As most of you know, April was a tough month for Alabama (and other southern states), as it appears May is for Missouri.  The tornados have been in full force, and every thunderstorm reminds me to keep my eye on the sky and an ear peeled for the ever-intrusive tornado sirens.  You would think that after all of that, I would’ve written something.  But I didn’t.  I haven’t been writing–at all.  And I really don’t know why.  Am I depressed? Shockingly, no.  Am I tired? That’s a given, but not enough to keep me from bad TV or the vapid escape of Facebook.  Am I bored? Hmmm.  Perhaps the answer is yes? I began reading Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project and it has at least inspired me to get off my ass and do something–something about this writing business.

The sirens started that April morning at 6am.  My husband was getting ready for work when he leaned my way to let me know that they were going off.  I begrudgingly got my weary-self out of bed, turned on the coffee maker, and headed quickly up the stairs towards the kid’s rooms where my daughter was still snuggled beneath her pink and yellow comforter, unaware of the siren in the near distance.  I walked first into my son’s room where he stood in his crib, jumping up and down, smiling ear to ear.  ”Momma.  Momma,” he said repeatedly. I grabbed some clothes for him, and swiftly headed across the hall to haul Miss Elsa out of bed.

“Let’s go,” I said sternly.

“But I’m tired,” she whined while making me physically pull her from her slumber.

“I know baby, but the tornado sirens are going off and we need to get to the closet downstairs.”  This seemed to get her attention and she finally used her legs to move herself in that direction.  The sirens passed and the crisis seemed to be over for the time being.  Once caffeine had been employed in my daily routine and my children had been clothed and fed, the day seemed to be going as any other–that is until the second, third and fourth sirens went off.  While my daughter played upstairs my son and I remained downstairs where I was glued to the weather on TV.  Around 11am they told us that our area was directly in the path of a large tornado and we should take cover.  I picked up my son, headed toward the stairs and called for Elsa to come down.

“Let’s go!” I yelled up the stairs.

“Why?” she asked quizzically as she descended the steps with her horses in tow.  Suddenly the wind picked up and the lights began to flicker.  All of the power went out in an instant and the wind shifted outside.  There was a brief, eery silence that filled my ears… if only for a moment… and I knew something was afoot.  I jumped two stairs with Gunnar hiked under my arm and grabbed El with my other.  ”Mommy!” she yelled.  With both children in my arms, I hesitated for only a moment to look at the front door.  The inside of my home felt suddenly pressurized, and I thought that the windows and door were going to implode upon us.

Without further delay or explanation we headed into the master bedroom closet.  Sitting there in the dark with my kids in my lap, the wind howled ferociously outside and no one moved.  No one breathed.  We just waited. After a couple of minutes I got up to see what was going on outside.  Our rod iron porch set moved with such ease on the back porch that I thought it may spear the glass of my backdoor.  My daughter’s baby-pool levitated into the bruised sky, leaving no trace of its existence.  Shit, I thought.  This is insane.  I called my husband from the closet and let him know that our neighborhood was under siege.  Because he works in a vault, he had no idea what was going on outside, and his work area hadn’t really been hit, so he couldn’t identify.

By the time the storm had passed, it was 2pm… and we still had no power.  The three of us sat in the living room and watched as colorful bolts of lightning criss crossed their way across the afternoon sky.  I was counting down the minutes until my hubby could get home.  Just as he did, around 4:30pm, we both watched as a giant funnel cloud, at least a mile-wide, swept its way across the swirling sky.  ”Let’s go!” I called out and we all headed once more into our closet.  The weather radio alerted us again and again to the many tornados that had been reported.  The hail beat down from the heavens as a tornado warning, louder than any siren could ever attempt to do–and we remained in our candle-lit closet.

By the next morning, we still had no power and no idea as to what had happened to the region.  I climbed into my car with the kids, expecting to take my daughter to school when I heard about the devastation that had happened to Tuscaloosa and our own neck of the woods, Harvest.  Three miles from our house is the ghost of a neighborhood.  Trees, cars, and homes were turned to mere elements when Mother Nature left  us in her wake. I was astonished.  And scared.  I quickly realized how close to disaster we had been, and how lucky I was to have my entire family with me… alive and well.  Others were not so fortunate.  And my heart goes out to them as they begin rebuilding not only their homes, but their lives.

I thought I would take a break from my general snarky posts about pregnancy and take a refreshing look at the world around me. It’s not a typical day for me to be filled with so much positive anticipation about the future, pregnant or otherwise. In fact, it’s rare for me to be positive about life in general. Some have labeled me a pessimist, but I prefer to think of myself as cautiously optimistic. I enjoy the small measures, the ones easily missed by most life observers.

