Two

 "Young boys should never be sent to bed. They always wake up a day older." 

— J.M. Barrie

Last night, I picked him up from his crib while he was still sleeping. He snuggled close to me in the dim room lit from the hallway. I slowly rocked from side to side the way a mother innately does when she holds her baby. He legs folded into my arms, and his head rested perfectly on me, just right, as if my shoulders were always meant to carry the weight of that blonde head. I whispered that I loved him, and with closed eyes, he whispered "luh you"  back. There are moments when I know I'll never remember the details, but I know I'll remember the feeling, and this was one. The feeling of letting go just a little more when I only want to hold tighter. Because today, Walter turns two.

What I do remember vividly is what happened two years ago. I remember how I went to bed and woke up a half hour later in full labor. I remember the car ride to the hospital through dark and empty streets on that June night. I remember how quickly it all happened, and I remember all the pain. But most of all, I remember someone in the room telling me that it was a boy. And when I held him that first time, I realized I'd been missing him so much even though we hadn't met until that second. My heart was waiting so long to kiss him and call him my son. There's a love more powerful than the storybook love at first sight; it's the love so strong before the first glimpse. Every movement and strong kick felt, every heartbeat heard thumping on a monitor, and every time I stood in his empty nursery, thinking about who I would bring home from the hospital- they were all preparing me to cherish this little boy of mine.

He runs a little farther from me than he used to, busy with so much to learn, and see, and do. But he always run back, needing a hug when he falls down or when his feelings are hurt. And though I know I will fail both Millie and Walter a hundred times over, I can promise that I will always be here when they need to run back. They'll never know that I need those embraces more than they ever will. I'm grateful that he still looks back and runs for me now.

Today, he is two. Today, he is closer to more words, more complicated thoughts, more joy, more sadness, and more life. It's hard to arrange the cards and balloons without a little ache, because the boy who needed me for everything needs me a little less every day. But it's also impossible not to celebrate the last two years, because he's brought more happiness to our family than I could have ever imagined.  

We've played, we've cuddled, we've danced, and we've been up late from a fever. We have walked and ran and climbed and read and napped together. We have learned and we have grown. And Walter, how sweet it has been.

Happy birthday, little love. You're my favorite boy in the world. I can't wait for our next adventures.

Twilight

"It was the time of year, the time of day, for a small insistent sadness to pass into the texture of things." 

— Don DeLillo

He was clutching his stuffed mouse, cradled in my arms, and I carried him through the hallways to his room. I turned the doorknob slowly until it clicked, and waited for another cry, but he was too tired now. I stood in the deep, eerie purple of twilight that shifted into blue, tinting the walls, the daisies on my table, and the dishes I was too tired to put away. It was silent and serene, waiting there in the almost-dark for nothing. The movement of night-blackened trees through the window caught my eye, and reminded me there were hours left in the day despite the moon's sheen. I'm not afraid of the dark anymore. I'm used to it.

When her auburn curls are tousled on a flowery pink pillow, and an airplane mobile barely flutters over his blonde head, I tell myself that this is all I need. I lay sideways on the bed and press play on an old black and white movie. (Right now, it's anything with Barbara Stanwyck.) Was it better then? If I had the right kind of hat to wear with my coat, and lipstick to match my high heels, would everything feel settled? Would it all wrap up neatly the way it tends to do in an hour and a half of romance, confusion, love letters, and resolution?

I keep wondering how I got here. In the span of a few years, life has changed many times over. I remember the girl I was five or ten years ago. She wasn't sure of herself, but she was sure of the world- a strange place to be. She hoped and trusted, and she believed in happy endings to the darkest stories. I laugh at her, pity her, and want to be her all over again. There may be a secret to a soft heart after heartache, but I haven't found it yet. It seems more knowledge only brings more to defend against. Sometimes at night, I think about the ones who have told me their secrets and sorrows, and wonder if they're still awake, too.

