Wild heart

I have a reckless, wild heart. In vain did my parents warn me of boundaries, and control, and steady steps to love. In vain did they counsel me in the importance of objective decisions and practical choices. In vain have I sought in life and especially love to hold myself back and measure out slowly, safely. I have a reckless, wild heart...and oh, how I have hurt. Those brutal mile long, helicopter rescue, debris strewn heart breaks that leave you shattered, and battered, and bleeding. Those tightness in the chest, sharp pain in the core, grasping for air kind of train wrecks. And yet, when the smoke clears and the dust settles, that heart gathers again and impulsively  foolishly, recklessly begins again. Oh, how it betrays me, always leaving me more vulnerable  with more invested, always the one out on the limb, looking foolish with my heart in my hands, and my foot in my mouth.

And it is ridiculous because often I don't see it coming...well, if I did, I didn't admit it until I'm all in, hands up, ready to go for broke. You'd think I'd have learned, you think I'd have slowed down, you think I'd have nothing left.

But lately...it's gone and done it again on me, twice over and this one...this one I know it's a dosey. You see, there are two little blondes with vivid blue eyes that have just captured it and tottered away with it. And they don't even know how far gone I am, they don't even know what they've done to me. How that reckless heart feels for them, something more powerful then human articulation can name. How when they giggle and smile it does flip-flops in my rib cage and catapults in my stomach. How when little hands cup my face and quizzical eyes peer deep into me, I feel as if they are somehow myself, just in another body, with goodness and innocence. And my heart feels bare and vulnerable because I know that they will always carry it with them. Someday it will be taken from this place when they leave me, they will walk away with it like another article in their suitcase...and I close my eyes tight and draw in the sharpness of pain that I already feel for that moment.

But that doesn't slow me down. Not even a little. There is no reserve of caution, even though I know of this impending heart break. Its a hundred miles a minute, careening out of control. It's a wild love affair of kisses, and adoration, and discovery, and simplistic trust, and unreserved emotions. It's dancing in the living room....both of them in my arms with their hands in my hair and heads on my shoulders. And I feel my heart falling, flying, wild and I say to it, "love reckless, for before this moment, you only ever dreamed of love."

They Are My Reason

I've been here before. The hospital rooms, the unanswered questions, the calm resolution and clarity of priorities. I've held my husbands hand before as they told us he had a brain tumor...told him before that we would beat this, we'd fight it. Four years ago actually. And we did, we fought and we won. Or this is what we thought. But I'm standing in the ER and the Doctor shows me the cat-scan and tells me it's back. And it is. Bigger, badder. And I lean down to tell Dustan in a choked whisper..."its back babe." And he says, "that's not good". And its not. I know this. I've been here before...but I've never been here before. Because this time, back at home, there are two little girls who call us "mama" and "dada". Because this time, there are innocents. Two little lives that belong to us. This time, it's not just me, or us...its ours. Because this time the stakes are higher. And we know this. And I wonder, how strong can I be?

It's an ambulance transfer, drugs, tests, scans, and a frenzy of Doctors. It's questions, and possible solutions, and the reality that the answers are unknown. It's numbness, and resolutions, and a determination to get through. I've been here before...but I've never been here before. Because tonight instead of staying with Dustan in his room, I will go home. Because there are two more little people that need my care. So I leave him...and wish I could be more then one. Tonight I feed them and dress them and sing them lullabies. Tonight I hold them and tell them I love them and tuck them into their cribs. And tonight little Emmie pulls herself up to grip the bars and expectantly cries. "Dada! Dada! Dada!" and something inside me tears right in two, top to bottom and everywhere in-between. And it hits me so hard it could have been a freight train. This time, it's not about me, it's not about Dustan, its' not about us. This time the reason for fighting this is them. They are my reason. Emmie quiets down and goes to sleep. Yes, she would get used to not having her daddy there to put her down... but I never want her to. Both my babies need their daddy. Both of them adore him and he them. But little Emmie is so much like her father. I want her to know how she is like him, I don't ever want to have to tell her. And little Ellie is my coordinated sportswoman, I just know it. And I need her dads physical talent and ability to nurture that. Yes, this time, they are my reason.

I don't know if I would call it resentment. But this motherhood thing has been slow in coming for me. Slow in taking hold that I am now not my own. I often feel in a blur of functioning, and less of really experiencing. But tonight there is something bigger then myself. Something wholly powerful beyond my own understanding that takes root. THEY ARE YOUR REASON. The reason for everything I choose, I do, I endure.

And so, my strength is gathered around me with a new purpose. Stronger and bigger then I ever knew possible. I put on my boxing gloves and stake down in the corner of the man who my children call "Dada." And I fight, I fight, I fight. I tell him we will beat this, I tell him we will live...really live. I tell him we will simply work this into our extraordinary life. I hold his hand while he vomits. I clean him up when he cannot clean himself. I spend sleepless nights repeating bible promises to him to ease his troubled mind. I answer the same questions over and over because he cannot remember. I help him sit. I help him stand. I help him walk. And we walk, and walk, and walk. I ride the emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical roller-coaster that is brain trauma and cancer. And I fight, I fight, I fight. I am tired. Not tired, more then tired...weary. But I fight, I fight, I fight with him, for him...because they are my reason.

We take each day for what it is...and we live, really live. There is something beautiful about this. Something precious and holy. It is a privilege to see life like this, to understand the clarity of your priorities. To have so much to live and fight for. I do not resent it, I do not fear it. They tell us there is no cure. And then time lines are discussed. And I find myself calculating where the girls will be in life. There is never enough time to love them. To watch them grow and learn. There is never enough time to discover these incredible little humans who God has somehow graced us with. They are my reason. And I fight, I fight, I fight.

