Category Archives: Can’t decide on a category

February

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I don’t know what to do with February.

When I lived in Boston, I realized how terribly seasonally affected I am. My first winter I slipped cleaning up after an ice storm, split open my knee, and spent the rest of the winter somewhat immobilized and terribly depressed. When Spring arrived I rejoiced in the mud season, the sunlight, and the new energy I felt.

My second winter I was again low, unmotivated, lost, and sad. I got food poisoning so badly I was in bed for almost a month, and never quite shook the malaise that settled during that month. That winter ended a relationship and left me more alone, cold, and detached. I don’t remember thawing emotionally until at least June that year.

My third winter I had recaptured some of myself. Following a work injury that ended a career, I had reinvested my life in theater. I walked to rehearsal one autumn evening as rain began to fall. In the streetlights, I mistook the rain for snow. And I panicked. Really panicked. Ran three streets until I found a pay phone, and called the airline by memory. “Get me home!” I shouted into the phone. “I have to go home before it snows!” I actually sobbed on the phone then, terrified I might have missed my window to get out, and would now be locked in Boston for the six month depression they call winter.

It took the agent’s confusion and detached professionalism to make me realize I must have a winter-related mood disorder.

So I sought a therapist who prescribed a light box. “Most people need at least 15 minutes a day of full spectrum light,” he told me. “You should start with two hours every morning, first thing. If that doesn’t work go to three hours.” So I woke extra early and read a book in front of my light box all winter.

Damned if the quicksand that sucked me down every waking minute didn’t disappear.

Who knew?

When I moved home to California I kept my lightbox close. Just in case. But our winters are different. It’s not cold until November, and it warms by February. We have a lot of sunlight all winter, and no snow. Overcast days rarely last half a week before we’re treated to bright, if unimpressively chilly sunshine. There are bright days every week and it’s rarely cold enough for down or wool.

So every year, just as I remember that maybe all the carbs and the grouchiness and the panics that make me resolve to go back to school, change careers, rekindle old relationships, and overhaul my house and life might be biochemical, winter’s gone.

And I deeply appreciate the plum blossoms and the paperwhites and the daffodils of early February. I do. I love the hot days that have us all chuckling that it’s rather rude to go from wool to short sleeves in a day, something we’re careful not to post to facebook or tweet or blog about, because how rude is it to note in February how powerful the sun feels on otherwise rough days. (Oops. Sorry Bahstin and Rhodeyeland. Hope you all have power and food and a warm place to shelter.)

But my body still knows  it’s supposed to be winter. It knows that we’re not out of danger yet. It knows March might be really dreary. It knows Mother Nature might snatch back all the Spring she has thus far blessed us with.

So I keep a cupboard full of caramel and crackers, the breakfast of SADS champions. I rush to plant the garden but hold back on tomatoes. I greet each sunny day tentatively. Just in case. Tomorrow might rain. Or snow. Or swallow me whole into a world where the sun goes down at 4pm and doesn’t rise until 8am and never actually feels warm and, and, and…

Breathe.

I think the masochist in me is a little glad it’s going to rain tomorrow. Because I really should get out the light box before it’s too late, one way or the other.

Rollercoaster 2013

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You know the stuff you can’t post on your blog about people’s marriages falling apart or friends getting scary diagnoses or loved ones who are desperately lonely?

I have a pretty hard time the weeks when I have a lot to write but can’t, because the stories that flood my heart are not mine to tell.

So I’ll offer you this: my wonderful grandma turns 97 this week. My dear grandmother-in-law turns 91.

There’s a lot of unpleasant stuff going on in our lives, but it seems to me when my kids can hug their greatgrandmas and draw them happy birthday cards, life seems a hell of a lot more bearable.

Hope something genuinely lovely tempers the not-so-nice in your lives this week. If not, make yourself some hot cocoa. You really can’t go wrong with cocoa.

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And if you happen to be turning 97 this week, whether you’re the one whom I love so intensely or you’re one I don’t know, have a happy, happy birthday!

Oh, it’s your 91st? Why, you have a super special week, too, okay?

Okay.

New Year’s Resolution

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Just getting around to this. Because.

