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.

Resets and Thanks

Sometimes small things can reset order.  Today I finally picked up potato starch and finished the batch of gluten free flour I've had half-made for a week.  I bought groceries (this morning, the only fruit or vegetable choices for lunches were applesauce, an onion, and celery that Silas has been soaking in dark blue food coloring).  I filled the car with gas.  I changed my post-class pastel-smeared shirt.

And now I can breathe better.

There is something profound to the small resets.  This fall with all the new and the busy -- opening an art studio/learning to run a business and work with a partner/living in a new house/ sending my youngest to school -- I've noticed lots of stress twined through my body.  All the sudden, I'll notice I'm not breathing deeper than my chest and can't push the breaths deeper.  Or feel the demands are overwhelming and I just want to burrow somewhere dark.  Over and over I've stared at my calendar wondering if I'm doing something wrong -- what should I cut?

As changes usually do, my latest ones have highlighted bothy my strengths and my deep inner ugliness.  So despite the full days, I've been doing some inner work:  the Examen, the Enneagram. 

It turns out that much of the time, my the problem isn't doing too many things; it's doing too many things at once.  I don't drive some place, I drive dictating texts and emails, checking responses at the red lights, messing with Waze, and posting on Instagram (which doesn't really have to be instant). 

For ages I've prided myself in being a masterful multi-tasker, as most mothers of young children do.  (It's called necessity -- otherwise I probably would have died of overwhelm-paralysis).  But as most of us have heard by now from an onslaught of research, there's no such things as multi-tasking.  An article about Dan Harris explains it this way:

What we think of as multitasking is really..."doing many things poorly." The reason for this lies partly in semantics and partly in neurology:

"Multitasking is a computer derived term. Computers have many processors. We have only one processor. We literally neurologically cannot do more than one thing at a time."

Because "doing many things poorly" feels bad, I've been thinking about this and trying to smooth out some habits.  I've begun pulling over (at least some of the time) if I need to use my phone in the car (which I always do).  I've been trying to set down my phone, close my computer, and turn my body toward the kid who's talking, to plan today rather than two months from now.  And what's been shocking is that rather than feeling like there's even less time, the days have felt wider.  Even the days when I start out hyperventilating about what's on my plate, doing things one at a time sifts it out. 

Practicing doing one thing at a time also usually means I'm paying attention (hard not to pay attention to the one thing you are doing...).  It feels gross to be searching google and saying, 'mmhmmm" "yeah" with exactly 6% of my attention while my kids are talking.  It feels gross not to stop and look at someone who's helping me at the register because I'm texting.  And yet, I do both daily. 

I think that's why I started thinking about the daily resets.  How often in a day do I wish for a do-over?

The fact is, we have them: we wash our hands, refill a mug, start an email, pull out a blank piece of paper, open a blank document spreadsheet.  We say sorry.  We pull on clean socks.  We peel a perfect banana.  We walk outside and see the sky.  We open the office door.  We take a breath that reaches all the way to our diaphragm.  We begin a phone call.  The light turns green.  We start the car.  We wake up in the morning.

The fresh beginnings are right there, waiting for me to notice and accept them. 

Yes, thank you, I will start again with clean hands.  Yes, thank you, I will collect my thoughts before I dial.  Yes, thank you, I will breathe before I speak.  Yes, thank you, I will wash my windshield and see more clearly.  All day long, the invitation to thank. 

Thank you.

Maeve

Five years ago today, Maeve, the third child I'd grieved and given up hope of having, was born, flashing her Ben-dimple and sucking at her tiny thumb.  For a full year, I could hardly absorb that fact of her.  Never had I basked in a baby's presence like that, with such perspective and gratefulness.  Because we lived in DC for this baby, my mom and Annemarie, Maeve's soon-to-be-godmother, met us at the hospital and stood at my side for her entire birth (while my dad held down the fort with Eden and Silas).

