Live From New Jersey…

It’s Saturday morning! (I’d say night, but I can’t post this on a Saturday night. I plan to be enjoying ice cream)

So I took the kids to New Jersey yesterday afternoon. It was Desmond’s first trip out of state, planned neurotically after his two month vaccinations, because I have been terrified of Whooping Cough. Terrified. Anyway, we survived the four hour (plus change) trip and we’re ecstatic to be here. It had been awhile. We were supposed to come for Easter but I was sick with a sinus infection. We were supposed to come around Mother’s Day but we had two cars in need of repairs. It had been such a long while. Christmas time was last, to be exact. I was still nauseated by everything and skipping parties and sleeping all day and hating winter. As I always do. Today, late summer in Jersey..so different. So, so alive.

I’ve been walking around in a bit of a jumble of past and present thoughts. Baby napping in this room. Pictures of my grandfather in that room. Everything here is the same. And everything is different. There’s a baby here, where there’s never been this particular baby. There’s a loss felt here, where there’s never been felt this particular loss. True my grandfather lived in Florida, but he’s everywhere here. Everywhere. At around 8-10 weeks, baby Scarlet learned to smile and coo up at nothing at the ceiling. I believe it’s a developmental thing but it always looked to me like she was talking to ghosts. And now, at 8-10 weeks, Desmond smiled and cooed last night up at nothing (that we could see, at least) up at the ceiling of the room we’re staying at. He seems so at home and peaceful here. Able to sleep at the drop of the hat.

In short, that’s the way my kids are as babies. In long, I believe he feels at home in the presence of his grandparents and in the shadows of his great-grandparents. That’s what I believe.

I went into one room and fell into the mental booby trap of seeing my mother’s wedding album with my birth father. And wow. My four grandparents so young and alive in those albums. My father, so damn young and alive and handsome. And what I’m left with isn’t even in very many memories of him, but I can see pieces of him in his grandson. And so, we live with so much loss, but so very much life. The world is absolutely buzzing with life here at the farm.

I decided to nurse Des outside today. It was a cool morning, and Scarlet and my mom gardened nearby. We sat next to the Butterfly Bush, and boy does that thing live up to its name. Baby butterflies and bees buzzed around us. Crickets sang nearby. The horses neighed (brayed?) loudly in the barn. A hummingbird couple (wonder if they’re married) fluttered at the feeder. A gigantic yellow butterfly soared above our heads against the puffy-cloudy sky. The view of the Appalachian trail stood in front of us. So I did what I thought was appropriate at the time. I sang loudly and very off-key. I sang “The hills are alive with the sound of music.” It was pretty bad. Either that or the rampant bees distracted Des a lot and he became whiny and so we went outside. Before we entered the front door, he opened his eyes against the sky and grinned.

Did he even know he was in the face of such greatness? Maybe. Maybe not. Somehow I’m certain it will stick with him somehow..and his grin showed me that he knew what I thought he should know. Greatness. Life. Greatness.

Late summer should be its own season. The Life Greatness season.