The Looking In Project

NOTE: Since developing this project, my state issued a Shelter in Place Mandate. I am not an essential worker, so I will not be conducting this project or making these pictures until the mandate is over. Please, I BEG of you, and I BEG of other photographers: STAY HOME. This project will wait. I am still booking sessions, with clients who understand their portrait will come eventually.

The Looking In project:

Local friends, consider sharing. I’m equally as excited for this as I am in need of income.

Im a Documentary Family Photographer. Already, I search for the intimate, the raw, the slightly morbid and funny truths about family life. And now, I will do it from the outside, Looking In.

I’m approaching the #FrontPorchProject with my signature haunted spin. From 6 feet away I’ll make portraits of your family in your yard, the street in front of your home, or shooting in through a window when it’s darker out.

Your portrait will be stylized, intentionally dramatic, and part of a series with other Asheville families. Prepare to own a piece of history. #thelookinginproject

$49

3 portraits (and outtakes, if they’re funny)

Delivered in a digital gallery. Full resolution- blow this up big and put it on your wall.

Help this full time photographer pay her bills when she has zero income.

www.wildandbrightphotography.com

(Small print: my family and I are taking social distancing extremely seriously. I am currently on day 10 of a self-imposed quarantine. I would never come closer to you than 6 feet. If you kindly request I come inside I will turn you down. I have epic zoom lenses.)

Day Six

Dear Olive,

You put a translucent water bead up your nose last night. If you ever decide to do that again (please do not do that again) I have two requests for you:

1. Wait until quarantine is over
2. Choose a colored bead, so that when you tip your head back and I look inside your nostril, I can actually see it.

All evening you were telling us there was something in your nose, but on account of being two and a half, you were light on specifics. I kept peering up there but I saw nothing. It was your dad, the guy who never approved of the water beads in the first place, who eventually put two and two together. I would have put you to bed with a bead in your brain and a reminder that ‘your body will work the booger out if it needs to.’

You saw the aftermath of how I tore the bathroom apart searching for the tweezers. Yes, bug, your mom has a lot of medicines in bags stored under the sink. That’s a story for another time. The tweezers were in the bottom of the last bin of stupid I don’t know what bathroom clutter that I emptied onto the floor. Of course.

One of my first memories is of sitting in front of my doll house and holding a tiny teacup in my hand, considering whether or not I should shove it up my nose. I was three. I shoved it up my nose. Your grandparents took me to the emergency room, where the doctor warned me to lie still or he would have to put me under. I lay still, and afterwards we went to Baskin Robbins and I had a cup of strawberry ice cream and your aunt Anna got to have an ice cream too, even though she hadn’t been through what I’d been through.

But this time, there would be no Emergency Room, no anesthesia, no ice cream; just me, getting it out or getting it wrong by pushing it further up your nose and setting us on a path for I don’t know what. I got it out.. And I felt for a moment like a hero, stoic and gritty like a war time surgeon, until you sneezed half a minute later and I realized it would have come out in the sneeze anyway.

Otherwise, day six of quarantine was this perfectly glorious day. I felt surges of joy and optimism that were based on nothing. But if for whatever reason my brain is offering those particular blends of chemicals, I’m going to enjoy them.

You enjoyed yourself today. You rolled around the yard on your bike, and helped me tear up the soil in the old gardens. You only asked for your friends once, in the morning. I can tell you are confused sometimes. I tell you the whole world is taking a break and everyone is home with their moms and dads. It’s not a lie, maybe a bit reductionist. It’s a cozy concept, and as I’m constantly telling you: your mom puts a high premium in coziness. But then I turn the radio on and you hear everything. I turn on a podcast (and another and another) and you hear everything. You’ve started asking, ‘mom? you sick?’ out of nowhere.

As evening rolled around, I left you with dad and went for a mountain bike ride in Bent Creek. Last time I did that, I was pregnant with you. I forgot what it’s like- it’s feels like flying, an endless roller coaster. I also forgot that I’m too short to put my bike on the stupid car top roof racks I bought seven years ago. It became a bloody fight - man vs. machine- and every time a car rolled through the parking lot I’d have to give up and put the bike down because I was embarrassed. And I couldn’t ask for help, because we can’t go near one another. I was triumphant, but for a while there I thought I was going to have to live in that parking lot.

