independence day

i love fireworks- sparkly things lighting up the night.
last night i watched them from the roof of my car looking out over the manchester harbor with the sliver of a moon reflecting on the water- along with all those dazzling lights.
but i was a hard day too.

hot and humid and in the new england world of no air conditioning - you can't get away.  sticky outside and inside.  and so was zoe.  stickier-out of sorts as i knew she would be- new environment- different people- different things to do and eat and sense.  i hate being right about these sorts of things.  i'd so much rather be wrong.
but this is my life- it's often not pretty.  it's weird and different and doesn't make sense to other people. but this is what it is.  and so you go with it. live it best you can but it's still hard.

a few summers ago when things were really rough for zoe and for me we were in the car going to the pool, listening to switchfoot.  this song came on whose beginning doesn't sound great to me- so i was about to change it when zoe said- "no mom, this is a great song!"  so i stopped and listened- and she was right. 

'Yesterday is a wrinkle on your forehead
Yesterday is a promise that you've broken
Don't close your eyes, don't close your eyes
This is your life and today is all you've got now
Yeah, and today is all you'll ever have
Don't close your eyes

This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be?
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

Yesterday is a kid in the corner
Yesterday is dead and over

This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be?
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose

Don't close your eyes

This is your life are you who you want to be?'

it made me cry and smile.  because there was my girl - belting it out in the way, way back of our car.  and there was i, feeling like my life was full of broken promises- that it was not all that i had dreamed it would be, that i often do close my eyes, and i was left asking the question- am i who i want to be?  and i was left with the reminder- the plain old truth of it- This IS my life.

so in this disrupted time now- in these disrupted days- with my disrupted daughter and my disrupted self-i'm again asking the question: am i who i want to be?

it's finding that balance- it's acknowledging where we are- what our life is not- how it's different from what we dreamed it would be- and accepting- but always asking- am i who i want to be in this?  am i who i want to be when it's not what i would have signed up for?  when it's been a really sticky day for zoe?  when my kids feel displaced and out of sorts? when the second buyer for the house pulls out and we go back on the market?  when mike is gone for two weeks?

it makes me think back to that movie 'the tree of life'- the question posed at the beginning of the movie- are you going to choose to live by human nature- or grace?

it's just easier to fall into frustration and anger at life when things are hard- when we feel like we're suffering.  it's harder to find the grace- to live in it- to grow in it.

last night, before the fireworks, mike and i went to singing beach in manchester.  it had just rained stormily and the sky was intense. we walked up this short boardwalk over the sand- that dull, splintery hollow-sounding path- and looked out over the ocean and back at the sun setting over the land.  it was beautiful.  mike wanted to go put his feet in the water- which meant being far from our illegally parked car- but we took the risk, left our shoes and walked in the rain wet sand down to the ocean. and that is when i remembered how going a little further- how taking a little risk- can dramatically change your perspective- how much more beautiful life can be. 

from the ocean we had a full view.  from the ocean we could see the entire sunset back over the land- those crazy, intense clouds, the pockets of darkness, the crescent moon, the pink, the lavender and the calm of the lapping water- the scattered rock poking through- the light on the harbor masters boat- the transition from day to night. 

up on the boardwalk- i had thought it couldn't get any better- i didn't want to leave it because i was savoring the beauty.  but that sandy walk to the sea opened it all up.  from that new place i saw so much more.  the view was bigger, deeper, encompassing, passionate and full. wet sandy feet and the smell of low tide in the last of the light of the day.

there was my moment of grace.