Creativity--How Do I Make Room for You in My Life???
- Actually getting my guitar tuned (every time I sit down to do it I end up with a kid in my lap) and singing songs with the kids
- Figuring out some new things I can do with my camera
- Digging out my old video camera and making some cute little home movies
- Writing a children's book or two (there's an idea I've been trying to make work for 10 years at least...)
- Finishing my book about living in San Francisco a million years ago...
- Heck, even just thumbing through something other than "Poetry" and "The New Yorker" just to get a fresh perspective on things (which, aside from the picture, is why I bought this magazine this week). (And "Poetry" and "The New Yorker" are both great, it just feels like they are the only things I've read simce the kids were born.)
Dear Luke and Zoey (Dexter the Dog Edition)
Dear Luke and Zoey,
Since you were first born, you've shared your home with two boxers, one of whom is named Dexter. Dexter lost an eye over the past weeks...he also turned nine years old...and I've been thinking a lot about him and wanted to tell you...
When I lived in Santa Barbara with your Uncle Luke, I had a dog name Shaye that died one night suddenly and scarily. The next day, your Uncle Luke and I both took off work, got lattes at the Coffee Cat, drove north to Jalama, a beautiful, secluded beach. It was windy and cold, we both were so sad. I lay in the sand and drew patterns with my fingers, Luke poked around the tide pools, coming back to me occasionally to make sure I was OK.
On the way back to town, Luke said, "I think we should get another dog."
"No," I said. "Too soon."
"Well, I'm going to get a dog," he said. "We're set up for a dog. I think it's the right thing to do."
So we went to the Montecito Pet Shop (Montecito is the next town over...it's where Oprah and all the movie stars live) and they had boxer puppies and we sat on the floor and let the puppies crawl all over us and Luke started crying and not that I had any control over the situation, but I knew then that getting a puppy was the right thing to do. (We always joked that all of Dexter's brothers and sisters went to rich homes where the dogs had nannys and private doggie pools and tricked-out dog houses and poor Dexter had to come home to just a normal life with us. Although a dog couldn't have ever asked for a better life than the one Dexter had with Luke.)
Your Uncle Luke loved that dog, they bonded so strongly, they had a year together and then your Uncle Luke died and I got the dog, although he's never really been attached to me at all. It will break my heart when we lose Dexter, but I also know that he will be so happy to be with his true master again.
("Dexter's the only link I have to Luke left," I told your daddy one day when I was scared about Dexter dying sometime in the future.
"You'll always have a link right here," your daddy replied, patting his heart and making me cry.)
Dexter loves you kids dearly, comes up to give you kisses all the time which he never does with anyone else, not even me or your daddy, lets you guys climb all over him, sleeps in your room in front of your crib. And he is doing fine with one eye, by the way...it's amazing how dogs just adapt and don't even care.
I hope Dexter lives long enough that you have memories of him; regardless, I will be here to tell you stories, to make sure you know...
Love,
Mommy
Going Through Old Files Getting Ready to Write Again, and Finding a Poem That Makes Me Think of My Brother Luke
Hi Everyone! Happy Friday!
One of the things I want to do this year is write again...I mean, I write here, and for my job Monday through Friday...but I mean work on some of my book-length projects...things I haven't touched in a year or more, being hugely pregnant and then with the twins...
The first step is getting organized, seeing where I left off...no small feat. And interesting what you find when doing so...
I found a poem, one of only two poems I've ever memorized in my life, I love it because it says to me what writing is about, not giving up on your dreams, you know? What the real reward for doing it is.
Also, it's by Charles Bukowski, one of my favorite writers of all time. My brother Luke's (the one who died), too. When we were living together our house was full of his books, and one night we went to see a documentary about him up at UCSB with the drummer in Luke's band. The drummer's girlfriend was always involved in these fancy party-type things and we met the drummer at one of them, there was a photographer taking pictures of people for the society pages of the newspaper or whatever, and a picture of us ended up there, with the same last name it looked like we were a married couple. "This is why I can't get a date in this town," Luke said. Actually, that crowd, where we made the occasional appearance (not really our scene)...pretty much everyone assumed we were just some "cute surfer couple," as the drummer's girlfriend (now wife) tells the story, not brother and sister, I'm assuming because wherever we went we were always together, plus having the same last name...
Missing Luke...wish I had a copy of that picture...I know the drummer's girlfriend has one because she mentioned it last time I saw her...
But, I hugely digress...
Anyway, here's the poem. Excited to be starting to write again...feels good.
afternoons into night
Charles Bukowski
looking out the window
smoking rolled cigarettes
drinking Sanka
and watching the workers
come on in
I wonder, how much longer
can I get away with this?
stories and poems and
paintings
surviving on that.
an insane girlfriend
years younger
who loves me
types at her novel
in the kitchen
my stories, my poems...
what is a poem?
a book by Celine sits on
the edge of the bathtub.
I read it when I bathe
and laugh.
the workers come in now
I see their faces,
the insides scraped away,
the outsides
missing.
I've had their jobs,
their goldfish
security
Segovia plays to me
so softly from the
radio, the daylight's going.
look here--
the trip's been worth it,
while jetliners go to New York and
Georgia and Texas
I sit surrounded by hymns that
nobody can ever take away
as the workers bend over
hot soup and cold
wives.
Thanks for spending some time here this week. Hope you have a lovely weekend. :)
XOXO
Image Credit: luckyfish.
Grace in Small Things, San Francisco Edition (January 10, 2013)
A few lovely things that happened on my quick (48 hour) work trip to San Francisco (into which I tried to squeeze as much socializing as humanly possible). Oh, how I love San Francisco. I lived there for seven years, miss it every day.
