If you haven't heard, we've moved again. Same zip code. Same phone number. My daughters are not pleased with our "It's May…we must be moving" lifestyle. They keep asking me for stability—some small patch of terra firma under their now sizable feet. I tell them: "These are the days when we have to grow from our heads up to the sky." (They find my shining jewels of spiritual abstractions less than inspiring.) 

Katie and Lizzy aren't involved in many extra-curricular activities at this point. Coping with the flood of change in their tender lives, keeping up the grades, having fun with friends and helping out at home is about all they can handle.  Oh wait, did I say helping out at home?  Katie is just finishing up her last year in junior high as Lizzy is preparing to enter 7th grade.  Trust me, hormonally induced havoc breaks out with the regularity of dust bunnies around the house.  Katie desperately wants her own space, although that third bedroom adds another $200 to the rent around this valley.  It would be cheaper to rent a storage unit and furnish it as her private getaway.  Better yet, she can have my bedroom and I'll retreat to the serenity of an oversized concrete box.  In fetal position, no doubt.  At least the Estrogen Rages would be out of earshot. 

The summer highlight was a road trip to Colorado to see my brother and his family.  Typical launch. I called around noon to say we were just pulling out of town for the 12-hour drive and my niece just howled in laughter. They had been assured we would hit the road in the wee hours and roll in around 5 p.m. in time for dinner. Our two families shared a roomy condo on the Grand Mesa for a few days of fishing, relaxing, canoeing, and strolling along pine-scented trails. We even had a close encounter of the wild kind with a huge black bear crossing the path right in front of us.  Okay, we were in the car at the time and the girls insist that he was petite as bears go.  I can only say that when he turned to high-tail it down the hillside, that furry rumpus looked enormous to me. 

Speaking of animals, we've had a streak of sour luck with pet adoptions this year.  The first experience was a Cornish Rex kitten—carefully selected to avoid the dreaded dander that closes Lizzy's airways.  These unusual creatures are nearly hairless with huge ears and long, skinny bodies.  The names Spock and Radar spring to mind.  Unfortunately, Lizzy had a tough time breathing when kitty was around.  The next attempt came in the form of a Jenday Conure.  Yup, a bird.  Very brilliant in color.  Quite intelligent and already a talker.  But the little wretch decided that I was his girlfriend and viciously attacked Katie and Lizzy if he even heard their voices—much less if they attempted to enter the room.  Walking around with beach towels over their heads and upper torsos was the only way to avoid having their eyes pecked out.  His sole delight was nibbling at my ears and saying "I love you."  He even spit up seeds for us to share.  (Could my prayers for Mr. Right have gone that far amuck? Was I lacking specifics?)  And that's not all. The slightest due diligence on my part would have revealed that Zazoo's species is known for eardrum-shattering cries that defy description. Good apartment pet, right? Granted, the only time he cut loose on the shrieking was every moment he spent in his cage.  We could actually hear him from the parking lot.  In less than two weeks, Zazoo drove me to a terrifying place within myself:  the one where I wring the life out of one of God's creatures with my bare hands.  The only good news was finding a woman who knew all about this possessive little control freak and actually wanted him.  Which only goes to prove that every pot indeed has a lid. 

Daughter Angela seems to be thoroughly enjoying her life in Ohio with her five-star boyfriend.  She and Jim flew out last New Year's to unthaw under the Arizona sunshine.  The two of them accompanied us to "The Phantom of the Opera," where Jim's first 20 sentences were all the same: "What kick-butt seats!" Later over Labor Day weekend, Angela and her mom Evelyn made a flash-in the-pan visit. What a ball we had, five giddy females exploring the Southwest.  We did the Sedona thing, winding our way to Flagstaff through pine-clad back roads.  Apparently, we picked up a hitchhiker during our picnic stop—announced to everyone in the car by piercing screams.  Some super-sized, winged insect of undetermined species was flailing against Lizzy and Katie, sending both girls into frenzied gyrations and high-volume hysterics.  Angela flashed her head around toward the backseat in a tirade of chastisements about startling the driver when she caught glimpse of the culprit.  Now the real screaming begins. AHHHHHH! Stop the car NOW! It's a SCORPION!   Oh really, one of the flying versions?  By the time I could safely pull over and we could evacuate the vehicle to eject the critter, he was traumatized into temporary paralysis.  We managed to flop him out on the ground but he had to be coaxed away from the vehicle wheel to avoid flattening his little ass on the way out. 

My work?  After two years, that high-salary, secure "job" continues to elude me.  In fact, my fanny has been hanging so long in the breeze that this tenuous way of life is beginning to feel like the norm.  One poorly paying part-time job, a few regular freelance clients, and lots of clients who drop a project into my life every three to 18 months.  How is this even working? Not all that well at times. At one particularly low point in the checkbook when the rent was due, a utility truck backed into my little button of a car and created a sudden windfall of insurance compensation.  The check arrived just in time.  At least this madness gives me the flexibility to "be there" for my girls and still bring home the bacon.  Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the road would become this bumpy and demanding in these advanced Middle Ages.  Even the movie stars I grew up with—those still among the living—are doing commercials for Preparation H and Depends. My youth has flown, like that of so many others.  Katie was dumbfounded the other day when most of her classmates had never heard the name Billy Joel.  By the way, she just paid the big bucks for her first concert experience.  The artists?  Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage.  Imagine sending your kid off with: "Don't break any bones in the mosh pit!" 

I'd like to close with a note of hope for the coming year.  Even in the deepest corners of the darkness, those seemingly endless days of walking through the Valley of the Shadow of Low Self-Esteem, I've never lost the faith that everything works for our ultimate good.  Right now, I'm reveling in life's mysteries.  The cycles, the constant change, and the wheel of ups and downs that keeps turning, turning.  Maybe this snippet of poetic message says it much better: 

Life is so generous a giver.  But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard.  Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love and wisdom.  In everything we call a trial, sorry or duty—the Angel's hand is there.  The gift is there.  And the wonder of an overshadowing Presence. 

May we grow in our recognition and appreciation of all of life's gifts this holiday season!

Copyright © Margaret Michaels 2008 All rights reserved
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