roots

I live for family dinners.

And it's not so much even the dinner as the fire up beforehand and the huddling together, stork-legged and hunched over coffee afterward.

The dinners where all the siblings fly in, drive in, walk over, and crowd around the tiny bar in the kitchen instead of spreading throughout the house as we ought.

The ones where Frankie & Deano are playing in the background on Pop's iPod and everyone is shouting and gesturing wildly and the kids are tearing through the house like I poured sugar into their veins before we left the house. The evenings where we empty multiple growlers from Sun King and line up the bottles of wine like little tin soldiers on the counters.

The ones where I laugh so hard my cheekbones hurt.

The ones I don't want to end.

Jane was in from Vermont for the weekend (sans Matt who couldn't get away from work). Tony and Kelly drove down from the Northside. Vinny and Jackie rolled in. Mimi and Aunt B drove over from Ohio. The kids condescended to wear tights and ties and button downs and sweater vests. Mom made reservations. Pops put out crackers and cheese and started opening bottles. The house smelled like Christmas. And, as I unfocused my eyes and let the bokeh on the tree take effect, I could feel it all roll over me in waves: The smell of the coffee brewing, the soft warmth of the wine as it slid down, the way everyone's laughter all melted together. It was my childhood and my adulthood all rolled into one. It was home.

And all through the fire up, and full on Italian dinner out, and subsequent coffee and presents Saturday I soaked it up.

And all through mass Sunday morning, the smell of incense and Latin murmur of the congregation as sharp a reminder of childhood and home as almost any other that weekend, I soaked it up. A sidelong glance down the pew revealing a perfect line of legs and laps and clasped hands.

I didn't even pull out the camera [much] this weekend. I just wanted to hold on to every minute that everyone was together, in one place, for those few days.

We did manage to take some phenomenal group shots Saturday somewhere between the wine and dinner...which I still need to snag from Mom's camera. We pulled out the tripod and set the timer and have the pre-requisite half-shots and nearly-ready-shots and eyes-closed-shots. And the mishaps are glorious. And perhaps better than the finished product because it catches so many of us in our classic poses. 


[practice shot - take five - several of us are behind the camera on this one...

It's weekends like these, the ones that are too few and far between, that sustain me when we're all apart.

It's weekends like these that make up for infrequent phone calls and letters and visits.

It's weekends like these that remind me how lucky I am.

 

Seriously. How awesome is this?

Hi. My name is Sophie and I am a Shepherd.

Don't Mess with Baby Jesus.

 

nice

Losing a little piece of myself?

And sometimes...in the middle of the night...I can't sleep for want of your arm thrown over me, or the hotter-than-the-sun waves from your skin seeping over into my side of the bed. What IS that? When did I lose a little of the love of an empty bed? I used to revel in my ability to do snow angels in my sheets. I'd roll over twice just because I could. And now, the neon green of my clock numbers scowl at me in those early dawn hours when I should be curling into your warmth. My fingers itch to trace whorls on your shoulder blades without waking you up...

little tree

We brought the Christmas decorations out last night.
Giant tubs full of lights and carefully wrapped ornaments in yellowing parchment paper.
the nativity set passed down and the manger scene.

Bing Crosby echoed through our new little apartment.
And I dropped peppermints into everyone's hot chocolate.
And White Christmas played in a loop on the tv... Twice through before we were almost done.
Ohhhhh Bing...Ohhhh Rosemary Clooney.
It's my quintessential Christmas movie. Well, that and the Bells of St. Mary. Well, okay, and A Christmas Story - but only that on Christmas Eve - and then for a 24 loop on Channel 6 usually...

It was a fucking Hallmark moment.
Until we realized something very important.
When calling to transfer utilities into my name earlier that day, somehow the Water Dept. missed a step... and my water was shut off not simply transferred into my name as I'd requested. Meaning the toilets wouldn't flush. Meaning the dump the size of lower Manhattan that my son had just left in the bowl would need to be scooped out & thrown in the dumpster lest the entire apartment go from smelling like Christmas to smelling like poop.

I'm sure there's a lovely life parallel to be drawn here...
Something about Christmas and poop and taking care of your business...
But for the life of me I can't quite think of what it should be.

Ohhhh, Nietzsche...

For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity to exist, a certain physiological precondition is indispensable: intoxication.
~Friedrich Nietzsche

Wake Up!

Sometimes music is just the thing.

Strike that.
Music is always the thing.

Especially this.
Especially this morning.
It's John Legend covering Arcade Fire.
*siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh*

Hear John Legend & The Roots cover Arcade Fire Here: