Morning has broken, foggy and full of birds calls. As I sit and drink coffee looking out into the thick marine layer, these noises come to my ear over the water…
The honking of Canada geese…
Crows, one issuing the food call somewhere down by the slough.
Finches, twittering in the palm trees outside the window.
And mourning doves clattering around the chimney flashing, cooing down the vent their grieving call.
Beyond that, cars and heavy trucks, the beeping of something backing up.
Someone tapping methodically, regularly with a hammer…
…but not as regular as the pile driver beyond that.
I’ve been up already and made lunch for my kid. We are in the last days of lunch making. Next year, he’ll be in college avoiding the freshman fifteen.
I’m spending this Leap Day celebrating. I’ll get an Orthovisc shot in my left knee in hopes of forestalling knee surgery. I’ll fix my draft of my novel and send it to its first victim. I’ll address complaints that the washer is somehow making all the clothes stinky having dispelled more logical explanations first. I’ll sort through two bags of mixed garbage and recycling which my kid pulled from his room and I won’t complain since he cleaned the room perfectly without me asking.
Last Leap Day…
My mom was still alive.
My grandmother was alive.
Both matriarchs gone in ten months was much.too.much. Those are the kind of losses where you sit and wonder (after the earth is done shaking) if you are still in one piece and you aren’t so sure, so you keep measuring at regular monthly intervals, gently touching around the injury assessing for tenderness. You are like unreinforced masonry and not sure if or when you will collapse.
My dogs were here. Mandy, alive, sweet, dancing her happy dance. Bootsie, strong and in her prime. She could still pick up a dollar bill or a toy gun in her mouth and would send us into fits of laughter with her displays of key material goods. Dobbie, the family clown, was still bullying the chickens, intimidating larger beasts, demanding our affection.
We’ve had cats die, and chickens die, and rabbits die, and guinea pigs die, and ducks die. I can’t keep thinking about the amount of loss over the past four years. I’m afraid to tempt a further reaping.
I’ve had whole friendships build from nothing in the past four years, not one, but many. They’ve softened the crushing loss like stones under which the dust of me can tuck and hide.
I’ve had other friendships end, never to return.
In four years, my oldest has married, had a baby–he’s almost four now. My second has gone to the Middle East twice and twice returned home safe from deployment. My youngest has started and almost finished high school.
A part of me wonders why have a leap year? Yes, I know the science behind it, but wouldn’t it be far more popular to have extra minutes of sleep on slightly longer days at especially wearisome times of year? With atomic clocks, who would know the difference?
There is something simple and profound about this post. I’m so sorry about all the losses you have endured in ‘one year’. Yet, you see and hear such beauty around you. Sometimes I wonder if one can happen without the other.
Thank you. I was laughing about it yesterday with my mom (who insists she is on another dimension and not really gone) and it is funny how much life can change and how quickly too. Here’s hoping the next four years are good ones for all. Thanks for reading/commenting.
I hope the next twelve months are better Tonia. The joy that comes with your youngest child finishing school is something to look forward to.
Eeeek! I’m going to miss my youngest and try hard to stay out of his hair. Since I wrote that blog post yesterday, good, big things happened, which just goes to show what a roller coaster life can be. Thanks for reading and commenting.
The most difficult thing to do is push your baby out of the nest and watch him fly. But the rewards are so worth it.
I vote for extra sleep, too. This is a lovely meditation, bittersweet and painful. I miss those three damned dogs, as well. My favorite line: “You are like unreinforced masonry and not sure if or when you will collapse.” My own Leap Day went by virtually unexamined; I prefer your approach.
The suggestion was made with teachers in mind 🙂
Life turns on a dime, Tonia, and you’ve captured that here. I’ve started paying attention to all of the milestones we are hitting this year, even though I know that what’s around the corner will trump (oh, this is such a loaded word these days!) the lasts of this year with the firsts of the future.
“You are like unreinforced masonry and not sure if or when you will collapse.”
Yes – this brilliantly describes it. Thank you for providing this sentence. I know the feeling all to well. Here’s to another four years – good and bad, heartbreaking and heartwarming, mournful and celebratory. It’s called life and I am glad to have you as one of my new friends to come out of my past four years of life.