I mean to get up at 5:30. To go for a run and get some work done before the kids woke. But I keep re-closing my eyelids until 6:40 and then I have 23 minutes – just enough time to make a coffee and sit to think about what I want to do before my kids wake – when Ruby stammers down the hallway, river-water-bedhead ablaze and ready.
So, instead we dive into bagels with cream cheese and again when big sister wakes. I sew and email around pinning capes over shoulders and reading books.
Mama can we design and make this dress today? I think it will be really easy!
Hold on, babe. I have to finish this and then I really want to see your design.
Mama I am STARVING. I have never been this hungry in my life. I know I had two breakfasts but I think I have two stomachs and this one is empty.
Ok, love. I’m on it. One sec.
Mom! Look! We made a list of all the things we want to do with you today and tomorrow. But if we get to them in three days, that’d be alright too.
I love this list and I love you. I hope we get to so much of this.
Mama my sister jumped right on my heart! I seriously feel like my actual heart is bruised! Or maybe even broken! And it hurt my feelings!
Come here and snuggle and then we’ll go talk with your sister.
Mama, I need your help finding that pink sock with the kind of white stripey things. I saw it last winter and I really need it right now.
I don’t know that sock. I will keep a look out. Can I help you find another for now?
Moooooooooom! You said you’d make more food! Aaaaaaahhhhhhh…
On it. Coming.
The morning is demanding of me from all fronts. This is the meat and potatoes of work-from-home challenge for me. My kids know I have to get things done but my work is so nebulous to them. Their dad leaves and comes home; his work is a romanticized mystery. I am “always working” as Margot recently noticed out loud. After I pulled the dagger out of my heart, I over-explained to her that my work is at home and allows flexibility and freedom and I choose this to be with her and her sister more. She got it. So did I.
This morning, I work and mother as best I can. And at noon I say,
What do you want to do? Let’s go.
We decide on a picnic of almonds, apples, graham crackers, goldfish and jolly ranchers. And picking huckleberries.
We unravel as we drive north. Cake plays on the radio and I know all the words. My kids are awestruck.
Windows down, from the valley floor brown to high alpine green.
I need your arms around me,
I need to feel your touch,
I need your understanding, I need your love,
So much
I should get the oil changed, I think. And rotate the tires.
So mom we turn left and then right? And up? Right again? This looks so different without snow. It makes me kind of sad. I miss winter.
We turn corners, more corners over washboard, a dust cloud behind our aging car. My kids squeal with joy. I smile big. Ten and two.
I need to remember to order envelopes when I get home. I need to pick peas, prep that order and haul recycling.
Mama do you know what I don’t like about fire and death?
What’s that?
They can both happen at any moment. I mean I could die right now.
Well, yes.
But that would be, like, super rare.
Yes. (long pause)
Anyway, I wonder what the rarest pokemon card is?
You tell me that you love me so,
You tell me that you care,
But when I need you,
Baby,
You’re never there
We pass one car. He waves. I love that people always, always wave on Montana back roads.
On the phone,
Long long distance,
Always through such,
Strong resistance
Mom, how do you know these words to this song? I’ve never heard it. Can you turn it down?
When first you say,
You’re too busy,
I wonder if you,
Even miss me
Mom you know what I don’t get? If you open your mouth there’s no blood pouring out. But if you cut yourself, blood pours out. Also, what exactly is a tornado?
Never there,
You’re never there,
You’re never, ever,
Ever ever there,
I suddenly wish for the Cake album I gave to Goodwill 10 years ago. And Weezer. If you want to destroy my sweater, hold this thread as I walk away. And Violent Femmes. Let me go on like a blister in the sun.
Things lift as we ascend. Windows down, sucking air into the metal container that carries us up and into.
Mama, can I look through your purse? Do you have a book in there or something? I want to find something that confuses me. I like figuring stuff out.
We park and walk. And walk. And enter. I tell my daughters we are foragers. I define foraging and they make up songs about foraging as we wander in search of the little navy blue berries.
Margot. Don’t move. Don’t talk. And then butterflies and crickets will come to us.
We find them on a slippery shale slope. We each fall at different times, giving the other two an opportunity to stand strong and help the fallen upright. The girls wear leotards, mismatched socks and side ponytails. With skirts in my back pack, *just in case*.
We spend hours up there, wandering and wondering and collecting. Foraging. Ruby proudly, carefully collects all her berries in her basket. Margot ditches her basket and elects to eat as she goes. Ruby falls and spills the whole lot. We help her pick them up but they’re dusty and busted open. She’s heartbroken. And Margot bemoans her own empty basket.