It’s been a whole work week and it’s been okay, sometimes it’s been wonderful, but we have had novelty on our side. That will wear thin, kiddo, but maybe not for you. You are two. You are marveled by most things. And when it the excitement evaporates for me and is replaced by dread, fear, boredom, depression, grief- all things I see on the horizon, I promise to fake it.

But here’s the good news: after years and years of living with the illness I have yet to explain to you, your mom is really good at faking it.

When your aunt Anna and I were little, our dad would tuck us into our bunk beds, and every night he would say the same thing. He would tell one of us, you’re my pride and joy. And to the other- you’re the light of my life. My dad is old now, and I worry about him all of the time now. But that’s not the point here. The point is, you are now the light of my life. You are my pride and joy. You are also the light of your grandparents’ life, although you’ll have to share that position with Jan Matthew. You are an unending source of delight and sweetness in this most uncertain and frightening of times.

Glad you’re here.

Love,
Your mom

Day Five

Olive,

You are two and a half years old now. I do wonder at what point this life will become your memories. This time of isolation could stretch on for over a year, they’re saying. Will you have any recollection of everything that came before? The art museums, playgrounds, farms, the roadtrips up to Vermont to see your grandparents, playdates, hugs, high fives, libraries, bookstores, farmers markets, those times we wandered around downtown together holding hands just because we felt we’d ‘been in the house too long’ after a couple of slow hours?

No, of course not. You’re somewhere between a baby and a kid and you won’t remember. But all that time, a time that already feels like an explosion of stimulation in comparison, is somewhere inside your cells. That time built you. You’re a slender, sturdy, ringlet-headed blue eyed toddler, pristine, flawless, like something sculpted out of pearl. I live in constant wonder of you.

May Day

Back again in spring, and now Olive is a toddler and I’m 34 years old. Things in this country are complicated, although when it all shakes out maybe it’s not complex at all, rather, the bad guys are in charge and they’re breaking the rules (they’ve broken all the rules) and my nightmares oscillate between shooters and summers that are too hot to breathe and getting hotter, but the days are remarkably sweet. The world is a shaky scaly place but I spend all day with a rosy glow toddler who doesn’t know yet just how bad things are, and I do my best to exist with her, inside her calm and happy realm.

Yesterday, May Day, we spent an unexpected hour or two in the car, driving ten miles an hour down a state highway following an enormous lumbering house on wheels. But when we arrived at the farm that belongs to Abby and McGregor, it felt like paradise unfolded just enough to allow us entry. The toddlers, Olive and her best pal Sawyer (born only three days apart from one another) splashed in the creek and tromped through wildflowers glens, and Olive was so scared of the horse that she trembled in my arms, which is something I’ve never felt her do before. BYE-O NAY NAY she shouted as we stepped out of the pasture.

She’s always enthusiastic about saying goodbye to things that terrify her. (BYE-O, EASTER BUNNY!)

I’d love to go back now and try and cover a bit of where we’ve been since I last wrote. I had to stop writing here when my photography business, Wild & Bright Photography, became full time. There just wasn’t time to do both anymore. And I have to sleep a lot, too. While you may not believe this, on evenings when I’m not shooting late into the evening, I go to bed when Olive goes down at 7pm. So while I love the idea of catching up here after the household has gone to bed, the reality is if I’m not sleeping close to 11 hours a night, the fraught peace accord I’ve temporarily struck with my disease comes ripping down and everything goes to hell in a handbasket.

It’s a tenuous existence, but I manage.

Finally, a reminder to all my Vermont world that I’ll be in New England this summer, end of June and most of July, so if you’ve been dreaming of a Wild & Bright Session, send me a message through my site. I’ll get you in the books.

Easy

Sri asked me to write about my word choice in my last post. Easy. She said that’s not often a word associated with early parenthood. But it is the most fitting word for me. It may take me a little while to explain this.

Since early adulthood I’ve been a terrible sleeper. It’s a family curse. Every day I feel slightly unsettled, knowing I’ll have to face another long night. And another and another. It’s especially bad when I travel. I’ll often turn down opportunities to go somewhere, knowing it’s not worth the sleeplessness and the anxiety. When I was pregnant I went so many nights without sleep that I started screaming.

Then Olive was born and suddenly the sleeplessness had a purpose. Except that…..she actually slept. From 10pm to 6am each night. And I was so tired from all of it that I slept too. I dropped into sleep like a coin falling into a fountain. All of the night time anxiety went away in a breath.

Now she’s nearly a year old and sleeping alone, and I’m alone again too, the wretched insomnia is creeping back again.

