Taller on acetate.

(The photograph-taking was painful, almost. I'm mindful that the beautiful brown summer has faded from my skin and I revert to alabaster marble, blue-veined and translucent, sickly thin and without my security-blanket mermaid hair. PJ didn't want to wear a button-down shirt. At the last minute, Henry's dress pants failed to fit him anymore and Ruth waged a brief fit, wanting to wear stripes instead of solids. Ben's cowlick made its annual appearance and no amount of convincing could make it lie flat and New-Jake kept asking anyone who stood still why he was in the picture when he had only been here for a couple of months, to the point where even Sam told him to stop talking and hush. Lochlan's hair curled, much to his dismay and Christian was late so we were all scowling in the earliest shots since we had waited so long the whole idea was almost scrapped altogether. 

This was a sitting, purchased from the photographer as a fundraiser for the kids' recreation club. Family portraits. Only instead of four, the children asked if we could have everyone. The photographer quickly suggested he come to us when I phoned to confirm our appointment and ask how much room he had for we have seventeen in our family, on any given day.

We all trooped out to the cliff through the damp grass and were arranged in a clutch, with the shortest people in front and the tallest in back but also in order of importance so somehow Lochlan and Ben stand on either side of me and do not appear to have the usual six-inch height difference between them because Ben was standing back a bit further. The children are in the front. I was placed dead-center (har) and Schuyler was vaguely miffed that he and Daniel are on opposite sides. 

It was a first, and I think we pulled it off. Everyone was smiling. Everyone was looking at the camera.  No one moved and blurred, no one photo-bombed (this is an extreme sport in our household) and everyone was still speaking when it was over. Kind of like wedding pictures, the whole endeavor was taken very seriously. It's a family picture, and we're a family if ever there was one. I'm going to suggest we make it an annual event.

And in the picture, my hands are hidden. The children are standing in front of me so my arms aren't visible anyway. They are crossed behind my back and one hand is holding on to Ben's little finger and the other hand is holding Lochlan's hand. It doesn't mean anything to you but it means everything to me. I had to keep my balance somehow, I was standing on their toes.)

Princess under construction.

Please excuse the mess and watch your step. Oh and this is SO NOT the design it's going to be. I picked something cheery for my mom for a temporary thing. Because mom likes cheery and she likes blue.

True to form the final design will be straight out of a memento mori because Bridget likes despair and she likes black.

-------------------------------------

Update 7:00 pm: Got rid of the blue. And the yellow, thank fuck. Never said I was a web designer. You can watch my changelog and laugh while I cry.

See, believe, forget me
My playful thoughts contrive
Nights concede to reckless
Versions of myself
All my real friends gather
Stay my wanting for a shield
I can't see you real

All I hate and all I fear
I bring it back to you, do you feel it
The night is gone and all we get
A picture for a poem, and we lose her

At one point I recall reaching up into the air and pressing an imaginary button that would freeze time. He laughed.

It isn't possible, little one.

Yes it is!

He knows better. Don't say it, don't think it, just let me have my tries. Let me think I can do this. Let me do everything I can, and yet we are powerless. Time just keeps on fumbling toward the cliff. Never smooth, it catches and slips and tumbles in a roar of chaos. It will kill you and it will take you for a leisurely ride. It will be counted and spent and saved by those who have learned the secret. They can manage their time.

I can't do that. I don't know how.

People have tried to count it for me, and I fight back. Don't do that. Don't you dare. This is MY time and you can't tell me there is too much or too little. You can't count down for me. You can't count away from me.

Leave me alone.

Some things can't be taught, I guess. Today I am thinking of that moment. I'm thinking of another as well, standing in the woods yesterday as the rain poured down on my head. It was so quiet. I could see for miles into the dark, the trees placed five or six feet apart, everything covered with moss, unspoiled heaven on the side of a mountain trail. I was watching for bears, and yet I was watching to see if my brain would slide down out of one ear and go galloping off into the forest, never to be seen again.

It didn't and so I brought it home and shook it. It still has the rattle. On a good day it sounds like bells, and on a bad day it sounds like death.

City fair.

I think everyone in the house today is exhausted from a seven hour odyssey of turkey, stuffing, gravy, children, stars, wine, cake and television. They might sleep all day. I held court at the dining room table until the wine ran out and we went home. Ben assumed I was trashed but it was mildly so and I remained awake until I felt tired, ate something and took some aspirin and woke up in terrific spirits. That might also be because Ben did the early-morning dog walk and I got to lounge in our big bed, drifting on a half-awake dream until he came back with cold skin and then I was wide awake.

So now I get to have coffee and do laundry and he has gone back to sleep. I don't have a switch like that. I am like the sun. Up. Then down. There's no option to check out halfway through the day, though yesterday we crawled into the bed at three and snoozed for forty minutes. It was glorious. I don't feel tired.

For once.

I'm sure I'm running on artificial cheer today. Keep it light, keep it tight. Ben returns to work tomorrow and the thought of that makes me so tremendously sad but I do feel like I had time with him, time that atones for the winter apart, and time to reconnect as lovers that we haven't had for a while. It was amazing and I'm so grateful for it for and for him. I can't even articulate here how incredible it was to just hang out with him for the first time in ages.

