The Graceful Goemetry of Sharks

Years of unfinished stories. Behind the scenes of this blog, stuck in the blog management section, are years of fits and starts, some so old I can't remember what it felt like to type them. Some were important, I think, because even now they have teeth that pull me back in... and some are just words - hints of stories that were important enough for me to start, and are now just a jumble of lost ideas. For the longest time, this blog was unintentionally a secret. In it's early days I changed diapers and fought off panic or sleep to write something. Now that people put themselves to bed and we're far away from diapers, whatever need for secrecy I had has worn away, and the glossy hardcover book with 'Tickle, Cook, Breathe' printed on it's spine occasionally makes it's way down from the shelf so the kids can read it for themselves.
I think I abandoned this page for a lot of reasons, but it was never for lack of something to tell.  In case there are some of you out there who are just picking this up, the world has turned upside down since this blog began. For one thing, there are grey hairs now. There are scars. There are losses so profound some moments I wear them like links of a great heavy chain, and there are memories I could never bear to commit to print. The Darkling Thrush that came with the last 13 or so years since this began, is that there are always these moments of impossible joy that fall in line right behind them. And so I'm here, in a new place.
The kids aren't really kids, which is equally wonderful and terrifying. It's weird, because they're ferociously independent and utterly helpless at the same time, and there have been more than a few days that they've gotten into real world problems and had no idea how to solve them. Luckily, they haven't figured out that we don't know how to solve them either, but we take some good guesses and everything comes out OK... which seems to be the essence of parenting.
Sam and Lily have also figured out that we're not like their friend's parents, for better or worse, and last night we were talking about having some people over for dinner - which was met with awkward glances from them.
Lily was the first to break the silence. "I'm not sure that's a good idea". Sam agreed.
"What are you talking about?" said Sara, "why shouldn't we hang out with your friend's parents?"
"Well, you guys aren't regular. You're... funky."
Stings, but I got it. Turns out other people don't have panda heads and portraits of Ron Burgundy sitting around, which I find a little troubling to be honest. What if there is an immediate need for a panda costume? What then? They're sure as hell not taking mine, because I only have the one. Maybe they can borrow our gorilla suit or our Mummer's costume, but I'm not going to be hung out to dry.
The kids were not swayed by my logic.
We also, apparently, do not talk like regular people. We don't play golf, so we've never had a conversation over dinner about our handicaps or whatever the fuck a 'wedge' is, but we had a ''Secret Cracker Club" for years. It was serious business. We had a president, a VP, a secretary and a treasurer; and every time we met we ate crackers, learned a new word in Spanish, talked about important events, collected dues (ostensibly for future boxes of crackers - although at some point someone made off with our cracker money), and took notes in our secret cracker notebook.
Dinner without their friend's parents is fair game, though, and more often than not someone shows up... often enough that the kids who wander into the house notice that our homemade ricotta is different than it was last time we made it, they know where everything is to set the table, and they don't even call home anymore (or ask me if it's OK) because the assumption seems to be that if they're coming here, they're eating. In singles or groups, they walk in without knocking and our faithful guard dogs (with the exception of Lily's puppy that seems to have an endless well of barks stored up inside him) don't even care enough to get up - they just roll their eyes toward the door and go back to sleep. It's such a constant, that instead of fighting off the invading hoards, we renovated our third floor so we could reclaim some personal space in the house. But I'm not complaining - because this is the good part.
It seems like they want to be here, which is rapture for me. They're in the way, I run out of stupid things like sausage and saffron, and there's always more cleaning - but they aren't sitting down to dinner out of some obligation, they're here by choice. I don't remember a lot of places outside of my house where I felt at home as a kid. There were a few, but there were exponentially more where I felt as if I had to be on my best behavior, like I was constantly in a trial period. And without trying, by some divine hand, I think we might have made one of those 'at home' places, and it's exactly where I want to be.