Dustan is an incredible man, with incredible spirit. And together we will win again. It may not be forever, but it will be rich. We will live...really live. We will keep growing, keep learning, keep exploring, keep moving until we cannot anymore. Until we have to succumb to our humanity and go where every man most go. We will do this for our children. They are our reason.

I will not stop. I will do the harder thing. Today I came home from radiation and tried to make amends for a house in chaos while Dustan rested. My girls where restless and demanding at my feet. I wanted nothing more then to put in a movie and zone them out. But my strength gathered round me and I pulled out the finger paints. I stripped them down and put them on the kitchen floor and we painted. Bright splatters of wild color,  hand prints, and feet prints, and chaotic swirls. And at the end there was more paint on them and the floors then the paper. But we lived...really lived. They are my reason.

The Luxury of Beauty

I come from a long line of women who take care of themselves. My great grandmother on my mother's side was a little firecracker of a flirt who wore red lipstick and pretty dresses, and although I never really knew my great grandmother on my fathers side he had a picture on his dresser where she looked like a Cameo in an elegant top knot and lace peter pan collar perfectly pressed in the soft black and white of the photo paper.

 My Grandmother on my mothers side who I affectionately call Gamu, is a a delightful platinum blond piece of work, with designer clothes and tan skin and a remarkably perky figure for a woman in her eighties. She has beautiful soft skin that has hardly aged at all, especially given the fact she has spent most of her life in the sun. She is beautiful...really, and when she was young she was all legs and tiny short shorts and a little bit of rock and roll. My Grandmother on my dads side who I call Granny, is in her nineties and still stunning. I never remember her elegant white hair ever being out of place. She told me once when I was ten, while I sat in front of her vanity on a little white wrought iron chair swinging my legs while she got ready, that a woman should always wear pretty underthings and made sure they matched. She had as a young woman an impossibly tiny waist and fantastic figure. Trying on one of her one of a kind tailor made dresses as a 14 year old, I discovered my waist to large and my body considerably lacking to fill out other areas. She must have been a real knock-out.

 My own mother is a beautiful woman and even in the woods of Montana where there would be no one for days and days. She always got herself fixed up first thing in the morning...a little makeup, hair done. I never have once, seen my mother in jeans. She always wore something just a little bit classy, a little bit nice. She always was active and healthy. I remember as a child some women being jealous of her. Intimidated by her graceful, thin, classic, beauty. But I was proud...still am proud.

 And so, I try to carry it on...I do love beautiful clothes, and shoes, and makeup...I spend considerable amount of energy trying to stay healthy and fit. I try to dress well, and appear put together. But the luxury of beauty is somehow escaping me these days.

 When my twins were first born I felt like my body was a bit of a train wreck...all night sweats and bloated, loose and out of shape. My skin was going crazy with all the shedding hormones and I didn't quite know what to do with the in between stage of regular clothes not fitting me, but the maternity clothes making me look like I was still pregnant. It didn't take that many times of brushing baby puke out of my hair that my long, thick hair got lopped off for a more practical, out of my way, bob. Putting on makeup in the morning became a circus act...shoot even getting dressed became a circus act and I found that these days I'm lucky if I get out of the door with my pants on the right direction. Twins and uninterrupted productivity is really not a common combination. Most days I'll glance down to find some greasy little hand print on my suit, or a mystery stain right on the front of my shirt. I'm always wrinkled, usually from carrying a baby on my hip, and there has been times when I look in the mirror at work to discover I only got one eye of makeup on before I rushed out the door. Blowouts don't wait. Clumsy top heavy toddlers don't wait to crash of the couch. "Sister stole my binki" squabbles don't wait for mommy to finish the other eye.

 My body has changed too. I trained and ran a marathon, a half marathon, and a obstacle endurance event since giving birth. I run and work out like potato chips, often pushing significantly heavy babies with me. Previously this would have afforded me the body I wanted. But still my body protests loosing those last five-ten pounds and stores them in the most frustrating places. Presumably terrified I will put it through the strain of 10 months of making people again. Whatever it is, it's ridiculous how hard it is to make my body what I want it to be since pregnancy.

 I try to make amends in the morning with the dark circles under my eyes when the girls are cutting teeth and fitfully sleep. I try to find the time to keep up with my hair. I try to make sure I at least smell nice and am clean. But I've had to let go of the luxury of beauty as I've known it. I still value it and hope to pass it on to my children, but it isn't what it was. And perhaps this is good. Perhaps it is truer beauty to find that what you do is more important then what you look like. Because I am a mother. That is what I do. And if I have stains on my shirt and oatmeal in my hair...if my clothes are wrinkled and my body defies me in some places its really ok. Because to my little girls I will be beautiful. Just as to me, my mother will always be beautiful.

 Sure I like to think in time I may be able to get back the stolen moments of luxury. Sometimes I try to create a moment of oasis...like the other night when I drew a hot bubble bath after the girls went down, lit some candles, plugged in the Ipod, and slipped deliciously slowly in, letting out a sigh of content...until something sharp and slimy dug into my spine. Fishing through the bubbles I pulled out a rubber duck with a rather sharp beak, an incredulous smirk frozen on his face...the moment was entirely gone, but I shook my head as I squeezed a liquid squeak out of it and laughed. I am a mother, this is my beauty.