Ghost lights

It is the kind of spring day that speaks softly, that makes promises of beauty that goes on forever, trees that keep on flourishing, a sinuous joy in the air, through the blossoms, in the bird sounds. We're going for a walk, because how could we not, walking boot and all. It's the first walk we've gone on in a while and the girls are besotted with all the life around them, mired happily in the details: tiny rocks, bugs that blend with the dirt and pavement, abandoned snail shells. Mad spots what Google tells me is a six spotted tiger beetle. "Look, Mama!" She shouts. "It's a ghost ant!" The only thing "ghost" related in her world right now is the Halloween pumpkin train with ghost passengers that we got from Target and is now serving as a nightlight in her room. It features brilliant green, purple and orange lights, and it really does look like a piece of magic in the dark. I love that in her world, the brilliant green of that beetle is equal to the magic of that light in her bedroom at night.

Listening: Kele Goodwin, "A Kiss for Your Eyes"

One beautiful thing I experienced today:

The man walking across the parking lot at Whole Foods. My daughters and I were still in the car, and I was mustering up the courage to get us out and into the suddenly blustery, chilly, overcast day. For the millionth time, I cursed the walking boot strapped to my right foot. That was about when the man walked in front of the car, wearing a bright blue, sheer, short-sleeved button up shirt, bright white shorts that reached maybe mid-thigh, sandals, a gold bracelet and a hot pink purse. It was just such a bright, incongruous vision in the cold gloom, and I thought, Well, if he can do it, so can I, and got us out of the car.

Listening: manipulator alligator, "nina simone"

Country/ambient/minimalist

One beautiful thing I experienced today:

Sending an e-mail I'd been putting off, making an important phone call, then stopping to stare out of my dining room windows for a bit. It's not raining yet, but the sky is heavy and there is stillness to the air that has turned everything green into gray. Everything is pulling downward, trying to root itself into the ground in the face of the looming storm. My children are sleeping and the street is quiet. Perfect.

Other:

Deciding to use the word "lovely" more often, and in an unironic way.

Listening: Brothers and Sisters Get Together, "magpie"

Also: The next time you say "forever," I will punch you in your face

Today my something beautiful will just have to be this quote by Neko Case, from an interview on Pitchfork, about having more than one tornado-related song on her new album.

"I was either going to have to go Less Tornado or More Tornado, and I decided that the ridiculous More Tornado might be kind of fun."

Listening: Neko Case, "People Got a Lotta Nerve"

Find somebody who believes in you

When my neighbor said to my daughter, "Go out of the street, child" when I was standing right there next to her, I turned to Mad and said, "Yeah, child," instead of turning to my neighbor and saying, "Thanks, mom."

In day of constant movement, all go go go, Violet cocked her head to the side at dinner, looked at me and said, "Hi mama," in that indescribably sweet voice of hers. "Hi hi hi." Mad's deep brown eyes, always.

My husband, knowing I had had one of those days, brought home tiramisu from La Madeleine.

Mothers, daughters, legacies. All the pain and anger and growth gnotted between them.

Listening: M. Ward, "Sad Sad Song"

Looking for something brighter

My achilles tendon has torn away from my heel bone and some other tendon did some straining, and some nerve between the two decided to get in on the action. I'm wearing one of those sexy walking boot/cast things.

My daughters are not happy girls lately, and really, is there anything more crushing than that? I don't think so. They're sick and whiny and emotional and generally dissatisfied. Though I know it's mostly not my fault, and mostly to do with the fact that they just don't feel good, it doesn't really stop the mommy guilt from striking up a parade in my head. Damn gloomy parade.

I'm constantly nagged with the feeling that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing at any given time, rather than just STOPPING for a second and realizing that everything is okay. I'm doing okay. Really.

::::

The old woman in the waiting room at the podiatrist's office. She was so small, thin, wearing a loose, faded dress, face marked with blotches and age spots. She was wearing a green shamrock pin even though St. Patrick's Day is over. Violet was toddling around the small room and kept coming back to the old woman, ducking down to peer at her face through the bars of her walker and smiling. "Hi hi hi," Violet said in her sweet voice, and the woman played along, ducking down to smile back at her, leaning forward to say hi back. Violet would walk away, come back, walk away, come back. Just before I got called into the room, Violet was standing near her again and reached for her shamrock. I pulled Violet away, apologizing, and the woman said in a quiet, sincere voice, "Your girls are beautiful."

One beautiful thing I experienced today:

Violet's few years next to the woman's many, and everything a returned greeting can stand for. The small, precious question of a lifetime in Violet's "hi," the echoing affirmation in the woman's reply.

Listening: Jacob Perkins and the Nobody, "Rico Symphony"

Your arching backs to the sun

One beautiful thing I experienced today:

Thorny branches jutting into blue sky that starts at my fingertips and ends at the pulse that thrives behind cloudless days.

About five minutes later, I sprained my ankle. Or something. I still can't walk on it.

