Come to the edge

Come-to-the-Edge.jpg, a photo by Nikki Kirsch on Flickr.

Flying-Girl

Flying-Girl, a photo by Nikki Kirsch on Flickr.

Crossroad

Bike-Ride

Bike-Ride, a photo by Nikki Kirsch on Flickr.

Happy Mother's Day!

It's a Hard Dog's Life

1:17am:  Skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet.

2:25am:  Skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet.

3:38am:  Skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet.

I rub behind his ears until he falls back asleep.

5:05am. Hot pug breath envelopes my face, amplified by the cone that covers both our heads now. I rub again and nudge back down to the end of the bed.

Bleeeeep...bleeeeep...bleeeeeep...bleeeeep. The alarm is set to crescendo from faint to pleasantly audible. It's supposed to be less jarring.

It's not.

Making coffee:  Skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet.

Getting dressed for work: Skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet.

Curling my hair:  Skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet.

"Look Rocky," I say, "You've got to wear that thing for two weeks, so you'd better start making peace with it." He cocks his heads, looking at me like he knows I'm probably saying something amazingly interested, but he he no idea on God's green earth what it could possibly be. I'm used to this look. Everyone with balls in this house looks at me this same way when I talk these days.

I sigh:  Skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet.

Two weeks. Twenty-four hours in a day. One day down. Only 13 more to go.

Skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet, skreet.

Shit.

Wish-fill Wednesdays

Phoebe Snow died last week. She was a popular singer-songwriter in the 70s, although she wrote, recorded and performed as late as last year. Her music was a large part of the soundtrack of my childhood as my mother was a huge Phoebe fan. I was sad to hear of her passing and found myself playing a lot of her music on my iPod last week. One of my favorite songs is "Harpo's Blues" and I thought the lyrics were just the thing to share on this Wish-fill Wednesday.

I wish wish I was a willow
And I could sway to the music in the wind
And I wish I was a lover
I wouldn't need my costumes and pretend

I wish I was a mountain
I'd pass boldly thru the
clouds and never end
I wish I was a soft refrain
When the lights were out 
I'd play and be your friend

So, what do you wish to be today? Get creative and please share it with me.

Born in the USA

After my son Connor was born, the State of Maine sent his birth certificate. Actually, what they sent was his Certificate of Live. I filed it with the other important papers: the marriage certificate, copies of our birth certificate, and our original social security cards. Over the years, it was joined by other significant documents: his baptismal record, the divorce decree, the new marriage certificate. Every once and a while, I'd need to pull out proof of Connor's age like for Little League, Pop Warner, or other legal proceedings. There was never a problem...until Donald Trump.

For the last few weeks, the media couldn't get enough of Donald Trump's claim that President Obama's Certificate of Live Birth proved nothing. They'd herald the polls that some crazy percentage of Americans didn't believe that the President was born in the United States. And I'm ashamed to admit that I bought into their fear-mongering. I called my mother in a panic, worried that when Connor and I went down to the Registry for his driver's permit, some nut behind the counter would question Connor's legitimacy because he didn't have a birth certificate, but rather, a certificate of live birth. The next day, I ordered the long-form version (which cost me a whole lot more than I wanted to spend), and I told Connor he couldn't get his permit until the new version came, which it did less than 5 days later.

There. Now, no-one could question Connor's legitimacy. I was armed and loaded for bear. But I was also feeling another feeling I couldn't quite put my finger on. It hovered somewhere between sadness and anger. I was sad/mad that I'd let Donald Trump make me question my son's obvious existence. I was sad/mad that I was becoming suspicious and paranoid about the people I would encounter throughout my day. And I was down-right heartbroken and apoplectic when Obama called a press conference releasing his long-form birth certificate. I understood why he did it. But I couldn't help but wonder he felt angry, humiliated, frustrated, tired, or all of the above. What did he tell his daughters? Did any of the kids at school say anything? The Donald got into my head and I'm just a regular girl in Wrentham, Massachusetts, never mind being the President of United States. 

But as I was going to bed last night, I checked onto the Huffington Post for no particular reason, only to find that the President was going to be making a major announcement around 10:30pm. The President? On the Sunday night? This...was...BIG. We got into bed, put on CNN, and waited. Then in came: Osama Bin Laden was dead. Holy crap. OBL, American's boogeyman, was dead. We sat, glued to the coverage. Then they started showing the crowds gathering outside the White House and Ground Zero, cheering and sining the national anthem. And I felt a shift inside of me. Here we are again. Poised at a critical moment in our history as a nation, when we can put our differences aside and see ourselves in each other; each one an American. 

September 11, 2001, was a dark day in America. But the days that follow did, for many, bring out the better angels of our natures. I often what could have been if we'd been able to bottle or harness that energy. I can't help feeling that we're at that crossroad again or at least that I'm there again. I let fear pull me from my center. I will be careful not to let that happen again. It wasn't a wrong decision to get another version of Connor's birth certificate, it was the spirit in which the decision was made that I would change. As it turns out, the new version doesn't look much different from the first. It's slightly more official looking with a big green flourish border, but both have a raised seal and can testify that Connor Burns Eschmann was "Made in the USA".