Sicktober

I'm sitting in my car, early for a doctor's appointment.  I've dug through the glove box and all other compartments in the minivan -- which is inexplicably filthy considering I just crawled on my hands and knees vacuuming it a couple days ago -- for trail mix or any snack.  All I can find is treacle toffee, which Silas and I bought at TJ Maxx because Hagrid makes it in Harry Potter, and we wondered what it tasted like.  It's pretty good, kind of like toasty dolce de leche.  A lunch of champions.

I've been sick for over three weeks and have reached the point of mild despair about most things -- lack of energy, creativity, clear thought, physical activity.    It's been like living underwater, trying to make conversations, move quickly, and celebrate a dozen iterations of Halloween (thanks schools, art classes, parades, class parties, trunk of treat) and birthdays. 

Most afternoons I text Ben asking him to remind me that this won't last forever.  He says it won't.  I don't believe him. 

When my kids are sick (which also is now -- classic October), I get mad at them.  Turns out I hate helplessness in parenting.  You're sick AGAIN, your body aches? you can't breathe?  you can't fall asleep?  your throat hurts from coughing?   Well, I CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT, SO PLEASE STOP IT!  

Soooooo, parenting's also going well. 

Sigh. 

But what is  a good way to parent sickness (immediate images of making soup, sitting on the couch, stroking people's heads -- I know...) because it seems to be a catch 22: mother-compassion makes people feel worse, and crumble under my touch.  And mother-tough-love makes people straight up cry and sends sick people to school.

It's possible I sent a sick kid to 5th grade today -- but maybe not.  It's hard to tell stuff like this.  Especially when, as I've explained, molasses is circulating through my body and brain.

But cheers to November -- it's Friday and surely we're all going to get better.  At least I'm going to keep saying that (or make Ben keep saying it).   

#MeToo: Is this a Revolution?

For months we've asked the question.

Never before in our country's history have women voiced cases of sexual harassment and assault like they have now.

Never before has there been such a flood of powerful men denying, admitting, apologizing, excusing, and resigning in every field.

However you see it, a bandage has been ripped off and our nation is staring at -- yet another -- festering wound.

Growing up in the 80's and 90's, I wasn't raised in a culture of silent women.  We were smart and articulate, vocal, innovative, and taught to work and fight for any dream we had.  Some of our moms stayed home with us, some worked.  The term "latchkey kid" became common place with we Gen Xers.

"You can be anything you want to be."

But could we?  There'd never been a woman president.
Women didn't (and still don't) make up 20% of the Congress.
Five states have never even elected a woman to the House.

We were taught that jobs were not gender-specific by our 95% female teachers.

We were taught to speak up about abuse or harassment.
But even at my small progressive school, a math teacher was accused of touching girls, and the school did nothing.
A student was raped. 
A student showed up with a black eye from her boyfriend.
Nothing happened.

I don't know how the hearing will play out with Judge Kavanaugh tomorrow.  None of us does, though our news feeds are dominated by the allegations, denials, and the rampant questions orbiting it all:
Could she have mistaken him for someone else? 
Was anyone even sober at that high school party?
Do year book signatures count for anything?
Couldn't she have fabricated the whole thing?
Could he not be an entirely different person 36 years later?

The lists of questions generated by this altercation aren't simple.
Stories and evidence in the hearing need to be weighed far away from partisan lines.

If he is found guilty, the next question is, should a 53 year old man's career really depend on his actions as a 17 year old boy?

When it comes to serving on the highest court in the country,
to being the final word in interpreting our constitution,
to ultimately protecting and upholding justice for all people in this country,
and for standing in the spotlight for every 17 year old boy, present and future,
it has to.

What will history tell our daughters and sons if in the middle of the #MeToo movement -- an unorganized and decentralized movement, yes, but the impetus for a dam breaking -- the women who made allegations against the President of the United States and two Supreme Court Justices -- men in the most powerful seats in our government -- made the news but no difference?

the FIRST day

Today was the first day of school for my girls and meet the teacher day for my new junior Higher.

All began well: outfits laid out, neatly packed lunches, breakfast at the counter, hair brushed, *extra time* in the morning.  We walked into school as a family, snapped pictures.  Huzzah.