Catching a glimpse of my daughter’s brilliant intensity as she pauses during play or figures out a puzzle, or the gentle smack of her lips as she sleeps are things I cannot stand to live without. Sometimes I look at her and see the world for what it is: a place of opportunity and promise. Her query about life has no bounds… like my love for her. Although my toddler can put me in the foulest of moods and make me question my own sanity and levels of patience, she can cast a light into my darkest hamlet with the words, “I love you,” and a kiss upon my lips. It’s genuine, unforced and pure perfection.

Today the sun shines down upon Georgia and all things annoying about the south have also disappeared. I don’t have a complaint. A walk by a lake accompanied by my husband, daughter and protruding belly gave me a reassurance about my future. This too shall pass, I thought to myself. The self-loathing, which often finds its way into my soul has given way to a moment of relief––quiet satisfaction. I doubt it will last, but I am holding onto it with all I have today. Do we ever really know what the future will hold? Can I control what is out there? Of course not. We can only push forward with the belief that we are making the right decisions for us as individuals and that these decisions will impact our families in the most positive ways.

As most know, I am not a religious person, and perhaps the believers around me would tell me this is simply divine intervention––God’s way of talking to me. Telling me that everything is going to be okay. Today I don’t question religion. I don’t question my own spirituality. I just feel it all around me––and it’s so lovely.

I asked the 7 year old living beneath me why she wasn’t in school today. This was her answer. “Oh…today we were tired, so we slept in and momma came over to babysit.” Only in the South will a mom become the babysitter. It is a land of grandmothers raising babies…and it isn’t pretty.

Now that we’ve been living in the South for over two months, I feel I can make a decent judgment about my life here. First of all, the racial tensions here are very odd. After growing up in the West and then living for the past 9 years in Vermont, being “racist” or having racists thoughts are the furthest thing from my mind. Sure, the Coloradans are afraid that Mexico will invade once and for all, but that’s a whole other story. Here, black and white people have an ongoing rift, which makes little to no sense to me. The odd thing is that sometimes there is no issue at all. The color lines are not a boundary and people simply step right over them to engage in conversation. Other times, the line is not defined and it’s as though I’m not even in the room. So odd.

Let me begin this next little diatribe with the fact that I lived in what can only be referred to as the ghetto for a short time after my parent’s divorce. My father bought a little house on Las Animas in Colorado Springs. In the years he lived there, a drive by shooting happened right in front of the house, the house across the street burned down, and the crack house two doors down was infiltrated by cops where they killed the pit bull in the front yard before entering and arresting the people inside. Awesome? Not so much. Then there was the neighborhood itself minus the crime. The homes were dilapidated, young kids roamed free without any supervision, dogs got off chains or ropes and wandered aimlessly, etc. It was a thing of beauty. I escaped that pitiful world and with a few minor setbacks (Burlington Housing Authority gig — story for another time), I have avoided the impoverished and neglectful with complete happiness.

So… here we are. Georgia. We live in a nice apartment complex. I miss my house in Vermont more than anyone will ever know, but this place is alright. It’s brand new, so any misdeeds performed by the tenants haven’t really shown up. Until now. My immediate downstairs neighbor is a white woman who lives with her husband and their grown son. I’m not sure how old he is, but he is too old to be living with mommy and daddy. She has four granddaughters that range in age from 3 to 10, and they’re wicked. Every time I take my lovely daughter outside to play on the playground, the little girls are drawn to her like moths to a flame. “Elsa!” they holler. Elsa looks at me in terror. I can read her mind. Oh God. They’re going to touch me. Two minutes into our playtime, I am already saying things like “Okay, she can walk by herself,” or “She doesn’t need to be picked up. She’s not a baby,” or my favorite “Don’t push her.” Ugh. Two minutes after that, they want to pick her up and put her in the swing. I want to tell them to back the fuck off! But they’re kids. I have to remind myself that they’re behavior isn’t their fault. No one. Simply no one, supervises them. Ever. Their mother drops them off for days or weeks at a time. As far as I can tell, she works at the Circle K, had four kids with her black boyfriend and now lives somewhere else. But the kids stay with grandma downstairs.

I like to think that I’m this really nice person who just wants to enjoy some quiet time outside with her daughter, but really I think that these little bastards turn me into the nastiest person ever. They ask if they can go in my house all the time. They ask my neighbor if they can get something to drink at her house. Then yesterday, two new kids showed up to the park. They were 6 going on 21. The little girl had a mouth on her that wouldn’t quit. I finally picked up my precious tot and walked her home. She was sad to leave, but I just didn’t need to have her hear things like, “Give me a chicken sandwich mama! What? You gonna’ whup me?”

I had breakfast with my husband’s friend’s family the other day and they were telling me all about their plan for the apocalypse. I laughed, and after a lengthy conversation about their plan he asked where I had been living––as if I’ve never seen the underbelly of society before. You know? At first, all I could think of was my time in Vermont, which is so pretty and crime free that one forgets that bad things happen, but the last couple of days I have shot back to my youth in Colorado and appreciate how far we’ve come. I’ve heard worse stories here. Someone told me that they saw a kid take a shit on the playground at their building. Ah. Things are looking up!

