Consolation for Sorrow

Consolation for Sorrow

A few nights ago I got into my bed, closed my eyes, and laid wide awake. Typical. I was thinking about going back to my kitchen for red wine elixir when I flipped onto my other side and opened my eyes. My curtains were only slightly drawn. Through the opening I saw colored holiday bulbs across the street - tiny little pulses in the night. Without my glasses, all of the bulbs ran into each other and then into some more - a wondrously tacky apparition in the night. I felt heavy and soft. I sank down deep into my mattress and pulled my covers up over my ear. I might have giggled a little to myself. I heard Claire breathing steadily in her bedroom. I was so comfortable. Still, I didn't sleep, but my head quieted for awhile...

Every year, near the beginning of this month, something triggers that ever-so-gentle giddiness. Every year, when triggered, I float outside of myself just the smallest bit and the kindest of visions come over me in warm waves. This feeling, it is not generic peace on earth, nor good will toward men, nor joy to the world. It is much more selfish and exclusive than all of that. It is a soft, fuzzy rush unique to the month of December. And in January, when the once magical twinkling lights of holiday trees become a catalyst to four months of dirty snow, that rush is gone. Completely. Just like that.

But the rush, oh, it is all senses at once. Fuzzy colored bulbs. The smell of my furnace the first time it kicks on for winter. It is A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack playing over and over again. It is the softness of Claire's hair done in two velvety french braids. The tree lights coloring her cheeks gold. It is catching her peeling the ribbons off of her gifts because she just can't help herself.

And the retailers just have it all wrong. They have it too fast and too flashy. Too bouncy and too smiley. Because December is hazy light blue and it is quiet and it echoes. It is slow. So very slow and sleepy. It is heavy like red wine and dark stout and eggnog and snow globes and the good silver and china. It doesn't smile so much as its eyes just half-close and its lips purse lightly and curl with contentment. I don't care how many tow-headed Stepford children Target lets loose in a sparkly winter wonderland - they just have it all wrong. December is much more simple than all of that.

And these kindest of visions are foggy and they are slow motion. They have me watching from the ceiling as if accompanied by one of the Ghosts of...
My mother's kitchen counters dusted with pastry flour and rolling pins, the windows fogged up from the heat of the oven. Claire in the backseat of our car giggling and pointing and squealing and downing chocolate milk well past her bedtime as we creep through neighborhoods just dripping with perfectly gaudy bulbs and inflatable Santas and motorized reindeer. Sweeping up cookie crumbs and stray tinsel every night. My sister's satiny gold hair against her green wool coat when she comes through the door on Christmas Eve. The way she always shakes her head to get the snow out before making eye contact, putting her bag down and cupping her mittened hands around Claire's face for a kiss. Eating fudge - the real kind - with afghans thrown over our legs. Ryan's overnight bag at my bedroom door - his polished shoes sticking out like wrapped candy. Getting up in the middle of the night just to turn on the tree lights for awhile. Old-fashioned plaid ribbons. The smell of pomegranates and cloves and caramels. And fire logs. And cheap, red taper candles.

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On Sunday I had to go to the office. I could not afford to not work my full forty hours with so many gifts to buy and events to attend. And Claire had to come with me. And I got anxious just thinking about it. She's had to come in with me before and I always feel so bad about it and she is always so good - so good that it makes me feel even worse.

But Sunday, I was particularly on edge - I was angry that work was keeping her from staying in her warm house in her warm pajamas on her warm couch with her warm blanket and Piggy and her Christmas lights and Howl's Moving Castle. Even so, I made her take a bath and I made her get dressed and I made her sit still while I braided her hair. And I made her eat all of her yogurt. And I made her put her dolls away and I made her stuff herself in her coat and her hat and her mittens. I made her get in the half-warmed car. I made her run as fast as she could from the parking garage to the office while I ran clumsily behind trying to lug my purse and two bags full of blankets and coloring books and movies and snacks and our little portable DVD player. And when she yelled, out of breath, "Mama, pweease carry me," I just told her to keep running because it was too cold and I only had two hands! And when we got to the door I swept her up and ran with her hanging uncomfortably off my hip up two flights of stairs so I could punch my code in before the alarm went off. And she whined as I ran because she had wanted to go up the stairs herself like a big girl. And I just ignored her.

