what can i possibly write that will do any sort of justice to the humor, love, honesty and just plain awesomeness she throws out? feck.
i started to worry, to become self-aware in a way i'm not on my own blog, to judge myself before i even began.
then, one afternoon, i watched my daughter draw.
she alternately squats and sits smack dab in the middle of a large pad of art paper. every time she shifts her weight from one leg to the other, a tiny sumo wrestler with fat little feet with toenails that need trimming, the paper crunches and squeals and she looks at her father with eyes wide, surprised, awed. he asks her to pick a color. she keeps going for brown.
it started when she was about three months old. mother's day, last year. i put a marker in her chubby little hand, my fingers snug over hers, holding her arm in place. with my left hand, i moved the paper around and she drew her very first picture for her grandma. she didn't know what the hell she was doing. she just looked at me and i was beaming and smiling and squeaking about beauty as her saucer eyes followed mine and i kissed her neck folds.
this is art, sweet baby.
her father is an artist.
i like to make things. i like to sew. i like crafts. i like acting, although i stopped pursuing it as a way to make a living. i like to write.
but, her father?
her father is an artist.
try blue, he says.
oh! so pretty!
and she giggles.
she busies herself with taking the cap off and on the marker and shakes it at him when she can't do it by herself. she doesn't like asking for help.
here, he points, the paper popping and alive.she moves the tip of the marker across, over and over, with meaning. her first circle, her first polka dot, her first sunshine in a field of strawberries and kittens.
her world is colored by images i haven't yet deciphered and i watch, outside the lines. she has the remnants of her imagination smudged all over her skin and she touches the spots of color, a bit irritated that she didn't quite intend for that to get there, marveling that it is there all the same.
we frame her picture and hang it on the wall. every time i look at it i am reminded.
this is art, sweet baby.
my name is krista.
and i blog here.
enjoy your tropical sunshine, susannah.
but we miss you all the same.
Of course I chose an image of a perfect belly, mainly because I like how the sunlight is beaming down, the composition. But there are tons of bellies shown on the site, crepey, taut, jiggly, cheesy, tan, beautiful and oh dear. So as you peruse the stories, just know that wherever I am right now, on a perfect black sand beach at the edge of the jungle listening to the sawing of insects and the lull of the surf, I am desperately sucking in my gut and missing all of you. 
Last week I took Zoey with me to 
And here she is inexplicably feeding a baby deer with Willie Nelson and what I think is a girl with awesome feathered hair. Noma is the one on the far left, behind the fawn:
Noma is the newest addition to our little family. She is Zoey's imaginary friend. From what I gather, Noma is a butterfly person, larger than any of us. She has pink wings, black hair and pink eyes. In related news, my brother is a fucker because he told me he had an imaginary friend named Oma when he was little, and that Oma was also a butterfly. Then he emailed me all sorts of links to the 
But what is certain is that there is a film of nothing standing next to my daughter, a something to which she speaks. And while this nothing could be something: an angel with wings, an insect of the Lepidoptera order, a figure she invented to keep her company at play, I am trying very hard not to notice the name that Zoey gave her: Noma. No. Ma. 
Let me tell you--nothing sobers you up like walking into a dark room full of men having sex. Or standing next to a friend you've known since the second grade while a fat naked woman gets flogged right in front of you. Or backing up into a bar full of little salad dressing sides of lube and screaming like a girl when you realize your ponytail has dipped into one of them. Or suddenly realizing halfway down a hallway that there are holes in the wall on either side of you with penises poking out. Penii? (Me thinks the plural of penis is hell-to-the-no-effing-way.) Nothing sobers you up like a man asking if he can masturbate in front of you and not knowing what level of politesse the occassion calls for. No thank you? How does one demur to a man in ass-less chaps? Bonus points to anyone who knows the answer. The next morning my friends and I went out to get bagels, all of us quiet and hungover. The world was a different place suddenly, a place where the old man hands shaking at the newstand could have been out the night before with a ballgag in his mouth. We sat and ate our bagels, avoiding each other's eyes and trying not to think of the word schmear. And this, my friends, is how I got from a computer virus to a sex club, from Starbucks to the Power Exchange. Yes, this is how my mind works and at times I curse it, (like right now with the word schmear.) But most of the time it's good times here in Being Susannah Blogovich, rainbows and chocolate chips, flowers and Funyuns. And the best part? Bryan is now buying me my own laptop! For some odd reason, he no longer wants to share his with me. Happy Monday (indeed)!