Right after Maeve was born, Annemarie pointed out that she came into the world during the exact hour when summer became fall; she taught me the word liminal, and later wrote this beautiful piece.

maeve magnolia

It seems impossible to say that I had never witnessed a birth before Maeve's on Saturday, but I hadn't.
Birthing is not the same as witnessing. Birthing is work, pain, love, desperation, and focus.  Birthing
is breathing, squeezing a hand, yelling, riding the wave of the contraction, pacing, showering, walking,
balancing on the balance ball, sinking into Greg's chest, swearing never to do this again, hoping, waiting,
enduring. Birthing is becoming- it's both becoming someone and allowing someone to become.

Witnessing is different. Witnessing is standing on sacred ground. It's making the coffee run, grabbing the
camera,  emailing the list, standing still, waiting.  Witnessing is standing in a space so holy that it feels
strange to ask or do anything mundane. Witnessing is silently praying, filling the space of the room that
is about to be full of new life, with blessings, thanksgiving, praise. Witnessing is to be overcome, undone,
by the power of it all.

Sweet Maeve,

I am so honored to have witnessed your arrival into this world.  I'm sure they've already told you, but you
were born in the hour between summer and fall. As that morning dawned, while your Mama was working
so hard, loving you here, birthing you, the word that came to my mind was "liminal."

liminal: 1. relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process 
2. occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or a threshold.

It means to be in between: and what an in between space that day was! What a lot of waiting and
wondering there have been these past months!  Your family has been in a lot of in between spaces this
year (coasts, houses, friends, seasons.) But now, it is fall and you are HERE! - in all your delicious, perfect, 
teensy glory. I'm so glad you're not in between anymore, but here: to love and be loved.

Welcome dear one! I love you so,
Your fairy Godmama

Annemarie Mott Ewing

Unhurried

I am lying on my old neighbors' front porch across the street from soccer practice. They are not home, and Maeve is playing on their swing, while I fully recline.

Today is the first day of school, the first time I've had all kids at school, for a full day, in 11 years.  So far I have no *feelings* about that; I'm opening an art studio in a week and a half and unpacking a house we just moved into.  There's plenty clamoring for my attention, a bells and whistles parade.  I have no doubt, though, the feelings will come eventually (they always do...).

This afternoon, I had plans to go to the grocery store to restock the house, the drugstore for school binders, and the library with Maeve, while the other two had activities. Instead, I am here lying on this porch couch.

Saturday night running over to the pool, my legs flew out from under me, and I crashed to the concrete, hard.  Hard enough, it turns out, that I fractured my tailbone.

Soooooooooooo, life is running at a different pace than I'd anticipated.

Before I left DC, my mom and I talked over the word "unhurried."  That's her word for the semester. We talked about what it feels like to be unhurried, how it opens us to the present, and what a gift it can be when we can encounter other people without hurry.  Sitting on her couch in summer's sun, I could see it -- living days unhurried.  And then I pictured going home in two days: a house of boxes, a curriculum to write, the start of school, new routines, making lunches, coordinating activities, launching a business -- and I laughed, half out of the panic rising in my chest.   Unhurried readjusted to a shining ideal, and I steeled myself to tackle real life September.

And yet, here I am, slowed down to an almost literal crawl.

I have no idea what we will eat for dinner. We are low on milk and out of butter. We have no meat in the house except for a pack of lil smokies the kids begged for, and little to no produce.  Silas has neither binder nor dividers. And yet, I'm just sitting here, no, to be precise, lying here, at a house that isn't even mine.  I'm achy and uncomfortable, trying to prop myself up on skinned elbows, and angry that it hurts to drive (the reason we pulled over here).  It's beyond frustrating to slam into my own limitations.  But lying here, I'm watching the sun lower. I'm having intermittent conversation with Maeve, who's slowly unraveling the details of her first day at school, and I'm aware of the breeze.  Maybe, somehow, this forced slowing will be an unexpected gift...

