The Reluctant Hausfrau

I'll Still Be Needing That Sports Car

2011-03-17T10:28:00.000-07:00

As I have mentioned before, Leo and Zoe have four living great grandparents. My grandparents are in their mid-eighties and still living independently. Like every family eventually must, ours is entering the phase where we must take greater responsibility for our elders…an adjustment for all of us.

I live about two hours away from my grandparents, so I don’t see them as often as I’d like. Last weekend we went up to PA to check in on them, and take my dad out for brunch for his birthday. I spent part of the day Saturday at their apartment, alternately sitting down to chat and puttering around, doing some tidying.

Their preference would have been for me to spend more time chatting, and less time tidying. Whenever I was absent for more than a few minutes my grandmother would make her way to where I was working. At one point she sat down on her bed and patted beside her, indicating that I should sit down. Referring to the changes our family is facing, she said, “We’ll figure it out, kid.” I laughed, and said, “Gram, I’m thirty-seven years old.” She leaned back and regarded me as if seeing me as an adult for the first time, and for a moment I saw myself through her eyes, as a person very different from the way I see myself. She said, matter-of-factly, “Well, you don’t look it.”

Our parents, Sean’s and mine, are the adults in our lives. I have been married for 11 years, I have two children, and a career, but part of me has never felt like a true adult. In some ways I still feel very young and like I have a lot of maturing to do. Because so many of our close friends don’t have children, we still have a lot of opportunities to socialize the way we might have when we were in college, in ways that are not centered around our children. We have a lot of fun.

Yet in that moment with my grandmother I felt like an adult, in a way I never have before, and since that day I have felt like a different phase of my life has begun. All of the times I have sat and talked with her in thirty-seven years sort of culminated in that moment. Time paused, and then leaped forward. Here we both are…what’s next?

What surprises me most is that it feels very positive, more like a new level of achievement and opportunity, rather than something to be feared or dreaded. The future is sure to hold both tremendous pain, and indescribable joy. Nobody likes getting older, but I have to say, that for me, this is kind of a welcome transition. I didn’t even know it was coming, and I’m intrigued to see where it goes.

Now With Even More Crazy!

2011-02-14T10:50:00.001-08:00

Welcome to the Reluctant Hausfrau! I have been blogging, off and on, for at least five years now. I blog because I like to write, and I like to think that even if there are only a few people who are interested in reading what I post here, it’s a good way of expressing myself and giving people a window into my little world and the “unusual” prism through which I view it.

The thing about blogging is that, like anything written and presented to the world, it’s a permanent, yet imperfect record of what you put out there. What you say in written form, however well-crafted in your mind, can be interpreted differently than intended. It’s because of this that I haven’t posted anything here since last October. Though I have never intended to hurt or offend anyone with what I have written, the emotions I sometimes let come through in my writing can be intense, and I sometimes express strong opinions that people don’t like. They are just that…opinions. When I write about health and mental health, I provide supporting facts and research as much as possible.

Life at our house has become even busier since last year, when I increased my hours at work. I have less time and mental energy for writing, but that’s not a complaint. Though my work is very challenging, it keeps me mentally engaged, gives me many opportunities to write, and is a meaningful opportunity for me to contribute to the support and future of my family. These past few months I have also thought about the vanity of blogging…after all, who really cares what I think? What I come back to is that through writing about things that matter to me, and by writing frequently, I occasionally strike a note that resonates for a friend who reads it. Just a little something--a phrase, a poem, or a thought that is appreciated and brings happiness or comfort, or that causes you to say (whether you agree or not), “I didn’t know anyone would see it that way.”

I hope to post more frequently again in the coming months. So much is happening for our family and in our world all the time, and the more I write, the more I research and understand the things that matter in my life, and the better I understand myself (a very lofty goal, in my case). This blog is me…creative, curious, restless, impulsive. I write about what is occupying my thoughts, and there is no theme. I’m not trying to gain readers, bring attention to one thing, or piss anyone off. I’m just writing for the sake of writing...and learning. So, thanks for stopping by. Help yourself to a cup of tea or a glass of wine, and let me know…what do you think?

The Help

2010-10-22T07:43:00.000-07:00

A few months ago some of my colleagues recommended that I read The Help, a book about a group of women in Mississippi in the 1960's, by Kathryn Stockett. Since my bedside table is always too heavy on non-fiction, I eventually ordered it and started reading. About halfway through, I found myself wanting to discuss it, so I asked a friend who is a very avid reader whether she had read it. She told me that she had heard it has a “Magical Negro” theme, and hadn’t been interested in reading it because of that. I found this unsettling…was I reading and enjoying a subtly racist book?

The first thing I did was refresh my memory on what the Magical Negro concept was. I had been under the impression that it referred to a black character that possessed magical powers or supernatural wisdom to rescue a white main character from crisis. I looked around to see how it was being defined, and found several variations. The Wikipedia entry for the term describes the Magical Negro as “a supporting, sometimes mystical stock character in fiction who, by use of special insight or powers, helps the white protagonist get out of trouble.” By that definition, any black character with “special insight” in a book with a white protagonist would be considered a Magical Negro character.

Further research yielded no good case for The Help meeting any definition of the term. None of the characters, black or white, were without flaws, or were especially wise. In fact, the genuine nature in which the characters connected with each other was one of the things that I appreciated most about the book. They all saw each other through a lens distorted by their own experience. Some allowed themselves to grow and be influenced by the dramatic events of the story; some (white and black) clung rigidly to their prejudices despite opportunities to change. What most reviewers, like Virginia DeBerry, writing for Open Salon, seemed to take issue with, was the fact that The Help was written by a white woman. I decided to finish the book and judge for myself. Having now finished it, I’m a little frustrated.

In the epilogue to the book, Kathryn Stockett admits, “I was scared, a lot of the time, that I was crossing a terrible line, writing in the voice of a black person.” As a white liberal, I am well-acquainted with the fear of doing something, anything, that would be contradictory to the ideals of cultural celebration that are so important to me, and that are a fundamental part of my social and professional image. Honestly, I’m a little uncomfortable even just typing the word Negro. Yet, despite a demonstrated commitment to diversity, I am still a product of my culture. I occasionally become aware of small biases I have failed to eradicate. When I do, I examine them, correct them to the best of my ability, and move on.

I think whether or not Stockett did cross a line in writing from the perspective of a black character is less important than the fact that she was willing to take the risk. Perhaps this willingness to put oneself out there, to walk on those lines and risk crossing them, is an important contribution to the goal of eradicating prejudice. Refusing to participate doesn’t do anyone any good. I think these small things are important in an age where racial segregation continues in so many ways. I think it is a fairly brave thing for a white writer to say, “I put my heart and soul into writing this and I hope you like it,” and risk the rejection of the literary community or black readers. I think those risks are important to take, and will contribute to our continued progress toward true interracial equality and acceptance. People who are truly progressive and open-minded will recognize these genuine attempts to do what is right. And people who judge them harshly…well they still have their own work to do.

So That Happened

2010-09-15T14:40:00.001-07:00

Today was a dramatic day at work. Sometimes during the week I have the opportunity to get out for a walk or run, depending on my mood and energy level, and I was very grateful that today was one of those days. I left the house the back way, across the basketball court and through the parking lot, and not two blocks from my house I saw a very old woman standing in the middle of the street.

I kept walking quickly in her direction, and she looked up at me as I approached. She lifted one of her arms and lightly tilted her hand to beckon me toward her. The second I was in front of her, she murmured, "Just let me catch my breath," and tipped forward into my arms, light as a feather. I had a just few seconds to consider what could be happening and what I should do before she looked up at me and slowly righted herself. I asked if I should call for help, and she shook her head, "No, I'm fine." She thanked me and started to walk away.

I followed a few steps behind, slowly. She reached a row of cars a few paces away and stopped again. She was close to her front door. I asked her if she was sure she didn't need help, and she said she was sure. She looked tired, and weak, but with a core of determination. With so many elderly grandparents in our lives, we've grown accustomed to that.

"Can I get the door for you?" I said.

"If you do it for me, I won't be able to do it for myself," she replied.

I watched her open the door and go inside, and turned back in the direction I had been going. Nothing left to do but run.

Death Wish

2010-09-04T05:41:00.001-07:00

The other day I was at Potbelly for lunch. I ordered a tuna sandwich, and asked for American cheese instead of Swiss. The kid behind the counter says, "You know that's not even really cheese?" I pause, and blink. Why, yes, I do know that. I know that American cheese is not cheese. I know that it has more salt, and chemicals, and less protein and nutrition than real cheese. And also I know that small indulgences like that slice of American cheese are all that stand between me and a steady diet of mint chocolate chip ice cream, French fries, and popcorn shrimp on a daily basis. So GIVE ME MY SANDWICH IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU, Little Boy.

But I just said, "Yes, thank you."

The What-If Wall

2010-07-05T06:55:00.001-07:00

What if I try, and it doesn't work? It could! (just do it anyway)

What if I'm too scared to speak? You aren't. (so do it anyway)

What if I speak, and sound absurd? So what? (just do it anyway)

What if I reach out, and get hurt? You have. (but do it anyway)

What if I go and feel all alone? You won't. (so do it anyway)

What if something goes very wrong? It might. (but do it anyway)

What if I feel too weak for this? Act strong. (and do it anyway)

What if I don't think I can? Believe! (and do it anyway)

The Zone

2010-06-25T07:20:00.001-07:00

This week I got to attend a national mentoring conference in Boston. Because I work for such a small agency with such a small budget, I have only been able to attend local conferences until this point, so the travel in itself was a fun experience. This was a gathering of directors of mentoring partnerships from across the country; people who do what I do, on varying scales. They range from a staff of just a few, like mine, to a staff of 20 for the larger orgs. The main sessions for the conference were hosted by a local non-profit org in Boston.

Because our staff is so small, and because I have been the primary regional contact for mentoring for over six years, I'm kind of isolated in that regard, even though I work in an office with hundreds of other people in human services. It was so energizing and refreshing to be with 100 other people who share my passion and knowledge about youth mentoring. For those of us who have seen what a good mentor can do in the life of an at-risk child, mentoring is a permanent commitment. Having had mentors who made such a difference in my life, and having been involved with youth mentoring for the past 8 years, I can't imagine a future without serving this movement in some way.

One of my concerns leading up to the conference was my ability to sit in one room and remain focused and engaged for an entire day. Fortunately, the atmosphere of the work sessions and the room set-up was ideal. People were encouraged to move around, and directly behind me was the coffee/tea station. Apparently, several of the Directors in the group are known for not being able to sit still, and one of the presenters even said he knew it would be time to cut his piece short when one of these guys had gotten up three times. That guy actually got up five times in two hours…some other people were counting. So going in I had been worried about whether my attention style would be able to meet the expectations of the meeting, and in actuality, the expectations were perfect for my attention style.

