Girl's Gone Child: 1/17/14: The Sun and the Sea (Say Yes)

For the month of December I'll be sporadically reposting certain highlights (and lowlights) of 2014. Today's post was originally published on January 17th.

Over the weekend, as the kids and I were passing the beach on our way back to my parents' house, Bo pointed out the window.

"The ocean!" she said. "STOP! The beach! The ocean! MAMA, STOPPPP!"

But it was naptime and Revi was already conked out and Archer and Fable, were, like, "NOOO!" in the backseat and I couldn't just stop.

"Sorry, Bo. We can’t go now."

She started to cry.

"The ocean! MAMA THE OCEAN!"

She cried all the way home and when I put the girls down in their pack ‘n plays for nap, I told Bo I'd take her later.

"BEACH OCEAN YES YES OCEAN HAHAHA BEACH OKAY!"

"When you wake up, we'll go to the beach, okay? Promise."

When you have four kids, you make a lot of promises that, you realize later, you can't keep. I do, anyway. I am SO SURE I'm going to keep this promise or that promise and then the time comes and life is like, "WHAT'S UP? I AM LIFE AND YOU SHOULDN'T EVER PROMISE ANYONE ANYTHING, DUH!"

But occasionally you get to keep one.

My mom was home from work when Bo woke up, Revi was still sleeping and Archer and Fable had zero desire to go anywhere because…board games.

So it was just the two of us: Mama and Bo in the Odyssey, yo.

Our first time alone... ever?

"Have we ever been out alone, just the two of us?"

"Yes," Bo replied, but "yes" is her answer for everything.

When we got down to the beach, she started to laugh. She laughed and she laughed and she laughed so hard that she started to cry.

Maybe she was just tired. (Bo doesn't sleep much. Last night she was up for over an hour talking to... a ghost? in her crib while Revi slept and Hal and I wore pillows as ear plugs.)

"I feel happy!" she said.

And she was. She was the happiest person I have ever seen in my life. Her expressions and her voice and her rock in the sand. Her pretending to be a crab and her laughter and that look she gets when she's in awe.

This is what life looks like when you're two years old. This is what the ocean looks like when you've only seen it a handful of times. This is how the sunset looks to the sunrise...

And suddenly I couldn’t stop humming:

I'm in love with the world through the eyes of a girl...

I recently picked up the Wes Anderson Collection, which features the NY Review of Books piece that Michael Chabon wrote. I was moved by it the first time I read it and was glad to revisit it, this time with eyes that very much needed the reminder.

We are here with our broken pieces and our broken lives and in the middle of all of that (all of this!) are these tiny people who do not know of broken. Who will someday, yes, but not yet. Not now...

Pull over, Mom. There is a beach!

THERE IS A BEACH AND THE SUN IS GOING DOWN AND IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL YOU CANNOT HELP BUT SEE...

So what to do? What to do with the pieces that have broken and the ones soon to break? Isn't that the question we can't stop asking ourselves?

OPEN YOUR EYES! LOOK AROUND. LOOK AT ALL OF THE THINGS THAT ARE SO BEAUTIFUL AND ALIVE.

...because in the middle of the brokenness that is this fucked up world, are these wonderful creatures who recognize the magic of in ways we cannot. Because as we age, our vision blurs. Because we cannot gaze out the windows when we are also driving the car. They can. It is their job to gaze out the windows and remind us what is out there. So that we may revisit our puzzles with renewed hope.

I wrote all that stuff last year and forgot to hold onto the sentiments apparently.

Everything is so full of wonder that it is completely ridiculous not to attach ourselves to (at least!) the corner of the thing that is happening right this very moment. It's insane not to acknowledge the sun and the moon and the sand. For a second, anyway. For six seconds? Seven...

And sometimes we have to make time to chase it down. To look up at the sky and find the moon, to focus on the horizon line, not at the sun, but as close as we can get without burning our eyeballs... to keep a promise even when logistically it doesn't make a lot of sense.

Sometimes you just have to exist without dreaming because this is the dream, too. This moment is part of the dream.

The sunset is at its most beautiful when the sun has disappeared, when those last few minutes of daylight attach themselves so seamlessly to the night. When all at once, the darkness seems... lighter.

This is the magic hour and it briefs us with its fade... every. single. day.

Even when we miss it, it's happening.

Even when it's over, it will happen again.