And the waves tell the firm coast: 'Everything will be fulfilled.'

When 2024 began, I said that I didn't want to tempt fate by saying that it had to be better than 2023. It could hardly be worse, right?

I think I'm not superstitious, but I kinda am.

And though I don't always succeed, my inclination is to hope for good, hope for better.

So I was hoping for a good year. 

Hope hope and more hope.

On December 30, 2023, we visited the family of a dear friend of Nick's, who lives just outside of Oxford. In Oxfordshire. (The shire of Oxford!)

I was excited to meet him. I'd heard about him for years.

His family lives in a charming, centuries-old stone house in an ancient, quaint, no-streetlights English village that used to be one massive wealthy family's estate.

Leaving his house in rainy pitch dark, I slipped on one of the large uneven paving stones and landed flat on my shin, splitting the skin in a long line.

Since Nick and I have watched so many British murder shows, the bulk of which seem to be set in and around Oxford, we joked that I was lucky to have escaped with my life.

In retrospect, I maybe should've sought medical attention, or at least gotten butterfly tape. I don't think stitches would've worked as it was directly over bone.

But instead, we got on a flight the next day and came home. Slowly, over months and months (and months), it healed.

First it swelled and turned colors and scabbed massively. It was gruesome. I sent photos to friends who were up for the gore.

I have a big scar. I don't mind scars. I've got a lot of them.

So I began 2024 on the heels of a joyful trip, but felled by some international non-Covid crud, still deep in grief, still healing from a double mastectomy and also suddenly this random murdery British village wound. 

A year ago I was emotionally and physically struggling, with low expectations, but hope.

Last night, as I was reviewing my year, I tiptoed through my memories in the form of photos, and doing so reminded me of how blessed I am. What a lucky year I had.

Genuinely.

Despite grief, despite the leg wound, which hurt to touch for about six months, despite pneumonia in the fall, which took about five weeks to recover from, and despite some months of undiagnosed depression.

It sounds rather terrible when I list all of them. I do realize this.

But so many wonderful things happened. 

And my approach to life, after having such dramatic reminders of the vicissitudes of fate, is now to take the opportunities I can.

There are things I hope to do in this life, places I hope to see, and sooner is closer to guaranteed than later.

I'm not saying we're no longer saving for college or retirement. I'm just saying, if something is accessible, I'm going to do it.

In February, Nicole, my beloved Nicole came to hang out with our kids so Nick and I could go to a fancy dinner at Lincoln College, Oxford, where we took the above photo. Attending the event was both a pleasure and an honor.

I wanted to take a whole lot of photos, but people just ate their multiple course dinner with wine pairings like this was all normal. I didn't want to be a gauche tourist.

And then Maude came to visit. Although actually, she arrived at our house a day before we did because Virgin Atlantic switched our flights to a day earlier but didn't tell us. 

Surprise! You're leaving yesterday!

I was going to include a photo of our faces, so happy to be together. But I think the photo that depicts our friendship more accurately is this one of Maude doing plow pose and me laughing and taking a photo while Wanda takes the opportunity to sniff her butt.

In the spring, the kids and I went to Puerto Rico, which was warm and tropical and so, so beautiful. And I got to reconnect with my high school friend Maria, who I hadn't seen in over 20 years.

And then summer, my favorite season! Summer was filled with truly extraordinary experiences.

Nick joined me for the 30-year reunion of my Peace Corps omnibus. I got to see people I hadn't seen since I left Ecuador. The weekend of reconnection and reminiscence filled my entire heart.

I went to Portugal for the first time, visiting dear old friends who live there. And then Kathy joined me and we headed heading north to Vigo, Spain, to walk 101 kilometers of the Camino de Santiago.

We walked for five days, and some of it was very hard, and I have many thoughts, and our Camino experience merits at least a whole post of its own.

But from that week, strongest in my memory and heart is how much we laughed. Except for using the bathroom, we spent 24/7 together. We had a lot of time and kilometers to talk. And oh my gosh, did we laugh.

Maybe not everyone would find a glass-walled in-bedroom bathroom in a beautiful historic hotel hilarious. But we sure did.

Did I used to laugh more in my day-to-day? I don't know.

Now I realize that belly laughs are treasures. When you have someone with whom you laugh that hard repeatedly, I firmly believe you never let them go.

I don't intend to, anyway.

In August Nick and I headed up to get the kids from camp in Maine, and took the opportunity of being so relatively close to Montreal to visit for a few days.

Oh my gosh, Montreal. What a beautiful city. India was sick, and my family was not in the mood to tourist a whole lot, but we really enjoyed strolling around the city, and we had great food.

We went to a John Fluevog store. What absolute pleasure.

On my birthday, I took a Pilates class taught by Annie, one of my lovely Bali friends.

And added to this was the joy of seeing my high school friend Monique, and getting to meet her lovely daughter.

Also! I learned that all of the Great Lakes connect to each other, and flow to the Atlantic via the St. Lawrence River.

I spent time on Lake Superior every childhood summer, and this blew my mind. Although I recently told this to some friends and they were like, yes, we learned this in school.

Was I taught that? Maybe I was busy seeing if I could hold my breath for a whole minute rather than paying attention. 

That was how I spent much of 7th grade history with a teacher I disliked. Never disruptive. Just quietly timing how long I could hold my breath, over and over.

But was American geography 5th grade? My geography is terrible. I only learned that Virginia borders Tennessee when we got Wanda, and Nick saw the town she was from and said, "That's almost Tennessee."

I actually said, "Virginia borders Tennessee?" This is the kind of thing that makes Nick tut in disappointment. 

Kind of like how I know nothing about our government and so I always ask Nick and he is all, "Didn't you major in Poli Sci at UNC?"

And then I have to remind him that yes, but only because I was a French major and my dad insisted that I add another "more useful" major, so I crammed a whole bunch of Poli Sci classes into my senior year but really didn't care and don't remember anything.

So just tell me again about Congress and the Supreme Court already for Pete's sake.

Anyway.

I learned so much US geography when Maude and I drove cross-country to move from DC to San Diego. We used paper maps, it was so long ago.

I seriously kept being like, wait, this state is next to this state? What's next?

We drove through West Virginia to Kentucky, and as such, I know they're next to each other and I've still never been to Tennessee. Although apparently some of it is right up against Virginia.

Anyway, now I've kind of derailed this with how little I know about where things are in the world.

My main point, I think, is that for me, just about every joy comes down to the people I'm spending time with.

I've left people out. And here is why.

