Catch up

The kids are all in bed, though they are not all asleep. Take heed: giving a mini Kit Kat to your 2.4 year olds may cause you to feel all sorts of regret. And/or cause you to rethink your own sugar intake because Good God did I just give them crack? It seems like it. . .

A note about the storytelling here. The hospital story of September isn't quite flowing as it once was. Four weeks ago it was pouring out of me, begging to be told, waking me up in the middle of the night. The last chapter came out more slowly and I found I had to push it out, knowing that it is a story worth telling, knowing that the exercise of sitting in the chair and writing even when it doesn't feel easy is a good one. Since writing it two days ago though I have been thinking that maybe it would be a good idea to listen to the Muse and not force it. So I'm taking a break and catching you up on some other things.

In the last week I:

-Attended the funeral of my sister's best friend's father who died at age 71 after a fifteen-month battle with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). He left behind a wife, two grown children, and four grandchildren--one of whom was born only months ago.

-Sat next to my dad on his 66th birthday as we listened to a son, a grown man and the brother of the above-mentioned friend, beautifully eulogize his father.

-Attended my 20th high school reunion which was a total blast.

-Hosted a dinner with my husband, his brother, our sister-in-law, and my husband's parents to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, which was September 11th, the day I just wrote about--the day I was admitted into the hospital.

-Did the usual stuff associated with raising four young children.

It occurred to me two days ago that this is a whole lot of life happening over here.

Two other somewhat random events in October gave me a lot to think about, a lot to want to write about. One, my husband and I went to see Amelie: The Musical at the Berkeley Rep. It was stupendous. I hurriedly recommended it to anyone I could think of who likes theater and might possibly swing squeezing in a trip to see it in its last week. Two, I served as the alternate on a one-day jury trial in Martinez, the county seat of Contra Costa county. The jury selection process and the trial itself were fascinating and I was so glad to be there, even though it was expensive to pay for childcare and caused a lot of shuffling around since I apparently didn't think I'd actually get called to show up so I didn't make any plans for someone to take care of the kids until the very last minute. Sorry honey! Thanks rock star babysitters!

I have a notebook and a cell phone list full of thoughts and notes about things that jumped into my mind during a time of extreme creativity, bordering on or living next to mania. It appears that phase might be over for the time being but I'm not sure yet. Let's wait and see. In the meantime, I will still be showing up here, writing.

This week in the United States a white police officer was filmed pulling a black high school girl out of her seat in class. The video went viral, many people had a lot to say about it, some 90,000 people wrote letters in protest of his aggressive response, and he was fired yesterday.

I am re-reading To Kill a Mockingbird, a work of fiction written in 1960 by Harper Lee. The story takes place in 1935, which is a time in history not even 100 years ago. The writing is so beautiful, so powerful. The story is about childhood and race, parenting, life in Alabama, the justice system, family, neighbors. It is a made-up story yet as you read it you see much of this country's history lying within its pages. There are still people alive who were born in or before 1935. Not many people but some. This is not an ancient story. The last time I read it was as a freshman in high school, twenty-four years ago. I was fourteen. I do and do not feel like the same person. Time and its passage are so mysterious. So confusing.

Life keeps happening. Art keeps happening. Violence keeps happening. Kids keep growing. If we're lucky. No matter what else is going on in my mind, in my day-to-day life, in my body and my health care journey, I remain not just my self, my inner self, but the many other things that I am to others. Wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, employee, patient, niece, aunt, sister-in-law, cousin, employer, daughter-in-law, ex-classmate. Writer.

And there are these four little people. Front and center in my life. Growing, changing, pushing, falling, yelling, laughing. Saying "Kiss me!" Saying "Mama!" Saying "Thank you Mommy and Daddy for taking us to the pumpkin patch--it was fun." No joke on that last one. I get a front-row seat to their lives these days and, though I practically ran out of the house on my way to dinner with a friend on Tuesday night, so glad was I to escape the madness, I feel mostly so glad to get to be here. Right where I am.