Adventure

The sun is hot in the Miami sky.  I suppose the sun is hot everywhere because, it's the sun... but my body seems to think that the sun is hotter in Miami than in any other place I've been.

Well... hold on... I do have one memory as a teenager when my family visited Las Vegas (go figure - remember how I'm moving there?).  We climbed out of the car on our arrival and I was immediately shocked at the intensity of the heat on my skin. As I stepped up onto the curb next to our parked car I lifted my head to make sure there were other humans walking around.  There were, and so I concluded that I would survive under those conditions.

But the heat in Miami is different.  It's not really a hot-on-your-skin type of heat so much as a heat that seeps inside of you and wraps your insides in its grip, a heat that makes your mind swim through it and your muscles work against it, a heat that dips into your core and elbows its way around and pushes out the comfort that used to reside there. And then, with the heat living in your insides, the moisture in the air surrounds you and holds the external heat close, wrapping you in a hot, soggy blanket. Don't worry, you can breathe through the blanket even though it seems that you can't.  Just look around... you'll see other humans doing it. If we're being completely honest, most of the time I actually love that blanket, but sometimes I'd like nothing more than to kick it off to one side of the bed.

Which brings us to the present moment. We are walking to the library, and as sweat drips from my forearm I recognize this moment as a Wish I Could Kick It Off one. I raise an eyebrow because I didn't even know my forearms could sweat so much to be dripping.  But dripping they are. Looking at me from the outside, you wouldn't really know I am feeling so uncomfortable.  There is still a bounce in my step and a smile across my face as I push the heavy stroller through the sand. It's beautiful here, you see.  And it's hard not to be happy when you're walking through a postcard. 

I can just make out the figures of my three older children, pedaling like mad through the sand. They're dripping, too. Of course, I can't see it, but I know it.  Carson will look like he's jumped into a swimming pool by the time I catch up to him - at some point I should probably apologize to him for passing along the DNA for my over-active sweat glands.  But not today.  Today he doesn't care.  Today he's focused on that bike of his, on pedaling as fast as he can to reach the swings at the park far enough before me to be able to play for a while before we continue on our journey to the library.  I have most of the library books with me in the bottom of the stroller, but I'm impressed that the kids can pedal so fast with the weight from the extra books hanging from the backpacks on their shoulders.

The podcast in my ears is interesting - it always is - because whether I'm in the mood for stimulating thoughts (TED radio hour), interesting stories (This American Life or The Moth), or humor (Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me), I have something to love.

I welcome the transition from sand to pavement once I get to the park, and passing the trees is one of my favorite things about the whole journey.  They offer little shade (and the shade offers little relief from the heat anyway), but the twisted trunks and waxy leaves are beautiful and interesting to look at.  As I come up to the play structure, I see the three children jumping from the swings and rushing to the slide to get in one last drop before joining me along the last leg of our journey.  I don't even have to slow down... they know the drill.  "Time to get moving!" I call over my shoulder.  Within a minute, they pedal past me again - this time keeping closer as we travel through the rest of the park and then along the paved beach path that leads us right to the library.

I take a few deep breaths of the clean beach air before stepping closer to the brick building.  I'm sure the brick was beautiful once.  The whole building must have been beautiful once.  But time has long since stolen that and now the smell of stale urine is almost overpowering as we get near.  Why the homeless people have chosen the parking lot as their place of relief when there is a beach, and several wide open spaces so near is a mystery to me.   

"I knew you were coming back!" the librarian said as we stepped, sweaty and dripping, into the air conditioned building.  I imagine entering into heaven might feel something like that someday.
"Yeah?" I questioned.
"Yep." She pointed to the rows of books along the top shelf of the holding area and continued, "Your shelf started filling up again." 

I don't like to spend much time in the library because it's small, and dark, and I have four children which for some reason makes the security guard uncomfortable enough to tail us.  I personally think he should tail the homeless people in the parking lot and invite them to come inside to use the actual toilet... but apparently he'd rather watch us.  So, in order to minimize time in the library, I've made a habit of putting all of our books on hold from the comfort of my own living room.  That way I can just step in, grab all 25 titles, check out, and be on my way.

I notice the mixture of good and bad in the air as we leave the library grounds.  It feels good to breathe air that is void of unpleasant smells, but I also have to accept the soggy blanket as it wraps itself around me once again.  The walk back is admittedly harder because we're tired from the mile and a half we've already come, but it's still wonderful because, postcard.  The children ride ahead again, this time loaded down with fresh books, to make it to the park before me and catch some time to read on the bench before I get there. I take my time on the way home. Breathing. Smelling. Listening. Feeling.