Some images for the end of August, end of Summer, end of a month away

An August of so many words:

Packing words  Moving words  Opening an art studio
words  Thinking words  Un-sleeping words
Teaching words  Fixing words  Breaking words
Aching words  Family words  Playing words
Beach and then road-tripping words  Mountains
and many-visits words  And now

I am tired of words
and the too-much they've held

Instead I want the pictures
of right now:

bushes of black eyed susans,
their skirts of petals rusting
and shriveling

girls in the pool in constant chatter

sun warming the unexpectedly-cool
August leaves, pavement, morning

sweet green smell as thick as
the cicada-sounds buzzing heavy
everywhere, loud enough
to turn down

cold fingers typing

boys in the mountains
girls at the bay

an empty summer day ahead

brown leaves blown down,
interrupting the grass' green,
remind us it's almost time

40

For almost three months, I have been 40.

I'm not going into my whole life story, but I will say that I've been a late bloomer; it's taken me longer than many to grow into my body, my mind, my strengths, my self.  And though the wrinkles and so many other physical changes -- creakiness (ha) and grey hairs, and all the rest that no one said would start in my 30's -- keep on coming, each age mile-marker feels like an invitation onto more solid ground.

I wasn't sure how to mark my 40th, but being back in California, it made sense to integrate my old California friends and DC sisters.  Initially it was going to be a camping adventure with Trail Mavens in Big Sur with hikes and hot springs at Esalen, jade hunting in Jade Cove, long nights around the fire talking.  But California rained this year.  And rained.  And parts of it flooded, and roads, including Highway 1 through Big Sur -- and our campsite -- closed a month before my birthday.

I scrambled and fretted and second-guessed myself, and finally, after realizing what I most wanted was all of us in one beautiful space, rented a beach house with winding stairs up to a roof deck, and living room windows full of ocean.  Amazing what you can do when you divide it by 12.

One reason I haven't written about the weekend is that it was too full, my gratitude so swollen, it's felt tender.  But I realized today what I learned there.

I tend to be a doer.  Though I'm pretty good at asking for help when I've smacked into my own limitations (often), I feel much less comfortable receiving when I'm not desperate.  I'd rather just get 'er done.

Most years, I throw my own birthday parties.  I love bringing the people I adore together over good food to celebrate and thank them; it's only fitting since they're the reasons I survive the all the days between my birthdays.

Thinking about it now, nothing here is surprising, but I was surprised the days leading up to the weekend by how hard it was for me to shake off the impulse to pick up the reins -- to over-ask questions, to run to Costco, to coordinate.  I knew there'd been planning meetings, spreadsheets even!, menus, coordinated food shopping, and a house decorated for celebration -- all without me.  I was just going to show up (and I didn't like it).

The night before we left, I lay in bed feeling naked and anxious that I hadn't made cards or gifts for my friends. I hadn't planned toasts or words or anything that I usually would do -- I hadn't done anything at all.  I'd picked a date and found a house to rent.  That was it.  Ben kept saying, don't worry -- go and receive.

But that's not what I do on my birthday.  And I was surprised that the feeling I had, even just thinking about it, was near shame.

When I got to the house, it was already full -- a kitchen unpacked, a mantle redecorated, roses from friends' gardens as if it were a wedding, our names taped to bedroom doors, a dogwood branch (that my CA friends didn't associated with April, but struck me with DC spring), bowls of candy, magazines out -- a zillion details.  And that was only the start.  All weekend long, people read poems they'd picked and told us why they'd chosen each.  Everyone rallied for a djembe lesson.  I heart butter shirts appeared.  Friends stood over a hot stove stirring huge pans of paella (which I didn't know I loved).  There were bottles of Lambrusco at lunch, a breakfast Toast Bar with ricotta, figs, honey, jam, avocado, prosciutto -- make your own.  There were hot afternoon cornmeal cookies and tissue paper flamingos perched on our margarita glasses.  We took walks through the neighborhood, down the cliffs, on the sand.  A friend led yoga, another gave us good words in the morning that lasted all day.  We rotated through an art table gluing, painting and pasting poems into the book they were giving me.  We played raucous games and a friend took beautiful pictures.  We stood all together in golden light, friends' faces golden too in the late afternoon, and much to my surprise, I cried.