1. Driving up from San Jose on the 280 early misty morning, having just spent a too-short evening/overnight with my college roommate Chris and his fiance Kim, love being around them, they always make me feel so incredibly welcome. (Years ago they even gave me a key to their house so I could come and go as I pleased whenever visiting the Bay Area.) Yesterday driving up to the city the light was just starting to come, the hills so green, the trees so lush...made me think of driving east on the 80 from Colorado the March I moved out to San Francisco, my brother Luke drove me, we left a foot of snow behind in Colorado and the green of the hills and the black-and-white cows, the warm humid air...I will never forget it.
2. Hiking and getting to see some of the art installations in the Presidio with Ryan (with whom I used to surf all. the. time.) So lovely to see him (and see where his family lives as they've moved since last time I visited...it's gorgeous)...and so nice to get out in nature, exactly what I wanted to do.
3. Seeing Wendy, whom I work with and who has a spectacular town home in Sausalito, so girly, so lovely.
[Insert confusing work meeting here.]
4. Getting to drive across the Golden Gate Bridge (twice). And reaching Ocean Beach before dark (which I didn't think would happen), so I could get at least a glimpse of my beloved waves. Cold and windy, wild like always, the feel and the smell of the air like it is only there...heaven...
5. Seeing my friends Stacey and Tobin, who live a block from the beach, you can hear the ocean at night from their house.
True story: We went for sushi last night (which was unbelievable. I'm never eating sushi in Colorado again.) Anyway, parking in San Francisco is INSANELY hard, for those of you who don't know. I lived on Russian Hill when I lived there, and in the evenings if it took you half an hour to find a parking spot and the spot was within a 10-block radius of where you lived, you were lucky.
Last night, there was a space right across the street from the restaurant. Tobin did a U-turn to snag it, and some other guy saw it at the same time, turned from the other direction and was about to take it. After they both tried unsuccessfully to wave each other away from the spot, Tobin got out of the car, the other guy got halfway out, each of them saying, "Hey I saw it first, that's my spot." This is the kind of thing that ends up in fist fights, right?
"Tell you what, why don't we flip for it?" Tobin said to the other guy. "That's fair, right? We both think we're right...this is a fair way to decide."
"All right," said the other guy.
The coin was flipped.
Tobin won.
Then said to the other guy, "You know what? It's OK, you can have the spot."
But the other guy said no, wouldn't take it--fair is fair--and we ended up with the spot.
Lovely trip. Missed my babies. I'm exhausted after a 4:15 AM wakeup to make a 6 AM flight. How did I used to travel 150 days a year?
Oh and P.S. any of my San Francisco friends reading this that I didn't get to see...soooooooo sorry! Don't take it personally! There wasn't any time! Next trip I PROMISE. :)
XOXO
Way Back When... (Nor Cal/So Cal Edition)
Long story short, I ended up teaching--instead of taking, which is what I always do--my yoga class a few days ago. Which made me think about my days as a surf instructor, up in San Francisco. Which made me miss the surf. And California.
Also, one of my friends from when I lived in Santa Barbara sent me these old pictures the other day:
I remember this day well, my dog the boxer (Dexter, who was my brother's before he died), Kelly the lab puppy who belonged to Philippe downstairs, Julie's (my friend's) roommate's two dogs, all in the back of my Jeep to Hendry's Beach to play in the sand, sand all over the Jeep after (which was nothing new).
All this seems so far away, it may as well be a dream. That's OK. I'm so, so happy in the here and now.
Still, I've had to work hard to get over the ocean. To make peace with the fact that I'm landlocked. That my surfboards live in my Colorado garage, haven't touched water in years and years...
Still, I sometimes get a little wistful...
Although who knows, maybe we'll live by the sea again...
XOXO
The Dreaded Anniversary
Last Sunday was the anniversary of my brother Luke's death.
A motorcycle accident, a Friday evening, him coming home (we had lived together in a house overlooking the ocean in Santa Barbara, CA) for a BBQ we were having with friends. Later that night, we were all going down to see his band's gig in Ventura. Instead, everyone ended up at the hospital, and then back at our house, taking turns sitting next to me, holding my hands.
Seven years.
How can it be that long? That whole life--living by the ocean, surfing every day, young, and I don't know if I can say happy...we all had our struggles...but we were all together, Luke and I and our friends. Hard not to look back and see such an idyllic picture, and in many, many ways, it truly was.
Seven years.
It shouldn't hurt so much now, should it?
The truth is, it hurts less often. I don't think about it 24/7 anymore. But when I let myself think...it's like it's happening now, all over again. That horrible, horrible nightmare.
The anniversary is one time when it's hard not to let myself think. This year, actually, the worst day was a few days before. The anticipation always kills me. That's when all the tears were shed, when I felt...I mean, how can I go on? It's probably such a long, long time until I die, until there is any kind of peace with all this.
And then...there are babies. For the first time. The happy ending to another trauma, right on the heels of losing my brother: the whole five years of a mess that was us trying to have a baby.
The twins help ease the pain, no question. But in that they add some things to the "good things that have happened to me" column, help to balance life out, so it doesn't look so much like it's just sorrow after sorrow after sorrow. They help. But they don't take away the pain. Or replace the huge hole in my heart.
Still. Before it happened, I was trying to think what I wanted to do on that day (the anniversary), what would make me feel better. And all I wanted was to hold those babies.
XOXO
Mississippi Update
Hi Everyone!
