And yet we do

It’s 5:50 a.m. and I’ve had another rough “sleep”. One of the babies woke up, then fell back to slumber and I figured it was as good a time as ever to rise and shine and make a cup of tea and align myself for the day with a bit of writing which I haven’t done for far too long.

I just feel better when I write. It’s like stepping into a hot tub out in Nature, all by myself, cloaked by the rising sun, the chirping birds, the dewy trees and the brisk chill of hope.

I’m back in New York with my daughter and her family: a lab-ish black dog, Charlie, Cat Bus the hairy, snarly feline, almost one Boden, almost three Hudson, securely four Millie, her parents and in-laws who moved from Hong Kong to care for the brood. I got here to watch the kiddos trick-or-treat, my daughter run the NYC Marathon, then flew back to L.A. to help out and attend my eldest grandson’s Bar Mitzvah, jumped on a plane back to The Big Apple to go to a concert with my daughter, and will remain here to celebrate my two Littles’ birthdays, one of which falls on Thanksgiving. I’ll stay a few days beyond (when the fares drop significantly) then stop by to see hello to my L.A. peeps before taking off on a two-week, pre Christmas camping trip to the beach. 

I’m living the life I dreamed of having a perfect combination of flexibility and adventures, re-connections and peace.

Like this moment.

It’s worth “just getting up” even when you’re tired to embrace moments like this. I remember going-with-the-exhaustion-flow when I was a new parent and tried to sneak-in a few moments to myself before the rest of the crew woke up. And here I am again, in a busy, exhausting, household of constant triumphs and defeats, chronic runny noses and give-and-take negotiations. I sleep on a fold-out bed in the living room better suited for a college student than a creaky bones grandma. I’ve taken to the couch the last few nights because of the cushion, the give, that better adapts to the aches of an arthritic lower back and neck.  

It’s a fact when I visit the East Coast and my daughter’s zany, loving, family: I don’t sleep. I don’t have privacy. I don’t have many minutes to myself. But I do have this rock star status called L-O-V-E by these baby children who adore their grandma, and vice versa, which mostly zeroes-out the physical discomfort. Every morning, as in a few minutes from now, the babies bounce out of bed, one of them grumpy, crying, craving more sleep, and runs down the hall, jumps on top of me and gives me the biggest tears-producing hug and smile. For them, for me, I suck it up buttercup and sideline the aches and pains so I can be in-the-moment totally in love. And I am. It’s like a box of new, vibrant watercolors, like the briskness of a teeming spring stream, like the view from the top of a mountain after a long, strenuous hike. This pure love thing is intoxicating.

As Tim Waltz, the Democratic Vice Presidential nominee often said, “I can sleep when I’m dead.” So instead of napping, reading, drifting, squirreling away daylight capsules of solitude, I drop everything when I see them, open my arms and hug them for as long as they’ll endure my snuggles.

Yes, there are plenty of other people, world and national calamities that are concerning and consuming. But hanging out with little kids is a reality check, a reminder of what really matters in life.  

So as I sip the last drops of honey-sweetened Yorkshire Gold tea, treasuring the lingering warmth as it coats my dry, sore throat, I am reminded of the fleeting nature of every precious second, how we don’t know what’s around the corner, and yet we do.