Usually, in a group like that, I speak.  I don't really cry.  But that weekend, for so many straight hours, I'd received -- which really means I'd been loved and known and spoken aloud.  And all the sense of strength and doing, being and presenting, cracked, and I just got to be with.  That, it turns out, is a powerful gift.    

What I discovered -- besides the wild fun and deep love of these people (not really a new discovery) -- was this:  my 20's were all about cracking -- the end of rosy childhood and nuclear family scaffolding, the discoveries of carrying my own weight, of partnering with someone, working a job, doing my own taxes, finding boundaries, lacking boundaries, starting the work of untangling and examining self,  -- a lot of fun and fumbling and finding my sea legs.

Then, my 30's: a decade of babies and building a family, of moving across the country with them twice, of finding my edges, of building communities, of getting-my-hands-dirty marital work and healing, of taking responsibility -- the years, in short, of becoming an adult.  What also happened during those full 30's was a lot of spackling and caulking.  I'd done the cracking already, and now, in the years of infants, toddlers, and small kids, the years of immediacy -- sloshy and incredibly bonding, exhausting and delicious -- I was cleaning it up.

(and I said I wasn't going to tell my whole life story...)

I didn't really know I'd done that until my birthday weekend, when showing up without any caulk felt so vulnerable.  I was bare, and still we celebrated more than I'd imagined.

What I hope is that my 40's are a decade of walking around without the caulk, of trusting people a little bit more, of stepping out the door when I'm unraveling, even if it means embarrassingly trailing knotty yarn through the neighborhood, of daring not to sink on the couch and close the blinds.

Thanks, friends, at this weekend and not, for walking outside with me, no matter.

The Week After Whole30 -- The Deep Stuff

Gloriously it is now June and Whole30 is over.

But it doesn't actually feel glorious, not the sky's-the-limit-freedom I'd dreamt of the whole month, because, now, I have to face the question of "what next?"

Unlike my sister's boyfriend who dropped 15 pounds and powered his days with "tiger's blood" energy, I pretty much felt like me during whole30, including low energy bouts every afternoon.  But thinking back, there were some definite (and significant) perks:
-I slept like a log
-I didn't wake up with lower back pain for the entire month (haven't solved that riddle yet-?)
-I felt sated after and between meals
-I exercised mad self-control and could (not just the victim of the cheetos bag...)
-and (the biggest one) after figuring out how to prep and cook all this stuff, I lived emotionally at peace with food
(except when I asked all the questions about what on earth I'd eat after the 30 days were up)

It, of course, has got me thinking.

The reason I did the Whole30 was to reset my crazy habits; I'd started both to eat like a 14 year old and have cocktails every night.  It wasn't really going so well, especially in the deep caves where self-love lives.

So I committed to reset (and a commitment it is).  What it ended up feeling like for 30 days, which I had not expected, was a spiritual exercise, a fast.  As I kept not choosing my comforts day after day, all my stuff came to the surface, from the 5PM escape-reflex to the deep restlessness I feel around vocation and life stage, my propensity for control (w30 feeds this because you have to control your food and environment so much), on and on; the stuff kept coming.  In fact, it's still here.

I also felt pretty vulnerable moving through the world.  It's one thing to be 100% high maintenance in your own house where you orchestrate every parcel of food, and quite another to be adrift "out there," (road trip with kids to Arizona) trying to do it right.  A lot of the month I felt protective, defensive?  like a sea anemone gathered in.

And now I'm unfolding into the world again and wondering how to feed myself.