And as I finally approach their bench and see them lost in their stories, this is the moment that I find the most beautiful. 

Three sweaty kids sit reading in a park, surrounded by discarded backpacks and forgotten bikes. The scene shines a beam of light into a story of real adventure... one filled with bike rides through the sand, swinging through the air on a big, black swing, and being followed by a security guard in an old, run-down library.  But looking past that layer we see another one, one of borrowed adventure -  through the pages of a mystery, a comic, a fairy tale...

I hope they live lives that stories can be made from.  They will.  They are.  A life is a story.  But I hope they also make room for good books to enrich them, and that they always remember how they felt as they sat on a park bench, huffing from exercise, dripping in sweat, entirely absorbed in a story very different from the wonderful one they are living.

Parallel Parking

It all started with a sign that read: No Parking in Front of Gate.  This wasn't terrible news, though it did take away two or three of the coveted parking spaces along one of the quiet roads perpendicular to our apartment building. 

I say 'quiet' but I'm guessing that my definition of a quiet road is somewhat different than the normal definition, so perhaps I should, instead, say 'quiet-ish'. 

By contrast, the road that runs right in front of our apartment complex is awfully busy.  And when I say 'busy', I mean it's the only main road that runs north on this barrier island.  It has three lanes of one-way traffic, no right or left turning lanes, no shoulders, is heavily congested and moving fast.  It's rather a mess, in my opinion.  And so given the choice to parallel park along this crazy road or along one of the perpendicular quiet(ish) roads is an option that I was happy to discover I had.  And the quiet roads will win every time.  Even if I have to walk an extra block because of it.

So, the real trouble came a few weeks after that initial sign when the rest of the 'No Parking' signs showed up.  Soon after that, the trucks came.  And the tractors.  Then the big cranes and the dump trucks and the dirt sifters and the jackhammers.  They blocked off the entire right hand side of that wonderful parking road with big, plastic barriers filled with sand - now it is a highly inconvenient one-way, and parking there is absolutely illegal and impossible. They're building a new building across the street from us. 

And another one down the street that, in addition to swallowing up the other quiet(ish) roads, has increased the traffic and craziness of the main road as well... leaving us the only option of parking in madness.

Now, I've gotten pretty good at parallel parking this year and can generally slide the little car into some pretty tight spots.  But parallel parking along a quiet(ish) road doesn't feel like the same thing as parallel parking on a crazy road.  In fact, I think they should call it something else entirely - like 'anxiety parking', or maybe 'death parking'.

Aside from the sheer number of cars on this mad road, lets take a moment for me to give you a better idea about what the drivers, in general, are like around here.  

Example #1 - One night I mentioned to a new friend in the ward my observations about how crazy Miami drivers are.  "Oh yeah," he said, tossing his hand into the air like that was last years news.  "I always say that in America, teens are taught how to drive with their hands on the wheel in the 10 and 2 position, but in Miami they're taught how to drive with their hands in the 12 and Honk position."  We all threw our heads back and laughed because, truth.

Example #2 - The day after Christmas, Brian and I went to the mall to trade in some shoes (first mistake, don't go to the mall on the day after Christmas) and had to drive around the parking lot for 20 full minutes before finally finding a place to park.  I passed those 20 minutes counting the number of horn honks I heard. After 20 minutes I had counted 36 honks.  In one parking lot.  That's almost one every 30 seconds.  It's amazing really. 

Example #3 - Red lights.  Or, more specifically, red lights that have just turned green.  You have less than one second to get your wheels moving if you don't want to be honked at.  I've seriously been honked at (a handful of times) in the time it took me to lift my foot from the brake and onto the gas pedal, after watching the light turn green.  And, if you're driving a manual transmission, you better not even think about putting your car in neutral if you're in the front of the line, because you'll have three cars honking at you if you take the time to put your car in gear after the light turns green.  

Example #4 - Bumper to bumper traffic.  If you let more than 5 feet of road get between you and the stopped car in front of you?  HONK, HOOOONK!  Get a move on because, you know, moving those 5 feet will really help the cars behind you get wherever they're going faster. 

Examples #5 - Phantom honkers.  Much of the time I can't even tell who is honking from where.  The seventh car in line is just as likely as the second car to blast his horn if the car in first is taking too long to move through the intersection.  If someone behind you doesn't like that you need to turn left and consequently block their lane of traffic to do so, you will hear about it, and so will everyone around you... but since it's perfectly legal, it's not easy to always find the source. 