At some point I just started listing names of friends and then I was like, oh my gosh, is this super neurodivergent that I'm about to make you a list of every single friend I spent time with last year? 

And next I'll tell you my top ten favorite birds!

I definitely don't want to be tedious.

So if you're reading this and I saw you and your name is not here, it's not because I don't love you. It's because it started to feel weird.

All this to say:

You know I love travel. Oh my gosh I do. And because of how I grew up, I often feel better out of the country than in. I leave and wish I could stay wherever it is I am.

(Except dinner is too late for me in Spain. But otherwise, absolutely.)

But for me, the most important thing in life is the people you love and who love you.

And lucky, lucky me, in 2024 I got to spend time with so many of them.

Here's hoping for a wonderful 2025 for all of us. 

I said this to myself in January last year, and I'm saying it again: Exercise, bathe. Eat a fucking vegetable. Feel lucky to be alive.

Hope for health, hope for peace, hope for love and joy. For each and every one of you.

Christmas 2024

I don't know who needs to hear this: Holidays can be so hard. 

Maybe yours are easy and fun and there are no dark moments. And if so, I'm genuinely glad for you. 

But I think, what are holidays like Christmas but traditions? Which means they're imbued with all of the emotion and memories of the Christmases that came before.

Nick bought a box of Quality Street, because his grandmother always bought them for Christmas. They're not, we have discovered, all that great.

But I understand the nostalgia that makes you buy chocolates from your childhood. Particularly those associated with a beloved grandmother.

We buy these things and we dip the madeleine in the tisane.

Memories seep from our veins.

The reason I'm writing this is that I've talked to a couple friends who are struggling, too. So I figure if there are three of us, there are more of us.

I'm here to tell you that it is OK to be sad. It's OK to be elated and devastated depending on the moment. 

It's OK to be disappointed, or wistful, or grieving, or whatever it is you may be feeling.

All of your feelings are valid, always. If you don't allow yourself to feel them, they stick around in your cells anyway.

Feel them and free them and free yourself.

We've been in this prolonged very sparkly! Jingle bells! Ho ho ho! Candy canes! Snowflakes! Jolly! season.

Which I think can pressure people into feeling like they need to be all in the Christmas spirit. (I say Christmas because it's my holiday.) 

Whatever Christmas spirit means.

But my gosh, the pressure of the holidays. Gifts to buy, food to make, school performances to attend, last minute this and that and everything else. 

A school Secret Santa gift to buy oh my gosh for tomorrow MAMA! (I have always hated Secret Santa, and the pressure to participate at work and buy random little things for someone you don't really know, things that will ultimately wind up in that giant plastic floating island in the Pacific or wherever it is. The one that's visible from outer space.) 

Anyway.

It's so dark, at least in my hemisphere. So dark so early. 

And there's so much build up.

And now Christmas is here!

Holidays are a genuinely lovely time to gather. Holidays bring families and friends together. Sometimes it's forced, and sometimes that's hard. And sometimes you wish for more togetherness and you don't have it. And that's hard, too.

But then being together can make an absence so notable.

Being together makes it obvious who used to sit in that chair. Who isn't here with us. Whether they're no longer alive or just no longer in our lives.

That is painful.

Until last year, I'd spent exactly one Christmas away from home. 

Home was my parents' house, whichever country that might be. And I always went home for Christmas.

Home was my family. Christmas was the same ornaments we'd been putting on the tree since my childhood. In fact, they'd been putting some of them on their trees since before I was even born.

After my dad died, and family became Betty, Jordan, Nick, and me, Christmas transferred to our house. Even that first year, when we didn't really have a functional ground floor.

We could've done Christmas at my mom's house, where she had a whole working, clean kitchen and no construction dust. But we had it here, on the second floor.

Nick bought a fake tree, and now that tree is as old as Jordan. I assume it'll be our tree till we move out of this house.

My mom was all about Christmas. She made the home, whichever house, beautiful. Her gifts were always exquisitely wrapped.

In fact, I'd often give her my presents to wrap, because she loved doing it, and she make things so pretty.

So last year I said there was no way we were having Christmas at home. We had to go somewhere.

I think, honestly, my family was kind of afraid of the depth of my grief. Anything could make me cry. And I might never stop.

So last year we went to England. It was such a big deal for so many reasons.

It was, of course, still Christmas in the UK, but it wasn't our Christmas. We didn't put up a tree. We didn't wrap presents.

The trip was everyone's gift. And it was magical.

India and I wound up hugging and crying in the middle of Hyde Park on Christmas Day. You can walk, run, fly far away, but grief sticks with you.

I wanted to travel again this year, and the kids said they really wanted Christmas at home.

Of course, I'm so glad they have a strong sense of home, and home is safe and comfortable for them.

We put up the tree—same tree—but this year only lights. Nick and Jordan didn't want the extra work, and I couldn't handle the memories saturated into nearly each and every one of our ornaments.

They put Nick's train around the tree, because we didn't need to worry about Betty tripping or Wanda chewing it. Mostly it freaks her out.

My friend Meg, her mom, and I made Betty's sticky buns. None of us had ever made them before.

I'd never made yeast bread. I was very daunted.

For me, never having made them pulled up the guilt and regret that I never once helped my mom with this annual task. I never asked her if I could learn how to carry on this tradition.

I knew she wouldn't live forever—none of us will—but still, in my mind, she was never not going to be here.

Until suddenly she wasn't.

I'm not saying this Christmas holds no joy. The kids had fun disgorging stockings, which were mainly packed with treats, and opening gifts.

India got me the most amazing pair of pinky-purple Lisa sneakers. 

I made Nick my annual photo calendar. The one I used to make for my mom, who would ooh and ahh over every single photo.

The sticky buns are great, but they're not perfect. Nick and Jordan wanted to know, precisely, what we did that was different.

My mom's recipe is sketchy. She doesn't list all the ingredients up front that wind up being mentioned later. Some are not mentioned at all.

I know this is because she likely wrote it as her mom, my Grandma Lillian, described it. Most of my grandmother's recipes said things like, "Put in oven and bake until done."

And then my mom had made this recipe annually for decades. My whole life and longer. That's a lot of decades.

She tweaked it a little—there's a rewrite that happened somewhere in the aughts, I believe—but still, there was guesswork.

For three people who'd never made them, they turned out really well.

Nick thought I was crying because of how the buns turned out. He wondered if they'd been overly critical.

When really, I was just thinking of how different Christmas is now.

Christmas Day used to be my dad annoying us by making us listen to a record of Dylan Thomas reading A Child's Chrismas in Whales, which is a great story, but we just wanted to play with our new toys. And then when the home video recorder became available in the 80s, he began annoying us by videotaping our every moment.

