vow

i’ll make you a statement,

an offer of the heart

for you to clutch

once the rush of this day is through.

it is this:

that i will walk beside you,

as we stumble through this life, 

in Love;

and i will stay there, if you’ll wait up for me, through all that it brings.

-september 26, 1998

 

happy anniversary, honey. i love you.

first impressions

first grade. the first day of preschool. so far, so good.

what it’s all about

two-plus years ago some friends of ours from the ‘hood moved away. to vermont. we were all sad. real sad. we threw them a big farewell (in martha’s apartment, actually). they came down a few months later for one reason or another, but that was the last most of us saw of them. vermont is pretty far. especially with little kids who really hate car seats.

but a few weeks ago, t-man & i packed up the kidlets and headed north for a visit. we were a little nervous – miss thing still doesn’t last long in her seat. plus, we hadn’t seen these folks for nearly 2 years…what if we had nothing to talk about? yipes.

we needn’t have worried: it was a great trip (well, aside from the whole car seat thing). we had plenty to talk about with our old friends, and the kids played together like they see each other every day.

we met the new baby, 

hung out, played,

ate bread, rode bikes, 

painted toe nails, 

worked on the plumbing, 

ran around an empty building 

and generally continued our friendship as if no time had passed. very nice. almost too nice? it stinks that they live so far away…tho it does give us a heck of a reason to go to vermont in the summer! but we missed them the moment we left. the boy cried for the first 10 or 15 miles of the trip home. (he is, after all, going to marry their eldest). we were all pretty bummed that we had to leave them behind. will it be a year before we can see them again? sigh.

we miss you guys. 

and thanks for the pep talk, julie. i needed it and it really helped. you know what i’m talking about. love you.

xo

sx

looking forward…

we are enjoying summer…

by barefoot dancing:

with our annual pilgrimage to the waterpark:

by just hanging around:

and with visits to some new places, visits to see old friends and visits around our own city to see things in a new way.

this is the bronx:

this is brooklyn:

this is manhattan, and yes, that is the staten island ferry on the hudson river. ???

we are planning for the fall…

first grade! preschool! time to myself. plans? gym, coffee, gym, organize, coffee, knit, gym, blog, coffee…you get the idea.

we are racing for the cure…

support ‘team martha’, if you can. every little bit helps. click here.

we are happy, and well, and safe, and loved. i am looking forward to the coming busy season as i enjoy this current carefree one.

a wake to remember

this post has taken far too long to write. i’ve been away. i’ve been processing. i’ve been mourning.    

i didn’t cry for several days after martha’s death. which really surprised me, because i’m a crier. sure, i would well up from time to time, but no gush, no water-works, so sobbing. weird. 

ummm…yeah. that’s what you call denial, hon. stage 1.

it finally hit me about 6 days after she died. i knew it would take something else upsetting me & it would all be released. what did it take? some major catastrophe? no, just a stressful day with 2 cranky kids in the heat that is new york in the summer, coming in late from the park, late for dinner for them, late for a cocktail for me, late for pretty much everything, including and especially grief. threw the tv on, threw dinner in front of them in front of the tv (it’s a ‘picnic’, see?) threw myself into the bathroom and burst into tears. fifteen solid minutes of sobbing and talking to myself and thank god for ‘caillou’ is all i can say. 

it infuriates me and saddens me to my depths that this woman is dead. it’s ridiculous. it’s stupid and i hate it. and there’s nothing i can do. it’s too late. she’s buried somewhere in pennsylvania (why?) and there’s been no service here yet and none of us saw her for 3 months before she died and none of us except one of us even knew how sick she was, so none of us were prepared for her death at all. some of us didn’t even know she’d been sick at all. they were really thrown. 

coincidentally, a party was planned. us ‘mothers who drink’ (MWD) as we like to call ourselves, usually meet once or twice a month at the local pub for a pint or a glass of wine or a really bad cosmo, but were going to have a house party because one of us muthas was going to be sans kids and hubby for a WHOLE WEEK and she was aimin’ to celebrate a little freedom. we were all pretty psyched. people cooked. i baked. someone mixed up a lethal bag of a certain mexican mixed drink and stuck it in her freezer. school let out, summer began and we were READY.

and then martha died. saturday night around nine the email arrived in our inboxes from her one friend who actually knew how bad it was. we called each other. we called friends who probably wouldn’t be reading their email over the weekend so they would know. i broke the news to one friend who’s daughter’s sixth birthday party was the next morning. we would all see each other and we didn’t want her to not know and totally ruin her daughter’s party with the news. that was one of the hardest sentences i’ve ever had to speak. 

the birthday party happened, and we all kept it together for the kids’ sake. we even had a good time. everybody came. we needed to be together, even if we couldn’t really talk about anything there. we ate pizza and cake and sang happy birthday. 

the next night was the MWD shindig and we all came out in force. we dressed up a little and put on some makeup for each other (bonehead move: mascara runs) and headed over to our hostess’ apartment with all our offerings (meatballs! quinoa salad! brownies! margaritas in a bag!). personally, i didn’t make it past the front door before i had to duck into the kitchen and get a hold of myself. but the drinks flowed and we all relaxed and we started to have a really good time. then, after about an hour or so, our gracious hostess steered us all into the living room, where we sat around for another hour telling stories about martha and tearing up and crying and laughing our asses off. martha was really, really smart and funny, and there were some great rememberances. (is that a word? it is now). essentially, we had a wake for her. which we all needed, really, really badly. it turned out to be a great party, as a good wake should. another blogging friend wrote about it here. (disclaimer: i did not partake in that bag o’ margaritas. no way. well, ok, i had a sip. but only a sip! tequila & i are not friends). 

but martha and i were friends. and i am down here with all her other friends raising our glass to her in love and remembrance for a full life well lived. and the realization that life is beautiful and brief.

to that end, let the poets speak:

But because truly being here is so much; because everything here
apparently needs us, this fleeting world, which in some way
keeps calling to us. Us, the most fleeting of all.
Once for each thing. Just once; no more. And we too,
just once. And never again. But to have been
this once, completely, even if only once:
to have been at one with the earth, seems beyond undoing.

