most things.  He would plant these ideas in my head, like maybe there were great white sharks swimming in the Berkeley bay.  And I would know they were ridiculous, until 3am when wide awake I'd start to wonder. 

Now with Violet, I watch her watching and wondering about things, like Santa.  We hadn't really talked much about Santa.  I was always slightly petrified of the mall Santas when I was a kid, and so I've never felt the need to make her sit on Santa's lap and [even more scary] talk to him if she wasn't up for it.   

But something funny happened.  

A couple days after Thanksgiving, we went to this rinky-dinky craft sale on the island put on by the senior center.  Well, there was a Santa there (sort of a 1970's version of one, that looked like he was sitting in someone's living room, with a 13 year old kid taking blurry photos on an ancient camera), and what does my shy little girl do?  My girl who is usually too shy to even look at the grocery clerks in the super market walked right up to this Santa, climbed up on his lap, and told him very clearly what she wanted for Christmas.  

Santa: What is your name?  

Violet: My name is Violet.  

Santa: And have you been a good little girl this year, Violet?  

Violet: Yes, I have. 

Santa: Oh good.  What would you like for Christmas this year?  

Violet:  Santa, I would like a Candy Cane.  

Santa:  Is that all? 

Violet: Yes.  

Santa (who quite possibly was the real thing) then made her Christmas wish come true that very moment and handed her a candy cane.  

Her little soul lit up like a roman candle.  Welcome, Santa.  You are in my child's heart, and possibly for the first time since I was six, you are in mine too.