Swimming Lessons

Smooth and slow strokes, Bridge. Smoooooooth and sloooooooow. When you jump into the pool and panic, your lungs go ‘CCCCRRRRRRKKKK’ and you can’t breath! The dog paddling takes you forever to get where you’re going. If you can relax, go smooth and slow, you actually get there quicker!

So as soon as we got home I was freaking out. Okay, truthfully I started freaking out in a little square in Barcelona over tapas. Realizing the postcards had not/would not get written let alone sent before we headed out. The weight of preparing to go Stateside descended. Visions of the mountains of laundry dominating my thoughts. “Four weeks away from Scotty” blinking like an obnoxious neon sign in my not-so-subconscious. So I did what any normal person would do—I started dog paddling like mad.

Me: Good one! Did you notice that? You got there so much quicker that time!
B: Yeah, cause I started to dog paddle and I just thought, ‘Relax! Slow and smooth, slow and smooth, slow and smooth.’

I did laundry all day. Load after load. One right after the other. Tying up loose ends on the computer. Once in a while trying to escape into the world of facebook and then beating myself up for it. I vacuumed. I straightened. I was a tight, angry ball.
I went to see my osteopath for an adjustment. He said my body was really tired. He asked me if I noticed that I was flinching every time he moved my muscles. Said it seemed like, “Mum’s not taking good care of herself.” He was right and I felt my shoulders lifted in a tight ‘shrug’ like I was bracing myself for something.
I fought with Scott. I told him the weight of the world was on my shoulders. We made a list of what specifically I did feel was on my shoulders, and I was astounded and embarrassed and frustrated with myself—somehow I really had taken the weight of the world on my shoulders. The number and magnitude of the things I was carrying? Goodness. It’s a wonder I could stand up.
We manage to get everything but the socks and underwear packed before bed but still the next morning I was exhausted. Angry. Sad.

B: Mom, I’m going to swim all the way to the other side this time! I can do it!
Halfway over he stops and panics and swims to where I am standing. Spluttering for just a second. Then he says: “I just needed a little break!” as he heads to the other side.

We wake up to little boys snuggling in our bed. Scott sends them to play and holds me tight. I am tight. Distant. He persists. He makes gently makes me look him in the eye. He smoothes out the furrows between my eyebrows with his fingers. I splutter. I move my arms and legs fast. I’m getting nowhere. He holds tighter. He nuzzles me and hugs me. I try smooth. I embrace slow. We make love and all of the sudden I can breath.
I come downstairs and we listen to the Valentines 2009 mix. I cry. I’m going to miss him so much. It occurs to me how blessed I am to feel that way and how much hard work and perseverance got us to that place.

B: I did it! Smooth and slow just like you said! Did you see me?!?! I got ALL THE WAY to the other side! I am awesome!

We quick get dressed and head into the city. There’s nearly a hiccup—several lines of the tube aren’t running. And we flounder around. I find myself spluttering. Then I relax. Smooth. Slow. We go outside. We grin at each other. “Want to figure out how to ride the bus in this city?” It’s great fun. Orienting. Out in the open. We can breath.
We have an old school Children’s Book Store date. Bridger and Caid are excellent additions to the ritual. We visit Borough Market—my favorite London place. We eat yummy treats and walk around in the scads of people. We go home and play baseball. We read Winnie the Pooh. We pack. We go to bed late.
The next morning on the way to the airport Scott says, “I think you’re going to need to get up every morning and decide not to carry anything that is not yours. There will be plenty to pick up. You go three days of picking stuff up and you’re going to be a wreck.”

Smooth and slow. If you can just relax…you actually get there quicker.

Barcelona Highlights Days 3-5

Day 3
THE BEACH!
Playing in the sand with sand toys and plastic bags (who knew they could be such perfect sand tools!).
Eating avocados with our fingers and no knife.
The boys running through the showers instead of swimming at the first beach because the waves were too strong.
“Laps” as Bridger called them into and out of the sea over and over again holding hands (at the second beach).
La Fonda again for dinner with yummy Prosecco, paella, doting waiters and the bonus of an unexpected evening with Scott!

