77

I am flying to Tucson tomorrow to be part of the first annual Tucson Festival of Books. I am thrilled to be going, not least because the weather is going to be 77 there on Sunday. 77! Spring is definitely trying to start arrive here, but it's not 77. Though last weekend, it was wonderfully warm here, and the boys and I were able to be home all day. That is my favorite day in the world: all of home with no place we have to be at a certain time, and just able to play and eat and laugh and hang out and be home. So, the 2 year old and I were in the kitchen getting water, and my 5 year old was digging in the dirt at his construction site next to the driveway, when he came running in and said, "Momma, some thing's happened; come see." I figured a truck had broken from the ice, or some mishap, but then he said, "Come, some thing wonderful happened." And he led us outside, and there in the bed under the front window was the first flower of spring. That made my heart sing. To see it, and that he had found it, and showed it to me in that way. So, this long, cold winter is of the past, but it is still trying to hang on. I, for one, will not be sad to see it go. I kept my 5 year old home from pre-school this morning, since I'll be gone this weekend, so we played Tigers and Zoo keeper this morning, always a favorite.
My sister who lives in Albuquerque is going to meet me in Tucson and spend Saturday night with me. I'm looking forward to a sisters weekend. I told her that I feel like such a grown-up getting to have a girls' weekend, and she said that she feels like a kid going to a slumber party, so there's perspective for you! I'm going to miss the boys, especially, and I know this sounds crazy, at the airports - I'm changing planes in Dallas - because, one) airports are my sons favorite places in the world, and two) flying brings up terrible existential angst for me. I don't have a fear of dying on a plane, rather it is that going to an airport makes me think of what it must be life to leave this life and be in that transition before the next thing, and being a (trying, at least) practicing Buddhist, I think it is another life. I probably never should have watched that Albert Brooks movie, "Defending Your Life" since it is all about that in-between time and its setting looks suspiciously like an airport. But anyway. I have no doubt the festival will be great fun, and my sons and husband won't eat any of the food I am making and leaving for them, and will subsist on pizza and I'll be thrilled to see them upon arriving home. I'm feeling nervous/sad about being gone from them. At dinner tonight, my two year old said, “Momma bye bye tomorrow plane." Then he crawled into my lap. "Me hum. (for 'me come') Me hum.” Totally broke my heart. :(
xo