Example #6 - Need to change lanes?  If it's heavy traffic, you have a 5% chance of having a car actually let you in, and a 70% chance of being honked at as you force your way over.

All this to say: people don't really like it when you inconvenience them around here, and they're certainly not afraid to let you know about it. 

So parallel parking in the midst of these people on that road (which includes stopping in the middle of the lane and then r.e.v.e.r.s.i.n.g (!)) is a little ... nerve-wracking.  Thankfully I don't really drive the car all that much because I drive the van, but when I do I always feel a little twinge of hope that there will be a space big enough for me to just drive right into instead of having to *gulp* stop, and *double gulp* reverse. 

Well, one day recently ago I had no such luck.  Not only was the only available spot one that I would absolutely have to reverse into, it was one that was going to be a prettytightsqueeze.  I knew I had one shot.  Thankfully, people are actually quite patient for one (quick) try... but if you have to pull out and realign yourself?  Oh boy.  I feel bad for the people who I've watched try to parallel park with the guy behind them pushing on his horn without ceasing.  Like that's going to help. 

I put my blinker on and applied my brake three cars before the empty space to give the car behind me enough time to start slowing down or to change lanes if he wanted (which, apparently, was not the right choice because I got honked at right away).  After I was stopped in position I quickly put on my reverse lights in addition to my blinker to alert the fast-moving cars behind me of my intentions.  They got the message and I watched the cars form what reminded me of a blood clot... stopped, clogged, and slowly seeping into the other lane.  It was time for my one shot.  Talk about performance anxiety.

You guys.

You should have seen me.  I'm pretty sure it looked like one of those movies where the car just snaps into place like a rubber band.  Smooth, fast, I've-done-this-a-million-times like. I felt pret.t.y. awesome.  The spot fit my car like a slightly too big rubber glove... a little wiggle room, but nice and comfy.  18 inches to spare at the rear, 18 inches to spare at the head.

And no more honking.

Really, it was a thing of beauty... and then the next time I ran the car up onto the sidewalk and scared two pedestrians nearly to death.  But we won't talk about that one...

Falling In Line

Sometimes the wind whips around our building with such force that it's not very hard to exaggerate it into what I imagine hurricane winds might feel like (logically, I'm sure the winds we've felt are mere children compared to their parent winds, but still... it is true that children sometimes resemble their parents).  I'm sure the reason for this lies in a combination of 1) the buildings being so close together, 2) the buildings being so tall, and 3) the ocean breeze (which apparently has to do with the air temperature, water temperature, and land temperature all being different).  I bet if I were to really dive into thinking about it, I'd end up using the word 'vacuum' somewhere.

Anyway, the fact remains: sometimes the wind whips around our building with power.  Getting out of the heated pool on a day like that is not something that my children like - especially when we forget the towels (which we do all. the. time) - but on those days I correctly point out that if they would just stand still for about three minutes, the wind would dry them like a giant blow dryer.  Then they correctly point out that a blow dryer blows hot wind, and the wind that they are feeling on their wet skin is definitely not hot (even though it's not really cold either).  Honestly, I don't like getting out of the pool on those days, either... in fact I generally don't even get in the pool on very windy days because, getting out.

Which is why I was sitting on a pool chair on this particularly windy day.  I was sitting on a pool chair thinking about ice cream.  Not about eating ice cream, really, (though, how can you ever think about ice cream without eventually thinking about eating it?) but about how, when you stand at the machine to make yourself a soft-serve cone, you traditionally spiral the ice cream around and around and around an invisible core before making it come to a nice, pointy top.  I was thinking about this because in the moment the wind spiraled around me and pulled my hair into a nice, pointy top, I thought that I knew what it would feel like to be that invisible core - if the ice cream was actually wind instead.

So.  There we were in this wind when Brian suggested to the (very wet) kids that they all get out of the pool, hold hands along the edge, and fall backwards into the water with the goal of: don't bend anything.  I was sure he had lost the kids at Get Out Of The Pool, but Brian has a gift in disguising unpleasant things in pleasant things, so the children didn't even realize they were getting out of the pool.

But they were getting out of the pool, and then they were standing on the edge of the pool with their toes gripping the tile and their heels dangling above 5 feet of chlorinated water.  It was at this point that I grabbed my phone and set it to 'video' to capture the moment when they all fell backwards into the water and gave themselves matching belly-flop marks (which, in this case I suppose would be more correctly identified as back-flop marks).  As you might suspect, Miles, falling from his 3'11" frame, did not contract any back flop marks and Brian, falling from his 6'4" frame, did.

