I lay draped over him like a lead apron. I am shielding him from any lingering resentment hovering in the air around me; in the last half hour I’ve kept busy while stewing in anger. But I’m sinking deeper and turning softer, as we breathe together. Nothing else matters at the end of the day, even if neither of us can understand the other’s point of view. What matters is that we’re here in uninterrupted silence, in a heavy pile of forgiveness, on the bed together, (alone!) staring at the wall and the ceiling with relaxed faces.

I lay draped over him like a lead apron. I am shielding him from any lingering resentment hovering in the air around me; in the last half hour I’ve kept busy while stewing in anger. But I’m sinking deeper and turning softer, as we breathe together. Nothing else matters at the end of the day, even if neither of us can understand the other’s point of view. What matters is that we’re here in uninterrupted silence, in a heavy pile of forgiveness, on the bed together, (alone!) staring at the wall and the ceiling with relaxed faces.

It’s my time, now. I waited upstairs this morning while the workers installed floorboards. I ran errands, and babysat the boys in a toyshop while Damon tested guitars for purchase. I have read a bedtime story, explained the concept of “gold medal” to Ford while watching speedskating, and tucked him in. I never took the walk I promised myself this evening, but we spent dinner together at a table, and everybody ate at the same time. No, I take it back, Ford talked all during dinner about his new wand. still, we all sat down together at dinner. Finally, it’s time for me to breathe. It’s my time.

Chas is in bed. Every half hour he wakes tonight, which is unusual. He is still wearing his romper from earlier in the day. Strawberry stains, rubbed in by fat fingers, are now dry. Those sweet stains mingle with smudges of vanilla yogurt and margherita pizza to saturate the air around him with the smell of fried churros. He smells like a carnival on a Saturday night. I want to eat him up, maybe dip him in a warm chocolate (for added magnesium and antioxidants, of course). His fine, caramel hair tickles my nose as I try to inhale him whole. His index finger is still bruised from the morning he closed it in the bathroom door, and I ache to look at it. My skin shifts across my back in a painful way at the sight of it. My eyes rove across him in admiration: how he has succeeded to go to bed without washing, less brushing his teeth. A dirty toe looks as if he might have stepped in wood glue, then dipped it into a dusty corner somewhere (surely from the floor installation); it looks as if it’s teeming with a colony of penicillium. It’s really funny, in a totally gross sort of way.

Damon, for his part, is in the boy’s room. He is wearing the 4000-watt technical headlamp I gave him for his birthday. He is lying in bed, under the covers, reading a book. Something science fiction, I am sure, but I didn’t peek when I stopped by to give him a kiss. I’m just happy that he is enjoying himself, donning the headlamp with the “find me” blinker, in case he gets lost among the piles of disorganized toys. Not that I won’t be able to find him by his snoring, which will commence in approximately five minutes. This feature works like clockwork; his ability to fall asleep within twenty minutes after cracking a book in bed is absolutely mechanical. I envy him.

In fact, all of this is making me quite sleepy. I want to sink into something horizontal, letting my mind peacefully unfold. The icy wind shoves the juniper against the gutters, and the day exhales upon me. I slow to a pause, then start typing again, in and out of sleep. But I am forcing myself to type, showing up at the page. I am showing up for the date with my self.

Yeah yeah yeah, this is ridiculous. I’m going to go snuggle into bed with McGuyver and his novel.

Ruta Maya organic coffee. If I’m not drinking water, I’m having a latte. Stainless moka pot. Whole milk. Not that I’m always able to sip and paint; I paint or draw in 15 minute spurts throughout the day, whether I have a cup in hand or not. It’s just nice when the two activities collide.

More studios, more potions.

Ford was his usual, curious self today, with the questions about Black Holes, wormholes and portals, wanting me to read A Brief History of Time to him so that we could dissect current knowledge together over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And then he sat still for a moment at lunch to ask the question,

“Mommy, does the sun love me?”

“Of course it does,” I replied cautiously, “Does the sun follow you around all day?”

“Yes.”

“And does the sun go to sleep with you at night?”

“Yes.”