And then he wasn't around anymore.

My mom just quietly made everything perfect and beautiful, at, as I now know as a mom, a high personal cost.

The magic that everyone thinks of as Christmas?

That's a hell of a lot of invisible Mom work.

And she perpetuated that magic. And now it's on me. And I just don't have any sparkle right now. Maybe I will in future years.

But I deeply felt the absence of sparkle. I missed her excitement at what the kids were unwrapping. Her giggle over her gifts. The kids joining her, piling on and spilling over in the red chair to look at photos.

It's not that we haven't laughed, or enjoyed ourselves. We have.

We have joy ahead this afternoon, with a couple friends coming for Christmas dinner. Small, casual, but still people who don't live with us, which will force us to clean up and use nice plates and actual napkins and sit in the dining room, which honestly, I think is good for us.

Sometimes I admonish myself for being sad when I have so much privilege. When there are so many people who are cold and hungry. So many who literally have only the clothes on their backs.

I've done this a lot in life.

But then I tell myself exactly what I tell my friends, and what I truly believe: your feelings are valid. Your pain is valid.

Other people's situations do not diminish the validity of your feelings.

You can be happy-sad or sad-happy or sad-sad and know that there's a community that feels that same way. You might feel super alone, even surrounded by people, which for me is an extra-hard kind of alone.

But you're not actually alone. We're all made of stardust and we're all connected.

I'm no longer that bitter, bitter Mary in the preschool Christmas pageant in Bangladesh. Upset that I had to wear my PJs and the afghan Grandma Lillian crocheted. Angry that I didn't have a cool costume, like an angel.

I'm no longer her, and yet, I still am and will always be. So many contradictory things can be true at the same time.

I contain multitudes, and so do you.

So, my friends, I am sending you love on this emotion-saturated holiday. 

Big love and big hugs, and hope for love and kindness and peace for all. 

The architects of our own something: a gingerbread bus journey

Last Christmas (I gave you my heart)...

Ha. No. Although I do have a deep and abiding love of Wham!

Last year, Target had some Marks & Spencer items for sale before Christmas.

Ooh! A gingerbread London bus. Look how charming!

The kids and I were all excited. We were going to the UK for Christmas, and ooh, we were going to make an adorable gingerbread bus!

I was excited: something the kids and I could do together. A cute little family project.  

And of course it was going to look just like the picture. We had everything we needed!

The kit had the pieces, and then lumps of colored fondant that you had to roll out and make fit. But, like, you also had to cut the holes out of them for the windows and such.

Do you know how hard it is to roll out fondant and cut it into gingerbread-bus sized pieces?

In case you don't know, I will tell you: very.

It breaks. It's hard to know how much to put on one side and have enough left over for another.

We just cut it into pieces and figured we could smoosh them all smoothly together.

Which. Well. You see.

And then! Then we had to use icing to stick it all together!

It did not stick together.

Nick got involved. He's excellent at carpentry and fixing things. I had high hopes.

He used icing. And more icing. It didn't work.

So then he used glue. It may have been wood glue.

At first I was horrified. But then I realized that each and every piece of gingerbread and icing had been so manhandled, there was no way we were going to eat it.

We just wanted something to show for our many hours of effort.

He set it carefully, and we left it on the counter to dry overnight.

We're just not Christmas bus people.

October and the trees are stripped bare of all they wear

Dear Dad,

Today is your birthday.

This morning I said to Mama, "It's Dad's birthday today." 

To which she quietly replied, "I know."

Of course she knows. You were together over 50 years. That's a lot of birthdays together.

I guess I just said it to recognize it.

***

It's grey and chilly and pouring in DC, and really kind of wretched. I walked Wanda this morning and was rather shocked and insulted by how cold it was, in fact.

I thought hurricanes were all about warm air.

You used to pronounce it "hyuricane" and I never knew why.

***

Recently I learned that I walk like you.

I was walking with my yoga teacher  and his partner after class and he told me that the way I walk contributes to my issue with tightness in my lower back. 

And then he demonstrated my walk. It was an exact imitation. 

So then he also showed us how his partner walks, in contrast to me. Also spot on. She said, "I walk like my dad."

I said, "You know, I bet I walk like my dad."

And a couple days later I told a dear friend about Asrat imitating my walk and she said, "You walk just like your dad."

Which makes me think about how you and I would go out for walks together and you'd say, "Stand up straight! Shoulders back! Stomach in!" 

I'd do all those things and then you'd say, "Sphincter tight!" 

I laughed every time.

*** 

Sometimes these realizations make me think about my brother. I wonder if he notices things like this in himself once in a while. 

I wonder if his children have features or expressions or whatever that are just so exactly you or Mama or me.

Distance, after all, doesn't erase DNA. 

***

In August, when Nick, the kids and I went to camp, Phil came and stayed with Mom so she wasn't all alone. They had a great time.

During that week, one of your friends from when you were in Afghanistan called to say one of your Peace Corps friends had died. I asked how many were left from your group, and Mom said three.

I think of how lucky you were (and by extension how lucky I was and still am) to have met such extraordinary people and kept them in your lives for so long. 

Maude's daughter Iris and our India will be friends one day.  Geography is challenging, but let's be clear: Denver and DC are a lot closer than Bangladesh to Philippines or just about everywhere else Maude and I were growing up. 

We're all in the same country, and we will make this happen.

***

Jordan is well and away taller than me now, and India is getting there. She's outgrown my sneakers.

I realized this fall when India started 5th grade that she was the same age I was when we moved to the US for the first time.

I remember my first day of 5th grade. We were supposed to fill out an index card with our home phone number and the number of our bus and I didn't know either.

She walks to school, and it's a school she's attended since she was four.

Halloween is fast approaching, and our alley is doing trick-or-treating. I remember how, until we moved to the US, you'd drive us from American house to American house to trick-or-treat. 

I think Halloween is fairly popular globally now.

***

We're all doing OK. Pretty well, in fact. Maybe you know this.

I hope you know this. 

It's your birthday, and I miss you.

Love,

Lisa

Running up that hill

Dear Dad,

You've now been gone for 13 Father's Days. 

I chose this photo because I'm masked. I must've had a cold. There we were, way back then, in India, using masks to prevent the spread of disease to the vulnerable.

Now Jordan is almost 13, and India is 10.

They're smart and funny and gorgeous. There was a long time where I was wondering if parenting was ever going to become fun for me. More than baby giggles, goofing around on the playground fun. 