It makes sense that feeding ourselves whole and healthy foods is good, best.  It makes sense that avoiding sugar and alcohol, addictive toxins, is great.  It makes sense that when I ate solid good choices for 30 days, I woke up with no regrets -- for 30 days!  It makes sense -- and is a no brainer -- to carry on in this way and feel good forever!

But I can't imagine that I will!  Because of toast, popcorn, champagne, corn chips, corn on the cob, rice, tequilla, cakes, cheese and crackers, PARIS. (mmm, nutrition)

Such deprival to leave those forever!

This is the weird and wild power of food -- how the pleasure of it fights against the simplicity of our needs (remember the "real food" in the Matrix?  I think about that all the time).  And as if those two forces weren't enough, they wrestle with our bodies, our builds, and how we affect our looks.

I've been thinking about diets.  Over the decades, I remember my mom doing the Cabbage Soup Diet, the 90's no fat diet, the Mediterranean Diet, the Atkins Diet, Weight Watchers.  These days we don't use the word "diet," especially not in front of our kids.  We say, "cleanses," "resets," "lifestyles."  But it's all the same; it's all work to make peace between our bodies and food.

I've never before thought of the two at odds (at war, even), but look how much social, personal, public space "how we eat" takes up.  We are all (most?  I'd love to meet the person who doesn't fall into this) finding our best ways to settle down with food.  And live in the skins of our bodies.  The work is not easy, and many days we're at least a little unhappy.

Benjamin Franklin talked a lot about moderation.  And that probably is the answer here.  But it sure doesn't come naturally to me around some of my favorite things.  So.... The journey (or war? or conversation? we can frame it however we'd like) continues as I inch my foot out of the whole30 safe haven and back into the world (where I've already eaten a lot of corn chips -- my one added food so far).

***
Because it's one of my favorite desserts/appetizers/treats to eat and is W30 compliant (a bridge food), here's a recipe for Sauteed Dates from Food52.  Nothing like them.

Sauteed Dates
I usually serve the dates on a plate of plain greek yogurt with the warmed olive oil drizzled on top.  Eating them with naan is the very best.  These days, though, I've just been eating them plain, and they're still something special.

Olive Oil
Dates (4-5 per person)
Flaky sea salt

I pit the dates and usually cut them in half, but if they're really soft, I just pinch them flat between my fingers before cooking.
  
Heat 1/4 inch olive oil in a small sauté pan over medium heat. Fill the pan with dates and cook, turning them a few times, just until they've warmed through and are a bit carmelized. (but they burn easily, so don't overdo it!) Serve them on a plate with flaky sea salt.

HalfAss30: the real work

Whole30 is part of the May reset.  I'm putting this out there because I'm sure it will come up over the next three weeks (as the testing turns to fire).

My friend Lindsay and I are doing this together.  Our original plan was to launch HalfAss30, which was going to take the world by storm.  It was a slight variation: we'd follow whole30 but eat rice, quinoa, corn (but not chips, my week staple), beans and honey -- keep it real with grits, tortillas, corn on the cob, hummus, and other small joys.  Losing D A G S (dairy, alcohol, gluten and sugar) seemed more than a gargantuan demand.

As we've gotten into it, though, we've become a little less half -- we axed beans and honey (except those coco dusted almonds from Trader Joe's...), corn, rice, and I may even drop quinoa...

So, the HalfAss30 has morphed into Near-Whole30 (I make chocolately smoothies -- illegal but made from all legal ingredients).  Week one texts reflect the texts of all the people who've ever done Whole30:

day 4 like a boss!

eating bacon

I'm hungry...

We can do this!

photo sauteed vegetables in skillet (emoji of muscle arm)

are french fries allowed?

no

how about sweet potato french fries?

no

photo sauteed vegetables in skillet (emoji of muscle arm)

still hungry...

