Here I am, again. Back in my parents’ basement. Laying on the bed from six years ago, from our Sellwood house.
Six years ago, we were here. We had a van in the shop. There’s another van in the shop now, but it’s not ours.
There’s a baby asleep on my chest now, she fell asleep on me with no milk and no fussing—just exhaustion, after a long-winded conversation about the pillows on the bed and the dots on her socks.
You’re far away, now.
The last time we were here, we’d just had her. We were “finished” with Thailand. And the time before that, we’d just had him. And the time before that, we just had a van and one-way plane tickets and there was no baby. Except there was, but we didn’t get to keep it.
Every time we’re here, we settle right back in, right away. I can hear our son in the next room, playing happily with his grandma while his sister sleeps. He’s asking for Clifford stories.
I guess this is the closest thing we have to home, the only place in the world that we feel like we belong when you’re not with us. When you’re with us, we can be anywhere. When you’re not, we can only be here.
Before we left, I told you I couldn’t wait to wake up in my parents’ house every day for a month straight. There’s a quiet comfort knowing your mom will be up before you, and your parents will get out of bed for you in the night if you need them.
Thirty years later, the house may have changed, but home hasn’t.
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On the phone this morning, you asked me if I’d had time to start thinking about anything yet. The only thing I was thinking about at that time was a shower and another cup of coffee.
The dreams glide past quietly like sailboats on a sunny day; if you don’t look out the window, you wouldn’t even know they’re there. They don’t announce their comings and goings with guttural and demanding groans like the other thoughts do.
The feeling is that of being newly pregnant with a baby, although I’m sure I’m not. The feminine urge to build a nest and decorate it and feed everyone in it, is almost overwhelming. The feminine urge to make home everywhere we go, even if I still don’t wake up before the kids.
Recently, my suspicions were confirmed—a few generations back, my ancestry is Norwegian. Maybe that’s why my little cottage still calls me. Sunny days, a few sheep, and laying on our own grass.
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I don’t know how we’d do it, but I’m not figuring that out right now. For now I’m just pausing in the silence, disrupted only by the ticking of a faraway clock and the occasional whistle of wind or whir of a heater.
The goal of the upcoming year is to menstruate again (TMI), and the goal of the past year was to do just a little bit better, every day. I can’t say whether I did or not, but now, reflecting on the past year, I can say that I tried.
I remembered to rest, and left guilt behind. I learned to embroider, and even picked it up a few times after putting it down, an accomplishment in and of itself. I mended clothes and hats instead of replacing them, tandem with my effort to harness spending and practice saving. Instead of reacting to occasional expenses with nausea or hives, I planned ahead and was prepared. While I didn’t make it to longtime friends’ weddings or on spontaneous Japan trips, I did get to celebrate family milestones and be home for a couple of occasions within the same year.
Twice this week, I washed, dried, and folded laundry, all within the same day. In Thailand, I actually grew to love the process of hanging our clothes to dry, taking the opportunity to bask in the sun as I slowly and meditatively hang each piece, one by one, in the most perfect gradient I can figure.
Speaking of Thailand, I completed our family’s most organized, least haphazard move, to date. On a couple of occasions, I’ve seized the opportunity to extend help to others, after mastering the art of graciously accepting the helping hands so often extended to me.
Something I’ve gotten really good at is doing very hard things. So much so, that I, too, have become hard. My crier is still broken and only my yeller works (although it has been getting a rest, as of late).
Almost as if she heard me writing about yelling and crying, our daughter is awake and exercising her uncanny ability to do both, simultaneously. She settles back on my chest, tucked under a flowered blanket after a brief but fervent attempt to test her mother’s resolve.
We can do hard things and we should and we must, but I fear we (or I) have been so fixated on doing hard things, that anything less has begun to feel wasteful. But after years of hard, I am ready to try something else.
Karen searched my head for grays, and they’re not here yet. But my skin is aged and dry, with deep, pensive lines. I am freshly 32, but in many ways, I have turned to stone. My body has forgotten how to move, and has only become a weight to carry. My face is flat and dull, eyes searching for a spark of life. If I only look long enough, maybe something on the phone will give me what I’m looking for.
Heavy and sluggish as it may be, I am ready to move my body willingly again, so it can move me with ease. I am ready to race my kids around the yard, catch them as they splash in the fjord, and carry them up the mountains on my shoulders. I want to lift our boy without gasping at the weight of him. Our daughter needs to learn how to harness her strong spirit, and our kids deserve to see their mother smile.
My dad always says that his mom wasn’t nice, but she had a special way of making each of the six kids feel like they were her favorite. I guess we’ll never know who the favorite really was, but I’m afraid my kids will have the opposite problem—stuck one day trying to figure out who their mother disliked the most.
Halfway through the year I started reading and just a month or two ago I started writing, and if I read really quickly I may be able to finish a book during the calendar year of 2025—even if it is a book that I originally began sixteen years ago. I made close relationships with some really nice friends and snapped a few highly mediocre photos, both of which are skills I’d like to continue to practice and grow.
After so many years on “hard mode,” mostly a result of the choices we elected to make, we’re ready for a change of pace. Maybe we signed up for hard mode, and maybe it was fun for a while, but I think I’m done with that now. I want to live in sunlight and harmony. I want to put on my boots—not to climb out of pits of despair, but to climb mountains and see views. I had a dream of finding a puffin’s nest, and now, I think we must.
Everything we consume—from our water to our content to our words—should give life. Anything else is a waste of time. Everything we do should spark joy or spurn curiosity—anything else is pointless. And I don’t mean to neglect the mundane, I mean to delight and take joy in the simple and the commonplace and the necessary and the productive, as well as the grandeur.
Our boy is curled up beside me, and our girl is in the crook of my elbow. Last night as I lay awake, the melody of their little snores comforted me. Now, as they sleep again, I am their warmth and safety and comfort. They stir and sigh, quietly satisfied. I think we’re just about ready, now.