Lately I lay awake at night, even though I am completely exhausted and can’t fall asleep. I feel as though my limbs are wired with loose electricity. They just surge and pulse through me and it makes me feel like a nervous wreck. I assume it is linked to my anxiety, but I haven’t really examined this fully. I have been enjoying my time with my family, but my life has changed so drastically that perhaps it’s taking some bazaar toll on me. It’s not as if I’m low-key or anything.

We went to see a movie tonight, 500 Days of Summer. Wow. It was fantastic. The writer did an amazing job of hooking you into the story and making you feel like you were a part of Tom’s life, his love and his sorrow. It made me so sad at the end. I can’t exactly say why. I am a romantic person at heart, meaning that the idea of “love” is truly transformational to me and falling into it is a beautiful mess. But how do we keep it? How do we evolve as individuals within a relationship and still keep that same wonderment and fascination about our mate? My sweet husband asked me why I cried, what exactly it was that did it. We both agreed it was the simple philosophy behind the story––that love is something we create and it may not be felt by both parties.

We all know that work, children, moving, the loss of loved ones, etc. all play a significant part in our love lives and in turn our way of being, and I tend to miss the beginning stages of love, when that person looks at you with such interest. You are a thing of mystery. Does marriage change that? My loving husband said that he feels the same way about me today that he did 13 years ago, which was the right thing to say at the time. And I appreciated it. There is a Dixie Chicks song called Baby Hold On and I cry every time Natalie climbs to that chorus…

I look across the room, catch you staring at me / And see the love we almost left behind / So lead me by the hand and let’s make up / let’s make up for lost time / Baby hold on / Let’s start this over / Baby hold on / We’re not much older,  and so on.

I don’t know if it’s the way she sings it or what she’s saying, but I feel that with every inch of my being. I think that we all have to hold on. If we value our marriages and relationships, we need to work on what it is that made us love one another in the first place. I vow to be more affectionate with my husband, to make the effort to be a more loving person. Now that I’m a mom, I feel more tired and frustrated with my toddler and my mid-thirties don’t exactly make me look or feel like a spring chicken, so I am going to change the way I look at things.

I think I’m going to listen to one of U2′s new song Breathe every day to remind me that life is precious and inspirational and something to throw yourself into. I can’t let it pass me by. Jason Mraz said that he had to meet his success halfway in Halfway Home––that life doesn’t hand you what you want just because you dream about it or wish it to be so. This goes for everything I mentioned before: marriage, work, children, etc.

Every day I / die again and again and reborn / Every day I / have the courage / to walk out into the street / with arms out / gotta’ love you can’t defeat / neither down or out / there’s nothing you have that I need / I can breathe / I can breathe now.

I remember her distinctly.  She had gold wavy hair and immaculate skin.  Not a blemish.  Most people never knew we were sisters.  Even when we worked together for a short stint in our early 20′s, no one seemed to figure it out.  If there was a guy I liked in high school, I had to make sure he didn’t like Bri already.  I didn’t stand a chance next to her blonde, petite frame.  Don’t get me wrong…we didn’t compete and I didn’t suffer from a lack of self esteem, but she had a way about her that differed so greatly from my own persona that if a guy was into her––that was it.

I had a sarcasm and openness about me that drew others in while she evoked mystery with her deep brown eyes and artistic abilities.  It has been almost ten years since our last conversation and although she is 32 now, I still think of her as a 20 year old just starting out on her own.  I find myself searching the Web for glimpses of her art from time to time, but have yet to find anything.  She’s an enigma––a piece of my imagination.

I miss having a sister in my life.  Regardless of our differences, we were always good for a laugh.  She could really get me rolling.  I used to tell my dad that I could see her in my daughter and my dad would scoff at me, but now I know exactly what the link is.  It’s the goofiness.  Elsa is hysterical in the same goofy way my sister was.  They both dead-pan and then crack up uncontrollably.  It’s the best.  Oh yes.  I remember you.  We sang Cecilia and Running to Stand Still on my bed, legs entangled, staring up at posters of Johnny Depp and Richard Greico…yes, I said Richard Greico.

Tonight I am lonely for my friends back home, but more lonely for a sister’s affection, which is something you can’t acquire.  It’s a gift.  I wonder if she ever looks for me, to turn to me.  Can she have turned that cold? Did the love she find in others really replace the love her own family could give her?

I watch my daughter giggle and run around the room with her My Little Ponies and her dollies and I wonder if my sister ever thinks about her or my brother’s kids (her nephews) and wishes to hold them and to become a part of their lives––as she will always be a part of mine.