Oh! I do like to be beside the seaside...

Nothing suggests "home" as much as a mailbox at the end of a driveway. It says this is where we live, here is where you can find us. It's not a common sight in a town by the shore, in a grid of streets lined with houses that rotate their residents weekly. But there it was, a big black mailbox in front of the house across the street from our rented beach cottage. I can never remember all of the seven big bad sins, but if envy is one of them, then I was guilty of that every time I saw that mailbox. (I believe gluttony is another so we won't mention all of the M&Ms and mocha coconut lattes that passed my lips all week.) While we packed up the car to return home and leave the sand and surf behind, that mailbox taunted me. Those folks didn't have to leave. They could store their suitcases and not worry about keeping track of all their kids' toys so they wouldn't leave any behind. They could get up and head to work knowing they would return to their ocean view at the end of the day. Can you imagine? I can. And it makes my brain hurt with envy.

I find a whole lotta inspiration at the beach. What is it about the sound of the waves and the feel of sand in our toes that makes us feel reflective and stripped down to our bare bones? Maybe it's being at the edge with nowhere else to go, who knows. It just feels right. When it's time to leave after our week's stay, I am not someone you want to sit next to in a car for four hours. I am miserable. But once I'm home and unpacked, and have slept in my own bed with the sounds of my neighborhood outside the windows, I feel revived. I want to improve everything. My house, my job, my attitude. (This will last for a day or two, usually fading with the first grumpy soul I have to face when I return to work...) I wonder if I would hang on to that fresh, positive feeling every day if I lived near the shore? And will I get the chance to someday find out? Do I want it badly enough to make it happen?

I chose the path I'm on. I chose to not go to college, to work where I could and get the bills paid. I chose to rack up some credit card debt that I'm still paying for, and I chose to live in the moment and not the future, which is now. I chose to have a child, and I choose to do what it takes to keep her healthy and happy, which for now means settling for a unremarkable job that helps put the food on the table. I'm responsible for where I am, and I'm okay with that most of the time. I will keep on doing what I have to do to get my life and family in order. But sometimes...oh, sometimes. The if-onlys creep in and my mind bounces around in the coulda's, shoulda's, and why-me's. They bring out the worst in me, and I let them for a few minutes, and then they are gone. It's so easy to make ourselves victims and forget that we choose our own endings, like those books we read in junior high. I want my chapters to lead to a mailbox that has fewer bills and maybe some sand inside.

I really should start packing...

And so it begins, the annual gathering of way too much stuff to be crammed into suitcases and bags for our week at the beach. After twenty-plus years of doing this, you'd think I'd have it down. I guess I do, but there's always the second-guessing. Do I really need to take three pairs of black flip flops? (Um, yes.) There's the last-minute do-I-have-enough-music panic, loading up the playlists with songs that don't get listened to because I end up hooked on one that I can't get enough of. There's the packing of the whole wardrobe--because you just never know--only to wear the same uniform all week. So why am I sitting here typing when I literally should be getting my crap together? Good question.

I look forward to the week at the beach all year, starting the moment we pull out of the rented beach house driveway to head home. Some years have been better than others, when the long year between trips didn't seem so endless and mundane, and I didn't dread going home so much. But I always couldn't wait to get back, and this year is no exception. Except...

Our family has changed, for better and for worse, and so must tradition. My aunt, the grand dame of our beach babe quartet, will...well, I was about to type that she won't be with us. But that is far from true. She will be with us more than ever. We will quote her when we go out for ice cream, when we search the horizon for dolphins, when we open the refridgerator and see how much food we have left. We will see her strolling the shoreline, head down, looking for shells. We'll hear her up first in the morning, making her cup of coffee, trying not to disturb anyone. She will be helping with the jigsaw puzzle, showing us her finds from the antique shops, guiding us to the least crowded spot in the sand for sunbathing.

