Deuces

Everything is so interesting to our 4 year old. Sometimes it wipes me out because I am not interested in turning the fan on and off and then playing with the switches to the fan and light and figuring out how the pull thingys on the ceiling fixture also turn things off and on. "Mommy this is BRILLIANT!" she says. "Mmhhhmmm" I offer. And she is interested in climbing on things and opening things and taking things out and taking things apart. And though I ask her not to climb on things and open things- from my blush and bronzers to doors and cupboards- and taking things out and apart- from batteries in much-relied on remotes and flashlights... She does, anyway.   And she is kind and focused and quite intent in her pursuits. She is smart and wild and funny, despite the ways it sometimes wipes me out.  Everything is so interesting to our 4 year old.

36 came faster than any other age.  Perhaps time was flying while having fun.  And as I told my girlfriends that it seemed to come fast, they all agreed that the years "after the milestones" are the most thought-provoking and often-times filled with the nagging existential life questions that aren't easily put to rest  But I rested then long enough to  celebrate my 36th- the eldest of the group- with champagne, amazing tapas, lively conversation, great advice (for me) and a renewed confidence in the importance of friendship (the decadent cupcakes were an added bonus). And 36 started right on cue, Thursday, at 4 a.m. with Lloyd bringing me a pie in bed topped with a singular, lit candle.  He sang to me, perhaps remembing that I really, really, feel a deep need to be sang "Happy Birthday" every year.  It is a throwback, perhaps, to all the annoyingly early mornings my father would rise and shine me with singing "Happy Birthday...

I am taking a breather. A moment to sit in bed with John Paul (that would be my bear- a gift from my 23rd birthday that I won't get rid of). I flip through an Elvis Presley song book that has been tucked away in a forgotten drawer, in a forgotten closet for a forgotten amount of time.  There is a forgotten CD inside that almost-forgotten book.  It was my dads.  I smiled as I happened upon it, intermixed with more stacks of papers begging to be shredded in my continual, albeit slow, movement to get rid of things in this house.  And in this very polished and clean home I sit as I take a moment to go through this songbook where papers with my dad's handwriting lie in the pages he had last left them.  He was last reading music from Mystery Train- the Elvis Presley version.  His beautiful, cursive handwritten lyrics and notes and empty photocopies of blank sheet music rest inside these bound pages. I forgot how beautiful my dad's handwriting was.  My handwr...

I  have a theory. My theory is that Lloyd buys an abundance of bananas so that they will go brown before they can be eaten in their brilliant yellow form.  And then. I have no choice but to bake bread. And I choose to bake on a day when I am out of sorts, inexplicably melancholy, or otherwise lost in my own thoughts that I can't articulate.  That day was today so I commandeered my co-chef As Sayler stirred and mixed in the pinches and teaspoons and dashes I felt lighter.  I talked through the important details of our baking endeavor.   I opened the mail where a delightful bridal shower invitation reminded me how full the half year ahead was going to be, and I felt lighter, still. 3 weddings, 3 showers, 3 bachelorettes (Lord, there had *better be 3 bachelorettes!) and holidays to spend with family and friends. A summer to catch up with friends, to peruse neighborhoods and homes and prepare for a move... I think.  I pulled myself from whatever had weighed hea...