Pride and anguish are cousins.
Margot says she’s happy to have eaten her share because she feels good and can’t spill. Ruby says she’s ok with what we couldn’t pick up because maybe her berry seeds will grow more huckleberries next year.
And besides, she says. We are all just covered in worm poop anyways.
16 Comments
Perfect soundtrack to this blog post. 🙂 I love all of that music and now it is in my head and also my heart. Thanks for sharing some snippets of your day.
You are the Montana, 2015 version of Blueberries for Sal and don’t forget to throw in some Indigo Girls, with the windows down and your voice turned up… The Hardest to Learn is the Least Complicated.
Loved this comment as much as I loved this exquisitely captured extraordinarily normal day in the life of Nici and her girls.
“Mom you know what I don’t get? If you open your mouth there’s no blood pouring out. But if you cut yourself, blood pours out. Also, what exactly is a tornado?”
Your whole day’s conversation could have gone on at my house, but with boys. But this line sounds right out of my oldest’s mouth.
I love kids. xo
OH how I love you Burb! This is JUST what I needed this morning! My granddaughters and you always make me smile!
I too love this, “We pass one car. He waves. I love that people always, always wave on Montana back roads”
xoxo, your Mama
You transported me. I loved the read and the huckleberries. We do not get them in the foothills of CO. Summer takes our jobs to the maximum whatever they may be. I am trying to savor every challenging moment. I am a dictator, a democratic leader and a peacekeeper. I am a housekeeper, a cook and a chauffeur. I am a teacher, a coach and a cheerleader. I am a personal shopper, a financier and a vacation planner. I am friend, an enemy and a negotiator. This post I can relate to and it is also a great reminder that all of it will wait until after the hike. Thanks for sharing.
cake. weezer. violent femmes.
i’m going to go create new pandora stations right now!
i love this day. you are an inspiration.
i also love that people in montana (and colorado, wyoming, idaho, and oregon…the places i have driven backroads) always wave.
This post took me back. No huckleberries in SC but I lived in bathing suits and leotards all summer and, oh man, did I love a side-ponytail. I love the way you recount your girls’ conversations.
Good lord Women! So much to relate to. I love this. So much.
So awesome. We went huckleberry picking in Swan Valley last week, and my husband played Cake for the kids on the way there. My daughter hiked in her swimsuit, as we went on a trail leading to a lake. She, too, decided to eat and not gather, while her brother jealously guarded every single berry.
I can pretty much guarantee that one of your beautiful girls are going to write a book one day about their beautiful childhood. And I can’t wait to read it! <3
This story conjured up the book Blueberries for Sal – especially the part about eating as you go. 🙂
This is the chant of every mom I know; the “I’ll be there in one second…I’m listening…I’ll help you in a minute…” chant. I try to not get too distracted by my social media stuff but sometimes it’s the only connection I have. I feel the same way about my husband’s job–he leaves and comes back (and he is the breadwinner and arguably works harder than me!), but my work doesn’t get to leave and so the interruptions and distractions are just part of the day. Jealous of your hucks!
Loved this post. I never comment, but today, as I’m reading this, none other than Weezer was playing on the radio, The Sweater Song. I have goosebumps!
Hi Nici! So much has changed since I first started reading your blog (in someone else’s house in Seattle, while the 3 year old I nannied for took a nap.) I mean, we’re friends now, you and me. Martinis, hot springs, late night talks, Obama elections. And your girls are so big now, I can’t believe it, for some reason I always expect Ruby to be a blue eyed baby, and it’s a start every time I open your blog and she’s this gorgeous lanky kid! And my life is so far away from that greenlake neighborhood where I first found you. Married and all. East Coast. But it’s funny, because I always have the same feeling when I’m reading your blog (today with coffee in my own house- my own house!) which is- I can’t wait. I can’t wait! First it was I can’t wait to have a toddler and a baby, and take them outside and explore and camp and read aloud . And now its- I can’t wait! To have to young kids, kids who read and play independently in the neighborhood, I can’t wait to ring the bell for dinner. I think I’ll always have such thoughts when I read your blog. Oh and also, I can’t wait to see y’all again soon.
Gosh I adore your writing. It always makes me feel so lucky to also live in a place that is expansive and wild. I’m not in New Zealand at the moment but your writing and photos make me excited to get home and to hopefully enjoy a similar kind of life with my own family one day. Thanks for sharing.