What happened was that I found The Zone, mentally. The presenters were going through their Powerpoints: National Standards! Capacity Building! Strategic Planning! And I was dual note taking, flipping back and forth between my thoughts on the information at hand, and ideas and plans for our agency in general. It was fantastic. I felt like sparks might start flying out of my ears. After two days I came away with plans and specific next steps for my agency--not just for our mentoring work, but for our mental wellness and educational enrichment work as well--that will keep me busier than ever.

We have been in survival mode for so long, it's has been nearly impossible to take the time to re-establish our goals beyond the next few months. I didn't expect this conference to give me a chance to do that, but it has.

Ain’t No Stopping Us Now

2010-06-18T07:25:00.001-07:00

There are certain milestones all parents go crazy over: their baby's first steps, their first words. But for me, those are eclipsed by another achievement that comes years later. I will always remember 2010 as the year Leo and Zoe learned to read. Every typical child will eventually learn speak and walk, with or without their parents' help. But reading, of course, is something that many people never learn to do. In fact, about 20% of Americans cannot read at a level that allows them to comprehend basic forms, signs, or instructions that one encounters in everyday life.

Beyond that, it is just a magical experience to watch my babies, now ages 4 and 6, as they sound out words and begin to truly comprehend the assorted configurations of 26 letters on a page. The acquisition of language itself is a wonder which parallels intellectual development in amazing ways. The other night Leo and I were watching the end of Napoleon Dynamite before bed, and when Napoleon said, "I caught you a delicious bass," Leo laughed a hearty belly laugh. Leo, being a six year old boy, typically has a greater appreciation for physical humor, but he just knew that was funny. I looked at him and realized this was a subtle indicator of an advance in developmental maturity; the kind of thing that's easy to miss. When he grows a half-inch in a week, I can easily tell because his pants are suddenly too short. But little things like reaching a new level of language comprehension can sneak by unnoticed at the end of a busy day.

A few days ago, Leo's class had a writing celebration. Sean, Zoe and I were all able to go, and I honestly think Leo's Kindergarten teacher is superhuman. What she has done with these 21 children in ten month's time is incredible. They each had a story that they had written and illustrated, and a poem. Each student read their poem at a podium, with a microphone, and they were just darling. Poems about pizza, and flowers, and for one dear little boy, his mommy. Leo's poem was entitled, "Trains Are Trains No Matter What", with some creative spelling. Leo is one of three "high readers" in his class. I can remember how reading felt for me as a child in those early years. I spent hours a day with Laura Ingalls, on my top bed bunk, with my feet dangling over the side, or upside down, walking on the ceiling. Books could take me anywhere. For Leo, it's Captain Underpants.

Reading and writing ultimately became a fundamental part of who I am. I can't really estimate how many hours I spend every day between books, articles, essays, reports, blogs, emails, even text messages. Somehow, I can express things through writing that I can't otherwise, and it's the form of communication I can most easily understand. I'm in awe of the fact that my children are now standing at the entrance to the world of the written word, and I get to watch them walk through it.

Get Out of Your Head, It’s Nice Out Here!

2010-05-28T07:26:00.001-07:00

What a week! After sleeping well last night, today is the first day all week I have really felt like myself. My anxiety level is finally back to normal for me, instead of the moderate to high fluctuations I was dealing with from Monday to Thursday.

I'm not sure what combination of nature and nurture resulted in this quirky brain that I have, but I basically live in a state of controlled chaos, mentally. I have to work very hard to make my energy comply with the expectations of normal behavior. I can be in a business meeting, acting very proper, listening and contributing, while inside my head, something like this is going on:

I have considered getting a Rock Flag & Eagle tattoo. My baseline intensity level seems to be a little higher than normal, kind of like an engine that is set to idle too high. I have done so much work to learn to manage it, and I've gotten to the point that I wouldn't change this about myself. Although I can be hyper…and impulsive…and uptight…this thinking style has allowed me to jump into things and keep going in really challenging situations. Life is full, and vibrant, and exciting, and the way I think allows me to have that.

It's like that song I posted down below…when you think the way I do, you're on a tightrope. You've got a lot going on, and you're energized and going for it, but sometimes you can lose your balance. I can handle a lot, but the thing I'm most vulnerable to is insomnia. In perfect conditions I can fall asleep easily, and stay asleep. But a house with small children is not a place where someone who can be easily distracted from sleep will find consistent, deep rest. And it's so easy to stay up too late. So before I even realized it, I went several nights without enough sleep, and Monday I went to the next level, anxiety-wise. It's not fun. My thoughts get less realistic, and less positive. I tend to fixate on potential negative outcomes, on the upcoming challenges, or on what I don't have, instead of what I do have. I am aware of this as it's happening, but my mood drives my reaction to my thoughts, and the anxiety can be self-perpetuating. When I get to this point, I get overwhelmed by the thought of anything stressful or exciting. All I want is to feel better. I don't always act like myself when I'm going through this.

The most valuable tool I have found for giving myself tune-ups when I need them is my journal. Sometimes it takes me a few days of thinking things through and writing to sort things out. When I'm in the middle of moderate anxiety (or a few times, full anxiety attacks) I write, letting everything pour out, no matter how crazy it sounds. That's therapeutic in itself. But the next day I can come back and evaluate. Is that how I really feel? Were those thoughts correct? What else is underneath that I haven't really identified yet? For ongoing challenges, like balancing my very demanding job with what I can actually achieve, I have been doing this work for a long time, and may just need to remind myself of the answers I've already uncovered. But sometimes a new situation comes along and I have to start from scratch.

By Thursday, I had worked through a lot of it, gotten more sleep, and gotten more time to walk and think (exercise is a proven mood enhancer). Last night, I read everything I had written again, and found the last piece to a puzzle I'd been working on all week. On Facebook, I wrote, "I kinda feel like She-Ra right now." I felt that way because I know it's a gift to be able to search my mind for an answer and eventually find it. I felt pretty powerful.

Anxiety is a tough thing to have to deal with, as the millions of people who struggle with it can attest. But like most challenges, it has its rewards. Sometimes, when you can be overwhelmed with worry, you are forced to stop, and really think, instead of just living life on autopilot. And then you emerge a feeling a little stronger, and ready to take on the world again.

Unexpected Treasures

2010-05-20T17:57:00.001-07:00

This morning started out as a typical Thursday…the hustle and bustle of getting Leo, Zoe, and myself ready to get out the door at 7:50. Shower, workout, get everybody up and dressed, hair tamed, breakfast, pack lunches and snacks, make my go-mug of tea, and load up the car with backpacks, lunches, bags, etc. Leo gets dropped off first, in the kiss and ride carpool line at the elementary school, and then we drive to Zoe's school and she gets walked into her classroom. Then I drive to work.

I had been at my desk for about two hours when the phone rang. It was Leo's school nurse, telling me he was crying about his stomach hurting, and afraid he was going to throw up. I could hear him crying in the background. I sent the email I had been working on, and rushed out to the parking garage. On the way to the school I thought of my memories as a child in the nurse's office, waiting to be picked up when I was sick, and how relieved I was when I saw the familiar face of my mom or grandmother. When I arrived to pick Leo up, he looked unhappy, but not unwell, and he had no fever. I brought him home, and quickly became aware that he was not sick at all. Four days ago he had thrown up once, pretty much without warning, which is very unusual for him, probably because of car sickness or random virus. There had been no fever, and he was fine within the hour, asking to eat. He had just gotten it into his head that it was going to happen again, at school. At five years old, it's pretty hard to tell whether you're hungry, nervous, or sick.

And so it happened that I found myself at home on a school day with a healthy kid who was asking for lunch. We ate, and then I needed to do some of the work I had planned for the day. Leo read books, colored, and set up his wooden train tracks across the basement floor, for hours. Every so often he asked to watch TV, play Wii, or use the computer, but he didn't put up even a tiny fuss when I said those activities weren't options when he was home "sick" from school.

Later, a CD I had ordered came in the mail. I put it on and Leo got out the basket of instruments and played the shaky eggs. It was a really special experience to listen to great music for the first time with my little boy, who was enjoying it so much. Listening to music was something I always used to love doing with my mom.

It's not always so easy with Leo…we both have a tendency toward the dramatic, and since birth he has had a flair for the mega-tantrum. At five, he still has big ones, and it is a big priority for us to prevent them with reward systems and consistent consequences. This week he came home from school with a note from his teacher, for the first time. She felt that his behavior had worsened over the past few weeks, and asked that we reinforce the importance of good school behavior with him.

I was pretty upset, considering the fact that this goal—helping him learn to manage his emotions and deal with frustration without having tantrums—had been an ongoing, major priority for five years. But, in hindsight, hearing from his teacher may have been the best thing that could have happened. I have suspected for years that certain food additives, especially food dyes, affect Leo's mood and behavior. In preschool, he would come home on some days seeming especially wound up, and often with a defiant attitude that he didn't always have. After a while, when he acted this way I started to ask him if he had eaten anything special at school, and inevitably he would give an answer like "skittles" or "green cupcakes". I had no way of testing my theory, but I learned that studies have shown that some common preservatives and dyes (which are all just chemicals) used in food can cause ADHD-like symptoms (read about it here: http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/42/21/19.1.full).

Despite knowing about this research, and despite seeing good first-hand evidence that Leo was sensitive to food dyes, we have allowed him to have them on a regular basis, for several reasons. One is that many of our family members do not believe that substances in food can cause behavior problems, and I haven't wanted to be any more confrontational than I already am. Another is that I haven't wanted to be "that mom"—the one who doesn't let her child eat school food, candy, or classmates' birthday treats. Third, is the fact that this stuff is everywhere. Food coloring and preservatives, including the sodium benzoate mentioned in the above article, are used even in many foods that appear to be in their natural state. We eat mainly natural foods at home, but we encounter chemicals in food everywhere we go—at restaurants, and even in the school lunches Leo was eating, up until this week. I starting packing his lunches, and asked that he have treats I've sent in rather than anything that may have food coloring.

One day last week, after we came home after school, Leo was in a particularly wound up state. He was running past the bushes in the front yard, ripping off leaves. When I told him stop, he only acted wilder. It was a rocky couple of hours that ended in a huge emotional meltdown, and later he told me he had had something that day at school with whipped topping and a maraschino cherry. As I have many times, I wondered whether a small amount of these FDA-approved chemicals could really affect him this way. One small cherry? But then I thought about the size of a pill, much smaller than a cherry and capable of affecting health or mood in profound ways. In the case of the maraschino cherry, the original color is removed, and corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, flavorings, potassium sorbate and sodium benzoate, FD&C Red #40, and sulfur dioxide are added.

A few days ago we sent out birthday party invitations to Leo's classmates. Today he brought home a thank you card that his little girlfriend had made for him. She wrote Thank you for the invitation, and drew a picture of herself and Leo holding hands. I have so loved watching as he has made his way through kindergarten, making friends, learning to read, and maturing in so many ways. As a mother, I want nothing more than to make sure my little boy can be himself—the sweet, bright, energetic boy I see so much of the time. If I have to come off as an overzealous kook to make sure he only eats things that make him feel healthy and strong, it's worth it.

