April

For Mary Kay

Yesterday in the morning I left the house

to go be with my grandmother

as she died.

I asked how I was to do this

--watch somebody die--

and the answer was to take the tenderest care of myself

and all living things.

Why is it that every night I

resolve to love more fiercely

and every morning I awake the same stunted, failing clay?

It had rained the night before and the earth

smelled wantonly ripe and wet like

making life.

The soil spongy like a woman's fertile womb.

The earth doesn't mourn the dying in spring.

The cherry blossoms and lilacs don't apologize

for their lurid and honey-fragrant vigor.

They told me

that the only answer to death

is to become more wildly and unabashedly

alive.

**At the time of this posting my grandmother is being made comfortable, and is cared for, and has not yet finished the journey from this world to the next**

Easter Happened

You know my brother-in-law, Justin? His parents live on a farmish. They invited us out for Easter. Now wasn't that nice?

Indy at the start of the Easter egg hunt. A very civilized hunt. Nobody threw down or cried.

My niece Eisley holds this chicken which had a name and scared me a little.

Me and the husband all celebrating Easter before it was cool.

Ayla. Snake-charmer.

"These things can't flip over, right?" My sister says unto me before gunning it over a hill. "I don't know, Heather," I answered QUITE CALMLY. "I bet they could."

Here I'm all like, glamour pose! And my dad is all like, I'm too young to die.

Cousin (second cousin? first removed?) Moriah feeds this beast with horns which is very friendly, I am sure.

Noah and Ayla, in repast. There was also a two-year-old Noah there, which got really awkward anytime someone said "Hey, Noah, want a beer?" (Or, "Noah is embarrassingly drunk".)

Indy had the time of her life on Pepper Ann.

The responsible adults ribbed every child to go "no hands". Ayla, snake-charmer, obliges.

The city slicker in red boots accidentally double-clicked her tongue at the horse and the horse galloped. It was awesome. (Really).

By the end, Indy was in Peeps-and-pleasure induced tears. No pictures for her. "I hope Indy doesn't turn around for the picture," said my mom, trying to reverse-psych her. "Mom," I said. "You can't out-Indy Indy."

I guess this is the part where I say, Happy Easter?

I'm not really a photo-blog type person. You may have noticed.

April is a Douche. Who's With Me?

This morning I could find no other thought than if the snow killed the pink trees, it would break my open and tired heart.

Spring in Colorado is like loving a cruel and beautiful man. He gives you flowers and then destroys them because you loved the flowers more than you love him.

Luckily it seems the snow has passed.

I am at momology today talking about how much I hate infants.

Just kidding.

I am talking about how all of this mess is precious, not just the new baby times.

oxo
La V

(Seriously though, man. Infants.)

She Caught the Fish Last Week

We are currently in the middle of the lamest spring break anyone has ever had.

Please check back next week when I am hoping not to be quite so lame. . .

. . . but I'm not making any promises.

oxo

-La V

Bee Theory

I have this theory that keeping bees can heal depression.

Like the daffodils I bought myself yesterday deep in the evening, at the close of the day.

I believe that if we let it, nature can heal itself.

And if we let it, nature can heal us.

"Who would have thought that my shriveled heart

could have recovered greenesse?" ~ George Herbert

Art by Nicoletta Ceccoli

Full Bloom Days

Yesterday I sat at Starbucks so long the baristas offered me free sustenance. "We made a mistake, but you look like you could use this," said the young man singled out to approach me. He set a passion tea on my table and backed away slowly, like the wrong move might make me cry, off with his head. I wondered how I must look, pale skin, glazed wonder in my eyes. The laptop zombies, they drive me crazy. Mainly when when I can't find a place to sit because of them. But yesterday, I was one.

Maybe I will go back to school and be an English professor, I said to myself the other day. It was raining in L.A. but it was almost 80 here, making mockery of all my dreams. I was sitting in my backyard and reading a book about just that, about an English professor, about doctorates and discussions of love. That did it to me, that always does. I want bao and green tea ice cream, I'll say to Mr. V, and Mr. V knows I've been reading Lisa See.

So maybe I will do this instead, I said to the universe. She just smiled back. Go ahead and try, she said. I won't stop you.

But the truth we knew was this. I am not an English professor, or a magazine editor, or a 911 operator or any of the other occupations I entertain on warm spring days. I'm not a blogger either, something I realized when reading this post by you know who, my favorite blogger, who realizes she is not a writer of books, not now anyway. I am not a blogger, it is not my calling, it was a relief to recognize it.

