Miles, etc.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T15:50:00.001-06:00

ONE DAY
By Robert Creeley

One day after another—
Perfect.
They all fit.

My favorite poets: Elizabeth Bishop

2011-12-27T15:37:00.004-06:00

I love Elizabeth Bishop's poetry. Just looking at the cover of The Complete Poems makes me happy (transported back to college, sitting in a small poetry seminar class, with a prof who really knew how to dig down deep into a poem.)

Bishop has a great biography, in part because she was such a renaissance woman, and in part because she didn't seem to know exactly what she wanted to do in the beginning. She went Vassar, where she originally intended to major in music composition and piano. But, she said, "You had to perform in public once a month. Well, this terrified me. I really was sick. I played once and then gave up the piano because I couldn't bear it. The next year I switched to English." (source)

Following her graduation from Vassar, Elizabeth Bishop was briefly enrolled in Cornell Medical School. As she explained, "I had all the forms. But then I discovered that I would have to take German and more chemistry. I'd already published a few things and Marianne [Moore] discouraged me, and I didn't go. I just went off to Europe instead." (source) How awesome to have Moore as a friend and mentor.

After settling on poetry, she also continued to paint. "Throughout her life, she collected art and wrote about it in poems, letters, and stories. Many of her friends were artists. She owned a Calder mobile and bought a collage by Kurt Schwitters for Lota, her Brazilian partner. She made 'boxes' in homage to the sculptor Joseph Cornell, and the title of her painting E. Bishop’s Patented Slot Machine is a reference to his work. The original editions of The Complete Poems, The Collected Prose, and One Art (her collected letters) all have covers taken from her pictures. With characteristic self-effacement, Bishop scarcely acknowledged herself as an artist—and yet her work, mostly watercolor and gouache, reveals a keen and original sensibility." (source)

Elizabeth Bishop: Interior With Extension Cord. Watercolor, gouache, and ink, 6 x 6 inches.

Elizabeth Bishop: Olivia. Watercolor and gouache, 5 x 7 inches. A church of weathered wood on Olivia Street in Key West.

Her personal life was unconventional as well. At Vassar she dated men. Then in 1951, she met a woman who became the love of her life: Lota de Macedo Soares, a self-trained Brazilian architect. They lived together in Brazil from 1951 to 1967, when Lota committed suicide. All the while, she continued an epistolary relationship with Robert Lowell (which lasted from 1947 until his death. "After a near disastrous visit in 1957 (their meetings, long planned and longed for, did not always go well), ...[he wrote] that asking her to marry him was the great might-have-been of his life." (source) She suffered from alcoholism, asthma, and chronic depression most of her life, and died in 1979.

She wrote: "All my life I have lived and behaved very much like the sandpiper - just running down the edges of different countries and continents, 'looking for something'."

One Art
by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Elizabeth Bishop: Table with Candelabra, undated. No one knows who she wrote the happy birthday for.

There will be time, there will be time

2011-12-07T12:46:00.005-06:00

You were crying at dinner last night, because your tooth hurt. It was loose, and banging against your top teeth when you tried to chew. I gave you a chocolate milk box and sent you into the living room to watch tv. "It's a special night," I said. "You are going to lose your first tooth tonight."

I remember poring over the pregnancy books, more than six years ago now. Those weekly babycenter emails. Nine weeks: "Your new resident is nearly an inch long — about the size of a grape — and weighs just a fraction of an ounce. She's starting to look more and more human. Her essential body parts are accounted for, though they'll go through plenty of fine-tuning in the coming months. Other changes abound: Your baby's heart finishes dividing into four chambers, and the valves start to form — as do her tiny teeth."

Last night, after you rushed into the kitchen, with your tiny tooth in your hand and a giant smile on your face, I felt a little tightness in my chest. I cheered for you, hugged you, made sure you felt special. But I felt it ... the time passing.

You handed me the tooth, and all I could think was you grew this inside me, and now you don't need it anymore.

I remember when that little tooth caused you pain, pushing through your baby gums. I remember when you were nursing in the rocking chair, and you used that tooth to bite me. When I cried out, you smiled, a new game.

You have bigger, stronger teeth coming that will be with you for your entire life. Teeth that will chew your food, fill your smile, and open your stubborn packages for years and years. You will stand in front of the mirror everyday, brushing these new teeth, while you contemplate your adult face. The one I can only imagine now.

You grew this tiny tooth inside me, but you don't need it anymore. And the one that will take its place, you will need long after I am gone.

I will measure out my motherhood with baby teeth.

Toth Farry
BY SHARON OLDS
In the back of the charm-box, in a sack, the baby
canines and incisors are mostly chaff,
by now, split kernels and acicular down, no
whole utensils left: half
an adz; half a shovel, in its broken
handle a marrow well of the will
to dig and bite. And the enamel hems
are sharp as shell-tools, and the colors go from
salt, to bone, to pee on snow, to
sun on pond-ice embedded with twigs
and chipped-off skate-blade. One cuspid
is like the tail of an ivory chough
on my grandmother's what-not in a gravure on my mother's
bureau in my father's house in my head,
I think it's our daughter's, but the dime Hermes
mingled the deciduals of our girl and boy, safe-
keeping them together with the note that says
Dear Toth Farry, Plees Giv Me
A Bag of Moany. I pore over the shards,
a skeleton-lover—but who could throw out
these short pints of osseus breastmilk,
or the wisdom, with its charnel underside,
and its dome, smooth and experienced,
ground in anger, rinsed in silver
when the mouth waters. From above, its knurls
are a cusp-ring of mountain tops
around an amber crevasse, where in high
summer the summit wildflowers open
for a day—Crown Buttercup, Alpine Flames,
Shooting-Star, Rosy Fairy Lantern,
Cream Sacs, Sugar Scoop.

november

2011-11-30T13:49:00.002-06:00

This has been a strange month.

I didn't anticipate, back on the first day of November, that I was going to post the things I have posted. That I was going to pry open the door to my childhood and take an adult look back. And it isn't as though I have never talked about these things - with Brian, with my brothers and sister-in-law, with my therapists, even with my parents sometimes.

But this year it is different.

I think part of it has to do with the fact that my my kids are getting older. Miles is in first grade, and I remember first grade. I remember my older brother getting whipped with a belt when I was in first grade (something like this, it's true).

I look at Miles sometimes and feel pride that he has never seen violence in his home. That for him, the biggest crisis is probably losing screen time for a day. That he has a language for his feelings, and he uses it.

Which isn't to say he hasn't seen Brian and I fighting (and this year we had a couple of low moments). But I have to think that the sheer number of happy times will fade those arguments away, like the sun on a photograph. And when he looks back at his childhood, he will just see the bright silhouettes of our laughter, of reading Harry Potter at bedtime, of building legos together (I search for the pieces we need, he assembles). If there is fear in his memories, it will be from the time he climbed to the very top of the playground, or dared to go really, really fast on his scooter.

The one thing I want to clarify for the record: if it looks like my older brother was nuts at times, it is because he was the primary battleground of my parents' fucked up marriage. If there was a monster in him, they created it. He was a child like the rest of us, without choices. My mother and father had all the power.

We were just kids.

shame: a portrait

2011-11-29T14:15:00.000-06:00

I have written before about how Brene Brown's work really speaks to me. Last year she did an e-course called Ordinary Courage, and of course I signed up, because I love e-courses (there are some good ones on her blog now as well; I also highly recommend a Mondo Beyondo e-course, although I have yet to finish mine that I took a year and a half ago - something about the challenge where you ask the universe for things just shut me down...)

Anyway, one of the first exercises in Brene's course was to draw a picture of shame. And I knew immediately what it looks like to me. I got the kids' colored pencils and drew my picture. And when I sat back and looked at it, I almost gasped...it looks just like my father.

I mean, not literally. But it is the closest to an emotional portrait of him that I could ever draw. The man in that audio recording? He looks like this. The man who wanted to know what I had done right? He looks like this. And the man who once told me that when I was born a girl he figured he could just take a pass, because father's don't have anything to do with the raising of girls? He looks like this too.

the girls

2011-11-28T21:14:00.000-06:00

Ruby in the rain:

Her royal highness Clara:

college years

2011-11-27T20:56:00.000-06:00

Last excerpts from my mother's draft letter, this section called "College":

"After we came home [from brunch, my older son] picked a fight with [my younger son] by slamming a book into his face. What transpired was a terrifying episode.

The fight that ensued was deadly and vicious, with [my older son] trying to really injure [my younger son]. Initially, [my younger son] had asked [my older son] to put down his book because he was eating a sandwich and drinking a glass of milk. [My older son] refused. [My younger son] then asked my husband to please ask [my older son] to put the book down until he had finished eating. My husband also refused, and told [my younger son] to come to me. [My younger son] got up, came down to the bedroom where I was resting, and asked me to ask [my older son] to put the book down. I went back to the family room with [my younger son] and asked [my older son] to please put the down the book, at which point he hit [my younger son] in the face with the book. My husband and I tried to do everything we could to pull [my older son] off [my younger son]. I got hurt when [my older son] kicked me in the ribs.

When these types of fights break out, pictures are broken, furniture and lamps are knocked over, louvered doors are pulled off their hinges, crockery is broken, besides the physical injury to each other To witness two grown men fighting, out of control, is very frightening, and leaves everyone shaken for some time afterwards. I called the police. By this time [my younger son] had locked himself in my bedroom to get away from [my older son]. [My older son] was so out of control he was prepared to break the door down. My husband pleaded for him to stop at which point he came looking for me. He had a small shovel in his hand, and was going from room to room shouting "where is the bitch?" I was in Heather's bedroom with a piece of furniture behind the door and on the phone to the police. They asked me to stay on the line and could hear [my older son] yelling in the background. They arrived very quickly and spent an hour at the house. They advised my husband to get [my older son] out of the house until he returned to [college]. My husband refused. The police then advised me that in their opinion it was not safe for [my younger son], or me, to remain in the house. [My younger son] refused to leave, seeing it as running away, and neither the two police officers not I could convince him otherwise. If [my younger son] wouldn't go, then I wasn't going. [My older son] eventually went into his room and fell asleep.

We were all in a sever state of shock. Trembling and distraught, I was having trouble breathing and walking. The only comment my husband would make was poor [older son], look he's exhausted, he's fallen asleep. Later in the day [my younger son] was expected at a graduation swim party at one of his friend's houses. His face and chest, back and front, had long scratch marks. I asked him if there was anything I could do. His reply was that his friends already know what goes on in our house. It wouldn't be any surprise. And so he went.

When I told my husband later in the day that this episode could never be repeated, he simply replied, 'There is nothing to be done. We will simply pretend nothing happened. It was [younger son] that started it and it was your fault for getting hurt because you got involved.'

I took myself to the doctor for help with the pain in my side and chest from [my older son's] kick. He felt it was a broken rib, at least one, but the xray came up negative. I have never had a blood pressure problem, but it was quite elevated. It slowly went back down again over the next several weeks. I couldn't get in my car, lie down or get up without extreme pain and difficulty which persisted for many months. I am truly afraid of getting hurt like that again."

"You may have noticed that I have mentioned Heather's name infrequently in this letter. She was 'the good child'; there is often one in families and they tend to become neglected if parents are not very aware, because it is often the squeaky wheel that gets the oil, so they get overlooked. She has been hurt a lot, and told us she at one time thought of committing suicide, and had made a half-hearted attempt ... I was unaware of all this and shocked to my foundation when she told us. I'm sure there is much I have missed and/or neglected as a result of trying to survive in this climate of conflict. I'm sure it has affected each of us in way we may not even be aware of."

"When [my younger son] started school at [college], my husband was to drive him down and get him settled in. I couldn't go. They stopped at Heather's place in Santa Barbara, at which point my husband wished [my younger son] good luck and got ready to leave. When [my younger son] asked why my husband wasn't driving on to college with him, my husband said that no one had helped him when he went off to college so he didn't see why he should help [my younger son]. My husband left. [My younger son] was in tears. He had never been on the campus before. He wouldn't arrive until 2 or 3 in the morning, and had no idea of where to go. Before he left, my husband made Heather promise she would not drive down with [my younger son]. Fortunately, she decided to anyway, and she helped him move in, but it meant she was on the road returning to Santa Barbara at 4 a.m."

high school

2011-11-26T20:54:00.000-06:00

More excerpts from my mother's letter, this section called "High School":

"The day [my older son left for boarding school the second time] was the day my husband moved out to live with [a priest friend] for six months. My husband has since stated that he moved back home too quickly, and I agree with him. I was partially responsible for that. I was lonely, ashamed for people to know what had happened, and thought we might finally be able to resolve our problems."

"As I am sure you will have noticed, Heather's name has not been mentioned very frequently. She was profoundly affected by all this conflict and still is. Middle children can get lost, even in the healthiest of families. Heather became invisible. I was so distraught most of the time I was just thankful to have one member of the family out of it. But she was floating away from the family in her own unhappiness."

"After several visits from the police, in a short space of time, life in our home was bordering on anarchy. I had to stay in the house when the boys were together, or my husband was at home. I seriously considered hiring someone just to be in the house when I was out. Realizing I couldn't continue to live this way I advised my husband that something had to be done, otherwise I would take matters into my own hands. Once again, it fell on deaf ears. Finally, and against every fiber of my being, because I knew there would be adverse publicity, I went to the court and obtained a Restraining Order, naming [my older son] and my husband. My husband was understandably shocked, and his shock turned to extreme rage, and the flood gates opened in torrents of screaming and abusive language, often backing me up against a wall while he yelled at me, spitting in my face as he did so."

the middle years

2011-11-25T20:49:00.000-06:00

Here are some more excerpts from my mother's draft letter, this section called "The Middle Years":

"Increasingly, my husband would lose his temper, and after several double scotches, the belt came out, sometimes the buckle end, and [my older son] would get a whipping. I don't think my husband took any pleasure in hurting [my older son]. I think it was more a case of his not having the skills to deal with [my older son], thereby becoming so frustrated that he resorted to the only thing he knew, which were shouting, shoving, fighting matches."

"[My older son] came back home [from boarding school] and the calm ended. The same pattern began to repeat itself all over again. Dad sits down for a drink. [My older son] says or does something that he doesn't like, and all hell breaks loose."

"At this point my husband and I were having fierce arguments, often late at night after the children were in bed, but I'm sure they could hear us. This went on for several years, and out neighbors told me later they would stand outside in the dark and listen to my husband as he went on the rampage, yelling and screaming at me. They would look for me the next morning, to make sure I was alright. One particular night, the screaming and yelling were tremendous. My husband took [my older son] into our bedroom and locked the door, and started to whip him. He was on the floor begging his dad to stop. Heather was outside in the garden, watching through the widow, and screaming to her dad to stop because he was going to kill [my older son]. A few minutes later, the police arrived, called by a neighbor, we presume, since I didn't call them. By this time [my older son] was in his room. My husband wouldn't let the police in the house. When they came in anyway, and asked for [my older son], my husband told them it was a private matter and would not bring [my older son] out. Eventually [my older son] did come out of his room, and the police interviewed him. Not being satisfied that he was okay, the police the next day visited [his school] and took [my older son] out of class to make sure he was okay. This was an embarrassment for everyone. This was the same night that my husband pushed [my older son's] back to the front door, and told him to hold his head up like a man, so he could hit it."

"I decided to call Child Protective Services. They talked with the school, with the police I believe, and because it was a self-initiating call, legal steps were not considered. They did what they could for us, over a period of some months, but my husband was very angry with me for contacting them. He could scarcely contain his anger during the CPS monthly visits to our home, and the sessions proved fruitless. Nothing changed."

"He would tell the children when they were little that if they tripped, or fell down and hot hurt, that God was punishing them. He was punishing them because they were bad. The devil had got into them. For many years, my husband called [my older son] 'Lucifer.'"

"My husband would insist that mistakes were always from carelessness, that there is no such thing as a mistake or an accident. We are always at fault if one happens."

"His attitude about church is that the children will go. He enforced this to the extent of pulling Heather by her hair into the car one day, and holding her with one hand while he tried to drive with the other."

happy thanksgiving

2011-11-24T23:06:00.000-06:00

early years

2011-11-23T20:45:00.000-06:00

Somewhere along the way I came across a draft letter that my mother wrote detailing our family history. It isn’t addressed to anyone, but I think I know whom she was writing to. I am certain she wrote it in early 1995, definitely before Labor Day 1995, which is a day of significance (maybe I will go into that later).

I find it fascinating to see what our family looked like from an adult vantage point.

In my mind, the things that happened in my family may have been scary and awful, but they were still normal. I mean, I suspected that these things weren’t happening in other people’s families, but I wasn’t totally sure.

How different it is to think of these things now, as a parent. I know with great certainty how adults should treat children. And how they should not.

Here is an excerpt from the section titled "Early Years" in my mother's draft letter:

"Coming home late one afternoon, I found all three in Heather's room with the door shut; they had been throwing furniture and toys at one another while [my husband] sat on the couch with his drink. One of the boys had a cut lip and I took him to the emergency room and they stitched it up ... That night things got out of hand. We got in an argument and I picked up a vase and threw it in his direction. I missed him, but he came after me. I ran into the hallway and he punched me quite severely in my chest and shoulders. The next day I had some pretty big bruises. I went to the police and filed a report."

"I would come home frequently to find that [my husband] had made his own lunch but had not fed the children."

"After a few more years, the children began to be slapped. [My husband] would have a few drinks, get mad and things would escalate. I couldn't understand how he could physically punish [my older son], and then demand that the boy stand in front of him and smile, even if he were crying."

I don't even know what to make of this stuff.

paperwork

2011-11-22T13:08:00.000-06:00

I have a stack of various documents that have to do with my family. Amongst them I found the following letter, which I believe was an exhibit to my mom's application for a restraining order against my brother and my father in 1991. It was written by our neighbor who lived across the street, and was addressed to my mom's attorney.

The image is a scan of a photocopy, so the quality is not that great. But here it is:

I spent a lot of effort when I was young trying to keep these things secret. I wish someone had told me all the neighbors already knew.