I mean, I always loved them.

But they took so much work. They needed me constantly. Mostly, they were exhausting with periods of joy.

And now, now they're fun. I mean, sometimes pre-teen moody. But on the whole, so engaging and charming and enjoyable. They're great travel companions, interesting to talk to, just lovely.

And they're huge! Jordan's taller than I am! India now wears all my shoes. It's hard to tell our clothing apart. I got a new warm fleece, and Jordan is taking it to camp. Honestly, I love it.

Nick is a wonderful dad, and the kids love their nana so much. We really have a good little family.

I wish you were part of it.

Last week I went to a yoga retreat in Montana. I do yoga now. I know this is hard to imagine. One of my friends invited our tight little group to her lovely house, where we spent a week. It was phenomenal.

I almost didn't go. Mom was in the hospital the week prior. 

And I'll be honest: I was scared. Really scared.

I was prepared, of course, to cancel my trip. We'd been planning it for a year and a half, and through the pandemic it was the bright spot to look forward to.

But I would've stayed without hesitating. I would've been devastated, but family comes first.

And then dear friends who love me and love Betty--part of the family we've created for ourselves--stepped in. They said I had to go. I needed it.

(Oh, I needed it.)

They'd take over for me. Come to our house, spend time with Mom. Bring her food. Make sure she was OK. Nick spent a day at home to take her to the nephrologist (which I seem to confuse with phrenologist, which is completely different), who was happy with how she was doing.

My friends and Nick, and our kiddos, for that matter, took such good care of her.

She was in great shape when I got back. And in better spirits, than she'd been for weeks, maybe months.

I was so relieved, so happy. She was joyful, engaged, cared for. It underlined for me that she's so loved. I am so loved. 

And really, isn't that what we want most from family, from friends? Love.

I wish you were here to be part of our family. To know our friends. To love my kids.

I miss you.

Love,

Lisa

We are made of stardust

Dear beautiful Patti Jo,

This is one of my favorite photos. You and India met, and I felt like your souls connected.

You were immediately entranced with each other.

I think you look like woodland fairies in an enchanted garden.

I know you are in pain, and I'm so very sorry. I wish I could take it from you. I wish I could cradle you and soothe you, although I don't know that that would be of comfort at this point.

I love your grace, and your kindness, and your gentle manner. I love your humor, the twinkle in your eye, and your lyrical way with words. I love that you save animals, and then, when they get old and don't get out to exercise, you build them an apartment with multiple levels out of a bookcase, and entice them with treats to climb to the top.

I know those days are past, but they are the embodiment of you.

While we will not see each other again in this lifetime, we are made of stardust, and we are all connected, and that doesn't end when this life does.

I know I will see you everywhere.

I'll see you in the blue of the forget-me-nots, the kind we both used to enjoy in Grandma Margaret's garden. In the sparkle of the waves on Lake Superior. In the foghorns--such a hauntingly beautiful sound--reaching out to ships. In the incredible lake fogs, for that matter. The kind that surround you with a soft hug.

I will see you in those mysterious circular glints that show up in photographs, that I just know are loved ones saying hi. I take comfort in the thought that you will be in great company.

I'll see you in the clouds, in the sunshine, in the green of the trees.

For us, you will be everywhere.

You'll be the lush ferns, the birds, the doe in the woods near your house, dipping her graceful head to drink. The dogs and cats, tilting their heads to hear something that we cannot.

You'll be pie enjoyed on the road up the coast. M&Ms eaten giggling in your yard while playing your created games. Bridgman's ice cream. 

You'll sway in the wind like the elegant cattails, and take to the air and float freely.

Sometimes I lament the time we didn't have--the in-between time when we didn't know each other. But mostly I am grateful for the time we did have.

When you were a kid you used to sing, "My best friend is Charlene Foster." I didn't really know you then, and I certainly didn't know Charlene, but my parents told me the story. Or maybe your mom told us one summer. I cannot remember, but Betty and I sang it. It was catchy, somehow.

For me Duluth is all wrapped up with you, and you with Duluth. I come there for family and for memories, and I always will. 

And you gave me the gift of family. You gave me our ancestors, helped me come to peace with my dad and his parents. I think you gave my father peace, finally. 

You gave me the link to future generations, and that is a gift I will continue to share with my kids. I told Jen that now that I have her, I am not letting go.

You'll always be in the the thrill of rides on lakes, in the mud as the kids squish and play, in the splashes of water, and in the terrifying fun of being tossed by cousins into the water.

But most of all, you'll be in the safest, coziest of places, with the rest of our loved ones: in our hearts.

We are made of stardust, and we are all connected. And we always will be.

I love you now and I love you forever.

Lisa

13: The fire you like so much in me is the mark of someone adamantly free

Thirteen years ago tonight I had my last first date.

It was a Tuesday that year. It was damp and warmy-coldy like today. That evening, my glasses fogged up when I got into the heat of the Tabard. 

(Now, in the pandemic, my glasses fog up when I go outside because of my mask.)

My expectations were low. I don't think Nick was quite as jaded as I was.

--- 

The other day I referred to him as a control freak. He took offense. 

I meant it as a descriptor. For me, it's just a fact about him. Not an opinion, not a judgment.

Apparently it sounds judgey.

Although now I wonder if maybe he judges me for my lack of organizational skills. When I see them as an unfortunate weakness, but, like math, just something I'm not good at.

The more I read about executive function, the more I'm like, gee, I think I've been compensating for a long damn time.

---

I've been taking a walk through the November 13ths of the past 13years.

A year after meeting, married, we met at the Tabard. We'd make it an annual date. We saw a woman get stood up, and our hearts went out to her.

This, I think, is my favorite meeting anniversary post.

The following year, we brought Jordan along.

Year three, it seems, we stayed home.

The following year, I was pregnant and not drinking, but we still celebrated at the Tabard. I see in the photos we are tired.

I find myself surprised to note that in 2014, we kept our date, and I think that was our last outing to the Tabard.

Which is not to say that I don't love this day, because in some ways it feels more momentous to me than our wedding anniversary.

Every year, I commemorate it. Anyway, I thought I did. Apparently 2015 was a not so much year. Same with 2018. But in 2016, 2017 I remembered to voice my thanks. And last year on this very day, we got Wanda.

---

For the first I don't know how many years, every time we had a big fight, I expected it to be the end of our relationship.

I didn't expect permanence from much of anything in my life; why would this be different?

And finally, at some point, I realized we could have big angry fights and then get past them. We could disagree vehemently but still agree that we loved each other. And still agree on our shared goal of staying married and maintaining general harmony.