–Rainer Maria Rilke, Ninth Duino Elegy

We got the news

Ithaca got snow

It was just that kind of day

All I know is that you’ve gone and left us here below

All I wish is that you’d stay

We leave this cursed city in the same way we come in

We trace the roads

On the way out, we shed our certainties like clothes

We thought this was our sacrifice

But the world knew otherwise

And took you from us

Before your time, right before our eyes

We think we’re walking home

But you can’t go there unless it wants you

You can stand on the streets

But still the destination haunts you

Is that where you are now?

To have believed that’s truest love

Ain’t it clever now that we have love and we don’t have you

It took this much to make me see

Still I barely understand

Love will always, always be larger and different than our plans

Love will never listen to us

And why should it?

Love knows the score

It builds better songs than we do

It sings a better metaphor

–Peter Mulvey, “Ithaca”

 

 

 

unfair

forty something year old women should not get cancer and get better for a little bit and then get worse again and THEN die the day after kindergarten ends, leaving a 6 year old in great confusion and pain. i’ve got a bone to pick with someone about this.

i barely have a decent picture of you.

goodbye dear martha, your friends in the neighborhood are so sad and we miss you so badly and we will help to care for your daughter. she will know you. we promise.

the longest day

happy summer solstice. 

be on the lookout for those wicked faeries and beware what you dream tonight!

meme the first

unless the mosaic was a meme? i saw this one at anna’s blog (one of my faves – glad you’re posting again!), and decided to do it here. mostly because they are questions i can answer quickly, thereby posting quickly, and thereby feel like a blogger. ha! diagram that.

1) What was I doing 10 years ago? planning our wedding! we’ll be married 10 years this september. wow. also, getting paid the most ever i’d ever made for theatre. that was nice.

2) What are 5 things on my to-do list for today? get the boy to school, get coffee, take miss thing to music class, feed neighbor’s cat, nap miss thing, download camera (pix from the boy’s moving-up ceremony from last night!), work on thank-you gifts for the boy’s fabulous teachers, get the boy from school, survive the afternoon (go to the park, probably), feed the children, put said children to bed. oh, yes and we must eat in there somewhere. is that more than 5? go figure. 

3) Snacks I enjoy: see mosaic below! chocolate, baby. iced coffee. gorgeous cupcakes. popcorn & lemonade. diet coke. dipping salty, crunchy things into hummus. bread. tasti delite (which i’m sure, ain’t).

4) Things I would do if I were a billionaire: hire my favorite musicians (see sidebar) to play private parties! give away a lot. start a theatre? move someplace bigger. travel. eat out. what a lame list (except the musician part). honestly, i can’t even wrap my mind around the idea. 

5) Places I have lived: teaneck, new jersey; blacksburg, virginia; cincinnati, ohio; kent, ohio (one summer); new york city (hell’s kitchen and inwood).

6) Jobs I have had: life-sucking retail, babysitter, flower deliver-er!, admin ass’t, restaurant hostess (even more life-sucking than retail), actor, mama

7) Bloggers I am tagging who I will enjoy getting to know better: oh, i don’t know. if you read this and feel like doing it, be my guest! leave me a comment so i can read your answers.

and now, because i can’t stand picture-less posts…

the boy amongst his peers, as they move on from kindergarten:

they had a hilariously cute song & dance number to the tune of ‘new york, new york’ which the boy flatly refused to participate in. he also wouldn’t walk over to get his certificate by himself (all this attention can be very overwhelming, see?), so a buddy or two went with him, resulting in a very sweet group hug with the two coolest teachers ever (please excuse the blurriness & darkness):

on to first grade!

holy crapamoley.

 

 

mosaic

so very interesting: food, coffee, beautiful old buildings and portraits of women. not surprising, really, for a mosaic of me. that pretty much sums me up. oh, yes, and don’t forget henry (or should i say, desmond, brutha?)

The concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image. The easiest way is to head over here and use the mosaic maker, you can paste the url of each picture in as you go.
c. Copy and paste the html into your blog or Flickr stream.

The Questions:
1. What is your first name? – suzanne
2. What is your favorite food? – bread/chocolate/red wine
3. What high school did you go to? – Teaneck High School
4. What is your favorite color? – twilight Sky
5. Who is your celebrity crush? – henry ian cusick
6. Favorite drink? – iced latte
7. Dream vacation? – paris
8. Favorite dessert? – cannoli
9. What you want to be when you grow up? – an actress
10. What do you love most in life? – my children
11. One Word to describe you. – soft
12. Looked up my flickr name and found something about me – just this album cover! (but if i add a space between the two parts, i find more…including a pic of myself!)

[i've got to say, i didn't find this very user friendly. i got the images mosaic-ed ok, but getting them to show up here & be clickable and have their proper credit just didn't happen. suffice it to say, these are not my pix, they are from flickr and i thank those who took them].

tenderness is brave

you’re a great papa.

happy father’s day, honey.

xo