I wonder what I would do, today, if I was in our neighbor's position. If I found myself standing on the sidewalk listening to "night-time sounds of anger, yelling, pounding and banging." And if I knew three small children were inside the house.

We moved, in 1996, to a new house. This one was set much further back from the street.

love love love

2011-11-21T12:10:00.000-06:00

I have watched this short file more than a few times:

Plastic Bag by Ramin Bahrani.

I love it.

a fight and a letter

2011-11-20T16:26:00.003-06:00

Journal entry from Aug 1 (summer after I graduated from high school):

Last week I got home and I went to start working on this cool new journal thing I am making that has quotes with pictures of nature. I had bought a cool book and this glue stick to glue the stuff in. So I came home and I couldn't find the glue stick. I searched my room for like an hour, and then I went out into the family room and said, "John, you haven't seen a glue stick around, have you?" And he said, "Oh, I took it out of your room because I needed one." So that made me a little upset because I had asked him not to go in my room while I was gone. And I had bought it for a specific purpose. So then I said, "Well can you please return it?" and he said okay. So we went down to his room and he looked for about two seconds and said, "I can't find it, it's gone, I'll buy you a new one."

So - it wasn't the glue stick. I didn't really care about that. But the reason I got so upset was that he just went in my room, took something, lost it, and didn't care about how upset that made me. We argued for a bit, then later it got brought up again. And we fought, I went in his room to look for it, he hit me, all this stuff happened. The whole time I was getting more and more upset because no one was "validating" my feelings. They all said, "Why are you so mad? He will get another." But the fact is he always takes things out of my room and doesn't care about how that makes me feel.

So my Dad was saying that, and I felt so angry. I was so upset. So then I went back into my room, and my Dad went back to his reading and it was like...a second ago I was in there totally crying and upset and when I leave no one cares. So I went back i the kitchen and I said to dad, "Don't you care about how upset I am?" and he said, "Why don't you clean the kitchen?" So I walked over and grabbed some plates and smashed them on the floor. I was really mad an needed to vent my anger and I can't tell you how good it feels to smash plates when you are mad. So then my Dad stands up, walks over and hit me. Hard. In the head. I was stunned. I was on the floor and he grabbed mu arms and said "you are going to your room." Then I struggled away, he got the broom to sweep up the broken plates and started hitting me with the broom. So I ran, he ran after me. I ran into John's room and locked the door. He left back to the kitchen, my mom came out of the bathroom to see what was going on. I went into my room, got my car keys and left. I drove around until about 2:30am and then came home and slept. Dad gave me a letter the next day that said I acted totally immature to get so angry about a glue stick and that John had offered to get me another one and that I wasn't going to get any allowance (not that I do anyway). The whole letter made me so mad because he never even got the point. That it wasn't the glue stick, it was that he took something, wouldn't look for it, and had no respect for my feelings.

And here is the letter from my father (typed on the computer, printed out on that old dot matrix printer paper) that I referenced above:

Dear Heather,

Your conduct last night was very immature. To cause such a disturbance over such a small item was silly. John offered to give you the money to get a new tube. The offer was absolutely rejected. Then you said that John had to go get the tube and I had to drive him. You insisted that John look for the tube notwithstanding the fact that he had a final this morning. John advised you that he didn’t know where the tube was. You demanded “all the louder” that John look for the tube of glue. Then you went into John’s room. That is the worst “no no” in the rules of the house. [Footnote: It is not my rule. Think about all the misfortune that has befell our family because of the “stay out of my room” rule.]

John asked that you leave. Your reply was, “No way Jose.” I guess it is whose ox is getting gored. When John was in your room last week over the “book,” you were adamant that there were no circumstances that allowed anyone to go in your room. Are there two rules – one for you and one for John? Because you believe that you are “right” does that justify your behavior? Because John is bad, does that justify evil behavior on your part? Because you have not done the dishes by 11 pm and are upset with John are you justified in behaving irrationally? What was accomplished by breaking dishes?

Are you familiar with the concept of the infantile ego? You should be because you have seen John engage in it when he doesn’t get his way. Does John’s infantile ego justify yours?

What is the joy in being a member of the “Dirty Speech Movement”? Does using vulgar expressions make you a better person? Will you be a better college student because you make free use of profanity?

In any event any past due allowance is forfeited. Your allowance is forfeited for the next two weeks and subsequently your allowance will be reduced by twice the cost of replacing the dishes you willfully broke last night.

You are leaving the house in less than sixty days. You are going to be on your own away from home for the first time. You certainly don’t inspire confidence in me that you have the maturity to handle the new freedoms based on last night.

Love, Dad

more from the annals of the past: high school

2011-11-19T16:21:00.006-06:00

Jan. 30
My mother is being particularly weird today. She refused to pick me and Johnny up from school, so Melissa drove us home. She refused to take me to my dentist appointment and to take Johnny to his drama class. And she said she was doing it because of our uncooperativeness. And she went off on both of us. She started calling me a slut, and Johnny said “Isn’t a slut someone who sleeps around?” and mom said “No, it is someone who is dirty and untidy and that is what Heather is, go look at her room.” (My room is pretty clean comparatively, and I would think she would like it seeing as she picked the carpet, the bedspread, the furniture, everything and I am only allowed to put things up on one wall, it looks almost like no one lives in there). Anyway, Johnny looked up in the dictionary what slut meant to prove his point and among other things it said slut was a female dog, a bitch. So Johnny said, “Mom, are you calling Heather a bitch?” and she said “If the shoe fits…” And later she said the movie place called about an overdue rental and I said I would take care of it and she said “That doesn’t mean much.” And she just kept throwing out comments like that all day. I was writing in the margins of my literature book (I have read all the poetry and about half the short stories) and she started yelling at me that we can’t sell it now blah blah. I told her I wanted to keep it anyway and she said no.

Feb. 2
The other day my mother was yelling at me and she said, “I guess I just don’t like you.” Oh well.

Feb. 6
Today mom had a thing put in the backyard that is a wire underground and the dog has a box on his collar and whenever he goes over the line he gets an electric shock. I think that is so cruel. The poor dog thinks that his whole world has gone crazy. And I wanted to have nothing to do with it. But no. She says that if I don’t want her to get rid of the dog, then I have to help her train him. So she makes me call the dog, then step over the line and call him again so he will be shocked. And I had to do it or she will get rid of him. And the second time I called him he jumped over and I’m standing there totally crying because the poor dog is so upset and she’s totally yelling at me to go get him, how I ruined a whole day of training. And I don’t even want to be helping her. And about the third time I called him, he wouldn’t come. And he has never not come when I called him before. And it is so sad. She won’t be able to train him, he doesn’t like her. I'm the only one he likes so I’m the only one who could train him but I think that it is wrong. But if I don’t she will get rid of him for ruining her garden. Like she got rid of Sam. If she ever did that I don’t know what I would do. That is her big threat. A while ago it was she would get rid of the cats one by one if I didn’t do what she said. Then she did get rid of Sam. Now Basher. If I came home from school and found the dog gone again I don’t know what I would do…

July 30
I am so upset. My mother is so mean to me. I have been so good lately, doing everything she asks, etc. and she still acts like a bitch to me. I asked her if, since I hadn’t gotten a birthday present (nothing) if I could have a bike. And she said if I wanted a bike the money would have to come out of the money that we got from selling the Porsche. And then I would just have to wait longer for a car for me. So, Basically, I would be paying for my birthday present myself. And she starts yelling at me that we have no money (but she can get manicures and massages). I haven’t bought any new clothes since last April or something. I didn’t even buy a new bathing suit this summer, I wore my two year old one again. And I never spend their money, except on food. I never ask them for extra money. And they both yell at me and make me feel guilty all the time. I am so sad. I wish I was older and leaving at the end of the summer. I wish I was already going to college. I mean, here I am, totally crying and she just sits there yelling about money to me. I only wanted a birthday present.

Oct. 10 (this one was actually written in a a journal that I handed in for English class, hence all the back story)
My family is so messed up. Where to start? We have been in family counseling for a long time, but currently are not. My parents have a marriage counselor. My father is a physically abusive man - not me, he thinks it is wrong to hit girls - but he used to whip my brothers with his leather belt when they were bad when we were kids. My mom did it a couple of times too. They used to show me the welts and stuff. My dad might be an alcoholic - I don't really know if he is or not - every Lent he stops drinking, and some nights he doesn't drink anything. But if he drinks he always loses his temper and fights happen. A couple of days ago my mom poured out all his liquor. They had a big fight, but I wasn't home for that one. The other night I got into a fight with Tom over a jacket or something dumb, and he pushed me down onto the floor or something and my Dad got really mad, but my dad can't do anything to Tommy because he is so big. So instead he gets really frustrated, and Johnny says something like "Dad, don't get your blood pressure up" and Dad punched Johnny in the mouth. There was blood all over the counter and I was so mad at Dad. I told Dad he was taking out anger at Tom on Johnny but he didn't want to hear it. So then my mom told her therapist that Dad hit Johnny, and he said he had to report it by law or something. But we have had child welfare or whatever to the house before. They sent someone over, but nothing happened because of it, so I'm sure nothing will happen from this. My Dad and Tommy used to get in physical fights and hurt each other and break things when Tommy was in 9th or 10th grade. Oh, and once my mom tried to get my dad arrested, or maybe Tommy, I'm not sure. My mom can be really mean. Twice she has told me that as far as she is concerned her daughter died when I was 12 or 13 and whoever I am not is not her daughter. She never misses a chance to criticize me or my brothers. You name it, I have heard the insult from her. Her favorites are rude, surly, uncooperative, unhelpful, a slob, smart ass, irresponsible, immature, etc., etc. Today I got yelled at for eating rice out of the pan instead of a bowl. She also thinks I am on drugs all the time, which I'm not. I think drugs are dumb. But if I rub my eyes or burn incense she is accusing me. My brothers are not happy, and my parents are definitely unhappy. But oh well, I just take care of myself. And Johnny. But now I am tired so I am going to sleep.

Oct. 14
I just asked my mom if I could house sit with my friends this weekend and she said no, because when I was eating the rice out of the pan it was clear to her my immaturity, my disobedient nature, which says to hell with her I'm going to do whatever I want, So there was no way I could stay there since I am so immature and disobedient. I can't believe it. That is such a petty thing. I am such a perfect child. I have never come home late for my curfew. I always do my chores. I get good grades and take honors classes. I don't use drugs. I keep my room clean. What does she want? I can't wait until I move out.

Oct. 23
Mom told me and John last night how she sent a letter to my Dad, or her lawyer did, saying what he had to do - things like give her half say in financial matters, stuff like that - she said if he hasn't talked about it soon then she will have to take action. It's no big deal. She has done things like this before. Me and Johnny were joking about it.

Nov. 12
Well last night Johnny and Dad got into a fight, and Johnny was screaming "hit me Dad" and punching himself in the head so I threw a glass against the wall and it smashed and it got their attention and they stopped and then my Dad grabbed my arm and slapped my butt. And I told him I thought I was a little old for spanking but it got his attention off Johnny.

Oct. 30
Well the other night Tom was going to the bathroom and John held up a match to the door to see if the house would blow up and my Dad ran in and hit Johnny's hand to hit the match out of his hand and my mother saw and called the police, because she said she didn't know what he was going to do. So the police came and me, Johnny, Tommy and Dad were all sitting in the living room laughing and my mom is going on and on to them. It was a joke. So now my mom says I am denying there is a problem and I won't help her so she has to "take action" (her favorite phrase). Oh well.

Nov. 20
I and my family had a sort of fight last night. Me and Johnny were sort of running around and yelling and he had a squirt bottle and was squirting me and I was yelling and we were both laughing loud. So my mom was mad because she was trying to read and couldn't concentrate. So I went outside to find the cat and Johnny filled his mouth with water and ran outside and spit it at me, then mom got up and closed the front door and locked us out because we were making too much noise. It was pretty funny actually. So Johnny climbed in Tom's window. So when Tom came home he was mad. He is almost 20 years old and 6'3" and 200+ lbs. So he attacked Johnny. They were pounding each other. My dad was laughing. Then my mom and Dad broke them apart. And then they started again So I smashed three glasses and it was probably an unconscious way to get anger turned to me and off them. Then Dad threw a book at my head and I thought he was going to hit me. Mom had the phone off the hook and was threatening to call the police. So then Dad left - he was going to the library! But I said Dad you can't leave and smashed another glass and he stayed. Then I really just stood there, but Johnny was yelling, screaming at all the other three. Johnny also finally told me about what happened when my mom called the police and the people came to school and talked to him for about four hours about stuff like houses he could go to etc., etc. So anyway - I told my father I wasn't going to eat until Tommy moves out. Because he is really a problem. He threatens all of us all the time, he told me he was going to break my nose last night. And he controls every one. He makes me cry almost every night. Last night Johnny was telling my Dad, no yelling at my Dad, that he didn't know us or anything an I asked my Dad if he cared that I was moving out next year and he would never know me. He said no he didn't care. So much other stuff happened also, I can't even remember it all. My dad doesn't like me and John much - me because I am a girl and Johnny isn't Tom. He likes Tom. This all sounds like such a mess - it is.

Nov.21
Last night the sheriff came to our house. I was wondering why, but he gave some papers to Tom and Tom wouldn't let me see them. So then when my mother came home she told me what they were - papers subpoena to go to court on Dec. 12, and my mother is trying to get a court order that my father and Tom go to counseling. I guess I'll just wait and see what happens...

Dec.11
I am in a sulky mood today. Tired, cold. My parents are going to court tomorrow. Actually mom vs Tommy and my dad. I had to write a letter to the judge. I said Tommy needed to move out...

Dec. 12
Well I missed first and second period and the reason was because I was at court. We were getting, at least my mother was getting, a restraining order against my older brother and he has to move out of our house Jan. 6. And he has to go to counseling. Last, yesterday Tommy totally beat Johnny up the worst fight I have ever seen. I threw a plate at Tommy and cut open the back of his head and I called 911 twice and hung up both times. Now there is a restraining order against Tommy for me and John.

Aug 3
My mother and father were totally fighting yesterday with my mother saying, "We do not like each other, we are not compatible, we hate each other, you must move out or I will go to court and drag your name through the mud." Great, huh?

words I needed to read

2011-11-18T09:47:00.000-06:00

flashback

2011-11-17T16:06:00.008-06:00

You are ten years old. You have a a lot of cats, and one is named Graybaby. She will go missing next year, but you don't know that now. For Christmas you got a walkman that has a record button, and you love it. You walk around the house making long mix tapes of sounds: the cat meowing, the water running in the bathroom, the door opening and closing.

One night your parents are fighting. You sneak into the dining room, push record, and set the walkman up on the bookcase. You think that if you play the tape back to them later, they will realize how scary they sound, and stop fighting so much.

You never play the tape back to them.

They don't stop fighting.

Ruby Jewel

2011-11-16T14:54:00.001-06:00

I am really into comparing photos from last year with this year right now. Here is Ruby last November:

And here she is last month when we had a family picnic in the park:

From baby to toddler. Just like that.

Interview with my parents

2011-11-15T14:04:00.001-06:00

High school assignment: interview two people on the history of their relationship and why it is successful.

I interviewed my mom and dad. I wrote on the assignment: "The results were about what I expected."

First interview – Mom and Dad together
How did you meet?
Dad: We were working at the same place.
Wasn’t mom your secretary?
Dad: Yes.
Mom: For a little while, one of five years.
How long after you met did you get married?
Dad: Four years.
What else can you tell me about the history of your relationship?
Mom: We are not the same religion. Dad is catholic, and I am church of England. I had to promise before we were married that I would raise the kids catholic. Your dad and I have a different view of religion, which has made things difficult at times. We came from very different backgrounds, different countries, different cultures, different kinds of families, it has required a lot of compromise.
Why is you marriage successful?
Mom: We took our marriage vows very seriously. I think through thick and thin. It has been mostly thin in the last ten years. It…
Dad: Marriage is for better or for worse. Underline worse.
But why is your marriage successful?
Mom: Because he won’t leave. I don’t think it has been that successful. We have had a lot of problems. I wouldn’t term it a success. We have different values and that has caused 90% of the problems. Different value systems.
But you are still married. Why is that?
Dad: Because we aren’t divorced.
Mom: I don’t know I am really prepared to answer that question.
Why not?
Mom: Too personal.
(To Dad) You are still married; why is that?
Dad: For better or for worse…(note: he has continued reading his book up to this point).
(To Dad) Do you consider your marriage successful?
Dad: No.
Why not?
Dad: It is a question of whether we have a patriarchal or a matriarchal marriage.
What do you mean by that? A question of who is in control?
Dad: That’s part of it.
Mom: I don’t believe it has to be either/or. I would like both partners having equal status, influence and control. Or shared control – that is what I really want. Not matriarchal or patriarchal. Shared.
(To Mom) Do you term your marriage a success, in terms of the relationship?
Mom: No, for the last ten years, deteriorating.
Do you consider it a failure then, in terms of the relationship?
Dad: Yes, failure.
Mom: You never give up hoping that some change for the better will come about. God works in mysterious ways. I think that what has happened in this relationship, one partner has grown one way, the other the other way, Change has taken place, over 22 years change will take place. We don’t see eye to eye. But I haven’t…at the moment it seems pretty discouraging…but who knows. I do say some prayers from time to time. I have realized the serenity prayer…I have given it up to God.
Do you have any other thoughts on your marriage?
Mom: Not really.
Dad (said to me): I would like to turn on the dishwasher when I want to turn on the dishwasher.
Mom (said to Dad): Even if it deprives other members of hot water for the bathtub?
Dad (said to me): Turn on the dishwasher at the wrong time, get kicked in the nuts.
Mom (said to Dad): Maybe you should explain that.
Dad: Turn on the dishwasher at the wrong time and get kicked in the nuts.
(To Mom) You kicked Dad in the nuts?
Mom: He was screaming in my face like Genghis Khan. I wanted to get my cigarettes out of the drawer, so…I think this interview was deteriorated so…
Dad: Some people insist on rationalizing rather than realizing…
(To Mom): You kicked him in the nuts?
Mom (laughing): I raised my knee to an appropriate height…

Second Interview: Dad alone
Do you have any thoughts on your marriage, alone?
Dad: Your mother has a strong maternal instinct, so strong and so important, everything else is secondary.
Do you mean the marriage?
Dad: It became more important…the maternal instinct…when women have children they become very maternal and it varies on how much it interferes in the marriage.
Don’t you think children are part of marriage?
Dad: Absolutely.
Why do you call children an interference then?
Dad: Your mother wanted her children to be spared the pain she had as a child and have the things she didn’t.
What is wrong with that?
Dad: Obsession, in my opinion.
Do you have any good things to say about the relationship?
Dad: No, not at the moment,
Do you think in the future you will have something good to say about the relationship?
Dad: I don’t know.

