A Month of Me

It is a little much, I know, but I am declaring October the Month of Me.

Is it because I have little to no blog inspiration lately? Because it is my birthday month? Because I am totally into talking about myself (that was blogging's origin, right?). Probably all of the above. But it is also intriguing to think about writing more than just the old 100 things list.

You can find the 30 Days of Truth list here. Will I make it through? Probably not.
Without further ado...

Something you hate about yourself.

I skipped over the first thought (my body, duh, so predictable). And I don't really hate it. It is what it is, so onward.

So, it is my memory. I hate the way my memory works. I have a memory like swiss cheese. It does not store and read back well, sometimes it does not store at all. This did not start with children, or the various other abuses I have visited on my brain tissue. Nope. I was born this way.

It is not even a selective memory. It is just faulty. And now that I am writing this, it is getting harder to describe. This post sounded better in my head.

The thing is that I rarely feel like the events of my life happened to me. If you asked me to recall what it felt like to carry twins in my body, I cannot tell you. I see the pictures but I cannot tell you the feeling. If you ask me about those extended trips I took to Africa or Hawaii or Canada or Ireland, it is like a vague happening, like watching it from a TV screen happening to another person. There is a certain amount of distance, separation. I am right now sitting in a condo in Tahoe where we have come annually for the last 7 years and those 7 years jumble and twist around each other, none of them discrete or fixed.

And then there are those times when I tell Tim about something and he reminds me that he was there. Right. I mean we have been together 17 years now, when would he not be there? Or those times I find myself in a picture at my sister's wedding rehearsal dinner and I have absolutely zero recollection of the event. Or when I realize upon a return to NYC that I lived there 5 years and had friends and danced on stages and walked those streets every day and it all feels like a dream most times.

And it has always been like that. I would love to speculate that it is due to living life so fully and varied that I cannot retain it all. I would love to say it is because I live in the moment, because the past does not matter. But it does. It is a part of us, a part that resides embedded in our brain tissues. And I have never really liked the way my memory tissues function.

The strategy I took in earlier years was to write. I used to write these long rambling letters to friends and family and Tim that described life in detail and went on and on. In the last month, since my return from New York actually, I have crossed paths with many of these letters and they totally freak me out. They make me squirm. They are my words in my writing, but I scan through a bit dumbfounded and wondering why I would have forgotten the events that occurred of which I wrote so thoroughly. I think one shocker was a letter I wrote to Tim explaining that on that particular day in NY I had walked by the scene of a accident where there were dead people and also I was pissed because it was Valentine's Day and couples were draped all over each other everywhere and we were a country apart (same sentence, I swear). Dead people? How did I forget about seeing dead people? Jeez.

It disturbs me a lot when I think about it (Getting a bit agitated right now). And then there is this blog. Ostensibly I started it because I wanted to chronicle knits. But it quickly was usurped by my mother role and I began to write the boys monthly letters in their first year. You know why? Yes, for them. But also for me. Because I felt panic at the idea of forgetting what was happening to us, panic at the idea of forgetting them as they were. Panic that they would ask and I would not recall. And I am still glad I did but a new fold has developed in the memory game...

Now this blog shapes my memory. I go back to archives and read about the month of September 2009 and remember accurately and vividly... but only the blog moments. Ask me of the others... go ahead, ask me. And they are not there. I am not complaining, just weird. Because this online memoir will shape so much as I go. I want it to be real and true and accurate but it is filtered just like everything else.

My strategy has become a new source of unease. And the memory thing .... I will probably just go on hating it a bit.


Soho, 8.10

Come on, it was just last month, I can remember that far back. ;)

Escape from Hades

What to do when temperatures reach past the triple digit mark and rocket past 110? Get the Hell out of Dodge.

We spent Saturday in Dana Point at our new favorite spot aptly called Baby Beach. Super sheltered and waveless, lots of grass and shade, ice cream and clean sand and blissfully cool ocean. It was the right place to be. Another plus ... I only saw about 4 moms with "Banging post-baby beach body", the rest looked human like me.

