Motion, motion, motion!
Everything moving in waves and circles.
Adahlia waves at new friends and turns in giggling circles.
Her reticulocyte count goes up to 11 from 5 last month, and it was 11 the previous month, and 5 the month before that.
Her hemoglobin drops and we fill it up.
We spent all last week packing, moving, and cleaning out our old home and are now settling into our new apartment. Day after day, wave after wave, of packing and unpacking boxes, walking up and down stairs, driving back and forth across Portland, from home to apartment to storage unit, as we downsized to a one bedroom apartment in the city from an upscale, two bedroom house in the ‘burbs.
And Adahlia is 20 months old today, March 3rd, or yesterday, depending on when I post this. Approaching her second anniversary of life, each of her current and future days dependent upon the bags that hang from above her right now, blood like rubies, gifts from a stranger.
Beautiful waves and circles.
She naps now, which is why I can type this. It’s been so busy, so crazy, I simply haven’t had time.
She naps now, though it is now March 4. In the span of half this post, an entire day passes!
Circles. Moments in time revisited and played again, slightly different. She napped yesterday in a hospital bed. She naps now in our shared bed in our new treehouse apartment, surrounded by the brightly colored paintings she loves. Spring comes, and it will be followed by summer. The animals are out, gathering provisions between rain showers.
Adahlia was a champ during the move. We moved the bed and big pieces of furniture over a week ago. I can hardly believe it, though my exhausted body insists in reminding me with proof. Adahlia’s life has been greatly disrupted for so long, and I am so very glad today was her first playful, normal day! Because moving to a smaller space (having to sort out what to keep in the apartment, what to store, what to give to goodwill, what to sell, and what to trash), with a little one in tow is an entirely different animal than two capable adults simply moving to a new space together. It is the difference between constructing a paper airplane and launching it… or a spaceship.
Moving was stressful and extraordinarily time consuming. And it was fun. The days were long days: days where Adahlia took her nap on a sheet on the rug on the floor while I continued to pack and clean, where we ate take-out after take-out meal because we had no time to cook or clean dishes, and Joe ended up having to take Weds-Fri off from work so we could finish everything before the end of the month. It was 1130 at night on Feb 28, with Adahlia so disoriented that she finally settled down to sleep only a half hour prior, that I sat in the new kitchen to send a final email to our ex-landlord while Joe, back at the old place, completed a final mopping.
In the end, he said the place sparkled.
Adahlia enjoyed the process of moving as much as she could. She helped put things in boxes, even things that weren’t supposed to go in boxes. As I wrote “apt” or “storage” on the box, additionally labeling it “dishes” or “shoes” or whatever, her face would break into a huge smile, and she would reach for the sharpie to add her own series of scribbles and slashes. I wore her piggy-back, strapped on my back with the Gemini carrier we’ve used since she was an infant, and like a momma monkey carries her baby as she swings through trees, I carried Adahlia as I swept and sorted and ferried boxes and paintings and odds and ins up and down flights of stairs.
Goodness.
We love our new place.
Of course, we do miss the old place a little bit. We miss the gorgeous, parklike backyard with its gigantic blossoms and fruit trees, its deer and squirrels and birds. We miss the shiny wood floors excellent for spinning and sliding, and the incredible living room stove/fireplace, with its metal carvings of woodland animals and brilliant flame. We miss the high ceilings with the fantastic acoustics, the windows and skylights across the walls and ceilings, and the monthly celestial display when the moon was full, for it would rise in one set of windows, cross the sky through the set of skylights, and set in the windows on the opposite side of the house. Every month.
Circles.
We will miss the raccoons that climbed our fig tree and munched fruit outside our window while we giggled in the dark, the bobcat that used to climb onto our roof, and the frogs that would sing for spring love in the little pond in our backyard.
We will miss the gartner snakes the sunned themselves on the rocks and ate the frogs.
And we will miss our squirrel friend that we all took turns feeding by hand (yes, even Adahlia!)