Third interview: Mom alone
Do you have any thoughts on your marriage, alone?
Mom: The only thing I would say is the relationship seemed to work as long as I took on the role of trying to be everything to all people. It took a toll in terms of my time and energy. I just couldn’t put out that much. When I started to pull back and take care of myself it caused problems.
Do you have any thoughts on the relationship and how kids factor in?
Mom: Well, certainly brought happiness into the relationship, and there have been a lot of disagreements over kids, methods of discipline, etc.
Do you have anything good to say?
Mom: There are good things. Your Dad and I have made a point of…we have certainly taken our commitment seriously…not afraid of hard work. We have stuck at it even through the worst of times. We both mean well toward one another. We are very different. Those differences are not seen as pluses, but as faults, by both parties.

the agreement

2011-11-14T13:15:00.001-06:00

Did you catch Terry Gross's interview with Darrel Hammond on NPR the other day?

Wow.

For me it was one of those moments where I realize we just have no idea what people are dealing with.

I tend to assume that everyone around me has excellent mental health, never suffers from anxiety and doubt, and is never pursued by the black dog of depression.

And then I hear an interview like this one, and stop feeling so alone.

There was one moment in the interview that really stood out for me. I keep coming back to it in my mind. When asked about why he wanted to write a memoir, Hammond said that he became very interested in "[t]he agreement between perpetrator and victim in which the victim agrees to remain silent because he's in fear."

When I was a child and I would trip and fall, or bang my elbow on the edge of the table, or snip my finger with the scissors, I would turn to my father for comfort. He would look up from his reading and say, "That's God punishing you for fighting with your brother this afternoon/talking back to me earlier today/dropping that plate on the ground/generally being a human unworthy of my time and attention." The lesson: be perfect or I will allow God to punish you.

My dad had this game he would play with me. He pretended that there were invisible, troll-like creatures that lived on top of the kitchen cabinets. They all had Russian cold-war names like Boris and Yuri and Vladimir and Igor. And when I wasn't looking, they would pinch me on the butt. Now, it is probably obvious that it was him pinching me on the butt. And as a child, I was mostly sure that it was him. But not completely, because he never broke character and admitted that it was just a game. Lesson: you can't trust your own instincts about what is real or not.

At one point I told my mom I didn't like the Russians. The next day my dad sat me down on my bed, and said, "Mom says you don't like when we play the game. Is that true?" I was just a kid, and I didn't want to hurt his feelings. "No, it's okay," I mumbled, looking at the ground. Lesson: speaking up about what you don't like is pointless.

Whenever my father thought my brothers or I were telling a lie, he would order us to stand still and look him in the eyes. Then he would say, "If you look away or smile, I will know you are lying." And then we had what was basically a staring contest, during which he would try to get us to crack. To smile or laugh or look away. He would make faces, smile crazy-looking smiles, and we always cracked. Then we were punished for our lies, even when we had been telling the truth. Lesson: your body will betray you, and there is always something inside you that deserves punishment.

When my brothers and I fought, he would slam down his reading and order all of us to our rooms. "But I didn't do anything wrong!" I would plead. He would pause, and then ask, "But did you do anything right?" Needless to say, this question was rhetorical. And powerful, because when he asked it, my mind would always go blank. I couldn't think of one thing I had done right. The lesson: I have done it all wrong. I am the shame of wrongness. I have wrongness in my bones.

In high school I remember arguing with my little brother about some political issue, and at one point my father, who was sitting nearby, leaned over to John and said, "just agree with her." I looked at my father and said, "Fuck you." He didn't speak to me for two months until I apologized for what I had said. The lesson: people have a right to humiliate you.

In college, I ran a marathon, and I was so proud. I was flat on my back, exhausted, and I called my parents. "I finished the marathon!" I told my father. He asked my time, and then said, chuckling, "Well, you won't win any with that time, will you?" The lesson: you will never be enough.

This is the kind of person a child is willing to stay silent for. I knew I had to earn my worth from him. My brothers and I were all guilty of being a burden until proven otherwise.

And there was fear. When a child sees her parents that angry, that out of control, and when they see chaos and tears and punches and blood and police in her house, she is very afraid. Her brothers are very afraid. And no one says anything to anybody.

That agreement between perpetrator and victim.

I remember one day very clearly. My family is sitting in the living room, which we never used, with a woman from CPS. I surely didn't know that at the time. I just knew she was making me feel unsafe. No one told me to lie - there was no need. You don't have to point out to a child that when he lets go of a ball, it falls to the ground. They may not know it is called gravity, but they understand the rule. Same concept.

I started keeping journals when I was around seven years old. My first one was the classic flowery book with a little gold lock and key. On the inside cover there is an inscription, in MY exaggerated handwriting, that reads, "To Heather Merry Christmas love Dad." (Wishful thinking. My father has never given me a present. Unless you count the ones my mother bought and wrote his name on.)

As a general rule, I didn't write in my journals about my parents' fights, and my father's fights with my brothers, because I didn't want that stuff in there. I wanted to write about my friends and my favorite things and my cats. About which boy was the cutest in my class. About my Dreams and Plans. But sometimes I did.

June 9
Today mom and dad had a fight. Dad boxed mom in a corner. She couldn’t get out so she threw a vase at him. He attacked her. He pushed her on the bed and sort of wrestled her. Mom has big bruises there. Then he hit her and she fell to the ground. I HATE HIM!!!

June 17
Today was my piano lesson. Tonight Dad hit me. I came into my room and there was a bunch of junk on my bed. It all belonged to Johnny but he said they were mine. I put them outside his door. Dad came in and hit me. I hate him.

June 18
Today I got some Pounce cat treats. The cats love them. Today mom promised no matter what that she would get me a movie. She didn’t. Tonight is miserable. Everyone seems to have forgotten about me. Nobody even asked what was wrong. They just went about their own business. I HATE EVERYONE IN THIS HOUSE!

August 7
My mom is a bitch. She hit me in the head today and knocked me down. She is just being a jerk. She doesn’t listen to me so she breaks all our deals. Like one of us takes out the game and then the other one puts it away. She makes me put it away because Johnny said he didn’t make the deal.

In one entry from the next year, I wrote about a pretty bad fight between my dad and my older brother. "I HATE it when they fight," I wrote. "It scares me a lot."

And we are right back to Darrell Hammond.

anxiety

2011-11-13T10:29:00.001-06:00

I am an anxious person, and I have been for most of my life. As a child, I remember being preoccupied with the worry that criminals would break into our house in the middle of the night. As I lay in bed, waiting to fall asleep, I would get up to peek through the blinds and make sure the front yard was empty.

Our house had never been burglarized. I didn't know anyone whose house had been burglarized. We lived in suburbia. But still, I worried.

I always assumed I was just hard-wired to worry. That by some mistake of genetics or brain-chemistry I would always struggle to slow down the constant background hum of my anxiety.

The other day I was wondering aloud to our therapist why it is that I take these medications for anxiety and yet I am still anxious.

She suggested that perhaps it was time to take a hard look at my anxiety, to take it apart and look at it from different angles. To figure out what purpose it is serving. To find out why I have lived with it for so long.

"If I don't know how to swim, and you lead me to the edge of a swimming pool," she said, "I am going to feel great anxiety. Because if I jump in I will drown. My anxiety protects me from danger."

So the question is: what is my anxiety protecting me from?

Carl Jung argued that anxiety symptoms are purposive, functional and have a goal - the alteration of our lifestyle. When we eliminate the symptoms through medication, we deny the wisdom of the psyche in making normal, natural change. Anxiety often appears in mid-life, when many of us experience a mid-life crisis. The first half of life is aimed at establishing our identity, our relationships, our occupation, and building up the necessary resources to accomplish all of these tasks. But, there comes a time when we need to turn inwards, to encounter the contents of the unconscious (often provided to us in the form of dreams) and search out the essential meaning of life. What is my purpose in life? Why am I here? How could I be living a more balanced, natural life? It is anxiety that often propels us towards answering these questions. When next you feel intense anxiety, ask yourself what the psyche is trying to tell you? What is it that I am doing that creates the anxiety, then begin to address the causes of the symptoms, rather than the cure.

If we answer the question - what is the anxiety trying to tell me - we begin to address the cause. This may mean some change in the way you life your life, but this change does not necessarily mean that you become less competent, or less valued, rather, it means that you begin to value the wisdom of your psyche more than before. By addressing the causes of the anxiety and making lifestyle changes, the anxiety should diminish, having achieved its goal - leading you towards a more full, balanced lifestyle. source

So I dragged out some boxes of old journals and went looking for answers. I think the things I learned as a child have created a lot of my anxiety, and those old lessons are not serving me very well anymore. So I am looking back, in order to examine, understand, and let go.

Tempus fugit

2011-11-12T13:35:00.001-06:00

I don't have that many photos of the kids all together, because getting my three to 1) sit still and 2) look in the same direction and 3) not poke or pinch or pull or pummel each other is very tricky.

But I did come across some taken last November, almost a year ago to the day.

They all look so young. Those clothes that Clara is wearing? They fit Ruby now.

Here they are three months ago:

I remember it was hot that day. I think Clara was whining for ice-cream. Ruby was her usual happy self. Miles was probably in the middle of a story ("...and I have x-ray vision and can see through trees and when the alien-robot-animals walk right past me they can't see me because of my camouflage and when I need to fly I pull on my canteen strap and I shoot up into the clouds where my supply pod is waiting and then I laser blast the evil-alien-gorilla-beasts...")

A Certain Kind of Eden
by Kay Ryan

It seems like you could, but
you can’t go back and pull
the roots and runners and replant.
It’s all too deep for that.
You’ve overprized intention,
have mistaken any bent you’re given
for control. You thought you chose
the bean and chose the soil.
You even thought you abandoned
one or two gardens. But those things
keep growing where we put them—
if we put them at all.
A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.
Even the one vine that tendrils out alone
in time turns on its own impulse,
twisting back down its upward course
a strong and then a stronger rope,
the greenest saddest strongest
kind of hope.

one thing the internet is good for...

2011-11-11T13:00:00.001-06:00

...is pointing out the obvious.

"Most predictions and opinions concerning 11/11/11 are based on or rooted in its mathematical uniqueness as a number.

11*11*11: There are three possible scenarios:

1. Something good happens— There is absolutely no scientific basis for this belief. There are no known logical premises for this belief. The belief that something good will happen is based solely on faith and/or innate optimism. This belief is not necessarily false; we don’t know everything; the probability is not zero.

2. Nothing happens— This is the most likely scenario. Just because an unusual date number sequence occurs doesn’t mean that something extraordinary will happen. Usually it’s a non-event.

3. Something bad happens— There is absolutely no scientific basis for this belief. There are no known logical premises for this belief. The belief that something bad will happen is based solely on faith and/or pessimism of reality. This belief is not necessarily false; after all, things are generally/usually a mess. The probability is not zero."

found here.

post-script

2011-11-10T12:06:00.000-06:00

So you agreed to meet with me. I wasn't nervous, but I think you were.

You apologized, but it was hollow. You were hollow. I don't remember you being that way before, but maybe you never were a person of substance.

I was very kind to you. I sensed you were willing to accept my anger, that you knew you deserved to be hurt back. But I didn't want to, and I was happy to learn this about myself. That when I am faced with an opportunity to return the hurt, I choose not to. Instead I told you I worry about you sometimes. You didn't deserve that from me. You haven't earned that from me. But I am a good person, and I know that I want to find compassion in even the most difficult of situations. This one was difficult, but I found it.

Maybe more than hollow you just seem frozen. You made some terrible choices that had some terrible consequences. And yet you have no insight into why you did what you did. I never realized that you were such an un-insightful person.

You seemed to me a diminished person. The power of your presence, as a person who had wounded me deeply, was all drained away. Your life is much emptier than before. Mine is not. You are suffering. I am not. You are still trying to manipulate situations into getting what you want. I can see this now.

I don't think you read this blog. I think we mentioned it to you long ago, but you never expressed any interest in it. So I am really just writing these words to myself.

I think you came not because you had something you wanted to give me - an apology, an explanation, a request for forgiveness, some sense of remorse. I think you came because you wanted your child to stop reminding you of the terrible, hurtful decisions you made. You wanted me to fix your problem. You wanted me to put my child back into your orbit so you could feel better. So you didn't have to look your child in the eyes and explain that you fucked up and he will never see his friends again.

Well it's not going to happen. It's not my job to take care of you anymore. In fact, it was never my job, but I am a good and loyal friend. I helped you in every way I could for years. And then you decided to hurt me in a way that I will never forget. And maybe never forgive.

I hope for your sake that you figure out why you did what you did. Why you hurt so many people. Why you didn't put your child first. I hope you manage not to do it again. I hope you go back to your therapist.

And I hope I never see you again.

♥ baby elephants are cute ♥

2011-11-09T13:13:00.000-06:00

The new and improved elephant exhibit at the zoo has a swimming pool with a giant tractor tire in it for the elephants to play with.*

Do you have any idea how cute it is to watch a baby elephant playing with a giant tractor tire?

This cute:

* This sentence, ending in a proposition, is brought to you in honor of my little brother, whom I am quite fond of.

my favorite photographers: Richard Renaldi

2011-11-08T13:13:00.000-06:00

"Walking the streets of New York City, photographer Richard Renaldi felt fascinated by large groups of strangers and how they seemed to relate and interact with one another. In his ongoing series, Touching Strangers, Renaldi explores this relationship by pairing unacquainted individuals for a portrait with one stipulation: the subjects must physically interact in some manner."

"'I think it reveals a lot about body language,' says Renaldi. 'There is clear hesitation in some of the images, and other times, you are surprised at how comfortable they are.' Often posing his subjects in a way one might for family or couple photos, Renaldi attempts to capture an 'implied narrative,' bringing a new complexity to portrait-making and visual storytelling. 'My objective was to bring an unpredictable variable in a very traditional photographic formula—to create a spontaneous and fleeting relationship between strangers,' he said." (source)

Pat, shush, rock, repeat

2011-11-08T12:57:00.000-06:00

I was looking through a book off my shelf today for a passage I remembered reading and wanted to read again. I came across a sheet of paper clearly torn out of one of my old journals. It has the date at the top - September 13th - but not the year. Here is what is written on it:

7pm BED H EASY
9pm Pat and shush B EASY
11pm Pat and shush B EASY
12:10-12:30 Bounce, pat B MEDIUM
2:10-2:37 Bounce, pat B MEDIUM?
2:37 FEED H
3:09 FOOD AND ROCK H
3:15 Playing in crib
3:30-3:50 BOUNCE B EASY
7am wake

And then it continues for the next day, September 14th.

7pm BED H EASY
1:30? - 2:20 FOOD & ROCK H EASY
4:10am - 4:40am pat, shush, H HARD feed

Most of the handwriting is Brian's. I suspect the hard or easy refers to the level of difficulty involved in getting the baby back to sleep.

The strange part of this sleep-deprivation time capsule is that I can't tell which baby it was. Miles? Clara? Ruby?

No idea.

On second thought, the even-stranger part might be that we wrote this shit down at all.

Life with a newborn is rough.

Ruby's birth story part 2

2011-11-07T22:18:00.000-06:00

Around five o'clock that evening, Brian and his mom and his sister went out to dinner. Clara had gone to sleep early, and Miles was outside riding his bike with the kids up the street. I decided to drink the castor oil. Brian's sister was leaving on Sunday, just three days away. I knew it would be easier to have the baby while Lisa and Brian's mom were still here, and I was so tired of being pregnant.

I went with the Orange Flavored Castor Oil Milk Shake. The castor oil itself doesn't have much of an odor, but it does have the exact consistency of olive oil. I mixed it up and knocked it back. It wasn't that hard to drink, but after swallowing the last bit the inside of my mouth was coated with oil. I felt like I had taken a swig from the olive-oil jar. The nausea started almost instantly.

I went outside to sit and watch Miles ride his bike. Several times I had to run inside because I thought I was going to throw up. Only one time did I actually toss some up. I wondered whether that meant I needed to drink some more. I decided there was no way I was going ingest more of that gunk.

After an hour or so, I called Miles in for bed. He was tired, and went to sleep easily. I went to bed too, and tried without success to get comfortable in bed. Brian and his mom and Lisa came home, and a short while later the evacuation began. ("Castor oil is a laxative. It is believed that castor oil works to stimulate the bowels. It can lead to cramps and tightening of the muscles in the intestines. These cramps may spread to the uterus, tightening the uterine muscles and stimulating contractions. These contractions may or may not lead to the onset of active labor.")

After an hour or two, I was empty. And that is about when the contractions started. Not that strong, and definitely not very consistent, but something. I emailed my sister-in-law at 11 pm: "I am having some contractions. Will let you know if it develops." The contractions kept coming for several hours, so around 1 am I called the midwife.

Ugh. Of the four midwives in the practice, my least favorite one was on call. I thought to myself, "I'm not going to have this baby tonight." The midwife told me to keep track of the contractions, that when they were coming consistently five minutes apart I should call her back, and otherwise to try to get some sleep.

About an hour later, I fell asleep. I guess the contractions stopped because I didn't wake up until 6am when my phone rang. It was the midwife. "I didn't hear back from you. Is everything okay?"