Day 4
Churros and chocolate.
Mercat de la Boqueria again for breakfast.
Tummy aches and subsequent naps at the hotel.
Rallying and heading back out.
The Teleferic! A gondola ride the boys were totally stoked about with great views of the city.
The Montjuic Castle.
B’s game at the Military Museum—“Okay, which cannon would you choose? Now choose your armor. Ooooo! This is my sword!”
Meeting Scott at the top of the hill for another unexpected evening to spend together.
Dinner at Silenus—a great find by Scott even though I had resigned myself to the night being ruined.
Catalunya Square shut down for the Barca/Madrid game. Thousands of fans everywhere cheering and excited!
The taxi driver who illegally drove us out of the Catalunya Square are (all the streets were technically shut down and there were riot police everywhere).
Proof that it DOES always work out.

Day 5
Bonus time with Scott.
The Market on last time!
Tapas in a little square in the rain.

Barcelona is delicious. Mango-coconut juices and salty stacks of every kind of nut. Soft and spicy paella spiked with gigantic prawns and succulent bits of pork ribs. Smooth avocados peeled and eaten in the sand and smooshed all over our faces and underneath our fingernails.

The uncles and aunties ruffle the boys hair and help them with their tickets on the metro. The abuelas wink and the grandfathers chuckle and lift them into seats on the bus. The boys play their part—charming everyone with their sincerest attempts at por favor and gracias.

The sound of the waves crashing against the sand. Chubby dark skinned beauties squealing with delight. Rolled ‘r’s and the passionate music of spoken Spanish and Catalonian.

I’m getting better at this. I had no plan when we arrived. Only a few pages hastily printed at 11:30 pm the night before we left. But each day we have an idea and we follow our noses and our instinct to out of the way xocoa shops and cool squares with fountains and random jugglers.

I let the boys teach me about being present. Stopping at every pet stand on Las Ramblas—proving that just because you’ve seen one does not mean you’ve seen them all. Making games in the hotel room and at restaurants and to help pass the time when we go the wrong way and have to walk a long way back.

They teach me about living with reckless abandon. Throwing themselves in the sand fully clothed to make ‘sand angels.’ ‘Ah come on, Mama! It’ll be fine!’ B said when I declined. They climb to the very top of the rope structure and then shout, ‘Look at me, Mama! I’m not even holding on!’

We see lots of important things and decide that perhaps Gaudi’s greatest contribution to art and architecture is providing the perfect place to play tag.

Concessions and compromises are made. Bridger does not have to hold my hand, but he does have to walk right in front of me. Caid can play with the random card board box—soaking it in the waves and tearing it into tiny pieces—so long as he promises to throw it all away when he is done. He does throw it, without being reminded.

We improvise. Plastic bags—not store bought toys—end up being the tool of choice in the sand. The boys run through the beach-shower ‘sprinklers’ since the waves are too strong for swimming. We all four sleep in on king sized bed instead of two doubles. There is a pull out single bed, but even big boys don’t want to be left out of the snuggling cuddle fest. (A fact I discovered after sensing some sniffles from the little bed after lights out. Me: B, are you alright? B: um…yeah. Me: Is something wrong, Beast? B: It’s just that…no, nothings wrong. Me: Oh sweety, what’s the matter? B: (crying) Well, I just want to snuggle with you all night too! Me: Oh good! Will you please? I was hoping you would!)

We miss Scott during his 9am to 2am schedule, but we’re so thankful to be here. To have a nice hotel. To snuggle up with him when he gets in. We take lots of pictures to keep him updated on our day.

We fall deeper in love. With travelling. With a new culture. With one another and our own unique expression of family.

What a life.

