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Let’s go swimming.
March 22, 2016

Andy’s alarm goes off for a full minute. It takes him a while to reach his phone to turn off the chirping because he threw his back out. He moves slowly, forcing inhales through the pain. I offer to help and he declines. The rain taps the metal roof just above our dry heads as we lay under down and linen in the dark. The furnace kicks on.

He gets up first, he always does. I hear the click of our espresso machine button. I feel around the floor for the hoodie I took off last night. I walk gently down the hall, avoiding the three floorboards that creak. Andy tunes the radio to NPR. Another terrorist attack. In Brussels, he says.

The familiar words reach our ears. I hate that they are familiar. Isis. Extremist. Suicide bomber. 26 dead. 30 dead. Retaliation. War. Terror. Terrorist. Terrorism.

The rain lets up. I feel the wetness in my bones. The heaviness of rain sinking into soil. Washing the streets clean, adding volume to rivers, feeding gardens. Relentlessly nourishing. Pure love. Steadfast. The cool, clear, generous liquid that gives everything life. Water is the antonym to Terror.

Our daughters are still asleep. Andy leaves for work, kissing me on the forehead with a sigh. Be sure to change the radio station when the kids get up, he says. I nod. He climbs into his old work van and drives away.

I wake the girls, as I often do on school mornings. I spoon their warm, alive bodies. My fingers trace their faces. I coo and hum. I kiss their eyelids and ear lobes. For a moment I forget that moms are wailing 4753 miles away because their daughters were murdered. Just for a moment — and then that information pushes on my chest and my eyes fill with tears. Water pooling, spilling.

They shuffle down the hall, landing on all three squeaky boards. I make egg burritos while they check their hardboiled eggs that have been immersed in dye overnight. We all agree the yellow onion skin and red cabbage leaf dyes are superior. We decide we should dye more eggs. Ten thousand eggs! Piles of beautiful, colorful eggs!

I wonder what our world would look like without guns or bombs. I wish I could sit down and talk with a suicide bomber who believes killing people is his god’s will. I want to understand. How else will this change? I fantasize about a group of moms who conduct a terrorist intervention. Does that sound silly? What’s your idea? When we arrest terrorists they kill more people. When we bomb them back, they bomb more. What is this pushing us toward? What next?

Let’s go swimming. Naked bodies of every skin color and faith, floating in the cool current. We’d realize how little control we have. How beautiful it is to not know what happens when we die. To feel buoyant and blissed out. We’d inhale a deep breath and submerge and hear all the gods of all the religions telling us stop trying to dam the ancient canyons of another’s heart. They’d sing a lullaby about a great flood that sweeps us all up and sets us down on a mountain top to dry. The great flood sunk all the weapons and all the hate to the bottom of the deep, new sea. We are left with only each other. We listen and learn and love, unarmed.

Laying in bed with Ruby last night, she told me she missed being a baby. She feels sad when remembering nursing and being held all the time. She didn’t blink when she told me this, her eyes steady and serious. Like, if she concentrated on her words enough, if I understood enough — we could rewind time. I’d hold her tiny body to mine and she’d gulp milk from my body as she fell asleep.

I think about keeping my kids home from school today. If they even suggest it, I am ready to abandon work and spend our day playing memory and baking bread. If this life is to be so painful and short and so stunning and expansive, maybe I ought to do this differently. I daydream about walking deep into the woods with my family and living an intimate life, holding hands with the season’s quiver. I like that daydream and I know I am meant to do more. Maybe.

But my kids are excited for school. Margot ties her hair in low pigtails – one with a crooked black bow – and wears her favorite black leggings and talks about plans to finish the story she is writing about the dog named Ranger who is lost in China. She tucks her lunchbox into her polka dot backpack and jumps rope in the kitchen. Ruby is excited to get a new library book and to hand out clementines for snack. She wiggles her loose tooth with her tongue as she tries to master the double knot on her new sneakers.

The house is quiet after my daughters leave. I watch two magpies build a nest out our living room window. The male and female take turns flying away and returning with a single twig to tuck into their home. They’ve been at it for weeks. Driven by instinct and survival, they just keep building the nest as strong and warm and secure as they possibly can, tucked deep into the high branches of a blue spruce. They see the raccoons and hawks and me. They build it anyway.