It was until you called and woke me up.

I assessed the state of my uterus - no action. I was somewhat devastated by this fact. I really wanted some relief. I wanted the baby out. I was so preoccupied with talking my baby out of my body that I can't really remember what I did for the rest of the day. I remember going out for lunch, eating french fries while willing my weak and mild contractions to toughen up and make something happen.

At some point Brian had to go into work (it was Friday) and Clara took a nap. My contractions were still lackadaisical. Teasing me with the idea of birth. Around three I decided to go for a walk. My ipod shuffle was all loaded up with birth music, so I grabbed it and set off down the block. In my head I was having a nonstop conversation with my cervix: open, come on, open. Baby, push your head on my cervix. Come on uterus, step it up already. After about an hour, I could sense a difference. The contractions were getting stronger. I kept going, and soon I was having to stop and lean on something (a fence, a tree) to wait them out. I didn't want to stop walking, in case they backed off again. I thought about Clara's birth, and how scared I was when the serious contractions started. They were hard and fast, probably because of the cervidil, and I remember resisting, tensing up against the pain.

Labor is the strangest most intense physical experience I have ever had. You are a passenger in your body, and you have very little control. An analogy: your hands just start dancing around in front of you, while you just watch and try to kick anything breakable out of the way. Oh, and your hands are on fire, because that labor shit hurts.

I think after almost two hours I found myself back on our street. I went inside, and told everyone I was going to lay down. Back in my bedroom, where I felt very calm and relaxed, I knew it was the real thing. I could feel my cervix widening, my hips getting ready to open. (Side note: it is very strange to be suddenly aware of an internal body part.) It was different than with Clara though - this time I wasn't afraid, because the prospect of spending another day with this baby inside me was more painful than the idea of pushing her out. I welcomed the pain because I knew it would lead to relief. All that stuff in Ina Mae's book about naming the contractions "surges" instead suddenly made sense. "This is me experiencing sensation," I informed my brain. "This is not pain." And damn if that shit didn't work!

Brian and everyone else went to Berryhill for dinner. "Call me if you need anything," he said. Shortly thereafter I called the midwife. The shift had changed, and my phone call was returned by the midwife who delivered Clara. When I heard her voice - her British accent saying "Heather, how are you?" - I knew that baby was coming soon. I filled her in, and she said, "Well, you tell me. You have done this twice before. Are you ready to come in?" There was still a part of me that didn't want to get there too soon. I felt like I should know with more certainty, but this labor was not like the first two. But I wanted to be there, to get closer to having the baby out of my body and in my arms. So I said yes. I called Brian, they rushed home from the restaurant, and we set off.

But we didn't get far. "I can't believe I forgot to put gas in my car!" Brian apologized. We stopped around the corner, I sat patiently in the front seat contracting, he filled the tank. We set off again.

I knew I was heading into active labor by the way my body felt, but this time was so different than Miles or Clara. I was awake, alert, able to converse. Previously, by the time my body go to this point my eyes were shut tightly, my conscious self had crawled into a quiet place in my head, and time had ceased to exist. It was strange to feel so present. "This must be what it is like to have an epidural," I thought. But not really, because I was in pain. I just wasn't shut down by the pain this time.

We got to the hospital, and headed up to the L&D floor. It was such a flashback to my labor with Miles. Walking down the white hallway, stopping to lean against the wall during a contraction, feeling the eyes on me of people who passed by. Being hugely pregnant and walking through a hospital attracts attention. Everyone loves an imminent birth.

To be continued...

sunday activity: family delousing!

2011-11-06T23:23:00.004-06:00

Ctrl + Art + Create

2011-11-05T21:26:00.005-05:00

Today, while Ruby was napping, I took Miles and Clara to visit their two favorite grownups at our local arts and crafts fair.

After buying them crocheted eyeballs and artificial-flower headbands, I fed them grilled-cheese sandwiches, cheetos, and ice cream.

We have got to make one of those terrariums.

throwing it out there

2011-11-04T21:19:00.000-05:00

This year has been a hard one. Unexpected things happened. Uncertainty moved in. Time was spent in dark places. It wasn't any fun. But the center held. And from the wreckage we found something even better than before. I wish some things could have gone differently, but there is a lot I wouldn't change. Healing happens and it is good.

But there is still one thing I cannot understand. One part of the story that I cannot make sense of. I know the what and the where and the how. But what I cannot understand is the why. Why did you do that to me? After years of friendship, and holidays spent together, meals shared and our children knitted together, all those time we helped you with problems because we knew you needed help. All those times we called to include you because we knew you were alone and didn't want to be. We shared laughter and confidences. We invited you into our family.

And then when the time came for you to help us, to support and comfort and help us hold it together, you chose not to. Instead, you went in and tried to destroy it. You took advantage of our crisis to try and take what you wanted. And then you lied to me. I sat in front of you crying, and you looked me in the eyes, and lied to me. You pretended to comfort me. You pretended you still had my best interests at heart. And it was all a lie.

Of course I found out. And I confronted you. "It won't do any good," you said. "It won't change anything." And there was almost a look of pleasure on your face. Your expression said: I win.

You were betrayed once, and you know intimately how terribly painful it is. And inexplicably, rather than vow never to inflict that kind of pain on another person, you turned around and did the same thing that was done to you.

Did it make you feel powerful? To be the betrayer instead of the betrayed?

Did it make you feel strong to try to break something that you wanted and didn't have? To try to take something from me rather than find it for yourself?

I tried to reach out to you for some closure, but you wouldn't even give me that. Everyone says, "she can't apologize to you, because that would mean admitting what she did. And then how can she live with herself?"

I don't know what to do with the thousands of photos of your child that I have on my hard drive. Five years worth of holidays and beach days and park days and play dates. I take a lot of photos, but I am not good at getting them off my computer in a timely way. So there they sit. Years of your child's life captured by my camera. But you say we were never friends.

Do I delete them? Do I take the high road and burn them to disks and send them to you? What do I do?

What do I say to my child when he asks about your child?

Why did you put me in this position?

Why didn't you care enough about me to not do what you did?

I am a good person. I try hard to take care of the people around me, and do the right thing. Did I stumble somewhere? I can't understand this. I want to heal my heart, but I am sad and hurt and confused.

I don't understand why you did that to me.

How could you do that to me?

my favorite photographers: Uta Barth

2011-11-03T10:53:00.000-05:00

Not bad for a six year old

2011-11-02T11:16:00.000-05:00

I read Miles Poe's The Raven a couple of months ago, and he felt moved to dictate a poetic response.

The Fiery Raven
by Miles

You shall leave my chamber roof
No longer will I or you speak a word
Of all the flames in your eyes.
Bring me your father
So I can name his blazing eyes.

Then the eagle burst into fire,
And came up a bigger eagle
Than ever I did saw.
The eagle had his wings up.
Where does your son Raven
come from?
He flapped his wings
five thousand times.

Then he burst into flames
And my girl said,
"heaven exists." That Raven
is a thief ----- a thief.

It's that time of year again

2011-11-01T13:31:00.002-05:00

NaBloPoMo is back. Although now it has moved over to Blogher, which I find lessens the charm a bit. But nevertheless, attempt to blog once a day I will.

To start: halloween photos.

September

2011-09-23T00:04:00.005-05:00

Today may be the autumnal equinox, but around here it is still very much summer.

To the Light of September
By W.S. Merwin

When you are already here
you appear to be only
a name that tells of you
whether you are present or not

and for now it seems as though
you are still summer
still the high familiar
endless summer
yet with a glint
of bronze in the chill mornings
and the late yellow petals
of the mullein fluttering
on the stalks that lean
over their broken
shadows across the cracked ground

but they all know
that you have come
the seed heads of the sage
the whispering birds
with nowhere to hide you
to keep you for later

you
who fly with them

you who are neither
before nor after
you who arrive
with blue plums
that have fallen through the night

perfect in the dew

He only looks like that on a bad day

2011-08-11T16:51:00.003-05:00

Ruby has taken to choosing one of Miles's toys and carrying it around all day calling it Dada.

Today it was this guy:

Big improvement over the guy she was calling Dada yesterday:

my son

2011-05-27T21:02:00.009-05:00

When he was born, he was so tiny. I remember being overwhelmed by his specificity. I had been trying for months to imagine what our baby might look like, and then here he was, with so many details to take in. He changed me forever - he made me a mother.

Time moved slowly that first year. Everything was new to us, and watching him learn to sit up and crawl and then walk was so gratifying. No matter what we did - the good stuff, the mistakes - he had a trajectory that was all his own. And he grew and grew.

At one, his hair was straight. Seems so hard to believe now. He was such a sweet boy, happy and crazy with energy. He loved to tackle and wrestle the other little babies, which didn't win him many friends among the moms. I loved spending the day with him. (Except for when I didn't. But mostly I did.)

At the end of last summer, he started kindergarten. I know some parents get emotional on that first day, but I was mostly just excited for him.

This week he finished kindergarten. And I am surprised to find that I feel a bit sad. It feels like he is growing so fast. The pajama pants I just bought are already inches too short. He burns through shoes at a rapid pace. I buy his clothes from the boys section now. He hasn't been a baby for a long time, but today I am feeling just how long ago it was that I held him for the first time, amazed at his existence, so happy to have him.

Each kid brought a stuffed animal to school on the last day. Miles chose his owl, Hedwig.

He is still such a sweet boy. He is smart and clever and so creative. He wants to be a scientist when he grows up and invent all kinds of things. He still loves to dress up, and is always in some kind of costume. He will tell you he is the real Harry Potter, and that he goes to Hogwarts at night when we are sleeping. When he gets bored he messes with Clara and makes her cry, which drives me crazy. He challenges my patience and frustrates me. He has lots of friends. And some girlfriends. When he sits on my lap, his arms and legs poke out everywhere. It is like trying to cuddle a tripod. He loves legos.

It is so hard to imagine what he will be like next year, and the year after that. And the years after that. I know a time will come when he won't want me to pat his back to help him fall asleep, when he won't lock his arm around my neck and say "no, stay!" when I leave him to sleep. But I don't really believe it. Today seems endless, the future so distant.

I hope I can be the mother he needs me to be. He deserves that, and so much more.

loophole

2011-04-30T14:29:00.005-05:00

The scene: me driving Clara to preschool Friday morning, listening to NPR. Someone mentions dying on the radio.

Clara: "Mama, what's dying?"
Me: "Well, um, sometimes when things that are alive get old or sick or hurt, then their body stops working, and they die."
Clara: "But what is die?"

I don't remember when I had this conversation with Miles. Was it this early, before his third birthday?

Me: "Well, die means your body doesn't work anymore, so we put it in the ground, and some people think your self goes somewhere else."
Clara: (silent, thinking over my words, not satisfied).

This conversation would be much simpler if I had a tidy religious story to tell her.

Clara: (starting to cry) "But I don't want to get really old, and I don't want to die."
Me: (internal debate: tell her she is never going to die? save this conversation for another day? commiserate with her on fear of death? resort to heaven on a cloud?) "I know you don't want to die, but it isn't going to happen for a long, long time. You have to get as old as Gigi [Brian's grandmother] to be ready to die, and she is 96 years old!"
Clara: (silent again for a moment) "So only Jewish people die?"

Wow, let's break down that logic:

Clara is only half-Jewish. I believe she found her loophole.

Carl Jung: "I have often been asked what I believe about death, that unproblematical ending of individual existence. Death is known to us simply as the end. ... But when one is alone and it is night and so dark and still that one hears nothing and sees nothing but the thoughts which add and subtract the years, and the long row of disagreeable facts which remorselessly indicate how far the hand of the clock has moved forward, and the slow, irresistible approach of the wall of darkness which will eventually engulf everything you love, possess, wish, strive, and hope for — then all our profundities about life slink off to some undiscoverable hiding place, and fear envelops the sleepless one like a smothering blanket."

photography class

2011-04-29T10:45:00.000-05:00

I took an intro to digital photography class at the Houston MFA School earlier this year.

It was taught by Fatima Haider, a very intense and interesting artist in residence at Glassell.

I really enjoyed the class, and I learned a lot more about photography than just how to use all the features on my camera.

Sadly, about halfway through the semester I had to drop the class. I couldn't find the time during the week to get 36 good photos taken.

Turns out that when you have three kids, one of whom is a baby, and no regular childcare, it is difficult to devote a block of time to artistic stuff.

Sad doesn't really capture how I felt when I dropped the class though. Kind of devastated is closer to the truth.

But I am going to try again in the fall, when if all things go according to plan, Ruby will be in preschool two days a week.

Then I will have some time of my own for photography.

I am still working on getting a room of my own, however.

me, trying to channel Virginia

Ruby's birth story, part 1

2011-04-28T20:10:00.000-05:00

My sweet Ruby is one year old, and I still haven't written down her birth story. It is just one of many, many things that I haven't had time for in the the last year.

Her due date was April 4, 2010. Easter sunday. Miles had been one day late, Clara 13 days late, but I had been hoping for an early baby this time. I was so uncomfortable - my hips hurt standing, sitting, and laying down. I felt like an eighty-year old woman every time I climbed the stairs. I was huge, and ready for my tenant to be born.

We had scheduled Brian's sister's trip for the week after my due date. "The midwives feel good about this due date," I told her. She had flown to Houston two years earlier for Clara's birth, walked up and down the galleria with me on my due date, and then flown back to New York without seeing her niece. Clara was born ten days later.

Lisa arrived in Houston on wednesday. I was three days overdue. "Please tell me we aren't going to do this again!" she said. I was feeling desperate, walking as much as possible (which wasn't very much). I had entered my end-of-pregnancy stage where I have been pregnant for so long that I truly no longer believe that birth will ever come. "I will be pregnant and miserable for the rest of my life," I kept saying.

Brian's mom arrived on thursday morning. Still no baby. That afternoon I updated my status on facebook: "researching castor oil." My cousin David commented: "wowee. Remember what it did in the Stand By Me pie eating contest."

I googled the shit out of it (that's a castor oil joke right there). Based on my research, there appear to be a good number of women who have tried castor oil to induce labor. However, there are far more women who are scared shitless (another castor oil joke!) by the stuff.

I knew I was ready for labor, and my pregnancy had been completely uneventful. It was my third birth, and I really felt like I just needed something to tip me over the edge and get labor started. I just might do this, I thought.

I started searching for castor-oil recipes. "Castor Oil tastes bad. For easier intake, it can be blended with several ingredients. Below are some of the best Castor Oil recipes." (And by "best" they mean "least likely to make you vomit.")

Castor Oil with Sprite: Mix 2 oz. (56 grams) of Castor Oil with Sprite. Drink immediately.

Castor Oil with Root Beer: Put 2 oz. of Castor Oil in 4-3 oz. of root beer. Place palm over the top of the glass and shake vigorously. Drink immediately.

Castor Oil Milkshake: Mix vanilla or chocolate ice cream, some milk and 2 oz. of Castor Oil in a blender. Ice cream emulsifies the oil and makes it easier to drink.

Orange Flavored Castor Oil Milk Shake: Mix ice cream, orange juice and 2 oz. of Castor Oil in a blender.

After much debate, I sent Brian to the store to buy supplies: castor oil, root beer, orange juice and vanilla ice cream.

To be continued...

An aside: did you know that Olive Oyl, Popeye's girlfriend, had an older brother named Castor Oyl? It's true.

Miles and Clara's birth stories can be found here and here.

easter pics

2011-04-27T13:22:00.004-05:00

Clara ate every piece of chocolate in her eggs before we had a chance to tell her she wasn't allowed to do that.
Why yes, that is my half-jewish son opening easter eggs in his christmas pajamas.
Ruby watched the hunt in her usual highchair pose.
Miles likes the opening more than the candy.
Miles's easter-egg pancake.
Clara's easter-egg pancake (she made one for Ruby too).
peep thief

the pastel colored egg of a virgin hen

2011-04-27T12:36:00.004-05:00

While we were in North Carolina, my nephew asked me about Easter. More specifically, what does Easter celebrate and how does the bunny fit in to the whole thing?

Now, my nephew is almost eleven. And he is a sweet, sincere boy who, rather than eat chametz during Passover, ordered a Caesar salad (hold the croutons) for breakfast when we went out to eat. He plays so gently with Ruby, it renews my hope in all male-kind. And yet I found myself explaining to this tender soul, in detail, the crucifixion and ascension of jesus. He listened to the story, and then paused. "But what about the rabbit?"

I had no answer for him. I made a mental note to google it later, and made up something about the egg on the seder plate being related to the eggs from the Easter bunny, and how much we all love spring. Kumbaya.

This morning I remembered to look into the matter. Here is what I found:

As it turns out, the Easter bunny has a long history as a pagan symbol that predates the Christian holiday. In fact, our sources suggest that early Christians purposefully co-opted the pagan hare to popularize their own holiday.

Quite a few pagan cultures hold celebrations in the spring. It's the time of year when plants return to life after being dormant all winter and when animals mate and procreate. These festivities celebrate the renewal of life and promote the fertility of crops, animals, and even people, which was important in these agrarian communities. The Saxons believed in a maiden goddess of fertility named Eastre or Eostre (Oestre in Latin) and honored her with a spring festival. Hares and rabbits were considered sacred to Eastre because they are notoriously fertile animals.

In the second century A.D., Christian missionaries tried to convert northern European tribes. To help make Christianity attractive, the missionaries turned pagan festivals into Christian holidays. The pagan Eastre festival occurred around the same time as the Christian celebration marking Christ's resurrection so the two celebrations blended into one, rabbit and all.

Over time, Eastre became Easter, and the symbolism changed as well. Instead of the Easter rabbit symbolizing fertility, the rabbit may symbolize an innocent, vulnerable creature that can be sacrificed, similar to the lamb. To Christians, these innocents are tokens of Christ and the sacrifice he made.

So, I guess what I should have told my nephew is that the easter bunny is all about getting rid of the sex.

