L, my 13 yr old is taking French. The Spanish classes met at the same time as the Jazz Ensemble and Chamber Orchestra. He plays the cello.
And he says “Mom, what would really help me is if we went to France.”
And I say, “Ok, wanna go this summer?” This is not a bluff. I have spent the past three weeks deciding where we will live (Chamonix region). I have checked out vacation homes in that area and I have posted on yahoo traveler groups for insider tips. And honestly, I think we may stay a little longer like a year or ….three.
My living room is devoid of furniture, having sold it all a few months ago. Last week, I spent 3 hours in a furniture store. I made the sales person drool as I choose a rug, a coffee table and a cool comfy chair and then inquired about someone who could go to my mom’s garage…in Connecticut (I live in LA), measure the furniture that is being stored there and then make arrangements to ship it out here.
Tonight, I am standing at a party, talking to a man, looking at his lips and I open my mouth to say “I’m sorry. Can you just kiss me right now? I want to see if your lips are as soft as they look and if you are as good a kisser as I think you may be.” I pause before I say anything, then don’t say anything at all.
I feel crazy.
Wild crazy.
The kind of crazy that lately let’s me buy two pairs of jeans for more money that most people’s monthly car payments. The kind of crazy that almost has me purchasing a new piece of art work for 3 months of rent. The kind of crazy that has me longing for physical touch that I considering leaving my kids alone, knocking on “this” guy’s door at 12 midnight just so I can be held and caressed and can fall asleep in a man’s arms. In a man’s arms. In a man’s arms.
It’s the kind of crazy that will make my friends and family whisper to each other “Well, obviously, she’s still grieving and hasn’t thought this through.”
I remember the day I came home from the hospital after Art died. I remember having the need to COMPLETLEY rearrange my house so that it too would be as changed and different as I felt. I was wild crazy with grief.
It is all I can do to keep this wild, crazy in check.
I am wild crazy with “Why the fuck not? Huh, really why the fuck not?!!!” I can’t afford to spend a month in France. Hell, my French is on the level with a two year old.
And everyone knows the way to get a man is not to, in the middle of a conversation, stop him from talking and challenge him to kiss you to see if he kisses well.
But it’s what I want to do. I want my habits to reflect the crazy wild I feel.
I want my kids to have ‘those” kind of stories that they share with their college friends and beyond. “One year, my mom lost it. She took us to France for the summer and we stayed there for four years!” “She dated this guy who……” “She wore these hot pink jeans and …..” I want them to know what if feels like to be wild crazy and to survive it and to look back and say “Wow but cool!”
And here’s the thing, while it feels wild crazy, there is a part of me that knows I make more sense than most people on the other side of death. There is piece of me that understands that after death
“Fuck it”
is a really good answer.
There is part of me that really, really wants to let loose, to live large, to worry later cause I have spent the last 46 years of my life worrying. I have spent the last 4 years of my life watching my husband recover then die from cancer. I have spent the last 1 year and not even 7 months finding my feet, my hands, learning how to breath a whole new kind of air. And I know I will spend the next 45+ years (I will live well into my 100s) missing the man I see in my children. So why the hell, not!
So, I’m gonna stop writing because ya know what? Chamonix is amazing in the summer. I still have my rock climbing shoes and harness. I hope our babysitter is willing to come. I wonder if she speaks French.
