A ten-minute writing challenge, courtesy of Jena.

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Where to I start? 8:44 pm

Where do I start? This is a consistent, unanswered question in my life. (Oops, I hit backspace to delete some words and I am not supposed to be editing).

Where do I start this sentence? This train of thought, barreling like a true freight train through my brain with no intention of stopping for anything?

Where do I start with this meal? With the stack of oreos or the spinach salad? The salad but only because it gives me an excuse to be able to eat the oreos.

Where do I start cleaning my house when I can’t leave my children for more than 3 minutes? Do I start with sweeping the fluffs of dog hair consuming every corner? Do I drag the clean laundry – sitting crusty in my washer for 2 days – into the dryer or rewash them again? Do I attempt to organize the chaos of Kaia’s over-toyed room; a room with clothing spilling from each drawer like slobber on the face of a toddler? Do I load the crumb-smattered dishes from the sink into the dishwasher? If I start will I ever finish this one task?

Where do I start with potty-training? Gentle sleep “training”/coercion/bribing with Indigo? A tooth rushing routine with Kaia?

Where do I start to ensure I get to that prenatal appointment, to my friend’s home, to the sitter’s on time for once?

Where do I start to find the energy to love my body enough to exercise, eat healthy, meditate, and dance with bliss?

Where do I start finding the most gentle and real parts of me that can love my daughter’s into being kind and goofy and confident and vulnerable and and crazy but not too crazy and expressive but not screaming at the top of the lungs?

Where do I start opening my heart wider and wider so that love flows out, undammed and unleashed, into the hearts of others so very deserving? Where do I start letting go of fear of the truth, honest to-the-bone rawness of my humanity and spirit?

But truly, most importantly perhaps…where do I stop? 9:44 pm

We are home (announced with a big sigh of relief). Two weeks, two parties, and two houseguests later our home has officially been broken in. It fits us perfectly. Our home has sumptuous natural light, NO CARPET in the living areas (although the echo is quite irritating), and a divinely deep soaking tub in the master bedroom. We still have painting and decorating and unpacking to do, but that can all wait.

The girls transitioned well, save for Kaia waking up every morning just as the sun rises and climbing into our NEW KING-SIZED BED with us. I stare at the full-sized bed that had been our respite for four years and it may as well be a crib compared to this new, spacious bed. I am not even aware of another body (or three, except for the one intermittently attached to my boob) while snoozing.

At last we have a yard that is useful, designed with our kids in mind. And after hand-picking 50 plants, I finally have the native desert landscape I’ve dreamed of for years: sculptural ocotillo, fiery chuparosa, fragrant lavender and sage, aromatic creosote, dainty Mexican evening primrose, feathery deer grass and rye, spiky desert spoon agave, proud red yucca, tiny mesquite trees, large Palo Verde trees, and a smattering of other colorful and hardy specimen. I can barely wait for the blooming season and for the monsoon to continue to bring the parched desert some rain.

Even with fabulous help from friends, the move was tortuous. After coming down with a stomach bug, I had no energy to finish packing, cleaning, and moving the last few days. This meant that Jason took on the responsibility of cleaning the old rental home on the last evening of our lease.

A few days later, I retrieved some items from my trunk and noticed a pungent aroma. And then I saw it…

ME (hands on hips): Jason, I have to say that what I just saw outside in my van totally hurt my heart.

HIM (looking up from breaking down a box): What?

ME: My entire small – but sentimental - stash of frozen breast milk de-thawed and leaking in my trunk!

HIM (pausing with eyes wide): Um…that probably means…that your placenta is there too.

ME: WHAT?!? Are you effing kidding?

HIM: I…I was in such a hurry and unpacked the fridge and freezer and I think…I THINK I forgot to bring it inside. I think it’s in the same bag as the breast milk.

ME (rushing out the door): Oh god forbid…

I shuffled through a few items and then I noticed a freezer bag full of blood. My blood. I pulled it from the plastic grocery bag and held it up, the organ squishy and dripping. Nothing brings back the memory of childbirth more intensely than the actual smell of it. My eyes went back and forth between the 60 oz. of leaking breast milk and the gory looking body part sealed in a Ziploc. There in my van – thawing in the scorching desert heat for two days – was practically every bodily fluid from my body. Like a womb on wheels. Thank goodness I wasn’t pulled over by a cop; I would have hated trying to explain THAT.

Unable to trash it, I brought the placenta in and threw it into our new freezer. I still have no idea what I’m going to do with it.

The windows in my van were rolled down for days after that, trying to air out the funk of birth.

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Since the last birth story I’ve posted, I’ve attended 6 amazing births: three homebirths, three hospital births, only one little girl nestled in between all the boys. Up next: two more hospital births and two homebirths and then I have September, November, and December off to just be mama to my girls among the cool desert breeze of “winter”.