Our clan owes our love of the sea and shore to our mothers. From our Nana to my aunt and my own mother, from Manasquan, New Jersey to Bethany Beach, Delaware. Get us all together and you will be sure to hear a beach story or three. It's a part of who we are, and I hope I can uphold the legacy and instill the same fondness for sea air in my daughter. This will be her third year going, and I think the brainwashing is working. She has been talking about it for awhile now, and I hope she bores everyone to death with stories of her trip when we return. But for the endless photos, she won't remember much of Bethany. We want to start looking for new adventures and places to discover and share with our Bean, so she can have her own sense of tradition and family trips to pass along one day, and always tying up one week of limited vacation time with the same destination hinders that plan. And so we move on.

So, in my rambling way, I suppose that's why I'm using this as an excuse to not deal with the beginning of the end, the packing and the prep work. But here is where I will try to lay to rest my thoughts on this being the final trip. I will now start looking forward to my annual week, and all of its usual activities like puzzles and bicycling and dolphin-watching and shopping. And I will go fill up my iPod with good intentions...

My date with Alexander McQueen...

As I attempted to watch a bit of CBS Sunday Morning yesterday, in between trying to feed my daughter breakfast and keep her from tripping over her own feet for the fourteenth time in as many minutes, I caught a glimpse of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the banner for the Alexander McQueen exhibit. Suddenly, my kid's clumsiness and short-attention span were not at all amusing. I imagined a Sunday free from work, free from parental responsibilities, just...free. I missed the days when I could see a reminder for a museum exhibit and not have to think of the list of reasons why that exhibit is off-limits. Child care and grocery lists would be someone else's Sunday problem.

When people mull over the do-we-or-don't-we-want-kids quandary, the fear of lack of freedom almost always rears its head. We won't be able to take that trip to Rome, the motorcycle will have to go on Craigslist, how will I ever find time to write my novel? All of our dreams and possibilities will get thrown out with the baby's dirty diapers. But if we dig a little deeper, maybe we'd see that the motorcycle was getting a little rusty anyway. Maybe our hopes and dreams aren't always things we literally aim to fulfill. Maybe they are just hopes and dreams of who we want to be: someone who could write a novel or be adventurous enough to hop on a plane and see Rome the way the locals do. But, to quote When Harry Met Sally, "the thing is, Joe, we never do fly to Rome on a moment's notice"...

And the thing is, I wouldn't go see that exhibit before I had my Bean. I would talk about going, and maybe even see who else wanted to go. And it would leave the museum without me having been there, and I would shrug it off. But gone is the possibility of that girl who could afford to dream of going, who could add it to the endless options on the "what to do on Sunday" list. Once I realized this, I felt both foolish and hopeful. Foolish for being so cranky over something so small (forgive me, Mr. McQueen...but really, in the scheme of things in my life, your fabulous creations have to be placed far down on the list) and hopeful because why do I have to let that girl go? If anything, I should be resurrecting her for my Bean. She should see me as I see me, and that's impossible if that "me" stays in my head.

When I returned home from my solo trip to the grocery store, my girl's eyes lit up and she gave me her usual "Mommy! You came back!" Yep, little one, I sure did.
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My husband and I have made plans for a date to go see the works of the late, great Alexander McQueen. But in the meantime I did what I could. I went to that exhibit...on the Met's website. And it was amazing.

Family is my favorite word right now...

You can't choose your family. This, for me, is a good thing. I am a poor judge of character and almost always make the wrong assumption after a first impression. So to say I have been richly blessed and fortunate to have received the family of which I am a part is an understatement. I have had to spend more time than usual with my relatives these days, and although the circumstances for these gatherings have been most heartbreaking, it has been time well spent. It has reminded me of who I am, where I come from, and my good fortune in this family lottery.