I resolve in 2013 to not resolve.

I may do somethings less. Or more. But I won’t promise.

I might do things I should or I might do things I want. But I’m not resolving anything about them.

I might be easier on myself. Or harder on myself. We’ll see.

I’m not going to guarantee that I start or finish or make progress on anything in particular. I might do all three. You don’t know and neither do I.

I might see the journey and I might privilege the destination. I certainly won’t commit either to writing.

I might be more mindful. I might forget. Or I might just refuse to engage. All fair game.

If it just so happens that I do things more quickly or more slowly, why then so be it. Subject to change whenever I feel.

If change is constant and I resolve to change, is that saying anything? If we’re all basically the same people, then are resolutions anything other than self loathing in culturally compelling form?

I don’t know.

But I will not twist myself into knots about beginning contortions or ceasing patterns because of a day on the calendar.

Then again, I may.

I reserve the right to do both, though I don’t resolve to use that right.

 

Battery status: fully charged

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I wanted this all year: time by myself. Not an hour. Days. Gratuitous, excessive amounts of time by myself. Peace, quiet, and being directed by only my needs.

Spouse combined birthday, Solstice, Christmas, and Hanukkah presents and sent me to a cabin by myself.

I almost didn’t go. I had an intensely difficult time saying goodbye to my boys, the wonderful, funny, loving little creatures whose needs and moods dictate my every single second. The amazing humans whose care is more important to me than my career. My tiny little gobs of love, running around all day and waking me all night.

How could I leave them? For three whole days?

Part of that resistance was Newtownian. We’re all still rocked, and as I said before, I’m not going to talk about it. I can’t. Part of my resistance was Puritanical. And part of it was the chorus of critics in my head, telling me I wasn’t worth a special thing. A just-me thing. I shouldn’t because it’s unseemly. It’s gratuitous. I have a job to do, every day for 24 hours a day and how dare I shirk that responsibility?

“”Who needs a whole weekend alone,” my chorus berated. “There are people without homes, without food, without basic security. There are people cold without respite and people sick and dying.

I know that. I really, really, really do.

I tried several times to cancel. Spouse wouldn’t let me. He knows I’m fed by solitude, by quiet, and by following my own rhythms. He knows I need, desperately, to create. To write, to read, to hike, to eat. And he knows that for seven years I’ve subsumed those needs to other people. Lovely people whose well-being I take incredibly seriously. Too seriously, maybe.

Since having children I have experienced more frequent and intense joy than ever before. I’ve also been haunted by a daily thought that I’m really meant to live alone and am living the wrong life.

I know that sounds awful, but it’s true. Or it was true. Since I hadn’t had solitude for more than a couple of hours at a time in almost a year, I was running on empty. I needed my own personal fuel. I can’t do my multiple jobs without energy, and I had absolutely none left. Before this trip I couldn’t figure out why I was resistant to write, to read, to exercise, to explore, to try new things.

The simple answer is that I wasn’t myself. I was a shell.

Being a shell isn’t good for anyone. It isn’t good for our families, it isn’t good for our art, it isn’t good for our individual and collective moods, and it isn’t good for our brains.

This is my seventh trip away since my first darling boy was born. Most have been short: a day or two. A conference here, a loved one’s new babies there. Two visits to a treasured friend to talk and watch movies and read books. And two solitary, see-nobody-and-speak-to-nobody-and-do-whatever-I-choose trips including this one.

A farmyard cabin. Clear air, lowing cows, croaking frogs. Nighttime fears of the sinister things that movies and novels make seem normal but are really intensely rare, ridiculous wastes of my worry energy.

I haven’t slept much. I haven’t exercised much. But I’ve worked almost non-stop on my book and on a client project that’s bringing me intellectual joy. I’ve eaten only healthful food because that’s all I brought. Despite my cravings for candy and wine, I’ve had salads and tea and barbeque field roast sandwiches. In fact, everything I brought was good for me. Two awesome books (and a chapter of a book that I’ve been meaning to read, found in the cabin’s library). A computer on which to create and learn.

I’m intensely lucky. I know that.

