This is your Brain on TheraFlu

It still feels temporary. Like a weird visit where we've rented this place. Jared's summer work hours are shorter and he walks to and from work and home for lunch. The unpacking stalled when the entire lot of us got sick. Instead of unpacking, I spent last week holding my 30lb boy while he cried and ached and wasn't able to tell me exactly why (ear infection).

And on Friday night, on the cusp of my sickness, I went to see the ballerinas dance Cinderella. Their faces were young, their sets were hand-painted panels in jewel-toned greens and reds and blues, their legs were athletic and strong, and their music stopped. Right at the beginning of Act 2. When everyone is dancing their way from the Prince's Ball. And they, literally, didn't miss a beat. They kept dancing the scene - without music. When the curtains swung shut and the Russian choreographer came to the stage, he said, "You wait. We fix. One minute." A boom box and speakers were brought from behind the curtains and the CD decided to skip and speed up and slow down with no notice - they kept dancing. It was impressive.

At the end of the play, the smiles were wide and foreheads shiney with sweat. They seemed please with their Opening Night but also that it was over. For some, they wouldn't perform the next night. They'd finished, with incident, and it still went well.

I'd like to think I kept as much poise as the ballerinas this week. That I didn't sit down on my stage and cry with my own runny nose and aching body. That I didn't plop Henry and me in front of the TV yesterday for a couple hours of PBS programming while Mommy massaged her own head and tried to figure out how to get a shower in. That I didn't go to back to bed immediately after putting Henry in his crib for a nap and lay there and feel sorry for myself and wish I could zonk out on Nyquil.

But I did those things and lots more that were probably worse. And then, because I was already feeling low, I questioned my parenting abilities several more thousand times than a normal given week. But maybe I can count those sick days as rehearsals rather than performances. And this next month, when I start work tomorrow and when the girls come later, I'll put my makeup on and tie my ballet shoes around my ankles and lift up on point and pray the music doesn't stop.

Happy Noises

There are ballerinas living in the dorm right now. The Bossov Ballet Theatre runs out of MCI and they are preparing for their Cinderella performance this weekend. While carrying in our boxes, we met the Executive Director of the program, a retired colonel, who named composers and choreograhers and flitted a hand through the stuffy, dorm air like he was conducting. He told us the girls could be boisterous and that although it might get a little loud, it's all "happy noises."

First, the girls discovered Darby. He sat in the shady, green-like-Girl-Scout-uniforms grass outside  while Jared, a friend and Grampie carted boxes and furniture. Every time I'd look for Darby, there would be a small harem of long-haired girls in tiny shorts gushing over him. He leaned his head into their hands, basking in the glory. Even when I locked him inside, they saw him through the screen sighing, "Ohhhh, puuupppppy." And Darby, pretending to be bashful, would rise slowly from his pose of the child position and stretch into a downward dog, yawning. The girls would squeal and he'd amble to the screen to be adored up close.

Yesterday, as I washed our new silverware and colanders and Jared assembled bedside lamps, the girls watched Chicago in the main room. One girl said, "You haven't seen Chicago???" to another and they rewound and replayed "He Had it Comin'" several times. Boys in sweat pants and graphic T-shirts walked by our window occasionally and, minutes later, the girls giggled.

This morning, Henry and I watched the girls race to practice with high buns, black leotards and pale skin-colored tights. They scurried like cartoon mice. Henry yelled "HI!" out the windows, but they couldn't see him through the screen though they turned around, scanning the windows, waving absently to the high, unfamiliar voice. They look like they are nine to eleven years old, but they are probably closer to fifteen or sixteen. They walk with more confidence than I had at their age, no matter what age that is, and their thin, wraparound sweaters are tied with lazy, casual knots in the smalls of their backs.

I don't know how many, if any, of them will stay for the year. The ballet program is ongoing, but this is just summer camp. I wonder if my dorm of girls will be like them, flitty and smiling. Happy noises. But these girls are committed to something. It is fun (hopefully) and they chose to come here (hopefully). My girls, who'll arrive throughout August, will be high schoolers who'll want to sleep in, visit instead of do homework and clomp around the building. They'll fight over washing machines and which movie to watch on the big TV. They may still like my dog, but may not like me. They'll sometimes be sullen and, a moment later, laughing with friends. Some days they will hate their clothes and their body and nearly everything about themselves. Others they will be proud of a grade or like the way a pair of pants falls on their body, but not say a word about either.