My Aunt Colleen was more than just my aunt. It's hard for me to write about her, because I don't want this to get too mushy to the point of incredibility. We tend to over-romanticize our loved ones when they leave us, but she was a sweet place for me to feel comfortable and loved. She was family, the one person (second only to my Nana) that I would mentally picture if I was talking about relatives or family reunions. She was a witness to most of my life's happiest moments, from vacations and holidays to my wedding and my daughter's birthday. She always looked at me with love, and always greeted me with a warm hug and soft laughter. She was my mother's constant closest friend, despite their age difference-a relationship that continues in their daughters, as my cousin, who is a decade older, is like a sister to me. She was an artist who probably would never have called herself one, despite much evidence to the contrary. She fretted too much, but giggled more. She was quietly strong, brave. She deserved to be looked up to, and I obliged.

There are so many physical reminders of my aunt, from old Hollywood musicals to used books found for a quarter in a thrift store, vintage tablecloths and handkerchiefs to a tin pail filled with seashells. These were things she loved and collected, and her apartment was her treasure chest. But the real reminders are in her children and her grandchildren, who have managed to absorb all the best of her character into their own. They are all confident and funny, strong and respectful. I seldom heard my aunt call attention to her accomplishments, but I hope she was able to take a minute or two and appreciate what an influence she has been and will continue to be. She'll be missed, but she will never be far.
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This is one of my favorite pictures of my Aunt Colleen, and she would maybe hate me for showing it off. She had just finished chemo, and was enduring its nasty side effects. But her spirit is all over this moment, from her flip flops and her scarf to her smile. I hope she is at the beach now, and I hope she leaves us some sea glass...

Life is like a box of crayons.

An hour ago, I organized a box of 96 Crayola crayons in ROYGBIV order. For those of you unfamiliar with that acronym, it's like putting colors in alphabetical order. The colors of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Earlier in the evening, as I played "Bad Mommy" and let the Wonder Pets babysit my daughter while I vacuumed and gathered laundry, she dumped the full crayon carton all over the coffee table. When my husband started to clean them up, I yelled at him to stop...as I did when my girl attempted to put them away. What kind of person tells a two-year-old who's voluntarily cleaning up her mess to stop? A control freak whose life has been completely out of her control, that's who. Apparently I needed to be in control of something, and those crayons were going to be it.

Out of control. Things this year so far have been crazytown, as they say. Bad news after bad news keeps finding my doorstep, as well as those around me. I believe it's all in how you handle it--that if you accentuate the positive then you'll eliminate the negative or whatever other Pollyanna cliche about turning that frown upside down you can think of--well, the hope is that it will all even out in the end. And I am trying. Really. I've been in self-preservation mode, hunkering down like a beaten puppy and trying to just wag my tail in hopes of getting that next treat. I know it's coming...someday. Tired of hearing me whining? Me, too. It's why I haven't had much to say lately. If you can't blog about anything good, don't blog at all...is that how it goes?

Those crayons didn't know what hit them. I had them all sorted by reds and blues, purples and oranges, laser lemons and burnt siennas. I could put them where I wanted them and they wouldn't give me any trouble. No Oscar-winning tantrums about socks that are falling down or the wrong kind of breakfast. No flat tires on Easter or dead car batteries in a downpour. No unexpected financial obligations, no missing loved ones. And, above all, no illness threatening to take them away from me. I could fix them, and so I did. I know tomorrow or the next day my girl will dump them again. I'm just going to look forward to putting together another rainbow.
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Speaking of rainbows and my girl, she graduated from pre-preschool this week. Yes, you graduate from pre-preschool...and yes, there is pre-preschool. Here she is with her "diploma". Now if I could just get her to stop dumping crayons, maybe Harvard will take her.

Butterflies and landslides...

It's been a week since my last post, and what a long, trying week it was. I could make a list of all the trials and tribulations that happened, the bits of bad news received, and the battles with my daughter (of which there were many) and I'm tempted to dump it all out here and let you have it. Apparently April showers don't just mean the weather; we've been rained on all over with a black cloud of bad news and bad behavior since this month began. But today the sun is actually out and I'm going to put all that away. I was blessed enough to have a good venting session with a friend the other night and I'm going to let that be the end of the discussion. What's done is done; some of it will continue and will have to be dealt with but I'm looking a fresh start today.

