"Real gentleness is coupled with courage." -Liberti sermon this past week. I have been thinking about how much I have been at work on the business of being and seeming "nice" and not as motivated toward being truly loving or confronting folks with courage and honesty. Anyway, it is August and the combination of severe heat and this third trimester of my third baby has me really exhausted and weary much of the time. I want to be really present for the transitions and really bear witness to them rather than check out and float by: Geoff teaching as a full-time professor of animation, both Manny and Benicio being nursery school guys, the birth of our daughter. My work these days has been about preparing for birth, taking the boys to the pool, and fighting the constant battle over entropy in my household. A summer as colleagues (no camps or classes) for Manny and Benici has really proven that iron does sharpen iron. They are eachother's sole playmate and this pairing has yielded such games as "Find," which is like hide and seek except that requires constant running and startling eachother. Also Benici can do a string of B's and can do highly dynamic drawings--my favorite being "The Octopus With Many Hands for Holding Lots of Bags." Manny has authored two books, "Wormino and Germino's Family" and "Peach and Blue Return."
On Tuesday afternoon, thanks to our dear Jen Hasse for watching the boys (and coping with some gastrointernal drama), we brought Adri, our eldest neice, to college. With only her electric guitar, a drawing from Ramil, a few suitcases and a worn shoulder bag, in one trip from the car, she was moved in. Her belongings seemed spartan and I was incredibly impressed at her contentment, beginning a new chapter in life without a great many encumberances. I remember Big Dad and Geoff sweating profusely while maneuvering my trunks and totes into the Towers elevators. We witnessed the lanyard-wearing freshman with their coiffed British invasion haircuts and their nonchalant flipflops, the gargantuan athletes lumbering toward the dining hall and the girls, with cases of Dasani and Hello Kitty television sets. I found myself wishfully biting my lip, trying to scour the scene and hand-pick kids who I thought would suit as Adri's new tribe: fun-loving and travelled with Farelli brothers humor but with a counter-culture edge but not SO sharp an edge. Anyway, I had to put the kaibash on the scouring. She's going to do brilliantly. We grabbed some dinner on Liacouras Way, part sports bar part pizza joint. Our goodbye was abbreviated by the fact that two of the three of us had to pee. So we said goodbye in fine Legaspi fashion, hearts bursting but joking and saying, "Ehh, stoo" smililng a little higher on one side. As we walked away, Geoff said, "There goes our little Adri' and I laughed but really I felt that way, that passage of time how she is really on her own now. And it made me so proud.