Somehow I don't think his mother would have appreciated that, however. So instead maybe I will just go with this:

Ruby + passover

2011-04-24T22:59:00.001-05:00

baby's first matzo ball

baby's first bitter herbs

baby's first beach sand

our passover in north carolina rundown

2011-04-23T23:05:00.001-05:00

Number of seders: 2

Trips to the beach: 2
Kites flown: 1
Shells collected: 43,523

Children stuck in an elevator with a shopping cart and a defrosting chicken: 1
Times the pure-bred, ragdoll, inside-only cat was let out: at least 3
Children who cried at the seder table: 4
Trips to the toy store for afikomen presents: 1
Times I put half & half in the meat-dishes creamer: 1
Discussions about why there is a meat creamer: 1
Injured thumbs: 1
Calls to 911: 1
Times 96 year-old Gigi said "getting old sucks": at least 2
Easter-egg hunts in my mother-in-law's garden: 1

Amount of non-kosher-for-passover food eaten by my children: not insignificant
Caeser salads (hold the croutons) eaten for breakfast by my nephew: 2
Children who announced that they "really don't want to go home": 1
Number of Texans we saw wearing cowboy hats in the Wilmington airport: 1
Number of gate changes after 10pm for our connecting flight in Atlanta: 3
Cannolis waiting in our fridge thanks to our awesome neighbor/cat-sitter: 2

2011-04-14T20:47:00.002-05:00

Truth in Advertising
by Andrea Cohen

If we'd moved her,
she'd still have 'em,

the ad for Acme
Moving says, with a photo

of Venus de Milo.
But who, intact,

would Venus be?
Some standard-issue

ingénue. Give me
a woman who's lived

a little, who's wrapped
her arms around the ages

and come up lacking: that's
the stone that can move me.

no snow

2011-02-04T15:28:00.005-06:00

The weather forecasters were so disappointed.

But we did get ice.

running

2011-01-31T09:28:00.002-06:00

Twenty years ago
My friend Carolyn asks me to try out for the cross-country team with her. I say no at first - it will require a three-mile run. But she talks me into it. The run is painful. Everyone who shows up makes the team (they can't afford to turn people away; most high-school kids are not interested in long-distance running). I decide to keep going to practices, thinking maybe I will acquire one of those skinny-runner bodies.

Our school requires us to get a physical before participating in a sport. I go to my pediatrician's office and feel awkward and overgrown in the waiting room. He tells me to stop being a vegan, because runners need their B vitamins. He tells me I need some physical therapy to strengthen the spot where my quad muscles connect to my knee. He also tells me, "The great thing about long-distance running is that you will do it for the rest of your life."

Ten years ago
Brian and I are in law school. Our university-student apartments are two blocks apart, and in the winter it snows and is very cold. Brian likes to run in the mornings, so I get up and put on long underwear, running pants, a fleece pullover, a maroon ski jacket, a purple gator, a fleece hat, sunglasses, gloves, socks and running shoes. I run to his apartment and meet him. We run through the neighborhood, past our professors' houses (including Senator Obama's), past Louis Farrakhan's house, past Jesse Jackson's house. Sometimes we run over to campus, sometimes we run out to the lake. We are in love, and we run together. Then we go back to Brian's apartment, strip off all that cold-weather gear, and get warm together.

Yesterday
I woke up at five a.m. I put on my running clothes, drank some coffee, ate a banana and a grapefruit. I checked my waist belt (it is not a fanny pack) for my supplies: two gel packs, some gum, burt's bees lip balm, my ipod shuffle. I hear a car outside - Gaby is here. We drive downtown for the race. At the start line they are playing Black Eyed Peas on the loudspeaker. The sun is not quite up. We start to run. As we come to the top of the elysian viaduct, we look down and the road ahead is like a colorful river of moving bodies. We run, and run, and it is fun. The last two miles I am feeling tired, so I think about the kids, especially Ruby. I want her to be proud of me, to think, "I have a bad ass mom. She ran a half-marathon nine months after giving birth to me." Thinking about Ruby makes me run faster. According to the race website, over the final 3.8 miles sixteen runners passed me, but I passed 717 runners. As I cross the finish line, a volunteer hands me a medal and says "great job, Heather" (the racing bibs have our names on them, so the people lining the course can call out the runners' names and encourage them; I am reminded that just saying another person's name out loud matters).

"What then should you do? Run only if you must. If running is an imperative that comes from inside you and not from your doctor. Otherwise, heed the inner calling to your own play. Listen if you can to the person you were and are and can be. Then do what you do best and feel best at. Something you would do for nothing. Something that gives you security and self-acceptance and a feeling of completion; even moments when you are fused with your universe and your creator. When you find it, build your life around it."

-George Sheehan (from Running & Being)

setting an intention

2011-01-06T21:44:00.000-06:00

So it's 2011.

I can so clearly remember being a kid, sitting with my best friend Allyson, in her pink and green bedroom. "In the year 2000, we'll be twenty-six," she would say. We would pause then, for a moment, to let the momentousness of that age sink in. And now, well, twenty-six was a long time ago.

I took a look back at my resolutions from last year. I only had one: don't try so hard. And how did I do? Let's just say I tried really hard to not try so hard. Which sort of defeats the purpose. Oh well.

I spent some time thinking about what to resolve for 2011. I have always like the idea of picking an aspirational word at the beginning of the year, and I decided I wanted to choose a word that would be a lighthouse for me, reminding me of where I am going and what I need to avoid to reach my destination. And so I chose mindfulness.

And then I thought, ugh, that is boring, repetitive and cliched. So instead I picked silly. I checked the OED definition for silly, and apparently the word derives from the old english word seely, meaning happy, blissful, lucky or blessed. Perfect for both how I often feel, and how I want to feel more.

I guess choosing silly is kind of another way of saying don't try so hard. But since we have established that trying hard comes naturally to me, maybe it will be easier to try hard to be silly (rather than try hard not to try hard). Makes perfect sense. Let the crazy, dippy, dizzy, childish, featherbrained, flighty, frivolous, harebrained, imprudent, inappropriate, inconsistent, irresponsible, nonsensical, pointless, unzipped year begin!

happy new year

2011-01-02T00:08:00.001-06:00

Sitting quietly
Doing nothing
Spring comes
And the grass
Grows
By itself.

--Basho

I could spend all day searching "cats" on youtube

2010-11-28T10:30:00.003-06:00

lucky day

2010-11-27T21:42:00.003-06:00

This afternoon Brian let me go to the bookstore by myself. It was awesome. I so rarely go anywhere by myself these days.

There was a mom with two little kids shopping at the same time. She kept needing to reach in front of me and apologizing for it. But I didn't mind. She could have punched me in the back of the knee and I wouldn't have stopped smiling. Bookstore + alone = good.

She had a son named Miles too. I was going to mention mine, but then I heard her say to her daughter, "Don't read those books, they are for babies," and I decided not to.

On the way home I called Brian to see if we needed anything at the store. "No," he said, "our neighbor Stephanie is bringing us a veggie pot pie." He also mentioned that the kids had trashed the house and they were now on the way to the park.

I went home, and while I was cleaning up the chaos, the doorbell rang. It was Stephanie, with a hot veggie pot pie.

I knew when I pulled back the tinfoil that it was going to be good. The delicious smell, the color of the pie crust. But I didn't know until we ate it that it was going to be the best damn pot pie I have ever had.

As we were eating, Brian and I kept saying to each other, "Man, this is good." "Really good." "No, really really good."

Finally Miles said, "I get it, okay? That's enough."

"No, Miles, it isn't," Brian said. Then we explained to him that sometimes, with the best things, you just have to keep talking about it.

Yet another reason to be happy we moved to this street.

just like baby food

2010-11-22T10:16:00.003-06:00

Monday mornings Brian usually gets up with the kids, feeds them breakfast, makes lunches for the older two, and then drives them both to school - all while I sleep. Lucky me, eh?

The reason for this is that I usually have to stay up late Sunday night getting my art class homework done. My class is Monday nights, and the only time I regularly find to do the homework assignment is after the kids are in bed on Sunday night.

So I stay up late getting some time to myself and making some art, and Brian pays the price the next morning.

This morning he brought Ruby to me before he left to take the kids to school. She's tired, he said. So I nursed her and then put her in the crib for a nap. She may or may not have slept - I am not sure how much time passed because I fell back to sleep. But eventually she started fussing so I grabbed her and a small wooden box of baby toys that we keep in our room and put them both next to me on the bed.

I really wanted to go back to sleep.

Now, maybe a better mother than me would have thought to check the little wooden box of baby toys for cat barf before giving it to the baby. Maybe not.

Either way, I did not check.

You know where this is going, right?

Let us never speak of it again.

amen

2010-11-21T20:46:00.002-06:00

Year of the Shiner

2010-11-19T15:27:00.001-06:00

So about two months ago Miles fell down the stairs. I am not sure exactly what happened, but it involved standing backwards at the top of the stairs, and then walking with bent knees. Surprisingly, he fell and banged his head against the wall, down near the baseboard.

I was nursing Ruby in the rocking chair when he came into the room crying that silent cry that always triggers the most fear in me. I very abruptly dropped Ruby in the crib, and rushed downstairs to take a photo of his head with my phone and call the pediatrician.

About a week later, Miles pushed Clara and she knocked her head against the corner of the wall.

And then last night, while we were at the Louis C.K. show, Clara tripped over her tiger suitcase and hit the corner of the train table with her forehead.

Would you believe this wasn't the reason the babysitter called and said we needed to come home?

What the kids are playing with in Texas

2010-11-16T15:44:00.000-06:00

2010-11-15T11:32:00.000-06:00

Ruby at 7 months:

Miles at 7 months:

See a resemblance? Discuss.

In lieu of a baby book

2010-11-14T23:51:00.001-06:00

Ten things about Ruby:

1. In the last month she has grown her first two teeth, learned how to crawl and how to pull up to standing.

2. She loves to swing. I didn't know this until a month or so ago, when it occurred to me for the first time to stick her in one. Poor third child.

3. She is ridiculously easy to make smile.

4. She likes to pull hair.

5. She is not into hats.

6. She gets very serious when the cats are around, and watches their every move.

7. She is pretty easy to please: feed me, change me, nap me and never put me down.

8. Her eyes are inexplicably blue.

9. She is already big enough for some of Clara's old 12-month clothes.

10. She likes to just sit and watch Miles and Clara play. When they laugh, she smiles.

2010-11-13T22:40:00.003-06:00

I am frustrated tonight. I wish that it was easier to plan things like where to be for Thanksgiving. I have a hard time doing what I want to do. I am so easily swayed by what other people want from me. I think my little brother and I figured it out tonight though. I just want to have a nice day where I can be thankful and enjoy a good meal. And chances are, I won't get that if I go where other people want me to go. Sometimes listening to myself means disappointing others. I hate doing that.

Vague, I know. The details would only bore you.

I found this awesome photo of my mom that must have been taken when my brothers and I were around the same age as my kids. Hard to imagine.

Couldn't you tell?

2010-11-12T20:49:00.005-06:00

Miles's awesome collage art. That's a two-headed bad guy;
one head is a jellyfish and the other is a laser-shooting hand.
His buddy clock monster is down on the right, and at the bottom?
That's just a dead guy.

Do you mind if I lie down on your couch for a second?

2010-11-11T09:17:00.006-06:00

Yesterday I watched this short video of Brene Brown talking at TEDx in Houston.

I love Brene Brown. I first heard her talk at the Children's Museum when I was pregnant with Clara. The topic was The Gift of Imperfect Parenting, and I made so many notes in my moleskine that my wrist was sore the next day. Almost everything she said seemed crucially important to my task of parenting my children. And many times over the past few years I have heard her voice in my head, saying that what kids need most "is someone to sit with them in the dark."

In my house growing up, we didn't talk about things that bothered us. My mom does that thing that my aunt calls "pollyannize" everything. Whenever I was upset about something, she was all about the bright side, the silver lining, the certainty that Everything Is Fine. We are all Fine here.

Now that I have kids, I think I have a better understanding of why my mom is like this. Last time she was here for a visit, she took Ruby for a walk in the stroller. After a short while, I went out and sat on the porch, and I could hear them coming back up the street - because Ruby was crying. When they got to the house, I could see that my mom was very distressed about it. "I don't know what's wrong," she said. "Miles always let me take him for walks in the push chair (my mom is from England, where apparently strollers are called push chairs? My mom has lived in the U.S. for at least 40 years though, so I am irrationally irritated that she still calls them push chairs), and he didn't cry. But she is upset."

My mom didn't want to feel distress. I suspect she has spent her life beating back distress. So when someone around her experiences it, she does whatever she can to push it back in the closet: deny, diminish, pollyannize.

I think I learned from an early age to hide my darker emotions, because they were upsetting to my mom. But you can never really hide emotions. They always find a way out. And for years, mine came out in pretty unhealthy ways.

What was my point again? Right, vulnerability. Anyway, I think I learned from my mom not to show vulnerability because it was one of those distressing emotions for her. It makes you weak, open to attack, easy to wound. I think I reached adulthood with almost zero ability to be vulnerable.

But as Brene Brown so eloquently put it, "vulnerability is kind of the core of fear, and shame, and our struggle for worthiness. But it appears that it is also the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love."

I think that is what this blog is all about. Being vulnerable in order to find connection.

When I sat down to write this post, I spent a few minutes trying to think of times in the past when I have been vulnerable. And you know, I drew a complete blank. I think I am so uncomfortable with vulnerability that I have blocked all those moments from my mind.

But then I thought of one time that I felt great shame and vulnerability. I was fourteen (I bet at least half the stories of shame and vulnerability start with those words: "I was fourteen..."; what a rough age) and I had gone away for the weekend with a friend of mine and her parents. When I got home, my mom had "cleaned" my room for me.

Oh yeah. And it just gets worse from there.

As part of her cleaning, she had gathered up some troubling things and put them in a box in her room. She called me in there and confronted me with these items. First, my journal. Apparently it had "fallen open" while she was cleaning to a page where I had written about that time I told her I was going to the movies but instead cruised around with a friend and her older sister in the older sister's car. My mom was furious. I felt my self contract into a tiny ball inside my head.

Next she pulled out two ziploc bags of flour. In my ongoing teenage quest for the perfect body, I had read in a magazine that filling two ziploc bags with a pound of flour each and using them as weights was a good way to get toned, summer-ready upper arms. Apparently my mom thought they were drugs? My memory is a little cloudy on this, because it is hard for me now to think that she actually believed I had two pounds of cocaine in my closet. My worst previous offense had been bringing a wine cooler home from a Fourth-of-July party and hiding it in my filing cabinet to show my brother. But either way, she made me feel very ashamed for having two bags of flour in my closet.

And then the worst part of all: she pulled out a pair of underwear that were stained with menstrual blood. UGH, I am feeling my skin crawl just typing this. Apparently at some point my pad had leaked onto my underwear, and I wasn't sure what to do about that. I was probably embarrassed that one of my brothers would see it in the laundry, or just still uncomfortable with the whole idea of menstruation. So I stuck the underwear behind some books on a low shelf in my closet. Where they stayed, until my mom found them. She called me a slut, because I guess in England, it means dirty or slovenly? (See Wikipedia, "British author Helen Fielding used the word in her Bridget Jones series to refer to slovenly or dirty habits, in the original sense still occasionally used in England: 'Check plates and cutlery for tell-tale signs of sluttish washing up...'"). At this point, I was already so far down the shame hole that it almost didn't even register as another jab. I seem to remember that my little brother was hanging around for the whole conversation, and he maybe pointed out to my mom that she wasn't using that word quite the right way. But whatever word she used, I got the point. I was a dirty person who should be ashamed.

And oh boy, was I ashamed. Has my life spent trying to be perfect, to have a place for everything and everything in its place, been one long rebuttal to this conversation? Maybe.

Not until just now, writing this, did I fully realize the emotional weight of that memory.

Anyway! I really loved Brene's talk. One of my parenting goals is to try to never make my kids feel ashamed of themselves. Of who they are. And if/when they do, I will sit in the dark with them and talk about what a shitty feeling it is.

I love Brene's conclusion of her talk:

"This is what I have found. To let ourselves be seen. Deeply seen. Vulnerably seen. To love with our whole hearts, even though there is no guarantee...To practice gratitude and joy, in those moments of kind of terror, when we are wondering can I love you this much, can I believe in this this passionately, can I be this fierce about this, is to be able to stop and instead of catastrophizing what might happen, to say I am just so grateful, because to feel this vulnerable means I'm alive. And the last, which I think probably is the most important, is to believe that we're enough. Because when we work from a place, I believe, that says I'm enough, then we stop screaming and start listening, we are kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we are kinder and gentler to ourselves."

It's my job to laugh

2010-11-10T11:45:00.003-06:00

Knock knock jokes are huge around out house these days. Miles is a fan of the atch-who/sneeze, boo-who/crying, and who-who/owl jokes. He also made up his own knock-knock joke.

Miles: Knock-knock.
Me: Who's there?
Miles: Knock-knock.
Me: Knock-knock who?
Miles: I didn't say my joke yet!

Get it? Neither do I, but I laugh every time anyway.

Of course, Clara has come up with her own knock-knock joke as well.

Clara: Knock-knock.
Me: Who's there?
Clara: Mistupenduous.
Me: Mistupenduous who?
Clara: Mistupenduous Ruby! or Mistupenduous Shoe! or Mistupenduous Whatever-Object-Clara-Sees!

She is so pleased with herself, I have to laugh.

my top ten days (so far)

2010-11-09T19:30:00.000-06:00

1. The day I ran the marathon.

2. The day Brian and I met.

3. The day Brian and I had our first kiss.

4. The day Brian and I got married.

5. The day Miles was born.

6. The day Clara was born.

7. The day Ruby was born.

8. TBD

9. TBD

10. TBD

cheese

2010-11-08T22:47:00.002-06:00

I am so tired tonight that all I have to write about is being tired. Up late last night working on my art class homework. Went to bed at 2 a.m. Clara and Ruby woke up about thirty minutes later. Our nights are kind of shitty around here right now. We have to figure out Clara's napping situation (the fact that she isn't taking one, which means she will, without fail, wake up in the middle of the night screaming about birds and/or lizards in her bed). We need to decide which kids are sharing rooms and try to get Ruby out of our bathroom (I would love to brush my teeth before bed with the light on). And I need to figure out how to get my seventeen-year old cat to stop peeing on our bed next to my pillow (she needs some bladder protection).