Which does not mean I am going to quit blogging. But I had neglected my work, momentarily. Stopped editing, stopped writing, and so this week I've gone back to it, like I hope I always will. I am telling stories. I am struck by Ayla, who is seven. My mind recites the only times table it ever memorized: Seven, fourteen, twenty-one. I feel overwhelmed some days, driving from the grocery store, sitting at Starbucks and frightening the baristas, with happiness. There were times in my twenties when I was so unhappy, so restless, such a stranger in my life. 7, 14, 21, Ayla marches on and so do I, but I am so lucky, my sun-dappled life a thing of dreams, I am doing what I want, what I feel I am meant to do and some days I feel I'm getting younger. The days pass maybe not in straight lines but in circles, or moons, regressing, fulfilling, full bloom. My soul grows lighter.

The story moves on.

Spring Haze

I realized I might be in a bad way today when I found myself standing at the kitchen counter in my underwear eating cookies out of the package at 2:30 on a Tuesday afternoon.

I know most times I sound like Liz Lemon's real-life counterpart. In my defense, I was in my underwear because I'd just spilled coffee rather fantastically all over my laptop, my iPhone, and a brand new library book. I'm not an idiot, I didn't save the book first, and so the computer and iPhone turned out ok. The new book is ruined. I'm a tool. What other option did I have but to strip to my short clothes and eat chewy chocolate chips from the bag? It was a blessing, actually. Rarely are one's options in life so desperately clear.

The last time I remember feeling good was Sunday night. We were having drinks and delicious dinner with some parents of Ayla's classmates. Oblivious to the time change, I'd slept in that day until eleven. I had korma and naan and far too much wine. My cheeks were hot, my life was good. Then Monday came, daylight savings sucked my life force away, and everything since has been a blur. I'm in a spring haze. I feel pregnant with bees and a new book, and boy do I act like it. I wake slow-minded in golden afternoon light after writing in the hours around dawn. I pad bovine around the house, my energies all exerted from the magic of bringing into existence what did not exist before. I have pregnancy dreams, except now it's--Oh no, I've killed the bees! Or, oh no, my queen is deformed and I don't love her the way I feel I should! Or, oh no, Ryan Gosling is trying to kill me with a grenade launcher! Hey girl, I bet that's not what you meant when you asked me to make you scream. You see how deeply I'm disturbed. Our bodies and subconscious minds do work our waking brains cannot comprehend. This is how life appears out of the ether.

In a bad way: Last week I tried to explain to Noah about The Family Fang, about the two siblings who each suffer a career mishap and find themselves back with mom and dad. The brother, Buster, repeats often to himself that he is "in a bad way". We are in a bad way. As usual, I was unable to articulate in spoken word just why I loved that phrase the way Buster used it. Buster recognizes he is not his best self without any of the usual panic or flailing, the desperation to figure out why and to right himself again. I am in a bad way, states Buster, and then he just allows himself to be. He eats lunch with his sister and watches old movies on the couch. Nothing is consciously attempted to be fixed, and yet somehow at the end, everything is.

It's not that I'm actually in a bad way. The spilled coffee was a low point, but no. Spring haze, my official diagnosis. I like this dreamy phase. Half here, like new light. Golden green bursting in our shriveled winter hearts. Who knew we were capable of such bounty? It's beautiful, what we do. However you do it. Knit, write, paint, imagine, birth, boil, dream. Forgive me, I am sentimental. I believe we are all creators. I believe this is why we are here.

That's Enough, Iris

I get very emotional in spring, which leads me to conclude that, basically, I am very emotional.

But Spring Me is much better than Winter Me, who is existential and occasionally morose. Winter Me belongs in a Parisian cafe, wearing a beret, smoking a cigarette and churlishly lowering my heavily-lined eyes before the camera. (Why is there always a camera on me in my fantasies? Probably because I was brought up by circus people theater people. See? If you try hard enough, you can blame your parents for EVERYTHING.)

Spring Me either belongs in an elaborate musical number, with parasols and chiffon, or in an asylum.

Spring Me (Spring I?) is apt to do things like drive to the grocery store, take one look around the parking lot, and steer two delighted children to the ice cream store instead. Spring Me (can we call her Iris?) also tends to get teary over the fact that a) buckwheat is good for your garden soil and that b) the bees love the buckwheat and c) the bees also help the gardens, so therefore d) Oh my god, Mr. V, do you see, it's the circle of life! It's so beautiful-hul-hul! (Disclaimer: the above statements should not be taken as confirmation that I did, in fact, weep those words to Mr. V over coffee and toast with honey).