Those of you who have been following along for a while know my husband is about to graduate college in the spring (he went back on the GI Bill), and one of our big priorities for 2012 is getting him a good job. With that may come a move. (Yeah, not long after we have twins. Crazy, I know. But...deep breath...it's all going to work out.)
Some of you may remember us going to Mississippi about six weeks ago to check out an opportunity down there. I'd never thought of Mississippi as a place to live, but where we were potentially going to go was right on the gulf coast and it was lovely.
Long story short, though, Mississippi's not going to happen.
The bummer is that it would have been nice to have my husband's job taken care of. And I did like it there. And the warm weather...that would have been so nice.
On the other hand, I am a total outdoorsy girl and had a bit of a hard time picturing myself being ME in Mississippi. I mean, we would have made it work, absolutely, but I like climbing mountains, and snowboarding, and surfing might be nice again if we wind up somewhere where that's feasible... Also, I've always lived in the West (unless you count the years when I spent half my time in San Francisco and half my time in Boston), and that just feels like home to me.
So we're back to our original plan, which is to focus on Colorado, where we live now, and Seattle, where my husband and I have both lived before. California might figure in there somewhere, although it's not at the top of the list, mostly due to cost of living issues. And then if the right job appears in some random place (which is what potentially could have happened in Mississippi), we're open to it.
Stay tuned...
XOXO
2011: A Look Back
Hi Everyone! Happy Friday!
Hope you all have great New Year's Eve plans! We're laying low, which is fine. Unless we're traveling, I'm not a huge one for New Year's Eve, pregnant or not.
Like most everyone else, the end of the year is always kind of a reflective time for me. Thought I'd share some of what I've been thinking about:
January
We took a belated three-week honeymoon to Europe the end of 2010/beginning of 2011...spent New Year's in Prague (amazing...would do it again in a heartbeat) and the first few days of the year in Venice:
As soon as we got home, we got word that my husband's dad was very sick...we went straight to Las Vegas to be with him, and he died a week later. So hard, but I'm so glad we got that time together.
And then, straight to Denver for IVF #4.
February
The transfer for IVF #4 happened in February...AND we got a BPF! A good solid one, too...all my previous ones had been iffy and ended up being chemical pregnancies. We were so excited!
Didn't feel too bad for the first few weeks, and did some nice easy walks in the Colorado National Monument, which is super close to our house:
March
I was sick, sick, sick with the pregnancy.
We went to Vegas again to see and help my husband's mom.
Spring started to arrive:
April
We lost our baby, a girl, at 11 weeks 5 days...so close to being out of the first trimester and "safe." It was devastating, but my husband and I were so sweet and loving and supportive of each other. We lay on the couch in the evenings and drank wine and talked and cried. And then when we couldn't cry anymore we watched episodes of "Wipeout" which is the most ridiculous TV show ever...have never watched before or since but somehow the stupidness and silliness was what we needed.
Family and friends were wonderful, too.
And got back to being active, with one quick weekend snowboarding trip with my brother (we took his snowmobiles out into the backcountry...he'd run me up a hill and I'd snowboard down). So fun even though the snow sucked as it was so late in the season.
I also started hiking, including an incredible day trip to Moab with my mom and dad.
One of the places I went a lot in those first few weeks after the miscarriage was Holy Cross trail. When I first moved to the area, I'd stumbled on this cross. Didn't learn until years later that I knew the woman who'd brought it into being, and it was for her lost child:
May
Tried to get my body ready for an FET...the D&C wasn't complete...another trip to Denver and our clinic was needed.
Worked hard to recover physically and emotionally from the miscarriage.
Life went on as normal for the cows across the street from my parents:
June
An absolutely lovely hiking trip with my Dad in Utah. We take a trip together every year...it is just the best:
And more "finishing the miscarriage" shenanigans and another trip to our Denver clinic.
And the start of our summer vacation, driving to the West coast to camp and hang out with tons of friends...so fun and exactly what we needed.
July
Summer vacation continued...from the start: Highway 50 through Nevada on the way out, California, Oregon, Washington, Vancouver, Salt Lake City on the way home. It was lovely. Here's my husband and I at a BBQ with my BFF, Lake Washington, Seattle:
We also went to Santa Barbara for a long weekend to attend a gorgeous wedding, and again got to spend time with lots of freinds...so wonderful.
And...back to Denver for the FET...stayed with my brother which is always great...had my birthday 2 days before the transfer, and on the last day of the month...another BFP! Yay!
August
Did a short camping trip with my brother, but for the most part sick, sick, sick.
Learned we had twins!
My mother's organic garden was going crazy...
September
Camped again, this time with my whole family:
Still sick, but all was going well.
October
A fun trip to Denver to celebrate our anniversary.
Other than that, laying low with the pregnancy.
The first snow up in the mountains was so pretty (this is at my brother's house, where he and I and my brother who died grew up):
November
Went with my husband to Mobile, AL and gulf coast Mississippi to check out a potential job. We celebrated his birthday while we were there...so fun, although traveling wasn't all that easy...
And later in the month, Thanksgiving at our house with lots of people. My husband and his mom did all the cooking! :)
December
Holidays at my brother's up in the Colorado mountains. Here's our boxer Newton playing in the snow:
My pregnancy at 25 weeks is still going strong! :)
So, all in all, a heartbreaking year with the loss of my father-in-law and our unborn baby. A year consumed with doctor visits. Lots and lots of travel (which probably won't happen again for some time). Lots of time with freinds and family. And the most joyous year ever, in that we are so close to bringing home two real, live babies--something I wasn't sure would ever happen for me.
A roller coaster year.
