why i love being home with my boys; or: celebrating floods and father's day

These are my thoughts on father's day after four days of being home with my boys finally getting b's christmas card about why going back to suburbia after living in a sexy beach bungalow in laguna beach (mind you while her house was being rebuilt after a series of floods) was exactly where she wanted to be. . .

It’s all about having all the doors in your home open and passing beers out to michael on the patio, tripping over thomas legos and your neighbor’s little girl who is holding her own with the boys and chopping yellow peppers with your best friend in the kitchen (and sighing in unison: yes, this is how it is supposed to be)and drinking delicious amounts of $12 wine and really looking forward to doing posts about what you made for dinner from three trader joe’s finds and walking to the froggy park and not having to worry if owen will fall off the edge of the cobblestone into the canal. I wouldn’t trade any of our advetnures and I would go back in a heartbeat but I finally feel like I’m living that life I love here there or anywhere and eating green eggs and ham.

The problem with suburbia is this: you forget that you can live out of five suitcases if need be and you forget to make sand angels in the sand because it’s easier to walk the half block to the water park and the kiddie pool. You forget that on the other side of the orange curtain, beyond disneyland is the LACMA and the huntington gardens and that even if you’re no longer in the “Fridays off the 405” happy hour set you still make a damn good pesto and can pack a picnic for three and by opening those doors have a pretty happening bbq in your "convenince kitchen" which you love even if its not a stainless steel retro loft-inspired space it's your kitchen and you can pull out your best wine glasses right alongside the elmo sippy cups. And while there's the beach and the urban adventure who says pulling the red wagon half a block isn't where it's at? I'm just saying-- I think there’s a reason that nightclubs and discos are opening their doors Sunday afternoons so parents can take their kids clubbing and eat popcorn while they show off some hip hop moves. Partly it's to prove to their non-suburban singleite friends that they've still got it and mostly it's because, well, they've still got it and want to share it with the amazing little people that give them perspective.

What I took home with me was a reminder to live artfully in the world--that I should not only feel guilty for reading Virginia Woolf and writing instead of sweeping but that it's an absolute necessity. Why at three am one morning Michael and I tried to figure out how we could sell our home and live in a boat somewhere between the San Juans and the North Sea was because it just seemed possible, that we don't want to live a banal cookie-cutter existence but drink cappuccinos out of porcelain cups and talk to moms who make jewelery out of postcards while their toddlers nap. But being home I realized that we're not alone --and that I know people like this and owen porcelian cups (actually brought home some pretty amazing ones from the jugendstil--but I think what I want to say is this: that while chopping those bell peppers in the kitchen we both were struck by Mrs. Dalloway and the reason why reading Virginia Woolf always makes sense--because we all want to live lives that feel whole and that bringing people together is a gift, the best gift.