In Search of Dessert

I cannot believe it is September first. I’ve really been looking forward to this date because it technically symbolizes (can that even be possible?) the start of Fall, at least to me. In other words, if it’s September, Fall must be soon. But when I opened the door this morning, alas, not fall, just the wall. The wall of sick humidity that Liam and I ran smack into on the way to Gymboree. Still, I can dream. I dream of wearing my new coat that was only purchased because my dear friend channeled my son’s wishes and assured me that this was in fact the Mother’s Day present I really deserved. So now I have an awesome coat to add to my growing collection of awesome coats that I can wear for two weeks here. This is the great paradox of my life. I love summer, warm climates and even heat, and I also adore sweaters, coats, scarves and layers.

Just after we came home from Oregon, Jonathan’s mother came for a two week visit. She was a great help playing with Liam in the afternoons. I think I may be more sensitive than most people, but having grandparents to play with Liam always does a number on me. They, she, play so hard and so long and seem to have endless amounts of energy for chasing and rolling and splashing. I do not have those abundant amounts. I remind myself, they can sleep this off, and I can not. And they are on vacation, I’m still running this house. Still, it kind of gets to me how great the grandmas are with Liam, the both of them. And that is a complaint I’m happy to have.

She also treated us to a dinner at La Fonda San Miguel. That was a fun evening because our friend Grit’s mother and brother were visiting from Germany, and as her mother spoke French as well, we all had Guacamole and Margaritas at our house and then walked to La Fonda together for a big dinner party. We had two other memorable meals while she was in town. First, and extremely typical “cheese and bread” night, which is truthfully Jonathan’s family’s version of a fast food night. And then my favorite, Taco Bell. Yes, it’s a favorite anyway, but made more so when a European comes and specifically asks to get it, and then drinks red wine at the table while chowing down on a gordita.

In other news, Jonathan and I discovered – via a tip in Prineville, Oregon – a fantastic Interior Mexican restaurant nearby. We spent one Saturday night there discovering that they make your salsa and guacamole tableside, shaking our heads in shock at the diners who completely ignore their servers at their sides as they stand there for ten minutes preparing them this feast (And that they model this behavior for their children. Truly, we were appalled), digging into a fried avocado of wonders and scarfing down fish tacos that I can’t wait to go back for. Afterwards we went to our very first Salsa class! We don’t have the time to sign up consistently right now, since Jonathan is starting a new project and it tends to be heavier on the travel in the beginning. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but at the same time, that was the best part. It forced us to stare at each other, to understand each others movements and to feel our insecurities begin to melt away, even though we were totally aware of how awful we were, was pretty cool.

Jonathan also recently made me a new chalkboard this past weekend, which I used to document all of the projects that I hope to complete by the end of the year. While his mom was in town I got back into scrapbooking (she was sort of mesmerized by Michaels) and completed a whole scrapbook of 2006 – the year that he and I met – while watching movies at night for a week. Slowly but surely, I’ve started to cook again. Nothing too fancy, but I did bring home some Farro from the Farmer’s Market in Portland and I used that to make a summer Farro salad and wasabi-crusted Salmon last night when Grit came over for a girls’ night. We meant to craft, but we ended up eating and talking and drinking red wine and talking more and we never did get to card making. Instead, she whipped up some creme brulee in my oven and we sort of put ourselves into a food coma with that while talking even more.

My favorite movie came in Netflix today (Be Kind Rewind), I’m back to making Bookmark Books, August is over, and I’m confident that there is a cool and brisk day in my future. Now back to the sauna.

The first is that upon returning from big ol’ trip and entering depression and trying to get into routine and feeling all out of sorts with Liam because when we left Austin he was a crawler who occasionally took a few steps, and when we got home he was a runner (almost), I decided to get us out of the house early and everyday. I scanned all my sources for playgroups that first week and thought we’d try them all in an effort to force us back into the swing of things. Typically the storytimes have not worked because it’s just impossible to get Liam to sit, much less sit still. But, I was determined. So we went to Zilker park and we ran around the dusty playground and as it is 90 degrees out at 8 in the morning, I was wearing work out clothing. We both got pretty dirty. I looked at my watch and realized we’d better get to story time. At storytime, my optimism was flattened by the stampede of perfectly petticured toenails in adorable sandals attached to well dressed women who all seemed to know one another. Every single woman there was dressed, makeup done and clean. I was almost unbelievably, as there must have been fifty people, the only person in work out clothing. The only person not smiling and greeting people she knew. I followed Liam around feeling like a lost puppy, watching everyone else mingle and coo and chat. I also realized that Liam, filthy and not matching whatsoever, looked a little disheveled. And then, as I was thinking that, he had a poop explosion. I rolled my eyes at the heavens because I was already well aware that I did not have any wipes in my bag. I was hoping that I could just take him straight home and change him there, but after taking a peep I realized that this was impossible. This, was an explosion. So I took my dusty disheveled kid into the bathroom and laid him on the changing table and tried to avoid my pale sad face in the mirror and the fact that I was covered in gravel and then I proceeded to make a pile of soaking wet brown paper towels to set about washing his bum with. I might as well have dipped his ass in the toiled bowl for all the good those wet towels did. Instead of wiping away the poop they just sort of disintegrated and stuck to his bum. Another mom walked in and saw my predicament and, bless her soul, handed me her wipes. I got him all cleaned up, thanked her and then made a beeline for the exit. At the time I was sort of beat down with the irony of it all, but even still, I knew I will look back and laugh. I know we all have those days.