Praying that everything--two healthy babies, graduation for my husband and hopefully a good job offer, a possible move to we're not sure where--will go our way in 2012, which should be a year filled with happiness, but will also probably contain a number of huge transitions.
Happy New Year to you all! Blogging has brought me such joy this year--and your presence has been central to that. Thank you for being here, and looking forward to sharing all that will be 2012.
XOXO
Kristen
"Youthful Wonder"
Every second I spent surfing was filled with wonder...
A few lines at the end of an article in this week's (November 28, 2011) New Yorker have spent an inordinant amount of time in my brain the past days. They're from a profile of Peter Thiel written by George Packer entitled "No Death, No Taxes: The Libertarian Futurism of a Silicon Valley Billionaire:"
"An appetite for disruption and risk...reflects, in part, a sense of immunity to the normal heartbreak and defeats of a deadening job, money trouble, and unhappy children dealt out to the "unthinking herd." Thiel and his circle in Silicon Valley may be able to imagine a future that would never occur to other people precisely because they've refused to leave that stage of youthful wonder which life forces most human beings to outgrow."
Youthful wonder...which for me I would define as waking up every day feeling like everything is ahead of you and possible, that you're lucky to be living the life you're living, and that there is so much beauty and goodness in the world...I had that for so long. Was it living in California? Surfing? Being able to spend so much time with my little brother, whom I adored? Not living a very conventional life, in terms of being married and divorced young (before most of my friends even got married at all), not having kids, not working a regular job but instead freelancing and traveling, not having any money trouble to speak of? Some combination?
All I know, is that between my brother being killed, me leaving California (directly related), not being able to surf any longer (also directly related), and I don't know if buying a house and getting married for real this time and having money stress mostly related to all the rounds of IVF we did and all the heartbreak involved in trying to have a baby and I don't know what else...I feel like that wonder...if it's not gone, certainly big parts of it have seeped away. Even though I have a terrific marriage, and these babies on the way, which is what I've wanted for so, so long...
Is the loss of wonder just part of growing up? (Which took me way longer to do than the average person...I pretty much acted like a teenager up until a few years ago.)
Or is there some way to hold onto it (or bring it back)?
I miss it...
XO
Image Credit: GAESSrhymeswithFACE via Etsy.
FAQ Fridays: What Happened in Santa Barbara?
Santa Barbara from Cowell's Beach, July, 2011.
Those of you who've been following along for a little while may remember my trip to Santa Barbara a few weeks back. I've been meaning to talk more about what went on there, and today's the day.
So, what's the deal with you and Santa Barbara?
I first went there with my brother who died, the first surf trip we took down the California coast. It's so beautiful there...the mountains soaring up on one side, the Pacific on the other. My brother was in college when we did that trip, and it was love at first sight.
"Oh, man," he said. "As soon as I graduate, I'm moving here."
And he did.
How did you end up living there?
I was living in San Francisco, and came to visit my brother and surf all the time. He'd go to Alaska for the summers most years to work; one year when he came back he said to me, "Hey, why don't you move down to Santa Barbara with me? There's nothing keeping you in San Francisco. We'll get a house together. It'll be fun." So that's what we did.
What was it like living there?
Living with my brother was amazing. We were really best friends, and a lot alike, and we just had so much fun. Surfing constantly. Barbeques with friends in the backyard. And he was in a band, so out to see all his shows. It was pretty idyllic. On the other hand, I was dealing with a pretty serious broken heart (as was my brother). And working too much (I mean really ridiculous hours). So good and bad.
When did your brother die?
A year and a half after I moved down. And it was totally sudden and unexpected. One morning he was saying, "Bye, love you, sis," on his way out the door to work, and by that evening he was dead.
What did you do after that happened?
I stayed in our house. I didn't really know what to do. Our friends took care of me.
What was it like?
It was awful being there after my brother had died. I was so heartbroken and lost. I totally quit surfing. Didn't work for months. I also met my now-husband a few months later, but he was working up in Alaska (had my brother's old job, which is how I met him), so I was still essentially alone.
When did you move away? Why did you move away?
About a year and a half after my brother died, I started to feel like I had to move. I wasn't really getting better, getting over my brother, like you're supposed to start doing...if anything, things were getting worse. And as things got more serious with my now-husband, we were wanting to be together. He had moved to Seattle, and I'd lived there before, and had good friends there, and was so sad in Southern California...everything reminded me of my brother. Moving seemed like the right thing.
How was it?
Terrible. Leaving the beautiful town and the charming little house my brother and I had shared...it doesn't seem like leaving a place should be so hard, but it was just awful. I felt like I was abandoning my brother. I also felt like my life there had been taken away, never to be given back. I felt like I HAD to leave, like it wasn't a choice, and that's part of what I think made it so difficult.
How was Seattle?
I love Seattle, but moving from sunny Southern California to there in January (rain, clouds, darkness) was NOT a good idea. Plus I was still so upset about my brother...my now-husband and I moved again to Colorado six months later, for a number of reasons, but mostly so I could be around my remaining family, which he thought might help me (and it did).
Had you been back to Santa Barbara before this recent trip? How was it?
Yes, twice...once for my best friend's bridal shower weekend, and once for her wedding. I was the Maid of Honor, and was busy and focused on her, so it wasn't too bad. (There were actually lots of parts of those trips that were really, really lovely.) But it was HARD to go back, mostly I think because this place I absolutely loved felt so definitively off limits...like I may as well have been dead too for all it was possible to ever be there again.
Were you scared about going this summer?
A little. Mostly because I promised my husband that if we went I would be happy and make it a fun trip. Although if I HAD gotten upset it would have been OK...my husband just wanted me going there with a good mindset. But I wasn't sure how realistic it was for me not to end up sad.