Then the older one and I went to Target (take three) for dividers, a calculator and a locker shelf, and then wound through the crowded halls of his new school hunting for the classrooms on his schedule. .  He left impatient for tomorrow to come.

Victories!  But somewhere in those hours of full-immersion smiling, hello-ing, catching up and then more whirred wide-eyed hello-ing at the new school, my extrovert energy drained.
Drained.

By the time I picked my youngest up from the cute line of kindergarteners, all that was left of me was my body, with a face that couldn't move, a voice that didn't modulate, and eyes that communicated no expression.  Then that person stood at the park for half an hour trying to field conversation...

It's now 5:01PM.  I feel like I've carried a 50 pound backpack through the desert for hours.  My head hurts.  I want to lie on the ground.  A gallon of water would probably be beneficial, but instead I am drinking wine.

This sounds dramatic.  I know.

No one else in the house seems to feel this way.  The kindergartener who complained all the way to the park and then whine-cried through pick ups and drop offs  seemed to get it, but now that we’re home, she’s happily sitting at the table designing “wallpaper.”  The others are sprinting around a soccer  field  and doing pushups and sparring at the dojo.

And then there's me.

Could it be because I woke up at 3am on Sunday for a flight that I'd accidentally booked for 6:27PM rather than AM?  Maybe a little. Or the hormones of this particular week?  Perhaps.  Or the sheer overwhelm of calendaring?  Probably.  Or the comatose exhaustion that’s compensating for not *feeling* the September changes (a 5'3" man-boy)?  Likely.

So here I sit wondering why someone would schedule soccer practice the first day of school?
Why martial arts meets so late and how that kid will get home?  What anyone is going to eat for dinner?  how to drum up so. Many. Carpools?  And if Kindergarteners will be exhausted and crabby people all of September?

My glass is empty and it’s closer to 6. I am off to stare into the refrigerator, hoping to conjure dinner.  Cheers to day one!

No Spectators -- (?)

Today I went to No Spectators: The Art of Burning Man.  Walking through the Renwick humming the sounds of the gongs, writing remembrances on the wood temple, lying on floor pillows to watch colored lights, I was more than a spectator.  We all were.  It turns out the exhibit's title "No Spectators" comes from a Burning Man tenant that states no one's a spectator when the line between audience and performer is blurred; everyone becomes a superstar.

Though it fit the experience, something about the tenant nagged at me enough to photograph the wording and revisit it again now.

My sister got married in June, and the year leading up to her wedding, she and I journeyed all over southern California searching for the dress.  The two of us would be hours from home, rifling through gowns and snapping pictures to analyze later (since she loved *every* dress she put on and hated *every* dress the day after).  Afterward, we'd go to lunch and have a flight of mimosas, or discover a whimsical floral mural, or order lattes with our (to-be) husbands' faces on the foam (LA after all...), and snap selfies.  Something subtle shifted between the taking pictures of her in dresses and taking pictures of us with our whatever-props.  I couldn't put my finger on it, but each time we posed, I felt a hair further from her -- even though our shoulders still touched.

A month or so later, on my way to Kaia Joye's bachelorette party, I stopped in LA at The Happy Place I'd been reading about for months, a pop-up museum of happiness.  The temporary building housed huge rooms of playful yellow everything, giant signs, music, mirrors, balloons, upside down rooms, candy, enchanted gardens -- the stuff happiness is made of -- so throngs of people could playfully walk through and snap pictures along the way.

So we did!  Carrie and I peeked expectantly around each corner, climbed in the m&m covered shoe, danced in the tinsel, played in the mirrors, grabbed balloons, ate candy -- all of it.   (And jumping into the yellow ball bit at the end of the rainbow *was* pretty much perfect 12-year-old-fun).

      

 

But even while we were walking through, while my brain kept yelling this is awesome!  look at this room!  you're having so much fun! my heart wasn't quite with me.  It was the same subtle post-wedding-dress-shopping uneasiness I'd felt before.  I felt a little... lonely.  It made no sense:  I was with Carrie; we'd just played for a whole morning; but.... something felt off.

I thought it over for the rest of the day.  

The entire museum was oriented around taking selfies -- yes, I knew that.  In fact, the purpose of the museum was to capture yourself surrounded by colorful whimsy-joy.  