It’s important to bare in mind where I was in the years leading up to Olive. Remember I was really sick. My whole life shrunk down to acheiving two goals:

1. don’t die

2. alleviate physical pain

And that was it. That’s not much. It doesn’t give you much to talk about at dinner parties. It didn’t matter, I didn’t go to many dinner parties during that period of my life. But you see what I’m trying to say here. Life was a dark closet that I sat inside.

Then Olive arrived. This big, healthy, serious baby with skin like a soft pearl. And as she grows I see more and more of who she is inside, she’s revealing herself like she’s a scratch ticket and I keep scratching away and learning that I won! I won! I won!

In the Beginning of Fall

I brought Olive to the farm today. It was a slow day at the farm. If you climbed up past the hurricane-wrecked corn maze and took a slight right, you could sit in the field and pretend that you were all alone, that maybe this land was your land and you were all alone on it.

It is very gratifying to show my almost one year old something for the first time. Last Friday it was peacocks and real live ducks. Today it was pigs and baby chicks. So maybe I’m only referring to farm animals, either way, it’s a wonderful thing. She watches and becomes very still.

Olive does this new thing where she wraps her arms around my neck and gently pats me on the back. Then she’ll rub her hand in a little circle and then go back to patting. It’s exactly what I do to her.

The only time I’m not with her is when I’m doing a photo shoot. That’s the only time. I didn’t anticipate it would be like that. I had no idea that I’d want to be around her all of the time. I probably should try and diversify just a little bit. I should exercise. I should leave her at home and go to the climbing gym. But that could set off a year’s worth of screaming pain inside my joints and bones, that’s the risk. When I feel that pain it’s hard to be alive.

I made tomato soup from Mark Bittman’s book and served it with a plate filled with quartered grilled cheese sandwiches. Olive had a bite of a grilled cheese dipped in soup and she lost her mind. She was bopping up and down in her seat and shouting for more before she even swallowed what was in her mouth. Dave and I tried not to laugh because we didn’t want her to choke. This kid chokes a lot. I ended up having to feed her so much and so fast that I barely got to eat my own bowl.

Her birthday is right around the corner. And then we’re flying to Arkansas to see Ammen and Steph and their girls. I miss Ammen and Steph. I miss Lisa. I miss them terribly.

I want Kavanaugh to go away. Yesterday I was at a birthday party a few blocks away and there was a tiny pinata. It was really miniature, so small that it was almost impossible to hit with a blindfold on. We were getting more and more aggressive as we took whacks at it. “KAVANAUGH!!” We screamed. “LIFETIME APPOINTMENT!!”

Eventually it burst and rolos went everywhere.

Olive really took me by surprise; the impact she’s had on my life over the past year. She’s made everything easier. She’s made everything about my life so much easier.

Flying Cloud

Let's count this as our very first weekend back in Asheville, as I was hurting too much after the plane ride to do much of anything on our actual first weekend. David's been working long days getting ready for his school year to begin, so I nudged him out the door and into the river on Saturday, and Olive and I drove out towards the Hickory Nut Gorge. We stopped at Flying Cloud Farm, one of my favorite roadside attractions around here. Whitney and I used to go together when we were sick and needed to get out of the house and cheer ourselves up. Which, as you might imagine, was often. 

What a nice day it was. Like something out of a children's book, hot and blue. My doctor has tripled my gabapentin and put me back on oxcarbazepine and for the first time in a while I could move around without too much pain, and whatever discomfort I did feel in my bones was softened by the sunlight and by holding Olive in my arms. We picked a jarful of bright Zinnias.  

Later on that evening we lay a blanket down on the grass at New Belgium Brewery with our friend Andrew and just enjoyed being amongst all the people. I drank a sour cherry beer which was tart and ruby red, and then on the way home we stopped at the Hop and ordered ice cream sundaes. Dave and I were so proud of ourselves for eating dinner at home instead of from a food truck at the brewery that we needed to treat ourselves in every manner possible. 
 

As part of my DNRS program I'm making a list of the tiny tiny specks of experiences that happen throughout the day that I find pleasing and satisfying. So far that list includes:

-zipping up Olive's pajamas with the one long zipper that goes all the way from the bottom of her toe to her neckline.  

-listening to the Judge John Hodgman podcast as I wipe glasses after they've been washed

- pulling out of the driveway after I finally have us all packed up and buckled in, even if we're only headed to the grocery store half a mile away, which is usually where we're headed.