Good heavens, I cannot articulate how good I feel. There are now in front of me, beyond the enclosed porch on which I now sit typing, nine different tree species. Clear skies, sunshine, picturesque fluffy clouds. A chilling breeze kept somewhat at bay by a wool throw and a rumbling wood stove. Sunshine.

There’s copious sunshine at home. And blue skies and fluffy clouds and trees. But here nobody asks me for anything. No fights. No stress, no frustrations. No ups and downs. Just being. Centered, listening to my own body and brain existing.

I have to go now. I have to make the most of this time. But I wanted to say this: I wish you this. I hope you find your version of this.

When you’re making New Year’s Resolutions, if you do such things, find what makes you tick. What centers you to who you are and what you need and what makes you the most you can be. Writing down the things most important to how you fuel yourself to make it through the days and weeks is immeasurably useful.

Because I hope you find a way in 2013 to get what you need. Not every day, not in a way that overwhelms your responsibilities or finances. But push just a little beyond what you think you should do or get and bring yourself back to center. Take time off work or away from family, visit family or sleep or paint. Take a class or explore new movies and music. Once you take care of yourself you will have more to offer others. Play with your children, invest in your employer, build your company. Volunteer until you feel you’ve made more than a difference—you’ve made a mark. Write letters to your elected representatives until your hand cramps. Give others what they need.

Whatever you most value, invest in it. More than you otherwise would. Do a little too much so that you can push past the limits you’ve hit. To restore the core of who you are and what you want. This weekend cost me too much time from my family and too much money. And I know that for most people anything that costs money will be too much. But whatever “that’s all we can afford is,” do a little more. Because this weekend hasn’t cost too much, really. Throwing the money in the trash would have cost too much. Buying solitude on my own terms has been so immeasurably good for me that it exceeds the monetary and absent-mother cost by about one-thousand-fold.

I’m glad I was led outside what I felt was too much. I will not forget how this feels. I will bring to my every endeavor for the next few months the energy and passion that had dwindled as I pushed through each day, driving on fumes.

I have more to give because I was given. Because I gave myself what I actually, really needed. Tired isn’t just about sleep. Sad isn’t just about sorrow. Hungry isn’t just about food. Angry isn’t just about being wronged. All needs are about not getting enough.

It’s not enough until the little battery indicator on your soul blinks full that you’ve had enough.

I’m getting there. And soon I will share my recharged self with two little guys and a big guy and a community and a nation and a planet who all really deserve the best I can give. Something I can now offer.

I wish you more than enough now, next year, and always.

Death. And life.

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I will not talk about what so many of us need to talk about this week. I just can’t. Instead, I’m going to talk around it.

Please make sure you have all of your end of life documents in order. Make sure there is a person who will make decisions for you if you can’t. Know that you need someone for finances and someone for health care. They can be the same, but you need different forms. Please make sure any important decisions are written explicitly in your will. Make sure you choose…right now and in writing…who will care for your children if you go before they’re grown.

There are attorneys to do this, and there is software. Make sure everything is in writing. Right this minute. Today. You know why. I’ve already said I’m not going to talk about it.

Did you know that 19 people a day die waiting for an organ? Only 50% of Americans are organ donors. Maybe you haven’t gotten around to registering. Maybe you are creeped out thinking of bits of you or your loved one or your child inside another person. Organ donation only happens after you’re already dead. After your loved one is gone. After your child is no more. And the choice to take parts of your loved one and give them to someone who would otherwise die is a gift that salvages hope out of death. The gift of life is one of the most generous you can make, and it beats back darkness with a pulsing, shining ray of light.

Please donate your organs. Promise to donate their organs. Nineteen people a day could live from your gift. That is how we help. That is how tragedies become about giving life rather than taking it. First responders are heroes, we say, because they often ensure life in the face of death. People who stand tall in the face of a loved one’s death and give someone else a piece of that life they will desperately miss are heroes. Because they, too, give life to someone who would otherwise fade away.

But don’t wait until you hear the news nobody ever wants to hear. Think about it, weigh your options, then Go. Right this minute. Write your will, dot your Is and cross your Ts. Designate durable power to those you trust. And vow to give your organs after your death so others can live.

