Unexpected Attachments

Below find the post by our mystery blogger. Please make a guess in the comments section. Then you see this sites normal blogger by clicking on the link at the end of the post. Have fun!


"Looking at my family now, I note there have been 11 (or 16, counting another way) divorces, spread across three generations -- more than enough for a soap, and not what its members would have invented for themselves as children. But we cannot now unumagine the new fathers and step-aunts and half brothers and sisters and half grandnieces that sit around the family tables on a Thanksgiving, or wish a life for ourselves that did not include unexpected attachments." - Roger Angell

Out of the corner of my eye through the office window I can see the tiniest flakes of snow of the coming winter. Some drift sideways, some seem to fall straight down, all in different planes, the trees are skeletal. The sky is gray and leaves settled in the gutter. It is all so familiar. The short, dark days. The beginning of the winter in a place where the wind chill can drop to forty below and winter days are routinely in the teens and in the spring, kids shed their jackets at the first forty degrees above zero -- playing in their shirtsleeves because it seems so warm. This place of biting cold, short winter days. One of my favorite winter scenes is watching the pick up hockey games on Lake of the Isles, the mansions blanketed with snow and strung with lights, the ice cleared and kids perched on the boards like rodeo cowboys waiting their turn in the chute.

When the radio seeped into my consciousness this morning imagine my surprise to hear someone talking about how lilacs were blooming by Lake Harriet, and crocuses peeking up through the ground...disoriented I never figured out if they were talking about the encoded trigger points of nature going haywire, or if it was some springtime rebroadcast...though the local weather is calling for 50s and rain, even with these few flakes -- the very thought of it seems incongruent, unsettling.

G. is going deer hunting up north and W. goes back to his mom today, a transition day. I felt myself consumed with worry -- worry for G. hunting alone -- last night at the Coliseum on the fairgrounds W. had hockey practice and G. and I walked around the concrete perimeter of the rink, looking up at the arcing cavernous ceiling, the old bolted metal seats; this is a place where, in summer, they do barrel racing and show the 4H blue ribbon animals. "You could come with me" he says
"We could get a hotel, you could soak in the bathtub" his face lights up. He laughs to himself. Once he's allowed himself the chance to think about the coziness of it all, the prospect of a tent in the woods alone for three days seems lonely.

This morning I just got really sad with the normal bustle of morning routine -- those two were racing around, G. working a half-day before leaving, after W. gets to school I go around the house packing his bags that go with him to his mother's house -- the giant blue hockey bag filled with clothes, and then the REAL hockey bag -- and then the GOALIE bag. And he's seven. I wet his hair down with a comb, it's retake day for pictures.

"When you get there, check in the mirror" I say " you have this one part that's all sticky-outy" He stands there dutifully.

"They don't have a mirror" he says, plastering it down with his hand. His dad comes in and take over the combing. I am tossing dishes around again.

They both make sounds about how I am so grumpy in the morning...the razzing of them both -- it's not G. that gets to me -- because he tempers his teasing with liberal hugs, sweet whispers, laughter, the loving look in his eye. But W. sometimes it is just so clear that he loves me, but I am not essential to his happiness. He doesn't court my love, need it, come to me for warmth -- and this uneasy ebb and flow of emotion between us, even at this age, is hard. He stands apart, so I stand apart --and I'm aching in this distance between us to have a child who calls me 'mommy' -- who throws themselves into my arms, who can't bear to be without me.

I would never trade the love I have for W. -- that challenges me to love unconditionally, to risk, to be effusive when I might otherwise be quiet -- and I don't always succeed -- sometimes I am closed, and sad, and unapproachable. I hugged him as he left and put my arms around him.

"Give me a hug. You'll be gone for a week. I miss you when you're gone." He lets me hug him.

"But it's ooonly a week." He says, shrugging his camo backpack up on his shoulder.

"Yeah, but a week without you seems like a very long time." And he follows his dad out the door with a casual 'see ya'...him like a duckling behind his dad.

As they close the door I am engulfed again with the longing -- even now on this enforced break -- I keep asking -- am I ready for more shots? Another round of overstimming if it comes to that? IVF if it comes to that? I wanted to take advantage of this break to get my head on straight, to do yoga, to refocus, to get out of the single-minded, marathon of trying to conceive...take a few months through the holidays.

The other day I had a daydream leaving Target, and felt deeply the presence of my little girl -- though I've never even been pregnant, not once. It was startling, and strange.

Though I'd have my life no other way, and I deeply love W. and we share a bond that's hard to describe, I know I'm not his mom.

So the house will be quiet this next week -- it will be me and my lucygirl in the long dark evening -- me knitting a baby blanket,and Lucy scratching at the couch, pretending she's pawing a nest in the snow for her den.

Okay -- now you get to guess who this mystery blogger might be -- and to catch up with your regularly scheduled blogger on this cross polination event -- click here.