- arranging her books by color even though she'll just come throw them off the shelves so it's a complete waste of time and a total procrastination but nonetheless, I like it. 

That's all I can think of for now. 

One of Dave's coworkers, Frazier, boards horses on his beautiful property out in the countryside. I had this idea that Olive would like to pat the nose of the horse so I instructed Frazier to invite us over for dinner, which he did. So on Sunday we drove East and found ourselves standing in the paddock with the world's meanest horse. 

I'll be honest with you, I don't trust horses, I never have. And I never will. Olive wanted nothing to do with the horse but Hometeam did, she slipped under the fence and tried to herd the beast. The beast reared up on its hind legs and I thought I was about to watch Hometeam pop like a grape. We scampered back over the fence and later on a friend of mine saw my picture and told me it wasn't a horse at all, it was a pony, and all ponies are mean. 

Regardless, dinner was delicious. 

Then Sunday rolled over and Monday was upon us, and David left for the whole week. So it's just Olive and Hometeam and I rolling around, making a mess of things. I never could have anticipated how much I truly enjoy her company. I mean when she goes down for a nap I actually miss her, I'm such a damn sap. I mean how could I not? Her stern little face. The air of serious concentration she adopts when she chews on a cracker. She is the funniest, shiniest, smoothest little pearl. That's why I write up these blog posts, even ones like this where there's nothing really to say, but in writing I get to relive our days, essentially doubling the time I get to spend with her.

Quiet Insects

The program I've been attempting all summer to heal my limbic system is called the Dynamic Neural Retraining System. I will refer to it here as DNRS. It requires you to deeply concentrate on good memories in order to flood your brain with happy, calming hormones. When I do my DNRS rounds I often think about the White River in Hartford, just down the road from the house I grew up in. I swam there many evenings this summer. The water is so warm and clear you barely know you're underwater; instead, it feels as if you're being gently suspended. 

I also think about my friend Joanna's house in Barnard. It's a farmhouse right on the road, the all houses used to be built one hundred years ago. It's such a peaceful place, with a big garden and a deep creek winding through the back yard. I would go over this summer and we'd put all three kids into the creek and try and talk over their noise. We've been friends for over twenty years. I took this picture of her daughter about a week before I left.

John Hodgman says that Nostalgia is the most toxic impulse, and I know he's right. But that doesn't stop me. 

A few days after I came back to Asheville, Dave and I went out to dinner with our friends Francie and Matthew, who live down the street. As we were leaving their house, we noticed a slew of police cars and an ambulance gathered out on the street. There were no lights and sirens and nobody seemed to be in any hurry. There was also a truck marked Forensics. Now I know that a Forensics Truck means that someone has died, but at that moment I wasn't really sure. I thought maybe someone had committed a crime. And maybe they had. 

We stood their watching for a few minutes, until we saw two EMTS making their way up the steps to the front door pushing a stretcher. One of them was unfolding a black bag. Then I told Francie and Matthew that I wanted to keep walking because if I saw the bag on its return trip out of the house I'd probably lose my appetite, and I really needed to be able to eat. 

Today, just three days later, I saw the Forensics Truck outside another neighbor's house. I wonder if people are overdosing. If you want to read an excellent book about the opiate crisis, I recommend Dreamland. You won't be able to put it down. I heard an interview on Fresh Air with the author of another book on the same subject, called Dopesick, and I think I'll start it tonight.

Part of DNRS is restricting yourself to only feel-good movies and books, and really cutting back on any news that makes you feel stress. Granted you wont catch me watching any scary movies or harrowing TV shows, but I have a hard time putting limits on what I read and what I listen to. It might do me good to ease up on the Political podcasts but I feel like if you're not listening to them all the time there's no way you'll be able to keep up or have any idea what's actually happening right now. 

I was listening to one in the park today as I pushed Olive in the swings, which she loved. If anyone else had been at the park I would have turned it off. I'd never let a device or a radio blair if anyone was in earshot, that would be highly inconsiderate. I wish my neighbors held themselves to such standards but they do not. 

Which is why it can be very difficult, at times, to transport myself back to the White River, or to Joanna's home on the quiet road, both situated between still green fields where fireflies cut diamond paths in the summertime, never making a sound.  

This is what I was meant to do! This is me!