It probably helps that we can both fly into a rage and then apologize and be fine.

It surely helps that we make each other laugh.

Because on Tuesday when Nick got mad at me (because I was mad at him), and refused to help me navigate the car in the alley, I screamed that he was a selfish fucking asshole. I meant it about the larger issue but it also applied to not helping me with the gigantor car in the chaotic alley.

This kind of thing stresses out my conflict-averse mother. We drove away and I turned to her and said, "Don't worry. We're fine."

And we were.

Last night Nick got mad at me because I hadn't scheduled a trash pickup that he'd asked me to schedule. Quite frankly, when he asks me to do something, he expects me to jump.

He married the wrong person for this expectation. 

And yet somehow, if I don't take action on his request within a 4-6 hour period, it's an affront.

Whereas when I ask him to do something, I just mean, when you have time. Not now now now right now.

He was mad at me, and I was mad at him for being mad at me. Because bulk trash pickup is not a fucking emergency. (Neither, may I add, is routine goddamn dry cleaning.)

So last night I sat there accumulating my litany of complaints about him.

And then was like, all of this is fucking hard. We're all struggling.

So I got on 311 and scheduled the pickup and then said, "Please don't be mad at me. I'm doing the best I can."

At that point he wasn't angry. It was over.

Nick is a human who gets a lot more done in a day than I do. He shovels through a ton of work and home projects.

I currently spend a lot of time tending to the emotional needs of our little humans. There's less concrete to show for it, but it's a great deal of effort.

I'd like to be as organized and efficient as he is, but I'm not. I don't know if he'd like to be as empathetic as I am. I should ask.

---

Yesterday Nick suggested that as we can't go out, perhaps we should order a special dinner for tonight.

The kids apparently overheard this and got very excited about the special dinner. So did my mom.

Last night they wondered aloud what our special dinner might be. Exciting!

I'm not yet sure what our special dinner is going to be.

But we'll be enjoying it together, as a family.

---

And family, after all, was the outcome I was hoping for when I embarked on that first date 13 years ago tonight.

When time no longer matters, all that matters is time...So I put all the pieces together where they belonged.

 Dear Patti Jo,

Thank you for being my cousin, for being the loving, kind, beautifully gentle soul you are.

You've been such a gift.

I want to tell you now, while there is time.

I can't remember how we started talking about a visit and family reunion in 2018, but I will always be grateful that we did.

You opened your heart and your world to us. I was searching for peace with my dad, peace and understanding with our family's past, and comfort in my childhood memories of Duluth.

You gave those to me and more.

You've been a bridge to my dad in the world beyond. You've shared his messages and comforted both him and me. To you he has always been Uncle Mickey, which I always thought sounded funny as a kid.

With you and through you, I've started to understand our family.

I feel so connected to you, though we've not been back in each other's lives for all that long. I mean, you've been in my life since I was born, but I didn't really know you.

When I was a kid, you and Johnny and Stevie were teenagers, which in my eyes meant all grown up.

By the time I was old enough to have memories of visiting Duluth, you were all out of the house. We'd stay with your parents every summer, but I didn't know you so much as know about you.

We spent so much time with Auntie Jo and Uncle Howard. So many of my childhood memories take place with your parents.

Hanging out on Jo's houseboat, and eventually growing out of being small enough to sleep under the table. On the beach looking for agates and staring out at what I believed was your mom's island--the beach you took us back to that first summer.

Or just running around on their property, sitting on the rusted out tractor, admiring Jo's paintings, spray painting gravel in the driveway to look like gold nuggets.

And in your voice, your cadence, your accent, I hear your mom. You're uniquely yourself, but I also love the occasional flashes of Aunt Jo that shine through.

You are a memory keeper. And you happily opened your box of memories for me. That's my Lake Superior childhood painted on Aunt Jo's wall.

I know, through you, that I look like our great grandmother.

I now have a better understanding the generational trauma that pressed down on our parents, and with you have the goal of living and parenting differently, such that we might break patterns.

I treasure the fact that you know and love my kids. They each immediately felt close and safe and at ease with you.

An enchanted connection

You have a youthful twinkle in your eye, and endless creativity. You set up outside tables and chairs with goodies and art supplies.

You have an adventurous spirit, a house of treasures, of personal art, of interesting wonders.

Your sense of humor is the same as ours, and we revel in it.

I am overjoyed that my kids have been agate hunting, and that they know what snot agates are, and that they, too, have waded into the cold waters of Lake Superior, and dug in the rocks, and giggled in joy with the golden sun at their backs.

They've run towards the lift bridge to see it going up, to watch the amazing spectacle of a massive boat going underneath.

You've endured so much trauma and pain in this life, and still, you are kind, gentle, and seek the good in humanity. You're positive and good, and make it a point not to harm anyone or anything.

You save animals. You work, in ways small and large, to bring light and joy to others.

You introduced us to your kids and their kids, and now we have so much more family than I did a few years ago.

I love that you still have Aunt Jo's rolling pin. I don't know why it looms so large in my memory, except  maybe that it took me so many years to actually get from one side of the room to the other on it, and to proudly be allowed to add my name.

At some point, I needed so badly to make peace with my dad on the shores of Lake Superior. I needed to return to my Duluth family, though the people I grew up visiting were gone.

But connecting with you was, in a sense, like coming home. I have family there, stretching back generations and leaning forward into new generations. My kids are now part of this.

Watching you talk to my mom, hearing your exchange of stories, I understood that you had a whole relationship before I was ever in the picture. You remembered me as a baby being dangled in my mom's skirt.

My parents knew you and loved you long before I was born.

I remember when my dad and I visited your mom in Florida during what was to be her last winter. She made him red Jell-o with bananas in it, because she knew he loved it. I had no idea.

And it struck me then that she was his big sister. She knew a lot about him that I didn't, and she nurtured him as her baby brother. They were family.

My first thought when I read Jen's news was selfish. I love you so much. Betty loves you so much. We only recently got you back.

What a blessing and a privilege to have someone such as you in my life.

That love doesn't dissipate, but thinking about goodbye really hurts.

We were supposed to be together a week from today, heading into a third delightful family reunion weekend. Covid canceled our plans.

You're one of this world's kindest, most beautiful souls. I see who you are, and I love you for it. All of it.

I know you're in pain, and I wish I could ease it.

You've given me the gifts of your love, your friendship, family.

I love you now in this world, and I love you into the next, my dear cousin.

