Oh August.

This month.
A milestone.
Many milestones.
Much seems to culminate in a season's closing month.
We reached California at just the right time - it allowed me space from distance travelled in NYC.

I needed it.

I had just handed down my maternity clothes.
Handed off a baby swing, a bouncy chair.
Recently offered up the breast pump.
Sold my baby carrier.

Logical decisions for some, for me, so loaded.
Each item endowed with memories from unusual and beautiful times spent with Lily.
Little does she know how life saving her anticipated presence and emergence were.

Are.

And to acknowledge that most likely I no longer have need for those same cherished items was painful.

Is painful.

But I did it.
Surrendered.
Shared.
Grew.

And I do feel stronger.
I am OK.
Not to self - been through much worse.
Much, much worse.
So with August has come some perspective.
I see where I've been, I am proud of the ground I've covered.

And still much more ahead.

Sure there is much I long for.
And the dreams I once had still remain.
Can't shake 'em.
Hell, I deserve them.
But many of us deserve that which we don't get.
Lily, for example.
Not to mention her dad.

I wish he was here Mama so I could run to him and run back, and run to him and run back....

I know you do Pumpkin, I know.

But as I remind myself and Lily in less poignant moments, now that she's heard THE song ~
You can't always get what you want...
But if you try sometime, you'll find.... you get what you need.

And I do.
We do.
We have a lot.
And for that, I am grateful.

August Days.

Summer is folding its arms, sleepily closing up shop.
Taking it's time, as it should.
And as steamy days inched toward closure here, Lily and I jumped ship and visited the West Coast.
It was a perfect trip.
We lived so much in a week.
I think all we mostly said was Yes.

It felt good to... go.
Let ourselves go.

Old friends and newer lives to reconnect with.
Bubbles in the sun, spontaneous meals, rocks in a creek,
Redwood cool,
ever-dirty-back-and-forth-barefoot-feet.
Three generations of women, ever-doting-over-everything... Grandmothers, mamas and girls.
Just as we had pretended when we were small.
Real 'house' now.
So much more than we had imagined.

Loving cousins, cool Uncle, and proud Grandpa.
Dim Sum, Cable Cars and a steam train through the woods.

And no weighty fog this time.
It hovered across the bay, kept it's distance.
Sunny days, every day.
I had always wished for Alan days like this - but maybe the blustery cold on our visits was designed for his favorite warm sweaters, and rough sails.

Happy hours were spent in vineyard heat & outdoor showers. Lily ran gleefully through gardens, over gravel and bark, trailing two big girls who were full of spirit, innovation, and devotion, while I relished in moments with a dear old-soul friend and model mama.
We fed chickens, picked candy strawberries, pink apples and fresh vegetables for dinner.
Sticky first S'more for dessert.

She draped herself over rope-swings.
Floated languidly through brick oven heat.

It
was
bliss.

New York is undeniably in Lily's character but when I see her out West, I can see her great great grandmother, just like her Jiji says: Deep dark eyes. Strong stance.

My little oak.

And the way she says California always makes me smile.
Just the way my Gigi said it.
Califonia, no r.

Oh
to
be

Home.