I'm home, I'm home, I'm home, I'm home!

I feel like there is an 8 or 9 year old girl, skipping inside me, singing.



"I'm home, I'm home, I'm home, I'm home!"



I knew it would be good to be back, good for my family to come home to Seattle. Good to leave San Diego, which just wasn't right for us.



But I honestly had no idea I'd be so HAPPY to be back here. Back in Seattle, cold & wet & all.



Every moment, every omen has been rich with blessing. Our families and friends opened arms and homes and hearts to us. We landed at our mid-wife's home, and slept under skylights that looked up at the stars. And then, almost immediately, we found our home.



A beautiful little house, on south Beacon Hill, with a great big yard just waiting for our gardens. I sit, right now, in my office, my own tiny office at the front of the house, with two huge windows and one little port-hole that all look out on trees and sky - I feel like I'm in a little boat. Especially today, a rainy old day.

Other signs of homecoming: my husband going right back to work. Me getting calls for part-time, contract work, for vocal coaching and grant-writing and teaching. Finn playing with friends and family.

And now, after a few weeks here, our house becomes our home, with furniture coming in, gifts from friends and Goodwill treasures, boxes getting unpacked for the first time in nearly two years - boxes we never even managed to open in California.

And even deeper, richer signs of homecoming on another level - I have been writing.

I have been writing.

I have been writing, for myself, for reading aloud, for others to read, just beginning to stretch muscles that have been dormant and quiet for so long. I have a novel starting. I have a new performance piece. Wanna hear part of it? It's about mom-ing. I actually just posted it on Facebook, and realized it belongs in a piece. I'm gonna post it here, right after this one.

Two posts in one day. Makes up for three weeks away.







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Home...

We are home.

In our midwife's beautiful old wood house, in Columbia City, Seattle, Washington.

It's cold and clear out, and so so quiet.

We had dinner at Tutta Bella, we walked there and back.

Earlier, Finn said "My friends are coming here today." And I tried to tell him it might be a few days before he got to see his friends. Then, about 30 minutes later, we looked out our window and Kenny said, "There's Tiffy." And there she was, Finn's Tiffy who watched him and loved him from 6 months old until we moved south 16 months ago. Walking by with 3 little ones. We went out to say hi; Finn hid behind me, then retreated to the safety of the front porch where he jumped up and down as high as he could, grinning.

We have an invitation to her potluck Thursday night, and an invitation to my sister-in-law's birthday dinner, too.

And an appointment to look at a house tomorrow. Maybe our new home. We'll see.

For now, this is a fine first home, this old wooden house where Kenny landed when he first arrived in Seattle nearly 20 years ago, where Finn spent his first 6 months playing with Isabelle when I worked, where Finn and I retreated during his first week of life when my blood pressure was high and they wanted me in the hospital, but we came here instead.

This is a birthing house.

It is the birth of our new life in Seattle. Our home.

Thanks be to God and Goddess, Higher Powers, Great Spirits, and the Mothers of us All. Thank You for Home.





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Whew...

Week one of solo parenting:

3 different babysitters for Finn, for 3 different nights/weekend days of work;
I-don't-know-how-many dvds conned out of said babysitters;
1 night of working with Finn, at auditions;
3 extra days of Extended Day Care for Finn at school;
at least 3 crying, angry, sad times while there;
at least 3 okay times;
maybe 1 or 2 actual happy times;
3 school lunches (all of them eaten, joyfully);
1 sobbing fit of my own in the car, in the middle of a particularly tough day;
2 after-school visits to the blissfully quiet, empty, serene Mission Trails Park;
a couple of work crises;
1 bad haircut (Finn's, not mine);
too many calls with Kenny to count.

How do people do this?

I guess things become a routine. I guess things get easier, or one gets used to the difficulty. At the end of the day yesterday, I had never been so exhausted.

Then last night I actually slept, well, and stayed in bed dozing and sleeping from Finn's 7:15am wake-up through his early morning playing and 1 dvd until 9:00 Praise-the-Lord am.

And today I didn't officially have to work, and I was rested, and Finn was rested, and we went at his pace, and we went nowhere near school, and we went to dance class together, and then he spent 90+ minutes playing in a park while I got to talk to my sister on the phone, and we came home and ate lunch, and we read some books, and he watched his favorite movie Ratatouille while I managed to do a load of laundry AND check work email AND write part of a grant.

Today was a very good day.

Kenny comes home October 30. I can't really think that far ahead, or I might die. Life at the moment is a strange balance of:

"Think ahead. Make a list. Write down everything. Check off one thing. Move on. Check off another...."

and

"Stop. Breathe. Be. Here. Now."

Tomorrow there is no schedule. Thank you, God. There are tasks - Salvation Army and the 99cent store to shop for 2 chairs and the last few props for the set for the tour, get the house in order for the week, maybe even surprise myself and make a meal or lunch or something AHEAD OF TIME.

Who am I?

Work is just plain hard work right now. It's probably two of the worst weeks of my work-year for Kenny to be gone. But it is what it is, and he is well. Working hard, earning money, in his beloved gray, calm, green Seattle. He stays in an aerie of a room, with windows that look on a gray lake and green trees and nothing (not a single car alarm, not a boombox, not a tire screech, not a circling helicopter) can be heard. He is blissful. Lonely, missing us, but happy to be where he is.

And my work is work. Everyone gets grumpy when a show gets toward tech, and we have a touring show heading towards tech, and a set with fabric that shrank while painting, and a van to rent, and blah blah blah. And there are still shows to be booked, and income is down, and grants are due, and there's another show to program and cast, OH, and we had auditions for FOUR different plays this week, and I'm late on writing contracts for the entire artistic staff, and there's a special event to worry about, and school residencies to program, and school residencies to sell, and I don't have to do all of the work but I have do a lot of it, and everyone else does too, and so everyone is cranky, and tired, and and and.

And I'm doing my part in 2 to 3 hour bursts in between drives to and from Finn's school and in between breakfast, lunch, and dinner prep, and trying to not be the yelling, mad, "no-one-wants-to-be-her" mother.

And Kenny will be home in 12 days. Which I prefer to think of as a week, and a little bit. Because that's what it is, really. He left early in the morning last Sunday, and we made it to here, Saturday night. So now all we have to do is that same week one more time! And then we have to do a few more days. Which will be easy!

I pray.






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First post, first step, all journeys begin...

here. Don't they?

So many moves, deaths and births in tandem, life cycles into Fall and the dying times while we, our family, me, head into the birth of a new life.

Sand Dollar, the name of this template. SD. Perfect. Sand, Dollars, Sunshine, San Diego await us.

While we pack up our lives, recycyle our lives, weigh and measure and remember our lives in Seattle.

A fitting place to write the first blog entry of the first blog I've ever had. In the same city that saw my first email address, first laptop.... first and only marriage, first and only child.

More to come. More posts, more movement, more words.

I LOVE words.