Here she is...

Signed and done, key in hand! Who's coming over for enchiladas?

love

I sat in the back seat with Gavin as we drove to North Shore. Rose's mom chatted with Mike in the front, I looked out the window. Although Mike went to the festival last year, I hadn't been along the road since our wedding more than 3 years ago. I saw ghosts along the way, and I loved them: the teenage imprints of the boys and I walking from Kualoa covered head-to-foot in red mosh-pit dirt; my sad 23-year old self sitting at Kaaawa with my small baby jumping in my lap; Mike and Peter running through the surf at Sunset Beach; 17-year old Harris and I, lobbing water balloons at his summer camp near Turtle Bay; Mike the Marine dancing furiously to Irish music and swinging me in circles at the festival when I was 19. And Rose, almost there, a bit of her with us for the day in her wonderful mother.

We went to the opera in the evening. I switched my cocktail order at the last second, and the bartender dumped the liquor from my glass into Mike's before starting over. The people at the opera are amazing to look at. Women with fragile skin and delicate veins against purple velvet and pearls - bodies of all ages and shapes and posture wrapped in their best clothes and really truly beautiful. During the first act, Gavin swayed to the music and went limp in my arms, so long-legged and solid, almost all the baby gone from his sleeping little boy body. We ate at a lovely French restaurant as the crowd flowed out into the evening. Ron was unsuccessful in teaching Gavin to say "merci", but did manage to prompt an enthusiastic chant of "chocolate mousse". I enjoyed the most pretentious Diet Coke of my life, and Mike was surprised to find that he enjoyed the escargot. It made me happy to see my mother cut into the sugar of her creme brulee, one of those small things in life that is as beautiful to see in the dish as it is to see on the face of the person enjoying it. Mike and I examined the photos on headstones as we walked by the dark cemetery, Gavin dangling happily by our hands between us. One of the photos had fallen off and was lost, leaving an empty space that struck us as vastly sad.

On the way home, Gavin reached for my hand and pulled my arm across his lap, resting his cheek on my shoulder, stroking the inside of my elbow and threading his small fingers through mine. Beside us, Mike looked at him, pushed my hair back, and kissed my forehead. I looked at Ron's hand on my mother's knee in the front seat. The small ways we hold together through this fleeting trip.

There's so much love to be had in the world, it is almost too bright to look full in the face.

Me and Rose's mom, after 10 years:



Gavin ponders the graveyard on the way to the King and I at the Hawaii Opera Theater:



Getting with the program:




Gavin's reflections on passing a cemetary...
"All thems is dead?"
"Yes."
"I going die too?"
"Yes, we all will, but we have a lot of life to live before then."
"... I going to hit bad guys, and they die. Hit hit hit, like dat."
"What? Is that what you're going to do when you grow up?"
"Yep. I is. I be a policey man power ranger."
"How will you know who the bad guys are? What do they look like?"
"They has mustaches."
"All of them?"
"Yep, and I has a mustache, too. A biiiig mustache, and I hit them with it. And they fly hiiiigh up and crash! and make a big hole. And I fly after them, ha ha ha."
"Policemen can fly?"
"Yep. Like Superman." [Gavin has never seen Superman movies]

crick, crack, quack

138.0 (considering weekend indulgence, pretty good) Box of joy. Received my awesome geeky Harry Potter Lumos booklight and fabulous baking cookbook in oversized Amazon box. I sat on the floor, using the booklight to read the recipes even though it was not dark out. Yesterday, after a cafe breakfast of eggs florentine, I found myself pushed into a chiropractor's office which, up until that moment, I had always mistaken for a bail bonds office. I am iffy about chiropractors - not because they have reputations for being quacks (I enjoy a good bit of quakery from time to time), but because I do not like having strangers touch me. Let alone wrench me in unnatural directions. He sized me up, prodding my neck down to my hips, pressing on my head. "Lower your chin and push down low like you're having a baby," he directed. I raised my eyebrows; men speaking familiarly about childbirth always amaze me. He tipped me over onto my front and someone tenderized my back with a vacuum cleaner. "Now relax," he said, then pushed down on my back violently with a loud snap. "Oh dear," I said - only it came out "AUUGH!" and my feet flew up to hit him in the shoulder. Obviously doing a bad job relaxing. "There, now, didn't that feel good?" "No, but we'll give it some time." He seemed disappointed. Half an hour later, we arrived at dance practice. Gavin ran off with Chris under his uncle's supervision, and I discovered that I was not needed in any of the sets, so I went outside, laid on the grass under an enormous tree, tucked my slippers under my head, and fell asleep. Very productive. Ran my tail off at the gym, mulling things over. We faxed in our rent application on Friday; at best, we could expect an answer today or tomorrow. Thursday or Friday at the latest. Toweled my sweat from the weight machines, daydreaming about rugs, curtains, and chaise lounges. Showered, smiling about christmas lights and holiday baking. Whether or not we get this place, it is a first step toward being real grown-ups out on our own, and that is dream-fodder enough. And guess what? We're going to New York next week.

"We're interested at looking at cheap crap holes, thank you"

Mike finally spoke to a real estate agent yesterday, as we browsed open houses. We found several nice homes we could reasonably afford if we went in with my mother, but the point here is to flop gracelessly out of the nest on our own and land in whatever fresh hell we can. Either she needs to find a cozy little cottage for herself, or we must find a run-down tin-roof plantation house and try to prop it upright with 2x4s while fending off the rats with our slippers. Either way, though, it is time, as proved by the look of incredulous exasperation on Mike's face as he held up a melted spatula while my mother said, "No, you can't throw that away, I've had that since I was 8." Ha! Really, though, I've known that spatula all my life, he has to be kidding. Gavin liked shopping for a new house. "And this is my room, and grannie's room, and mom and dad can stay in here," he pointed to a closet. Thanks.

"Look for the hairy white guy"

Harris, friend of 12 years. Played guitar in my living room yesterday evening, slept on the couch bed. I crept down at 4:30am to wake him for his airplane, curled on the couch bed with him and chuckled about old times while he squeezed me hard and declared I was as not-frail as ever. He's living in rural Mexico, making music and eating avocados the size of my head. I dropped him off at the deserted airport as the sun rose, kissed him goodbye and sent him on his way. That fellow has a perpetual twinkle in his dilated eyes, I just love him. He's off to San Francisco for a week, and I hope it doesn't take another 4 years to hang out again.