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34 Comments


Heather H
March 22, 2016 at 1:44 PM

This was beautiful…. Thank you.



Catherine
March 22, 2016 at 1:56 PM

I’ve reread that last paragraph countless times now. Thank you for that. A good reminder.



Alison
March 22, 2016 at 1:56 PM

Beautiful thoughts and writing Nici. Brussels is too close to home for us living in Europe. Retribution and revenge and bombs feel so far from our normal. I think you’re onto something with mothers and terrorist interventions. I can’t help thinking that if the world were very much more just, with no large countries strong arming others as they do, and that everyone was beautifully loved by their parents, that people wouldn’t feel the same need to attack others. I don’t know how we make it happen. But I think mothers might be a key.



Madelyn
March 22, 2016 at 2:02 PM

My boyfriend and I are sick at home with colds today. We turned on NPR this morning and listened to the news coverage, horrified. He eventually turned it off. I agree, let’s all go swimming and let mamas run the world. Big hugs from NC.



Diana
March 22, 2016 at 2:08 PM

So beautifully written, you have an incredible way with words.



Shauna A.
March 22, 2016 at 2:29 PM

Quite possibly my favorite blog post you’ve ever written. Love these words. Thank you for sharing your heart and words with us today.



Barbara
March 22, 2016 at 3:08 PM

Oh if only the mamas could rule the world!!



Jenn
March 22, 2016 at 3:46 PM

Lovely post Nici . We don’t have the news on around our kids either , just better that way but my oldest does pay more attention , she just tuned 11 and told me the other day she wishes she was 5 or 6 and misses just being a little kid ???? . The end of your blog post is perfect .



Jamie Lincoln
March 22, 2016 at 4:05 PM

So moving and beautiful. Crying and smiling simultaneously.



Rhett
March 22, 2016 at 4:16 PM

Perfect, Nici. I feel the tightness in my chest loosening a bit after reading your words. xo



may
March 22, 2016 at 6:08 PM

“If this life is to be so painful and short and so stunning and expansive, maybe I ought to do this differently.”
I’ve read and re-read this sentence multiple times now. Just what I was wondering as I dropped my babies off at school and drove away from them to the job I love. Maybe the fact that I don’t choose to do things differently in spite of it all is as good a clue as I’m going to get that we’re doing all right. I really appreciated this essay. Thank you.



Sarah
March 22, 2016 at 7:10 PM

Beautiful….the last paragraph brought me to tears! It’s so true….I will build my nest anyways. Hugs!



Celia
March 22, 2016 at 10:28 PM

Thank you. Reminder that the mundane that turns into the thoughtful, the expected that becomes poignant is what we are, is where we should remain.



Sally
March 22, 2016 at 10:49 PM

Poetry that fully captures the emotions of the day, while the most of us dawn silent hollow stares. Thank you for the words I couldn’t surface.



Cynthia
March 23, 2016 at 6:50 AM

The awesome thing is, is that you are doing it differently. And that is why we love you and learn from you. Xo



becky
March 23, 2016 at 6:52 AM

soul touching this morning in NC – thank you



Rachel
March 23, 2016 at 7:00 AM

This. This is it. The stripping bare and swimming together, acknowledging the fear that comes from lack of control, letting it go to be buoyed by the water, seeing that we’re all in it together, that we won’t drown if we just reach out. What an analogy.

I’m not a strong swimmer, and the water scares me. A lot. I’m a professor at a liberal arts college in New York City. After the attacks in Paris and now Brussels, security ramps up and the families of my Muslim students are targeted. At the same time, hostilities have been growing between Palestinian and Jewish students. There’s a lot of hate, but mostly it’s fear. So in my tiny classroom, we threw out the syllabus. We spent the lecture talking about the Islamic State and Belgium, about Israel and Palestine, about Syria and France, about Boko Haram and Nigeria. Our tiny classroom held Jews, Muslims, and Christians from the United States, France, Syria, Israel, Morocco, Russia and Algeria, and we talked about this brutal, heart wrenching stuff passionately and emotionally, but also respectfully and thoughtfully. My students offered me a powerful lesson: It IS possible to use words to heal and not destroy, to bridge divides instead of perpetuate hate, to find understanding and commonality in humanity when so much threatens to tear us apart. Love > fear.

Thanks, Nici.