I am in love. With a new city. Barcelona, to be exact. I knew it was going to be a match made in heaven when we stepped off the plane into the damp, sea-salty air. We dropped our bags off and headed out. It’s so…European. Mmmmmmm…that is the resounding emotion. My senses are filled to the brim and every one of them gives a resounding, mmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

It smells good. A mixture of dust and sea air and cigarette smoke. Dirty bodies and car exhaust and unbelievably yummy food. It smells like LIFE and people and…mmmmmmm. It tastes good. The fresh fruit juices at the market. The cava served freezing cold from an ice bucket at my side. Everything drowning in olive oil. And the paella—oh the paella! It feels good. Bustling and busy, but no one in a bad mood. The waiters tease my boys and tousle their hair and give them a million candies on their way out the door. The grandmothers on the subway wink at Caid and ask questions in Spanish and praise the boys’ attempts at ‘por favor’ and ‘gracias.’ It sounds good. I’m thinking I need to learn to speak Spanish. I love the passionate sounds all around us. The tiny horns of the millions of scooters. The kids and the dogs and the vendors and the tiny chicks in their cages along Las Ramblas.

Highlights from Day 1:
Playing tag among the columns at Gaudi’s Park Guell.

Picking out the different ‘stories’ told by the Nativity Façade at La Sagrada Familia. Bridger loved this and begged for ‘more stories.’

Watching the boys jump off benches. Making friends with the locals and playing football with their ball at the playground.

The walk along the sea front and incredible dinner at La Fonda. YUM!

The sea! Including squishing our toes in the sand. ‘Sand Angels’! Uproarious giggles as we tried to let the waves just barely lick our toes. The boys absolute delight at seeing the water.

Falling exhausted into bed (3 of us in the king sized bed and one on the little pull-out couch bed).

Highlights from Day 2:
Beginning and ending the day in the hotel pool. Including watching the boys’ ‘moves’ as they jumped to me in the deep end over and over and over again.

Mercado de la Boqueria. Avocados the size of small melons. Mounds of the most beautiful fresh fruit I have ever seen. Nuts and chocolates and fresh fruit juices to die for!

Our yummy dinner of fruit and avocados and nuts on the floor of the hotel room.

The boys’ amazing cheerfulness and resilience even though we kind of wandered around a lot as I got lost several times.

Can’t wait for tomorrow!

Spring

“It’s spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when you’ve got it, you want--oh you don’t quite know what it is you want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”--Mark Twain

I’ve got that.  The heartache.  The longing for I’m not sure what.  A day with sunshine finds my heart leaping and rejoicing and both the present and the future seem so bright.  A day with overcast clouds always makes me want to stay in my jammies and sometimes sends me into fits of depressed self examination--not to mention fear and uncertainty.  Such is the reality of April, I suppose.  Such is the reality of a new season in a new land.  

Spring here is beautiful.  First there were blankets of waxy green leaves poking up here and there in huge clusters in the grass.  Nettles appeared on the bridleways and public footpaths along with something that reminds me of parsley.  The waxy green leaves turned out to be crocuses.  Mass amounts of purple and white and yellow all blooming right there in the middle of the grass in parks and yards all around.  So cute and so helpful.  They whispered to me the secret, “Don’t worry!  Spring is around the corner!”  When the daffodils bloomed I was beside myself with the sheer beauty.  Hundreds and thousands of daffodils all blooming--a little more intentionally planted mind you--but right there in the middle of the parks.  By the time the azalias and apple trees put on their blossoms I started to hope.  Hope that I might come to like and appreciate and even ENJOY this new country we live in.  

Winter here was wicked.  Cold and wet and the sun shone for such a very short period of time every day.  All of the sudden it was March and I felt I’d been under a rock since Christmas.  Perhaps that’s why the blogs were so few and far between.  I couldn’t bring myself to do much except move through the days and weeks with one foot in front of the other.  We moved of course.  We began our homeschooling journey.  We had company from the States.  That’s a ton, I now realize.  Still, somehow I felt stuck.  Dormant.  Then the crocuses came, and I began to understand the life of a bulb.  The sense in the seasons.  The need for the quiet and the dark.  Maybe I too, could wake up and be brave enough to extend my fragile tendrils towards the sun.    

