My tooth falling out of my mouth our 3rd hour in kauai, as we strolled down our hotel’s coconut-husk-colored hallway, bemused in paradise, dressed for dinner, relishing the balmy air and tiki torches flaring not menacingly outside the windows. We held hands. I opened my mouth to comment on tropical delights and an upper rear tooth landed first on my tongue, then the hibiscus-blossom-patterned carpet. A dull-white crown. A dull-white crown had broken in half and fallen out of my mouth. We stared at it, then S reached down, plucked it up, handed it to me. I placed my tooth in a pocket of my purse—and on to dinner we strolled in our aloha prints and slightly wilting leis, utterly, completely—sublimely—the epitome of: On Vacation.
Each time I’m forcing myself to rise into another push-up, T kissing my arm, patting my head and saying, “Hi, Mama, hi!”.
Our first family trip to the Los Angeles Zoo, when T was 3 months old. As S gallavanted eagerly from flamingos to gorillas, T riding smack against S’s chest in the Baby Bjorn, looking, absorbing New World, I hung back, furious we hadn’t brought a crowbar to fight off the lions or chimpanzees if there was an earthquake and all the animals escaped. The entire visit I staked out snack bars, administrative offices, or sheds where we might dash for safety when the earthquake hit, certain scenes from “Jurassic Park” vivid in my mind. I vowed never to return to the zoo without a tazer tucked into the baby backpack, or a crowbar hidden in the jogging stroller’s pouch. I hated us for endangering our son’s life. I hated the zoo. I hated it.
Same thing at the Long Beach Aquarium—only no tazer, but a super-quickly-inflating life raft for when all the water gushed from the exhibits due to the glass being blown out by the massive earthquake. Life raft also integral for surfing post-earthquake tsunami to safe, higher ground, like maybe the top of the Long Beach Marriott. Also possible life raft could transport us to the Queen Mary and she could surf the tsunami to a safe harbor. Then I scratched the QM idea. Too “Poseidon Adventure”-ish. Way, way too risky…
T at the foot of the stretcher in his little stripy cap, somewhere between his Mama’s beached-whale calves and ankles as we were wheeled to our room—where S and I stared in shock and awe at our son—staringfeedingstaringfeeding…Such hours! Miraculous and insane…
Waiting for the nap to consume me—T asleep in his room, me in my bed listening to the rain on the roof, watching water filter through the trees outside my bedroom windows, the whole world vaguely musical, sense-making, my house quietly complete.
“Love is the fervor, the dullard, the Elmer’s and the Muscle.” Who said that? Do. Not. Remember. Certainly not an ex-boyfriend. No poet that I know. Not my husband. Bill Clinton? No, no. Sade? Nah. No prophet…Possibly a mommy…Yes. Must have been a mommy—on her first Date Night since giving birth. Yes, yes, I’m quite sure! Said after her first sip of chardonnay in over a year, her first sushi in forever on a gleaming plate before her. She was wearing a maternity dress, secretly grateful that empire waistlines were in style. She was staring at her husband staring at her, both of them fuzzy-brained from lack of sleep, yet—content, and—still basically terrified—not as much, but still feeling the exhausting extreme-terrification that comes with newborns. That is when she said it: Love is the…etc. Her husband reached across the candlelit table and took her hand. They looked deeper into each other’s eyes—and yawned.
I just love how your mind works 🙂
Fabulous. That actually made me all teary.
The Hawaii tooth story made me laugh, though. That sucks!
I still think you should do a book using all the toy animals in their different and strange groupings. It’s so funny and yet interesting.
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