Oh, shut up Iris.

Just take a look.

What we did:

I cleaned their rooms for them, which lead to this magic moment:

A not-great picture of my beautiful top bar hive, made by a man in Boulder. The bees will draw their comb down from those top bars. The entrance is at the bottom. It's very small.

What we ate:

(Yup, again.)

What we watched:

A South Korean film directed by Joon-Ho Bong. It's won a ton of awards. It's streaming on Netflix. It was pretty amazing.

What I read:

My introduction to Jeanette Winterson. I've only just started it. I reserve judgement.

Signing out with this picture of Indy, who cut the tops and tips off old stockings to make arm warmers for Dr. Seuss Day, and felt all awesome about it:

xoxo

Iris V

Honey From My Failures

At night I lie awake and think of the bees. I see them in my brain, in my belly, in my heart. Scurrying around and working their magic, gathering tiny bits of things we can't see, and together, working them over time into miraculous honey. I feel I am pregnant with bees. Like anyone on a new endeavor,a couple awaiting a baby, an artist collecting new inspiration, I am softer. Vulnerable in sweet places. I am brought easily to tears.

In November, I began to dream of the bees because they felt like a thing that could be done. Challenging, yes, but not an endeavor that relied on elusive approval. I was so frustrated, in November. So sure that all my work was for naught. I was made crazy by the nature of the publishing industry--that one may produce work, may even produce very good work for years and years, but all of that matters for nothing if you can't charm an agent. If you don't bewitch a publisher. If they don't look at you and see dollar signs, your work is rated not worthy.


I was drawn to the bees because they don't rate one's worth.

They don't question why, these girls. They emerge from their cells and minutes after their birth, get to work. They know exactly what to do, they never question their own instincts and in obeying them, accomplish marvelous feats. They labor tirelessly, these summer bees who will live just four weeks or so. They produce one-twelfth of one teaspoon of honey, and eventually they fly away to die. All of this to ensure the survival of future generations that they will never see.

I knew I had to help the bees. I knew somehow they would heal me.

And now this: after deciding to keep the bees, I realized that I could not place my happiness is other people's hands.

Nor stand around, hoping for approval. Toss my hair at agents, do my dance for publishers, no thank you. It made me miserable. It negated all the joy that came from the writing itself.

The delight at the prospect of keeping the bees showed me the delight in the possibility of self-publishing my book.

And so, I decided to do just that.

Because what matters is not approval, or attention, or money, or fame, but creating something and sharing it with others. What matters is connection.

Making this decision has set me free. I don't spend my days worrying what other people think. I let go of my ridiculous need to be the best at something, to prove myself to others. I sit down and write and it is what it was meant to be: a interaction between myself and a collective unconscious, a divine creator, a celebration of pure joy.

(You know, when writing goes well it goes very, very well and when it goes badly, we watch Oprah).


Life is sweet. The bees taught me this.

All I taste is honey.

***************


I have so many links to share today. Please take what you like and leave what you don't.

1)The title of this post was taken from the gorgeous poem by Antonio Machado.

2) Again, Elizabeth Gilbert's TED talk on creativity. I think this is invaluable to artists of any persuasion. And I cry every time I watch it.



3) Here is a link to the Beyond Pesticides website. These folks are working very hard to ban things that harm us and the bees. The U.S. still allows the use of many pesticides that have been banned in other countries (who have since seen their bee numbers increase). Some of these pesticides are even banned in the countries that make them and sell them to us. The pesticides still exist because corporations make billions off of them every year. Here you can sign a petition asking the EPA to ban the bee-killing clothiaidin.

4) This excerpt from Dan Savage on This American Life really moved me this week. In it, Dan describes being raised by his very Catholic mother, and his complex relationship with the church as an adult. The talk is very funny, and very touching. It was an excellent piece. (And it includes a good (and good natured)Lutheran joke, for all my Lutheran readers)

5) I am so excited about Miss Representation, a film that has finally taken all the frustrations with media representations of girls and women that I tend to grow inarticulate and frustrated over, and worked them eloquently into a movie that looks both educating and change-inspiring.

Newest Miss Representation Trailer (2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection) from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

What We Don't Say

What I didn't say was that Monday, I woke up in a black mood.