Of course, now it is Tuesday in our sweltering valleys and we skip from cooled car to library to school to home and avoid direct contact with the Sun. They say it is going to cool down but I am not sure I believe them.

Some of my favorite moments here ::



*** Drip castles that were built and then smashed. At one point Mason declared them Cow Poop Castles.

*** Helicopter swinging the boys in and out of the sea then watching them lurch around in the shallow water.

*** Ice cream cones bigger than them. Watching Owen almost finish his without help.

*** Meeting my parents and enjoying fried chicken and Doritoes on the grass.

It is rare that I wish we lived closer to the sea but this week is the exception. Ugh.

And something almost as ridiculous as the temperatures...


I had to take a picture, it was just so weird. And they stayed there for hours. Without skin protection (Shudder).

Transitions

Another season passes by, I am left wondering when it happened. The Summer that was is now gone and I realize I should change my header from iris to fallen leaf ...


I came home from work today early, no patients to be had, a slump of epic proportions hitting at just the wrong time. It was cloudy all day, the marine layer pressing into the Foothills, letting in just enough light to dispel gloom and give the hint of false Fall.

I played with the boys, read library books, juggled work and calls and then I felt antsy-itchy-had to get out of the house-ness. I felt like we all needed to come up for some air.

And so we did. Less than 5 minutes from our home, the Foothills sit. Always constant in their demeanor. Always gorgeous in their light. Always mine. I know them like my own hands, each curve and bend and dip, each pressing hill and rolling descent.


We used to walk there all the time, every week at least. Pushing the well-equipped stroller through dust and dirt or mud and bumps.


But it has been awhile. Too long. Long enough that the boys were apprehensive in the early dusk light that falls under the old oaks, asking repeatedly about bears. Little did they know that it is actually the mountain lion one should watch for up here. I didn't mention that. We did talk about oak trees and poison oak ... I tried to impress upon them the utter difference in the two but probably just saddled them with more apprehension.



It felt so good, so freeing to me. To be in that spot, push their combined weight up the hills, sweat, breathe, look up. We laughed about horse poop and they demanded that I be careful even when running down the hill; they really did not want the horse poop on their stroller.

And then I realized it was the Equinox. So fitting to come back to my backyard home now that Summer is passing. The unbearable heating will not totally ease for some time, the Santa Anas will sweep in this weekend to super heat and spark wildfires .. but we are almost there. Almost back to those easy cool meandering hikes in our place.


I know they will know these curves too. Already they are telling me "remember last year ('last year' is their term for anything in the past) when we were here". I plan on them remembering it more. Me too.

Stitch Stitch Stitch

Lately, I feel a bit like the only things I can accomplish are those of the simplest nature. Twisty complicated patterns have not called me for some time and I find myself most comfortable when the making I am making is centered around simple, clean, simple, small .... simple.

There is something about rounds of st-st that soothe the hand and mind without requiring conscious thought, conscious tracking or action. Those seem to be beyond me of late and so I keep turning to the simplest of knit stitches, stockinette in the round. In the last two weeks I have knit no less than three st-st hats for the upcoming cold weather. The first is soft and blue and was meant for a small head but grew and grew. So I then made sure to make the next two smaller and tighter and perfectly simply clean.

And another is almost done, black and (okay, okay, i will stop with the s word) warm.

I think this is when the making of things pulls me through. Things have been rough in a new way; ends not meeting, trying to find time and space to not just survive but thrive and enjoy and worry less and think less and create more and clean ... oh, yes, that is being put on the priority list. The effort it all takes sometimes seems insurmountable. But then I take the time to let the st-st move through my fingers and I take the time to grab the camera for a few shots of recently finished knits worn by very reluctant models and I look at that ... the culmination of the making.





And I feel better. I think I need to listen to the knits though and keep it very simple.