So how was it?
You know, a really big shift happened. It was totally different.
What happened?
The first night we were there, we decided to walk down to the Pier for dinner. Most of the restaurants on the pier are mediocre tourist traps, but the Santa Barbara Shellfish Company on the end is so good and a place I used to go all the time. In fact, a few days before my brother died, we tried to go to dinner there, but they had just closed for the evening (they keep really random hours). I always wondered after if we had told them it was the last dinner out we'd ever have together, if they would have let us in. But of course we didn't know...
Anyway, my husband and I started walking, it was a beautiful night, warm and humid and State Street's so cool with its shops and restaurants and eclectic mix of people. My husband and I were holding hands and he said out of the blue, "Would you ever want to move back here? If you wanted to move back here, we could make it happen."
And with those words, all the hurt and pain and angst I've been carrying around with me surrounding Santa Barbara was gone. Just gone. All of a sudden, it wasn't a place I had to will myself not to love because I was never allowed to be there again. Instead, it became just a place I happen not to be living in right now, but could move to in the future if I wanted to. Just to clarify, it wasn't like my husband was giving me permission (our relationship's not like that), but more that he reminded me/opened my eyes to what was possible, you know? And also, I don't know how much this plays into it, but time has gone by, and I have gotten better, I have a life for myself now, vs when I left Santa Barbara and pretty much couldn't see any sort of future for myself.
And it's so weird, but there's such a relief in the feeling that Santa Barbara and me, we can be friends again. I'm no longer in exile. I'm not saying we're going to move to Santa Barbara, but the fact that we COULD...that it's not permanently taken away from me...it's just a huge shift for me.
So you weren't sad at all while you were there?
Really, no. I mean, there are things I know not to do. I can't go by the house where my brother and I lived. I can't go by the intersection where my brother was killed. (It would have been nice to leave flowers there, but I know I can't handle it. Just writing about it is upsetting me.) But being in Santa Barbara felt very different this time around, and for that I am grateful.
So I do't know if I've explained this very well...it's kind of hard for me to talk about anything that's gone on around me losing my brother...I read it and it sounds so over-the-top and drama queen-y, you know? But that's how it's been and I'm just trying to tell it for real.
Oh, and PS, if we ever were to go back, I would never try to recreate what my brother and I had. I know that's not possible. It'd be a new start to a new life.
Hope everyone has an amazing weekend!
XOXO
Santa Barbara Wedding Weekend!
Happy Monday, Everyone!
I'm happy to report that Santa Barbara was fun, fun, fun! (More later on how the pain I've felt being there in the past just slipped away.) A few pictures for you:
1) Our room at the fabulous Presido Motel, with funky stencils on the wall and colorful paper cranes hanging from the vaulted ceiling. If I ever open up a motel, I want it to be like this.
2) Me on the beach at Miramar...not a surf beach, but one of my favorite places to take dogs to run in the sand and splash in the surf.
3) A mosaic mural at Hendry's.
4) These houses right at water's edge...what a dream it would be to live like this...
5) Our absolutely gorgeous bride and her father at the wedding rehearsal. Love the dress, Jules...you look amazing! :)
6) The wedding was held in Alice Keck Park...so lush and green...it was absolutely perfect.
7) Our friends Dave and Mel after brunch the morning of the wedding.
8) The bride and groom at their reception, Carr Winery.
Such a fun, sunny, happy trip.
Hope everyone has a fabulous week!
XOXO
Excitement and Trepidation and Trying to Let Go of the Pain
I'm going to Santa Barbara tomorrow, with my husband, for a wedding. And I'm SO happy to be going, so excited for my friends getting married, it's going to be great to see them and others, and it's going to be fun to be in Santa Barbara with my husband, because we spent a lot of time there when we were first dating, him coming down from Alaska and later Seattle to visit me the last months that I lived there. I know we're going to have a great time...everything about this trip is going to be happy and positive.
But.
Santa Barbara's where I lived with my brother. It's where he was killed. It's a place I didn't want to leave, but felt like I had to. This is kind of hard to describe, but in a lot of ways, when my brother died, I felt like I died too, like we had both been exiled from this place and this life that we loved.
I've fought hard to build back a new life for myself, and it's a good life, but it's drastically different from the one that I had, and it's hard to be reminded of that old life, you know? I usually do a pretty good job keeping the hurt I still feel over my brother's death and the loss of Santa Barbara and my beach-y California girl surfer lifestyle under wraps. But going there...it can't help but come to the surface.
I keep thinking about this quote from the TV show Six Feet Under--I love love love that show, by the way...I'm going to do a post about it one of these days--that I read on the fabulous blog Mocking Bird over the weekend:
(David is talking to his dead father, Nathaniel.)
Nathaniel Sr.: You aren't ever grateful, are you?
David: Grateful? For the worst fucking experience of my life?
Nathaniel Sr.: You hang onto your pain like it means something, like it's worth something. Well, let me tell ya, it's not worth shit. Let it go. Infinite possibilites, and all he can do is whine.
David: Well, what am I supposed to do?
Nathaniel Sr.: What do you think? You can do anything, you lucky bastard, you're alive! What's a little pain compared to that?
David: It can't be that simple.
Nathaniel Sr. (putting his arm around David and pulling him closer): What if it is?
I'm trying to let the pain go. I swear.
P.S. The last of our plans for the weekend just fell into place. I truly am sooooo incredibly excited to see so many people I love.
Back Monday.
XOXO
A Letter to My Brother, Six Years After His Death
How cool is it when your brother's in the band? A picture from one of his many shows...
