April

"I wanna push the button." - 131 Weeks

Story Time at Starr Library - 132 Weeks

No really, kids, it's fun. 133 Weeks

Deep Thoughts - 134 Weeks

1st Play: The Gingerbread Man, starring Ren as the Baker - 135 Weeks

"One day son, this will all be yours."

130 Weeks

"Once you've established your plan and we can see that it's working, then I'll feel comfortable charging you," said the nicest smartest money lady in upstate New York.

After Ren was only a few weeks old, I called a highly respected, local financial planner referred to me by a friend. We've met with her four times now and have accomplished maybe ten-percent of the advice she's given us each time... because we forget... each time. It's kind of like joining a gym every six months just to go through the equipment orientation.

This time, while we admitted we still had not set an attorney appointment, as recommended, to discuss our last will and testament, we were proud to share that we'd finally called to get a new password to the financial website that locked us out after too many log in attempts. Big steps towards our future. Giant.

Ren, we leave you everything.* If you can find where we put it.

*This is probably our actual last will and testament.

Say My Name, Say My Name

129 Weeks

"He's very verbal." We've been hearing this a lot from people who notice word-things that come out of kids.

Ren lives with actors. Someone is always talking. (Especially the dog.) So when you ask Ren if an inanimate friend has a name, he is quick to say one with confidence. From the perspective of toddlers surveyed at exactly our home address, this is common. He's got a stuffed shark named Daca, a finger puppet named Bladdie, and every snowman we've built is Wawa the Snowman. He's a very happy soul.

To me, this is how to do life. I just have to remind myself I'm the one who is supposed to share the rules of the world while also encouraging creativity. Regional language from exactly our home address might confuse the schmadas over at the piffty piff.

Too Much Love

126 Weeks

As a kid, I can remember sometimes being forced into a family hug from someone older and stronger, female. Sort of stuck, knowing I was obligated to fulfill a longing, I'd let her squeeze. And while I sometimes couldn't breathe, it was nice to be needed and sometimes I could just relax into the embrace, tight and safe and all encompassing.

My stepmother always had a hand on me when I was young. My face, my back, my feet. She always gave loving gestures. She still does, with her fingers at the ends of my long hair. Her hugs are always there when I need one. Like little gifts I can open whenever I want.

Motherly female affection, unlike any other relationship, seems to contain physical expressions that are instinctively more meaningful than most. Touching each other is not really something we gage openly unless we are talking about mother figures. It's a common descriptor in casual conversation. "He really shouldn't have belted Janis in the conference room, but, you know, his mother wasn't very affectionate."

I often (or not often enough) credit my stepmother with having taught me to give graciously selfless, unbounded unconditional love. I have always admired her affectionate ways. While I know like many women, she aches and craves that soul-satisfying embrace one can only receive from the small, the furry, the pudgy cheeked naked baby butt into which you'd sink your teeth if it weren't for being hauled away in a straight jacket, she's always careful and respectful not to use people for her own fulfillment. She's very affectionate and opens her arms when people come running, but she doesn't run after them like a misunderstood hug monster. I try to do the same.

At least I thought I did.

On a recent car trip, as I leaned over to kiss Ren (again) he said, "Mommy. Put your whole face in the front seat."

I only bite his butt every couple of days now.

You know you're a mom when...

128 Weeks

I'm a theatre gal, I should know better, and I hail from a culture where you'd rather drown yourself than suffer the shame of having been intentionally rude to someone, anyone, especially innocent children... and, yet, for almost exactly ninety minutes, I let my son stand on my lap in the middle of an audience in order to watch his first live production starring characters he thinks are his friends. I will lay on my deathbed cringing in torture while hearing small echoing voices say, "Mooommmmyyyy. I caaaannnnn'tttt see....."

A Day in The Life

127 Weeks

At the hospital Ren is diagnosed with pneumonia and the next day the doctor calls to tell me Ren also has the flu. Greg is on a silent retreat and unreachable for 11 days.

You know that moment in the great eighties movies...

Back from a tropical vacation, happy parents pull a luxury car into their middle-class garage just as the last beer can flies... in slow motion... across the living room... right into the waste basket...

Tan and smiling, the unsuspecting parents open the front door, set down their suitcases and see their teenage son quietly reading on the couch. (Of course they don't notice the book is up-side-down.) Only moments ago that couch was almost set on fire by a crazy party-crashing motorcycle gang... the camera pans down... under his seat cushion... a garter belt gently swings...