There was no reason for the mood. I went to bed feeling fine and woke up with an absence of any feel-good hormones. I was unloading dishes in the kitchen, my entire body feeling heavy and my heart unwell, when Mr. V got home from the gym. "Why don't you go out," he said almost immediately. I nodded. My mood was so dark, I could barely speak.

This doesn't happen often, these days.

I wrote for awhile, came home, and took the girls to Chick-Fil-A. I felt marginally better, but by the time I'd returned from fast food and a very crowded grocery store, the mood had crept back in, unwelcome visitor in the tender places. Mr. V made dinner while I folded laundry in the bedroom with the door closed, the girls perfectly content to watch some early evening Totoro. It had been a good weekend. We'd all gone to see "The Secret World of Arrietty", the new one from Studio Ghibli, an outing we don't take very often. Then a fun party, followed by a good meal. A night's sleep.

Black mood.

A nervous voice in the back of my brain feared that here it was: a late arriving plummet into seasonal depression. I didn't listen to that fear. I knew from my previous experience that the only way was to wait it out. Not to nurture the darkness--not to feed the bad wolf--but not to deny or repress it either. Just to lean in. To let it be. To observe it like from a distance whenever possible. I made it through the day, quietly, avoiding unnecessary interaction. I managed to tell my husband that I wasn't mad at him, this mood wasn't his fault. I just am out of happy today, I said. I know, he replied. It's ok.

I sang Indy to sleep and put myself to bed. In the morning, it was gone.

****

Headed out the door to school drop off, I texted my husband. "Indy is in the worst mood of her entire life," I said. Indy is rarely grumpy, and the culprit is almost always lack of sleep. She resolves this by asking me to put her to bed, and I do. She wakes up refreshed, her good-natured, buoyant self. This morning, I'd told her to put on her shoes. She'd squared her shoulders at me and said "NNNNNNO." Oh Indy. Indy's fate is that she's stubborn so seldom, it becomes comical when she is. I handed her her pink jacket. She took it and threw it on the ground.

I turned away and laughed. Indy angry is like a fierce beautiful pixie. She presents no real threat, can do no real harm.

The breeze changes.

So does Indy.

****

Ayla and I walk a delicate line together every morning.

My seven-year-old in her spirit is thirteen. Being asked to do something nicely annoys her. She drags her heels, not wanting to comply until the power of being told is worn off. She is reminded again. The reminder kicks her off the balance beam and lands her fully in outrage. If she has to be told a third time, things go irretrieveably down hill. She stomps, rolls her eyes, slams doors, calls names. Says, "I knnnoooooow," in her best teenage drawl. O-M-G. Whatever. You're ruining my life.

All have crossed her lips.

Of course it is difficult. I take deep breaths. I imagine white or my preferred caramel-colored light. I try to send her calm energy, try to keep calm myself.

Often I fail.


*****



Driving the girls to school in the morning, I know that Ayla and I have the more difficult time because her moods hold up a mirror, reflect my own struggles back to me in harsh glinting blades. But in the strengthening February sunlight, I know that dealing with my black moods, the process of learning and struggling over time, is what has allowed me to become the person who can ride them out today. Ride them out without hurting others or sending hurtful thoughts at myself

I know that this angsty incarnation of Ayla has emerged early, the moods and anger and defiance rearing long before they were expected. But now, like waking up on a black day, I know there is another side. Sometimes Ayla seems a world-weary traveler, sent to show me how far I have to go. How easily my daughter can tug a thread and ravel me undone. I love this old soul that was sent to me. Who she is, and who she will become.

I know the person that emerges in the light is different from the one who first started out down that dark path, into the woods by chance or by choice. I know there are roads through the blackness and out. I know that I can tell her about them, but she'll have to find them for herself.

I trust the wisdom in this.

Ayla will become, like me, a person who knows that all things pass.

Over and over again, we will walk these roads.

Forever we will find the light.

What Still Sleeps

This morning Ayla woke me up with worry in her eyes. "Mom," she said, "Did we miss the field trip?"

It was too light outside and I let out a string of mental curses while fumbling for my phone. The alarm was still going off. Silently. It was 7:27, not 'miss the field trip' time but certainly 'big friggin hurry' time. We managed to get dressed and out the door by 7:55. Ayla was jumping-out-of-her-skin-excited to visit the Butterfly Pavillion and hold the tarantula. I was meant to go, but still feeling sick and thus let off the hook. So frustrated with this illness, this week of getting nothing done, that one happy day of tea and rest followed by six more filled with weariness of all I should be getting done, of all I've left undone.