This work of mine, the work I hold so sacred and tenderly, is trying on my emotions and physical body. And yet I wouldn’t choose any other calling right now, any other way to be most connected to women, birth, and the cycle of life and transformation. I emerge always changed. Who knew the human spirit could be so pliable and open, able to move through experiences with new resolve and knowledge each time? Labor and birth is a powerful teacher. And I am stunned every single time I witness these mamas, in their trance-like states and “I can’t do this, I wanna die!” moments, become invincible before my eyes.

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How is it that I am mother to a one year old and a three year old?

Indigo, I believe, exists in part to remind me of the simple joys in life. She is goodness. She is light. She is giddy and goofy and kind. She has 6 teeth, is walking like she’s always known how, colors with markers and crayons, has little interest in listening to stories or “watching” TV, is our garbage disposal for just about any food, beats the congas, plays most contently outside, has yet to ever sleep more than 4 hours at a time at night, still nurses, laughs like it’s no one’s business, and sings her own little songs. She signs “bird”, “dog”, “bath”, “cat”, “more”, “eat”, and “all done”. She babbles, saying “Dada”, “Mama”, “Kaaaaai-a!”, “banana”, “all done”, and says - with pointed finger - an insistent “that, that, that!” when she wants something. A tough cookie compared to her sister, she puts up with Kaia’s pushing, grabbing, hitting and “hugs” (arms around the neck). She would be most happy if she could be eating, naked, outside, in a bathtub.

She suffers from the Curse of Many Nicknames, many of them incarnations of another: Go-zer, Teen Wolf, Wolfie, Goofenstuff, Goofenstein, Wolfenstein, Nutter Butter, Weensy, Weeny, Weenwolf, Go-zey, Tinytines, Little, Tinywines.

My Indigo is a symbol of our human place on this earth – both so tiny and significant at once. Important.

***************************************************************************************** Kaia is a pistol, a ragamuffin, a spitfire girl with the need to devour life down to the bone. She is finally showing interest in potty training and would wear her Lightning McQueen pajamas every single day - all day - if I allowed it (and really, why DON’T I allow it?). Her sharp memory and imaginative skills bowl me over with amazement every day. Her last bit of “little girl-ness” is hanging on, but now I witness only glimpses of it.

On her recent birthday, I snuggled into bed with her and shared her birth story. She listened intently, holding my hands and watching my mouth. Then I asked her questions, ones whose answers had not been revealed before in the birth story she’d heard many times.

Do you remember being in mama’s belly? YES

Was it warm or cold in mama’s belly? WARM

Was it light or dark in mama’s belly? DARK

Did you feel safe or scared in mama’s belly? SAFE

When you came out of mama’s belly was it dark or light in the room? LIGHT

Indeed, she had a 50/50 chance, but my heart swelled with the possibility that she recalled with primal knowledge her very first home, the place in which we shared blood and heartbeats.

And then she said to me:

“I didn’t want to come out…”

And I paused, bittersweet tears in my eyes, and said I understand, sweet pea. I really do.

Later, when my mother was visiting and asked her what it had sounded like in mama’s belly, she replied with the sound “Thump thump, thump thump, thump thump”. A beating heart.

Goldfish, Cookies, and a packet of oatmeal.  That’s what remains of the food in our pantry, the other boxes of half-empty pasta and two-year old rice packed away for a few days until the big move. 

Packing has gone – erhm – slowly.  Much slower than I ever had anticipated.  Since the time of my last post, I think I single-handedly packed one box and about 10 bags of clothing.   The last few days have been full of lovely friends trekking up here to assist in the effort, giggling at the ordinary items of mine that seem interesting to them (other people’s shit is always interesting, isn’t it?).  An unopened package of “Holiday Mint Lip Balm” picked up two years ago from the dollar rack.  A hand-painted glass ornament given as a gift from a boss that hasn’t seen the branch of a Christmas tree.  A pair of avocado stilettos.   Shoe after shoe, handbag after handbag.  A sitz bath (“get rid of this!”).

We move in two days.  I am oh so ready, yet haven’t processed the big emotion of leaving the home in which Kaia learned to walk and in which Indigo slipped from my womb into my husband’s waiting hands.  No, I am not prepared for that.

Just like I can’t figure out for the life of me what to do with Indigo’s placenta that’s been chillin (hardy har) in my freezer for a year.  I am not ready yet to plant it, to give up the last physical reminder (um, besides the 5+ lbs and muffin-top) of Indigo’s life within my body.  It’s a strange, deep, blissful attachment I have to that amazing organ with a knotted umbilicus.  And so, it will travel with us to the new house until I dream up a great plan for its use.

