Tacoma

The Pacific Northwest is one of my favorite parts of the United States—Eugene and Florence, Oregon; Corvallis too. I intended to move there in 1999. On dreamy day’s off from my expositorily-unfulfilling retail day-job, I would spend hours at the library, examining topographical maps, creating routes windy and never circuitous; venturing to places like Half Moon and Libby Montana along the way. I wanted to run along ‘Going to the Sun’ road in Glacier. To bed a mountain man. To enjoy the sweet splendor of a western morning, alone, unafraid of what it most certainly would bring to my center.

Tacoma. Seattle. Visited in feb 06. Loved it there.

The day after i arrived, i took the third of three pregnancy tests, and learned i was pregnant for the first time in my life. I spent an hour investigating 'motherhood' sites on the web, while dilas showered. I had gone on an early morning, green-in-winter, run through her neighborhood streets. My sweat hadn't yet dried on my skin. Her boxer, stella, was licking my knee as i sat there, researching.
I remember glancing away from my laptop screen and staring at my hands, typing. Looking up my arm, at the freckles. Contemplating mannerisms and genetics.

When i was a sophomore in college, i experienced my first short bout with the 'biological clock' ticking that can happen to women. I remember talking about it to a friend who was on a PhD track, who was Catholic, and already dating Aaron, the man she intended to marry (and did, although they've been unhappy for years). I remember her shaking her head at me, admonishing it. For me, i was simply sharing something that was going on with me. I hadn't planned for it. I didn't ask for it. I wasn't even dating or having sex at the time. It was just happening with my body.

It happened again when i was 26. Again, i wasn't dating. I was very casually involved with a man who was disinterested in dating me, but was enamored of my heart, and infatuated with my body.
I distracted myself with work. I let go of the noncommittal man who frankly did not deserve my attentions. The biological clock thing ticked herself away.

Since then, it hasn't really happened. I mean kids typically love me. I'm a lot like them. I like playing outside and laughing and i'm not afraid to get dirty. I also collect bouncy balls and wear pony tails or braids a lot, so i guess we're sort of on the same level.

When i learned i was pregnant, i was with someone who was in love with me, and who i was really enjoying the company of. I was enthralled with the fact that he could throw me over his shoulder and that although in our 30's, that we'd met when i was 19--he'd known me when i was just a girl. For a short time, i excited myself with the notion of 'finally' moving on with life--'finally' growing up and 'settling down' as everyone seems to label it. We'd both been engaged before, but had yet to marry. He wanted to marry me. He couldn't wait to get a dog, and have the newspaper delivered to our front yard, and teach our child how to play catch. The enticement of motherhood and 'adulthood' didn't last long. True colors revealed themselves. Both his and my own.

Like a character in a story i had read, that woman's story evolved into something else.
Children. Parenting. For so many years now, it seems, i imagine that 'someday' when my 'adult' life begins, that i will be a borrowed mother. A fill in, when my lover's children are away from their own wonderful mother.
'Step parent' sounds so crass. So empty somehow. At least when borrowed, you are soft, and worn-in a bit; the edges aren't sharp or splintery. You don't have to climb (step) toward it, instead you are wrapped up in it--enveloped in a blanket of additional love...i'm not explaining it well...the point is i guess i wrote childbearing out of my script...somehow, and sometimes i just don't understand it at all, and yet other times, it simply suits me. As i am a caregiver, i am also an aunt. I was born to be an aunt, a borrowed-mom, for a short time, when my sister's are away.

Shoveling this morning, I thought about mountain men, and breadwinners. About how you become your own person-of-the-house one day after another, and eventually it leads you to a life, alone. The piles of white snow are high—surprisingly. The snow is beautiful. Stark. Freezing. There is so much snow this year. This winter reminds me of when i was a child. One year my dad built us this incredible igloo fort in the front yard. It was amazing. I swear we played in it the entire winter...that was the kind of winter's we used to have. Tons of snow and snow that lasted all winter--not just a few weeks at a time, only to melt and turn grey...this area thrives all year, it's been called 'the year round playground" for years, but wacky winters with melting weather really hurt the economy as well as the spirits of the locals.

So far, this year seems to be just the pick-me-up all the curmudgeons needed.