the foreign land of home

yesterday, to the immense delight of all three girls, Juniper's preschool teacher invited us on a grocery shopping expedition in the eastern Mission.  the ostensible excuse was Juniper's delight in cooking at school;  apparently she's the last at the table during baking and tamale making.  walking down 24th Street between York and Florida, we stopped at La Mexicana for pan dulce, La Palma for corn husks, fresh tortillas, and masa, and Casa Lucas for pupusas and other groceries.  Kim, the teacher, spoke to the shopkeepers in Spanish and helped me order;  she taught me how to use tongs and a cafeteria tray to select my pan dulce, and she generally introduced me to what I should look for and how to ask for what I might need. it was a wonderful afternoon, for me made both more wonderful and also weirder by the fact that my first few years in San Francisco were spent in three different apartments right near that corridor.  in spite of that, I had never once been in any of the stores we visited until yesterday.  it was like an afternoon in another country, except the other country was a neighborhood I was intimately familiar with, by which I guess I mean it was somewhat disorienting.

one of the things that I love about living in a city--indeed one of the reasons to live in one--is the layering of lives and experience onto the same space.  on 24th St. I thought of my old housemates and friends, but also of the small moments that made the Eastern Mission such a vibrant and compelling place to live in my twenties.  I thought of the apartment door on Potrero Avenue that someone had painted with a heart and a quotation about "el corazon" in Spanish that I can no longer recall--a fact that makes me sad.  I thought of xenodrome, a wacky circus/performance space that moved in next door and for a time made it hip to live in our complex.  and I thought of Greg, the insane sexy alcoholic goth boy I dated briefly during that period who would get so wasted he'd steal liquor from my roommates in the middle of the night and pee in my bed.

and yes, there is nostalgia, even for that.

at last

yesterday at dance class a woman in front of me was very insistent that Amara, our teacher, play a song in tribute to the late Etta James.  several times she called out, "play something by Etta," which Amara either ignored or sincerely didn't hear.  I was thinking the choreography and songs were probably set well in advance of the class so it would possibly be tricky to make such a last-minute substitution, but my neighbor had faith that Amara could come through.

we danced, spinning and grooving and shimmying, for almost an hour.  Amara told us that the year of the dragon would be all about shaking your booty.  she also mentioned that this was going to be a good year.

finally it was time to sit down on our mats for leg and ab work.  gingerly, we helped our shaking muscles to the floor, preparing for the burn.  and then, from the stereo in front of the room the voice of Etta belted out:

At last 
My love has come along
My lonely days are over
And life is like a song

what better measure of any life than a room full of sweaty woman celebrating you with crunches while outside the enormous warehouse windows the winter rain keeps coming down.

the tell

like the other hipsters in the cafe, I am wearing dark colors and I keep my head down.  headphones in my ears, my iphone on the table, I sit between two others and turn on my matching MacBook Pro.  we are triplets in equipment, attitude, and demeanor.  I am at home here.  I settle in, ready to get some serious writing done.  as I do, I knock the sleeve that protects my laptop and it falls to the floor, spilling out three copies of Juniper's unicorn coloring page in various states of polychromatic completion.  I see the sidelong glances of my neighbors as they consider the situation, wondering if I am so hip that this is my ironic, nod- to-childhood, hipster art.

no, it is not.

turning two is all fun and games.. until Daddy wants to get in on the action

unsurprising

today is Gavin's birthday:

Gavin: "so what did you and Clementine do [while I took Hazel to her My Gym class]?"

me:  "just some errands.  we got yogurt for the girls' breakfast tomorrow.  and the coffee we brought you."

Gavin:  "oh.  I thought you might be executing some secret plans."

me:  "nuh-huh, nothing going on here."

Gavin, with a cunning glint in his eye:  "Clementine, what did you and mommy do while I was with Hazel?"

Clementine:  "we went to the store."

Gavin:  "yeah?"

Clementine:  "we bought yogurt."

me, relaxing to what I hope is an imperceptible degree.

Clementine:  "and we got coffee for mommy and daddy."

Gavin, sounding actually disappointed:  "oh."

Clementine, in a rush:  "and we got cake for daddy.  it was cake with fruit on top.  and then cupcakes for us. because we don't like cake with fruit.  three cupcakes for Juniper, Clementine, Hazel.  one is pink, one is yellow, and one is blue."

By this time Gavin and I are both shaking with suppressed laughter.

Clementine:  "yeah.  cake with fruit.  cupcakes.  for the surprise."

(daisy) chains

the girls are always asking me to photograph them holding hands.  I'm not sure why they feel such a need to document these moments, but I assist them.

what it means to be a sibling is an interesting question, especially in our generation.  for us, friends really are family to a huge degree (maybe this is particularly for the Hawaii kids who, when they move, wind up by necessity quite far from their parents).  but still I hope that these three will always have each other in life, and that by having all of them so close together we've done something that will feel more like "gift" than "burden" in the long run.

my brother and I are so different, even though we weren't that far apart in age.  I don't know if it's the female/male divide, our different temperaments, or our different life circumstances. but today my cousin sent my dad this picture, proving that at one point, we were just like the girls.  

happy holidays!  enjoy the time with your families, whether by blood or by choice.  both are so very important.

the littlest sheep in the pageant