I've been exchanging letters with someone who is in his late eighties. He tells me about his childhood and early adulthood, and I marvel at it. There are twists and turns in his story so painful, I catch my breath as I read. So much tragedy for someone that young. But he tells me these things because they are a part of his story now, and, I think, he accepts them. And while I wonder if he would change them if he had the chance, I also wonder if he's thought of it that way. I'm still looking for an escape, and he's content. Among the sadness, he vividly remembers the good, the foolish, and the details of many events like they were yesterday.

I wonder what I will have to write about in another fifty years. If the good triumphs by then, and I can feel my heart beating beneath my hand and know that I have lived fully. Life is forever a back and forth, round and round motion. Much of the good is hard to get in focus. Sometimes it means holding it very close to see it well. And other times, it means standing at a distance, and surveying all I have.

There are gifts here, I remind myself, if I can breathe and wait long enough for the light to see them clearly.

Night in June

 "Green was the silence, wet was the light,

the month of June trembled like a butterfly." 

— Pablo Neruda

It's the time of year when Millie's cheeks are dotted with more and more freckles, and the smallest hint of sunburn pink. Walter wants to spend every waking moment outdoors, and shrieks with delight when I mention a walk. The corn is shooting up so quickly, it looks different every time I pass the fields. The country roads are begging to be driven. It smells like warm, fresh air and growing things.

There are a lot of miniature blog posts I want to write, so I'm writing them all here in this jumbled, rambling space. Most of what I write isn't planned. It just spills out when I am overflowing. Seasons changing tends to do that to me.

June is proving to be a difficult month, even though we're only a couple days in. Sky is at WLC for most of it. And Walter turns two at the end of the month. It's starting to sink in how much he's grown, and how little baby there is left. I think I'm much more emotional about this birthday than I was on his first- I can't even type this without crying. It's hard to let that stage go. In another world, perhaps, I would long for another baby. But in this world, there are too many complications, and so that chapter is probably over. That's its own strange kind of grief, and I'm still figuring it out, really.

I have been thinking a lot about my legacy. What I'll leave behind. A lot of people I "know"- like a beautiful woman who wrote here, or our local TV anchor- have passed away in the last few months. It's shaken me up a lot for never even meeting them in person. Maybe because they were so young. Maybe because I'm realizing how scary cancer can be. Or maybe it's just because when someone is gone, I can't help but wonder what it will be like when I'm gone. Both of those people left a community of family and friends who couldn't speak anything bad about them. I cannot picture more than a couple dozen people at my funeral, but I hope they have stories to tell. I want to leave good to remember. I want my heart to always be aware that the seemingly small things are what last.

Since having kids, one thing has become incredibly obvious to me; I am much more old fashioned than most people. I don't mean old fashioned in a cutesy way, like collecting old typewriters (although that sounds nice), but in terms of my values. The way I parent and steer our family life is the opposite of most of my friends and family. The things that matter are different when there are little ones looking up to me, ready to imitate my every move. There is so much pain and confusion our there, and I fiercely try to protect their innocence. Many people spit out the word "sheltering" as if it's a horrible thing, but, to be plain, I absolutely want to shelter my children. Someone once compared raising children to growing a seedling. And that spout needs to be cared for closely, safely, until it can grow strong enough to be outdoors in all the harsh weather. That's how I feel about it.

And life lately? A lot of quiet. A lot of alone time. A lot of coffee. A lot of reading about Harper Lee before her book comes out next month. I think Miss Lee and I would be good friends, but like most introverts, we'd probably never meet because it would mean interacting with another person. So I'll be here in Illinois, and she'll be there in Alabama, and I'll relish every moment of reading her second story.

Tonight, I only see one or two bright, steady stars in the sky. The house is softening in its nightly silence. It's a night that would be good for crying to let out a bit of pressure, but that's what writing is for. Evenings are my favorite, though. I love the hush, the glimpse of the moon, the soft light in the house, and a moment with my thoughts. There is so much to do all day, but the night sweeps in and there is rest, so we have the strength to make it to another June day tomorrow.

And tomorrow, there is much to grow, much to learn, and a lot of coffee to drink.

How I Got Here

"The things taught in schools and colleges are not an education, but the means to an education." 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I began a few times, you know.