The thing about a selfie, though, almost always, is that it implies an audience, someone who is not present.  So instantly, when the masses of us doing the happy things whip out our phones, we cease being in the room where we're holding the strings of balloons and instead pose for the faceless (or very face-specific) audience we plan to post our pictures for later.

Selfies disrupt the present.

So when I'd take scenery selfies with my sister -- to show Ben later, or post, or send to our mom -- in some slivered way, I'd leave my sister's company.  

Instead of actually being with Carrie in the museum, climbing ladders to a land of magical marigolds, I was trying to figure out how to capture the spongy yellow carpet under our feet or the threaded blossoms though my phone.

Reading it again, the Burning Man tenant is actually admirable: let's all be present and participate rather than holding back to watch.  

But the message is also so familiar, it's the insistence of our culture to forever blur the line between audience and performer -- why sit back if you, too, can be a superstar?

Near and Far

Ben and I are sitting in the driveway.  The night's dark and breezy, sticky with humidity.  We're watching wildfires across the bay make the sky glow.  Every few minutes flames flare bright orange above the ridge line of the foothills.

Someone somewhere is evacuating, while, again, California burns.

I must have been only half asleep this morning, when sometime in the dark I jolted awake to a trembling.  In my half consciousness, I felt my stomach lurch in fear as I waited and ran through scenarios of where we'd go.  I've been following the quakes in Indonesia the last couple of days.  Nothing more happened.  Later I looked it up and found there had been a small earthquake in Long Beach, big enough to feel -- or sleep through.

Our worlds are so untouched until something breaks them.

I marvel at this over and over again.

It doesn't matter how much we know about pain, read about it, even witness it in friends, nothing prepares us for our own two-footed world cracking.

Every day when one's world is whole, another's is cracking -- or even crushed -- constantly and all at once, ocean to sea spray, everywhere.

Yesterday my sister and I met halfway in Los Angeles to go to museums (which, incidentally, are mostly all closed on Mondays).  I've been to lots of parts of LA but never really downtown.  Where we were, every fifth person (literally) was homeless, asking for a dollar, or ranting, lounging against a wall, or pushing a cart too heavy to navigate down the narrow sidewalk.

Years ago I spent a lot of time with the homeless community here.  Almost all my time.  It was a year of unanswerable questions that wrenched my heart constantly: how to help? could I help? was reintegration the goal? how to combat addictions, and why?  how to speak through mental illness?  was real healing possible? what was hope? what were real needs?  who was safe? who was the good guy? The list went on for pages.

Since I've moved back here, I haven't reconnected consistently with that community -- it's dispersed, much has changed, my kids are bigger and busier, I started a business -- for so many reasons.  I think about that every day.

The strangest thing walking through LA yesterday was feeling that I was seeing homeless people for the first time in my life.  I saw each person in stark relief: a woman crouched by a doorway with greasy hair and filthy feet wearing bright flip flops, she had tan muscled arms and smooth red painted nails; the boy-man with my brother's eyes in dirty jeans with a tired face, who lifted his eyebrows when I passed, as if to say, "sucks, huh?" and it did.

Maybe it was a revelation, a rare moment of sight, or maybe just cold water on my face -- whatever it was, I kept thinking, "we let other humans live like this right in front of our faces.  How can we let other humans live *outside* with no showers or bathrooms or toothbrushes.  How can we let other humans, who look like our moms, push dirty blankets down the street and pull recycling from the subway trashcan so they can have a few bucks?  How do we walk by -- rush by -- without even looking at them?

The wind is calmer for the moment, and if I didn't know the fire was there, I wouldn't see it at all.  A moment ago, the flames reared over the crest and must have towered stories high.

Inhale.  Exhale.  Sight.  Blindness.  Wholeness. Fragmentation.  How to stay near when we are far.

Finding Delight

I've always seen humanity as broken  – all I have to do is read the news for five minutes, drive through the city, look at our leaders, watch a divorce up close, not to mention sit quietly with myself, and it's all there: poverty, violence, selfishness, lies.  Gross.  It's enough to choke out the rest. 

But in the last few weeks, I've been struck by the rest, by humanity's light and brightness. I followed the story of the soccer boys trapped in the Thailand caves play-by-play, and was bowled over by the divers risking their lives, one losing his life, the rallying and sheer work of so many to rescue strangers.  And then I was struck by my own surprise at their self-sacrificing care.