Thankful would be the word.

Happy Thanksgiving if you're Canadian or love someone who is.

I don't do red wine so well. Goodnight,

B is for birdbrain.

I am lingering over coffee this morning, sitting at my desk looking at the new offerings on Coach, reading about Atlanta's goalie and marveling that our Thanksgiving week will see the rescue of miners trapped in Chile (except for that one guy with the wife AND the girlfriend who discovered each other at the site). Because sometimes I skim the headlines and sometimes I let the sand flood into my nose and ears because I can only focus my energies on being a good mother, wife and friend and really the remainder of the solution to the world's problems are something that can be solved with money. The hard part is keeping that money clean and out of the hands of the corrupt.

Good luck to you, if you are so idealistic as to think otherwise.

(No worries. I have no illusions as to how uneducated, unwordly and unsophisticated I am. You don't need to email me to tell me these things. I hear them every single day.)

What I would like today is this cup of coffee to remain bottomless, and I would also like a Ferris wheel in the middle of the woods so that I would know what it feels like to be a falling leaf. Dipping, swirling on the wind, floating gently to the floor of the forest path in pure silence. Ferris wheel music is an abomination, though over the years they have changed from circus standards to classic rock and I'm not sure if that's an improvement or just an intrusion. Mostly I think the quiet wheels are best but you need to experience it to understand what I mean.

You have to know the right people, and you have to ride the wheel in the dark after all the customers have left but before all the lights are shut down. It's worth it. Bonus points if you can see the beach as you approach the top.

Double bonus points if anyone actually appreciates my Saturday morning rambles besides Dalton. Triple bonus points if you think you're so amazing that you judge me for admitting that I don't pay attention to reality and you can actually fault me for it at this point in my life.

Saturdays are our Sundays, I believe. The whole day is a blank slate. Kind of like my brain.

The inadequate navigator.

Up until this point I figured I was ready to head back to routine. Fall. Working. That weird space between Thanksgiving and Christmas when you are existing between turkeys and decorations and fitting in a little Halloween fun and shopping for gifts and mostly trying to keep warm.

I have struggled to write while Ben is home. Having very little luck. I sleep less when he's home and tend to fight more to get the standard household chores done. Part of his time off involved casting aside responsibility and demands for doing absolutely nothing at all.

And then tonight he says he had the best break ever and I trumped him and broke myself.

I don't want him to return to work. I don't want to miss him. I don't want to go back to feeling like I am alone in the world and counting the hours until he returns to me safe and sound. I want to keep him here so I can throw myself into his arms whenever I want for a kiss or a hug. So I can make him lunch and wake him up. So I can be with him.

Time is so short. I don't care if you get it. I get it and I don't like it. And weirdly the whole episode of winter without him only served to make me more clingy and less capable. Sure I can do what needs to be done but I don't want to. I will scream in fear as I'm doing it and shut my eyes tightly and when it is over for the moment the tears will come. Relief. Frustration. Agony. Pick something. Pick nothing. I get annoyed when people infringe on our time. I am sad when the evening ends and we have to sleep at last. I am frustrated that he has to go back to real life because I'm not finished spending time with him yet in this fantasy world where our days are our own.

I am always stopped short just as I settle in. I am always left behind in the grand scheme of things, with a map I can't read and directions I can't seem to follow. What is crystal-clear to others is a confusing jumble to me written in another language. I can't do this. I can't exist in the present and I can't plan for the future. I can't read this compass because it's spinning. Spinning wildly from N to E to S and back again, twitching onto W and becoming a blur as the hot sting of tears push out from under my eyes once more. You can tell me I'm approaching foolish but interestingly enough you can't point me back toward common sense.

It isn't even on the map. They lied.

Ben is traveling by memory and I am following him by heart.

Passive Aggression.

The past few days have been a little busy. Company arriving and leaving, concerts, driving (oh, so much driving), trying and not really wanting to plan for the upcoming Thanksgiving break and also trying and not really wanting to wrap up Ben's final days off because then it means he'll have to go back to playing for others and mostly he would prefer to play for me now.

I did get a turkey. And gravy and stuffing and potatoes and carrots and a cake. Because what is a holiday that doesn't have cake?

Wait a minute, what is a day that doesn't have cake? Cake should be a requirement, like hugs and brushing your teeth. Oh, hugs are not a requirement in your day? Too bad. I feel sorry for you now.

And literally EVERY single time I sit down at the computer New-Jake starts talking to me. Poor thing is starved for attention. He is very very good at hugs, however, and so it's difficult to find fault with him.

(More about him another day because presently he is talking to me, and when he isn't talking, Ben is reading to me from the paper. Both of them somehow are failing to notice the laser beams shooting out of my eyes. I need to work on being less subtle, I guess. There's a cosmic joke in there somewhere. I would extricate it but I can't even think with all these words zinging around over my head.)