The Last is the Most Important

2010-05-16T17:22:00.000-07:00

Here we go again…it’s Sunday night, time to start another week. So much going on, so much to think about. We made it to church today. Since Christmas we’ve been kind of bad attenders, getting ourselves there only every other week or so. Maybe it was because we had been out of town, or because we had stayed up too late on Saturday night. Yet when we make it there on Sunday morning we are always so glad. It was a pretty low-key meeting today. In the hour of silent reflection time, only a few people felt moved to speak. I marveled at how that hour was the longest period I had taken in many weeks to think, really think with a purpose beyond what needed solving in that moment. I found myself wanting to stand and ask for support and perspective from the people in our meeting, always so kind and willing to really reflect on what is said. Most of the time when someone has a message, it is an offering of spiritual thoughts for the group. But sometimes, it’s a request to be “held in the light” on a particular problem. I have a few things I am trying to work through right now—nothing particularly new, and I know the collective wisdom would have given me new insights, and left me feeling encouraged. I never got my mind around how I would frame the query. How to verbalize the complexity that is my life? There were also some themes that had emerged from the earlier messages, and I didn’t want to change the direction of the messages.

At a recent Friends meeting, someone spoke about something she had read recently that had really made an impact on her—that some very difficult things in life are so because they are “not meant to be”. That by pursuing them, we are trying to fit a puzzle piece into a spot that is the wrong shape—no matter how hard you try, the piece will never fit. As I first thought about this, I was moved to tears. That’s what I’ve been doing, I thought, with a familiar pang of frustration. I've been trying to make something work, that is never going to. But the more I thought about that puzzle piece, the less the metaphor rang true for me. Some things are hard, just because they are. What matters is not whether something is resolvable, or could eventually be made not hard. What matters is whether it is truly important, and whether the work on the challenge itself makes you a better person. When I am old and gray, will I be glad I never gave up trying to make the puzzle piece fit, even if it never did?

Whether You're High Or Low

2010-04-30T11:34:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite song right now. I love the music, I love the lyrics, and I love the choreography in the video. The next time you're feeling used and abused, just watch this and get your mojo back!

The Mouths of Babes

2010-04-20T07:27:00.000-07:00

I need to take a break from the news.

I’m trying to imagine how this period in our nation’s history that started with the economic downturn will look in hindsight—twenty, thirty, fifty years from now. I know this awful social friction we’re experiencing is to be expected. We're stuggling economically, and we have our first black president--and an unapologetically liberal one, at that. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, but… wow. So much venom, so much hatred; some of it racially motivated, some not.

I know that the Tea Party is nearly as diverse as America itself, and that it’s largely comprised of perfectly respectable people. But the most outspoken and radical of its members seem to speaking for them all, and they are toxic. At least that’s the impression I get. I have to admit that my perspective is shaped by the media sources I use, and they are not the ones that might present the Tea Party Movement in the most positive light.

It’s no secret that I’m about as left-leaning as they come. But there are lots of people in my life--family members and good friends--who ascribe to very traditional values, and who surely are as confused by my beliefs as I am by theirs. I have come to appreciate how keeping an open mind and an open heart for people who don’t fit neatly into my world-view broadens and strengthens my perspective. And some of them seem to feel the same way about me. None of us is changing our beliefs, but we are allowing that there should be room for others. In fact, I think that it is the existence of these divergent attitudes that brings balance to our society, and the world. It is the people who want to eradicate all lifestyles and attitudes different than their own that I really fear.

Last night I had the first nightmare I’ve had in years. Without going into much detail…it involved two strangers perpetrating violence against my husband and me, in front of our children, because they didn’t like the way we looked. It was one of those terribly realistic dreams, and I woke up feeling the emotions I’d feel if I were really in that situation. As I lay there trying to shake it off, I heard Leo calling me from his room. He had had a bad dream, too, and he asked me, “What happens when things from TV become real life?” I know he was talking about monsters from TV shows, but I was struck by the idea that what we see in the media—stylized depictions of fringe groups, sensational conjecture about the motivations of our political leaders, talk show hosts “ranting to the choir” (yes, you, too, Jon Stewart)—can seem like reality, when it’s largely fiction, designed to bring in viewers and validate their feelings.

I heard an interview on the radio yesterday with a man who believes that our President’s goal is to dissolve the U.S. and blend it into the New World Order, a concept with which I am very familiar, having been raised in a fundamentalist household. There are people who believe that Obama’s rise to power has been orchestrated by the devil, as part of the events they interpret as having been predicted by the Book of Revelations. Any efforts by a liberal U.S. government to interact cooperatively (rather than aggressively) on the World Stage are seen as a step toward a one-world government. I’m fascinated by a mindset that reviles a process that should theoretically lead to the impending Rapture, the ultimate reward for believers in this scenario. This belief-system is entwined with Nationalism and Patriotism. In this particular interpretation of the Bible, the Book of Revelations doesn’t have much good in store for anyone other than American Christians.

At this point I’m just wondering: if no good can come of buying into the media-perpetuated frenzy of finger-pointing, how can you go on a news diet without being ignorant of current events? Or do we just suck it up, take the news reports with a grain of salt, and look forward to better days? I can remember only one time in my 36years when I felt that the American spirit was shining the way it was meant to, and that was in the months following September 11th, 2001. People and political parties seemed to be treating others as compatriots, rather than adversaries. It only lasted until pre-pre-election season, but it was so nice.

Your Dear Little Ear

2010-03-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a very strange day. On my way to work, I passed a woman who was standing by the side of a street in the rain, holding a sign that said, Need work, and food. Please help. As I drove by she looked me in the eye and waved a little wave. I waved back and felt uncomfortable as I held my travel mug of hot tea and proceeded on to work. I thought about her, and about some of the choices I made as a young adult, in the years before I met Sean, and how much sadder my life could have been. At the next light I made a U-turn and circled back. I stopped and talked to her. I gave her phone numbers for homeless intervention services and some soup I had in the car to bring to work. I only give money to organizations, not individuals.

Later in the afternoon, driving back from a meeting in Reston, I saw an elderly woman walking along the side of the road with an umbrella, in the pouring rain. She was slowly making her way toward the drug store, perhaps to fill a prescription. I didn’t go back.

As a teenager, one of my first paid jobs was working for my grandparents. My grandfather and I spent many summer days painting, landscaping, or cleaning out the garage. He taught me how to use power tools, and how to finish something even when I didn't feel like it. He is a huge music lover, and our trips out to the work site involved listening to tapes of his favorite music (and sometimes mine). I became a lover of The Carpenters and Kiri Te Kanawa. Her version of Gershwin’s Summertime is my favorite. In high school I bought (with my own money!) a VHS video tape of the London sessions of the musical South Pacific, for two reasons: One, Kiri Te Kanawa, and two, Mandy Patinkin!

Now that I think about it, it’s no wonder I didn’t make a very good Goth chick.

Mandy Patinkin played Inigo in The Princess Bride, and for me and some of my friends in the late-80’s, that movie was almost a religion. I watched it and read the book so many times, well, it’s embarrassing. So I had to have this video, and it did not disappoint. The music was so good, and the lyrics-written in 1949--were so ahead of their time. I think it’s safe to say that Carefully Taught was my introduction to the idea of learned prejudice, and to the concept of questioning whether my beliefs were my own, or someone else’s.

Sometimes the thought of all of the suffering in the world can be overwhelming. In my line of work, I see a lot of it. Heaven knows how much I appreciate everything I have, and how things could have been so different for me. As I was reflecting on this, and some of the hateful things people have been doing and saying in the name of religion lately, I was reminded that diversity, in all of its forms, is the natural order of things. Even diversity of opinion is an essential part of humanity. Without the darkest, most hateful side of the human condition, you couldn’t have the brightest and most beautiful side—it’s just not going to happen. It’s hard not to get pulled into the bad things people say and do, but if you look at humanity as a whole, I think you can make a case that over time things have gradually gotten better and will probably continue to do so. Maybe I’m wrong, but people seem to have more rights, and there seems to be a wider acceptance of differences in general, than there was even 50 years ago. It’s very slow progress, but it’s progress just the same.

A few weeks ago in church we were asked to set aside our usual format of quiet listening and reflection (we attend a Quaker meeting), and instead to reflect and share our thoughts about several queries. One of these was What supports the growth of Spirit in our lives? I spoke about the anger and fear we see in world, and how we can either absorb and reflect it, or we can deflect and transform it. Quakers speak often of “letting your life speak”. I found myself thinking that people who can do this successfully are like trees, taking what is poisonous from the air, and turning it into oxygen. By deflecting and transforming anger and fear we encounter in the world, we can be like the trees.

Modern Family

2010-03-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

Leo and Zoe are very lucky children: they have a huge extended family that stretches up and down the east coast, and all the way out to Washington.

In Georgia, they have a set of grandparents, an aunt, and uncle, and their first first-cousin on the way. In West Virginia, they have second and third cousins. In Pennsylvania, they have a set of great grandparents, two grandparents, an aunt, great godparents, and many second and third cousins. In New York they have another set of great grandparents, another set of grandparents, a wonderful step family including seven step-aunts and uncles, and seven step-cousins, plus more second and third cousins.

Then there are still more cousins in New England and Seattle. Here in Virginia we have been so fortunate to get to know another branch of the family that can be best described as “good people” and whom we love very much. Add to all of this the tremendous network of good friends we have collected through the years as we made our way from Lancaster, to Kansas, to Binghamton, and finally, down here to Virginia, eight years ago.

We travel every year as much as we can, up and back, down and back, and greatly appreciate that some of the grandparents and uncles and aunts also brave metro DC traffic and the expense of coming here to visit us. We all do our best to be together as a family, although it’s never as much as we’d like. Sometimes people feel we don’t do enough to be with them, and although we’re sorry they feel that way, we know that our lives are packed and we can’t be everywhere for everyone—and that we shouldn’t try. We have to focus first on making time to enjoy each other at home together as a family, making each day a thing of value and togetherness, rather than over-working and over-extending ourselves for some future reward that may never come.

We strive to make our daily lives peaceful--despite work stress, and school obligations, and meetings, and homework, and chores, and extra-curricular activities--so that when we are able to venture out and visit the extended family we can truly be there with them, present, and with an attitude of joy. We try to remember that what can feel like pressure, or an accusation of selfishness, is really just their way of saying they wish they could see more of us. We do, too.

I guess this is modern life, when divorce, relocations, and school and work schedules create so many obstacles to what really matters--spending meaningful time together. But that is the reality. Over the next five years there will be major challenges and changes as we gain new babies, and lose our elders. We will continue to do our best to know and love our family and friends, and to keep our humble door open for them all.

What, No Laptop?