But I'm getting ahead of myself because I really just wanted to write one little thing about the actual fall.  

In addition to the fall being funny and, actually, quite graceful, there was a moment in it that caught in my heart and tugged on one of the strings in the web I've woven to catch these moments of beauty. 

In was the moment of no return.  The moment when their centers of gravity were far enough behind them that there was nowhere else to go but down into the water.  They all reacted differently.  Miles smiled, McKenzie held her breath and concentrated on keeping her body straight, Brian gave a little woah!, and Carson turned his head to lock his eyes onto Dad.  It was Carson that snagged me this time.  Hand in hand the four of them fell together, and Carson watched his dad.

He's getting older, you know.  More independent.  More confident.  He wasn't looking to Brian for courage or comfort, he was looking to Brian to share in friendship and fun.  Being a parent is awesome, I thought to myself.  Courage, comfort, friendship, fun - we play so many roles. 

There are so many ways we can touch and teach them.

And I'm so glad that fun is one of them.

Moment

The ceiling is flawless.  It is white, gently textured, and spans from wall to wall, corner to corner without a single break.  It has never been wired for electricity, or at least I doubt so, and this simple fact adds a quiet gentleness to the room because warm lamplight surrounds us.  The walls rise up to meet the ceiling and I wonder if they wish they could hide the hand prints and foot prints and other various smears that defile their white paint. I have tried to bathe them.  I have tried to wash away the dirt from their faces, but no matter how gently or harshly I scrub, the dirt stays and I find that the cheap paint runs down my arm and drips from my elbow instead.  If the walls are ashamed, they don't show it.  They stretch and reach and touch the edges of that flawless ceiling anyway, standing tall as if proud to display the marks of fun and childhood.  Maybe it's the ceiling that feels ashamed.

It's quiet in the room.  The two boys are curled in their bunk bed, Miles on top, Carson on bottom.  The extra mattress we brought for the girl remains forgotten and tucked under the bunk.  She is sprawled out on the floor.  She likes it there, believe it or not.  The white marble tile feels cold, hard, and unforgiving to my adult mind.  But to her, a simple quilt between the tile and her body provides warmth, comfort, softness and a childlike sense of overwhelming satisfaction.  The only sound in the room is my own voice and the occasional squeak of the rocking chair in which I sit.  It's different than the small, wooden rocking chair from the story I'm reading to the children.  My rocking chair is big and soft, fluffy even.  If I wanted, the back could recline to almost flat, and a footstool, covered in extra cotton and soft fabric, could rise like magic. I wonder what the characters in our story would think of my rocking chair.  Would it inspire Pa to make one just like it for Ma?  Maybe.  More likely, though, I think it would be Pa's wooden one that would inspire me.

My feet are curled up underneath me, the book resting gently in my lap.  The words from the story fill the air and create a living movie inside each of our heads.  It's a different movie for each of us and I feel that we are all relating to different characters.  The comments and expressions coming from McKenzie and Carson tell me that they are relating to the two children, Mary and Laura, respectively.  Of course, I relate to Ma.  I am captivated by how raising children in the 1800's is so similar to raising children today, and so remarkably different.  Miles, most likely, is relating to their trustworthy dog, Jack. 

Then all together and all at once, we laugh.  The sound bounces off the flawless ceiling and the dirty walls and rests in our ears.  The power of words.

The laughter dies down and I continue.  The movie plays in my head as the words form in my throat and sound in my ears and I am shaken by the beauty of it.  I am seeing everyday events.  I am reading about moments.  And they are remarkably beautiful.  The author's prose is captivating and I find myself interested in things as simple as a child licking a molasses candy stick.  I am interested in the moments of her life - and I realize that I want to be more present in the moments of my own.

The book closes and I slowly uncurl my feet from underneath me. "No!" the children protest.  "Is that the end of the chapter?"  I nod and smile and open my mouth to answer their next question before it's even spoken.  "Not another chapter tonight," I say.  But I open the book one last time to read the title of the next one out loud.  They groan at the dangling carrot and I almost hear them thinking, I can't wait for tomorrow night!  This makes me smile even wider and I kiss their faces goodnight.  They are interested in the moments of life, too.

Dream well, my children.  And tomorrow will be filled with beautiful moments of our own.  I will watch for them.  I will catch them and I will write them for you.  Someday you can read our own story, built from the moments of our life.