If we’re going down…

…I want it to be together.
I’ve been in a posting/writing rut. I have stories to tell about turning 40 & ‘My Big Fat Greek Vacation’, our Amsterdam trip in April, and new products I’m releasing, but writing about our worldly travels seems like a big commit. So, I put it off.

It took an earthquake. Literally. Our house just shook an hour ago, shook me into some big thoughts. I couldn’t help but think that it was intended to wake us up. I wonder if sometimes the earth just lashes out to remind us, “Hey, could you guys be a little bit more careful about taking care of me?, Wake the fuck up!” “I’m actually in charge here, I’m keeping you alive, and I can take that away at a moment’s notice.”

I dashed, in a sleepy stupor, to my kids rooms and found myself trying to reach both of their beds from the hallway, but my arms aren’t long enough. The wooden trees on top of our bookshelf shook and collapsed. Our big strong house was swaying. Earthquakes just aren’t something we feel, on the ‘reg’, in MT. My family united on the couch.

I remember last summer when a boom of thunder shook us awake and I had the same urge. I collected my family and we filled the downstairs couch. We grew up sleeping under our stairs, on sweaty Wisconsin summer nights, when the alarms would sound. I remember cozy sleeping bag beds, beside the spiders that resided there, whom suddenly didn’t matter.

On airplanes, I prefer to be touching each human in my party of four, especially when turbulence shows face. If we hold hands we can make it through the big things.

It just somehow makes me feel like I’m doing my ‘job’, taking care of them, keeping them safe. There isn’t much to be done about turbulence, an earthquake, or a crazy storm, but binding us all together when ‘the shit hits the fan’… that’s my job.

If I feel even a hint of anxiety in a big city, I am comforted with Gus slipping his hand into mine. This happened countless times when he’d become uneasy in Athens and Amsterdam. He would tell me with his words, sometimes, but always with his grip.

We aren’t in control of everything.
Now I can sleep.
It can all be gone in a second, in a breath.

Hold hands. xo