and breathe!

This weekend feels like I have just crawled out of a huge wave. Like I have been spun and rinsed by a Cape Saint Francis dumpster. My ears have only just reached equilibrium and I am standing.  An almost perfect analogy, except that the ocean brain rinsing freshness is missing. That wonderful ozone cool that surviving a big salty leaves you with. Basically I just feel dumped. 

For a moment a couple of weeks ago I thought “jeeze-if-this-is-the-pace-of-my-new-full-time-working-mother-life-I-think-I-better-get-off-this-bronco-pronto-cause-I-just-can’t-keep-the-fuck-up…… !”  It was a treadmill. It was brutal. E and I passed each other over a bowl of something hot in the evening and coffee in the mornings.

But is was year-end and a million projects were being pushed to close to get the numbers on the books and I was going on holiday and we had a temp coming in to cover and I needed to hand over a clean patch for one week and no day is entirely predictable and the phone doesn’t stop and  I gotta walk  out that door at exactly 5:00pm to do my school run and it is a damn fast walk, then the tube, then a walk and then my heart pumps as I walk around the corner and I hear my daughters voice say “mama” in that singing lilt and I smile and we walk home playing games that are so far removed from my day job and sometimes she is tired and I have to carry her some and sometimes she skips all the way home telling me nothing about how she spent her day but asking to pick the violet blue flowers of the weeds that force their way through the cracks in the pavement.  Last week in the eaves of the church we could hear the cheeping of tiny chicks as they waited for their mother to return to the nest. 

My holiday timing wasn’t fantastic. I skipped a busy week at work to go to Umbria.  The dates were non-negotiable. We were celebrating E’s parents 30 years of married life. The entire reconstituted family was there and it was brilliant. 

Totally photographic. E’s sister got engaged. There was no major family fight. (tipsy tears by some after a couple of bottles of wine but those don’t count!).  I don’t drink wine but I did get cosy with a bottle of lemoncello. Discovered the next day that it goes even better with prosecco but I haven’t tried that yet. The lemoncello is in the freezer though.

We had planned to mission out every day to Florence, Rome, or Sienna but after the first day of driving we decided to slow the pace down and apart from seeking gelatti every day in the middle of siesta (when most places are shut), we did not stray too far from the lawn in front of the house. We ate, and sat, and played with the Chi, and I ploughed through the Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which was engaging, in a ‘Terry Pratchet meets Ann Frank’ kind of way. Holes, by Louis Sachar is more surprising. Sweeter.

It has taken me over a week to catch up with myself since and in that time summer finally crossed the channel.  It is still raining but life has returned to a manageable fast walk. I may even get round to calling some friends tomorrow rather than just skimming through facebook to check their status updates every evening.  I will read the backlog posts my favourites have blogged.  I will mow the lawn.  Stir the compost heap in the eager anticipation of a noticeable breakdown of the peels I threw in last week.  I will sit down to write about how my Chi changes almost daily so that a part of me waits eagerly each day to see how she will engage with me. What she will tell me. Ask me.

Yesterday I think we had a moment. We were walking to meet E at Waggas for Friday night dinner cause it is summer and the days are long and I wanted to feel part of the city for a little bit longer and she asked me if she was big.  Told me that some of the girls in her class say she is the smallest and she is a baby.  I had to crouch down to respond. Had to tell her that she was a big girl. That some girls are tall and some are short and that everyone is a little different.  My heart was in my throat.  My daughter might be feeling rejected.   I hate that thought, and I can’t protect her from it.

Today I snuck in an extra yoga class for the week. The most goddamn brilliant class I have done in months. Years even. I splashed out on a class at one of those uber trendy studios that have cropped up all over the place but damn this class had soul. The energy was entirely female and light and enlivened and I had one of those stretch beyond the limits of your knowledge and sweat it out there classes that leave you feeling loose and limber and alive.

And tonight we watched Juno and if you haven’t seen it yet go get it from blockbuster right now!  Quirky.

I guess I am going through a teenage phase in terms of literature and movies. Weird!

As for Zim the news remains constant.  Things are getting worse. There is less of everything and increasing fear.   We all wait and pray, watching from the sidelines helpless to change anything cause you just can’t negotiate with insanity. 

Day 138 2006, always a bridesmaid...

My sister-out-law recently asked me to be bridesmaid. It's such an honour to be be asked - although I am not sure why me - my track record as bridesmaid is not fantastic - last time I was asked I was responsible for getting the bride to the ceremony half an hour late.  I blame the exceedingly slow elevator at the hotel.  All I remember is thrusting my daughter into the hands of a good friend while we bundled the bride into my car and I drove her to the venue in a rush.   It was a superb wedding.

This will be my fifth time as bridesmaid - although strictly speaking at almost 36 and with a one year old I guess I am more matron than maid. 

I prove the bridesmaid curse - having now been thoroughly jinxed by my girlfriends into never walking down the aisle for myself. 

The point is...

... rather than spending an hour this evening writing about some silly trivia and reading all my favourite fellow bloggees daily musings I now need to go an research the perfect hen party.  

Ideas anyone?