Dear Luke,
Six years. In some ways it seems like yesterday, in others, that life I had with you seems so far in the past it’s almost as if it never happened. I hope you’re OK and that this hasn’t been as horrible and traumatic for you as it’s been for me.
Would you be surprised by the life I’m living? I had to leave our house in Santa Barbara, and all of California, behind. There just wasn’t the joy there without you. I never really surfed again after you died, which has been such a huge loss (although I brought three of the surfboards with me when I left, including the one with the panther on the nose that was yours but you always let me ride)…I’ve never been happier than early mornings in the surf with you. Once I stopped surfing, there wasn’t a good reason to stay. And I was seeing my now-husband (he had been working your old job up in Alaska, which is how we met)…he had moved to Seattle and I was so sad and lonely in the house you and I had shared…I thought maybe it would be better to go. I made the right decision to go be with my husband, but I’m still not sure if leaving California was the right thing. It’s hard to know if I miss IT, or I miss the life I had there that no longer exists. Would I be happy going back? I don’t know.
I lived in Seattle with my soon-to-be husband for six months…but it was winter and so grey and I was so sad…my husband thought I might do better closer to mom and dad, and so that’s how we ended up back in Colorado.
I’m married now, as you can tell. I work a lot less. I have your dog Dexter…I think he still misses you. I snowboard instead of surf (and sometimes when I’m out alone I sit on the side of a run and cry, I want you there with me so bad.)
My husband’s great…you would love him. We’re trying to have a baby, but that’s not going so well. I keep thinking a birth, some life, some pure joy would help me not to hurt so bad from your death and the loss of that whole happy life as a California surfer girl…I mean, I want to have a baby for so many more reasons than that, but I can’t help thinking having something happy to share with people instead of being the one who’s had to bear so many hardships…
I like to think of you in some happy and peaceful place, with a Jeep and my dog Shaye who died the year before you did, she’s hanging out on the beach while you surf the perfect waves and you don’t have to struggle anymore…you don’t have to deal with all the heartbreak you dealt with in this life, all the trying to figure things out and how are you going to find a girl to love and are you going to be an architect or stay the free spirit who can’t resist heading up to Alaska every time spring comes around. You don’t have to deal with disappointments and you don’t have to be sad when people you love die and you get to be the golden 27-year-old who did exactly what he wanted to do with this life—you’ll be that man forever.
I felt for a long time that when you died, I died too. I don’t feel that way anymore. There’s my husband now, and mom and dad and our brother, and I have such amazing friends and I’m trying to figure out something good to do with all the many years I probably have left. I do know life will never be the same without you. I’m glad it was you and not me, that you haven’t had to go through what we all have since you died (although I’m sure you would have done it with much more grace and poise than I). I’m not afraid to die, because it means I’ll get to be with you.
I love you, and please come visit me like you visit other people. I haven’t had a single sign that you’re in some way still here.
With love beyond measure,
Kristen
A Day Full of Emotion
Bianca, the Jeep that I've had for 9 years. Decals, top to bottom: San Francisco Russian Hill parking permit, Channel Islands Surfboards sticker, my Santa Cruz parking permit for when I was down there surfing all the time. Hope you find a happy new home, Bianca!
Wow. A little too much for a girl to handle in one day. (Especially a morning sick one on the verge of throwing up all day.)
First, my OB. I had my first "real" OB appointment scheduled for today (vs my checks for the IVF clinic). This should be a happy, exciting appointment, but my OB died a few days ago, and are there ever a lot of tears in that office. My OB's nurse, who I absolutely adore, walked into the waiting room at the same time I did and we hugged and both started crying...this is before even checking in. This nurse is probably the work person most affected by what's happened--certainly the one whose day-to-day life is most disrupted. I feel terrible for her. And I'm sad because she's not going to be able to be my nurse anymore, as I'll be transitioned to another doctor in the practice. I love her and really wanted her to be with me through all the baby stuff, after helping so much with all the infertility stuff over the years. Emotional morning.
Then, OMG, we bought a new car! Big enough for a baby or two! Which is awesome! Yay!
BUT, I had to trade in my little Jeep Wrangler...I loved that car so much, I bought that car back when I was surfing every day and it's been up and down the California coast a zillion times, plus surf trips to Baja, and back and forth to Colorado. And my dad taught me how to 4-wheel in that Jeep, and not wimpy girl stuff either. Plus trips to Moab, and up and down the mountain to snowboard...I've got so many, many great memories in that car.
I almost started crying at the dealership. Why do people (or anyway, me) get so attached to cars?
"You don't feel this way about your computer, do you?" my husband asked.
"No, not at all," I said.
"Think of it this way," my husband said. "Your Jeep's expanding with your waistline" (we got a new, bigger Jeep.)
Which made me laugh.
We're going to make lots of happy memories in this new Jeep, too. :)
Lullaby Playlist
So my husband said the other day that he read somewhere that if you play music or sing songs to the baby before it's born, when it hears the same music after it's born it'll be soothed by it.
"The baby can hear by Week 8," he said. "Maybe we should make a playlist," which has by now evolved into separate playlists because what he wants to play for/sing to the baby is different from me. (Although he's got some good ideas. "Journey, Don't Stop Believing," he says. I can respect that.)
This weekend, I made my lullaby playlist (which my husband says is too hippie chick, lol). I love making playlists. I tend to make one every three or four months, and listen to it pretty much exclusively. Then that music is so embedded in that particular time and place in my life...it's really interesting how music so quickly takes me back.