Thinking about it right now is important.  Take a deep breath and consider the logistics of your death, your loved ones’ deaths, and your children’s deaths. And may you never have to think about the latter ever again. Ever.

That doesn’t completely circumnavigate the issue. But that’s as good as I can do, walking respectfully around an issue that I cannot write.

Holiday gifts

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Hey, there.

I haven’t posted in forever because I’m crazy busy.

But I have something for you. A gift, perhaps.

Go to HealthyStuff.org and check out the toys you’re going to give the small people in your family. Or use it to check the stuff you’d really rather donate to charity, under the guise of making room for new toys by getting rid of the old.

Our government and our corporations do a really horrible job of making sure we can buy things that won’t hurt us. At least one major company has resolved not to use carcinogenic, hormone-disrupting chemicals in products for children. Good for them. But there is arsenic and lead and PBDEs and PVC in a lot of the stuff you or your loved ones can buy, gift, use, and enjoy this time of year.
Toxic phones, toxic car seats, toxic household products, toxic sunscreen, and toxic makeup and shampoo.

Some of the data is old, and a lot of new toys aren’t on the Healthystuff.org reports. But still. Do what you can. Nobody wants to give their niece a toxic piece of chemical waste for Winter Solstice. Right?

Find some healthier alternatives at Safe Mama. Her cheat sheets will help you find safer toys, lunch gear, backpacks, bug repellent, and more.

Be safe out there. It’s a gross mess of lead-tainted wrapping paper and tape and poison-PVC tinsel and lead-filled holiday lights out there.

It’s still an awful lot of fun though. Happy holidays, and enjoy all the fair trade gelt and organic candy canes, and whole-wheat winter solstice gingerbread you can eat!

You are correct.

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Yes, LinkedIn, you are correct. Those are jobs I may be interested in. But now is not the time. We’ll talk later.

Yes, sweet boy, you are correct. I would better block your soccer kicks if I was paying attention. But your brother has a shovel. Forgive me for being distracted.

Yes, Superior Court, you are correct. I did defer last year as the breastfeeding mom of an infant. You did make it clear I had a year to get my nursling at least weaned enough to do jury duty. You warned me. I just kind of forgot.

Yes, sweet man, you are correct. You did get the right coffee. Except the part where the “decaf” designation is missing. Right company, right roast, right grind, right label, right fair trade lid. I should have warned you that coffee comes in two varieties: delicious and poisonous. Thank you for trying. Wish I’d checked the label.

Yes, oh whippersnapping college-aged foilist, you are correct. I am technically middle aged. And this is technically a fleche. Enjoy the speed and steel of a middle-aged woman. Now excuse me while I drink my Ensure.

Yes, little one, you are correct. It is fun to tickle Mommy when I crouch down to help your brother. That big ol’ patch of skin below my reaching-arm-raised shirt and my fashionably-low-riding jeans is tempting. I forgive you for grabbing, jiggling, zerberting, and tickling that patch of lower back. In public. A lot.

Yes, you are correct. Payback will be harsh.

And at your wedding.

To do or not to do. That is the…what was the question?

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Things Not to Do This Week

Don’t let intense doubt about the mess you’ve made out of your life show. Especially in social situations.

Don’t let face get in way of angry toddler who has, for half his life, expressed anger by hair pulling and biting.

Don’t bother with balanced meals anymore. (Their “don’t eat” list seems lately to include eating anything I make that isn’t cracker or ice cream based.) Just give up and let them forage in the cabinet.

Don’t get angry at toddler for teething himself awake eight or nine times a night. Even though he’s totally doing it on purpose.

Don’t fall asleep while editing academic book. Editing intelligent prose in blocks of three or four minutes is counterproductive.

Don’t read through your peers’ and colleagues’ LinkedIn profiles. Such madness will only end in binge eating.

Don’t correct toddler for pulling your hair in his sleep. Removing his hand from your hair will make him shriek and wake fully, the results of which are more painful than having your hair pulled from the time he comes into bed with you at 1am until you give up at 6am.

Don’t…

Don’t go breaking my heart.
Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow.
Don’t try to use song lyrics in blog posts just because you can’t think clearly.
Don’t write lame “Not To Do” lists just because you think you’ve written too many “To Do” Lists.
Don’t capitalize To in title phrases like To Do and Not To Do.