I was sure for a while that the thing making my heart ache--the thing that I wanted so was home.  This journey to England has not been easy.  Loneliness.  Depression.  Questioning. Why did we do this again? Worrying.  Wondering.  So much to give up, and it is hard sometimes to see what I am gaining in exchange.  What’s a few castles compared to the comfort and familiarity of an afternoon with my mom and sisters or the epic snow forts in the back yard.  What is adventure compared to Opening Day at Coors Field?  

It’s hard to even admit that it is hard.  Sometimes I think people will judge me or be angry that I am struggling.  “Look what you get to do!”  the judge in my head says.  “You should be thankful!  Lots of people would give their right arm to experience what you are experiencing!”  But if they knew, would they keep their appendages?  Knew the loneliness of new rules in friend-making.  Months gone by without coffee or lunch dates or girls night outs or backyard fire-pit evenings filled with good company and good food.  Knew the pain in their child’s eyes when he realizes there are no friends to spend a holiday with and daddy isn’t even home.  Knew the physical stress that comes with navigating a new culture’s grocery offerings and a new climate’s deep effect on the psyche.  Would they do it if they knew that dates with spouses would be very rare?  That there is no equivalent to Target and it’s difficult to find something as simple as a pair of little boy’s jeans?  

Would I have come if I could have known?  I always remember what Aslan says more than once to Lucy throughout different Narnia books.  “No one is ever told what could have been.”  

Still, here I am.  It’s hard.  It’s hard to sit at home while Scott travels the world.  It’s hard to navigate new friendships.  It’s hard to live in a country with so very little sunlight.  But then Spring has arrived, and I feel myself beginning to awaken.  

Awakening to the beauty of this climate.  There are flowers absolutely everywhere and more to come!  Many of the trees still don’t have their leaves but we have lettuce and sunflowers and tomatoes planted.  Also it smells delicious.  All fresh and loamy all the time after the rain.  Plus the sun DOES shine--albeit not as much as in Colorado.  Nevertheless, there is sunshine and overall I’d say the weather over the last 3 weeks has been nothing short of gorgeous!  

Awakening to the culture and appreciating the differences.  I quite enjoy the village life and the polite friendliness of the folks here.  I’m learning to navigate it and am feeling more and more at home.  

Awakening to a new way of being a family.  Less people in our lives means less commitments.  Less commitments means more time with one another.  I’m learning to appreciate and enjoy these three men in my life in ways I’m not sure I would have without this adventure and this catalyst for time spent together.  There are fewer buffers, but I find I need them less than I thought.  

I’m also awakening to new friendships that are sprouting. Coming to the surface here in this Spring.  We spent last Friday on a neighbor’s land to hang out with their ponies and horse and have a BBQ.  We spent Saturday exploring a castle with a woman who is becoming a good friend and her fun husband who was great with the boys.  Monday we met my old college buddy and her hubby at ‘Peter Pan Park’ and wonder of wonders--the sun came out!  Four and a half hours of sand castles and make believe later the boys were still reluctant to leave and Bridger said there was no better place to be than in London.  I smiled as I realized that right now, right that minute it was absolutely true.  I didn’t want to be anywhere else.

I don’t know if I would have come, if I had known how hard it would be.  I suppose it doesn’t really matter.  I am here now.  I choose to be here.  I’m even enjoying being here.  I’m breathing the clean air, and I’m pushing up towards the sun.  I’m gaining nutrients from the local soil.  I suppose you could say I’m blooming where I was transplanted.  

Easter Alone

‘J Cori Anderberg doesn’t want to be alone on a holiday.’ That’s what I’d like to write on my facebook status update tonight. But I don’t want to sound all pathetic and sad. Like someone fishing for an invite. Fishing for invites is the type of thing that eats away at one’s dignity. Or perhaps just one’s pride. Scott is Stateside for the next week and a half. I’m alone--well, without Scott--on a holiday. It’s such a lonesome prospect.

There are probably any number of folks I could hang out with. Any number of people I could give a ring and say, “Hey, whatcha doin’ for Easter? Mind if three of us Anderbergs tag along?” I’m sure I will. Call, I mean. I’ll suck it up and make a phone call or two or three. I’ll be brave. Right now though, I just feel sad and pitiful and it brings up all kinds of pain.