I thought about this all day. How he takes apart our concept of the universe into fragments and puts the pieces back together (Big Bang theory, bits and pieces scattered, cooled, then formed planets; the sun is a dying star, etc) and reviews it out load (he did this with the digestive system to his pediatrician at his second annual checkup). I thought about the frequency of questions, these days, that I am unable to immediately answer. I thought about how uncomfortable I feel, anthropomorphizing the sun. I took a deep breath and started to paint. In a few minutes I felt much better.

As I pulled out of the parking lot tonight, I noticed the moon on the hill, squinting through the atmosphere in a sleepy haze. As I kept driving, damned if it didn’t surprise me in the way it followed me home. There was nothing usual about it. The sky was the color of the asphalt under my high-beams. Nobody else was on the road. The air, balmy and warm, smelled metallic and a light southeast breeze blew into the car at the stoplight. Winding my way home through the hills, the moon swung playfully left, and then right. It followed me out of my car and down the driveway and up to the stoop, before hiding behind the junipers. It tucked itself in, an hour ahead of the rain that followed. And then, Ford’s naive question made perfect sense.

“What the fuck is that?!”

“Oh, shit! Who did…wait, that’s just brown Play-Dough. Gross.”

Chas arrives at the scene:

“Poo-poo?” “Poo-poo?”

He stoops down, picks it up off the floor and puts it to his mouth, eyebrows tilted. “Poo-Poo?”

Our kitchen table. This is as pretty as it gets (in the traditional sense), somewhere in the sunny hour between art time and lunch, after I’ve sprayed and wiped the surface, moving the essentials to the center: flowers (thank you John and Amy!), the water pitcher, the empty vase (which will be filled with markers in the final phase of clean up, after they’ve been picked up off the floor) (thank you, Chas), the paintbrushes, and the small vase with forsythia blooms. Yes, it’s already that time.

Take a peek at some other people’s corners.

At the park, Ford helped himself to another child’s sand toys while I was spotting Chas on the gym. I watched him engineer his play and block out the rest of the world, as I often try to do when I’m, say, typing on my laptop. So serious! I stood there smiling at him.
The other child’s mother, when I glanced up at her face, was smiling down on him also. Then she bent down to hand Ford a shovel.

“What’s your name?”
“That’s not important.” he responded, like a calculator.

One of those neverending, nagging summer days alone at home with the boys. I have a negative default response to stress that, over time, has begun to improve. It takes work for me to think positively. It’s important to be positive for your children. They learn to cope by example. I’m unlearning, rewiring my brain.

See other real people here.

I return to the exhibit on impulse, after viewing the installation of Eva Hess’ drawings. I know the corridors by heart: the oak floors creak in the east wing, but enough to surprise me every time; I am always arrested in front of the Ernst frottages, three paces north and an immediate left lead to the painting of the pipe, Leger on the diagonal wall across the room. This time, there is something different (after all, things usually change after ten years). An alcove off the Surrealism exhibit with its own security guard outside.

It’s like walking into a jazzy vacuum chamber. A dark room, painted blue the color of Chas’ eyes, the sky on a full moon. It is a wonder-room filled with tribal masks, katchinas, headdresses and totems. In the center, a sculpture of a human being, with pins radiating from all surfaces. The opposite wall, above my head, hangs a charming sculpture of a man riding a whale, the two of them casting animated shadows on the wall. It is a collection, tribal and oceanic, curious and natural. Things collected by the Surreallists. I stand in this dark room, awestruck, wondering why this feels like home.

In a corner I notice Dominique De Menil’s provincial desk, filled with ephemera: keys, marbles, blue butterflies, feathers, coins, seashells, buttons. “For the children who visited her home.” It’s a Darwinian duplicate of my dad’s roll-top desk. I stand in front of the desk for a good five minutes, examining treasure. Wealthy couples circulate in camel coats and leather shoes, fresh out of the box. The men are distinguished and chiselled, the women have long, glossy hair and everyone smells of ambigously scented soaps. They speak softly of travels to Fiji, and smile at certain masks. They feel at home, too.

I exit the museum onto the wide open expanse of green lawn and sunshine. Down the block, behind a rambling old white oak tree, the boys run circles around Damon. As he waves at me from the void between branches, Chas stumbles onto the grass. Ford is laughing, calling me. I take the children into my charge and urge Damon to go see for himself. We are playing gallery tennis, allowing the kids to be kids while we struggle to be grownups.