Anyone else incensed about this article? On Sunday morning, Brian and I were sitting at the dining room table eating breakfast. I started reading that article, and then reading parts of it out loud to Brian, and then I kept mumbling "unbelievable" under my breath over and over.

"You should write a blog post about this," Brian said.

In our house, that is code for STOP TALKING.

But you know, even outrage can be defeated by exhaustion.

Good night.

those crazy catholics

2010-11-07T11:55:00.000-06:00

Last time I was at my parent's house I went through some boxes of old papers and artwork of mine that my mom kept. There was a lot to look through, and I pulled out a small stack to bring home with me.

There were a lot of the usual flowers under a blue sky and smiling sun.

Some had stickers that reflect what was going on in California in the seventies.

There were a lot that were drawn on old paper and files that my dad must have brought home from his office for us to color on.

And then, there were the Sorrowful Mysterys! (sic) What, you didn't draw these when you were a kid? Surely my catholic school wasn't the only one mixing art and religion.

The funny thing about this drawing is that I remember very clearly working hard on it, trying to get everything just right. I must have been about ten, and I remember the teacher having us fold our paper into quarters and give each mystery its own square.

You have the Agony in the Garden, in which I tried over and over to draw Jesus kneeling.

You have the Scourging at the Pillar, in which I carefully mixed colors to get just the right look to the open wounds on his back. Also, I spent a long time on his sandals.

The Crowning of Thorns. I think I spent a long time on his beard and hair.

Next comes the Carrying of the Cross. Always the optimist, I drew Jesus looking not entirely unhappy about this task.

And finally, the Crucifixion, in which Jesus is smiling but the flowers are bowing down in sadness.

The weirdest part is that I don't remember being shocked at all by these stories, just concerned with how I could most accurately draw them. Still, looks like I got an A.

2010-11-06T23:51:00.000-05:00

So it is your kid's birthday, and you think to yourself, "maybe I'll make her birthday cake this year?"

You know what? Don't bother, because we will never be able to compete with this:

Miles's very first friend Diego had his sixth-birthday party today, and his mom made this cake. By herself. At home. Without Martha Stewart.

After we sang happy birthday and Diego blew out his candle, Gaby carved the bird. He was delicious.

Since you are already feeling like a slacker-parent, I will go ahead and show a photo of the cake Gaby made last year:

It really erupted (of course).

You should probably just go to bed now and feel bad about yourself.

Yes, you're in the book

2010-11-05T20:15:00.006-05:00

After I posted yesterday about Karen's book (The Beauty of Different) she sent me an email, and told me that I am in the book. And after I read that, it occurred to me that my post left out the most important part of this whole thing.

Having my photo taken was something that happened one day, months ago, and lasted less than thirty minutes. It was an important thing for me for several reasons (I hate having my photo taken, I am afraid to meet the bloggers I love to read, I had to jump way out of my comfort zone). But the book - the book will be around forever.

And the fact that I can show my children this book that epitomizes the way I want them to see the world, and then open it and show them that my photo is keeping company with so many beautiful faces, it sort of takes my breath away.

Whenever my kids complain about the way they look - that their hair is too curly, that they aren't measuring up to that mainstream idea of beauty - I can just spend some time reading the book with them. "Remember, your differences are what make you beautiful," I will say.

And I hope the fact that I am in the book will make them believe it. I think it will. And that is a beautiful thing.

Katherine Center* made a video for the 2010 Texas Conference for Women†, and she used Karen's photos. Look for me around 1:35.‡

*When I met Katherine at her book reading, I told her that I was in her video. She said, "You know, I was looking at you and thinking you looked so familiar and that maybe you had been a Clinique model." Definitely the first time someone was thinking maybe I had been a model, and now that I think about it, kind of ironic given yesterday's post.

†I find it weird that the conference is "hosted by Governor Rick Perry and First Lady Anita Perry."

‡This footnote is just here so I can use the double dagger.

The Beauty of Different

2010-11-04T21:08:00.005-05:00

When I was ten years old, my mom took me to one of those open casting calls for child models. I remember her picking out my outfit (a plaid skirt, pink sweater with little pearl beads on it, white knee socks), and she curled the ends of my long hair. I didn't want to go, but I didn't protest.

I was a cute kid, in the way that all kids are cute. We lived in a small-ish town, and a few times I had my photo in the newspaper. They needed a kid, someone knew my mom and asked if they could use me. I think it made my mom feel good. She was proud that she had a cute daughter, and I think she didn't want that feeling to end. Enter this casting call.

Of course, nothing happened. They took my photo, thanked us for coming, and we left. I was a perfectly cute, perfectly ordinary kid. Good enough, but not model material.

Only in hindsight can I look back and understand that what I felt afterwards was my mom's disappointment. I imagine that day and I can feel it, a heaviness on my chest. Like many kids, I was hyper-attuned to my mother's feelings. My purpose in life was to be what she wanted me to be. But, I was realizing, I wasn't always good enough for her.

Was that the start of me hating to have my picture taken? Maybe. It's funny, because when I am getting ready to go somewhere, brushing my hair in front of the mirror or standing back for one last look before I leave, I like what I see. Between myself and me, I am happy with how I look.

But if you take my photo and show it to me, all I see are the flaws. I think to myself, is that how I really look? It doesn't match with my idea in my head of what I look like. I vow to take a better photo next time. Or better yet, be the one taking the photos so I can always be on the other side of the lens, where I feel safe and in control.

My current camera (a Canon rebel) was a Christmas present from Brian in 2005. Since then, I have taken tens of thousands of photos. But I am in very few of them. And I like it that way, safe and in control.

Then this past January, one of my favorite bloggers (whom I have been reading since back in the beginning, which means 2005), posted this on her blog. She also posted a tweet calling for volunteers. When I read it, I thought to myself: I should do this. And then amazingly, I did. I sent Karen this tweet:

@Chookooloonks I generally hate having my photo taken. So that means I should offer to do it, right? Just let me know (I am in Houston).

And she responded, and then next thing I knew I had a release form in my email inbox and a time to show up at the Cullen sculpture garden. I was so nervous the day of the photo shoot. It is strange, meeting someone whose words you have read for a long time.

But Karen was great, and I was so comfortable. I think maybe that is the key to being a good portrait photographer. You need technical skills of course, but the really good ones have a special skill at making people feel comfortable.

Now, who knows if my photo will actually make it into the book. I secretly hope it will. But no matter. I got to meet Karen, and I got two lovely photos of myself.

Of course, I still see the flaws when I look at them. Among other things, I think my face looks very round. I was seven months pregnant when these were taken, and it shows. But if I blink very fast (seriously, this is a trick I do when I look at photos of myself) I can see myself the way I imagine Brian does. Through that filter of loving. And I look beautiful.

Whether I end up in the book or not, you should buy a copy. Support a local Houston author/artist. Feel more beautiful.

The Beauty of Different is available from Bright Sky Press and Amazon.

2010-11-03T23:31:00.006-05:00

I need to write my blog posts in the morning when my brain is (at least partially) functioning. Problem is, I don't usually have a chance to sit down at the computer until after the kids are in bed. And by that time my brian is mushy, like the uneaten banana that spent the whole day in Miles's lunchbox, only to return home undiscovered until the next morning. Eew.

So once again I am going to throw some photos out there in order to meet my daily duty.

Clara loves my iphone. She mostly uses it to watch Diego and Dora, but she also uses the camera. And when I go back and look at what she has captured, I am always kind of delighted and kind of amazed. Look at this beauty:

Of course, she always comes back to her first theme: feet.

Hmm. I wear those flip-flops a lot.

Voting in a red state

2010-11-02T23:44:00.000-05:00

I voted today in an old community center gym. There were five polling booths, and at least that many bored looking election officials. I had all three kids with me, and while I stood there pushing buttons I was holding Ruby, Clara was circling my legs and Miles was driving a toy car on my back. What hardships I had to endure to exercise my rights!

Still, doesn't look like it did much good. Voting blue in a red state requires a certain amount of indefatigability. I saw this bumper sticker afterwards:

Another clever republican.

I always feel a certain pride right after I vote, in part because it is one of those rare moments when I feel directly connected to the past, like Emmeline Pankhurst is up there watching me cast my vote, surrounded by my children, in an old gym.

NaBloPoMo

2010-11-01T23:59:00.002-05:00

It's that time of year again. A quick review of my archives shows that I did NaBloPoMo in 2006, 2008 and 2009.

But I didn't have three kids then.

Still, it must be true that I have something to write about every day in November, right?

Here is a photo of the kids yesterday to kick things off:

I have no idea what they are doing with their hands in the air. Here is a closer look at our little flower:

Until tomorrow...

dust, blowing it off

2010-10-20T22:55:00.004-05:00

I just discovered the photo booth app on my mac, and I am kind of addicted to it. At night, when I am poking around the internet, I find myself clicking it open just to see how I look.

In case you were wondering, my computer face isn't my best. I kind of frown a little, my posture is unimpressive, and I do something with my neck that makes me look like I have a double chin.

After sitting up straight and fixing that chin thing, I start changing my hair around. Let it down. Put it up in a bun. Ponytail out of the top of my head. How would I look with heavy bangs? Glasses on, glasses off. Fifteen different smiles. And this is all before I take a single photo.

I like taking the photos. But it the sitting here at my computer watching my digital self that keeps pulling me back. It's strange.

Brian and I were talking the other day about looks and attractiveness, and this question came up: is it better to have a sense of yourself as attractive no matter what, or to not care whether you are attractive or not?

In other words, should we aspire to always see ourselves as beautiful despite our wrinkles and dirty hair and out-of-control eyebrows and disheveled clothes? Or should we try to disengage from the whole issue, forget about looking good and just focus on who we are?

I guess the question deserves parsing out attractiveness versus beauty. Definitely two different things.

Either way, I think I would make a cool comic book hero.

This is one of the photos of myself that I like. For every one I like, there are thirty I don't.

Oh, and the answer to how I would look with heavy bangs is Not Good.

how did we get here?

2010-09-30T21:05:00.000-05:00

I am not sure exactly when it started with Miles. It seems like it has been building for some time.

Asking me "what's church?" and "what do people do there?" Or after disagreeing with his friend, opening the back door and yelling out to the sky, "GOD, PLEASE MAKE [FRIEND'S NAME] AND ME TWINS SO WE CAN BE FRIENDS AGAIN." Or when I am struggling to explain what "do the right thing" means, asking, "Does it mean doing what god wants you to do?"

The kid is curious about god. And I find myself saying things like, "well some people believe that god lives in the sky and loves you and takes care of you." But that isn't good enough for Miles. "What do you believe, mama?"

This situation is not unlike being a vegetarian parent. At some point you have to decide what the default is for your kids: will they be vegetarians or meat-eaters until they are old enough to decide for themselves? We chose the former. They will eat like I do until they choose otherwise.

But when it comes to religion, it feels more complicated. What do a lapsed-catholic atheist and a non-observant jewish agnostic do in this situation? How do you explain non-belief to a five-year old?

Turns out, you don't. Instead you send them to hebrew school.

This is Miles all dressed up for his consecration, which is a ceremony thing to mark the start of a kid's jewish education. He got up on the bimah (or what I would call the altar), sang a couple songs with a bunch of kids, and got blessed by the rabbi. It was cute.

Here he is after the songs, wearing Ruby's blanket as a cape.

I really never thought I would send my kids through any kind of religious education. But with Miles, I am starting to appreciate the way religion (and the stories especially) help kids make sense of the world. Plus, it will be nice for him to have more context for the jewish holidays we celebrate, especially Passover.

Before the service began, we were hanging out in the chapel waiting for all the kids to arrive. After a few minutes, I looked up and there was Monica Pope. And since I live in my own world where, apparently, I think people can't hear my voice, I said out loud, "There's Monica Pope!"

Of course she turned and gave me that smile that all celebrity stalkers must get. She and her daughter went and sat a few rows ahead of us, until her daughter saw me pull out my iphone for Clara. Then her daughter asked for Monica's iphone, and then she came back to where we were sitting to show us the apps her mom has. At that point Monica moved back to sit in the row in front of us, and I proceeded to have a thoroughly enjoyable conversation with her about cooking and Top Chef and other things. I told her Ruby's first visit to a restaurant was to T'afia at six weeks old. She told me that when people ask her what being on Top Chef was like, she always says "like the Hurt Locker." However cool you thought Monica Pope was, I can assure you she is that much cooler. I love when you like the person as much as the person's work.

So that was my Wednesday night. What about you?

curly

2010-09-23T09:08:00.003-05:00

Miles was supposed to have soccer practice on Tuesday night, but it was cancelled due to rain. Of course, I didn't know this until after I had loaded up the car with kids and snacks and a picnic blanket and fifteen chew toys for Ruby and driven over to the field, only to find an empty parking lot, tumbleweeds rolling by.

We switched Clara to a toddler bed a couple of weeks ago (she calls it her Special Bed) and she hasn't really napped since. She sits in her room and reads books for an hour instead, which is fine, except that she is falling asleep at 6:30 now.

Now that I think about it, why am writing "which is fine, except that she is falling asleep at 6:30 now"? I should be writing "which is AWESOME because now she is falling asleep at 6:30 now!"

So of course on Tuesday she fell asleep in the car on the way home from Miles's non-practice. Ruby was asleep not long after, and Brian had a "board meeting"* and he wasn't home for dinner. So Miles and I had a lovely dinner together, just the two of us, wherein I convinced him to eat raw spinach by allowing him to dip it in melted butter.

About halfway through dinner, Miles said to me, "I wish I didn't have curly hair."

Shit. He is five years old. Are we there already? That place where he starts to analyze his body and find it lacking? Apparently so. I asked him why he wished that.

"Because when I dress up as a superhero, I don't look cool. All the superheroes have straight, flat hair like [friend's name]."

Is that true? I tried to think of a curly-haired superhero. Nothing. I wanted to tell him that his hair is beautiful, that everyone comments on his hair all the time because it is lovely, that women spend a lot of money to get their hair curly like his. But instead I remembered the talk that Brene Brown gave at the Children's museum a few years ago, where she talked about shame and parenting, and she said what kids need is just someone to sit with them in the dark. So that is what I tried to do.

"When I was in high school I hated my nose," I told him. He was very surprised. "Look at me from the side," I said. "My nose has a bump. And I hated it."

Seemed like the right thing to say, because he wanted to talk all about it. I told him how now I like my nose, because a few years ago I realized that it is the same exact nose as my grandma's, and it connects me to her. And I told him that his curly hair connects him to his daddy.

And then I gave him a haircut, because he asked.

When Brian got home, I told him about the conversation Miles and I had had about hair, and how he noticed that there are not curly-haired superheroes. I think we both felt the weight of Miles's growing up.

Just before I went to sleep, Brian came upstairs. "I've got it!" he said. "Remember the Greatest American Hero?!"

Such a good dad.

*He is on the board of a charity for a very good cause, Fragile X syndrome. But the board meeting was with his buddy and his buddy's friend, and it took place over dinner at Americas. I think that calls for quotes, no?

2010-08-27T22:19:00.005-05:00

Once again we escaped the August heat with a trip to Maine.

It was lovely.

Just like my baby.

change

2010-08-06T13:28:00.004-05:00

The stars have aligned and both girls are napping at the same time this afternoon. (long exhale.)

We moved two weeks ago and I feel like I just climbed out of a tasmanian devil's maw. I have bruises in weird places from wrestling with all the boxes, and just like last year, I am amazed at the amount of crap Brian and I have managed to accumulate. Mostly I blame the kids. They have a ton of shit.

We have now lived in three houses, all within 1/2 mile of each other, in a little over a year and a half. Strange because we had been in the first house for six years before deciding to become a nomadic gypsy family. It's nice though. No property taxes.

I cannot overstate how happy I am with the new house. Not that it is a perfect house:

1. Washer and dryer are in the unattached garage. The horror of schlepping laundry down the stairs and out into the hundred degree heat! (could be worse, we could be hanging at the laundromat, which, come to think of it, why isn't it called a laundERomat? and in fact, last week the dryer was broken for four days and no washer/dryer definitely sucks more);

2. The master bathroom has two parts, the first room has the sink and vanity and is carpeted (who does that?) and the second tiny room has the toilet and shower/bath. The bathtub is old school and is straight up and down at the end, the end that I like to recline against whilst bathing before bed. So I am uncomfortable. Or at least not as comfortable as I have been in the last two master bathtubs. (Are these seriously my problems? I am an ass to even open my mouth. Could be worse - no master bath would mean showering with all The Plastic Bathtub Crap my kids play with whilst they bathe.);

3. A pantry the size of, well, an average closet. No room for that costco purchase of a case of cheetos. (When I buy junk food, I don't screw around.) And again, could be worse. I could be limited to just the kitchen cabinets. (But then where would we put our beloved collection of sippy cups with missing tops? Glad we boxed those up and moved them to the new house!);

4. Carpet upstairs. But the silver lining of this one is the quiet. No more constantly shushing Miles at naptime like we had to do when we lived in the last house (built by Stick and Straw Pig Co. Inc.).

I am so glad we moved! It was totally worth it. Just look how optimistic I am about the things I don't like here.

Baby's awake. Break time is over.

in lieu of a baby book

2010-07-20T22:10:00.000-05:00

Ten things about Clara:

1. When she was having trouble doing something, she used to say "I don't can do it."

2. She adds syllables to words (blank-a-let, mash-ed potatoes).

3. She calls balloons "bla-bloons."

4. She calls the television remote "the boat." Miles corrects her. "It's called a MEROTE, Clara!" (I will be sad when they both figure out what it is really called.)

