Ruby and I flew to California last week where two of my best friends live. We were there to celebrate and hug…pedicures and champagne, childhood friends who are family and endless conversation, sleepless nights with Ruby and really good coffee.
Oh and speaking of sleepless nights and good coffee, I got up with Ruby and the sun last Friday, sleepily tossed wee monkey and my wallet in the sling and headed out into the fog and my fog for coffee. I decided a quad shot was in order. The coffee shop was closed so we walked up and down those insane San Fran hills and when I returned, I was without wallet. I retraced and thought good thoughts, I stopped early morning runners and wanderers to ask if they’d seen a turquoise wallet. I wrote my name and number down at various shops and I eventually returned without coffee to cancel credit cards and try to figure out the whole you-can’t-get-on-a-plane-without-id thing. My only hope was email because my business card was in my wallet…the nice, honest person would have to dig to find it…and Emily from the yoga studio did! So it was returned to me.
I wonder how many lives my lost wallet has because I have burned through several…last time it flew off the roof of my car and was run over by a semi truck. By the time my friends and I returned to gather, it had been taken. Turns out Gary from Big Timber collected my wallet confetti on I-90, googled my name, called my mom and met me at a gas station to return it all.
These things happen to me with regularity. I also spill liquid a lot, rarely know where my phone is and have crawled through every window in my home due to keys on the inside. And I pack at the last minute no matter what. Oh and I have missed four flights. These are my annoying but funny in hindsight (right?) idiosyncrasies.
Who knew this post would be so confessional?
Anyway, Cali was awesome and now we’re home (and I love my home). Ruby is crawling, Margot is a whole new kind of hilarious (she just said mama, first I am going to dance with my pink pants, undies and this orange thing on my bed. That’s a good idea! And then you get me a pink mookers that I can hold. I think it’s in the little, tiny goose. I want to be surprised, ok?) and my garden is growing.
While our family foursome was split in half, I felt weird. I had thoughts of our plane crashing, of Margot and Andy getting in a car accident. I don’t usually have nutty, nagging thoughts like this, but, really, since becoming a mama I have more than I’ve ever had.
When did I get so dark and creepy?
I think all of me stretched when I grew and birthed a person. My capacity for love and worry, happiness and despair. It’s all bigger and deeper. And so while my imagination can spin billowing tapestries of rainbows and tall flowers it can also spin over-starched tapestries of shadows and gnarled roots. There’s more to consider and more to imagine….read more in this week’s mama digs, stretch.
25 Comments
Go you for squeezing in some girlfriend time! I have the same kind of track record with those ‘important’ things; keys, phones, etc. The other day I drove off with our portable dvd player on the roof of my car and didn’t realize it until I saw it smashing to pieces in my rear-view mirror…this just days after dropping my camera down a cattle guard…I’m waiting for my good karma/luck to start kicking in!
What a relief! I’m not the only one who’s had visions of my child flying off the bridge and into the river! In my version, the bridge collapses and we’re in the river together, and I’m trying to figure out how to get the babe out of the Ergo.
I’m bummed we missed our cocktail time, but soon, friend.
And I’ll keep an eye on your wallet 😉
Nici, I can remember having totally irrational thoughts about being in large buildings and the possibility that a fire would break out when I was somewhere with mine – I never knew where that came from, but it was there. I was always keenly aware of the closest exit, ready to sprint! What was up with that?
Ya gotta love honest people who will go to great lengths to return your stuff! I remember being in Red Lodge earlier this year – we got out to have lunch at Bogart’s and make a pit stop at the candy shop afterwards. When we were walking back to the car, I saw something sitting on the windshield – low and behold it was my mom’s camera that she must have dropped while getting out of the car. It was still in the case, and still worked.
I have bad luck with all of my important belongings. I’ve lost my driver’s license numerous times and lose my keys on a daily basis. Ugh!
I am Queen of those nagging, travel thoughts. But I’ll happily share my throne with you. Or maybe you can be Queen and I’ll be Princess? Ruby would dig having a Princess Mama. (My Ruby, that is!)
Nici, your writing is like a song. Thank you for telling your stories and being so honest, and real. I’m curious about how motherhood changes women. This week I’m half way into Love in the Time of Colic. There are definitely changes! It is a delight to read the experience of someone who appreciates the positive change, like a deeper life, without denying the darker changes. Thanks again for sharing! I dig it!
I have those crazy morbid thoughts too. My husband took our two year old out onto the third floor balcony of his downtown Missoula office building earlier this summer. I still can’t get that image out of my head…all the what ifs. I can picture my husband leaning too far over or my daughter squirming out of his arms.