I'm sitting on the beach right now with my two girls. The sand and ocean are packed: small bodies, large bodies, dark bodies, light bodies bare bums (so many thoughts about that as I raise a 12 year old boy -- for another time) and covered. We are all here for the delight of it. Several kites dance overhead for the fun of seeing a red octopus or blue superhero fly.  People jump and float over the waves, masks and goggles for san dollar hunting, a white-haired grandmother paddles in full snorkel gear with kids: this is a place of play.

A few weeks ago I watched Hotel Transylvania (and the sequels) for the first time and I felt this same marveling appreciation.  Dozens and dozens of people made this movie just for silliness and the delight of seeing a green translucent blob get squirrels and sticks and fish lodged in it without pain.  The mummy personifies joy with all his spontaneous dancing and singing -- the whole thing is fun(ny) and creative.  

Entering the  world of children story tellers (SCBWI) has reinforced my delight* in humans!  Thousands of writers are telling stories because of the power and the light of a story, of a character we love, for pure hilarity, to help us knit sense out of our own feelings, to give us maps as we navigate days.  The kids and I just finished reading Steve Bramucci's The Danger Gang and the Pirates of Borneo!  I heard him speak recently and instantly became a fan.  He's funny, honest, shameless and full of shame at the same time -- he brings it all.  And as we read the book, the wild beauty of Borneo came to life through fencing, papaya-pelting-orangutans, and blooming friendships. 

Some days I feel scared (terrified) about my kids getting older and moving into this world. I’ve been feeling that acutely with the end of school year shifts, especially having kids in 5th grade and junior high -- OLD and moody, a little sassy and very sorry about it, curious, social, and sometimes emotionally unstable; the thought of setting theses lacking-prefrontal-cortex creatures free to navigate by their own judgment makes me a little panicky.  Or at least sad.  It's a new season of having to let them try and fail and discover, rather than simply protect them. 

I *know* it's the order of parenting and growth and growing up, but it's HARD, which makes me doubly grateful for these summer weeks of seeing the sparkling fun and bravery of people (especially adults).  Rather than focusing on what might happen when Silas ever likes a girl (who is not wearing a complete bathing suit bottom), I am wondering about the beauty of who these kids are, and how they’ll bring their own humor and sense of wonder to life for other people.  

*note: 
I use the word "delight" quite a few times here because it's the only word I can think of that captures the whimsy-joy I am talking about.  Merriam Webster's definition helps (the squealing -- pure happy response):
delight: 1
: a high degree of gratification or pleasure : joy 

• children squealing in delight

; also : extreme satisfaction 

Acts of Defiance (laundry monster)

Right now I am sitting next to a pile of laundry so high I can't see over it.  Literally.  And it keeps growing because I keep washing clothes (victory) and throwing them into this room, which, incidentally, isn't even a bedroom, it's a living room.

SOooooo...

That's happening.

I started to feel overwhelmed, almost panicky, about it because on top of the laundry, there are snow clothes and goggles and coats and snow pants and suitcases all over the place with no time for folding or sorting in sight.  The days are mapped out tight this month.  So what to do?

I have lots of limitations right now and am *doing* lots of things (sometimes I forget that the limitations are partially there because of all the good movement, they aren't just a shortcoming).  And to be fair, laundry isn't on my list (though milk should be because we are out of it -- again).  So I've decided to go with it.  Instead of freaking out or feeling like a failure or like I'm strapped to a fast-moving train with no time to jump off (because straps), I am choosing to write and am currently sitting ON the laundry and beside, befriending it.

The Januaries: Ordinary Time

I've had a case of The Januaries since I came back from DC.  This shouldn't surprise me.  I think it happens every year.  The adjustment between coasts, semesters, vacation and routine, plus all the New Year messaging to *make everything new* -- which can be both energizing and discontenting. 

The other day while I was driving, I flipped on "Pray as you Go" -- an app with a daily prayer I sometimes listen to.  The prayers always start the same way: "Today is (whatever date) in the (whatever week of the liturgical calendar)..."  Most days I'm hit simply by the date being spoken.  It's grounding, a calm voice naming the day of the week and date aloud.  Half of the time I don't actually know what day it is.  I even found myself staring to write 2009 on a check last week...