Last night? Mastodon. Deftones. Alice in Chains. It was glorious. It was a little confusing. Burned my ears from the first song and had a hard time adjusting to the volume and so I found myself tugging on Ben's hand to confirm the songs I think I was hearing but really Change (In the house of lies) and Your Decision were huge standouts. I've always wanted to see AIC in concert, the rest was just icing. I'm so very glad we went but I will be grateful tonight for a little sleep as we had a seven a.m. airport call this morning for our company and so we were up seemingly before most people were into their sleep cycles proper (because again with the driving. This city is spread all over the west coast, I tell you. We drive for HOURS every week.)

So not fair but again, totally worth it.

I wish I could have cake right this second but I think it would be rude. I don't know. I can't keep my train of thought. I'm giving up. Maybe tomorrow I can write before Jake wakes up, though I don't believe he sleeps at all, I just think he switches to a whisper to be polite and keeps on talking twenty-four hours a day.

Of course, now I'll also find out if he's reading my journal.

Score.

(Also, please excuse mistakes, I'm in the process of running screaming from the house and can't be bothered.)

Resuscitation.

Leave the truck, someone will lock it. Jump along on one bare foot while removing the other shoe and then sigh audibly as you slog along slowly through the warm sand.

Sand is the magic carpet that transports you to another universe where there are no budgets, telephones or traffic jams. No grumbling bellies and no rain.

Unless you want rain, but you always seem to prefer sweater-weather. It's a guarantee the beach will be empty.

Plow straight ahead until you reach water and then venture back five or six feet to walk along the edge of the firmer sand where the shells and the seaglass rise to the top in the tide.

A small handful is collected within seconds.

Smile for a picture. It's a beach, you're a Bridget. This is what we do. String you out until you've had enough and then bring you here to recharge. Fill up those green eyes again. Stuff your lungs with salt air and you can have a talk with that seagull and damn, no one will call you crazy because this is your turf.

Yours.

There's a rock shaped like a heart, and there's a broken seashell. Yuck, the seaweed looks just like your hair did in 2002 when you dyed it green for Henry's kindergarten Halloween party and it never came out. Hey, Bridge. Here's more glass. Put it in your pocket. Hey. You with me? Heh. It smells good, doesn't it?

When you am finished your daydream you look up and Ben is at the other end of the beach. So far away he's a tiny dot. You laugh because in real life up close Ben is huge and you generally have conversations with the pockets on his flannel shirt instead of his face. You contemplate calling him but he is intent and you don't want the ugliness of a ringing phone to spoil any of this for him either.

You jump up and down and wave instead.

He sees you and lifts his arm in response. You begin to walk toward him. He is taking his time so when you reach him you're still far away from where you started. He takes your hand and slows you down, passing you another handful of seaglass. You are delighted.

You slowly make your way back to the truck. Every step is a burden, every stumble a reminder that you are going in the wrong direction.

You shake your head. No, we're not supposed to be leaving. Wasn't the whole point of coming out here to stay here? On the sand? By the sea? Why are they breaking your heart? You don't want to go home. You don't want to come out here twice a season, You'd rather come twice a day.

Be realistic, Bridget. The world doesn't stop for you.

But it does here. That's the rub. The world does stop when I am here.

Only for you, baby girl. Only for you.

You try to breathe in as much as you can, see as much as you can remember and take away everything your pockets will hold. The shore will wait. The problem is, it just doesn't keep.

(For a minute I was jealous, but really, this opens up a whole new world.)

Today reminds of a day from four years ago, as the boys have made up now and all is well.

Ben was coming home from eighty-something days on the road. I had spoken with him through three airports and he had agreed to dump his stuff, shower and then come straight over for a meal and to say hello and then and only then he could go back to his horrid little filthy chaotic apartment and sleep for four days, as is customary when Ben would get off tour.

He knew I was dying to see him. I was so excited. I was waiting in the front porch. For forty-five minutes. Because showering? I know what Ben does in the shower. It's a thing of beauty to watch. His shampoo is multi-purpose.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

There's his car! (He had a car back then. This was before his big Ford trucks came into our lives and never left.)

He's walking up the sidewalk. Oh my God! He looks awesome. Thin and tired but awesome. His hair is so long! Wow.

I open the door, smile plastered from ear to ear.

He walks up the steps, smiles briefly and says Hey, princess.

And he walks in straight past me to the living room where Jacob is reading in his chair and grabs his whole head, kissing him on the mouth. Jacob, never one to refuse affection, reached up and pulled Ben right into his lap where they proceeded to make out for several minutes until I started making very loud obnoxious protest noises and I think PJ choked on pure air. This was designed to make me laugh. I hate it when the boys are away. I make such a fuss when they come back. Not this kind of fuss, mind you.

It was probably the funniest, most surprising display I think I have ever seen. Or so I thought.

Ben repeated it this morning with Lochlan, after having left the house for an hour. Lochlan complied. In spades.

Ben has trumped himself, as if it were possible.

(And hot. Wow.)

I didn't protest. I think I could watch that any day.