preparing for a brief, sun-drenched hiatus from blogging

Dear friends,

There is a lot on my mind. Sleep eludes me of late. I am mid-way through Meghan O'Rourke's New Yorker article on her mother's death, and I have been wanting to tell you about the resonances with my own father's death. It happens to be a sensitive season for me, this painfully slow lead up to spring. When March 22nd rolls around, as it does every year, my mind will involuntarily slide past all the nearly fifteen-year-old moments of our last days together. His delicate gray-white pallor, the way I asked for a hug in Spanish when I said goodnight, the loose soft skin of his hands. The intensity of grief lessens over time and becomes easier to bear. But the absurdity of someone you love disappearing - someone who was so fully present, in every way - never seems to abate.

But I can't really get into it, because another absurdity is fast approaching this family, and well before March 22nd. This one is the good kind of ridiculous. A tropical vacation kind of ridiculous! This Saturday my mother is whisking all of us, and my beautifully pregnant sister, and her husband, off to the isle of Vieques. We are going to laze around in the sunshine (as far as lazing around with two little ones is possible) for an entire week to celebrate her 60th birthday. Can it really be?

Before that happens I will finish an article on perinatal depression (for this magazine, on whose homepage you can see a sweet photo of F &G for an article I wrote), take Gabriel to the doctor for the second time this week (ear infection today), figure out what to pack, go to work in Baltimore, go to a Ladysmith Black Mambazo concert tonight with an extraordinary pal, spend time with a family full of dear friends visiting from Lancaster (Jill: this is not additional stress! I can't wait to see you), find my flip flops, and write this blog post while I make dinner. Sauteeing vegetables need so little attention, really. It totally works.

I just couldn't leave you all with Gabriel at his most infuriating and this muddled mama wringing her hands. Of course I rarely tell you about improvements in the problems I report on here. Right now Gabriel is pretending to be a chick hatching out of his egg, asking periodically to be toweled off because he is all wet and his feathers are sticking together. He's doped up on Children's Tylenol and the ear infection is a distant memory. He's happy! The tantrums persist, but not with the ferocity of a few days ago. In short, I see the light.

If you have any beach reading recommendations, advice for air travel with children, tales from Puerto Rican travels past, or items to add to my to-do list that I have forgotten thus far, please share! I'll miss connecting with you all here, and promise to give a non-gloating report with minimal tropical paradise-type photos when I return.

Gotta go, dinner's ready.

xo
Meagan