Bonding over Buckets

I intended to write something ethereal this morning.  Some misty skied, sliver moon fairy*tale.  But the storybook of my life didn't allow it. 

I awoke in a flutter of confusion.

First the strange realization that I was wet.  Then the smell.  Powerful, sour, familiar stench.  Then cough...cough...In a flash, I was alert.

Vomit.

Lucy was vomiting on herself, on me, on Finley who was in deep, eye dancing sleep in the nook of my arm.  And there were were... all drenched in vomit.  I froze for a moment.  Then yelled for my KISA (knight in shining armor). 

After a tornado like clean up, we lay on the floor of our master bedroom feeling more grown up than normal.  (Responsibility does that) Quietly thinking.  I wax poetic about my own childhood.  I can picture the photograph in my head.  Gray carpet, pink blankets.  My mom, sister and I are all sleeping on the bathroom floor taking turns throwing up.  My dad actually took a picture.  There is a sense of odd comfort in this memory.  The feeling that your family will care for you no matter what.  At your weakest most vulnerable moments they will hold your hair or grab the bucket.  I have college friends I also created this indelible bond with. 

And so we sat, Lucy next to me covered in her favorite blanket and a green puke bucket next to us... bonding over a bucket.  Well fell asleep.  4 a.m.

9 a.m. Now as I write this watching huge snowflakes fall.  The beauty and wonder of nature trapping us in our house of germs.  We are at the climax of the winter's worst ice storm.  Frozen inside.

Frozen future memory.

Frozen in time.  Snow is blowing sideways. 

So.     Much.    White. 

Lucy on my lap and the green bucket on hers.  Out the window I think I see a Winter Fairy, The Ice Queen perhaps, her glimmering pale blue wings in a camouflage of snow.  She winks at me as if to say, "You'll thank me later for this."   This yuck will be a treasured family memory one day.  One day we will laugh about this; our family, winter, and bonding over a bucket. 

Be well, keep warm, hug your lovers & children

and Believe

I'm going to read my kids some Shel Silverstein.