Yet…
We won’t miss the high ceilings, because the lower, and still angled, ceilings of our top-level, treehouse apartment are so much cozier. And while she and I will miss the acoustics when we do our high-pitched, happy shrieking contests, Joe is already grateful that they don’t echo and resonate as much as they did in the old place. The home and it’s landscape truly were beautiful, but our backyard here, while not nearly so lush, has a a plot of green grass and a plum tree and a perfect little place for me to plant the dahlia that I bought the day before Adahlia was born.
You see, the truth is that the ‘burbs – while very polite and safe and well-manicured – simply isn’t the sort of dynamic neighborhood where we belong. Our treehouse, only a half-mile from the heart of Misdissippi street and all that the up-and-coming district has to offer, is also only a half-mile to two different neighborhood parks, about a half mile to two different healthy grocery stores (both New Seasons and Whole Foods), a mile to a third, huge park with a neighborhood pool, and just a couple blocks from the restaurants and shops of Williams and Vancouver Ave and MLK Blvd. In the flatlands and no longer perched on a steep hill, we are in easy and enjoyable walking and biking distance to all of the above, and much more! Yet, our actual street is fairly quiet and off the main thoroughfare. There is a strong neighborhood feel, with folks of mixed ethnicity and culture and color. According to our downstairs neighbors, there is even a neighborhood summer block party, and the road is closed. People are extraordinarily friendly, colorful, and slightly wonky in that wonderful Portland way. People walk past with dogs or singing to themselves, and Adahlia watches from the full-length window, her palms pressed against it.
And, to be honest, as much as we enjoyed aspects of the cosmic nature of the old home, we won’t miss the fact that it was, well, spooky, and perhaps downright haunted. This place, happily, has a wonderful cozy, healing, and creatively inspiring feel… minus the spooks.
We are so, so happy in our new place. Strangely, everything about it is a better fit for us. Everything is smaller and yet somehow, more spacious, fitted better to our needs. We have one small bedroom closet to share, but it fits everything we need. The dishwasher is smaller, but it fits our little mismatched assortment of dishware perfectly, without us having to pilfer from it while it’s dirty because we’ve run out of spoons for stirring our tea, or sippy cups for Scooter.
The same is true of the bathroom and bedroom (we used to have two of each, now we have only one to share, but it’s totally fine.) The laundry room isn’t in our apartment, but we have our own designated machines in the shared basement laundry area, as well as a spot in a small storage shed. All for under $1000, including utilities! It’s almost unbelievable.
We are the top level of a triplex, and a little girl and her family live in the basement, and that little four-year-old girl adores Adahlia. (She took her by the hands and spun her in circles in the grass of the backyard on the day they met.) And we are actively looking for a fire pit to put in the backyard, so Adahlia can enjoy her fires again (as soon as the rain lets up.)
While there aren’t as many windows and no skylights, this new place is somehow just as bright and beautiful as the old. It was a perfect find, at the perfect price, and the perfect location for our desired lifestyle, and we love it.
And it keeps getting better! Now that we are officially within city limits again, we can utilize Portland’s food composting program, and toss our food waste into the collecting bin for compost. (Washington county did not offer this.). Hooray!
And Portland enjoys some of the best quality, if not the highest quality, water in the nation, courtesy of the Bull Run watershed. And now, so do we. Hooray!
It’s crazy, perhaps, to be relieved and happier to downsize from a roomy home in an affluent suburb to a one-bedroom apartment in the heart of the city (complete with a few rather “shady” neighbors), but we truly are.
Everything is moving.
Adahlia is doing really well, all things considered. While she probably misses the slide-factor of the wood floors, we are grateful for the carpet, especially when she gets low on blood and her balance gets worse. She enjoys the practice of climbing the stairs to get to the treehouse, and of going to the basement to do laundry.
She says “mah-mah” in reference to me now, and while I have often heard kids saying “mama” in a nagging, annoying way that made me cringe, I don’t find it annoying when Adahlia calls for me — it’s very cute. She carries around her little Waldorf baby doll and kisses her, and feeds her imaginary food, and gets too excited and slaps and throws her, standing over her with flapping hands.