My posting will continue to be sporadic as I attempt to “organize” and unpack our new home.  We have more walls to paint, landscaping installation to oversee, floors to sweep, furniture to move. And a celebratory foxtrot to perform on the wide open expanse of the great room’s wood floor.

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We celebrated my sweet Indigo’s first birthday last Sunday, June 22.  I have been too overwhelmed with sleep deprivation and emotion to process my thoughts about her quickly-zooming first 12 months.  Words will come to me soon.  The gift of her wide-open heart and her scrunchy eyes and elfish giggle leave me remembering that love cures all.  I can ask for no more than what she offers freely:  pure magic.

That’s how I have to pack a house. Yesterday? Three boxes packed. It was progress. I had an assistant helping me out:

An hour later, another “assistant” rummaged through an unclosed box, flinging DVD’s from their cases “Ohhh, CARS! Mama, Dan Zaaaanes! Look, it’s Elmo!”

Shit, this is gonna be much harder than I anticipated. And so today, scanning the living room from my couch, I was overwhelmed with the task of packing with children under my feet and in my arms. Instead of lifting a finger, I snuggled into a comforter covered in dog hair, stuffing poking out through a rip in the fabric like a cottony hemorrhoid, and managed a 20 minute nap.

How do I think I’ll be able to effectively pack 11 years of life into cardboard boxes? I mean, really…I can never even manage to enjoy a perfectly steeped cup of steaming tea. Always it sits, forgotten, for half an hour before I recall even preparing it. Ashamed of my failed attempt at multi-tasking (yet again), I cannot pour it down the drain. It takes three gulps and I finagle a millimeter of a smile at the surprising bit of lukewarmness left in the mug.

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At one dollar over the opening bid, the home we’ve toured (twice), placed an offer on, did embarrassing weekly drive-bys in the minivan, waited 7 weeks to hear our offer was declined, and then finally followed to foreclosure is OURS. Purchased at public auction “on the courthouse steps” in this insane real estate market where one person’s terrible loss is our incredible gain. It was a bargain that we are still in shock over.

We’d scouted out an auction a week prior to “learn the trade” and thank the stars we did. I stayed home with the girls, too anxious to attend the auction, while Jason waited with a handful of investors and a spectator or two until one of the auctioneers opened the bidding.

“You want me to start with your property first?” she asked Jason.

“Sure!”

“ReconTrust property number xxxxxxxx on address in Anthem, AZ. Opening bid (dollar amount). You want to bid? It’s a dollar over if so.”

“Yes. “

“Okay, (dollar amount). Going once, going twice, sold to third party”.

Done. That easy. That quick. Surreal. The house is ours. For $13,000 less than the already low-ball original offer we made that was declined when the home was still on the market. Suckers!

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I still think it. I still believe that this house is going to POOF! magically turn me into a clean, organized, at ease mega-mom who cooks healthy meals and keeps the floors shiny. The Fly-Lady of mamahood. I believe it here (points to head). I don’t believe it here (points to heart).

It’s just a tract home here in the neighborhood. Our dreams of a custom green solar-paneled sustainable home on our acre of desert is on hold. Indefinitely. But, it’s a home that we no longer have to lease. A home in which we will finally hang family photos and mull over paint colors like The Good Life, Her Majesty, and Truffle (which could form a sentence in and of itself: The Good Life, Her Majesty, includes Truffles). And unseal boxes that have been in storage for four years.

What I’m going to love about the house: an extra bedroom, an office that is far from the great room so I don’t have to see the mess of computer equipment, a laundry room that you don’t have to pass through on your way from the garage, a big back yard (LOL, for Phoenix, okay?), a split floor plan, zoned A/C, a cheesy gas fireplace, granite countertops, and those amazing little pull-out drawers in every kitchen base cabinet.

What I’m supercalifragilistic about? Tile and wood floors everywhere except bedrooms. Which means bodily excretions of children and animals can be easily mopped up. Which means, perhaps, potty training Kaia can finally happen with true focus and without constant carpet scrubbing.

Is it weird to say that when we hunted for homes, one of the main aspects I looked for was that it would be comfortable, accommodating, and welcoming enough for my next child’s birth? Good light here, big enough room here for a birth tub there, rooms far enough apart so that kids can sleep through labor, roomy master bedroom, TILE FLOORS.

******************************************************************************************Ou Our lease here ends in June so we’ll be moving slowly. What will I miss about this house? Not much besides the transom windows, the glass blocks in the kitchen, the big bar top, the chucky solid, stained wood door, the double doors to the master.

And the room in which my daughter was born – curtains drawn - on that balmy summer morning almost one year ago.

Note to self: frozen placenta moves with us.