Love,

Lisa

Eleven year anniversary

Eleven years ago today, May 15, my dad disappeared.

It was a Friday, like today.

Other years the anniversary has fallen on other days. I do understand that's how the calendar works.

But this anniversary is Friday-Saturday. Just like it was when my dad left us.

Beautiful and sunny, lush and glorious, with the rich promise of summer, also like today in DC.

Too beautiful a day to die.

I have written this post annually. It's not even like there are new facts.

I like to use this photo of my brother and me standing as my dad plays piano in Bangladesh.

But I think about his death sometimes. Not all the time, like I used to. Just sometimes. And particularly today.

With all the news about intubation lately, I think about signing a paper in the ER saying we understood the risk of death when they switched the emergency tube inserted by the EMTs to a longer-term one that would keep him breathing in the ICU.

I think about the repeated terror of knowing Dad had slipped off with the intent to die, and of not being able to find him. I think about the times that either we or the police found him.

I think about begging and hoping and praying that he would live.

I think about holding his hand, watching him carefully while he was hooked up to machines that made sure he breathed, that monitored his vital signs, that did whatever else one does to keep a body alive.

And then I think about the last time, about knowing in my heart he was gone, but hoping and praying I was wrong.

I think about waking up to no news on Saturday. About Nick driving and me calling hospitals as he drove, because we needed to be doing something, not just sitting, waiting for a phone call.

I think about the sun streaming through the windshield, and how big and uncomfortable my belly was in my lap.

When Nick suggested we call the morgue, I made him talk. I think about listening to Nick, on speakerphone, persuade the man at the morgue to tell us whether or not they had my dad.

I remember not being able the breathe, and the kick in the gut feeling when he said yes, they did.

I remember wishing I could tuck my knees up and curl into a ball, and knowing that would be impossible even if we weren't in the car.

Typing this, I feel my breath quicken and my tears sting.

Everyone says time helps. You get so tired of hearing time helps when you are stuck in the moment, and the moment hurts so much, and you can't do anything to speed up time.

Yes, yes, time, time, I know, I know. Time. Thanks.

You get tired of people moving on before you have. You get bitter when people you love think you have grieved long enough.

But here, eleven years out, time has helped tremendously.

Now I can think more about good times and funny stories. I try to share with my kids stories that show my dad as a whole, real person.

One day I'll tell them the story of Nick and my dad bringing Nick's boat across the Chesapeake. The photo above is from their lucky safe arrival.

It's not that we had all dark times. We had a lot of fun, and uproariously funny, times. We just didn't have a lot of calm in between times.

I am like him in this regard. I work on this.

This year for the first time, Dad has started appearing in my dreams. Really it's been since Covid19 hit. I don't know what this is about, but he's alive and my dreams, while chaotic, are not tragic.

He's still a very complicated figure for me, but I take this as a sign that I've moved into a better place with all of it.

He left us on a Friday. They called the time of death on Saturday, but we don't actually know which day it was. So for me, it's a two-day anniversary.

I knew he was gone.

And still, when we called the morgue and they said yes, yes we have him, it was still somehow a huge shock.

Because it is one thing to know in your heart, and another thing to know for sure.

And here we are now, eleven years later.

My friend Vik just texted me *hugs*, the way he does every year on this date. And every year, I feel hugged and loved.

It's a spectacular, sunny day. I'm going to train my dog. My kids are doing their distance learning lessons, and then this afternoon we'll go on a walk. They'll run and fling themselves to the ground among the buttercups.

The azaleas are glorious. The dogwood are blooming. Roses are so fragrant you can smell them even through a mask.

It's a beautiful day for an anniversary.

SD: Team Sanity

Selfie panoramic had somehow never occurred to me...

Last week I was in a conversation on FB with other moms from our school.

I confessed that we'd done nothing in terms of schoolwork. My kids were having a hard enough time without the stress of trying to force them to do math.

And my friend Erum said she was all for Team Sanity. So that's how I've been thinking about it: Team Sanity.

Yesterday my son had a 5th grade video chat. Bless the teacher, who spent at least 50% of the time explaining to them that they only get to unmute their microphones when it is their turn to speak.

That way, she explained, if your sister (ahem) is bugging you, or the dog (also ahem) is pushing her way in (because you encouraged her), or your mom asks you what you want for lunch (not ahem) or whatever, everyone else in the class doesn't hear it.

One kid kept turning her microphone back on unintentionally. All the other kids thought this was hilarious.

Bless our teachers, who always work so hard, and are rising to this extra challenge.

Teachers have called to check in, and I have been completely honest: we've done almost nothing academic.

I have to fight guilt and anxiety over this.

I mean, I'm in the extraordinarily lucky position of not currently having a job I have to juggle along with having my children home all day.

I have so many friends who are working full time and trying to get their kids to follow the lessons that the school is providing. And compared to them I think, what the fuck am I doing?

We are doing some online learning. India has done some math and Spanish. Both kids are reading a ton. This is something. But it is not the math and science and Spanish and writing that Jordan is supposed to be doing.

Neither of them are interested in writing projects, despite cajoling.

And so mostly I'm letting them just hang out.

Because the fact is that I struggle with my children to brush their teeth twice a day, which is one thing I cannot compromise on. Bedtime takes a lot of energy.

I mean, seriously. We brush our fucking teeth every single day. We go to bed every single night. How is this an appalling surprise, an affront to their very way of life, ever single damn day?

My son rarely does homework, because he gets upset about things like the repetition, or gets very worked up about making his writing perfect, and any small mistake can derail him. He's better than he was, but us doing homework means me sitting next to him the whole time and then, forcing myself to stay calm when he gets worked up, and supporting him in calming himself down.

It's a drama trauma almost every time, is what it is.

And now that we're spending all our time together, I'm not spending our days like this. DC just announced that while they don't yet have a set date, we will not be going back to school April 27.

This means we have a lot more days at home in front of us.

It's an extraordinary time in history. It might be a lost academic year for my kids. I can live with this.

I'm far more interested in household harmony. In behaving in a loving manner. If I'm constantly angry because I'm trying to get my kids to do things they do not want to do, it means I'm not good at being gentle with them when they need me.

And right now, they really need me. They both need a lot of my attention. They get upset easily. They want reassurance.

Some days, India is on me, like physically stuck to me, the way she was a baby. The other day I sat with her in the big red chair, and I cuddled her, and I explained how we sat in that chair the first few months of her life, and she would eat and then fall asleep on my chest and I would read.

I read and read. I read all but one of the Game of Thrones books. And they were long. The truth is that at some point I started skipping the chapters of the characters I disliked. Theon Greyjoy? Skip.