2010-03-19T06:28:00.000-07:00

The other night we enjoyed the sitcom The Big Bang Theory, a must-watch for anyone who leans in the direction of All Things Nerdy. At the end of every episode there’s a message from the director that flashes onscreen that you have to pause if you want to read it. On this particular night as we were reading and laughing about certain phrases, the following conversation transpired:

Sean: Are you done?
Me: You know I read faster than you.
Sean: But I was further along so that’s why I asked.
Me: That’s because I read the first third, then the last third, then the middle third.
Sean: Like you do.

Not only is this short conversation a lovely sample of the dynamics of a 16-year relationship between two first-born nerds, it also serves as yet another reminder of how different our brains are (not just Sean’s and mine, but everyone’s).

Have you ever participated in the Nasa Exercise for group decision making… where you’re given a list of supplies to assemble a toolkit for an expedition, and your group must negotiate and decide which of the items you will bring and which you will leave behind?

You are a member of a space crew originally scheduled to rendezvous with a mother ship on the lighted surface of the moon. Due to mechanical difficulties, however, your ship was forced to land at a spot some 200 miles from the rendezvous point. During the landing, much of the equipment aboard was damaged, and, since survival depends on reaching the mother ship, the most critical items available must be chosen for the 200-mile trip. The 15 items left intact and undamaged after the landing include a box of matches, food concentrate, 50 feet of nylon rope, parachute silk, a portable heating unit, two .45-caliber pistols, one case of dehydrated Pet milk, two 100-lb. tanks of oxygen, a stellar map (of the moon's constellations), a life raft, a magnetic compass, five gallons of water, signal flares, a first-aid kit containing injection needles, and a solar-powered FM receiver-transmitter.

Our brains are like that, I think: Lots of unrelated elements, some which seem very important, but will ultimately be useless or even a hindrance, others which may go unnoticed, but could end up being essential for our success or even our survival. Some of the characteristics in your toolkit should be kept or tossed, depending on what others you have to work with. A tendency toward compulsive behavior, for example, can allow you to practice the piano until you become a virtuoso, or it can lead you to dark places from which you can’t escape.

Each of us must decide what to keep, and what to leave behind.

Phatness

2010-02-23T07:57:00.000-08:00

Director Kevin Smith was recently removed from a Southwest Airlines flight when he was deemed a flight risk because of his weight. Smith is a big guy, but reaction to whether someone his size should face restrictions in flying have been mixed. On the one hand, we all want our tiny bit of real estate on an airplane to be free of the bulk of our neighbors. On the other hand, many Americans are big, and getting bigger. Two thirds of Americans have a body mass index (BMI) that qualifies them as overweight, and about a third qualify as obese. In a country that prides itself on freedom and diversity, do we want to discriminate against a third of the population because of their size?

I was an overweight teenager. As an average-weight adult, I still struggle with body image issues. And as a parent it’s very important to me to figure out how I will present this issue to my kids. It’s a challenge to help them learn to have a healthy lifestyle and avoid the health risks of obesity, while teaching the to accept and understand size differences in others. I have many friends and family members who are heavy, and nutrition has always been a topic of interest for me. Here are some things I’ve learned.

The simple fact is that if you consume more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. If you drink one can of soda’s worth of calories a day more than you need to maintain your body weight (at 155 calories per can) you would gain 16 pounds each year. To many, this is a black and white situation. If you are overweight, eat less. If you can’t, or choose not to… you are lazy, weak, or lacking willpower.

But willpower is actually only one small part of this complex problem.

Americans are confronted with an abundance of food and beverage choices. In the past century, humans went from having access to a few dozen foods in a given month, to hundreds, or thousands. Simple carbohydrates like white rice, corn-based foods, and sweets are cheap and abundant, and our government subsidizes the production of many of them. The tastefully-named blog, Thisiswhyyourefat.com gives hundreds of examples of the decadent, calorie-dense foods people have access to.

The corporations that produce many of our foods have been engineering them over many decades to maximize their appeal and keep you coming back. In his book The End of Overeating, David Kessler, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, describes how levels of fat, sugar, and salt are manipulated to make people want more (and therefore spend more). Human beings require certain amounts of fat and salt to absorb and process other nutrients and function properly, but the human body has no need whatsoever for sugar. Yet sugar is everywhere, a part of nearly every American diet. It is romanticized and used as a reward. On a recent show about drug addiction, I saw one poor fellow who was trying to detox from Oxycontin abuse, and he had stocked his apartment with soda and cookies to help himself through the withdrawal process. This is a good demonstration of the drug-like qualities and the power of sugar.

Overeating is considered to be a vice, like drug or alcohol abuse. Yet a recovering drug abuser can attempt to avoid drugs altogether, and to avoid people who abuse drugs and may tempt them. A person prone to overeating, however, must still eat, and they must do it several times a day. And the negative consequences of overeating are delayed, in most cases. If you eat a donut (or six), the immediate payoff in satiety can be much more motivating than the small amount of weight gain that will result from a single, small act of overeating.

People self-medicate with food. Simple carbohydrates have an antidepressant effect. The term “comfort food” is well known. In our fast-paced culture, where we pack so much responsibility and activity into every day (or feel lazy when we don’t), the stress grows and grows. Is it any wonder we do, too? http://biopsychiatry.com/sersadcarb.htm.

Obesity is thought to be a combination of nature and nurture, but it’s hard to know whether it’s truly hereditary, or whether attitudes and customs about food are just passed down through generations. Either way, we are all influenced by the way our families eat. It can be nearly impossible to change to a healthy diet such as the “Eat real food, not too much, mostly plants” approach encouraged by Michael Pollan--when you were raised on Ritz Cracker Mock Apple Pie and fast food. http://www.michaelpollan.com/indefense.php

In addition to overeating to self-medicate for conditions like depression and anxiety, some people maintain a bulky physique to meet emotional needs. A link between obesity and a history of child abuse has been found. An overweight body can make a person feel larger and less vulnerable, or in some cases, shift unwanted intimate attention away from themselves.

A small percentage of people have physiological or hormonal conditions, like thyroid abnormalities, that cause them to gain weight. Some medications also cause appetite increases and weight gain.

People who go through cycles of weight gain and loss often gain more pounds back than they took off. This used to be thought of as the body’s response to starvation (to lower the metabolic rate so that less food was required to maintain body fat stores). This effect is now known to be the result of muscle loss caused by dieting. When you lose 20 pounds through dieting alone, some of the weight lost is muscle. When you gain back that 20 pounds, it’s all fat, which causes your overall resting metabolic rate to decrease. Muscle mass burns more calories than fat.

The eating habits and requirements of those around us influence our ability to eat according to our own needs. It’s difficult to expect your family to make dietary changes based on one’s own preferences or needs. And high calorie “celebration foods” are always being placed right in front of us: by the neighbor who drops off a plate of chocolate chip cookies because you shoveled their driveway; the donuts on the conference table; the parties with their super calorie-concentrated finger foods. It’s easy to put away a day’s worth of calories at a party, between the alcoholic or sugary drinks and the food.

People are motivated differently by thinness and perceived attractiveness, which is, of course, entirely subjective. Many people are comfortable with being heavier, and they don’t think weight has any bearing on beauty. In fact, there are some people who find a full figure especially appealing. And overweight people with a pear shape can be quite healthy, as their stored extra weight may have less of an impact on their hearts.

The past two hundred years have seen a significant change in the activity level of the average American. We used to work actively most of the day: building, hunting, farming, cleaning, and playing outdoors. Now, computers machines do much of our work for us. For many of us, after sleeping, commuting to work, and then working all day on a computer, there is very little time left for vigorous physical activity. The minimum recommendation for brisk daily physical activity (to maintain heart health) is 30 minutes a day. Most people have to schedule this and move mountains to stick with it. And the overweight must move those extra pounds in order to do the cardio, much like a fit person jogging or swimming with a 25 pound weight (or whatever the size) tied to their waist.

And finally, and maybe most importantly, there’s sleep: sleep, sleep, sleepity sleep. Americans don’t get enough, they don’t value it, and they don’t understand it. Lack of adequate, restful sleep impacts our health on so many levels, including our mood, focus, productivity, and energy level. And for the purposes of weight control, it is crucial: People who don’t get enough sleep have higher levels of ghrelin in their blood, a hormone which stimulates appetite, and lower amounts of leptin, which regulates appetite. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC535701/

Like other forms of prejudice, our negative attitudes toward overweight people are based on ignorance and fear. In fact, some of the most fat-prejudiced people I know are moderately overweight themselves, as in “I wouldn’t let it go that far." Yet we know that every person’s food environment is different. Some people only have to contend with a few of the above factors to maintain a healthy weight; some have them all to deal with. Because a person’s weight is clearly visible to us all, we feel we have a right to make a judgment. But many of the other tendencies that influence our health are not visible to others. A trim person whose diet consists entirely of junk/fast food is damaging their health and potentially taxing the health care system more than a moderately overweight person who eats too much healthy food.

Personally, I think people who overwork and over-consume things (rather than food) are able to move through our society free of judgment because our culture over-values success—putting it above the family and community contributions people sometimes have to give up in order to work long hours and rise to the top of their field. That puzzles me, but to each their own, I guess. We may have different values, but everything works just fine if we slow down and take the time to understand each other.

Super Bowl Politics: An Open Letter to Sarah Palin

2010-02-07T08:57:00.000-08:00

Hello Governor Palin: First let me say that when I first heard the announcement of your candidacy for the office of Vice President on August 29th, 2008, I was absolutely thrilled. The idea that such a confident, intelligent woman —a mother of five, no less— was on the Republican ticket was incredibly exciting. I am a working mother, and a proud feminist, and I knew your candidacy was an important step toward better representation for women in the political world.

I have watched your career over the past eighteen months with bewilderment. There are two central pillars of your political persona that I can’t reconcile: your “us and them” approach to patriotism, and your Christianity.

At last night’s Tea Party convention, your response to a question on national security was: "It's easy to just kind of sum it up by repeating Ronald Reagan when he talked about the Cold War and we can apply it to our war on terrorism. We win. They lose, and we do all we can to win." You were speaking in the context of the “War on Terror”, but you seem to apply this principle to all of your political goals, as though any action that contributes to your personal success, and the advancement of your ideals, is warranted.

You have made your Christianity and your devotion to your family a central part of your overall message. Yet you have chosen in your public appearances to appeal to and support the most divisive contingency of our society. You profess to speak to the ideals of the typical American, yet the average voter is not represented by your words, which, rather than inspiring progress toward the American ideals of equal rights and diversity in harmony, incite the very people who fear these things.

The overall historical trend in both the United States and the world has moved from discrimination toward equality, most likely because this ideal is a reflection of true progress. The human fear of that which is Other is well-documented, but the enlightened and compassionate among us can transcend this instinct. In her famous exercise with elementary-school students in the 1960’s, Jane Elliott demonstrated that children could easily be influenced to perceive superiority of one group over another, based on something as arbitrary as eye color. Once this was demonstrated to the children, however, they were less vulnerable to becoming cruel, and less likely to engage in prejudiced behavior. (http://www.uiowa.edu/~poroi/seminars/2004-5/bloom/poroi_paper.pdf)

Another famous and (and very controversial) study conducted in 1971 at Stanford University demonstrated that college students would quickly become abusive toward other students when put in a position of power over them, even when they knew that the characteristics used to define the power roles were arbitrary. (http://www.stanford.edu/dept/news/pr/97/970108prisonexp.html)

America will truly become the “greatest nation in the world” when we have learned these lessons, and applied them to the genuine equality of all of our citizens.