Anyway, I wanted to use music I already had (so no buying new songs). Below, the annotated list, in order of the year the original version of the song was released:
- Over the Rainbow, Willie Nelson (1939)--this song so reminds me of my childhood
- Young at Heart, Frank Sinatra (1953)--we listened to a lot of Frank Sinatra when I lived in Seattle right after college
- Love Is Here to Stay, Ella Fitzgerald (1956)--from my brother Luke's music collection
- (Let Me Be Your) Teddy Bear, Elvis Presley (1957)--Elvis reminds me of my grandpa. Love him. Miss him
- Blackbird, The Beatles (1968)--God, I love the Beatles. I used to play this song on my guitar in the months after my brother died
- Your Song, Elton John (1970)--I'm sure I heard Elton John growing up, but what his music really reminds me of is college
- Rocky Mountain High, John Denver (1972)--my mom was a huge John Denver fan. I can sing entire albums start to finish. And every kid born in Colorado needs this on his/her playlist
- The Rainbow Connection,The Carpenters (1979)--again, a song from my childhood
- Old Pictures, The Judds (1987)--the Judds remind me of my dad for some reason, this song especially
- If I had a Boat, Lyle Lovett (1987)--I've always thought of this as a cute song for kids
- Take Me to a Place, Little Sister (1994)--a kind of obscure Austin, Texas band I saw live about a million times when I lived down there after Seattle. This might be my favorite song on the list
- Wonder, Natalie Merchant (1995)--these next three songs remind me of living in San Francisco, putting music on the stereo and going for a drive
- Heaven's Here on Earth, Tracy Chapman (1995)
- Dance With the Angels, Lisa Loeb (1997)
- Starfish, Sister Hazel (1997)--again, a song I've always thought of as a cute little kid's song
- How Do You Fall in Love, Alabama (1998)--so the baby will know how much his Mommy and Daddy love each other
- Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key, Billy Bragg and Wilco (1998)--this is such a great album...reminds me of driving to Burning Man with my lovely friend Chris the first year we both went
- Life Uncommon, Jewel (1998)--more songs that remind me of San Francisco...mixed in with driving to Santa Barbara to surf with my brother Luke, and then moving down there to live with him...
- The Lucky One, Alison Krauss (2001)
- Godspeed (Sweet Dreams), Dixie Chicks (2002)
- Nightingale, Norah Jones (2002)
- Blessed to be a Witness, Ben Harper (2003)
- Love Is Everywhere, Bob Schneider (2004)--another Austin musician I adore
- Wildflower, Sheryl Crow (2005)--this was on my iPOD on a long bus ride in Chile, down with a girlfriend of mine a few months after my brother Luke died. I sat in the back corner of the bus and sobbed. What an amazing trip that was, but I was just a wreck at the time
- Upside Down, Jack Johnson (2006)--A happy little Santa Barbara song...this reminds me so much of the 17-year-old who came to live with me after my brother died (long story for another time)
- Come Alive, Foo Fighters (2007)--oh, how I love the Foo Fighters. Need to see if there's an acoustic version of this song...might work a little better for lullaby purposes
- Umbrella, Rihanna (2007)--I wanted to have this be the song at our wedding (but we ended up having a really simple wedding where we didn't do that kind of thing). I love its message about standing together and helping each other through things
- Stars 4-Ever, Robyn (2010)--my best friend recommended this album to me...it makes me think of her...
- We Are Hot Dogs, Danielle Ate the Sandwich (2010)--again, a silly little kid's song is what I thought when I first heard this. And I love the refrain: "And I can't recall a feeling better than this."
Photo Credit: Growl Roar.
Facebook--Love It or Hate It?
First off, let me tell you what I love about Facebook:
1) I love that it’s let me reconnect with a TON of people that may have been lost from my life forever
2) I love that my friends are easy to keep tabs on…you can get a pretty good idea what’s going on in their lives by visiting their Facebook pages
3) It’s also a quick and easy way to tell people hi or happy birthday or congratulations etc
I’m glad Facebook is there. I don’t want to get rid of my Facebook account.
But.
I don’t go on Facebook very often.
First of all, my friends are all over the country, and it makes me miss them. Terribly. And wish I’d lived the sort of life where everybody didn’t end up so scattered.
Then, I get envious, which is my worst personality trait, hands down. I think what it is is that I just miss people and places and things that I had in the past so very much…it’s hard to be reminded of those things. Like living in California. Seattle. Austin. Surfing. Snowboarding. Having my brother alive. Being super young and still having so much time to make choices and figure things out. Etc.
I’m also envious of things that I want that have not been easy to get. Like kids--I’m especially envious of ex-boyfriends who got girls pregnant accidentally, which is ridiculous because that’s not an ideal situation for anyone involved (although in the end there’s so much love for those kids…)
And there’s no reason for all this envy. I have a good life. I’m going to have a baby. I’m not that old. I snowboarded like crazy last year, probably more than any of my friends--had so many epic days and I’ll snowboard again. Ugh.
Also: No one struggles on Facebook. It’s just not the medium to talk about the troubles you’re having…thus, it presents this kind of skewed view of the world where everyone’s life is shiny and perfect. My life is not shiny and perfect, and it’s hard to see everyone else looking like that. (Not that I wish any sort of misery on my friends…it’s just good to know that you’re not alone in your struggles in this world, you know?)
Bottom line: I generally feel worse after going on Facebook than before. And I’m trying not to do things that make me feel bad.