Let's move to France and eat cheese and butter

fried eggs are stupid without toast

coffee without cream and sugar (emoji of sobbing face)

keep on! photo sauteed vegetables in skillet (emoji of muscle arm)

so much almond butter

stomach not happy

eating bacon with these photo sauteed vegetables in skillet (emoji of muscle arm)

still hungry 

what would I do without Netflix?

kids making brownies !(#$^#&@*

I didn't eat them! (emoji of 5 trophies)

photo sauteed vegetables in skilled  hate everyone

But we are doing it.  And six days in I have a few observations:
(they get deeper as they go)

1. Family problem: Maeve eats no vegetables.  Zero.  Not a carrot stick.  Not a friendly slice of cucumber.  Zero vegetables.  *Occassionally* I can make her a smoothie with kale, but it's a rare day she drinks a whole smoothie, so it comes out to probably a quarter of a leaf.  Maeve also eats no meat.  Zero.  Not a piece of bacon.  Not a hotdog.  Not a chicken nugget.  Zero meat.
I am eating meat and vegetables.  All day long.  Today as we were making tuna, Ben pointed out that there is no bread in the house.  And no cheese.  And no yogurt or corn chips or tortillas.  Apparently, I now only shop for myself.  He and Maeve are at the store .

2. I have apparently been dehydrated for months and months.  Welcome, water.

3.  Tea and I have gotten back together, and suddenly I drink it all day long like I used to -- morning into night.  (It's also chilly and grey here -- all the more reason).  Can one have too much tea?

3.  I am low-grade hungry All.  The.  Time.  (this is the important one).
I'm sure there's something about learning to eat without staples (and learning to like it -- turns out I only love eggs if they're on buttered toast or scrambled with Parmesan...), but there's more.

The first few days I felt hungry all the time, even after I'd just eaten a full meal.  What was that?  I actually wasn't hungry but my mouth really wanted me to put  a piece of buttered toast, some chocolate, or a bowl of cereal in it.  That made enough sense --  the deprived, craving, told-"no" parts of me were all rebelling.

But as the days have gone by and this background hunger's continued, I've had to ask the next layer of questions --> what's that hunger about?  If my body is sated, but my mouth is still asking for  a cappuccino with frothy whole milk/almond cake/avocado on toast, what in me is asking to be fed? Something.

When Lindsay and I were planning the HalfAss30, we were talking with friends about poor self care, and the word escape came up.  Were we trying to escape throughout our weeks?  We figured we'd check it out.  (And of course the answer was, yes).  That, apparently, is the real work of Whole30: trying to figure out what's happening at the gut level (not literally, though that may come up, too - ha).  What beasts in us are trying to be fed; what are the actual cravings?

SO, that's what I'm doing these days, tuning into the growling want of comfort, connection, and reward, and the impulse to eject from stress, boredom, expectations -- and I'm feeling hungry at the same time.

Hoping this is the learning curve...

Buying Deodorant with the Firstborn

A little over a year ago, Silas's cousin got her first stick of deodorant.

It was a family affair.  Everyone smelled it.  She seemed always to have it in her hand as she walked around the house.  Every child checked his and her armpits regularly to make sure they didn't, too, didn't need deodorant.  It was exciting.

The months passed.  The sweaty summer ended.  The move happened.  And no one thought about deodorant anymore.

Until a week ago.

Silas, freshly 11, walked into my room with his arms hanging at his sides but held awkwardly away from his body.
Mom.  It's so weird.  My sweat didn't smell but now it does.
No way!  Come here!  I sniffed, and lordy! he smelled.  Real deal BO.

The natural first step was a pilgrimage to the Ralph's deodorant aisle, just the two of us.

For those of you who haven't done this yet, beware of the dangers of over-smelling.  It's what happens when you smell them all trying to find a child-appropriate scent and end up no longer being able to distinguish among them and lose all perspective.  It's what happens when you come home with your childly proudly toting Old Spice because it "smells like laundry" and has  a picture of an octopus on the label and is called "krakengard" -- what is cooler?  So much better than the white Arm & Hammer...