Oh……the worries of motherhood. You did indeed inherit your thoughts. I remember the first trip we took, on a plane for one week without you two…..I was a mess. I told my mother, (who came to take care of you), that I thought I should take you & your brother with us in case we crashed so you would not be without me. She told me that was the most selfish thing she had ever heard….but that’s how I felt. It may be “dark and creepy” to some but to me it is the overwhelming love between mother and child. The force of this kind of love is one to be reckoned with. xoxo
Hello from a Butte fan! I was just talking the other day about “I don’t know how some people whose blogs I read do it, between gardening, cooking, raising kids, writing, photography, multiple websites…” so your confessions make you a tidge more human to me. Still don’t know how you do it though!
Those thoughts can be so hard sometimes, do I listen, do I not…
Your little girl is beautiful.
Oh, Nici! That first pic! Amazing. Your posts lately have been like getting a “hit”. Like there’s this other “self” of me that dwells on the other part of the country. Beautiful. Your composition lately is flawless. Love. And the words. It all fits like the perfect s’more. xoxo
Reading this made me feel as though you had stolen a page of my journal that had blown in the wind somehow. Love the comparison of ‘stretching your whole self.’ 🙂
I too lose my wallet often. I can usually keep up with my phone but my wallet…well, I’ve had the same one for 10 years and I don’t get another one because I think somehow this one is hard wired to find me. And I’ve missed flights too! Three, I think. And I just told Seth not to put Eliza on his shoulders on the Higgins Bridge if that’s where he was going to be standing the morning of the marathon. And (last one!) I found an iPod in the park last night, put up a sign and the father of a very happy teenager came to pick it up this morning. It all comes round!
Hi Nici!~ I love these pics! Life through your lens, with your style, but in a different place!
I have always had the dark and creepy thoughts, even before kids. But these days I just stop them before they start. I don’t like how they make me feel, and I don’t think they lead anywhere fruitful. Here’s to the power of the mind! xo
Hi Nici!~ I love these pics! Life through your lens, with your style, but in a different place!
I have always had the dark and creepy thoughts, even before kids. But these days I just stop them before they start. I don’t like how they make me feel, and I don’t think they lead anywhere fruitful. Here’s to the power of the mind! xo
thanks for writing this, I too have the dark thoughts and go whoaaaaaaaaaaa, brain, hey what’s going on there … hehe
I think I have them more since I had kids too. It’s what the crazy intense love and protectiveness does to you.
Love your pictures!
Good to know I am not the only one heebing myself out! Sage! I’ve missed your presence!
lovely photos, as usual. and i know what you mean about never having such dark thoughts until becoming a mama. same for me, and i don’t ever say them out loud.
i still carry the same purse i got just before my little one was born (almost 5 years ago. i have lost it, and had it returned at least two times! so glad you got yours back. such a relief.
firstly – bigger and deeper, yes. secondly – in 2008 *alone* i missed six flights. i, seriously, am not even kidding. last year i did better, missing only two. i have yet to miss one this year, but, come to think of it, i don’t think i’ve flown yet…
one day i’ll learn?
Nici, missed you too! Although, I have been here, just not commenting. I have been sick, sick, sick, and tired…..but now I think it is safe to say, that this little human growing in me is going to keep growing! I am finally commiting my heart and soul. And feeling good about things. Finally. So yay! Yay for the hope of new life, and yay for the stretch it brings. xo
Shady! Oh how I love that there is someone out there who has me beat! HILARIOUS. People who don’t miss flights cannot wrap their mind around how this could happen…I totally get you sister.
Sage! What?! I didn’t know you were pregnant! WOW. Huge congrats, friend!
You described to beautifully how we Mothers (parents) change. I am not so sure it is the growing/birthing as much as it is the parenting and knowing that little person is totally dependant on us in order to reach their own independance. Having birthed on and adopted one, yes it is different,yet the same. Both change our lives dramatically. And I feel so blessed, both having them in my life and also becoming a more sensitive person as a result. You write so beautifully, keep on writing! Your tapestries are beautiful! Maybe it is the dark and creepy that make them all the more beautiful?
n,
i love the photos you took in the apt. my favorite has to be little r on the bed. it’s awesome to think a little bebe was sleeping in our bed (or not sleeping, as the case may be). so glad you had such a good time. so sad you didn’t get to your early morning foggy coffee that day.. but you DID get your wallet back!
Hello Woombie. We have the same violet shade and it cracks me up how Olive, too, tilts over when fully zipped inside. How awesome would it be to get a photo of both babes like that?
Good for you for the solo trip. It’s nice to know I’m not alone in my doomsday thoughts while I travel away from my sweet family. Crazy, I know.
xoxo