But you know what? I give up. Again, blame it on Bob Dylan, but I'm 36. A mom. Make that a 36 year old mom who loves baked goods. From here on out it's just a slippery slope to a bathing suit with a flouncy floral skirt that one would not dare call a maillot, one crepey breast dripping out the side and nobody notices because nobody's looking. Bryan's going to be so stoked. Fucking Bob Dylan. 
This is a blog, after all. In person I may act all sheepish and modest, aw shucks, sshhh, sure, lil' ol' me. Yet everyday I sit here as if I have something to say. Which is in equal measure both mortifying and thrilling. I mean, check this out: I put my bras in the washer and dryer. Thrilling, right? I mean, I don't even fasten the hooks! Or place them into a lingerie bag! I don't use the gentle cycle! Who the fuck cares, right? And yet, there you are. You know. At the end of this day approximately one thousand people will know that I wash my bras in the regular ol' wash. (Oh, I know it's terribly gauche to mention readership numbers, but come one. Bish, plz. This is someone who does not use mild detergent.) So, yes. I am not important in the grand scheme of things. The state of my breasts does not determine pandemics or what Anderson Cooper does or does not say. If I exhale right now a leaf may fall to the ground in a Brazilian rainforest but that's about it. And yet here we are, this space, this blog, a tiny nook in a fathomless coded universe of exponential w's where I can say what I want as if it matters. I wash my bras right alongside my towels and love nothing more than to pick my nose in the dark of 3 o'clock in the morning. Life is good here. Thank you for coming. And then there's this: 
I thought the name of the street was prophetic. Rising Road. Our new address held the promise of good times with its 2 car garage and beautifully landscaped garden. Our guest house, Bryan joked about the inherited birdhouse in the back. I laughed. Of course! Our guest house!
And then at Christmas! The tree will go here! I remember turning around and around in the large empty living room after we had bought it, like a kid with a bag full of candy, cramming imaginary gumballs into my mouth already hungry for the next. And the front porch! Perfect for jack o'lanterns! When we unpacked our boxes in the kitchen, I just knew this was the house in which I would make my own soup.
This past weekend I packed up the Cuisinart somebody gave us for our wedding. Discard plastic film before using, the blades still in the box. It's funny how houses have personality, how they can define an era. I will always wonder what would have happened if we had just stayed in the funky Scenic house of my childhood. Surely my parents never would have gotten divorced? Because Stuyvesant-- Stuyvesant was a house divided, a 3 bedroom with separate pool house and black out curtains that sealed off the sunlight via a bone colored remote control. No family could have lived through Stuyvesant without falling apart.
But that was then, and this is now. My family. For the next 30 days we have no house keys. And I have to wonder how I will look back on these past few years. Remember when we lived on Rising Road? I might say to Bryan. Or to Zoey: Ah, yes, that was when you were little and we lived on Rising. I wonder what the conversation will be about, if she will remember it, the black and white linoleum kitchen floor, or the vintage wallpaper giraffe in her room. Maybe one day I will ask Zoey about her earliest memory, and she will surprise me by conjuring up the pyracanthus tree in the backyard. I remember how I used to push the berries into the wooden knots on the deck, and when she says that maybe I will remember the way the sun felt from that angle beneath the tree, the warm smell of yellow. Or maybe I won't. The thing is, with houses and time, you just don't know. You have to wait, and look back, just a quick glance and it all becomes clear. Yes, I will tell her, that was at the house on Rising, that was the house where we learned what was important. And grew stronger for it. At least that's what I hope. Now, from a day when I have no key on my keyring.