I was editing photos tonight at my kitchen table and I came across this image of a little boy from one of my last shoots in Vermont. It actually made me laugh out loud in delight. I love the shape of his head, his little neck, his stance. There was a storm that afternoon and it lingered on until sunset, but I know enough now not to cancel shoots, but to sit back and wait out the weather and the light until it gives me what I want. It doesn't always work out but it's worth taking the risk. 

Of course this photo, taken in East Barnard Vermont, makes me very very homesick. 

Wild & Bright Photography

Today was a good day. I saw my doctor. I brought Olive along and made the mistake of bringing a wooden stacking toy which kept crashing onto the floor as she played, making a big racket. Next time I'll have to bring something plastic or plush. My doctor is completely captivated by Olive. She takes me very seriously and she will do anything she can to help me

Last night I typed out some details about my current pain crisis and sent it to her as a document. That way I don't have to say certain things out loud. They sound overly dramatic and I don't like  talking about them, I feel almost disingenuous which is strange because it's all true. I still don't identify as a chronic pain patient even though I am one. Then again, I'm not sure anyone who hurts all the time thinks, "This is what I was meant to do! This is me!" 

We talked about weaning Olive so that I could have more options for medicine. I asked my doctor if I could at least nurse Olive until she is one and she said, "It's up to you. Everything is up to you, you know."

This evening David and I fought over who got to snuggle Olive to sleep.  We were sort of joking but we also both really wanted to. I held her for a little while but then handed her over, it's only fair because Dave works outside the home all day and misses her. I try and tell him that during the day she's just running around and I never get to just sit down and hold onto her, which is true, but it still sounded thin. She's only ten months old and she's wearing 18 month old pajamas, the only pair we could find amongst the hand-me-downs in the basement that came close to fitting her. It's a pink zip-up onesie with a white mouse on it. It's the sort of thing that looks really ugly and then you put her in it and realize it's cute. 

We took a bath yesterday but I left my clothes on, which somehow seemed easier at the time. It turns out it wasn't the right choice, really. 

This afternoon I had to email myself a few photos, and a second later I saw that I had a new email and I felt excited. But of course it was from me, I'd just sent it half a second later and already forgot. 

I am always lying

We are back in the Southeast after nine long green weeks in Vermont. Olive has become this funny slender bean pole of a person. She falls asleep on her own, tucked up in child's pose with her little butt up in the air. I'm obsessed with how cute she looks wearing just a diaper. She has four teeth, the top two look enormous and comical. She can speak and walk, although that's a bit misleading when I say it like that. It's more honest to say: She can say words and take steps. When she feels like it, which is mostly when she's around a rubber duck. Ducks get her all riled up.

My own life is divided right now. Spending my days with my little daughter is as close to heaven as a person like me is ever going to get. She's so funny. She is so lovely. She is so smart. I wish every minute with her could be an hour, I wish every single day could be a week.  At the same time, Lyme disease has left me in such a state of crippling chronic pain that even the smallest tasks of life- opening a jar, bending down to pet the dog- feel completely untenable. It's agony. It's bee so many long years of this.

Olive lifted a board book off the bed the other day, and I looked on with envy. I couldn't pick that same book up without every joint, muscle, bone and tending exploding in pain. My ten month old has now surpassed me in strength and ability. 

That's the main reason I haven't been writing regularly. I'm living somewhat of a double life it feels. And whenever I bring up the issue the people who love me get really upset- reading this will be enough to ruin their day, but I'm getting tired of keeping so quiet about it. It makes me feel as if I'm always lying.

I see my doctor tomorrow. I'm going to ask her about a referral to a pain management clinic. 

I am nearly a full time photographer now! It's going really well. I'm almost booked up for the entire autumn and I'm taking a photo tour in Northwest Arkansas at the end of October. Wild & Bright Photography is about to turn two years old. 

If you're wondering how I can go out and do all the shoots with the pain, and then the acres and acres of editing, well- you and me both. I have no idea. I have a theory though. My Lyme infection is inactive- what causes me trouble is the resulting Limbic System Injury left over in my brain after years of bacterial and viral trauma. The way to heal that is to rewire your brain into health and into happiness. It's not as simple or as easy as it sounds, although it does present this truth: when I'm happy and engaged and lost in my work, I hurt less. 

And I'm so happy when I'm shooting photos. Olive and photography has given back to me so much of what Lyme took away. 