Don’t hit publish. I know you’re sleepy, but remember this: Don’t hit

If You Feel It

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This post is for all of you who think nobody else knows.

If you can’t recall what uninterrupted sleep feels like…

If your nostalgia for another time and place borders on homesickness…

If you’ve lost your temper with beautiful, perfect small humans who are doing their best the only way they know how…

If all the fun, beautiful, and exhilarating moments of your day blur at the edges due to frustration and drudgery…

If your current career renders you advanced degree superfluous…

If your lower back is frozen from having an increasingly large person draped on your body a substantial portion of the day (and night)…

If you bristle when other people (especially those under four feet tall) touch your stuff…

If you choose daily between exercise, shower, and reading, since you may only have one…

If you are pondering *multiple* advanced degrees, at any age, because that’s simply how you’re built…

If it feels as though there is not one thing in your house that is yours and just yours…

If you look back at the day and find that you’ve only eaten cheese…

If you really need to start saying no so you can find the more important yeses…

If you feel like a jerk every time you’re feeling sorry for yourself while people in the world are starving, killed for their beliefs, and struggling to do their best but failing because of capricious or cruel forces outside themselves…

If you burst into tears every time you hear a sad story…

If you also burst into tears every time you hear a joyous tale…

If your colleagues make you want to change jobs…

If your boss makes you want to change jobs…

If you can’t change jobs because yours is not, technically, a job…

If shock and nausea washed over you when you realized that any time you spend out of the formal workforce to raise children, write a book, or pursue education meant a huge hit to your ability to save for retirement…

If you need the world to stop for a day or two so you can figure things out…

Holla!

Police Blotter

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Area woman exhibited manic enjoyment of her children’s every breath Friday. She breezed through the morning, laughing with the kids, relishing their company, and playing their games, all while tidying the house, cooking a fabulous lunch, cleaning the bathrooms, and changing her voter registration.

Local law enforcement officials have surmised that the local Peet’s pulled her a regular Americano despite her decaf order.

Peet’s employees were horrified. “I really hope we didn’t give her a regular,” said the charming young man who served her. “She seems like the type who would lose her freaking mind on caffeine.” He clarified later, “That lady had enough energy already, you know? It’s like, there are just some high strung people…no offense…who order decaf for a reason.”

The woman herself is oblivious to her frenetic assault on the neighborhood and her house. She just feels really really really really really productive. Woohoo!

It’s like cleaning closets, only better

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I have never looked at the tally in my blog where the little elves in the computer tabulate how many posts I have and how many … drumroll … drafts I have.

Drafts? What? You mean I’ve done some of the work already and have only to polish and publish?

Well, sign me up. There are, according to the WordPress computer, 109 posts I never finished. Cool! I don’t have to think of a new post for, like, 109 days!

The stats are either disheartening (if I feel that 109 false starts is a bit too many to have abandoned) or impressive (if I check my batting average: 900+ published and 100+ just languishing, ignored).

Ten percent waiting, frustrated sounds about right. In fact, that ratio is almost exactly like my to-do list when I finally give up on the mess and start a new list, dutifully transferring the 10% left uncrossed, pristinely written weeks before and totally snubbed.

The lowly items on my to-do list that are transferred every time and then left sheepishly wringing their hands, all alone, should get their own special list. They’re not moving to my To-Don’t List, because the forgotten and ignored items are not bad ideas or wastes of time. They’re just never gonna happen.

To that list I’m now adding, “Read through old drafts and decide what should be edited and posted.”

There. I just spared you 109 hair-brained ideas, snarky whining, and categorical evidence of either poor behavior from my offspring, or poor behavior toward my offspring.

You’re welcome.

My summer vacation

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Things I learned this summer:

1. The lyrics to dozens of classic songs to appease the insatiable children who suddenly want all new songs at bedtime. Songs I’ve memorized include Home on the Range, Do Your Ears Hang Low, Polly Wolly Doodle, There’s a Hole in the Bucket, and I’ve Been Working on the Railroad. Useful for bedtime and ending unwanted adult conversations early, for nobody wants to stay in a meeting with someone whistling Polly Wolly Doodle. All six verses.