Once again, here I am...a foreigner in a foreign land. I’m so used to being the includer. It’s tricky being the one with the need to be included. Once again I’m leery, cause I still don’t quite know the rules. I am learning though that the rules are pretty important over here. An English friend had said they didn’t have plans either. I said we should do something. Then emailed and asked if they wanted to get together. She texted me today inviting me over Saturday. I’m stoked. I think we’re going to go to a castle and it’s supposed to be one of the good ones. We’ll have a great day. She’s super fun, and I love to be around her and her hubby and their little guy. But...well, I’m still without a gig for Easter. Nothin’ to do on a holiday, and I’m pretty sure the rules are that I don’t say, “couldn’t we do Sunday instead?”

Plus, I’m the mom. So I’m the one who’s supposed to make it special and fun. I realized on Wednesday that I had no plan. Not good. But not too big of a problem. What does one need but an Easter egg hunt and a couple of cute Easter baskets filled with plastic grass and Peeps?!? I even had a great idea--these cutie pie gardening tool bags with kid-sized tools they’d loved at the local garden center. Perfect for an Easter basket! Well, I looked everywhere for plastic eggs. No love. I went back to get the tool bags. No love there either. Plastic grass or Peeps? Fuggedaboutit. I can’t even find a UK ‘PAAS’ equivalent to color our eggs!

On the one hand the lack of uber-commercialization of holidays here is refreshing. Christmas was nuts, but it’s the only one that’s been like that. Easter, Halloween, Valentine’s Day--these all get a minor poster or two and an end-cap’s worth of confectionary. No big deal. I like that most of the time, but this time the commercial goodies were the only way I could think of to make the holiday seem even partially normal.

There will not be new polo shirts and cute shorts for the boys from Old Navy. There will be no brunch on the front patio at Mom’s eating Dad’s omelettes and Sawan’s divine deviled eggs. No sneaking gluten-filled bites of Ellie’s whoppit-biscuit cinnamon rolls with orange icing when the boys aren’t looking. There won’t be the traditional Cherry Knolls Easter Egg Hunt on Saturday with bucketfuls of fun toy-filled eggs and Starbucks coffee for the set-up crew. Or Grammie’s front-yard egg hunt Easter morning with gobs of penny and nickle and dime-filled plastic eggs and hints of “warmer, waaaaaaaaarrrrrrmmmmeeerrrr, warmer, oops! Colder, colder, colder.” No apres festivities Rockies game--either at the field or on my parent’s couch. Certainly no backyard-baseball. The best part of the day.

I’m lonesome. I’m homesick. It’s exacerbating as all get-out that Scott is gone too. Bad enough that I’m without the aunties and uncles and friends and neighbors that make a holiday what we’ve come to know it to be--now I’m without my partner and the boys’ dad.
Here is where I start to realize my need for perspective and realize I sound a bit like a whiner. My sister-in-law is without her partner and the daddy to her little boy and brand new baby girl. Plus he doesn’t get back next weekend, like Scott does. Such is the life of a soldier’s wife. I have a lot to be thankful for.

So, I’ve decided to hide the boys’ Easter baskets and print the clues on egg-shaped paper. There won’t be any plastic grass or Peeps, but they’ll love what I got them. I’m crap at omelets, but I am going to make deviled eggs. I may invite some folks over or ask if we can tag along. I’m not sure yet, but I’m trying not to worry. When Bridger and Caid realized that it was Easter on Sunday, B said, “We gotta make some plans! We need some decorations! Some good food. What do they eat here [in England] for Easter?” I smiled. There’s nothing like new traditions. And lucky, blessed me--I won’t be alone on a holiday.

Moving Day

I actually wrote this blog a couple of weeks ago.  No broadband has forced me to wait until today to post it.  I have some new things to write about soon as well, so stay tuned!

I had the best weekend.  It was such a delightful time!  I spent the weekend watching my boys play together and chatting with friends and enjoying the beautiful weather and also moving!  It seems so funny to declare a moving weekend completely delightful but it certainly was--from start to finish.  Oh well, minus the cat pee incident, but I’ll get to that shortly.  

