Page Two: "The cat puked" (and, clearly, showered...)
Page Three: "I will never eat ice cream"
Forget shifting point of view, I'm pretty proud he has a clear message, beginning, middle and end. Not to mention how very much I love that my kid LOVES to write books!
Book 2, Title Page: "No Cats in the Bathroom" (uh, possibly a true story, courtesy of Momo...)
The rest of the book is simple illustrations, however, it was written yellow pencil on green paper and is, sadly, illegible. That's ok, though. My favorite part is this: He made a library barcode and a price on the back. I laughed. Especially since it's $2346.17. I guess that's the going price of an original only edition...
I'm craving the Oregon coast right now like crazy. I close my eyes and I can see it, smell it, taste it. Our favorite hike, near the octopus tree. Winding up the light house to catch a glimpse of whales. Sitting, huddling in a hoodie, on our favorite beach in Seaside, mouth watering for chowder. My soul craves Oregon, desperately. Spring is coming and if I close my eyes, I can smell the blossoms outside our apartment bedroom window.
I wish for Sammy to come to love Portland, to love Oregon, as much as we do. He told me the other day that he wanted to live in Oregon and be a writer when he was older. My heart burst. I want to sit with him in Pioneer Square and people watch. To see the crazy and the soul of the city. To catch his breath at that first sight out of the gorge. To make up stories, winding his way to the coast. To find soul strength standing near Haystack Rock. To dream of beach houses and glass floats and voodoo donuts and rain.
I'm ready to go back. I NEED to go back. My soul is depleted and in some ways, Oregon is the answer. Oregon is ALWAYS the answer. It's too early for a paper chain, anywhere but my mind, but I'm counting. It's coming. Every day closer. And my soul can't wait.
Sammy has spent the past week digging for fossils in our front yard. He's sad he's yet to come across a bone. We have several packages of soup bones in our freezer. On a scale, how wrong is it to bury one for him to find?
Discuss...
(as an aside...I already like Sammy's new teacher 1000x better. I've been able to clearly see what was bothering me that I couldn't vocalize about his previous teacher. It's good.)
I've never understood why people shy away from the stories that make up their past. Perhaps it's due, in part, to having a partner who encourages my stories. Who began to love me DUE to my past, not pretending it didn't exist. But I've always thought that our stories, our love stories, in particular, define us in peculiar ways. I am who I am because of the boys and men I have loved. I have never once even considered regretting my past love life. I'm not the same girl I was at 20, pleading for her love to just love her back. I'm not the same girl I was at 23, hardened and closed. Waiting for the end of marriage. I'm not even the same girl I was at 25, when I married Isaac. I am bits and pieces of her, but the whole is different. I've grown up. That isn't regret, it's life.
How can I regret standing in front of my best friend, asking him to marry me? It didn't turn out how I had hoped, but it taught me to ask for what I wanted. I don't regret getting married the first time. To do so would be to deny my faith and the answer that I had, then. That marriage was right for me at the time; HE was right for me at the time. He was smart and funny and good and kind and so very different from the boys I had dated before. I had the sure knowledge of that. But I do regret other things. Little and not so little. I regret becoming closed and cynical so young. In not knowing myself well enough to be vocal and fight, instead of rolling over and walling up. I regret letting myself and my thoughts get in the way of living a little more fully. But regret is doubt: doubt in our choices and our pasts and our lives and our emotions and I don't think any of that is productive or right.
I guess what it comes down to is this. I don't regret loving or living or doing some things my parents would surely feel were not in my best interest. I think living a life full of love and the possibility of love is a blessed life. And I hope for Sammy that he loves and kisses too many girls and gets his heart broken and when he's my age he is able to look back without regret because he knows he's loved fully and completely and worn his heart on his sleeve and is able to see, truly see, what a better man it's made him. I hope one day he can look at his spouse like I look at Isaac and know, truly know, it's ok because he lived and loved and chose that situation above all else because of living and knowing it was the best path for him. Falling in love time and again is not bad. It's a path.
Friday, we were coming home from our monthly trip to WinCo (why, oh why can't we get one?!) and passed a really bad accident. Or, well, the remains of it, anyway. The paper the next morning detailed what happened and, well, I'm grateful we were a few miles behind it. It had the potential to be much worse. Anyway. As we walked in the door from our excursion, my phone rang. It was the principal from Sammy's school letting us know that Sammy's teacher had been fired that afternoon. Ummmm, what was that? Yup. Fired. Uh...holy cow.
I haven't been the world's biggest fan of his teacher this year. I was telling my sister that she was...fine. That's ever the only word I could use to describe her. Fine. She was a perfectly adequate teacher. Sammy's learning. But things seemed...off, somehow. She wasn't open and warm and fuzzy. Which, I get, is not a requirement, but something you'd HOPE for your kid's first teacher.
I found out last week that she'd given her notice for the end of the year. She said it was completely accepted and the principal "didn't seem anxious" to have her stay. She mentioned it had been a difficult year and she was anxious to move away from the lack of support she felt. Fine. I couldn't say I was totally surprised, she seemed...distracted? but fine. We'd finish out the year and it wouldn't be my concern after that, anyway. The phone call, then, after learning that her notice had already been given, was surprising. I don't pretend to know a lot about the inner workings of schools, but I would think that something extraordinary would have to transpire for a principal to fire a teacher who had already given notice, two months before school ends. I don't know the principal incredibly well, but it doesn't seem they operate from a place of vindictiveness. And what that extraordinary thing could possibly be, I don't know. But Sammy has a new teacher starting today, so we'll see. I do, however, hope she is better than "fine".
In additional crazy yet COMPLETELY unrelated news, we have crazy the second. Our washer broke last week. We bought this washer when we moved to Utah, so nearly four years ago. It has already been fixed, once (the motor had to be replaced about a year post purchase) and I had begun, recently, of dreaming of something better. We got this one because it was affordable and we needed a washer when we moved. End of story. We didn't research (biting in the butt, complete!) and just bought and I've never loved my washer. It was, well, fine. Until it wasn't. We shot a video of the "holy cow is my washer BIRTHING another washer?!" noise and took it in to the repair guys. They all, well, smirked and told us that while not definitive, it seemed most likely to be a transmission problem which would run us between $200-300. For a machine that cost, originally, around $350 and already had an additional $100 motor replaced. Yeah. That wasn't going to happen. So we went and bought a new machine. One without the letters "g" or "e". And while it wasn't a high end machine, every person we talked to said it should perform much, much better and last much, much longer. I believe the words "wouldn't buy a GE machine if my life depended on it" were uttered at least a couple of times. Which is lovely to know. Now. Four years after buying one. I say see ya - have a lovely trip to valley recycling...