I believe that all of the world’s major faiths make important contributions to our global culture, and that there is something of the divine in all of us. I believe that the spirit we put into the world is returned to us. Jesus Christ was an example of humankind at its best. There is such tremendous wisdom in the Bible, and I think one of its most important assertions comes from 1 Peter: 8-9: “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult, but with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.”

Surely a true Christian would strive to live up to this ideal. It’s my hope that you will be able to resist the carrot of fame and success that fringe groups are waving at you, as they do not represent the ideals and interests of the typical, moderate American citizen. They certainly don’t represent those of us who strive to live as Christ did. Most importantly, I hope that you will realize that winning in the political arena should be the result of true service to the American people, not on blocking and tearing down the efforts of the competition at any cost. This is not the Super Bowl; you are not a player trying to get a win for your team. You are a woman, a mother, and an activist in your own way. What kind of legacy are you leaving for those who come after you?

2010-01-22T06:12:00.000-08:00

This is a short story I wrote for elementary school-aged children about a young man who lives alone on the edge of a small town. Soggysox Sam teaches children the strategies people might use to avoid or handle challenges, and how our thinking can influence their effects.

Soggysox Sam

Not long ago in a small town called Willow Springs, there lived a very practical young man named Sam. Sam lived a simple life alone in a cottage exactly one mile from town. Every day he got up and walked to work in the town library helping people to check out their books. At lunch time Sam walked home on Creek View Drive and ate his lunch, and then he walked back to the library for the afternoon. Sam liked working at the library and he enjoyed talking with all of the people who came to the library, especially Miss Melanie. She came in every week to return old books and check out new ones. She was very smart and loved to read.

At the end of every work day Sam walked home again. When Sam was 10 years old, his mother had allowed him to begin walking to school by himself. Ever since then, Sam had walked the straightest and most direct route to and from town so as not to waste time. There were no sidewalks on Creek View Drive, so he walked on the road--which was barely more than a dirt path, really. Since Sam’s cottage was the only house out his way, very few cars ever went by.

One year, when Sam was 23 years old, the spring rains were especially heavy, and many puddles formed on Creek View Drive. One puddle in particular was so large that it stretched across the whole road. Sam was vexed! He couldn’t walk around the puddle to the left because there was a steep hill. He couldn’t walk around it to the right, because there was a sharp drop-off and he might fall. His only option was to walk right through the puddle, so that’s what he did.

The puddle was wide, but not very deep, so only Sam’s feet got wet. But all day as he worked at the library his shoes made soft squishing sounds with every step he took. How embarrassing! And when lovely Miss Melanie came to sign out a book, Sam had to stay behind the check out counter so she wouldn’t see his wet shoes. He wanted so much to talk to her, but he just couldn’t.

This huge puddle became a real nuisance to Sam, because he had to walk through it four times a day, and every time he did, his feet dragged the water along so that the puddle actually seemed to be getting larger. Somehow, the more he walked through it, the bigger it got.

Soggysox Sam complained about his problem to the town elders who visited the library, and of course they wanted to help. One of the elders, Old Doctor Edwards, gave Sam four magic pebbles to throw in the puddle. He said they would make it dry up. That day when he walked home for lunch Sam threw the tiny gray pebbles into the puddle, and it instantly began roiling and churning.

The muddy, brown puddle water shifted back and forth, forming waves that for a few seconds made it look just like a miniature ocean. A miniature tidal wave formed and tossed a large splash of water up and out of the puddle, forming a second, and then a third, and a fourth puddle. Sam could easily hop across these four smaller puddles and keep his feet dry. Those pebbles really were magic!

But the magic pebbles’ effects only lasted for the rest of the day, and when Sam returned the next morning the four puddles had become one again. Sam had no more magic pebbles, so he was back to where he started.

Another town elder, Old Senora Avestruz, told Sam that if he concentrated hard enough to ignore it, and waited long enough, the puddle would eventually dry up and go away. Sam resolved that he would do this, and soon found himself thinking so hard about not thinking about the puddle that he got a headache to go along with his soggy feet.

Old Professor Brown suggested that Sam study the puddle so he could find a way to get rid of it. So Sam took out all of the books in the library he could find about water and earth and rain and walking and studied every moment of his free time. But he still had a puddle to walk through four times a day. He felt like that puddle was taking over his life!

After many days of soggy socks and frustration, Sam finally had a chance to talk to Old Mrs. McDowell, who spent most of her time gardening in the town park. “What can I do about this puddle? He asked her. “The more I walk through it, the bigger it gets. I’m so tired of having wet feet I could cry.”

Old Mrs. McDowell advised him, “Sam, I am 93 years old. I’ve known your family since your great grandfather was in short pants, and he was just as stubborn as you are. There is one simple answer to your problem, Sam. Just walk to town a different way, for Pete’s sake.” And she turned to her petunias and placed one gently into the hole she’d dug.

“But Creek View Drive is the shortest way, the straightest, and the one I have always taken,” he muttered. “My father walked to town this way, and his father before him. There must be a way to dry up that puddle!”

“Suit yourself Sam, if you’re happy. But if it were me, I’d walk right through this park to get to the library from your house. The sweet scent of honeysuckle would follow you all day, instead of the feeling of muddy water between your toes.”

Sam knew Old Mrs. McDowell was much wiser than he, and he thought maybe if he considered his problem in a completely different way, things could be different. It may sound simple, but Sam closed his eyes, and instead of focusing on his clammy, wet feet, he thought to himself, “The park is a good way to get to town and back. I’ll try it.”

That afternoon when the library closed, Sam was tired and cranky from a long day of working with soggy socks. He was not sure at all about changing the way he walked home. He liked to do things a certain way, and didn’t want to do them any differently. He was really tempted to step out of the library and walk toward Creek View Drive.

On the front steps of the library he stopped and thought of Mrs. McDowell, so content and wise in her old age. He knew she could be right, and he should give her advice a try. So he headed toward the park.

The first thing Sam noticed about the park was the canopy the trees made over his head. It was like stepping into another world, and he could feel the stress of the day fading with each step he took. As he kept walking, he felt pride in his ability to try something new, and he felt a sense of optimism that he could do this after all. He could adjust to the new route and have dry socks every day. It was a huge relief! Even though it took a little more time to take this new route, it was a lovely walk, and he arrived at work happy and with dry feet!

Because his feet were nice and dry and he was feeling so chipper, the next day he asked Miss Melanie to have a picnic with him in the park, and she accepted the invitation. As the weeks passed, and spring turned into summer, he forgot a little more each day what it had been like to walk through that muddy old puddle. And he knew that if something else happened and he couldn’t walk through the park anymore, he could adjust and find another way to town.

Pots, Coins, and People

2009-11-14T08:14:00.001-08:00

I have always enjoyed collecting things. The first thing I can remember collecting is stickers, which I kept in a photo album. After that came Garbage Pail Kids cards, which were delightful because they were tradable, could be organized according to various criteria, and most importantly, were distasteful to my mother. In high school I kept scrap books (which I still have) with drawings, magazine clippings and notes from friends. Over the years I have kept many collections, including (1) a small box of rocks and minerals, (2) old coins and other interesting items my grandparents found in my great grandparents' files, (3) photos and keepsakes relating to my grandmother, (4) photo albums related to the various phases of Sean's and my 15 years together, (5) three decades-worth of books, (6) a small but lovely collection of teapots, (6) journals and poems dating back to 1988 (oh the angst!), and (7) my jewelry, about half of which I made myself, from my large collection of beads.

There are things we collect that are not objects. Friends, especially in the Facebook era, are a collection of sorts. I went to 11 schools before college, and have lived in Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, Kansas, and Virginia. My friends are all over the world, and down the street; they are people I have known since birth, and people I have only known for a few months. When I think of the diversity of our friends and experiences, I'm reminded of the way I feel when I contemplate any collection: the satisfaction of looking at things and comparing their similarities and differences, and seeing how they all make up one greater entity.

What really got me to thinking about this was the realization that my newest collection is my children's learning. Kids absorb so much, and acquire new skills and information as such an astounding rate. Last night Leo told me about something new he had learned, and it gave me that same feeling, a satisfaction, a feeling of wealth, of adding a new thing to a growing personally valuable collection. I'd like to buy a scrapbook for them both, and have them draw pictures, write notes, and paste photographs to represent things they've learned that are meaningful to them. Thirty years from now those scrapbooks would be priceless.

Guest Blogger From 54 Years Ago

2009-10-27T06:45:00.000-07:00

This Bread Which We Bless Daily

From the West Green Tree Church of the Brethren Newsletter
May 21, 1955
by Floy Royer Eshleman

Back of the loaf is the snowy flour,
Back of the flour the mill,
Back of the mill the wheat, the sower—
The sun and our Father’s will.
-Maltbie Babcock

About 10 years ago, while living in the home of a university professor in a central Illinois town, I learned the art of baking bread. I learned it, not in a home economics kitchen nor from the professor’s wife, but from an aged grandmother in a home whose homey philosophy and zest for living were contagious. I was a young bride then and probably felt that baking our bread was a contribution for the family budget. The experience of taking fresh, crusty loaves of bread from the oven soon became far more than an economic matter; it symbolized for me the fulfillment of my own life in creative activity and became a medium through which I could share the love of God in my life with others. Since that time hundreds of loaves of bread have come from my oven and have become a part of the way of living in our family.

The processes of baking bread and cultivating human life are similar in many ways. A loaf of bread must have wholesome ingredients, must be kneaded, left to rise, punched down, shaped into loaves and left to rise again. It is then ready to be placed in the over. Life is created and transformed in the slow, unseen, but sure processes as yeast working in the dough and the heat of the oven on the loaf. And the warm loaf from the oven must be consumed to fulfill the purpose of its creation. This creation becomes strength and nourishment for my family and produces satisfaction for me which can not be realized in the spectator role of life.

My heart is always warmed when my family joins hands in our family circle to sing: “Back of the loaf is the snowy flour.” I have had a part in bringing this fuller realization of God to my family through this bread that we bless daily.

An aged sister visiting in our home remarked that one thing she would do differently if she had her life to live over again would be to spend more time with her children. One of the most effective ways we can do this is in shared work experiences .The little hands and the little eyes follow each step of the way. And by these living experiences we transmit unconsciously our Christian faith to our children.
The preparing and serving of food can be more than the mechanical process of fixing it. As we are mindful of the ingredients of a loaf of bread, so should we bear in mind the content and beauty of each food we serve. Is it nutritious and attractive? Will it help develop strong bodies and clear minds? Will it bring all who eat into a fuller relationship with God? In the service of baking the communion bread at West Green Tree the ministers’ and deacons’ wives prepare their own lives in worship and consecration to God. This spirit permeates the afternoon’s activity and has followed me to my home in the baking of bread in my kitchen. It is an important part of the blessing of the bread, the breaking and the giving.