The first time, I was a naive 16 year old, homeschooled and working at the small apple orchard on the edge of town, bordered by cornfields and beehives. I came home from my job smelling like their apple cider doughnuts, as if I'd spritzed a cinnamon perfume on my wrists to make the five dollars and change per hour. After my regular schoolwork was done for the day, I would reach for the textbooks to my two online college courses, flipping through them while I waited for the dial-up tones to finish beeping. I took Introduction to Fiction and Basic Newswriting, figuring it would cover all the bases of my future career as a writer. My computer was beige and roughly the size of a small car.

I moved away from home at 17, however, four hours south and left, landing at the very edge of Indiana. People spoke with a twang and there were more hills there. I began a second time, and took an English class, but it was extremely expensive for a girl who left home with a $900 savings account and a '87 stick shift Honda. Instead, I worked- first at a chain restaurant as a hostess, where I faked extroversion until I could flee to the safety of my apartment, then at a doughnut shop, where I served cherry bagels and coffee in the drive through window when the sun hadn't even stretched and yawned yet.

Next was a year at a job cleaning hospital rooms. It was cheerful work when people were leaving with a cart full of flowers and balloons, and heart-wrenching when I'd be assigned the children's ward, oncology, or an ICU room where the bed hadn't been occupied long enough for a mess to be made. I cried more than once as I mopped those floors, knowing a family was grieving. It was a busy, but quiet job. After that, I worked at the same hospital as a secretary, and it felt like I had landed my first grown up position. I wore khakis, read on my lunch hour, typed on a computer, rubbed elbows with doctors, and locked up at night. When it was quiet, I wrote blog posts to myself in emails. 

That's when I began for the third time. I started off with a medical terminology class that the hospital offered (which counted as college credit). I didn't choose it for its purpose of enriching my job, although it did. I just loved all the -isms and -ologies, and was overjoyed when I'd find the particularly long words for small conditions (blepharospasm!). I decided to take a couple night classes then, driving straight from work in my khakis to a lecture hall where I'd nearly fall asleep, At first, the obvious choice was nursing- not just for my hospital job, but because my mother and 3/4 of her family are in nursing. I realized when I barely squeaked by with a C in anatomy that it probably wasn't a great idea. And anyway, during all that time of cleaning patient rooms, I found myself coming home to write about their lives rather than wonder about their medication dosages. I quit the hospital and worked at a vet for a year, but the pets had less interesting stories.

Life changed again, and at age 25, I moved back to Illinois, thank goodness. I found a job as a medical secretary again, and because the clinic offered tuition reimbursement, I took another two online courses at the college I started at years before- my fourth beginning. I met Sky during that time. I met Millie not long after.

When she was two, it suddenly occurred to me that the Pell Grant existed, and that I should use it (and I'll forever be thankful for it). I enrolled again for my first full time semester- my fifth time in school by this point- and found out I was pregnant with Walter a month later. I continued with school that year full time, even though Sky was away nearly the entire spring semester. Some of  the time, I would take my quizzes laying on one side of the couch, clutching my laptop and praying I wouldn't feel the morning sickness anymore. Once Walter was born, I took my first purposeful break from college. I wanted that first year to be free from distraction. I'm still so glad I took it.

And for the sixth time in my life, at age 30, I enrolled in full time classes again. Most of those were math, and I've never been more intimidated. I made the Dean's List, got a 4.0 my last semester, and felt like I was actually getting the hang of it. My bed became a temporary desk, and I would spread out syllabuses, textbooks, and my laptop all around me. There were countless nights of stopping in the middle of homework to soothe a crying baby or calm a little girl with a bad dream. It was exhausting, and it was hard, and it felt awful and amazing. 

On May 14th, I stopped going to school. 

This time, it was because I had finally graduated with an associate degree.

What technically began at 16 ended a few days ago. I celebrated on the rooftop, taking in the night air and posing for a few photos in my cap and gown. I wanted to wear it forever. At home, I poured a sparkly drink into a crystal flute, and felt the gratefulness sink deep into my bones. It was such a long journey- much longer than it needed to be- but I know, without a doubt, that I appreciate that little degree so much more than I would have a decade ago. It feels like I earned it, yes. But it feels like a gift, too.

