*kendraspondence*

I will remember 2007 as the year in which I started to become several things, and, to note, it was the year that I started to become several things I had always wanted to start to become.

Including someone’s mother. I’ve always wanted to be one. Really, always. I never envisioned my life completely untethered. I’ve been playing house, literally playing out scenarios in which I organize all of my cassette tapes for hours as though this is my Real Grown-Up House, or playing them out in my mind’s eye, thinking about what kinds of voices I’ll render when I read my kids bedtime stories. I’m so excited to become someone’s mother in the new year (unless, of course, bambinorino arrives in the next few hours after realizing the clutch tax break he/she’ll give his/her mother). But I know that to become someone’s mother is to become someone’s mother each and every day of Lego spills and Broken Curfew nights. Unlike apple pie wherein it’s done when the timer goes BAWNNN, becoming someone’s mother takes a long time in the oven, I hear. So let’s get this baby preheated.

2007 was also the year that I started to become a writer. Now, we are not broadcasting live from the Actor’s Studio, so I won’t pontificate about My Craft or salute my many influences and writerly diversions. But I will say that it’s been a great privilege and a great challenge to become a full-time writer this past year. Bossman said that the more one writes, the easier it becomes, much like writing music. The more you listen, the more you play, the more you write, the symphony just follows you. I’m so far from hearing the symphony. But I can see where my writing has improved in the past year, which required a great number of ego checks and even a letter from a fellow student who noted,

“Higher stylists recognize that commas are optional in many instances. Maybe you could look that up.”

Oh. Oh ho ho ho ho HO. I’m looking it up, all right. Especially if looking it up, whatever it may be, can help me to become better, a better mother,…
a better writer,..
a better rubberband ball maker,
a better user of vending machines,
a better pumper of fuel,
a better sidewalk chalk artist,
a better stirrer of skim milky mochas,
a better hummer of bad commercial jingles,
a better taker of vitamins,
a better neighbor, a better wife, a better daughter, a better sister, a better version of what I am becoming….

Behold, a cupcake for my little cupcake. Herein Lovey Loverpants showcases the labor of love, stitched by Auntie Haddy, inspired by Droolicious.

I cannot wait for that soft vernix-covered head to emerge so that I may don it with this crocheted cap, inspired by my favorite treat with a shelf life of forty-seven years.

The friends I’ve amassed in this life are spread out like a galaxy of stars, sometimes shining so brightly in my life they could guide me to Bethlehem. Other times, they twinkle prettily at what seems the very edge of the skyscape, or fade to a dim glint against an otherwise dark backdrop. But they are still there. Most of the friends I have made in Boston are part of a loose constellation. I know people who know people who are aligned with other people I know, all along a continuum like Orion’s belt. Living quite far from any family, I depend mightily upon this network. I depend on the local stars to remind me how to make it through this urbane construction zone. I depend on the stars that orbit a bit further from my own little planetoid to remind me who it is again that I am.

This last year I learned a lot about friendship. One of the chief learnings was that my friends are as sensitive as I am. It seems like such a fundamental thing, a real wooden rolling pin whack to the head sort of learning. Durrr. Treat others as sensitively as little over-ripe fruitypants you would like to be treated. But due to an extra atomic dose of hormones, I’ve not been as patient-eared nor slow-tongued in the past year. I have been clumsy with my words and sentiments and pressed forward at times when I should clearly have retreated. In all of these times, though, my friends have doled out forgiveness, an extra portion of mercy. I can never repay them for this nor begin to thank them enough for befriending the hor-motionally volatile. I can only try to pay forward their love and their hand-knit booties — to boot.

The Constellation

Thanks to Saemeeee, who gchats me up about Korean in-laws, and Euni unni who organized Wee Lee’s churchie baby shower, complete with games involving diapers and chocolates.

Thanks to my sister, TP, who always cares, who always loves, even though she knows intimately how much I can really suck.

Thanks to my mother-in-law, Omoni, who gives me spiritual lessons that should be cross-stitched and framed.

Thanks to Marissa, who welcomed me as a girlfriend even after my husband had been her girlfriend for eleventy years.

Thanks to Joe and Shanno, who have a way of making me feel like their little sister, they just care so much.

Thanks to Ellie, who has never said NO when it came to charity to friends.

Thanks to Bicknell, who doesn’t remember anything from high school and therefore indulges all of my stories.

Thanks to Richbomb, who hosted us for a weekend in the Dirty South, and who slathered us with her kindness and slayed us with her humor for 48 straight hours.

Thanks to Spas, who took us to the beach in NC, and who always takes the time to examine each side, each dimension, each fault line of the crystal of friendship.

Thanks to Schaff, who’s quick to share so much about pregnancy, but never quick to judge.

Thanks to Michelle, who visited us this past summer and who entertains with Kung Fu.

Thanks to Shannon and Stephen, our only friends in The Dot and the first we shared our preg news in person with this past May.

Thanks to Pop and Jake, whose reactions to pending grandparenthood will always be unmatched.

Thanks to Samoo, who is always more excited than we are about our own lives.

Thanks to Mikie, whose phonecalls and voicemails color our world.

Thanks to MamaRed, who gets better in time like a good bottled vintage.

Thanks to Erin, who is the living definition of Life Line.

Thanks to Haddy, another Life Line and hand-knitter of hyperventilation-inducing wares.

Thanks to Lovey Loverpants, who’s been a real prince.

4 Koreans
2 White Americans
1 Weiner Dog
1 Condo
5 Days

…and a partridge in a pear tree.

This photo pretty much bears witness to how we spent the holidays. Like a band of aliens not quite sure where we were or what to do…or who these other weirdos were that kept following us around….

The gift for which I am most grateful this year did not come wrapped in paper with adorable pastel footprints. It doesn’t even have little feet. I suppose the obvious gift for which I should be grateful is the creature now nestled in between my ribcage and bladder. And I am grateful for this opportunity to foster a pack n’ play in utero for the great hiccuping squirminator. But if you ask me what gift I am grateful for the most this year, that which has made all the difference in my life each day and each uncomfortable night, it is the love of my husband which reduces me often to tears.

Much has already been written about this remarkable person that I have known now for one third of my life. So I will let Josh Groban sing the ballads and I will just briefly give thanks for the gift of my husband’s love here. People will tell you to find a partner with a good head on his/her shoulders, who can provide you with financial stability. They will tell you to find someone who treats his mother well and who knows how to fix a leaky faucet. I will not exhort you disregard this advice. But over the course of the last months, when I have sometimes slowly or even sometimes rapidly lost my ability to carry out normal daily activities, such as bending over and then fighting the force of gravity enough to get back up off the floor, it has been the love of my husband, who, though tempted to join me on the floor in a fit of laughter, has scraped me and my barrel body up time after time.

Yesterday, he conveyed the following to me via gchat:

john: i don’t know why but i was all excited about doing baby clothes laundry

Once again, I am so grateful for the love of my amazing husband, and so grateful that I had the wits and the good fortune to marry someone who has a good head on his shoulders, who can fix a leaky faucet, and who gets geeked about doing a load of onesie wash. I love him very much, and if he would like to have seventeen more babies, I would be happy to carry them, for throughout this last year, he has been the one to carry me.