Wish there was a way to use Facebook that didn’t make me feel so very sad…
Image credit: rafeejewell
February Writing Submission
So one of my New Year's Resolutions is to actually send out for publication some of the stuff I've been writing. One of my current projects is a series of memoir-type stories about San Francisco, where I lived for 7 years. The form of these stories is not traditional...each is like a little collection of snapshots, hopefully adding up to more than a sum of it's parts. I love these stories---they're how I see the world--but don't know how commercially viable they are. Only one way to find out, right? So, in a burst of energy and efficiency, I submitted one of these stories, "Cable Cars," to the following literary journals (I list them here as this list may be helpful to other writers; I never know where to send my stuff):
- AGNI Magazine
- American Literary Review
- Black Warrior Review
- Colorado Review
- Coppernickle
- Creative Nonfiction
- Denver Quarterly
- Front Range Review
- Instant City
- Many Mountains Moving
- Meridian
- The Missouri Review
- Narrative Magazine
- Palooka
- Pilgrimage
- Portland Review
- Santa Clara Review
- Santa Monica Review
- Southeast Review
- Subtropics
Fingers crossed something comes of it. But even if it doesn't, that's OK...I'm sick of feeling bad about never sending anything out. All I need to remedy that is to actually send stuff.
Stay tuned for March's submission. :)
Photo credit: Deeleea.
My Dream Life, Part 5 of 5: The Coffee Shop (or Alpaca Ranch)
(See also parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.)
My dream life with my best friend involves this:
We all move back to California and buy and run a coffee shop, something along the lines of Reds in Santa Barbara (which sadly no longer exists as a coffee shop. But my SB friends will know what I'm talking about.) She and I will decorate it super cute, and she knows how to make coffee. Charlie, an old roommate of ours, will make the muffins and her husband is an accountant and can do the books and my husband is handy and can fix things. We'll have a passel of kids and dogs that everyone'll take turns watching and we'll go to the beach in the afternoons and barbeque at nights and it'll just be dreamy.
A variation of this dream originated with my husband's good friend in Florida, who had it in his head that he wanted alpacas. My husband and I were scheming about how we could buy a big ranch in southern Colorado, the San Juans which are so lovely, and raise alpacas. The ranch would have lots of little houses scattered over it so our friends could all live there with us. My best friend loves animals, so I know she'd be in. Someone would get a pilot's licence so we could make trips to the city. Maybe it'd even have a hill out back we could put in a tow rope and have our own little snowboarding mountain.
And then we found out what alpacas cost. Don't know how realistic a herd of alpacas is, unless one of us wins the lottery.
Don't know if any of this will ever come true. But it's fun to dream. :)
Image credit: Rahim Packir Saibo
Grief: Does it Ever Get Better?
Luke on our last Baja surf trip, just before lighting the evening's fire. He died April 29, 2005 at age 27.
So I lived with my little brother in Santa Barbara, CA, in a little stucco house on the hill we called “The Cota House.” He was killed five years ago, a Friday evening in a motorcycle accident, coming home for a barbecue before we and a bunch of friends went to Ventura to see his band play. He was my best friend, and, when he died, the person I was spending all my time with. My day-to-day life was catastrophically disrupted.
The first few years were absolutely horrible. Lately, I can’t pinpoint exactly when, I’ve been feeling a little better. It’s taken so long to get to this point. I’m starting to feel like his death won’t destroy me. I’m trying hard to build a new life for myself. It’s complicated because it wasn’t just losing him--I also feel like when he died, my whole world got taken away from me. I loved Santa Barbara, loved the beach, loved to surf, and life had it’s challenges for sure but overall the set-up we had, it was pretty idyllic. None of that’s part of my life any longer and that in itself is so, so hard.
The way I generally cope with my brother’s death is to try not to think about it. Pretend it didn’t happen. But once in a while (well, often, if I’m honest) things happen that make it rise to the surface. Like yesterday evening an email inviting me to a bachelorette party for a friend who was there for me those first days and weeks and months. Her party’s the day after my brother’s death date. I’m going to go if I can because I love her and I really believe in celebrating every little thing you can in life, but I wonder how I’m going to be. And reading the paper this morning, I happened across an article that said Prince William's wedding will be held the day of my brother’s death. I’m really sensitive to dates, not just the day my brother died but the days right around that, I have such crystal-clear memories of everything that happened. Seeing those dates the pain comes back and it’s raw and awful, like no time has gone by at all.
I know time has healed me, at least to some extent. But sometimes I wonder if my brother’s death didn’t permanently break me in some very fundamental way.
In the end, I look at it this way. There are two choices: suicide, or to get up every morning and try to make the day a good one. Suicide is absolutely not an option for me, never was. So I get up each day and try.
Some days are harder than others. I’m feeling edgy today. But I have a lot of good and happy things planned for this lovely Sunday--finishing Christmas gifts for people I love, packing for my long-delayed honeymoon trip to Europe (we got married two years ago, leave Thursday), taking my dad to the airport, making my husband (a third-year engineering student) and the guys he’s studying for finals with chicken tacos for dinner so they can concentrate on thermodynamics or fluids or electronics or whatever they’re doing.
I pray for some happiness and peace today, as I do every day. We’ll see how the day pans out.
Jealousy, and I Don't Think California's for Me
And yet, we had a nice lunch in a beautiful, artsy corner of Berkeley...
I’m having a strange reaction to being in California, swirlings of longing and jealousy, not sleeping well at all. I lay awake thinking: why can’t I live by the beach? Why can’t I be a surfer and go camping and take time off work and do all these great things that my friends get to do? Jealousy is one of the worst things about me. I’m flying home tonight, can’t wait. I feel extremely unsettled being here. It’s literally painful to see the ocean, I miss it so much. I think we need to live near a beach, and somewhere that’s not California. I’m hoping there’s somewhere I can be happy. I don’t think this is it.