LISA IN THE AFTERNOON

In the blink of an eye, my sister Lisa flew into NYC, stirred up a whole lot of trouble and magic and laughter, and then jetted off, just as swiftly as she had arrived, back home to L.A.  It was far too short of a trip, but isn't it always?

Lisa and I are only a year and a half apart, but she will always and forever be my baby sister.  Biet and Lou have a very similar age difference, and I often find myself wondering if they will know the camaraderie and connection that Lisa and I have always had.  I hope they will.

You see, Lisa is the kind of girl that makes you want to live.  She's the kind of girl who makes you want to dress up in your finest and stage a full blown photoshoot right in the middle of the city (we didn't get around to that... this time), sprint through the subways in a floor-length gown like you're in a movie as you run to catch a Broadway show, order the cheapest burger and the fanciest bottle of champagne in the same day just to say that you tried them, take photo booth pictures at four in the morning, and wander the quiet streets aimlessly in the inky shadowed hours of the city night, just because, until you've covered at least a handful of neighborhoods, accidentally happened upon a midnight riot with smoke bombs and police on horseback (which turns out to be an elaborate movie set in a should-have-been-closed city park of which the gates have been left open), and walked walked walked until your feet blistered and you had to either walk home in the middle of the night barefoot like a crazy person or find a 24-hour Duane Reade for emergency bandaids (we may have actually done all of that... and yes we found the Duane Reade).  Lisa is one of those rare gems, a pearl of a girl, who inspires the world without even knowing it.  She's always up for an adventure.  She makes you laugh til you cry, every. single, time.  She sings weird old-timey songs as she puts on her make-up.  And she sends you the best cards on your birthday.

I'm lucky that she's my sister.

The other day Gaby was telling me about the notion, that is prevalent in his culture and that he always seemed to "know" when he was little, that babies choose the family that they're born into.  He said that when he was a very tiny child he always had a "knowing," a certainty of sorts, that he had chosen his Mom.  I found this idea so very beautiful.  I wonder, if it's true, if somehow my sisters and I all chose each other, in a way, then, too... It would certainly make a lot of sense if we did.

On Lisa's last afternoon in the city, we walked through the neighborhood together with Biet and Lou, up and down streets, down through Soho, up along the Bowery.  We found a million little places to go that made us both wish that she could stay here in the city with me forever.  We walked by Cafe Gitane, which was one of the first places we went to for lunch together when she first came to visit me over a decade ago, before the city had ingrained itself into my blood and before Lisa had created her big bright life out west, when we were just two young sisters with nothing to lose and everything to win, and taking ourselves out for lunch at a french cafe was oh so fancy.

Now I have a running list of a dozen "Cafe Gitane's" that we have to try, next time she's in town.  Sans kids, we'll run around the city and take each other out for lunch and then maybe to a gallery or show.  With lots to lose but even more to win, we'll parade and adventure side by side, probably until we're two old ladies with pillbox hats and pastel hair.

So come back soon Lisa, because I miss you terribly and it's nearly lunchtime. xx

AND SO THIS IS CHRISTMAS

We didn't expect it to be the best one yet.

We always try to celebrate the holidays simply, and to focus on tradition and experience over tangible things, but this year we had intended to have very simple Christmas.  Baby Lou's (it looks funny typing that but we really do all call him 'Baby Lou' at home! I'm beginning to fear that the name will really stick and that Biet will still call him that when he's twenty..) never-ending curiosity and reckless attempts at standing up on everything nixed the option of a big tree, so we brought home the prettiest little potted miniature tree we could find.  We kept the decorations simple this year, the Christmas outings to a minimum, and the gifts on a teeny tiny budget.  Focusing instead on music, food, and family time together around our little tree, we knew our simple Christmas would be warm and happy.  But we never expected it to be this amazing.

The deliveries started showing up a couple of weeks out.  First a tiny box, then a medium, and finally a HUGE one, all from my sisters.  My two sisters are a couple of crafting geniuses, baking enthusiasts, and holiday aficionados. One mention of a "simple Christmas" to them over the phone, and they began spinning their magical holiday web from which no one, and I mean no one, escapes.  Suddenly our "one gift per person" idea flew out of the window, and our kids once again had the luxury of being spoiled by their Aunties.  I miss my sisters terribly pretty much all of the time, but especially at the holidays.

Then a box arrived from Portland with my name on it.  I opened it to find a collection of old hand-sewn ornaments that my mother had made decades ago, when she was alive.  She used to hand-make everything, from paintings to food to art, and would singlehandedly turn every holiday into a whimsical dream for the kids.  I remember bits and pieces, glimpses and faded memories, from when I was small.  She was magic. That's most likely where my sisters get it from.  She used to sew beautiful stockings for everyone in the family too, usually shaped like a boot or whatever kind of shoe they fancied.  One year, when I was about three I think, she sewed my Dad an amazing intricate quilted stocking, and filled it, as a joke, with coal.  I remember us three girls thinking that was just the funniest thing in the world.  When I found in the box, underneath the ornaments in the very bottom, a faded red velvet stocking of hers, I began to tear up.  She had likely hand-sewed it about 40 years ago and holding it in my hands felt like she was with us again.  That stocking became Biet and Lou's this year to share.  It felt like a perfect way to give my own children a little piece of the magic that I remembered of my mom.