I made her a bed out of the blankets next to my desk. I set up her movie player. I put out her snacks and her coloring books. And she was so good for awhile. But soon, she just got antsy like a three year old does. She wanted to sit on my lap. She wanted to go upstairs to the vending machine. She wanted to type on my computer. She wanted to sit on the tall chair at the cutting table. She wanted me to show her the snail in Max's aquarium. She wanted to go see the desk where Jen used to work... and then where 'Wiz' used to work. She had to go potty four dozen times. She wanted me to read her a book. And I just told her firmly that I had to work - had to make money to buy things we need. My body was tense. My tone was curt. I was angry that money and my own responsibilities kept her from her warm house on a cold Sunday afternoon. Angry that lack of money had actually made me irritable toward her. Angry that I was in no position to say, "Yes, baby, let's go home."

Finally, I packed up our things. It was getting dark. She was hungry. As we walked down the stairs together, bogged down by bags and purses and blankets, I thought, quite melodramatically, my God, this is a scene from a Lifetime movie. The trials and tribulations of a single working mother! How hard it is sometimes. And I wanted to put the back of my hand to my forehead and I wanted sympathy and I wanted some time to breathe. And I just wanted quiet. Every inch of me was tense and irritable and glib. Every inch.

Halfway home she stopped chattering. I looked in the mirror and found her little cheeks had gone fat and droopy and soft and rosy, her hat was almost covering her eyelids completely. She was breathing softly, sound asleep. She felt like a warm, fluffy pink marshmallow as I lifted her from her carseat. And as I put my hand on the back of her head and carried her inside, I felt all of the chemicals in my body slow down, stop, and reverse. She was like medicine. Sweet, pink, fluffy medicine. And I felt ashamed and silly and childish for my melodrama. For thinking I had it so tough. I know better. Everyday, I know better.

See, everyday I feel like I am cheating - not playing fair. When I am complaining about work or traffic or the straightness of my hair, I know better. But after loss or tragedy or injustice - these are the times I really hang my head and say, "I am cheating."

Cheating because I have medicine.

She is small and she is marvelous. And even as her hair is darkening with winter, she is brightening. Every day. Every day she works better and faster than liquor. Better than drugs - or therapy if you're the patient kind. Every day that I feel a little broken, her presence - her being - repairs. And I feel silly and childish and ashamed that I take it for granted sometimes. But, mostly, I feel like I am cheating because I have her - medicine. So many people just don't.

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It is actually possible to drive through the end of a rainbow. Really. On the afternoon of October 28th, I drove my car through the end of a rainbow. Honestly.

Of course, when I immediately called Claire to tell her what I had managed to do I threw a leprechaun into the mix for the benefit of added magic and wonder. However, my actual passing through a complete Roy G. Biv rainbow is absolute truth.

I have received mix reaction from others while recounting my amazing story. Some become astonished by the true magnificence of this occurrence. Some have just politely smiled and said, "That's neat." Some have challenged my reality, actually implying that this simply cannot be. And to those people I have said (well, not out loud), "You are dumb and altogether ignorant of science and I will do it again and have a photo taken by an unbiased third party as proper and irrefutable documentation and you will rue the day you doubted my ability to drive through rainbows." Some have just rolled their eyes to passively communicate their apparent feeling that I have taken my belief that life is "all rainbows and puppies" too far. Yet, sadly, I did not manage to encounter anyone who had done the same exquisite thing that I had done until...