The worst day in Olive's young life

I knew that April would be a lean month on the blog because of the slightly-more-hectic photography schedule, but I don't think I understood just how exhausted we would be at the end of each day. That's me and Olive both, because Olive is confused and still thinks we are the same person most of the time. 

Today was awesome because we traveled into the mountains way past Olive's bedtime, but this time it was for the purposes of standing in front of the lens! We were helping out a photographer who just moved to town and wanted to add some mountainy shots to her portfolio. And by help I actually mean that we got to sit and enjoy the view all wrapped up in blankets (well, Olive, not me) and later we'll get to own some professional photos. Of US!! Of Olive and I! It wasn't relaxing, per se, because there was damn near a hurricane up there, but it was all pretty spectacular. 

Today was also a horrible day, the worst of Olive's young life. Up until today she'd been under the impression that all of life was soft and wonderful, always, and the only thing to ever hurt was when her dad attempted to cut her fingernails, which he only ever tried twice because of the blood. Today she learned that life is not such a sweet bargain after all. She fell off the bed. That's right, she just plopped right off.

She wasn't hurt, she was scared. The fear soon turned to anger, and the anger soon festered into ire. She screamed and howled for the rest of the day. It was the first time EVER in 6.5 months that she screamed like that, and it was also the first time that I couldn't immediately console her. Of course I tried everything- I even let her play with the keyboard on my computer which she's been wanting to do for 6.5 months.

At one point I had her in a warm bath, pouring warm water onto her shoulders out of her tugboat toy, singing Glory Glory Hallelujah along with Joni Mitchell on the radio and I, too, was naked, to increase the chances of soothing skin-on-skin time. She'd grow quiet and distracted for a bit but then you could see her little brain go - 'wait, I was mad about something! What was it- oh that's right GROSS NEGLECT and GRAVITY.' 

She got quiet for book time before each nap, sucking dutifully at her lobster and studying the pictures. Then she'd sleep well and peacefully, and I would reckon the whole thing to be over, how could she possibly remember after a nap?! But then she'd wake up very cross and start yelling at me when I walked int he room. She was JUST SO MAD. At ME. And then I had to sit her down in the evening and say, "Would you like to go for a long drive, stay up past your bedtime, sit on a rock on the top of a mountain, be exposed to the elements and smile for the camera?" Because I am the worst. 

The photoshoot did give me the excuse to drive over to Abby's house, take her hair dryer from her, and then use it upon my head. I am pleased with the results. And then a small person wept tears and spit grape tylenol into my fun beachy waves, and they were never seen or heard from again. 

I accept that I'm the worst. God I felt guilty. If that tone is not coming across through this post its because sheer exhaustion has zapped me of human decency. David's been out of the country for a few days (he's coming home tonight) and there's been so much going on, she has teeth coming in  and suddenly she's eating food and she's always pooping and the neighbor has a new dog that she's trying to 'train' by tying it to a post and hollering at it and the insidious cacophony of the alleyway is wearing at me. 

I also made a roast today, by the way. It's dry. 

You never regret a puppet

This is the dream I woke up from this morning: I was talking with my friend Philly, who is also (for real) a new parent to a baby boy who is Olive's age. Philly held on his hand a terry cloth puppet of some woodland creature, let's say fox, it doesn't matter. Philly studied the puppet for a minute and told me, "Yea, he really seems to enjoy this puppet. I'm glad I bought it."

I responded, "You never regret a puppet."

Then I woke up.

I believe it's the finest thing I've ever said. 

6 Months and 6 Days

Today she laughed for the first time. 

04/14/2018

Olive is playing with these exquisitely lovely toys that were given to her by doting friends and family. She is surrounded by comfort and color and generous adults who love her and will look out for her. Olive has white skin, blue eyes and fair features, and the world is not fair, and right now in the neighborhood up the road there is chaos and fear and ICE. She plays at my feet and opens her mouth in the smallest yawn; I lay my back against the wall and pray to nothing that we flip the house in November. 

Years down the line Olive will be reading from a text book at the dining room table. She'll place a finger on the page to save her spot, look up at her mother and ask, "During those years, you did everything you could- right?"

And what will I say? I'll say I did as much as most of us did, which is to say not enough, and not nearly fast enough.

(For those living in Western North Carolina, there is more information about today's ICE raids and a place to donate to these families Here- some are facing the loss of their sole breadwinner.)