Sarah
March 23, 2016 at 7:13 AM

Nici you are the most talented writer. Yes yes yes to everything you’ve said. I don’t want to always be scared, I don’t want my children to be scared to travel, to explore, to live. My husband went up to London today and I feel fearful.He was in one of the tube trains stuck behind a bombed train back in 2005. I didn’t know if he was okay for some time but he was. I like your idea. Mamas of the world unite! Love has to win in the end, doesn’t it? Big hugs to you xxx Sarah



Trbholt
March 23, 2016 at 7:26 AM

I felt your tears…they mixed with mine. Such beautiful writing here Burb, on so many levels. I wish we could go swimming and experience peace in the water.

I love you…



Dave
March 23, 2016 at 10:17 AM

Niki:
Another gem. Your writing is amazing and always touches my core. Oh, and don’t forget – when you finally publish that first book, I am still committed to buying 20 copies. Not just blowing smoke!



Dave
March 23, 2016 at 10:19 AM

I’ll eventually spell it Nici not Niki….I’m a bit slow on the uptake



Rachel @ 6512 and growing
March 23, 2016 at 10:51 AM

Mmmm
Ahhhh
Yessss



Pearlie Mae
March 23, 2016 at 11:16 AM

It’s why I am now a mermaid. I’ve given up on humans.



Kathleen
March 23, 2016 at 1:52 PM

Damn, that was good.



Lynette
March 23, 2016 at 7:26 PM

I have no words….except to say this is beautiful.

Lynette



Jennifer
March 23, 2016 at 11:44 PM

Words change worlds. Yours are exceptionally poignant and I so appreciate the peace that settles upon me after reading them. Thank you.



Jenny
March 24, 2016 at 8:18 AM

Just lovely Nici.
“They see the raccoons and hawks and me. They build it anyway.”
I think this says so much about the human experience. For sure the mama experience. It can be so gut wrenching at times, but we have to keep on going, keep showing up. Wear our hearts on our sleeves and send our babes out into the world.
Your writing is a gift. Thank you for sharing it.



Nadia
March 24, 2016 at 9:30 AM

This is the most honest and heartfelt response to the Brussels bombings that I have read. Thank you for sharing your beautiful words.



Tammie
March 24, 2016 at 10:00 AM

Just wondering, do you think it is strange that your little one and others in the few comments that I have read say their little ones want to be small again? My little grandson at 2 and 3 did NOT want to have a birthday if it meant he was going to get older. I found it sad then and still do! I said to him “I remember when I was growing up most little children could not wait to be bigger”. That didn’t matter to him, he in no way wanted to get bigger. He is exceptionally smart but I still wonder if these tiny little minds know much more than we do! What a sad and scary place these babies are having to grow up in if something doesn’t change fast! Love this post you wrote and pray it makes many think❤️



Katie Buttram
March 24, 2016 at 1:20 PM

Thank you for sharing your writing/soul. I appreciate it.



Burns
March 24, 2016 at 2:02 PM

Simply lovely. Thank you for sharing your talent of writing.



Stacy Perrou
March 24, 2016 at 2:39 PM

I hope in your life you write books. Pocket-sized ones, perhaps. Each their own art piece. Because I would buy all of them & display them at heart-level on my favorite bookshelf for all of my friends & loved ones.



Jess Townes
March 25, 2016 at 11:14 AM

Thank you for your lovely words here.
Each attack stings, and this one stung a little more acutely, as I worried about our close friends who live in Brussels, were traveling home just the day before in the same airport. I thought of their tiny boys, and the world they are inheriting. Then I remembered all the things they are inheriting – the art and music, the friendship and laughter, the food, the travel, the wonder.
We’re all still building, together.



Emily Smith
April 15, 2016 at 5:30 AM

“I wonder what our world would look like without guns or bombs. I wish I could sit down and talk with a suicide bomber who believes killing people is his god’s will. I want to understand. How else will this change?”

Gorgeous, poignant, and, to me, you hit the nail right on the head, Nici. Until our goal is UNDERSTANDING (on all sides), we will continue to live the cycle of fear and violence again and again. Until then, we can choose to practice love, understanding, and radical compassion in our own lives, hoping that the more we put that out in the world, the more it will come back around.

XXOO



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    I’m Nici (pronounced like Nikki) and I live in western Montana where I raise kids, vegetables and the roof.

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