I'm glad to have a week to settle in before work starts. Although I am looking forward to the girls' arrival. They will come from China and Japan and Russia and other places, maybe feeling strange and different and weird. What I wish I could tell them, what I wish I knew then, is that everyone feels a little foreign and out of place. But I wouldn't have believed it then either.

So You Think You Can Move

Despite the fact Jared and the truck o'our things left yesterday, the house still looks full. And despite the fact that the house still looks full, I'm watching So You Think You Can Dance and blogging. I should be sorting through stuff. Or at the very least throwing it all away. Or I could just throw the word "should" away. When I feel the overwhelming panic of forgetting something crucial or not getting it all done, I push my breath through my mouth and shoulders and tell myself On Tuesday I will get on a plane and take with me what I take with me. And all will be okay.

Tomorrow morning my brother and I are going to Carmax to get their quote on my beloved Yaris. I honestly love that car. I've never been attached to a car before. But the Yaris and I have had five solid years together. Road trips to Santa Barbara, Yuma and Libby, Montana. It's the first car I picked out and bought on my own. I've moved so many times with it's deceptively spacious hatchback. And I'm months away from paying it off. BUT... we don't need two cars. And a two-door car doesn't work too well as the only car of a family with a car seat. I looked into shipping it: $1200. A friend offered to drive it: 3,300 miles and $500ish in gas. And then it's there and what then? I've researched Kelly Blue Book and I could get $9k for it... if I want to go through the selling of it. That could pay for our move and much more. Should I? What about? What if? Then what? But? On Tuesday I will get on a plane and take with me what I take with me. And all will be okay.

I also feel oddly calm. Maybe the repetition of the mantra is actually working. Or maybe I'll be forced to have the passenger next to me on the plane hold my energy-that-never-stops son while I sob all the way to Atlanta. It could go either way. Henry's presence often requires emotions that I don't necessarily have at the time. Patience when I want to sleep. Joy when I want to cry. Energy when I want to be watching TV. Regardless, Jared will meet us at the little Portland airport and Henry will say "Hi Pop" and all will be okay.

Waiting for Bumpy

I’m sitting in the cell phone lot at the airport waiting for the text from my father to tell me his new, non-malfunctioning plane has landed. And I will take him home to see his grandson who, outside of Skype, he hasn’t seen since late December. They will spend the weekend reuniting while Jared and I pack. Because we haven’t started packing at all. And the truck comes on Tuesday. And leaves the next day with however much stuff we’ve squeezed in there, packed or not. And it will drive across the country with 95% of our things until we follow by car and plane within the week. And the overwhelmingness I feel is overwhelming.

But before all that, right now, I’m waiting for a text. I’m feeling the sun beat on my right arm and listening to planes land. I’m trying to ignore the shaved head, tattooed white guy in the black Jeep next to me who sporadically sits up from his reclined seat and stares at me. I’m texting my friend who suggests I talk loudly about Bumpy coming because it could sound like a gangsta name if you didn’t know it’s Henry’s nickname for his grandpa. And the man is out of his car now, standing on the charcoaly, so-hot-it’s-soft pavement to put his shirt on, sit on his front bumper and smoke a cigarette.

I hear cellphones ringing and beeping around me and cars pull out of the parking lot to pick up their people. In a week and a half, I’ll be on a plane with Henry. Even though he’s flown a lot for an almost two-year-old, I’ve never flown with him alone. I’ve never changed his diaper on a plane or in an airport. I’ve never managed luggage and him. These are the things I get caught up in. These are the thoughts that twist behind my ears.

Not the fact that we’re leaving. That once that plane lands, I will live in Maine. And I won’t work at San Diego Writers, Ink and I won’t work at Words Alive and I won’t live in the home that I moved into (for the first time) when I was 13. And I’m not sure how to live inside being incredibly excited to live somewhere, but in denial about getting there. That being there means not being here. That unpacking means packing. That arriving means departing. The opposites existing together, at the same time.

So I will pick up my dad.

And I will pack the house.

And I will have our “we got married and we’re moving to Maine party.”
And I will find somewhere for our cat to live.
And I will sell my car (maybe).
And then I will get on a plane.
And then I will live in Maine.