5. To Clara, anything in the future is going to happen "in a little bit while."

6. She puts spoonfuls of her dinner in her water cup and then eats it like soup. It's pretty disgusting.

7. When I tell her she can't play my iphone right now she says, "But I need to." No. "But I just want to." No. "But I just really want to." Okay, fine.

8. A week after we made the frittata, she is still signing "Oh, Frittata," the song we made up about the frittata.

9. Last night she woke up in the middle of the night. After Brian had unsuccessfully tried to rock her back to sleep, I went in and sat with her. I told her, "It's night time, and everyone is sleeping. Miles is sleeping. Baby Ruby is sleeping. Daddy is sleeping." No, she said, Daddy's not sleeping. "He's just eating his soup."

10. She calls lollipops "pop pops."

11. When I point the camera at her and say smile, she makes this face:

12. She loves her sister:

13. And she loves to take pics of her feet with my iphone:

Did I say ten things? I really could go on and on about this kid...

Damn cat.

2010-07-05T23:04:00.003-05:00

On Friday night, Ruby was crying a little bit when I put her down in the bassinet to go to sleep. But I could tell that she was tired and would fall asleep quickly, so I went downstairs. We had the monitor on, and I could hear her fidgeting and letting out little sleep-protests.

And then, next thing I knew, she was crying again. Loudly. Brian and just sat there for a minute or two. "Wierd," I said. "She was so close to sleep and now she is crying again." I wonder why?

After a few minutes Brian sighed, pushed back from the table, and went upstairs. Then over the monitor I heard, "If you can hear me come upstairs. I need you to look at something."

And god damn if the god damn cat didn't scratch the shit out of my poor baby's face. I suspect he jumped in the bassinet to cuddle, and then she started fidgeting and he decided that was an invitation to rumble.

Poor thing. Here she is yesterday, when it was looking much better.

The smaller scratches are mostly gone, and there are a few under her hair too.

Damn cat.

sunday morning

2010-06-29T23:32:00.002-05:00

oops

2010-06-29T15:07:00.004-05:00

I did it again. My poor husband. Just when things were settling down - pregnancy is over, baby is almost three-months old and sleeping well, we know where Miles is going to kindergarten, lease for new office space is signed - I have cooked up another chaos-creating plan.

We are, maybe, moving. Our lease on this house was up at the end of May, and we were thinking it just made sense to stay another year because moving sucks (and then maybe next year we will be ready to buy again). But last week I just happened to be looking at har.com. And there was this house that caught my eye (mostly it was the screened-in back porch that did it). And I just had a feeling that we should go look at it. So I made an appointment, we saw the house, and that was it. I was ready to move. Oh, and I told the realtor our move-in date was July 1st.

I can't really admit to myself how much I dislike the house we are living in now. I still have to live here. It was all we could find in our neighborhood in the two minutes between when our house sold and we had to move, so I was okay with living here. Plus it was brand new when we moved in, and I have never lived in a brand-new house before. But it is, essentially, a town house. If I reach out my arms I can almost touch our wall and the wall of the yellow house next door. I hate that. Plus it has none of that 1920's bungalow charm that we loved in our old house. I am sorry, but putting in a cliched art niche at the top of the stairs does not create charm.

Brian, however, is not as into the idea of moving. He likes the house, but we approach things like this differently. He looks at it and says, "no way to eat that elephant. Too big." I look at it and start making lists and drawing maps and charting charts and excitedly chanting, "bite by bite! Bite by bite!

Change is so perplexing to me. I long for it when things are quiet, and resent it when things are chaotic.

I really, really love the idea of moving to this house. It isn't my dream house, and I don't know that I would want to buy it, but I really want to rent it.

why houston zoo? why?

2010-06-25T14:22:00.003-05:00

I took the kids for ice cream at the zoo on Monday. Clara and Miles both enjoyed it, especially Miles, who loves ice cream so much he was compelled to do this (of course):

We also saw the dinosaur exhibit, which Miles loved and Clara hated. On our way to the exhibit, we passed by this new addition: zoo tube!

Now you can see the zoo animals on television. While you are at the zoo. Where you can see the actual live animals. But why bother? In fact, why leave your couch? You can see it all from there just as well.

our house, our dog

2010-06-23T10:50:00.008-05:00

I was driving Miles and his friend to camp this morning when the subject of backyards came up. "I have a backyard but it is covered in Chester poop," said Miles's buddy. "We have a backyard too," said Miles, "and over in one corner there is Holly poop."

No, I said, there is no Holly poop in this backyard. We had Holly in the old house, remember?

"I remember your old house. Do you miss it?" his friend asked.

I said I did.

And then Miles said he missed it too. "But remember mama, we sprinkled that sparkly stuff all over the backyard and said 'we love you house' and then when we got to the new house, there was sparkly stuff in the driveway so we were happy?"

I said I did.

I didn't remind him that the "sparkly stuff" we sprinkled all over the backyard was Holly. Her ashes. We had her cremated (because that is what you do when you love your dog like we did and can afford to), and it didn't seem right to take her away from her house, her yard. That was where she lived and we wanted her to stay there forever, basking in the hot afternoon sun, like she did everyday she was alive.

I know we have made good decisions all along the way, but sometimes I drive by the old house and still wish it was mine. And I wish that Holly was there in the backyard, stretched out on the deck, napping in the sun.

Ruby

2010-06-21T10:38:00.006-05:00

My baby is ten weeks old. I can't believe how fast things are going this time. I am certain it has something to do with the fact that I have very few opportunities to just sit with her, and stare into her eyes and try to coax out smiles. I could be doing that right now - Miles is at camp and Clara has school this morning. But instead I am going to try to write down at least some of her birth story, because otherwise it isn't going to happen. And I want to limit the number of times in the future I have to say to her "Well, darlin, I just didn't have the time..."

Right now she is sitting next to me in her bouncer, in one of those calm but alert moods. When I look down at her, she kicks her legs. And now she pooped. Loudly.

I love how time sort of slows down when you rock a baby.

But back to the birth story. Unlike with Miles and Clara, I am not sure exactly where to pinpoint the start of Ruby's.

To be continued (I hope).

sometimes

2010-06-17T23:57:00.009-05:00

There are some bloggers out there that only look on the bright side. They take a day caring for small children, with all its stickiness and smelliness and lost tempers and tears, and they always find little treasures underneath it all. A moment together in the rocking chair before nap. A little one helping mash the potatoes for dinner. A sense of life's purpose while nursing the baby. And motherhood looks lovely through their words. And I love reading them. And sometimes I wish that was the way I blog. But it's not. I complain.

Lately I feel a little lost. A bit adrift in motherhood. (What is the right metaphor for motherhood? Sometimes maybe an ocean. Other times more some kind of ancient mayan god at whose feet I have laid my thirties. Other times, maybe a club, but not a chess-club type club, more like that movie League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a League of Extraordinary Women).

By necessity, I am mothering from the moment I wake up until I fall asleep reading the New Yorker at night. And even in sleep, I am still at it: the baby sleeps pressed up against my side, curled into me. Throughout the day, my body is in almost constant contact with my children's small bodies. I hold, carry, wipe, dress, undress, feed, water, lift, lower, buckle, unbuckle, nurse, rock, bounce, and kiss them.

And while the baby can only cry, the older two talk from the moment they wake until their heavy eyelids close at night. So while my body is busy caring for their bodies, my brain is filled with the endless stream of words coming from Miles and Clara. It is difficult to find any quiet space for my own thoughts.

Today, after I put Clara down for her nap, I sat with Ruby and watched Work of Art. The challenge: "For their second challenge, the artists are taken to an appliance graveyard filled with televisions, toaster ovens, and an array of broken electronics. Using the trash heap as their canvas, the artists are charged with transforming one man’s trash into another man’s piece of art."

I love this show. Watching the artists sorting through the old, broken junk, I was feeling jealous. I wanted to be there, doing what they were doing. I love Project Runway, but I haven't ever felt the desire to be in the room designing a dress with them. I like Top Chef, but I don't want to have to come up with a dish based on some weird combo of ingredients. But man, did I want to be in there making some art out of found objects with those people.

There is no time for making art out of broken electronics with a newborn and a two-year old and a five-year old. And mostly I am okay with that. But sometimes, sometimes I'm not.

(An aside: I am really fond of that kid Miles. He shares a name with my son, has OCD, and that puppy-like cute face - I just want to bring him home, share my paxil and make him a cup of hot chocolate. I know he talks too much about his OCD, but I also know that while OCD looks like an affliction from the outside, it feels like your best-friend who keeps you safe. By making you live in a cage. But still, safe.)

Tonight I went to a Katherine Center book signing. It was organized by Viula, one of our neighborhood's best assets. Katherine spoke about her books and her life and her writing process. And listening to her talk, I felt something similar to what I felt when I watched the tv show earlier. A little more alive. A momentary connection with that desire inside to create, to make something, to wade out into the mystery.

There is a hum coming off people who are living their most authentic life. And being around them, it is a bit like having a glass of champagne. A small delight that makes everything around me seem a little brighter, more fun, and more alive.

I tell myself at least once a day that there will be time later for all the things I want to do. The books I want to read. The blog posts I want to write. The photos I want to take. The art I want to make. The recipes I want to cook. The clothes I want to sew. The plans...I have so many plans for my future time. And sometimes I really long for that time. When my days are so full of action that there is no room for introspection.

I feel disconnected from my creative self. You just had a baby, I tell myself. That is the most creative act of all. Just be for now, and care for your children.

I guess what it all comes down to is I want a room of my own. And right now, that just isn't possible.

(photos from the Art Car parade)

2010-06-14T14:16:00.000-05:00

Newborn + 2 yr old + 5 yr old = no time for blogging apparently

Here is a picture at least.

My first girl

2010-06-10T10:53:00.004-05:00

When Clara was six weeks old, we went to a wedding in New Jersey. It was in Red Bank, which is a charming place. (New Jersey does have some charming places.) It is also a couple of hours away from Brian's hometown. We decided to spend the night at the reception-hotel and drive back the next day.

To save some money, the bride and groom had decided not to invite kids to the wedding. So we left Miles with Brian's dad and aunt for the night. But Clara was a newborn, nursing all the time, and I wasn't ready to be away from her. So she came with us. She spent most of the evening sleeping in my moby wrap, even with the band playing (as usual) way too loud.

I was just getting used to the idea of having a daughter. We didn't know whether we were having a boy or girl ahead of time, but I thought it was another boy. And so did all the old ladies who stopped me in the grocery store. "That baby is all out in front, and up high. Definitely a boy," they said.

I remember that moment when she was finally (finally!) out and the midwife laid her on my stomach. I opened my eyes. "It's a girl!" I cried. I think Brian and I were both surprised. We were so used to Miles, and didn't quite believe we could get anything but another one like him.

Over the first few weeks of Clara's life, I thought a lot about what it meant to me to have a daughter. It is different than a son. With Miles, our relationship is simple: we adore each other. There are a lot of things I want to teach him, but I am not his primary role model - Brian is the one who will teach him about being a man in the world. I think there is a certain sweetness in the simplicity of parenting a child of the opposite sex. You can relax a little and just enjoy each other.

And then I had a daughter. And I kept thinking, how am I going to teach her how to be a woman when I am still just figuring that out? I don't have the answers yet. Am I even fit for this job? How am I going to make sure she doesn't act like she can't answer the problem in Algebra, because she doesn't want to look like a dorky smart girl, because the boy she likes doesn't pay attention to dorky smart girls? How am I going to ensure she loves her body and doesn't get an eating disorder, when I struggled with this so much as a teenager? Do I tell her I had an eating disorder for ten years? Do I force myself to wear a swimsuit in public every chance I get so that she sees what you do is always more important than how you look while doing it? How do I hep her navigate that tricky path from girlhood to womanhood, when it was such long and tortuous journey for me?

So that night at the wedding reception, I had all this percolating in the back of my brain. I was seated next to some friends of the groom. The groom was an old high-school friend of Brian's, and he has lived an interesting life. Peace corps in Nepal, instructor at wilderness camps for troubled boys, teacher. I can't remember from which point in his life he knew the couple sitting next to me, but the woman was lovely. She asked me lots of questions about being a mother, and wanted to know all about my kids. Eventually I mentioned that we had thought Clara was going to be a boy, and now that I knew I had a daughter I was a bit freaked out about it.

She reacted immediately. "Oh no, that isn't how you should think about this at all!" People always think about the hard parts of being a girl, she said. But the difficulties of high school are so minor compared to the amazing power of women. "We get to give birth to the children. We get to have our emotions without society telling us to be tough and make them go away. We get to nurture and love people, and help them grow. Being a woman is such a privilege."

Her words went in my ear and right down into my heart. They were little seeds that took soft landing and buried in deep. I thanked her, more than once. She was right and I knew it. I don't remember her name, and I can't even remember what she looked like. But her words, they have stayed with me.

Such power we have to influence other people! I think about that night a lot. It changed completely how I think about being the mother of daughters. And I am so grateful to her, especially now that I have two girls. I wonder if I have ever unknowingly had an interaction with someone that changed the way they see the world.

And now my first girl is two years old. And being her parent feels like such a privilege. And I am not so worried about being her tour guide through adolescence. It isn't a set path that I need to lead her down. Her journey will be her own. Mostly my plan is to try to just talk a lot, about everything, on the theory that all difficult things are easier and less scary in the light. And if it all goes well, she will get to give birth to children, have her emotions without society telling her to be tough and make them go away, and nurture and love people, and help them grow.

Happy birthday baby girl!

(Party dress from here. My mom's childhood friend's daughter makes them.)

I'm off to buy a sparkly shirt now

2010-05-24T20:29:00.004-05:00

Miles had his graduation from pre-K last week (yes, you read that right) and they had a ceremony where each kid said their name and what they want to be when they grow up. Two little girls said "waitress" (apparently inspired by the Princess and the Frog). Miles's choice? Paleontologist. The kid rocks. (Ha!)

Of course, shortly thereafter I remembered that I had dropped the ball and failed to sign him up for paleontology camp the same week that his buddy is going. And now there is a waitlist for that week, so he has to go the next week. I broke the news to him that he wouldn't be going with his friend, and he frowned. "There will be other kids there though. Kids who like dinosaurs like you, " I said.

He thought about that. 'Maybe a girl named Charlotte McCraven?" he asked. Huh? I asked if that was a character from a book or something like that. "No, I just made it up." Sort of freaked me out with the specificity of the name is all I'm saying.

Later in the car, listening to the CD I made of songs with the word "miles" in them, he told me, "I love songs about me. And I love girls wearing sparkly shirts. Mama, if you would just wear sparkly shirts I would super-love you." Oh-kay then.

And later still: "Let's pretend we're married, mama. And we have six kids, all girls, Their names are 1. Maya, 2. Ella, 3. Asa, 4. Nisa, 5. Amela, 6. Masamana." I can remember all six of those named because he asked me to write them down.

Weird stuff comes out of five-year olds.

It's a girl!

2010-04-13T15:35:00.001-05:00

Her name is Ruby, and she was born 6 days late. 8lbs 9oz.

39 weeks 2 days

2010-03-30T22:03:00.002-05:00

Still pregnant.

Sometimes feeling excited about labor. Sometimes feeling nervous. Always feeling uncomfortable.

I was playing some kids music for Clara this morning. After a couple of songs she said, "No Mama, no BINGO. Boom Boom Pow." Huh? "I want Boom Boom Pow." All credit and blame goes to Brian for that one.

What are the chances that the baby is born on April 1st? I can't decide if that is an awesome birthday or a bummer birthday. Any thoughts?

37 weeks

2010-03-14T16:27:00.007-05:00

I don't have much to say. Well, that's not entirely true. I have a lot to say, but it all involves only one topic: my discomfort.

I have a full-term infant inside my belly, and I can't find a way to get comfortable. Standing is out, sitting compresses everything, lying down relieves some parts but aggravates others. I wake up in the morning tired, my feet already sore, my hips protesting all movement. I go to bed tired, my feet still sore, my hips still mad about their human tenant.

I went to the see the midwife last week (I am now making the weekly trek) and she asked how everything was going. "The usual," I told her, "I'm tired. And sometimes, in the evening, I have been having these shooting pains in my vagina."

"Shooting pains in your vagina? Third baby. Perfectly normal." Apparently with the third, I am more aware of what it feels like when a baby repeatedly head butts your cervix. And my body is more likely to play along with the head banging and get the nerves involved. So, shooting pain, perfectly normal.

*****

It's rodeo time in Houston, so we decided to take the kids to the carnival and the Livestock show.

It was really crowded, so we kind of blew through the exhibits. The line for my favorite part, the newborn cows and pigs, was a mile long so we skipped it. I didn't really mind because, by that point, we had been walking for maybe an hour and I knew that I didn't have much more in me. A lot of the cows had already been sold, but the pigs were up next so there were a lot to look at. Mostly all of them sleeping.

These two love each other.
I managed to get a photo of my favorite thing: my kids holding hands. Usually when I ask Miles to hold Clara's hand it is because we are in a parking lot or somewhere like that. He takes the job very seriously, and his voice gets high-pitched as he says things like "Okay Clara, we are going to hold hands now" and "Follow me this way sweetie."

This photo, on the other hand, was taken right before he threw her hand down in disgust, saying "I am NOT holding her hand anymore. Every time I stop walking, she keeps going." So outrageous.

It is mandatory that one eat disgusting food while at the rodeo (see, e.g., the number of people walking around with various kinds of meat on a stick). Usually I play it safe with a funnel cake, but this year we stopped at the "Sweet Cheeks" booth for some friend oreos.

Here they are, in all their glory. I would have to describe them as an oreo-filled donut. Very sweet, very good. Very rodeo.

Now I want cookies.

2010-03-01T14:03:00.002-06:00

It is indisputable.

I am raising a Texan.

Miles dressed for school on Go Texan day.