Adahlia settles into my lap in the old, deeper bathtub in this new place, and gazes into our reflection in the shiny, silver bathroom cabinet knobs when we get out, pointing and waving at herself and laughing. She enjoys looking at the crows that land on the telephone wires outside our windows. In the kitchen, she picks up her leg and slams her foot back down, sumo style. She slaps her chest with the palms of both hands, as though a native warrior or a silverback gorilla challenging another to a duel, and shouts “ahh! ahh!!! aaahh!!!”
Today, we actually took all our medicines as prescribed. What with the marathon move, and the hospital yesterday, we hadn’t been taking the Chinese herbs, even though she recently graduated to a new formula. The only medicine we still managed to take regularly was her Exjade. I am happy to say that her iron is still dropping, albeit a little slower, even at the low dose of only 125 mg a day, which is about half the dosage per kg standard. Currently, her ferretin is 618 (it was 639 last month, and 800+ the month before that.). Her percent blood iron saturation has dropped to 70% from 92% last month, and 95% the month before that. These are all good trends, and hopefully, in another month or two, we can take a break from the Exjade for a bit.
I do need to find a way to get Adahlia to take blue-green algae though – it tastes awful, but she tested strongly positive for it, and it is helpful for removing heavy metals and toxins from the system. The Chinese herbs aren’t a problem – she loves her current formula, and takes it eagerly. It’s not the first time – she almost always takes the herbs eagerly, even if they smell and taste strongly, if they are a very strong match for her. It seems her body knows what it needs. And it’s not an uncommon phenomenon – many people report that their Chinese medicine formulas taste good to them when they really need them. (Of course, like everything else, that doesn’t always hold true!)
So today, we take all our medicines and eat breakfast and head off to see Red Yarn, Adahlia’s favorite kids performer. She sways to the songs he sings and plays on his guitar, and runs forward to pet the puppet animals he shares with the kids. She discovers a 10-month old baby girl with bright blue eyes crawling and runs over to me, bringing me over the baby and points, absolutely delighted.
“A beautiful baby!” I agree.
Adahlia chirps her consent and enthusiasm.
The concert over, we head to the car but stop first in the gravel outside the cafe, where Adahlia grabs it by the handful, lifting it up over her head and showering it down in front of her like snow. We play for awhile and then I hoist her onto my shoulders, and skip down the sidewalk to our car, bouncing her happily above me. I drop her down and she runs – she’s got a fast little run now – and then stops at the curb, pointing at the pooled water.
I offer my hand to help her step down and after she manages it, she lets go to stomp enthusiastically in the puddle, splashing filthy water everywhere. Good thing she is wearing her boots! I laugh.
I ask her if she wants to go home and she shakes her head no. I ask if she wants to go to a park, to a playground and she nods yes, her eyes lighting up.
So we drive to Laurelhurst, where we settle on the swings. But she doesn’t want me to push her – she wants to ride on my lap. I lift her out and sit down myself, facing her to me, and pull her hoodie up to cover the back of her neck and head. The day had started sunny but the clouds are gathering.
In her light, little language of babbling rhythmic inflection, she points out a motorcyclist passing behind me, a truck, and up at a bird in a tree. I say, “Yes, a bird, a very loud bird. He is a crow, a type of bird.”
She says, “bhirrd.”
“Yes!” I exclaim, for it is the first time I’ve heard her say that word. “Bird! And how do you say ‘bird’? In sign language?”
She makes the sign. I confirm and kiss her temple. Then she leans against me, resting on me. For a few moments, I relish everything, committing it to memory. The smell of her skin. The feel of her breath, her rib cage moving. The sight of her hair blowing in the breeze.
Everything is moving.
Life is movement.
“Do you want to go home and go to sleep with me? Take a nap together?”
She lifts her head and meets my eyes. Her lips part in a pleased smile and she nods once in a strong affirmative:
Yes.
Happy 20th month, Adahlia. I’m so glad you’re still here with us; so glad we’re all moving onward, together.