Category Archives: Life

Dispatches from Tahoe

Sunday afternoon, Easter: Our mobility-converted Honda Odyssey is climbing into the Tahoe area, and we can see snow flying off of the windshields of cars coming down the mountain on the other side of the road. We keep climbing and suddenly we are in the snow, light flakes falling, but enough to inspire Scarlett to launch into Let It Go. It really doesn’t take much to get her to sing that song. “Snow glows white on the mountain tonight!” she crows, and when she has finished the song, she starts it again. And again. Also again. I blame jelly beans.

Monday: We’ve come to the snow for our spring break, although I’ve discovered via Facebook that everyone else we know seems to be in Hawaii this week. After a tough season in Tahoe with barely any snow, there are now “two feet of fresh powder at the summit.” Those words are in quotes because I heard someone else say them. I don’t talk like that. I was always a reluctant skier; once I got going, it was fun, but I never loved it. You can read about my last ski experience here. It will clue you into why skiing is not something I miss very much. But having written that, I feel it necessary to add that there were times, skiing down a simple blue run, when I felt so graceful and so peaceful that I could see why people obsess over the sport. That doesn’t change the fact that chair lifts are scary.

In the afternoon, we teach Scarlett how to play Old Maid. She wins two games, and Rob has a talk with her about sportsmanship. Read More>

|Categories: Life, Parenting, Relationships | Tags: , , , | Permalink

In Dreams

“At the border of the forest—dream flowers tinkle, flash, and flare,—the girl with orange lips, knees crossed in the clear flood that gushes from the fields, nakedness shaded, traversed, dressed by rainbow, flora, sea.” —Arthur Rimbaud, Childhood, from Illuminations

“Nothing is as boring as other people’s dreams.” —John Green, Paper Towns

“Sorry.” —Sarah, today.

In my dreams, I can walk. I know I have ALS, but when I’m asleep it’s just a vague idea that doesn’t affect my abilities at all. I make my way through unfamiliar rooms, carefully, knowing I could fall, knowing I can’t actually do this thing that I am somehow doing. It feels like something other than my body is holding me up.

Then I am running, from one place to another; so many things need to be handled, and all at once. I see all the people I’ve ever known, and they are confused. “I thought you were sick,” I hear them call as I rush off.

There is a stage floating at the top of a giant stadium. The show is performed inside a net, and I am playing several different roles. I haven’t practiced my lines, I’ll have to read them from a script. There are so many costume changes, but no time to manage them between scenes. The show is starting and I’m not in the right place…

Stress dreams. But not as stressful as waking up with my legs tangled around each other, Left weighing down Right, and my neck uncomfortable from where it’s wedged against my pillow. Read More>

|Categories: Life, Progression | Tags: , , , , , | Permalink

Music Together

I remember obsessing over live music. My friends and I would go to outdoor concerts and festivals, clubs and music halls, following bands, camping out, getting sunburned. I remember how it smelled, like trampled on grass and smoke and sweat. Like blankets and fried food, and something sweet I can’t identify, but that might just have been fresh air. When a favorite song was played, we jumped up and down, singing along and hanging on to each other, utterly gleeful. Once a friend of a friend came to a show, and, watching us as if we were anthropological mysteries, said, “I don’t think I like music as much as you guys do.”

Seeing live music is still one of my favorite things to do, and, even though it’s quite a different experience these days, Rob and I spent our weekend going to shows. On Friday night, we met a group of our friends at Sheba’s Ethiopian Piano Bar, where they had secured a cozy corner spot and ordered a few bottles of wine and some sweet potato fries, which doesn’t seem very Ethiopian, now that I think about it.

These are friends I don’t get to see very often, and they erupted in screams when we rolled through the door. I have no doubt they had erupted in screams each time one of them arrived prior to that, too. There were ten of us: One had flown in from the actual state of New Jersey, 4 others are NJ transplants, and the rest of us don’t matter because our roots are buried beneath all that Jerseyness. I say this with love. Read More>

|Categories: Life, Relationships | Tags: , , , , , , | Permalink