2010-02-10T16:11:00.000-06:00

Since Valentine's day is on Sunday this year, Miles's class is going to exchange valentines on Friday. The teachers asked the parents to make sure and deliver enough valentines for the whole class by WEDNESDAY MORNING (the caps were in the email). So Tuesday night, while the kids were sitting at the table coloring before dinner, I got out the box of batman valentine cards and told Miles he needed to write his name on every single one. I think maybe he did two before getting bored and going back to drawing crazy alien foxes and robot spaceships. So of course, after the kids went to bed, I spent an hour writing Miles's name, inserting tiny stickers, and stapling tiny packets of candy to the valentines. I put them all in a bag next to his lunchbox so we wouldn't forget them.

This morning, Brian remembered to take the valentines bag to school when he dropped off Miles. But unfortunately, he forgot to bring the bag into the school. "I left the valentines in the car," he said when he called. "Can you come and pick them up and drop them off?"

I was in pajamas, unshowered, not ready to go anywhere. But the email said WEDNESDAY MORNING. And as I realized this morning, my inner third-grader who wants to follow all the school rules perfectly in still alive and well inside my (very pregnant) adult body. I couldn't just leave it be, so I called the school and asked if the valentines definitely needed to be there by this morning, because if so, I could drop them off asap! "No, not necessary at all," she said. "Tomorrow morning is fine."

Too bad I can't get back the half-hour I spent worrying about the damn things. (But you know, I am a damn good worrier.)

Clara and I were stopped at a red light around noon. I leaned over to my purse to get some lip balm. Took me a minute to rifle through my purse, during which I glanced out the driver's side window - right at a homeless guy, holding his cardboard sign, and clearly under the impression that I was looking for my wallet in order to give him some money. I smiled and nodded, you know, to acknowledge that he was there but communicate lip balm not money. He just looked at me. The light turned green. I felt like such a heel.

Clara is napping now, and I decided to give Lost another try (DVR-ed to watch the next day, so its still just a second-stringer), since it is the last season and they can't keep piling up the nonsense endlessly. I don't know how I feel about the pop-up factiods. I can see clarifying that the dead body's book is Kierkegard, but do we really need to read, "There has always been a romantic tension...between Kate and Sawyer..."? So far, some of the show is still effectively spooky, but the close-up pensive/angry/thoughtful face shots are just painful at this point.

Just a few minutes ago, I sat down on the couch with a big sigh. And as I sighed, I heard "rrrrip." The crotch in my wear-them-everyday maternity jeans just split. Either I have worn them too much, or I have graduated to the next size up. At least I was alone on the couch.

2010-02-05T11:44:00.001-06:00

I have been a parent for almost five years, and apparently I have learned nothing.

Did I really write a post complaining about my children waking up in the middle of the night? About having to stand next to Clara's crib and pat her back to sleep for twenty minutes? Foolish me.

Two nights later, Clara's shit hit the fan. She started coughing around dinner time, a cough that made me stop and ask "are you okay?" I was tired, so I fed the kids waffles for dinner. Both in bed around eight pm. I was asleep by ten. About an hour later, Clara's coughing woke her up.

Brian was still up, so he went in to see her first. She had a fever, and the cough had become a bark. That damn croup bark that makes you worry that they won't be able to catch their breath. We gave her some tylenol for the fever, and kept her in our bed so I could listen to her breathing. Brian consulted Dr. Google, who recommended a cold mist humidifier. Brian went to the store to get one (second trip of the night; I had already asked him to get more tylenol earlier in the evening).

While he was gone, Clara coughed so hard she threw up. On our bed, the pillows, in my hair. One mistake I will not make again: if I think Clara might be getting sick, I will not give her frozen blueberries with her dinner.

An interesting aside. Over the past five years that we have been parents, Brian has yet to be present for the vomiting of his children. Somehow I am always alone when they throw up. It is hard to find a silver lining in this, but I think I have one: I am never more convinced that I am a good parent as when I am comforting a just-vomited, scared child, their head on my shoulder, their disgusting vomit breath inches from my nose. Everything in my body says "get away from that smell!" and yet I don't turn away. (I know you do the same. We all deserve a medal for that moment.)

So I cleaned up Clara, changed the sheets, and tried to wash the chunks out of my hair. Brian got back and we set up the humidifier, and then we spent an entire night getting very little sleep. Clara kept coughing herself awake, and I kept listening to make sure she could breathe.

Now that was a night worth complaining about.

did I mention I am pregnant?

2010-01-27T14:59:00.004-06:00

I am 31 weeks. This pregnancy brings to my mind that old saying about raising small children: the days last forever but the weeks fly by. Actually, no, just the first part, about the days lasting forever. Because the weeks are kind of lasting forever too. I have been pregnant since last July, which feels like a lifetime ago. And now I am going to the midwives every two weeks and making (yet again) a list of names for my boy/girl.

I don't know what we are going name this baby. I don't have any strong feelings on names, and I don't even have a feeling on whether it is a boy or a girl. Who knows. I guess we will be having a repeat of Clara's birth, where we took two days to name her. Everyone in our families kept asking "does she have a name yet?" The hospital birth-certificate woman kept coming by our room, "did you decide yet?"

For about a week after we brought her home, I doubted whether we had picked the right name. I would try calling her Clara, and then alternate with the name I had thought we were going to use if we had a girl. Either seemed like an option. Did we pick right? Eventually I let the doubt go and Clara seemed like the perfect name. And now, of course, when I hear her saying things like "Clara happy" while sitting at the kitchen table, it really seems like the right name.

Miles's input on the names is making me a little nervous. He keeps saying things like "If the baby is a girl, we'll name it Valentine's Day. If it is a boy, we'll name it G.I.Joe. And if it is a girlboy, we'll name it stupid."

My main complaint right now is aching bones. I know I had this with both Miles and Clara, but I think it started earlier this time. Is it because my body knows pregnancy now and is just loosening up early? Maybe it is my advanced maternal age - this is my first post-35 pregnancy.

Just before Christmas Brian started having a lot of back pain. The diagnosis: we need a new bed. We bought our current bed two months before Miles was born, so it is almost 5 yrs old. My side felt fine, but Brian's had a Brian-shaped imprint that wouldn't go away, and was too soft. Brian's solution was that we should buy a sleep number bed, because he likes hard beds and I like soft. But one googling of "sleep number complaints" ended that discussion.

I also decided to google "heavenly bed complaints" (our current mattress) and found a few people complaining of our same problem. There seemed to be two camps on solutions: 1) beat the pillow top with a baseball bat, and 2) flip the mattress over and sleep on the non-pillow top side. Since we don't have a baseball bat, we went with option 2.

The next morning Brian felt great. I felt, however, like I had bruised every bone in my body. Problem not solved. But I did like the idea of not dropping a big chunk of money on a new bed, so the next day I bought two twin egg crates and put them under the one that was already on the bed. Better, but not quite there. So the next day I bought another. And the next day I bought yet another. And then I slept well.

So I am now sleeping on FIVE egg crates piled up under the mattress pad. And I have a pregnancy body pillow. Princess and the pea jokes have been made. I have some trouble climbing up there in my current state, but once I am up there I sleep much better.

Last night Clara woke up around 1 am crying for daddy. Brian went in and rocked her, then came back to bed. I want to say it was the exact second his head hit the pillow that she started crying again. How does she time these things so well? I rappelled down my side of the bed and rocked her again, and again she started up again once I was back in bed. I had a feeling she just needed to cry - ever so often she decides she wants to be rocked back to sleep in the middle of the night, and I can hear that she is just mad that we are putting her back still awake in her cry - but Brian went back in and rocked her again.

While he was in Clara's room, I heard Miles's footsteps coming down the hall. He was sleepy and naked. "Where are your pjs?" I asked. "I had an accident. Can I cuddle in your bed?" I said okay, and he climbed up onto Brian's side and went right to sleep. I knew that according to the Parents of Multiple Children Rulebook I should get up and take him back to bed. When one parent is rocking child A to sleep, the other should change the peed-on sheets of Child B and return him to bed. But it is a long way down to the ground from my bed. And my bones, they ache.

Some time later, Brian came back to find Miles sleeping in his bed. "What's he doing here?" Brian asked. I explained, and then Brian said "are you just going to stay in bed then?" I mumbled something. Brian took Miles back to bed.

Of course, sometime later Clara decided she was not done protesting the Great Rocking Chair Denial of 2009 and started crying again. Brian put in earplugs. I waited for a reasonable amount of time, and then realized she wasn't giving in. So I extracted myself from bed and went to see her. Half an hour of standing by the crib, patting her, but refusing to pick her up and no progress was made. I went back to bed. At some point she went back to sleep.

And now you are up to date on the minutiae of my life.

haiti

2010-01-15T14:10:00.004-06:00

I have always been kind of fond of earthquakes. Growing up in northern California, they were mostly limited to a momentary dizzy feeling and everyone asking "did you feel that?" and "was that an earthquake?" We had earthquake drills at school where we got under our desks and put our arms over the back of our necks to protect ourselves from broken glass. We learned about the 1906 earthquake and studied the San Andreas fault. To me, earthquakes were one of the things that made California different. I wasn't scared of them.

In 1989, I was sitting on the floor watching the opening of the World Series when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. The floor under me rolled like a wave, and I saw the water spill out of the swimming pool in our back yard. My brother came running into the room screaming "get in the doorway! get in the doorway!" But there really wasn't time to panic beyond that. And anyway, we were far enough from the center that there was no damage to our house. Nothing fell off the walls. Nothing was broken. Just a few very long seconds of the floor moving like a wave. Very strange feeling. But still, I wasn't scared of earthquakes.

Since moving to Houston, I have had to prepare for two hurricanes: Rita and Ike. Both times I complained about the waiting and anticipating. "At least with earthquakes, they just hit. Then you deal with it. You don't spend days agonizing over whether or not it is going to happen." (I wasn't afraid of hurricanes either, until we made the decision to stay in our house through Ike. Scariest night of my life. Never again.)

I can't look away from the photos coming out of Haiti. I can't imagine. I just can't imagine. This is an earthquake like none I have ever experienced. An eruption. A catastrophe. A devastation.

Being a mother changes the way I see these photos. When I look at these, all I can think is each of these bodies was once some woman's newborn baby. She put all her love and care into the needs of that body. And now it lies in a pile waiting for a dump truck to come and take it to a dirty hole in the ground.

I don't have to worry about earthquakes happening in Houston, but there are a lot of people I love in California. I think I am more afraid of them now.

2010-01-04T13:37:00.005-06:00

We got a Harriet Carter catalog in the mail last week. If you're not familiar with Harriet Carter (as I was not), you really should be. I am just sorry we didn't get it in time for Christmas.

Here is a brief sampling of their wares.

Indulge too much this holiday season? No problem!

Make a New Year's Resolution to save money? Here you go!

Trying to drink less coffee? This should do the trick! (Snuggie not included.)

Here's a fun idea for 2010: instead of spending money to make your hair look better, spend some money to make your hair look worse!

You too can sleep with a smile (no sneezing!)

Accessorize your super-hero outfit.

Is this the same guy drinking from the potty mug?

You're welcome.

new year

2009-12-31T23:44:00.001-06:00

We were all supposed to go to a New Year's Eve party tonight, but instead I am home watching House Hunters. Thank you pink eye! The kids don't have it, so I have no idea where I got it. On Monday I woke up with a mild case in my left eye. I saw the doctor on Tuesday morning and thought I was on the way to being contagion-free. But this morning my right eye was a deep shade of red and I decided I didn't want to be that woman who showed up at the kid friendly New Year's Eve party with Pink! Eye!

It worked out okay, because Clara decided to skip her nap this afternoon. She stayed awake in her crib for almost three hours, chatting to herself and occasionally kicking the wall (at least I think that is what that sound was). So Brian and Miles went to the party, and I stayed home with a grouchy Clara. She was out by 6:45.

I hope this doesn't mean she is going to wake up at 5:30 in the morning.

* * * * * * * *

When I was pregnant with Miles (almost five years ago) we took a Birthing From Within childbirth class. I remember the teacher saying how she loved to see pregnant women, in the latter months of their pregnancy, become increasingly inward-focused as birth draws nearer.

I felt that with Miles and Clara, and I can feel it happening to me again. I have more on my mind, and less to say. I am remembering my dreams in the morning. I feel like reading poetry. My emotional connection to the baby is taking shape. And I am thinking about the birth.

I am considering using a doula this time. There are four midwives in the practice I see - I love two (one delivered Miles, the other delivered Clara), I like one, and the fourth I am eh about. She is nice enough, but her energy is all wrong for me. I don't know which midwife will be on call when I have this baby, and I think having a doula lined up will give me some certainty about who will be there.

Also, while Clara's birth was pretty fast, there was part of it where I really got caught up in being afraid of and unwilling to engage the pain. I want to stay more relaxed with this birth, so when I get to that place I won't resist the contractions as much as I did with Clara. And I think a doula will help with that.

* * * * * * * *

A few weeks ago, I started thinking about whether I was going to make any resolutions this year. I was leaning towards no. But then I came across something that changed my mind.

Clara and I were at the library one day, looking for some poetry books to check out (I wasn't kidding about being in the mood to read poetry). I found this book by Alice Walker, and decided for some reason to check it out.

It turned out to be one of those books where I find a lot to copy down in my journal. And there was one poem that Walker included that jumped out at me.

A Blessing
by Stephen Philbrick

Don’t try so hard.
It comes in a shiver sometimes,
Sometimes in a winter windowpane,
Wild with the unseeable
Frozen there in the ice:
The shapes above the clouds,
The score and the libretto of the wind,
The plot of waves.
Don’t try so hard.
Sometimes it falls,
A flake at a time,
Into your life while you’re asleep.
Sometimes it comes as a winter
Blankness,
Waiting for storm, or ice, or thaw,
Or even wind,
And then the still air groans,
And the trees crack,
The swamp shudders,
And the woods thrill,
Sometimes it comes when you least
Expect it.
And sometimes it doesn’t.
Quiet, still, no voice (even small),
No whirlwind, no reply; no burning.
Just a bare winter bush.
This is God, too.

The space between stars,
Where noise goes to die,
And the space between atoms,
Where the charges thin out:
These are places, too.
The moment in the movement of the soul
When it all seems to stop,
Seized up.
This is true, too.
Ice is, also.
And dormancy.
And I don’t mean the stirring
Of seeds beneath the snow,
But the place between
And the moment before.
And I don’t mean a lightning bolt,
But what it passes through.
I don’t mean a dream,
But dumb sleep.
“Not a thing” is something.
After the end,
And before the beginning,
Is time, too.
Let it alone, don’t try so hard.
This is God, too.
All of you is.

It was that first line: Don't try so hard.

I had found my resolution.

* * * * * * * *

Back in September, Brian came home for lunch one day so I could go to a lecture at the Rothko Chapel. It wasn't really a lecture, it was a guided meditation with the director of the Houston Jung Center.

I was a few minutes late (of course) but slipped in quietly and took a seat. It is cool and calm in the chapel, and the black canvases always have a sort of sensory-deprivation effect on me, in a good way. Even full of people, I still felt a certain solitude.

The guided meditation started. He said close your eyes, imagine you are in a hallway. There are doors. You walk past a the doors, turn down another hallway.

(Please don't let me turn down a hallway and run into Dale, I kept thinking. And I didn't. But he is there, in the chapel.)

Now you come to a door. Open the door. Inside is a room filled with flowers. You cross that room and go through another door. This room is filled with books of every kind. You go to the biography section, and find a book with your name on it. Take it down off the shelf, open it to a random page. What do you see?

(I didn't want to take the book down. I didn't want to open it. I did and it said "She tried hard. She always worked hard." That is when I started crying. Me, crying in public (sort of, since my eyes were closed and so were everyone else's, but still)).

Now close the book and put it back on the shelf. You can come back anytime and read more. (I didn't want to put the book back on the shelf). Now walk back through the book room, the flower room, the hallways. The end.

This is the short version of the meditation, of course. It was longer, and more detailed. And such a strange experience for me. I came home, wrote it all down in my journal, and put it out of my mind. But then when I read that poem (Don't try so hard.) it came back to me. Something important. Something to examine.

So this year, rather than making a list of all the things I want to try to do, I am resolving to do just one thing: not try so hard. Let the house stay messy. Let the closet fill up with stuff. Forget things and have that be okay. Miss a deadline and don't worry about it. Fail to call somebody back and not feel guilty about it. Know that someone wants something from me and just say no. Set down my baggage. Let it be. Let go.

Don't try so hard.

happy hanukkah

2009-12-11T23:29:00.000-06:00

first world problem

2009-12-04T12:31:00.005-06:00

Fortunately, we have people coming today to clean our house (yipee!).

Unfortunately, because it is snowing (barely) outside, they closed Miles's school.

So now I am now I am stuck at home trying to entertain two kids while keeping the house clean enough to be cleaned. This is not an easy task.

In truth, we couldn't go anywhere even if the cleaning ladies weren't coming, because Houston is freaking out over the snow. Everything that isn't closed now will be soon.

In Chicago, this is an ordinary spring day. In Houston, they close the schools and pre-empt daytime television to cover the Big Storm.

I am losing my last shred of respect for you, Houston.

christmas wish

2009-12-01T10:43:00.004-06:00

This year I want to not miss the old house too much.

We got our boxes of Christmas and Hanukkah decorations out of storage, and I felt a little sad. In the old house, I had a spot for everything. There is something very comforting about that.

But I want to appreciate where we are and what we have been able to do this year.

So this morning I forced myself to open the boxes and take out all the familiar things. Stocking and lights and dreidels. And funny enough, just seeing the stuff was nice. It took me a while to figure out what to put where, and some things are probably just staying in the box. It isn't worth hanging nails for things that will only be put up once.

It is beginning to look a lot like Christmas, and I am happy about it.

thanksgiving: now

2009-11-30T10:42:00.002-06:00

We spend Thanksgiving with Brian's family, so we always travel. Usually to New York, but this year it was North Carolina. It is always kind of crazy. There are a lot of people and a ton of food. At some point, there is usually an argument related to the food preparation. Every so often, someone cries.

My job is to take the pictures.

It is sometimes exhausting, but never lonely.