Attitudes of worship and temperance find expression in many ways in the kitchen; in devotion of self to Christ, in avoidance of overwork, in effective household management and in the combinations and amounts of foods served to avoid waste. Some of the groaning tables of yesterday (or today?) would not have pleased our Master if he had dropped in unexpectedly as a guest. If Christ is the unseen Guest at each meal should we not then be conscious of the type of meal we set before him?

Every kitchen can be a workshop for the growing and unfolding of God’s kingdom in our daily lives. Traditionally, the Brethren love feast and communion service have renewed and strengthened in a beautiful manner our relationship to God and his people. This service symbolizes a daily devotion in family and community living. Jesus was known in the blessing and breaking and giving of bread. He is still known in the family where the bread is baked and blessed, broken ad shared daily in his name!

And You Can Get It If You Try

2009-10-10T07:04:00.000-07:00

The past few months have been extremely challenging, especially in the work realm, which is not something I can blog about. In addition to the fact that my baby girl started preschool and my boy started Kindergarten, my work responsibilities ballooned due to staffing changes. I am so blessed to have a rock solid marriage and family foundation to support me when things get tough.

Overall, compared to Summer and Fall of last year, I have felt stronger and more capable of handling the stress. Last year was definitely the most mentally vulnerable period I’ve ever been through, but at the same time it was a tremendously fertile period of growth. Getting through it inspired me to renew my commitment to disadvantaged kids and families, and stimulated my passion for learning about the brain and its influences in new ways.

Now I’m faced with the reality of having work I love and care about, and way too much of it. I could work around the clock, seven days a week, and not be finished. I am not a work-a-holic, however, and I am not at a stage in life where I could be, even if that were my preference. I have three days a week to be in the office while Zoe is in school, and I have to get as much done as I can in those three days, without making myself go crackerdog (see All Creatures Great and Small, by James Herriott).

Last week I got really stressed out. This month is critical for some major projects, and the resources needed to pull them off don’t match what’s available. I had a minor meltdown on Tuesday before multiple people reminded me that I can’t work miracles and helped me get back on track. Add that to the ever-growing stack of reminders that having a support network makes all the difference.

I have so many thoughts percolating in my brain, almost connecting with each other and then skittering away at the last second. It’s getting to be time to thinking about next steps…where do I want to take these interests and do something with them, and how? I’ve been too busy with life with little people to consider the question very carefully, but I don’t think the status quo is going to work long-term. I’d like to hear from you: do you think your current career is your permanent vocation, and if not, how are you working toward Work 2.0 (or 2.1, or 3.0, etc.)?

Please Check Your Baggage at the Door, Madam

2009-09-04T04:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Leo’s Kindergarten Orientation, and I cried. I wasn’t the only one. He was so cute, in his new school outfit, with his red apple nametag.

I like his teacher already. The classroom only has one window. I’m big on windows. I watched his little classmates: cute, serious, quirky. We are fortunate to live in a neighborhood with true diversity. Both Zoe’s class and Leo’s are about 1/3 Caucasian kids. Leo’s class of 22 kids is also about 1/3 Hispanic, and the rest are African American and Asian. This is what they will know, and that makes me happy. I signed up to be on the PTA, and to help with the International Fair, whenever that is.

Today is my last day “at home” with the two of them before school days begin. We have friends coming over for a pizza play date. Then the long weekend, then Leo goes to school on Tuesday, and Zoe on Wednesday.

I’m truly at a loss for words right now.

Slippery Slope

2009-08-11T07:05:00.000-07:00

On July 26th, a Long Island woman named Diane Schuler drove her van the wrong way down the Taconic parkway, crashing into oncoming traffic and killing 8 people, including herself, her child and three nieces in her vehicle, and three men in the car she hit. She was found to have marijuana and an estimated 10 ounces of alcohol in her system. The accident happened before noon on the way home from a camping trip.

This story was a frequent topic of conversation during our visit to Long Island last week. Everyone wanted to know why: why would she be drinking in the morning, why would she get behind the wheel with her own children in the car, why would she drive full speed the wrong way down the highway? Particularly troubling was the fact that she also had her nieces in the car, and all three were killed.
Every time the subject came up, I found myself at odds with the general consensus: that there must have been something inherently evil in this woman that caused her to do it.

What is evil?

Human behavior follows a bell-shaped curve in all dimensions. Look at any aspect of behavior, and you will see that most people are somewhere near the middle, and that there are a smaller number of people at either end of the curve. For example, most people are moderately religious, and a few are not religious at all, and some are fundamentalists, ruling every detail of their lives by their religious beliefs. Regarding their health, most people make attempts on a daily basis to eat some healthy food and get a little exercise, while there are some smaller numbers of people on either end of the curve who are sedentary and eat fast food most of the time, and there are some who eat a raw foods plant-based diet and work out two hours every day. Most of us fall between a 3 and a 7 on a scale of 1-to-10 in just about everything.

For argument’s sake, let’s say 90% of us fall in the hump of the curve in any given aspect of human behavior. That leaves 5% at either end. And maybe it’s just .2% of people who are at the very edges—the 1’s and 10’s. Now if you’re talking about a group of 1000 people, that’s 900 people in the mid-range of the curve, 50 people on either end, and two people at the very edges. But we have 307 million people in the U.S., so that would still be 614,000 people at the extreme fringes of society in any given aspect of behavior. Statistically, weirdness should be expected.

There are so many potential factors in the case of Diane Schuler, a mental break triggered or exacerbated by the marijuana and alcohol, existing mental illness that had gone undetected by her family, or other factors we don’t know about or understand. But her choice to drink and drive erratically that morning is the real-life manifestation of her existence on the fringe of the bell curve. She won the worst lottery of all: she was born with the characteristics and into the environment that put her on that highway driving full-speed into oblivion. People hate her for what she did, and want believe she was a monster of some kind, but she was human, just like the rest of us.

What I don’t understand is why, when someone behaves in these extremes, we have a need to see their actions as somehow “extra-human”, or evil. Is anyone really born with a truly evil and destructive nature. I know that there children who gravitate toward harming others, described as psychopaths, or “antisocial personalities”. But is there some trigger of abuse that unleashes this disfunction?

Seemingly normal people can pass over into a new realm and do the unthinkable in the space of a minute. Our job--and where the family and friends of Diane Schuler must have failed in some way--is to watch out for the people in our lives, to support them, to be there to get them help when they are struggling. Because if we don’t, we might just find ourselves living a nightmare.

The Beautiful Shades of Gray

2009-07-31T06:54:00.001-07:00

Do you ever wonder how much the delicate balance of chemistry in your brain affects your thoughts and actions? I’m not talking about people in general, I’m talking about you, yourself.

Back in 2002, in the months before Sean and I started trying to get pregnant, I got in the habit of keeping a record of my cycle, which I have continued. In those 7 years, I have had 4 pregnancies, 2 miscarriages, two births, nursed two children for a total of 37 months, and used two antidepressants and two methods of birth control that affected my cycle. In March of this year I finished taking Lexapro, an antidepressant, and these past four months have been the first period in my adult life when I have been unaffected by birth control pills, pregnancy, nursing, or medication…literally, the first time since I was 17 years old. Strangely, I feel I’ve never been happier or more grateful for my rich life, than I have these past few months.

And that makes me wonder.

Having kept these records for the past 7 years, I have identified a few patterns in my own emotional states. On the second day of my cycle, I usually feel really great; I have that “the world is my oyster” feeling. Around day 6, I usually have a distinct feeling of let down, a moderate, but temporary depression. As I approach days 10-12, for a period of several days, I feel increasingly restless and impulsive. I have even learned to avoid certain authority figures in my life during those days, for fear I will tell them what I really think of them! In the last days of my cycle I get more weepy, more emotional labile, though not necessarily more irritable, as many women do. These emotional shifts correspond quite neatly to the standard hormonal fluctuations of the cycle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MenstrualCycle2.png.

There are other ways of feeling I’ve identified that are clearly hormonally-influenced. Sometimes I am more likely to dwell on the complexity of my responsibilities than others. I’ve been known to send Sean long to-do lists when I’m feeling this way, and I find myself thinking, “why doesn’t he concern himself with all of this???” in a woe is me sort of way. I know this is not a genuine, organic thought process, but a hormonally-influenced one. Most of the time I don’t feel that way.

On days like this, my mind is fertile with the connections of life: how does everything in your life affect you…your thoughts…your health…stress hormones…the attitudes, beliefs, and moods of people you interact with at home, at work, school…memories, triggered by scents and sights…all of it. Do you really move through life as an actor, or as a reactor? How much free will do we really have? Much less than we want to believe, I think.

There seems to be about a thousand times more research available on the chemistry of the female cycle and brain than for males. Yet we know that guys’ hormones do fluctuate (less predictably, I’d add) and they have changes in mood and are influenced by external factors the same as women. Since men don’t have an identifiable cycle the way women do, and they are not subject to the much-maligned pre-menstrual shift, most people have the impression that women’s moods are unpredictable and out of their control, while men are conversely steadfast in their chemistry and behavior. If men are angry, it is because of a reasonable response to life circumstances. Nuts to that! I believe we are all vulnerable to delicate changes in hormones that make us more susceptible to a dramatic response depending on the many possible influences I listed above.

As I have identified my own thought patterns and tendencies, it has been both fascinating and freeing. When I start feeling down on day six, I can observe how my thoughts change and, to some extent, ignore them, or replace them with more neutral ones. I’m not so arrogant to think I am at all times reasonable in my thoughts. That’s an idea I’d like to pass on. We are all imperfect, with levels of emotional stability that vary from person to person. As a society we need to do a better job of understanding how this impacts our interactions with others. We often attribute the negative actions of others to their inherent character or personality, rather than just seeing their behavior as who they were, and how they were feeling, at that given moment. It’s just one more reason to give others the benefit of the doubt, for they are as human as we are.

Lemonade From Lemons

2009-07-21T06:45:00.000-07:00

This week I got approval at work to organize a regional bullying prevention symposium. We’re pulling in kids, parents, and partners from the public schools, community centers, non-profits and faith community to coordinate peer-harassment prevention efforts. I am so psyched! This is a completely new project, and it’s something I really care about.

I was bullied and harassed from 5th grade to 10th, in lots of different ways. From the shabby clothes I wore to my Coke-bottle glasses and the scar on my lip, to my terrible fear of confrontation, I was a lightning rod for ridicule. In high school while a lot of my peers were outgrowing their cruel streaks I was learning to carry myself with more confidence, and to stick up for myself in spite of the terror I felt inside, and things got better. But there were times when I was bullied in the truest sense of the word: chased by boys with rocks, taunted mercilessly for being so different, called names (like Charlotte--because the scar on my lip looked like a spider). There were days I begged to stay home from school because school was a miserable place to be, and it had nothing to do with academics.