Listening: Frontier Ruckus, "The Latter Days"

The business of sadness

One beautiful thing I experienced today:

Shadows, because of what they do to light in an overhang of trees. The light is softer, gentle, even in the beating heat. The green it illuminates is softer because of it; light that invites rest and reflection, shadows as sweet as an apology to silence.

Other:

Music that makes you see the world in movie frames: yellow caution tape torn away from a muddy, flooded trench; the obstinate scowl of a boy who doesn't want to turn around on the trail and follow his mother; the old woman in the green shirt with the word "slave" on the back; the thin slice of a bicycle tire in mud, the onion blossoms dotting the trail.

More:

Heat, sun on my shoulders because it reminds me what it feels like to be in the moment, to live, to enjoy.

Listening: Bon Iver, "Bracket, WI"

And I'm actually sore!

One beautiful thing I experienced today:

Running. I wasn't going to at first; my foot is still sore from straining a tendon there -- but when I put on my tennis shoes to get ready for a bike ride, I thought, "My feet feel okay," and so I went for it. The trail from the end of the cul de sac that connects to the park was thick with mud and blooming green everywhere; those weeds with sticky bristles and tiny drops of leaves covered the ground and trees were bursting with new buds. I navigated the mud carefully and hit the paved trail on the other side. And about twenty seconds after I started pounding the pavement, I felt the feeling I have been sorely missing the past three weeks, a sense of puzzles locking into place. Contentment. I am never content anymore, but then I was, despite the vague soreness in my foot. It was just too easy, the sun drenching the leaves above, rays of light making their way through the green, the cool, sweet air, even the burn of my lungs as I tried to figure out how to be a runner again. Passing the other trail-goers: the woman walking her tall brown poodle, her four kids running out in front of her, the old man on his bicycle. Following the guy in his white shirt and red shorts as he flew far in front of me.

I only went about half a mile. It was enough.

Listening: Winter Gloves, "Factories"

Silence is perfect sometimes

One beautiful thing I experienced today:

Six hours of quiet time at home, with no children and no husband and no work knocking around in my brain. That's right; I cleaned and listened to music and cleaned some more. There is such satisfaction in order and cleanliness, of everything in your life sorted just so, especially when it was particularly messy before. It's good, honest work, too: chipping dried squished blueberry, now purple-black, from the dining room floor, vacuuming crumbs, washing, drying and sorting all the laundry, getting rid of every last bit of trash.

Maybe it's not poetic, but it's the most content I've felt in quite some time.

Listening: He's My Brother, She's My Sister, "Tales That I Tell"

Purely a trick of the eyes

One beautiful thing I experienced today:

Rain falling thick and blending with the heavy gray skies and bleak markers of construction everywhere. It is as cold as it looks, the whole world blanketed in a wet shiver. It's a day for balling yourself up under covers and resting, but I was tucked into my car on the way to work. At a stoplight, I am in front and facing cars waiting at the light opposite me. In the car headlights, rain glances down on the street and bounces up, catching the light, creating a bright shimmer.

Other:

This afternoon, it is already dark enough for buildings to turn on their outside lights. One bank, bulky and brown, has several flood lights shining up to illuminate trees around the perimeter. The cold rain hits the hot bulbs and white steam billows from the lamps. It looks like magic is taking place inside, some great alchemy being performed.

Listening: Jessica Lea Mayfield, "Kiss Me Again"

Not really a writer

I'm a writer by trade, so technically, I get to call myself a writer.

I'm not a writer.

A writer is someone who experiences life and translates it on paper or screen or what have you. A writer is someone who feels; who observes the world and has interesting or unique things to say about it.

I used to be that.

Now I am a mom and a wife and an employee and someone who is constantly juggling and failing and flailing and mostly, way down underneath it all, completely miserable. I know why: I don't allow myself time for introspection. At least, the meaningful kind, where I sit and consider important things, make sense of things, find peace in things, enjoy beautiful things. I feel like I am perpetually in problem-solving mode.

No introspection means that my creative muscle has grown and weak and flabby. Enough of that. I was a writer, and I used to be a good one. I need to work this out, so here I go.

One beautiful thing I experienced today:

Coming home from picking up the girls from preschool, the sky is gray and heavy. The kind of pre-spring day that feels tangible. You could dip your fingers in these clouds, you could taste the wet air, smell the early buds popping from the bare branches above you. Our driveway is splattered from yesterday's painting activity; thick red strewn in a heavy spill up the cement, almost completely obscured by the thick layer of whatever bud the tree is casting down. Violet runs to it, touches the red, before scurrying off into the neighbor's yard.

Other:

When I close my eyes and consider what else stands out about this day, I only get a picture of the back of Violet's ankle, which is red and streaky in and around the chubby fold where her calf meets her foot, with a few little white bites scattered throughout. She must have been bitten by something, I think, but I didn't see it happen and she never complained about it.

Listening: I Read Her Journal, "Oh Maybelline"