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Posted on September 28, 2010

Friday night I had my first workout since the accident. My stamina has been virtually non-existent and I did not want to discover that I would have to go slowly. I’d been hesitant to strike out and really test my body to see if I could do it. Then it occurred to me that the longer I kept my head in the sand, the likelier it would be that I would have to take baby-steps. I took a gamble and hoped that I’d waited long enough, but not too long. Sean sent me out with his iPhone loaded up with songs that he said would, “get you up that mountain.” I walked the first 1/4 mile, my lungs burning a bit, but none of that…

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Close Enough to Touch

Posted on September 24, 2010

School hasn’t even been in session a month and the change is palpable. I greet each day reminding myself it’s an accomplishment, but in truth, each day comes with a tinge of loss. The pudgy arms of my memory are replaced by sinewy, gangly limbs that hold for a second less than I expect. The kisses I give are declared to be “too many” and my input is not really needed. Even as I stifle my gasp I know we are not even close to how dark it will be, how obsolete I will become. I snickered the other day, but Sean’s banishment from the bath routine should have been a clue. I do got more time now, but on the other side my…

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Try

Posted on September 23, 2010

“You don’t understand.” “Yeah, but…” “No, I totally get it, but…” “Well, when I…” It doesn’t matter, the truth is, they might, it is, you don’t and maybe you shouldn’t. The reverberations of realizing the way things were when you thought you knew is sobering at best, humiliating at worst. I don’t think I’d say, “I wouldn’t change a thing,” with total certainty, because, really, there are a few things I’d take back again and again. Who wouldn’t? Tonight I am thinking not about how I messed up in the past, or even how I screwed up today, instead I am thinking about how real my frustrations are. Twice today I’ve heard some of my own deepest hurts and furies voiced. The anguished purge…

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Grooves of routine

Posted on September 16, 2010

Making the rounds, waking the girls, adding socks to outfits and tokens to backpacks reminds me of my childhood. I remember special things—Christmas concerts, spring morning field trips, last games of tag at sundown. I can almost smell the damp Eugene soil and hear the laughter of my childhood friends. It is exquisite to revisit the simplicity of meeting each day with awe. And then comes the tug. This was not my summer and this is not my school year. For every moment it feels like the best moments of my childhood, I am reminded that I am but a character in what will be a story very different from my own. The twist of being there to rouse them and then smooth away…

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Everyone and No One

Posted on September 9, 2010

It’s the first day of school and I’ve been reading posts by other parents all over the country with children in every grade imaginable. We are all standing on the same precipice and yet the truth is no one sees the same thing, no one feels the exact same searing panic laced with euphoria. It is a kind of jarring unity to nod and murmur, “But not really, because…” and we trail off conjuring a different sweetly scented body wriggling in our arms. The times they’ve bled, the times cousins of our own hurts pass over them like storm clouds. Two years ago we took Briar to the first day of pre-k and the scars from that experience are still hot to the touch…

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