The positive of this was that when I watched the show, some things were total surprises to me!

I still feel bitter about how they ended it.

That's an aside.

We have much better days together if we focus on doing art projects, and talking to each other, doing puzzles and playing games.

My mom and India and I sat together making Sculpi...things. I wound up not baking anything I made. They looked better in my mind than they actually turned out.

So I voiced this guilt, this anxiety about not forcing my kids to do online learning, and in response, a friend sent me something that basically said to take care of your kids' mental health first and foremost. Our kids aren't going to remember what they learned during this time--they're going to remember how they felt.

This resonated with me.

When they look back on this, if what stays with them is the feeling of being loved, of being cuddled tight, of hanging out together watching Harry Potter movies, and of eating truly astounding amounts of popcorn every day, I'm OK with that.

Team Sanity.

Love and hugs,

Lisa

Cheese in the Bahamas with you...

Growing up, we didn't have family living nearby. We'd see them for a week or two in the summer time. And me, I have so little family as it is.

So our overseas friends became family. They were who we celebrated holidays and birthdays with, who we turned to for support, who we called in emergencies.

You already know Jane, Jane who was in my wedding and took credit for telling me to marry the man with the boat.

You don't know Sarah, but you might meet her sometime when she breezes through town. She lives in Cape Town and has been absolutely everywhere, and every once in a while I get a text asking if she can stay with us (of course) and she's on a bus down from NYC that very moment.

She's come to stay when I've been gone, and friends of mine have dropped in and had tea with her and then when I come home they're all best friends already.

Everyone loves Sarah. People who've met her once reminisce about times with Sarah.

We've known their family since the 80s in Delhi. Candy and my mom became instant friends. I have vivid memories of them giggling in the living room.

Jane and I lived together in San Diego. I'd only been driving a year when she arrived, and she said every since she gives directions like, "In one mile, you're going to need to be in the right lane..."

The photo above is of Jon and my dad at the Pushkar Camel Fair.

Anyway.

I don't know how it is now, because it seems like you can get everything everywhere, but when we were growing up, every time someone returned from the US or Europe, they were always laden with things you couldn't get in whatever country we lived in.

Peanut butter, deodorant, face cream. I think the weirdest thing my dad ever asked for was a tennis ball shooter machine. Or maybe car tires.

In any case, I grew up used to taking requests and carting weird and heavy things. It was just what you did for friends.

The beginning of January, Betty and I spent a few days visiting friends on a tiny, glorious little island in the Bahamas.

Was it as magical as it sounds? It was.

They live in South Africa, so when they said they'd be in the Bahamas for a bit, we jumped on the chance to visit them much closer to home.

We bought tickets last minute. I organized after school care for the kids. My friend Andrea, who happened to be in town and who I'd just had coffee with, offered to walk Wanda.

I asked Sarah if there was anything we could bring. Because I'd heard the stories of the things they cart to Spanish Wells when they go. Everything has to be brought by ship, so it's very expensive, and brands are limited.

Their only request was walnuts, cheese, and nice crackers.

By now it was Thursday night.  We were leaving for the airport at 5:00 the next morning. We searched the house.

Walnuts, we had. And a nice Manchego, almost two pounds. But no other cheese! And no lovely crackers!

I was home fixing the kids dinner, so Betty immediately headed out to the shops around the corner. The one that would definitely have the nicest cheese was closed. But she managed a brie and a couple blocks of cheddar and scads of crackers.

Lest a cheese enthusiast decide to snack on one, I put them all in a ziploc bag in the fridge with a note that said: TAKING TO BAHAMAS. DO NOT OPEN.

Nick came home during dinner and opened the fridge. He saw the sign. And then he said, "Are you allowed to take cheese to the Bahamas?"

Allowed to take cheese? What kind of question was that?

He looked it up and said, "No dairy products."

I said, "Cheese isn't really dairy dairy. It's packaged."

"Lisa. You could get in trouble. What if you wind up in Bahamian jail?"


"We'll just pretend we had a snack for the plane and forgot to take it out."

"You've got like 5 pounds."

My mom said, "It'll be fine."

So I messaged Sarah and told her Nick was nervous and she said to tell him it would be fine. So I told him it would be fine but he remained unconvinced.

I think of Nick as much bolder than me, but he's also a lawyer and gets all liability focused and rulesy which is often very helpful like when I was trying to pick a fight with the police but then other times seems more like a nuisance.

So.

We arrived. Nobody asked anything.

We got in a van that drove us to the water, whereupon the driver pulled all the bags out of the van and loaded them onto his boat and off we went.

As we neared the dock at Spanish Wells, people in the boat started pointing and asking what was going on.

Helloooooooo!

Because keeping pace with the boat were two golf carts full of people waving enthusiastically and tirelessly.

At us! Our friends were waving at us!

We laughed and waved and waved, all the way to shore.


As it turns out, there are cars but people mainly get around by golf cart, so we rented a golf cart. It was great fun, once I got past my twitchiness about a) driving a golf cart and b) driving on the left side.

We did almost lurch into the side of the house one day when I forgot to put it in reverse.

Oops!

But we didn't!

The visit was perfect. I wished I could stay a month.

We went for walks in the soft, soft sand. We watched a sea star scootch along the bottom.

Candy read us her poetry. Candy and Betty hugged and giggled like old times.

Jane and her son and I went exploring and wound up at an outdoor beach bar, where they played in the hammock and tossed coconuts and we enjoyed cocktails with our toes in the sand.

I was going to put this photo on FB and Jane said to caption it, "It's not better in the Bahamas." And to add the hashtag "big lie".

Since I don't tend to hashtag my FB photos, I wrote out the word "hashtag" instead of using a #. Later Jane very sweetly said, "Um, Lis, I don't know if you know about hashtags, but you use the # rather than the word..."

Then Sarah accused Jane of using dumb hashtags.

Hashtag verycontentioussubject

And then, just like that, it was time to go.

Three days is not so long, after all.

And no matter how many days, time is always too short with people you love.

We had a grand goodbye at the dock, and their golf carts followed the boat and waved and waved. We giggled through tears.

Coincidentally, the woman sitting next to us in the boat was also named Lisa. The sweetness of the goodbye brought her to tears as well.

And then my mom asked her if she was a Democrat.

Why, Betty, why? Hashtag why?

The kids sure were glad to have us back.

Nick has been calling us cheese mules ever since.

A decade in review

January 2010

I don't remember being ready to embrace 2010, but I remember when 2009 ended, I was well and ready to see it go.