So far, so good.

Whenever things start going downhill, it seems like an avalanche. It all happens at once, and it's a trap to start taking inventory of the components of the disaster. If there was any good in the mix, it gets lost in the rubble and buried under the boulders of bad news. And then comes the search and rescue mission--the looking for answers so we can figure out why we deserved it all in the first place and save ourselves from more of the same. We vow to be better, to do more good and save ourselves from another landslide of bad. If it's a you-get-what-you-give system, what to do when the getting is all bad while the giving is all good?

You do nothing. You keep giving because it's the Golden Rule and you get what you get. And that's that. Handle it all to the best of your ability and move along. If you stand on the hillside, yelling about all the injustices of being dumped on, the rocks are going to start coming loose again and knock you right down on your arse. Quiet and calm is the way to go. This is what I'm telling myself these days.

So amidst all the rubble this week, I did have some flowers peeking through the cracks. I bribed my daughter into behaving at Old Navy by buying her some butterfly wings. She adores them, and her best moments were when she was wearing them. Maybe they are angel wings in disguise? They work wonders. The sight of her sitting in her wagon as her dad was gearing up to take her for a walk, wearing those wings over her coat and grinning from ear-to-ear, will be my go-to memory of the week. It is the bulldozer that clears the remains of this latest landslide. Maybe I should see if those wings come in my size...

There's no use crying over no milk...

It all started with a stupid song. A stupid song that I happen to like and wanted to just enjoy, on our way to do a hundred errands I was in no mood to do. So my family of three piled in the car and as I started to drive I pressed play on my iPod. The song's not very long and was over before I knew it. I missed most of it because of all the chatter going on in the backseat between my husband and daughter. No worries, I pressed play again, only to hear my husband complain that it was on again. And then give his ten-second review of the song, telling me how awful he thought it was. Well, thank you very much. I slammed my hand on the power button, shutting it off, and that set the mood for the rest of the day. Oh, did I mention that when I came downstairs this morning to the smell of coffee I was told that, after my daughter's cereal and my husband's cup o' joe, there was no more milk for me to enjoy a cup of my own?

If I sound like my two-year-old crying because things didn't go my way, I apologize. I'm aware that there are bigger problems in the world. I am also aware that I shouldn't let such trivial things ruin my day, that I am in control of my happiness. But it's been a rough week, with drama and chores and a steady migraine all around me. There's been a whole lotta give and not a lotta take, and guess who's the one giving? Yep. That would be me. And I guess today was the end of the my rope.

On my last birthday I visited a psychic on a whim. I'm not saying I believe in those things (after all, why isn't she rich from winning the lottery if she's so smart?) but she said one thing that rang true: I treat people good and they don't treat me so good back. (Pardon the grammar; it's what she said.) I never really gave that much thought before she said it and I almost wish she hadn't. I don't want to know that people don't want to return any kindness, to me or to anyone. And when I spend a week trying to be all things to all the people I love, I don't want to be aware of how little I get in return. Mind you, I'm not always that deserving of getting much of anything. But after shopping, laundry, diapers, school, dishes, more laundry, listening, reading, cheering, consoling, working, more laundry, chauffering, mopping, dusting, sweeping...did I say laundry?...I guess I was hoping for some milk for my coffee.

I do count my blessings. My family is generous with their love and laughter, as are my friends. But sometimes I get lost in the shuffle of daily life and forget to ask for a helping hand when I'm overloaded or when I'm slipping. When I wonder why help or support wasn't just offered without my asking, I get resentful. I'll figure out how to stop doing this someday. Until then, please forgive me if you are on the receiving end of my frustration or if you have to suffer through my ranting about it.

Tomorrow is a new day. We bought a fresh gallon of milk and I will have my cup of coffee. I will have forgotten my grievances and gripes; they will be gone in the morning. Which, coincidentally, is the name of the stupid song that started all of this in the first place.