Yeah, this week was like that. Only I didn't spend the whole time dancing around the living room in my underwear and sunglasses. And when Greg got home, I made him sit down and listen to every painful detail of our crazy house party, down to the vomit on the emergency room floor.

Ren is still asking for "tambourine" (tangerine) popsicles in bed. He's not sick anymore but sometimes you just gotta say, "What the $%&*."

There's no place like home.

103 Weeks

"I thought you'd call more."

"Believe me. I wanted to call more."

"We missed you."

"I missed you too. Very much. So much."

"Do you feel better?"

"I... yeah... I do..."

It was September 2016. I had thought it was a smart idea, flying from New York to Texas—going to my 25th high school reunion and gathering what my step-father left for me from my mother's belongings—in one weekend. It was a good diet.

Wednesday

Breakfast with Greg and Ren. A long(ish) farewell.
Work, then the airport.
After three delayed planes, land across the country in the middle of the night.
My young, bachelor cousin and I find each other wandering around the airport parking lot.
I sleep on his couch.
It reminds me of childhood Christmases.

Thursday

Cousin goes to work. Early.
I shower, walk back to the couch, and realize by the light of day his living room decor includes a cat dish by the Lazy-Boy and a large trashcan by the bookcase.
I text his permission to "move a few things around."
The cat disappears.
Cousin gets home from work and thinks he's opened the wrong apartment.
I introduce him to feng shui then we head out for drive-through and a Uhaul.
We pull into the storage facility where my inheritance was abandoned.
It's late afternoon and 93 degrees.
It feels like another planet.

I asked for old home movies, journals, and the three antiques my mother used to point at every so often and say, "when I'm dead, that's yours."
I fantasized about finding a letter, sealed in a golden envelope with words in calligraphy: "For My Dearest Daughter, Jennifer."

Cousin and I pull up the doors and we are met face-to-face with a canvas tote hanging on a halltree hook.
At the bottom of the bag is my mother's hospital gown, socks, unused toothbrush, lotions, and a small plastic container with her dentures floating in fluid.
Cousin hugs me and reminds me that sometimes people are cruel.
We lift things our muscles have no business lifting.
Sometimes we call out for "THE TEETH" to stop a rolling furniture dolly.

At dinner I sit across from cousin's great stories.
I drop him off to talk the cat out from under his bed.
I nearly take out the car port as I wave a teary goodbye.

On the road again.

In the middle of the night my headlights shine on an angel standing in a suburban road and directing me like I'm hauling a plane.
I almost take out the tree in her front yard.
The angel is someone with whom I've lived so often we call each other sister.
It feels like old times.
Her husband and kids have been asleep for hours.
I'll sleep when I'm dead.

Friday

After breakfast, sister and I unpack the Uhaul into their their garage.
We discover the cedar chest is full.
I open it. There's no magic letter.

In one day I tour Austin saying hello to friends from college and high school.
I come back to sister's at midnight.
The truck door is fixed and she's left me a gift on the guest bed.
I wake Greg with a call and my heart aches for home.
I send an email to a friend in New York.
He tells me I'll never be a writer if I can't spell Hemingway correctly.

Saturday

Heavy eyelids and heavy biscuits are my early morning meetup with another college buddy.
I drop off the Uhaul and almost take out the dumpster by the back door.
Shower and shave.
Sister drives us four hours back to the town I left two days ago; to the place where I graduated 25 years ago.
It still feels like another planet.

We meet up with first loves and joke awkwardly under a wall of talking fish.
My heart pounds as I sit in the presence of generations of founding friendships.

Our reunion starts at a bar and ends around a swimming pool and a table of year books.

A glance in a visor mirror reminds me anti-aging cream doesn't work.
I look around the car and go back in time with the same faces in each seat and Duran Duran on the radio.
I insist we go to IHop.
The sun rises with bittersweet hugs and knowing looks.
We'll always be from here. This moment. Each other.

Sunday

The hotel sheets are barely wrinkled.
Sister packs us up to drop me at the airport and drive herself more hours home.
(Her official appointment letter to sainthood is in the mail.)
I insist we go to IHop.
I order the exact same meal and wonder why the exact same waiter isn't surprised.

"Y'all'er gonna have to mover your stuff. It's going to be a tight flight."

I can't wait to see Ren's face when I give him his souvenir cowboy hat.

A souvenir from my past.

Where I'm from will always be in my heart, but I'm not from there anymore. I'm from where ever Greg and Ren hang their hats.