Liam’s First Birthday will go down in memory to me as the second best party of my life (the first being my wedding). Unlike my wedding day, which was full of joy and laughter and the comfort of old friends and dear family, Liam’s birthday was bittersweet. In many ways, on Liam’s’ Birthday,  my emotions were stronger, the gratitude deeper, the pain of distance more acute, but the joy more amplified. And so perhaps it was not quite the party as the wedding, but it might go down as most powerful day.

I arrived in South Bend, IN just a few days before the big day. My brother picked me and Liam up from O’Hare (Jon had to stay home and work). We three drove on to my Dad’s house. My Dad, who only a week beforehand, was diagnosed with cancer. I had not cried, or even felt worry yet. I’d been conflicted over my lack of emotion, or rather, that I hadn’t broken down. How little I knew. When we saw my Dad, I was buoyed by his seeming normalcy. He didn’t rise from the couch more than once or twice, and he was walking slowly, but that was the only discernable difference. Perhaps a little weight loss. He’d had his first round of Chemotherapy the day before. I stayed the night, but could do no more as his house was far too dangerous for Liam and it was exhausting trying to confine him to a small square space where he could play, and to keep the new walker from beelining towards the gaping hole between the first floor and the basement. I called my mom frantically the next morning. Supermom that she is, she was already on her way to my Dad’s house to help while I was leaving a pleading message on her home answering machine, thinking she was sleeping. She helped out with Liam while I dusted, swept, ran errands and made soup for my Dad’s freezer. Late that evening we left for my mom’s house, where special people were soon to be showing up.

When Liam is old enough to hear this story, and to understand, I wonder if he’ll really get it. That he had the power to draw people from thousands of miles. Thursday, one of my godmothers arrived. Esther. I always fall short of words to accurately describe Esther. She’s just someone you have to meet. I hadn’t heard from her since Liam’s birth, and then just like nothing, she was driving to Indiana from Tampa, Florida. Meanwhile, my other godmother was flying in from Honolulu, bringing her ever-zen presence. My best friends were driving from St. Louis and Chicago to come for the weekend. That Friday night, before the big party, we had a “family” dinner around the table in my mother’s backyard. As if the occasion could not be any more momentous, Esther finally, after twenty six years of steady promising, made my mother her Greek Avgolemeno soup. And if she asked herself, it was “WOW. I MEAN WOW. OH MY OH MY OH MY…”  Martha fixed up fish with Hawaiian salsa. Mom offered the wine, and my brother, Cecilia and Andrew offered up bits and gems from recent youtube trollings that had us laughing until tears streamed down every face and my stomach hurt. Martha rounded it out with a well timed story about a man she used to see in the New York Subway and I have gone on to use that story in my own brain against my recent depression. As in, when my brain is my own biggest enemy, I just get all up in my brains face, and scream FUCK YOU. And then move on.

As I had been too busy to plan any decorations for this party, we ladies hit up Hobby Lobby the morning of. This is so entirely, 100% against my normal way of doing things. Somehow, with these people around, I didn’t care what the decorations turned out like. With their touch, they would surely be fine, if and I was well into caring more about the company than the color scheme. We split up in the store, each of us coming back to the cart with something jungle themed to contribute. My mom paid for it all as a kind gesture, and then we went home to set to work. There wasn’t just decorating (cutting jungle letters, figuring out what to do with the fake moss…) There was cooking to do: Corn and Basil Salad, Brocolli Crunch Salad, Asian Coleslaw, Pestoed New Potatoes. There was baking to do: Coconut Cupcakes again! And a quick trip to Target to hit up the bulk candy section and pick out twenty six banana runts. Erinn arrived to work her magic and calmly ignored me as I barked at her, over and over, “I don’t need help.” People took shifts caring for Liam and every single one ended by coming into the kitchen to ask me “How do you keep up??”

At 4 o’clock, the party started, except that it wasn’t quite about Liam anymore. It was about Family. I don’t know how to explain it other than to say that the moment that I opened the door to my father on the other side was life changing. I think if you’ve known cancer , yourself or with a loved one, there is life before you knew it, and life after. There’s no way to anticipate its effects, or the treatments effects. And I, having seen my father four days earlier and leaving him in a relatively normal state, was shocked to my core. I did not know who was at the door because as I walked to it, the silhouette that showed through the lace curtains was entirely unfamiliar; there wasn’t an elderly man on the guest list. Instead, I found my father doubled over a cane. All his effort spent making it to the front door. We helped him inside. He raised his head and bleated “hello” and the sound of his voice – almost nonexistent – will stay with me forever. That was not my father’s strong, almost always stern and gruff, voice. It was weak, high and failing.

More guest arrived. So many dear people. My mother’s great friends from Notre Dame who’ve been to our house to celebrate every important occasion in both her and our lives. My friends’ family, and my oldest friend, Megan, who I’ve known since I was five. And although the reason for their trip was so unfortunate, we also got to welcome my aunt, uncle and 90 year old Grandmother for the weekend. It was a full house. There were a few awkward moments for me, none worse than the discomfort of opening up all of Liam’s presents for him while everyone around me went completely silent while watching. There were more tough moments. My Dad fainting in front of us. Me picking up the phone to call 911. The people’s brave faces and then finding corners, bathrooms, doors to close and cry behind. Holding my grandmothers sobs to my chest in our bathroom before she left. She held it together the rest of the time. And mostly we all did too. Finally we sent people on their way with promises to send photos of Liam devouring his cupcake, put the tuckered out baby to bed and went to bed able to call that party a raving success. And I went to bed thankful for Liam in a new way. If not for Liam’s existence, seeing my father would have simply been misery. If not for him, we would not have had this momentous day of family. And he, more than anyone else, brought laughter and levity to the day when it was so needed.