mothers on the verge

Off to California this morning, so may or may not be able get online until 12th April, when we get back to Dubai. So if not, Happy Easter, all. x

I took The Rabbit and headed out to California for some fresh air this summer. Just a couple of weeks in Los Angeles (and yes, I can hear your all snickering that Los Angeles is hardly the bastion for fresh air. Save it.) For a Californian trapped in New York, anything on the West screams fresh to me. And after nearly a year sitting in my particular concrete jungle, I am often ready willing and gnaw at something to get off the island. That's one reason I think the Fresh Air Fund is pretty cool. Yes, I'm about to hawk about the group. But I think it's a worthwhile organization -- and I love that they basically get kids out of the city and give them that space and time to sit under a tree and stare off at clouds, without a police copter hanging over their building until 3 am. (That's another post for another day..) Even though it's August, the Fresh Air Fund is STILL looking for some host families to offer more children a summer break. And parents can still sign up ...

I've been a little side tracked this week in sunny California. I fully intended to blog on a daily basis at the start of the week but good intentions etc. Being sun-drunk and bloated from my aunt's genius culinary skills, not to mention the retail therapy (although sadly the combination of last week's blog experiment and being unemployed has made me exhibit uncharacteristic restraint), has left me like a cow out to pasture. I can barely summon the energy to flick away flies... Now it's near the end of my holiday and I'm jumping on a plane back to London tomorrow. Feeling sad to be leaving my lovely grandpa and my aunts and uncles but very excited to be seeing Alpha and my babies again. Being away from the kids is something I've done rarely and never for more than a couple of days, so being physically parted from their raucous giggles and laughing eyes for over a week has felt a little like I'm missing a limb. Being in Fresno is always bittersweet for me - sw...

It's mornings like this, 58 degrees, cool, gentle breeze, that send me right back to California. At least in my mind. I opened the door to our back area, walking the Rabbit to school this morning, and got slammed into a memory of walking to the car with my mom when I was 10 years old. An April school morning, wearing a sweater I already knew would be way too hot by recess time. Dew collecting on grass, slivers of bright sun slicing through the big Jacaranda tree across the street. That smell of wet and bright and just a tinge of warm. I never knew how much of that would worm its way into my genetic code. I've lived in Manhattan over two tours of duty adding up to about 13 years. When I moved here in college I remember being as equally jolted by the city. Just walking out in the morning sparked me far more than coffee. (I wasn't imbibing caffeine yet. That soon corrected itself.) Everything was a rush from the street art in Soho, to the water towers I could spot from my tar ...

Off to California in the morning to spend Christmas with my American family, Alpha and the girls in tow. All very excited, but sad too as we were so looking forward to Christmas with my grandmother and now she won't be with us - or not in body anyway. Sorry for not having posted for a while but Granny's death and funeral took some digesting. On top of that I have been reorganising the apartment in the aftermath of the new kitchen build (a kitchen bigger than a cupboard, amazing!), dealing with the fact that Alpha's new job is seriously full-on (I got used to the whole sharing of school responsibilities but that is now sadly a thing of the past), then a whole series of crazy work deadlines and pesky panicking clients. But anyway, who cares - all that is so almost last year as from tomorrow I am free, free, free for a whole ten days and virtually incommunicado as I'm leaving the CrackBerry at home. Thrilled is too downbeat a word to describe my soaring elation. Merry Chri...

Can't tell you how wonderful our vacation was. Not the least of which was because .... WE WERE OUT OF GOTHAM. Now for a Manhattan Mama to complain of her home turf may sound odd, but given the Rabbit's horrible school year, work stress, life stress, I so needed out of here. And so last month, we packed three bags, sold the fish, donated the plants and took off for my home state for nearly one month. A vacation, yes. But more like a detoxifying immersion into all things West Coast. I know, I know. California rots the brain. California is so behind. California is, well, California! But I am not ashamed to say: Love it. I love the oleander that grows along the freeway, the eucalyptus leaves that perfume the night air, the gleam of a coyote's eyes as it skitters down the street after midnight. I miss the ocean. God I miss the ocean. Not the packed, picnicking families, coconut oil choking beach ocean. No....the jagged cliffs, the swirl of pink and orange as the sun dies slowly ...