Last year I heard a radio interview with Jodee Blanco, author of Please Stop Laughing at Me, and the first target of bullying to have a best-selling book about the subject. That's when I got this project on my radar. She says that the bully and the victim (or perpetrator and target) are two sides of the same coin. The bully needs support and compassion, too. I am particularly interested in this approach, because I believe we are too quick to label people as bad in our culture. One of my favorite expressions, “The villain of the hero of his own story,” is particularly apt here. Most bullies don’t think of themselves as bullies.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get into the minds of bullies (both adult and youth), and it’s not hard to see why it happens so much. Despite my own experiences, I, too, have joined in with ridiculing others, especially as a teen, though not usually right in front of the target. I still have a tendency to be critical, which I try to stifle with varying degrees of success. For kids, the desire to be on the high side of a social power struggle between individuals or groups can trump all else. Nobody wants to be the gazelle, being ripped to shreds by the dingoes. Better to join the attack.

So now here we are, in 2009, with millions of kids attending schools across the country…really it’s a world-wide problem, and worsening. Methods for peer-harassment are increasing faster than we adults can keep up. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cyberbullying. Yet there is no widely-recognized, simple, and readily available curriculum or approach for prevention. There are several programs that schools can adopt (Blanco’s approach, the Olweus curriculum, etc.), but from what I can see, the response nation-wide is spotty.

We all know what can happen when kids are harassed with no escape. Bullying-related suicides and homicides have happened across the country. We’ve all been affected in some way by what happens when these kids give up on trying to have a normal life, and turn on themselves or others. And bullies who don't learn to empathize can go on to be adult perpetrators of harassment and/or violence. I’d love to see us address this problem in a real way. School should be a place where gifts and ideas flourish. Real learning can't happen in concert with fear and dread.

Opinions Are Like Elbows

2009-07-15T06:35:00.001-07:00

My generation: we’re in our 30’s and 40’s, we’re too old to be young, and we’re too young to be old. We were raised in and on the 70’s, when pop culture really got started, with the Brady Bunch, and Farah Fawcett. I, like so many of my friends, have not gone so quietly into adulthood. Much to the chagrin of the youngsters, we elbow our way into Facebook and the blogosphere, laming it up with our observations about parenthood, working, and other responsibilities that come with maturity.

To varying degrees, we pay attention to the pop culture of today, a world where the peak of attractiveness is reached between the ages of 16 and 24, maybe? And where does that leave us? Ogling people who are 20 years younger, and comparing ourselves and those around us unfavorably. The it-girl of July 16th at 8:47am, Megan Fox, has a 22-inch waist, and a wealth of other attractive features. My father-in-law would probably say, “she stood in the hotness line too long.”

In our culture, we expect everyone to be constantly striving to slow time down or even reverse it. But most of us never looked like Megan Fox and never will. Pregnancy and childbirth also have undeniable effects on a woman’s physical appearance. Celebrities have been known to schedule elective c-sections at 36-weeks gestation, robbing their infants of a full month in the womb in order to avoid the last, most impactful weeks of pregnancy. Those of us who carry our babies to term experience permanent stretching in a variety of locations, from chest to hips. The physical commitment to pregnancy is a permanent one.

The idea that the body of an average woman in early-to-middle age is inherently unattractive is one we see everywhere. A celebrity watch blog I visit regularly (I couldn’t tell you why) scrutinizes the bodies of celebrities, especially women, pointing out a newly sprouted tummy pooch, a bit of cellulite, breasts that are more down than up. Why are the impacts of gravity and age on the body inherently unattractive? I ask this because I am 35 years old, and have carried and given birth to two children. My body looks just as you’d expect under those conditions. My grandparents and Sean’s have lived to their 80’s and 90’s; do I really have 50-60 years left to live, stuck with a body that is already way past its prime?

Or can I opt out of this way of thinking altogether? I have referred to the Japanese concept of wabi sabi many times in this blog. Very simply put, it’s the idea that there is inherent beauty in imperfect things, and that the impermanent quality of nature adds to this beauty. The children’s book Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein is a beautifully illustrated description of this philosophy that anyone can understand.

I can buy in to the idea that pop-culture defines how my body should look, and how I fall short, or I can appreciate my physical self for what it is. When we tattoo or otherwise permanently adorn ourselves, we think of the body as a canvas. But in life, the body itself is a work in progress regardless of how much we work out, ink, or pierce oursleves. Age, experience, and health are the artists. And they know more about how I should look than the Interwebs.

The Mourning Light

2009-07-10T05:34:00.000-07:00

This morning I was up for a little while and then went back to sleep as usual. At 7 Leo came in and got up on my bed. We were just lying there while I woke up, and then suddenly I remembered I had dreamt about my grandmother. In the dream was I trying in vain to get the kids loaded into the car. I was getting more and more frustrated, and ranting and raving, and I turned around and she was standing there. I was shocked, and threw my arms around her and hugged her.

Within seconds of remembering the dream I was crying, it was so powerful. It was such a vivid dream, and it had triggered a wave of loss so fresh, there were tears just steaming down my face. I blew my nose, and Leo said, “Mom, do you have a cold?” I told him no, honey, I had a dream about my grandmother and it made me sad, because she died a long time ago. I don’t know if he’s ever really seen me cry, or any adult, or been aware of it if he has. He didn’t seem upset by it, just curious. He asked me more questions about death and I did my best to answer them for a five-year-old audience.

She’s been gone for nearly 15 years, but the right memory on the right day can make it seem like just a few weeks have passed. It’s like there’s a little museum vestibule roped off in your brain, and most of the time you just pass by and kind of peer in from the hallway, without seeing much. But sometimes, the ropes get taken down, and you walk into the exhibit to reach out and touch the feelings you had when they were alive, and right after they were gone.

I really miss her.

Big Ol' Stack of Books

2009-07-07T06:18:00.001-07:00

Yesterday on Facebook I requested suggestions for what I should read next. I got the greatest list!

The Sunday Wife by Cassandra King
The Time of My Life by Allison Winn Scotch
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
Memory Keepers Daughter by Kim Edwards
Notes from the Underwire by Quinn Cummings
The 19th Wife by David Ebershoff
Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
Bag of Bones by Stephen King
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
The Sea Came in at Midnight by Steve Erickson
The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon
The Insult by Rupert Thomson
In the Woods by Tana French
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs

And for bedtime reading:
The Insult, The Sea Came in at Midnight, or Sharp Objects by Steve Erickson
The Highlander Series by Karen Marie Moning

Wabi Sabi Me

2009-07-05T12:36:00.000-07:00

I had this entry all thought out, except for the beginning. To lay the foundation for the main idea, I have to talk about some of my childhood experiences, and that’s not a simple thing to jump into. People who know me well know I had a very unusual and at times difficult childhood. We were well below the poverty line. We lived in a trailer with a roach and rat infestation for years. We went for weeks at a time without electricity or hot water. I saw grown men literally falling down drunk. In elementary school I was ridiculed for wearing the same clothes day after day, and I was bullied by boys who threw rocks at me all the way from the bus stop to my front door.

I carry these experiences with me like pieces of stained glass in my pocket. They still cut me sometimes, but I can also hold them up to the light, and see things others can’t. This is a responsibility I take very seriously. I have had many opportunities to contribute to improving things for people who are living now the way I once did. I do this work because I carry the needs of these people with me always, and to turn my back on them is, in a way, to turn my back on myself. I know that I need to pass on the support that allowed me to make a healthier life for myself and my own children. I don’t know who I would have become, or what kind of life I would have had, if I hadn’t had people in my life who believed in me, and if, at the root of it all, my mother hadn’t taught me that I was a strong woman, not to be put aside by anyone. Things weren’t always easy, but so many people have so much less. And my life today, well, there's nothing I need that I don't have. Nothing.

Which makes me wonder: how will I teach my own children to have compassion? How will I instill these values in them, when they have at least a typical level of security and their basic needs are always met? Can you ever truly appreciate what it’s like to do without, when you haven’t? I really don’t know. Now that Leo is 5, I’m starting to think about how I can make service more a part of our family culture. I don’t want my children to suffer in any way, but I do want them to know that suffering exists, and that they can help to stop it.

It Works if You Work It

2009-06-30T07:11:00.000-07:00

Over a period of about 2 years, after Zoe was born, I went to four different therapists, including Nancy, the one who really made a difference. I got a different diagnosis from each, including Adjustment Disorder, Depression, Dysthymia, Generalized Anxiety/Panic Disorder, and finally, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

After all of that, I really came to wonder about these diagnoses or categorizations, and whether they have any true meaning beyond a means to bill the insurance company. Therapists will tell you that it’s not the symptoms that indicate a need for treatment, but the degree to which they interfere with daily functioning. How many people living and functioning well in New York City would be emotionally paralyzed by life in a small American town? Is that an indication of a mental problem, or of innate cultural and/or personality differences? And how many American children are over-medicated so they can conform to a rigid idea of appropriate classroom behavior?

It’s not that I think that there is no such thing as dysfunction. But I do think we’re way off the mark with our response to it. Behavioral therapies like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Dialectic Behavior Therapy have been proven to be as or more effective than medication for many behaviors, yet for most of us the first avenue of treatment is a pill. I took Lexapro for over a year, and when I asked the prescribing psychiatrist (we call him Dr. Feelgood) how long I should expect to take it, he said, “as long as it’s working.” As though the thoughts and behaviors I was attempting to treat were beyond my control, and I could expect to need medication indefinitely. Lexapro, by the way, did nothing to improve my irritability, which ultimately became my primary long-term issue, the one I still work on the most. Of my bad temper Dr. Feelgood said, “there is no anger pill.”

This Sunday at Friends Meeting a wonderful woman stood up and talked about her years as a Quaker, and how the style of the Quaker service has contributed to her spiritual and personal development. She said that many Al-Anon and similar programs end with the statement, “It works if you work it” and pointed out that this is true for any type of personal development. You have to keep coming back to yourself, identifying what’s working and what’s not. It’s an ongoing process. The church clerk had spoken about an old story he’d heard, about a prisoner who was given a prayer rug that he used in his cell. After many months the prisoner discovered that woven into the fabric of the rug was the secret to how to escape the prison. The theme of Sunday’s meeting became the idea that our church services are that secret woven into the fabric. We are all learning from each other to unlock the keys of our own growth.

As much as working with Nancy helped me to get through a time when I was really losing hope, I don’t believe it was medication or therapy that ultimately made the biggest difference. It was a continued commitment to change, and to becoming an expert in the specific theories and behavior modifications that applied to the things about myself I wanted to adjust. It’s been about months and years of hard work, to weed out the destructive thoughts and identify the behavior patterns I want to change. Sometimes, it’s not even a fully-formed thought that takes me down the wrong road, it’s no more than an assumption or habit--an attitude I formed years ago with no words attached to it at all. Sometimes you have to go back in time to identify when you first decided you couldn’t do something, or that A always leads to B. These assumptions are learned emotional reactions that have nothing to do with fact.