It took all of one second standing in our own kitchen and watching my friend Amy look at the stick to know I'd gone wrong.  After all the smelling, I'd bought high-school-boyfriend!

No offense to anyone who wears Old Spice (Ben is often among you), and there is a place for high-school-boyfriend scent, I actually like it, but this, this tender time of first deodorant, was not the place.  #nogoingbackonceyouwearfakemanscent  -- This was a fail.

You may be able to imagine how instantly attached Silas had become to said stick and how much pride swelled in him when he looked at the octopus and unpronounceable name.  And you may be able to imagine how deep the disappointment ran when I told him we immediately had to go back to Ralphs to try again...

But, I held strong, and we did it.  Came home with Speed Stick in hand and the Kragengard in Ben's medicine cabinet instead.  On this road of inching toward puberty with the first born: Rite of Passage #1, check.

40: a Shift Toward Nourishment

For two weeks, it was Monday and then it was Sunday -- just like that.  Fast.
Sunday morning, I paused and sat for an hour.  What had I been doing during those days that had blown by?  Where was the creating? the writing? the movement? the stretching? the focused quiet? the vegetables? the water?  the board games with Maeve?  the swim lessons?

Kitchen happy hour had started early pretty much every night and lingered.  I'd fed my brain shows and stayed up late doing nothing.  I'd made lists and run errands and felt busy, even productive.  But by Sunday, I was starving.  The next week, too.

In the middle of this, Phil Wood, our preaching guy, talked about (this is worth listening to) the place deep inside us that can get off balance and start us spinning in that lopsided, momentum-driven, wobble-spin that's hard to even out, especially because it's deep.

This had happened.  And instead of quieting and doing the work of straightening myself out, I'd gone faster, crowded my days, planned things, made lists.  Yes, there were hormones involved.  Yes, my whole family had just come for birthday and Easter and left, but for the most part, the week was normal, and I was lost in it.  And again in the next.

When I hit raw imbalance, I'm always amazed by how little we really know about each other.  We people present well.  I presented so well that even I didn't know (the most alarming part) that somewhere deep, I was starving myself.

Why is it so hard to be kind to ourselves?  Gentle?

April was funny -- the best of times in so many ways: I turned 40 (more about that later!) and celebrated all the way through the last day of the month, deeply nourished by people I adore.  And also in there, between the celebrations, a slippery sense of self-neglect was growing.

Early in the morning when I wake up (or Maeve wakes me), I really have no choice but to get out of bed.  I can lie there and pretend round two of deep sleep will come, but it won't; I'm awake; the day's begun.  And so it is with my 40 year old self.  I'm awake and there's nothing to do but get out of bed, so May is my month of reset.  I'm not going to list lofty resolutions, because who wants to read that (or be held accountable!), but it's real.  In my first month of 40, I am awake.  I'm watching how I treat myself, way down deep, watching what I chase after and what I neglect.  At 40, it is time to step into the day and nourish myself, be well-fed, way down deep.

From Resisting to Love-Hating Emojis

When I was a kid, through my 20's, even through most of my 30's, psychologists used "emotions charts" to help people, especially kids, name their feelings.  The charts looked something like this:

Instead of 'mad,' might you feel ashamed or overwhelmed, jealous or guilty?  Instead of  'happy,' do you feel hopeful or confident?  There is power in naming an emotion specifically.  To admit that we are jealous instead of "mad," opens us.  It deepens us.  Suddenly, with the word "confident," we are known and seen, even if just to ourselves.

Throughout the 90's and early 2000's, I had a firm policy about not using smiley faces in my emais or instant messages (as the case was) -- and later in my texting.  None of this business: :)  :0   :/   8)  and especially not the winking  ;)

I was a writer.  I was not going to substitute cutesy faces for my words; I'd write what I meant.  And I did, for many years.