Mammoth Mash

Here let's do this: let's see what pictures are on my phone and then what immediate thoughts are in my head. I'm letting perfection be the enemy of progress in just about every realm of my life right now and I'm trying to actively work against that. (Thank you to everyone on Instagram who reminded me of that phrase, by the way. That was driving me nuts.) So here are some unedited everyday iphone shots from the last few days. 

And here are some accompanying thoughts for the night, presented to you in a similarly rough and unvarnished manner, as it is late and we have had a long and busy day:

Olive does solids now I guess. If you can consider apple sauce to be a solid? It's not a liquid, anyway, so that's a big step up. Yesterday she tried to dive from my arms onto a hot pizza sitting on a hot pizza stove on the top of a hot oven, and I told that while indeed she could one day eat pizza, she would have to start with a puree. Or a puff. Or a chunk. Just SOMETHING other than mom. Then I sat her down and offered her some apple sauce on that very nice wooden spoon of hers, and she reached out and took the spoon and put it in her mouth. Just like that. Then she took two more bites.

The face she made was hilarious. It's face the lights up the heart of every parent that's ever fed their child for the first time, ever since the first cave person put a bite of mammoth mash on a stick and wobbled it into the waiting mouth of their cave baby. Half 'I'm game for this!' and half "what the fuuuuuu.....?"

But right after she took the bite something unexpected happened. I wanted to take the bite back! She totally called my bluff- I don't actually want her to be eating like a big kid yet. Oh shit! Turn this ship around! I can't! There's no going back now! 

Yes, I'm ambivalent about the applesauce but it's more than that- it's the fact that she's sitting and crawling and now climbing and standing without me. And I realize that my level of bias makes me an unreliable narrator here folks but she seems freakishly strong. It just seems to be all happening at once. At the beginning of the week she still wasn't sitting up very well and now it's Friday and she's climbing up the furniture.

When she was first born and I was feeding her, I kept thinking that there was water dripping down my face but it was only her- her hands reaching out and touching me, her fingers and her skin were so pure and soft that when they grazed my cheek they felt like water drops. Now she has ear wax and wakes up from her naps all sweaty and loopy looking.

The weird thing is, I have this dichotomy going inside my head. On the one hand I realize that Olive is just another baby like all the millions of cherished and beloved babies out there in the world, that she's going to grow up to be another person on this planet, no different and absolutely no more special than anyone else. I know that. But on the other hand I also know -with equal certainty- that she is simply the most glorious and magnificent thing to ever happen and everything that is unfixed in the universe will orbit her in big starry loops for every moment of her life. 

I imagine that's how you feel about your children, too. That's how the cavepeople felt as they lovingly mashed up their mammoth meat and double checked it for gristle and sinew. 

It doesn't make any sense at all, and yet it works. Olive is a particle and a wave, impossible, but still lighting up my every day. 

Your father is on fire but do not be alarmed

Your father is on fire but do not be alarmed. See how mom is taking the pizza out of the oven and tripping over your activity cube that she left in the middle of the kitchen floor? She how mom adjusts the volume on the radio and puts the salt shaker back in the cabinet where it belongs? Your mother is not concerned. Yes, your father is howling, he's hopping into a cold shower and we can hear the water splashing against tile, now he's dragged himself back into the living room, wrapped up in the comforter he peeled off his bed because his beet read, burning skin is now freezing cold.

Your father may well appear as if he's kicking over the mick, but there's no reason to fret. He's merely having a reaction to the Nyacin supplement he swallowed twenty minutes ago because - and I hate to tell you this part -  high cholesterol runs in his family, and that means it runs in your family too. This has all happened before. There's really nothing to be done except wait it out.

Olive I'm going to tell you something : life, as a rule, is going to hurt. Physically, it's going to rain down the hurt in the form of paper cuts, skinned elbows, fingers in car doors, head against pavement, shin bone against- well, ANYTHING- toes against doorjams, hangnails, earaches, and steam. 

It can feel very menacing at times. Certainly life will not always be hurting you, I can look back and think fondly on whole weeks where I managed to stay out of harm's way, but there are going to be some days where all you can do is sit down on the couch and think to yourself, 'Ouch! Holy crap! Ouch!'

But, daughter, life is also very, very, very funny. Much funnier than anyone will ever let on about. 

And don't worry about your dad. He's a trooper. 

One more reason I need sleeping pills.

I am checking in only to say that our neighbors to the starboard side just started band practice for the night and I am besieged in sound and in total despair.