A few weeks ago Erin and I were catching up over the phone and... SHE HAD DRIVEN THROUGH THE END OF A RAINBOW ON THE VERY SAME AFTERNOON THAT I HAD DRIVEN THROUGH THE END OF A RAINBOW! This information made me want to pass out. I mean, come on, I had driven through the end of a rainbow on the very same day that my best friend, whom I miss desperately, had ALSO driven through the end of a rainbow! Ultimately, I like to believe the *most giant rainbow ever - spanning from Seattle to Detroit - revealed itself for the purpose of two best friends finally finding... The Rainbow Connection.

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I want Claire to believe in magic because it's fun and silly and entertaining to me and little kids are just supposed to believe in that stuff. For a while I managed to convince her that I am ten times more magic than Santa Claus by way of normal mothering. Typical things like; hearing a rustling in the kitchen and calling out from the other room, "Claire, you better not be trying to get another cupcake," when, of course, she was trying to get another cupcake; telling her to get back in her bed and go to sleep when the door to her room was closed and I couldn't possibly know that she was in her floor playing with Thomas the Train who is so super cool because he loudly chuga-chugas and choo-choos; having the mind-blowing ability to grow more cereal just by adding milk to the bowl; somehow just knowing that snow will be on the ground when we wake up; turning soupy chocolate water into PUDDING! with my magic wooden spoon. And, of course, there is my show-stopping gift of removing my thumb! and rightfully attaching it to my hand without it hurting or bleeding or anything!

Over the past couple of months I started to notice that she wasn't really feeling the magic anymore. My child was suddenly choosing reason more often to explain the little things.

I was in the shower a few weeks ago when I heard the kitchen cupboards clanging about. Immediately I knew that Claire had pulled the chair up to the counter, climbed up onto it, and was attempting to retrieve the Halloween candy that I had taken right out of her little hands earlier that morning. I stopped the water, leaned my head out and yelled, in classic mom fashion, "Claire June, you get off of that counter this second before you bust your little head open." Immediately, she ran into the bathroom all mad and stuck her little head in the shower, snapping, "Mama, how did you know that's what I was doing?" I told her that I was magic and I know everything. She shook her head, put her little hands on her hips and said, "Huh uh, you just heard me bangin' when I almost fell down and that's how you know! You imn't magic!"

The following week my family was gathered in my parents' livingroom. Before we arrived, my mother hid a new princess doll in the end table Claire keeps her crayons and things in. We'd been there for awhile when we all started performing pretty shoddy magic tricks for her. She decided to show us a better magic trick but, apparently, needed some props. She went to the end table, opened the door and froze in awe at the sight of the princess doll. Her eyes got big, her lips parted, and with the softest gasp of disbelief she whispered to herself, "I just did a magic twick."

That moment of chance was filled with the most amazing magic I've ever witnessed. Better than her first steps or words or giggles. Better than any first. Better because she had, instead, regained. See, gradually -over time - she had lost a belief in something that was just too hard to believe in and, in an instant, she found it again. She believed it again. There was so much consolation in that moment. So much medicine.

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I am clumsy. I fall up stairs. I walk into desk corners. And Claire, she's pretty clumsy, too. She's started to become embarrassed when she's clumsy in public. We'll be walking down a sidewalk holding hands and she'll be skipping like a crazy, then stumble and hit the cement with one knee before I lift her back steady. She'll turn a slight shade of pink, lower her eyes and slow to a walk. And I always say to her, casually, "Everybody trips, Bear. Ain't no thing." But still, she's embarrassed. Of course. But she's a kid and so she always starts skipping again and chatting about worms - and setting herself up. And she's a brave little three year old.

And she is my courage and she is my medicine. Because I am emotionally clumsy, too. I spill my guts without caution. And I offer up warm confessions that are usually met with blank faces and non-responses - indifference. And I don't mind it, really. And I don't intend on stopping, really. But I wasn't really like this at all before I had her. And so I feel like I am cheating. It's too easy for me, having her as medicine.
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I really have no idea how large rainbows can span.