Then the iphones came with their dozens of tiny horses, flowers, and hearts.  For a good while they'd show up on my old phone as black squares.  I didn't know what people were so happy about.  Then I bought my first iphone and learned the word "emoji."  Even then I resisted.  No smiling, winking, blushing, frowning yellow faces for me.

But a yellow heart?  Ok.  A tiny camel?  Yes.  A wine glass or coffee cup?  Sure.  Those were not expressive, they were illustrative.  Nothing was lost.

But as we all know, those little foods and animals are the entry drug.  I got roped in by the face that was only eyes.  By the face that had smiling eyes and showed all of its teeth in a sheepish grin (this was my favorite).  Despite myself, I was charmed by my friends who used emojis hilariously, and, without quite meaning to, I started to use them back.  My 10 year old niece insisted that we each pick one as our "symbol" that would start all of our texts (cue the circus tent and sunset square emoji) so we'd know our messages were to each other on her mom's phone.

And then, before I'd meant to, I was fully speaking emoji -- a blushing face, an x'ed out eye face, a bowl of salad, a monkey, a blue heart, on and on.

The worst part is that once I began, it was almost impossible to stop.  I haven't stopped!  Especially as the amorphous-emoji-makers continue to unveil new ones: the avocado!  the cucumber slices!  the little green face!  champagne glasses! bacon!  These people are, of course, speaking my language (all of our languages?  A creepy cultural language where we're reduced to bacon, trendy owls, and clown phobias?  It's worth taking pause...).

What language am *I* speaking?

There have been all sorts of conversations around the emojis: should grown men use them?  are they becoming their own language?  have they reduced us all to infantile communication? will they evolve into logograms, like Chinese characters?  Are they simply the body language of our texts?

The most pressing question of all for me is what will happen -- is happening -- to our words as we continue to speak and respond with emojis?

I sat down yesterday to write a letter (yes, I still have a love affair with the postal service), and found myself wanting to draw the laughing-til-crying face.  Draw it?  Really?!  Why not, what words could say the same thing so quickly and succinctly?

It freaked me out a little.

Don't misunderstand, I love succinct language.  Poetry is about succinct language.  But it's also about precise language, language that is meticulously chosen, textural and multi-dimensional.

Emojis aren't that.

I wish I'd thought to give up emojis for Lent.  What would I have had to articulate without those little pictures commentating my moods and social interactions?

What fascinates me most is that in the 80's, 90's, early 2000's, the worry was that people didn't have the emotional vocabulary or awareness to identify how they were feeling.  The elementary SAD, HAPPY, MAD, blocked the true and deeper experiences.

Today we have no such problem; within a second and a half we can locate exactly how we feel on our phones, and even construct a sequence that says it all (nose-blow, sobbing face, x'ed out eyes, eye roll).  But without a phone in our hands, can, or do, we still say it all?

Last spring I took a parenting class and when the facilitator asked questions like "how did you feel when that happened?" I was amazed by how we parents struggled to name a *feeling*.  Instead we said things like "I wanted to leave" or "I felt like she shouldn't have done that."  The leader kept gently redirecting, "those aren't actually feelings.  Try again."  I bet if she'd handed us her phone, we could have chosen the emoji in an instant, and she would have known what we meant.

But where are our words?

Is it that our words have vanished and been replaced by those little yellow faces?  Or is it that we never really had the words -- or courage to say them -- in the first place, and emojis have actually given us permission to say what we wouldn't have: "I feel sheepish" "I'm so pleased"  "I'm beaming"  "I'm crushed" "I want to sob my eyes out."

I'm not ready to argue that emojis are ruining and degrading our language (though they might be-- seem to be, even).  But I am interested in the conversations linguists and sociologists are having over our rabid and sudden use of emoji's.  It has to be affecting us, our personal interactions, self-expression, and even how we think.  Let's use them as much as we want, but notice as we do.