I haven't learned a hundred great truths. I have not remembered the way to chart the phases of the moon, the format for writing copy for television news, or most of those words from medical terminology. But I have learned it's okay to keep going, slowly, because it gives you a kind of grit you don't find other places. Someday, I'd like to continue, and get that journalism degree I've been eyeing since I was young. Until then, I have this; the knowledge that I can accomplish something I work at, the example I hope to set for Millie and Walter, and the honor cords and tassel carefully put away. Class of 2015.

The Roads that Lead Home

"You take what you're given, 

whether it's the cornfields of the Midwest 

or the coal mines of West Virginia, and you make your fiction out of it. It's all you have. 

And somehow, wherever you are, it always seems to be enough." 

— Larry Brown

It's a quiet downtown, with a few empty storefronts, and a hand painted sign advertising "Jack's Sandwiches and Daily Specials" in faded red letters. Below it, an American flag waves lazily in the breeze, and around the corner, a vintage advertisement for Gold Medal flour on the side of the brick building. Tulips are growing, deep red and pale yellow, as if insisting there is still life blooming despite the quiet of this town. And inside, we're in a small room of the library for their weekly storytime.

We visit this town, a few miles from our own, fairly regularly. The librarian knows us well, asking about my dad now and then, handing me misplaced pictures of the kids' visit to Santa they'd kept from previous years. This week, Millie found a spot in the front of the room, still easy for me to spot with her purple gingham shirt, saddle shoes, and pigtails. Later that afternoon, Millie and Walter and I took a trip to an indoor park, and as they played, my mind began to wander.

I had been watching parts of the White House Correspondents' Dinner earlier that week. Just as the sight of Champaign's newspaper building always stirs up feelings inside me, the dinner does, too. An entire evening dedicated to black tie attire and celebration of journalists. Writers. The people I envy a little, because I always hoped I would graduate from college (at 22, with a bachelor's, instead of at 30, with an associate), and climb the corporate ladder until I became a famous, award winning journalist. I imagined the stories I would break. The opinion pieces that would stun the country. The career I would give up to focus on writing my book. 

It hasn't exactly happened.

And I thought about how the Vice President drove past my street last week, on his way to give a speech at the U of I. He made a bee line back to the airport, the shiny limousine dodging our potholes, and hopped aboard Air Force Two as soon as it was over, anxious to leave this Midwest soil and go back to places where life happens with urgency and importance.

Some people I know from high school have moved far away. There are those who drove the couple hours north to Chicago, the place that gave Carl Sandburg so much to describe. There are others who left Illinois altogether, and made their homes on one shore or the other, opening their windows to mountain or ocean views every day. And then there are some who remain here, who seem to lament at where they are. 

But this is my place. I know which country roads lead home. I know what day the apple orchard opens in July, what day the farmer's market begins, and where to go on those 90 degree July days to cool off. I know where to go for jazz concerts in the park, or the best restaurant for pie, or the way we have to get out our short sleeves one day and our winter coats the next. I can see the sky full of bright sunshine before the eerie green of a storm, and know to take shelter. I can drive down the road to towns with horse and buggies, Amish men in suspenders, and Amish women in bonnets. And I can raise two little ones on ear after ear of fresh sweetcorn grown here in town.

The library in that small town is a place which reminds me how small I am, too. The empty street assures me how little will change here, and that the only kind of fame that happens around this neck of the woods is the rare kind that comes long after you're buried, if it comes at all. But like most people, I've learned that my life isn't going to have the fame and glitter, and my name won't grace the spine of a dozen books.

My place is in the empty street, holding Millie's hand as we cross it together, stopping to admire the tulips. It's in the orchard, sipping cider slushes and devouring apple doughnuts. It's squinting in the evening sun at the ice cream place, handing Walter a cone in the sweltering heat that turns my hair into a mess. 

It's here, with them. Small, quiet, and home. It's my favorite place to be.