But driving Ayla and Indy to school, I was filled with a subtle, quiet feeling of good. There was snow on the ground, the heater cranked high, the sounds of Ayla and Bejeweled on my iphone from the back, and a calm and quiet happiness settled content in my chest. A warm red valentine heart. Sun shining through.

I kissed the girls goodbye, Ayla mostly ok that I wasn't going to see the winter butterflies with her, and drove off to run errands, drop off movies, pick up a chai. I'd left my sunglasses at home, and then it hit me. Something had changed.

It was the light.

February 8th, 8:18 a.m., I drove around town feeling sick and tired but happy, happy still, because I realized the light had changed. It was brighter. It was warmer. It glanced gently off the snow and promised pollen, and rain fall, and buds, and bees.

I know that we still have Valentine's to get through, and St. Patrick's, and then Easter and it will snow, it always snows on Easter. But today was longer, did you notice? It was longer than the deep of January, and I remembered that there is time to achieve, but there is also time to rest. Those poor winter butterflies, like me, forget that January is for cocoons, for wrapping soft things around ourselves and letting the soil settle, letting it gather nourishment where it may and whispering to it only this: it is good, it is growing, it is wonderful.

So today I will rest, and maybe tomorrow, because it is time for that. The days will grow longer, the light will come full, and I will gather my strength. My soul has whispered to me promise of August, and I won't harvest now what yet is waiting, what still sleeps.

We We We Got Nothin'!

It's Friday.

We wanted to make a vlog this week.

We wanted it to be a gentle parody of the Rebecca Black song. (Not a parody of Rebecca herself, because she is just 13 and we not into that whole mocking children thing, unless they are our own children and they just pronounced it 'apodgement').

So we went into the bathroom and turned on the video camera and it turns out that on camera?

We not funny.

We

we

we

really not funny.

We awkward.

Excited came first.

Then was awkward and

dismay came afterwards.

So it turns out we are NOT the next Tina Fey, which came as kind of a shock as everyone kept telling us we were--like our mom, and that woman that stalks us on twitter who we think might actually be our mom.

Our endorphins are kind of low. Spring break is next week and you know what we have planned?

Dental visits and

work.

Not work for us, but for the husband. As that woman who stalks us on twitter is fond of pointing out, WE don't have a job anymore, do we? It is comments like these, and the ones asking if we would tweet about our menstrual cycle at our boyfriend's house, that make us pretty sure the stalker is our mom.

We don't think spring break can be saved, but we're going to give it a shot and take a blogging break next week.

When we are feeling sorry for ourselves, we like to write haikus. Here is our haiku for lame spring break.

Cold wind. Dental pick.
Husband away and children
Don't know they 'aren't work'.

And one more:

Lame spring break means stress
eating and I taking our
hate sex? New level.


We are Vesuvius and this blog was written by Cylons who are also writing our book and raising our children.

I am Vesuvius and I am just joking about my mom, who has been really supportive about the whole 'no worky' thing, and who actually would want to know if I'd tweet like that at my boyfriend's house, if she could figure out twitter. Love you mom! Sorry I said 'hate sex' on my blog!

Sunny With A Chance Of Wonder

We're driving home from school and three minutes into the ride Ayla discovers that the 3D glasses that came with her book order book about sharks do not actually work.

"They don't work!" she said. "This book is stupid!"

The response I've always given before, to comments like these, is something along the lines of, "I'm sorry you're frustrated. I bet it's a really good book though!"

Ayla and I have this type of exchange all the time. Ayla gripes a lot. That's just Ayla. And usually, our conversations go more or less like this:

Ayla: "I have a problem!"

Me: "I am sorry that you have perceived something as a problem. Now I am going to distract you with talk about something else."

Ayla: "But mom! Problem. No likey."

Me:"Something else somethign else something else sunshine birds."

Ayla:"MOM. BIG PROBLEM! PROBLEM PROBLEM PROBLEM."

Me: "I am sorry you have perhaps incorrectly perceived this situation to be a problem when it actually is not a problem because of everything like such as. "

Ayla: "YOU ARE THE WORST MOTHER EVER."

Me: "DEAR GOD MAKE ME A BIRD SO I CAN FLY FAR, FAR FAR AWAY FROM HERE!"

Ayla: "WHY CAN'T YOU JUST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT I HAVE A PROBLEM!"

Me: "Don't worry. About a thing. Every little thing's. Gonna be all wine wine wine wine wine wine wine sleep wine."