I didn't think about it at the time as the end of a decade, but perhaps more the end of an era.

2009 was the year of my dad's seventh and fatal suicide attempt. Some people asked if it was a relief, to finally stop being vigilant after years of constant worry.

It was not a relief.

2009 was the year we bought our house, had a baby, and immediately thereafter started construction while living in aforementioned house.

People complimented me on losing the baby weight fast, and here is what I will tell you: I lost my baby weight fast because I had a C-section and I couldn't do stairs, and we had no kitchen on the ground floor, and Nick worked all the time, and my mom was pretty occupied with grief. So nobody fed me.

Nick would come home from work at 9:00 or 10:00 pm and ask what I'd had for dinner and I think that's about the time I started joking about stabbing him.

(I don't really joke about it with him around anymore because he finds it offensive.)

My friend Kathy asked if I needed anything and I asked her for a stash of protein bars. I put them in my bedside table and that's what I'd eat.

Leading up to Christmas, Nick proposed a fake tree, but I wanted a real tree. And then Nick asked who was going to water it and vacuum up the branches and I was all, OK, let's get a fake one.

It was magical. It was already wrapped with lights. We just used it for the 10th time this Christmas. Half the lights died two years ago and the rest of them went last year, so we snipped them all off and now we string our own. But the tree is still lovely.

I remember Nick being so angry that when it was time to take down the tree, because neither my mother nor I took off the decorations.

When I first thought back on the past decade, I initially said it was dominated by having and raising children and renovating our house. 

However, once I read through this piece I realized that loss was an equally important, if not perhaps the prevailing theme.

By the beginning of 2010 I was being treated for post-partum depression, but I was, in retrospect, not adequately medicated and still barely hanging on. I probably should've also been in therapy. I look back at this video and I feel like it could be a depression commercial.

In early 2010 we had snowmaggeddon, where DC shut down for about two weeks. Our boiler gave out that first night and we were lucky that our friend Kurt, the manager of the guest house across the street, was at our house playing Scrabble with Betty when it happened. He brought over all their extra space heaters, and we kept the pipes from freezing.

I don't remember much about 2010 except that giant snow, and that Jordan was, thankfully, a good sleeper. He'd nurse and fall asleep and I would lie in bed silently fuming about my peacefully sleeping husband and thinking about how Nick and I would divide up the furniture.

If it sounds like I harbored a lot of animosity towards Nick in those early years, it's because I did.

Hate might be an extreme way to put it but you know I don't trust women who never admit to wanting to stab their husbands.

Life is not perfect. People are hard to live with. (I am hard to live with.)

I am even harder to live with while taking hormones, which was the fun thing we did in 2011, which led to the arrival of our delightful India in 2012.

Also in 2011, we sold Betty's house and she moved in with us shortly before India was born.

In the GW hospital exit class, I met Meg, a woman who would become one of my dearest friends. Our daughters were born the same day, and we spent our maternity leaves together nursing all around DC, and now we and they are lifelong friends.

We plan for them to take their gap years together somewhere fabulous that their mothers would like to come visit.

In 2013 we lost Nick's dad. India was a year old, and we rented a minivan to drive all of us all to New Jersey. India threw up repeatedly in the car, and we drove straight to the church. Nick's partner Scott arrived at the same time as us, and came over and opened the passenger door to the overwhelming smell of baby puke.

We'd all just gotten used to it over the hours and miles.

In 2014 we lost Auntie Lou, Maude's mama. We still use her recipes and tell funny stories and talk about how much we miss her.

In 2015 we took our progeny and my mother to Spain and I almost died of exhaustion.

In 2016, my cousin Travis passed away, and now I walk in his honor on my Overnight walks. And I wouldn't say this was a highlight, but on the way home from the memorial service, Betty and I both got puked on on an airplane.

In 2017 we lost three people we loved, and it was a year that walloped me. We lost dear Pat, my other mother. We lost John, a dear family friend, whose family I'd known since I was born. And we lost Kim, AKA Australian Builder who remodeled practically our entire house (you may remember him along with Hector Big Wood).

We also went to Family Camp at Winona for the first time, which was the camp experience I never had growing up. It was beautiful and fun and except for the lack of sleep from sleeping in a tent, pretty much perfect.

In 2018, Nick turned 50, and took the day off and took the kids for a helicopter ride. Ever since they've asked if they can play hooky.

I think of helicopters as certain death, and in any case, I'd gone back to office work. That summer I  took the kids to camp in Cartagena, Colombia, for two weeks by myself.

In September of 2018 we had our 10th wedding anniversary. We both agreed that if we could live together through everything we did our first year of marriage, we could stay married forever. There have been periods of time that have tested this notion, but on the whole, we ended 10 years way stronger than we began.

Also, and I am very proud of this, I got my first paid article published in the Washington Post's On Parenting section.

I'm going to say it here: I have a goal of getting three pieces into publications in 2020.

I did practically no writing the last couple years. This is the year I return to it.

And in 2019, the last year of this decade, I was reminded of the fact that whenever I decide to cut off all my hair, it means I'm in crisis. Even if I don't seem like it on the outside. Even if I'm all, oh, I just need a change.

NO.

Next time I'm like, I want a pixie! Just for fun! Please ask me if I need to review my medication (I did) and perhaps make a change (I did).

I don't know why existential crises and the shearing of hair are so closely linked for me, but they are. It's a follicular cry for help, perhaps.

Also, I turned 50 and went to India to commemorate the milestone birthday.

Anyway, I'll be growing out my platinum pixie in 2020.

I think Nick and I ended the decade with a much more solid relationship. Knock wood the big renovations are done, which is good because not only are they expensive, but they take an emotional toll.

And, in November, we got Wanda. We tried to change her name to Carmen (after Carmen San Diego) but we called her Wanda half the time and Carmen the other half and my mom just keeps calling her Gloria after our best dog ever. So we stuck with Wanda.

My goal was to get a calm dog, and she is an anxious piece of work. She's mostly over being scared of Nick, but alternates between adoring him and getting all shifty when he's around. She adores Betty and Jordan. She likes India but half the time India rushes at her and says things like "Booya booya booya!" which freaks a nervous girl the hell out.

But she's gentle and kind at heart, and that goes a long way.

That's my decade in review. I know I rarely blog anymore, and I appreciate those of you who are still with me.

I am constantly reminded that life takes a village. Happiness takes a village, because what matters more than people we love who love us?

Happy New Year, my friends. I'm wishing you all the best in 2020 and beyond.

So much love to you.