We are not contained between our hats and boots

The happy, sad, tired, beautiful business of L-I-V-I-N.

“We’re not separated from the world by our own edges.”

Charlie set down his beer glass, empty now, and rubbed his hand up and down his arm as an example of one of his edges.

“We’re part of the sky and the rocks in your mother’s garden and that old man who sleeps by the train station. We’re all interconnected and when you see that, you see how beautiful life is. Your mother and sisters don’t have that awareness. Not yet, anyway. They believe they’re contained in their bodies and the biographical facts of their lives.”

Sylvie felt like her father had shown her a part of herself she hadn’t known existed. When Sylvie looked back on that moment, now, from the funeral pew and later over the course of her life, it would always be one of her great joys that her father had said this to her and that she was able to delight him by paraphrasing one of his favorite poems. “We are not contained between our hats and boots…” - Hello Beautiful, Ann Napolitano

At 5 am on weekday mornings, my iPhone politely plays “droplets” to gently encourage me to rise and shine. Ironic, because I 86ed the “rise & shine” option for an aggressiveness not unlike an enthusiastic hotel maid knocking and shouting “housekeeping” at your Vegas hotel room door after an unlucky night of drinking-induced blackjack.

Since motherhood kicked off in my early thirties, I haven’t experienced the kind of careless, deep sleep I took for granted in my twenties so I don’t need or want alarm aggression. I awake at a whisper, a meow, a cough, a fart. I can hear a loud swallow indicating a kid’s oncoming sickness from two rooms away. My body is an intensified receptor attuned to the wellness of all beings in my home. Subtle indications of illness scrape at my hearing as intensely as those trendy ASMR videos It’s a blessing and a curse.

I’m in the habit of wearing a robe and slippers in the morning and I wonder if, like waking up early, this is some kind of middle-aged rite of passage. I’m an early-rising, slippers and robe lady now. Next thing you know, I’ll be playing competitive bingo at the Lions Club down the street and using my winnings to purchase daily Scratch-Offs at the gas station.

Because I set it before I go to bed, the coffee maker is always softly burping as I pass through the kitchen, slippers shooshing across vinyl, to let the dogs into the backyard to pee.

We moved recently. From our sweet cabin in the woods to a little mid-century, red brick rambler in State College - a confusing name for a town, I know. The older two kids attend a charter school for 5th - 8th graders here in the city and with my firstborn starting high school in the fall, we needed to be within the district boundaries to be allowed to register for high school here and not the awful 7th - 12th-grade rural school we first tried when Violet started middle school last year.

Violet likes to be called Blake now. Which is ridiculously cool; both the name and the bold notion of renaming yourself what you feel most comfortable being called. I obviously love the name Violet, but I think I like Blake even more because it’s what they named themself. So, it’s a request I’m more than happy to oblige.