We thankfully had a bit of relocation money socked away unspent.  So we hired a ‘removal company.’  They came and packed everything Thursday.  Extremely efficient and polite.  We used Casey’s Removals--in case you’ll be ‘moving house’ in the Kent/Croydon area any time soon.  I cleaned and directed and picked up keys to the new house and then freaked out about cat pee.  Oh man.  

We have the cutest new little house, but the previous tenants had cats.  Nice enough cats.  We met them.  But goodness me, those suckers can really get their stink on.  Specifically on the carpets and curtains.  So we came over Thursday night to check out the new digs and I had a hissy fit about pee stains.  ‘Wasn’t the carpet supposed to be cleaned?  Maybe it was and it didn’t come out!  What gets cat smell out of carpets. Probably nothing.  Maybe it’ll never come out!  Maybe we’re destined to be in toilet-smell land for the rest of our lives!    Call the management company right now.  What do you mean they’re closed?!?  In the morning then!  Wait, the movers will be to our house before they open!  Oh no!  The movers come tomorrow to load in all of our furniture and there’s nothing to be done.  It’s hopeless.  All is lost!  Someone shoot me!  Just shoot me now and put me out of my stinking misery!”  The words ‘blithering idiot’ come to mind.  Oh dear.  Scott just sort of looked at me with that half-cocked grin that can SOMETIMES be so charming and politely mentioned that I may have lost my mind.  I think the implication was that I was being a little high-maintenance.  I think that everything else was going so smoothly with the move that I was grasping for something to freak out about.  That’s what one does when one is moving, right?  Oh well and...it really stank. 

Anyway the efficient, polite movers came Friday morning and moved everything in.  The management company said the carpets were cleaned and suggested Febreeze.  I politely declined to mention it smells like ass and gives my youngest son croup.  I don’t want the smell covered up!  I want it GONE!  But on to the pleasant, delightful part.

The weather Friday morning was absolutely gorgeous.  Bright, sun-shiney, warm.  I wished my flops weren’t packed.  The boys ran like wild men in and out of the empty house, around and around the back garden and the front driveway.  They decided the movers were bad gangsters and they were Batman and Robin faithfully defending Gotham.  Sunshine does something to people--especially when one is deprived of it for so much of the time.  Those stodgy, reserved English men played along!  The four of them had just a ball.  My favorite moment of the day though was leaning out the windows I was cleaning to see Bridger and Caid sitting in the sun on the back patio.  Each with a sandwich in hand, Bridger reading Caid a magazine.  So sweet!  

One of the huge blessings of the weekend was the friends that helped out.  That can be one of the best parts of a move.  The sort of ‘barn-raising’ atmosphere.  Folks around packing, loading, unloading, unpacking, cleaning, patching walls, and eating pizza together at the end of the day.  Our move over here lacked all of that.  Movers one day to bring everything to Montana for storage.  A week later another set to bring everything to England.  Us alone with the boys in an empty house wondering when and if we’d ever see our stuff again and what in the world we’d gotten ourselves into.    Then living in an empty house (that we moved into sight-unseen) for almost 3 months.  Learning to live without and wondering why in the world we’d shipped so much stuff when it did finally arrive.  It was all very lonely and surreal.  

This weekend was so different though!  My friend Victoria picked the boys up at lunch time Friday and they had a blast playing at her house all day long.  We finished up the day eating dinner with her and her hubby at their flat around 10:30 pm.  It was such a great night!  Then Saturday afternoon John and Paul showed up and helped put shelves together, and put things up on walls and unpack and play light-saber fights with the boys.  We finished the evening with beers and yummy dinner and a great time talking.  By the end of the day Sunday we had all but 1 box unpacked.  Unheard of!   

Somehow it feels like we’ve finally moved here.  We spent six obligatory months in moving purgatory and we’ve finally paid our penance and can get out.  Last week our house in Denver finally went under contract, we leased the condo for the next 12 months, and we moved to England.  It feels like our life here is finally beginning.  Now if I can just get the cat smell out of the carpets...