Clearly I need the ritual of saying the day and date aloud every morning, like Kindergartners across the nation.

So the other day I started it up: "Today is Monday, January 22nd, in the third week of Ordinary Time." 

"Ordinary Time."  I don't know a lot about the liturgical calendar, but I know this "time" comes after the holidays.  Ordinary Time.  Yes.  Since I've been back from DC Christmas, the days have oozed by, felt long, hazy, and, yes, ordinary.  I've felt ordinary.  Routine's felt ordinary.  Even the blahness has felt ordinary and isolating <>

But there, in the midst of my friction, a calm certain voice claimed "ordinary time," as if it were worth remarking upon.

This has started me thinking about the Ordinary, about who I am in the Ordinary, and what life means when it's Ordinary.  Because I don't always love "ordinary time." 

The fact is, though, that most of our hours are stitched into ordinary.  Tish Harrison Warren in Liturgy of the Ordinary says it pretty well:

So much of life, unavoidably, is just maintenance.  Things need upkeep or they fall apart.  We spend most of our days and much of our energy simply staving off inevitable entropy and decay.  This is especially true of our bodies... we have to clean them. feed them, deal with their wastes, exercise them and give them rest again and again, every day. And that's when we are well and things are running smoothly. 

How true.  Add a kid to the mix, or a dog, or anyone else we're helping care for, and all the dentist/ haircut/doctor/food shopping/lunch making/feeding/scheduling/reading to/walking etc.  -- and it's a wonder we get anything else done. 

But such is life.  It's a beautiful and messy reality that our daily work restarts every day.

I've landed on no tidy insight that's calmed my January angst.  I'm still wrestling from moment to moment.  But sort of in the same way the voice on the app locates me in Monday January 22nd, the third week of Ordinary Time, so that for a second I feel firmer ground and see myself within a framework, I've been trying to locate myself physically, too, in this ordinary time. 

When my mind starts its January spinning (which is constantly), I'm sucking in the air in front of me (it's taking at least four deep breaths to reach my diaphragm).  I'm making myself notice and name right now: Thursday, January 25, in the 3rd week of ordinary time, sitting on my couch, the girls' voices at the end of the hall, Silas chuckling at Garfield in his room, my feet cold, lips chapped, the sound of cars passing the house behind me, wind chimes clanging -- and stop there. 

This is in no way a habit yet, just an effort.  But it's my work of the Januaries, to climb into the moment and inhabit it, breathe there, and let the rest go (even if it's just for that second).

We Need Words in 2018

Thursday I am going to a metal stamping workshop to make a key chain with my "word of the year" on it.  So, I've been thinking about a word for 2018.  As my friends and I've brainstormed, we've made lots of jokes about how the f-word wouldn't be appropriate (or would it?).  Finally, I've landed on "Word."

Words are power.  They've always been, and in this climate I'm reminded more than ever of the weight they carry.  Words of the American president are arguably some of the most noted and weighty words in the world, and for the first time in my life, they've been wildly reckless and unexamined.  They continue to taunt nuclear powers, to refuse to condemn white supremacy, and to to blur together people of whole nations and religions.

Our words matter.

I've been dazzled by the women's voices rising one after another, speaking into long-held silence.  It's terrifying to tell vulnerable stories, laced with shame, to crowds who may or may not want to hear them.  It takes guts to break silence and to demand justice.  It takes guts to demand change

Our words matter.

This last year, our collective words have been loose and reckless.  We've flooded ourselves with fake news and others' opinions.  We've thrown words at other nations and erased words that marked protection, equality, freedom.  We've spoken instead of listened.

This last year, our collective words have been united and strong.  We've questioned unspoken beliefs and national identity.  We've apologized and fought for protection, equality, freedom.  We've listened and taken time to think.

Our words matter.

Maya Angelou talked about words as physical objects; the words we speak, or read, or hear, actually fill the spaces around us: they obstruct or construct; they pollute or clarify.

Our words within and without us matter.

May this be a year of true words: may we be brave enough to think beyond labels.  May we be brave enough to speak our own stories.  May we be brave enough to keep asking and listening to others' stories.  May we construct fortresses of good words -- mortar to door frame -- and bring others in.  May we keep speaking.