Can't Complain

I started writing a post last night and it was all full of woe-is-me and can-you-believe-this!? and it was about my mother and one of my brothers and it started like this:

Jesus and I haven't been writing about anything that cuts to the bone, reveals my flesh recently. Why is that? Why do I feel as if anything I write here might lead to disaster? Is it that with Lily about to give birth I am completely afraid of tempting the gods? Who knows? But honestly. My life is not entirely all rainbows and buttercups, Daffodils and Miss Reds and Miss Penny with her brain injury healing up. No. There are...situations.

And then it went on in that vein and darlings, you really would read it and weep...with laughter. It was so filled with self-righteousness and indignation and you know what? I'm not going to post it because....
Well, because my life IS almost entirely rainbows and buttercps, Daffodils and Miss Reds and Miss Penny with her brain injury healing up. It's all of that and so many butterflies out right now you can't believe it and cooler temperatures and lower humidity and, and, AND, Lily about to give birth and my four wonderful children and my husband, my hard-working husband.

Here's what he did this weekend:


Not by hand. Oh no. He rented a backhoe (and he used to own one and was the envy of every man who met him) and he and our neighbor dug a new sewer line over at Lily and Jason's house.


"Shit runs downhill," he told me. "And that's all I need to remember."

Oh, Mr. Moon. My hero.

While he was backhoeing, Jessie and May and Lily and I were gathered at Lily's house to make a plaster cast of her belly. As May said when we were leaving, "I haven't had that much fun since we cleaned your apartment, Lily."
And she was not being facetious, either. Anytime I gather with my kids it's a damn good time. We laugh. Oh, how we laugh.


In this picture, Lily thinks she's hearing a cat throw up but actually, it was just some equipment outside. A backhoe maybe? We vasolined her belly and then started covering it with strips of plaster gauze. I am sure there's a real name for this product but I don't know it. None of us knew what we were doing, but May had just spoken to some other friends who had done the same thing a few days before and they had given her lots of advice which came in handy, indeed.
We plastered her up and then removed the cast and then more hilarity ensued.


That's May and Jessie posing with Lily's belly and breasts, pretending to be pregnant. Jessie was trying out her tranquil mother-face but the giggles took ahold of her before I could snap the picture.
We ate watermelon and we discussed our plans for the birth while the men worked outside on the sewer line and at one point, Lily leaned her head onto my bosom and I said, "Honey, are you okay? Do you need a nap?"
And then I realized she just loved her mama.

So look- how can a woman with this life complain? How can she even mention...situations?

Lord, we all have situations. But mine are nothing, nothing, NOTHING compared to the joys and blessings all around me.
And I know it.

And then, as if to underscore all of that, after I got back from yoga and taking the dogs to the groomer this morning I went into the chicken house to find this:


A tiny green egg. My heart did leap. I'm not kidding you.
I think it must have been laid by Miss Betty (aka One Fine Chicken) because she is tiny and has green legs. Here she is:


And this is how tiny she is compared to Suzie the Rooster:


Of course, short of DNA testing, there is no way to know for sure who laid that perfect tiny egg but I think in my heart it was Betty. She's such a good chicken. She lets me pet her, even when she's awake. I'm so proud of her.

And look- this is my life- and how can this be? This life of giant, towering oaks in my very own front yard and tiny, sweet chickens, in my very own back yard, and a daughter about to have a baby and all my children who make me laugh so hard and who laugh at me and tell me things I would never, ever tell my mother in a million years.

Somehow when I held that little egg in the palm of my hand it seemed to sum it all up for me. The miracle of it all, the magic of it all, the richness of it all, all wrapped up in the most perfect shape of the most perfect food (except, of course, for breast milk which also comes in a pretty perfect shape) in the entire world. I felt like I had the entire world in the palm of my hand.

And I do. I have the curve of an egg, the curve and dip of my daughter's belly, the curve and shape of my husband's face, and hands to reach out and hold all of that.

"How you doin'?"
"Can't complain. How about you?"
"Doin' all right."

And the light is shining through the trees on a Monday at noon and I rejoice and no, I cannot, I will not complain.