2. How to plan, prep, and cook four meals a day without any childcare help, ensuring that my kids won’t kill each other or watch t.v. (Hint: pretzels and hummus for dinner) (Second hint: and lunch and breakfast)

3. The name of every sea creature ever discovered. Go here and print out all the cards. Make your kids cut them out, color them, and play with each other. Mine wouldn’t, choosing instead to make me read each card to them. Over and over and over.

4. Scrivener is exactly what my novel and I needed to be better friends. Editing is proceeding slowly but steadily. In addition to learning how to use Scrivener, I’ve learned how to use it while one of the four yowling creatures in my house howls in a different room. Editing and ignoring: skills from the professional world translating to an investment interval at home. Sounds like someone should update her LinkedIn profile.

5. The name of every type of truck used within a 30 mile radius of our house. Butterbean is keenly interested in trucks in a way that rather devastates my desire to raise the boys in a gender neutral, “everyone likes trucks and trains and fairies and glitter” kind of way. Thankfully, he likes pink trucks best, so I’m not too worried. But my willingness to debate skid steer versus front-end loader, dump truck versus tipper truck rather frightens and annoys other parents. And construction workers. And everybody, really, except my youngest child.
6. Several online recipe sites have the chutzpah to categorize bacon posts as vegetarian, asking me to “try making without bacon for a vegetarian option.” Chef? You and I both know recipes made with bacon taste good. Taking out the bacon means not enough salt or flavor. Please don’t tease me. Create a veggie recipe that stands on its own and take this deliciousness out of  the veggie category, ‘cuz you’re just taunting us.

7. Buying local costs a heck of a lot more and involves kids throwing major fits and breaking stuff in public.  I’m not saying I’m not willing to have more stress and pay through the nose for that stress; I’m just saying consider that in your self-righteous campaigns about how good it is for my community. Try the tagline, “Buy Local: It’s Good For Everyone but You and You Owe It to Your Neighbors to Subvert Your Needs and Sanity for Your Principles!”

8. Six Year Olds are totally old enough to play Scrabble. Since I had children primarily to have Scrabble playmates, my life is finally beginning in earnest.

9. Returning to fencing at 40 has pros and cons. Pros: great exercise, rare opportunity for intense focus, good reason to ditch Spouse with the kids. Cons: knees, ego, knees.

Thank you PlayMobil for including fencers in the Olympic figures collection. Thanks for giving them foils. Next round maybe add a lefty and a female, please.

I also learned how to remove creosote from a toddler’s nose, how to make cool alka-seltzer rockets, how to fold paper airplanes, how to switch to fluoride-free toothpaste to thwart a goofball toddler, and to never go on a roadtrip with my children ever again.

But the best thing I learned this summer? Scientists can take a huge robot, mount it on a crane, fit it with an ablating laser, fill it with chemistry sets, launch it 350 million miles into space, and land it safely in a Martian crater. I am so gobsmacked by this real and actual fact of intergalactic engineering I have nothing  to say. Congratulations JPL, NASA, and scientists everywhere. You rock space rocks.

Looks as though I’m avoiding the dreaded summer knowledge loss. How about you?

Public Service Announcement

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There are four ligaments in your knee.

They are all quite important.

At least one will abandon you somewhere around 40.

 

[Shhhhh…Don’t tell them I said anything. They get unpredictably mad at irrational things and totally…OW.]

[Damn. Someone must have told my already irritated ligaments. My blog has a mole. A knee mole.]

[That should totally be a thing. A knee mole. Not a mole on your knee but, like, the naked mole rat’s distant cousin, the knee mole…]

[I think I’ve undermined the newsworthiness of the information of my post on the importance of knee ligaments with this exciting discovery of the world’s first knee mole.]

[Maybe. Unless there’s a whole bevy of them and once outed they’re going to take over the world.]

[Holy guacamole, people. I hope you have emergency supplies. This is about to get ugly. Sorry to have unleashed this knee mole apocalypse on you. Forget what I said about the importance of your knees. Totally moot point now that we’ll be at the mercy of knee moles.]