Vignettes II

 1. The other day in the car with my mom, the Almond Brothers playing, she launched into an old story about my dad. They took a weekend drive in the Shenandoah valley and the weather was beautiful and they took the van.
"THE van.  Haven't I told you about the van?"
"What are you talking about?"
My mother was more lively than I've seen her in a long time, and definitely while talking about my father.  She told me they took an old van without windows and put yellow shag carpet squares EVERYWHERE with blue shag carpet making a lightning bolt on one side.  My dad built a bed in the back and they had a curtain separating it from the driving area in the front.  Seriously- both of my parents in the Shenandoah valley surrounded by shag carpet?  How did I not know this memory?  I know them so well as separate people that it's hard to envision them together and stories like these- they've just stayed unknown to me.  When I started blogging eleven years ago, my grandfather asked me why.  It didn't make any sense why I'd want to share my life on the internet, but this is why.  No matter what the memory, no matter how time changes my perception of it or my emotions around it or my desire to even tell it, it's trapped in time in black type for everyone to see.

2. I had a dream last night about walking Lane in the ergo while another mother walked incredibly close to me with her newborn son in a stroller and we kept bumping into each other because she was literally RIGHT next to me.  She started telling me about "all of her children" and how they were all gifts from God.  There were obstacles, like a man playing checkers at a table in the middle of the sidewalk, and Lane and I just walked around him while she unhooked her baby and put him on the table, folded up her stroller, crawled under the table and then put her whole station back together, all the while saying, "all my babies are from Jesus-".  The sidewalk ended and we had to cross the street and she tried to climb a tree lugging her stroller behind her while I just....crossed the street.

3. I haven't had time since Lane was born to listen to music.  Weird.  I just throw on the fastest accessible playlist and it's the same old stuff, so I flip the radio-news on, but the past few mornings I've been over at GirlsGoneChild listening my way through 150+ songs on her mix tape.  I've got a growing list of favorites and am coming back into the music world, which feels like stepping out into the sunshine after a very long winter.  I'm ready for dancing.