On Christmas morning Lucien awoke first, smiling and bouncing across the bed and climbing upon his Papa's head, as usual.  Then Biet yelled out from her room to announce to the world that she too was awake.  We swept them up and headed to the kitchen for orange juice and coffee, purposely avoiding the living room so that they wouldn't see the gifts before we had time to grab a camera to capture their reactions.  We told them that today was Christmas, and how excited we were to have presents to open under the  tree.  We let Biet lead the way, through our room, through her room, through the old wooden door, and into the living room.  The stocking, stuffed full, rested on Biet's little rocking chair, and the presents lay softly piled under the tree.  Hidden under a sheet on the floor was the wooden blue kitchenette which Gaby and I had spent hours putting together the night before.  While the kids were dreaming of sugarplums, we had carefully unpacked the boxes from my sisters, tightened bolts, aligned cupboards, and attached handles.  We were beyond excited to see Biet's face when she opened it.

In front of the tree, Gaby and I beamed at one another.  In that moment, as our kids experienced their first Christmas together, it really hit me: I was a mother of children, whipping up holiday magic and joy for my brood, just as my mother had.  And I was doing a good job at it.  These were the moments they would remember forever.  Baby Lou happily crawled around, pulled himself up on the rocking chair, and began to tug at the stocking.  Biet just stared, a bit confused.  Then her confusion turned to understanding, shock, and finally elation.  She pulled the sheet back and saw the tiny kitchen, and froze.  She started whispering, "what. what. what? what?!" and began slowly opening all of the cupboards and looking inside the shelves.  "Mama, its blue. Its BLUE! It's a kitchen! A kitchen for Biet!" she squealed.  My heart was bursting.  She had wanted a kitchen for so long.  When we revealed Lou's gift from his Aunties, a tiny red piano, I don't think you could find happier kids in the whole city.  Then a trumpet, the one thing Biet had asked Santa for when she sat on his lap for the first time earlier this month, and a jar of marmalade (like Paddington Bear's, which she had been requesting for weeks) joined the party, and things really got crazy.  A morning of cooking, singing, and music-playing commenced. And our first Christmas as a family of four became the best Christmas we've ever had.

The day drifted on happily in our little apartment with pots simmering, cookies baking, children playing, babies and dogs napping, parents relaxing, and everyone thinking about how fortunate we all are to have so much love, family, and generosity in our lives.  Throughout the day I kept thinking about how blessed we are, how truly blessed.

//last Christmas//  + //Biet's first Christmas//

35, 36, + 37/52

A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013. *  

35

Biet: Her curls, like her spirit, grow more wild each day. 

Lucien: "Who's that guy... That's not my Papa."

36

Biet: Stop tormenting your little brother young lady!

Lucien: Stop encouraging her, young man!

37

Biet: Throughout this past summer in Brooklyn, she played in countless open fire hydrants.  There was always at least one open, acting as a fountain and a source of endless entertainment for the kids in our neighborhood.  Now, every time she notices one anywhere, she says "Mama, I wanna put my feet in!" and tries with all her might to open it. 

Lucien: Always observing, always noticing, I have a feeling that he is picking up everything his sister does.  They are fast becoming a little team of hooligans. 

COMING HOME

In the middle of the cool Oregon night, I stepped into my Aunt Pam's house. Gaby and I quietly carried our exhausted little ones past the grandfather clock by the front door and up the winding staircase to the cluster of bedrooms on the second floor.  My older sister and her children slept within one room, my younger sister in another.  We had planned to each travel from our homes and meet here, in Portland, on this particular day, in this yellow-painted four-story home.  And we had all made it.

Gaby and I collapsed into the bed of the master bedroom, or what had once been the master when I lived in this house twenty some years ago. I looked around at the walls, so familiar, yet almost from a dream.  The slightly woody, slightly savory scent in the air was one I knew instinctually from my childhood, a mix of the old house's walls and of freshly cooked food.  I made my way downstairs to fix a bottle for Biet, who, even as thoroughly exhausted as she was from the flight, still refused to go to sleep without her customary almond milk.  As I made my way downstairs in the dark, I realized that my feet knew each step and each curve in the wall.  Yet my mind was surprised at how small the staircase was.  These stairs I used to chase my sisters up as a four year old, and slide down as a five year old, were, in my memories, a castle-like cascade of steps.  But now they were just another set of stairs, albeit a set of stairs upon which many a great woman had walked.

When the babes had drifted into their dreams, Gaby and I lied upon the big bed and whispered. With the windows cracked, you could hear and smell the Oregon breeze drifting in, tainted with notes of trees and flowers and the faintest smell of the ocean.  An odd feeling, of calm and excitement at the same time, began to creep up from my stomach, and yet I could not place it.  Over the next week we would be here with family, away from the city, away from the noise, away from the internet, in a place of love and warmth and history.

After my mother passed, but before we were swept away into the unsteady world of foster care, this is where my sisters and I lived.  My mother's sister Pam opened her heart to us in the most unreserved way, and we became part of her family.  Here, we healed. Here, we bonded.  Here, we shed the layers of turmoil and became children again, for a little while.  Here, I learned to believe in magic again. And I learned to cook. And garden. And, through example, to mother.  And now I had finally made my way back, with both of my sisters, as was meant to be.  And I had made it back as a mother.  Full circle.

Over the next few days in Portland with my aunt & uncle & sisters & cousins & nephews & husband & children, we lovingly made family memories for the next generation, for our children, to keep.  And I slowly learned what that feeling in my belly was.  It was a feeling I had not felt since I stepped off the plane upon moving to New York City.  It was the feeling of coming home.

HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN!

And we're back! We embarked on a somewhat last-minute week long trip to Oregon last week, and ended up having an absolutely beautiful and unforgettable adventure.  These past few days with family, cooking day and night, picking vegetables from the garden, digging through piles of childhood photos, and letting the kids run wild, strengthened me as mother and deepened my roots to my family in an almost magical way.  For an entire week, my face was smiling, my belly was full, and my arms were empty as Lucien hopped from one family member to another.  I have dozens of pictures to show and words to write, but for now we'll rest after a long flight.  Happy weekend friends!