Now, Even Darker than Before

There have been some important updates around here and I'm going to share some of them with you this evening. The first and most obvious one is that I cleaned the juicer. Honestly it turned out not to be so bad, and it made a big difference; the kitchen feels a lot more livable now. Something else that's new- a few posts ago I made you aware that I was down to dangerously few coffee beans. I remedied that but instead of the Dynamite Daymaker I decided to go darker, and from hereon out my mornings will begin with Dynamite Coffee Roaster's Double Bold Espresso Blend.

'Freedom Lies in Being Bold!' quoth Robert Frost.

We'll see if tomorrow morning I taste a little bit of that freedom. 

Because I'm shaking things up in all departments, I have swapped my Calm Down Audiobook (step 5 in my bedtime routine) from Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid to John Hodgemans' Vacationland. Its wonderfully tranquil. I love it. I've heard the complete book six times over now but only actually listened consciously to about a third of it.

Final update, and it's not something I share lightly or with pleasure: our across the street neighbor has fixed his ride on lawn mower. A tire popped three days ago- I know this because the neighbor in question appeared at our door in the evening and summoned David away for what seemed like hours, all because the tire popped? And he needed help? I don't know- anyway, for three sacred and blessed days our street was a tiny bit quieter.

Talk about freedom. 

But today he's back to it, puttering around the lawn in a figure eight- quite literally, circling around for an eternity. There's barely any grass to mow under those wheels, that dude just likes to ride.  

Olive got her shots today and she's hardcore teething. She wanted to be held most of the afternoon so I obliged, we puttered around in our own figure eight in the kitchen listening to The Decemberists. Dave says he can't stand Colin Meloy's voice because its nasal, and my mom on her recent visit referred to him as "that whiny young person"- as in, "can you turn down that Whiney Young Person? Or better yet, can you turn him off?" But I love him, I think he's a marvelous lyricists and his songs give me shivers and even some of them are about shipwrecks.

Olive will grow to love him as I do, I'm sure of that. She's at the age where she's going to start remembering things- ah! I see you shaking your head- but listen, I have memories starting from about six months old. I distinctly remember sitting on my father's stomach, on his gut, really, he's always had kind of a gut, and I was pushing on his chest trying to get him to stop breathing. I was perturbed that his chest was rising and falling with his breath and I wanted him to stop. He looked up at my mom and said, "She doesn't want me to breath!" 

And I remember- I DO! thinking, "Oh shit, he's onto me." 

All I'm saying is, I really gotta watch myself now, make sure all is fairly copacetic, because it's really going to count now.  

After the kitchen and Red Right Ankle and the Mariners Revenge, after she gently rested her forehead against my neck and relaxed into my arms for a soft minute, after cuddling up in bed and reading Hello Seattle! and having a nap, we decided to bundle up in the stroller and stroll (yes) to the Farmers Market up the street.

We decided to take the dog. That was a bad choice. The dog barked non-stop. Dimwit that I am, I figured the dog was overstimulated by all the other dogs and all the kids and the people losing their marbles at the site of the dog- people really go nuts for Corgis- but then someone pointed out that she was just being protective of the baby. 

After that I really couldn't be angry at her, but I didn't want to subject the other market-goers to the ruckus and so we left, without buying a single veggie.

Which means that when we came home there was nothing for us to juice. 

Which means that the juicer did not get used today, and therefore did not need to be cleaned again.

Which is why I was able to write you this post, and catch you up on all the goings ons. 

If I do not clean the juicer tonight...

...then my husband will leave me and frankly who can blame him. Because it is a Herculean task that takes anywhere between fourteen to seventy eight minutes, I must dedicate this evening to this task instead of writing. Besides which, I wrote yesterday's with half a brain and it shows. It barely makes sense- maybe I need to space this thing out more. Perhaps writing every day is an exercise in senselessness. 

However, in the spirit of the world's most insipid journal idea ever (one line a day for five years, come on) I'll say this: Bug is six months old to the day. How has six months passed, etc etc and similar sentiments. We hung out with Juniper Rose, one of Bug's best friends. Trader Joes run (saw all our friends). Tasting Station out of commission so we didn't get a food sample- bad luck- mom was looking forward to it. She wore a hot pink hipster jumpsuit with a synched middle, Amelia in produce gave compliments. Jumsuit arrived in mail from cousin Ali three days ago. Best outfit yet. 

Six months old! One Half! Point Five! 

I also have to clean the Cuisinart. 

God help Me.