I don't know if I'm making it clear, but that cycle wasn't really working for us.

So today Ayla said, "This book is stupid!"

"Yeah," I said. "Really stupid!"

Did you catch that? It went like this:

Ayla: "Mom, I have a problem!"

Me: "Yeah you do!"

There was silence as we both feel the beauty, the surrender, of this moment. It feels so good to Ayla to have her feelings validated, and not redirected. It feels so good to me just to admit it, to not fight her natural inclination toward dark clouds and stormy skies, to just go along with it.

"It's the stupidest stupid thing ever!"

"It's dumb!" I said. "It's stupid and dumb!"

Silence again as Ayla, now moved on from the glory of validation and back into her usual ornery, searches for a rejoinder.

"I'm not going to bring it to show and tell," she says emphatically.

Please note nobody is screaming or crying or begging the pagan gods to make it rain Malbec.

"You shouldn't bring it! It's a stupid book."

"Well I AM going to bring it." (Look, old habits die hard.) "But I'm not going to talk about the glasses."

"I don't blame you. I don't blame you one bit."

And then--Ayla cries out in delight. "Woah! Mom look at those clouds!"

They were really amazing clouds.

"It looks like a bunch of dead guys watching us!" Ayla says.

"Ayla, are you Hopi now?" I said.

"It looks like a hibernating bear!"said Indy.

"It looks like peacock feathers!" said Ayla.


The windows were down and the sky around us was about all we could see. And then Ayla says, more quietly now, It looks like god.

And Indy says, It looks like a boy and girl god.

The wind is in our hair and the sun is still strong.

Sometimes everything goes wrong. You gasp for air, you're exhausted like you've been swimming through muck, unable to pull your head above the surface. You fight. You fall.

And sometimes, you just let each other be. The updrift catches you and you surrender. You drive along through a gold and green afternoon, sharing the wonder of the clouds.

I am Vesuvius and I'm making this up as I go along.

The Peas Ask A Valid Question

"I really wanna be a Catholic!" said Indy, emphatically like she says everything. "But daddy never lets me!"

"Don't worry," I assured her. "Mommy will let you become a little papist. Mommy wants you to be whatever you choose."

Then we had a long talk about patriarchal tyranny.

This morning I fastened pipe cleaners into Ayla's pigtails for Dr. Seuss's birthday. She asked for green eggs and ham tonight, and so I'm making them.

Best mother alive.

I worked for a few hours this morning and then Indy and I headed out for ham. The storefront was bursting with beautiful tulips. I've walked past them a hundred times before, wishing. I'm only French in a few corners, I can't actually buy flowers before bread. I can't afford tulips.

"I'm buying the tulips," I said. Hungry for self-granted power like Scarlett O'Hara. I told Indy to pick whatever color she wanted.

Indy carried our purple tulips back to car. Liberated to spend money on joy, like me. Her short hair white like the clouds, she looked like spring incarnate. At preschool drop-off, she and her classmates ran back and forth, up and down the sidewalk, one great train made of arms and legs and a beautiful array of shades of skin and hair.

I wrote a few weeks ago about a failure of self-confidence, about approaching 30 and feeling more insecure than ever before. And now, for now, I've shed it off me. I feel it in moments of bright clarity. Thoughts like sun through shards of glass. I see what's best for me, what's best for my family. Unburdened by needs to please people, to make people like me, to appear a certain way.

Sometimes the clarity goes away. I don't panic. I know it will come back.

Moments that say things like, You don't have to make sure those people still like you, or Next time you get soused off one lemon drop martini during the Oscars, maybe don't go on Facebook. They come with a smile. Without guilt or shame.

I feel like I've aligned my energy behind the right things.

I am highly susceptible to cheesy. Last night I nearly cried at a commercial on tv.

Not an ugly cry. This cry that is a laugh as well. I read somewhere that on a basic level, we can only interpret events and emotions as large or not large. Our brains won't automatically label something as happy or sad, by emotion, but only as overwhelming or small. By degree.

"Is it ok that I like where is the love by the peas?" I texted Mr.V.

"No. That one is not ok." he texted back. I laughed even harder.

The thing I'm learning about me is I'm never going to be particularly stable. My emotions, my moods, are always going to swell and fall like the sea. I can't change that. It's just a matter of learning how to ride them.

Anyway, can you tell: Spring is in my heart.


I am Vesuvius and I prefer the Glee versions of all the songs, and that's ok.