I think that these destructive thought processes can indeed lead to serious dysfunction, and that learning to control them in the early stages can prevent it. As I stated in my last entry, I know some brilliant people with some severe emotional difficulties; I’m talking about genius-level people who believe that their brains are defective, and outside of their own power. I’m not so sure. Medication can help to manage our thoughts and behaviors, but it is often ignorance of one’s own physiology that allows the first step down the path toward severe dysfunction to be taken. Once that snowball starts rolling, it gets bigger and bigger, and harder to control. It’s mentally exhausting to try, but through self-understanding, and being willing to “work it”, we can gradually make our brains work for, rather than against us.

Leaps and Bounds

2009-06-17T06:37:00.000-07:00

I've written before about the developmental leaps that happen with kids. Sometimes everything is gradual…they learn a few letters here, grow a quarter-inch there. But sometimes, seemingly overnight things happen, and you wonder if you just weren’t paying attention, or if it really just happened while they slept and they woke up with some new ability, or a half-inch taller.

There’s scientific evidence that new experiences spark learning receptiveness in children (and adults), so I expect that when we go out of town for a few days and get out of our usual home/playdate/parks routine that there will be some changes. This last trip up to Lancaster really delivered, I guess. A month ago I had a four-year-old boy, who was all about trains and was content to play with younger kids. Now I have a five-year-old Star Wars nut, who no longer identifies with Zoe’s peers (although he still is happy to hang out with Zoe).

At my godparents’ house, while Zoe and Anjeli were reveling in their little girl symbiosis, Leo preferred to sit with us adults and do artwork. And yesterday the same thing happened at a play date. It’s fascinating to me that the older they get, the more they grow and become themselves…little ones who are so like you in some ways, but so distinct as individuals with their own opinions and interests.

It’s my nature to observe myself and the people around me from a psychological perspective. Human behavior holds so many surprises. Even the smartest, most amazing people I know do strange things. In fact, the more I know about the people around me, the more I see that nobody has it all figured out. I’m blessed to have an array of people in my life from both ends of all spectrums: religious, financial, political, ethnic, etc. I, myself, don’t sit in the middle on very many characteristics (can I get an Amen!), but I am still, at the end of the day, a white, middle-class, part-time working mom. The more I study the differences of my friends, family, and coworkers, the more I see the similarities.

Work for me has been a place of continual change since last Fall. I like change, but I also like to be an agent of change. When things are changed for me, especially when it’s something I’m really passionate about, I have more trouble adjusting. But despite the unsteady platform I’ve been standing on at the office, especially in the past few weeks, a strange calm came over me last night, and a lot of the unease I’ve been feeling lately melted away. I had been Facebook IM-ing with an old friend from our Binghamton days. She and I have a lot in common personality-wise and deal with similar struggles. Something about that “conversation” got me to thinking…do I want to be dealing with the same issues 20 years from now?

Who knows, maybe I’m learning something new.

Do What Now?

2009-05-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

I have written about the The Questions many times. These are the questions my inquisitive children ask us all day long. The questions that are unanswerable, except that we try, because we don’t want to stifle their desire to ask them. Questions like this:

Leo: Where are we going?

Us: Meadowlark Gardens.

Leo: Where is Meadowlark Gardens?

Us: In Vienna.

Leo: Where is Vienna?

Us: In Virginia.

Leo: Why is Vienna in Virginia?

Us: Uhhh…Because that’s where it is?

Leo: Why?

Us: Why is Vienna in Virginia?

Leo: Yeah.

Us: Why do you think Vienna is in Virginia?

Leo: I don’t know.

Sometimes we go the extra mile with the answers. You can be creative and come up with an answer that is true and makes sense, and it’s not like they care what you say. You could say, “Vienna is in Virginia because if it were further north it would be in Maryland.” But sometimes you just aren’t in that place mentally. I have a friend who is a lawyer, and her husband is a lawyer, and her children ask a lot of questions, too. I have heard her respond to the 6th or 8th question in a series by saying in an exasperated tone, “I don’t know, why don’t you ask God when you see him in heaven.”

The Truffle Summer

2009-05-21T06:22:00.000-07:00

As of this moment, my children are 3 and 4 years old. Leo will turn 5 on June 13th. On September 8th, he will start full-day kindergarten, and Zoe will enter Montessori school, 3 days a week. I have given notice at work that starting June 1st, I will be coming into the office 3 longer days a week instead of 4 shorter days. This afternoon I am meeting with my Executive Director at work, to see whether she will accept my proposed schedule.

I want to have two full week days at home, since these are the last months I will ever have with my babies as preschoolers. Even though there may be other summers when I am home with them, they will never be this small again, and there will be ever increasing activities and of course, there will come a time when they won’t want to hang out with me so much. So I want to make the most of these last few months.

There have been so many changes with these two over the past few weeks. They both had growth spurts; Zoe grew over an inch in less than a month, and Leo is now just shy of 4 feet tall. I try to carry him a little bit each day so I can keep my muscles used to him, but the day that I can’t pick him up isn’t far off. I also have about a year left until he can outrun me. He’s super-fast.

They are so close as friends and playmates…with 22 months between them and the normal differences in maturity between boys and girls, they are on the same level in a lot of ways. Zoe learns so much from Leo and wants to emulate the skills he learns in school. Zoe has an easier time controlling her emotions and behavior, and Leo wants to enjoy the rewards she gets for doing that, so he tries harder. We have also been using a reward system for the past few weeks that he really responds to.

Recently, I noticed that he had learned to whistle. He was so proud, and it is really a pleasing little thing to hear. And then the other day, I took them to the park, and just like that, he got on the swing and was able to do it himself, without being pushed. The sitter had taught him. It’s a little thing, but huge at the same time. To him it’s a liberating accomplishment.

I grew up in a house with only females, and there are many times when Leo seems like a different species altogether. The behaviors and personalities of preschool age boys can be…unpredictable. But I can now see glimpses of the what the older Leo will be like, once he can communicate his complex emotions, understand why rules exist, and gain more independence.

Come September, Leo will be at school 35 hours a week, and Zoe, 21 hours, and I know that will be a huge change for all of us. I want to savor these last few months as much as I can.

Supermom Strikes Again

2009-05-13T06:40:00.000-07:00

It's probably time to raise the bar on the family etiquette when your Rising Kindergartener says, "Mom, what would happen if you didn't burp after you take a drink?"

Maybe we'll never know....

Simplicity

2009-05-12T06:11:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, my friend Elisabeth and I were discussing Spirituality over tea while our children played in her living room. We both felt drawn to explore and develop our spirituality, but were wary of organized religion. We talked about different religions and places of worship we had heard about and were interested in visiting, and then agreed we would start trying them out. There are so many to choose from since we live in a very diverse part of the country, but we thought we’d have the most luck with Quakers, Buddhists, or Bahai Faith. I had researched Friends Meetings (Quaker meetings) years ago, so I suggested we start there.

I have a long and diverse history with religion. My grandparents in Pennsylvania are Methodists and Brethren. When I was nine, Mormon missionaries came to our house and we ended up attending LDS for about a year—I was even baptized. Eventually, however, we ended up at Assemblies of God, and it was there that I began to develop a long-standing distaste for religion. At the age of 13 I looked out my bedroom window at the clouds in the sky and realized I didn’t think there was anyone up there. I didn’t believe in God as I’d heard described. I couldn’t reconcile my difficult life and the things I had seen with the concept of an all-powerful and loving God with an interest in my daily activities.

It took me years to even care about it again. In my 20’s I settled into a Native American “God is in all things” concept of God, and I was comfortable with that. But when I became a mother, I really felt drawn to exploring the concept of spirituality further, so I could provide a foundation for spiritaul growth for my babies. I also wanted to belong to a church community in some form. I think it’s healthy for the family, and healthy for the world, for caring people to contribute to and share a greater spiritual experience.

I have gone to Friends meeting every week since except when we’ve been out of town. After the first service I felt immediately at home. Reading about the central concepts of Quakerism, I feel like it’s almost what I would have designed myself, but with hundreds of years of history: Peace, Simplicity, and Equality. Friends accept and encourage a broad array of beliefs. I guess I’ve kind of been a Quaker all along without realizing it.

There has been extra focus on Simplicity lately, and it couldn’t have come at a better time for me. Since January I have been working more, and while I’m not sure our daily stress level could really have gone any higher (it seems like we maxed out a couple of years ago and held steady at that level), I have realized that I need to make some decisions.

I have always tried to honor the Less is More concept in my life, going back to the 90’s when I first read The Simplicity Reader and was introduced to the idea of keeping a modest house to give you time and resources for more important things. I have a strong tendency to be a perfectionist, and to be competitive, but I have never believed that professional work and success should be one’s highest priority. Church has been gently reminding me lately that we need to think carefully about “what to keep and what to throw away,” and I have committed to bringing that balance back to my life. I need to put the kids and Sean first, my own personal development second, and my professional development somewhere below that. With work, lately, it seems that the hours and the money have been edging out everything else, with sculpting my own Being coming in somewhere on the list below “sift the litter box.”

I have two writing projects in the works: a story for kids that is in its third draft but far from finished, and a non-fiction handbook for struggling moms which is in outline form and barely started. I believe in myself, and the impact these two projects can have, but I need to find the motivation to make time for them. Blogging has always been the warm-up lap for my writing exercises, so I’m going to post here even though I always feel there’s something else I should be doing. Time will tell.

If Only

2009-03-12T10:43:00.000-07:00

How has so much time passed since my last post?

I am really missing my grandmother today. She’s been gone since December, 1994 – over 14 years – but sometimes it feels like she just passed. Last night I had a dream that we were at the farm, the way it used to be, and together with several family members who were faceless, as people often are in dreams, we were cooking a meal in her kitchen. I was peeling apples, slicing them, and chopping them, all the while thinking “she should be sitting down.” I fretted over her and lingered near her, both accepting that she was present in the world of the living, and knowing she didn’t belong there. I looked at her face and she smiled at me with a concerned expression.

I have dreams like this several times a year, where she is present in some way. I miss her so much. When she died from pancreatic cancer, I was 21 years old, and had just made the decision to leave Cedar Crest College and go out to the University of Kansas to be with Sean. I’m sure that at that point my family were crossing their fingers that I’d finish college at all, and that Sean would be as good as he seemed. I hope that she could tell somehow that I had settled down a bit, and was going to be OK. I think about what it would be like if she could meet Leo and Zoe today. I know she’d love Leo’s creativity and Zoe’s chutzpah. I hope she knew how much she meant to me.

Peaceway Farm

2008-12-18T06:32:00.001-08:00

On the Monday before Thanksgiving, my grandfather passed away. He died in his bedroom, peacefully, in the same farmhouse in which he had been born, ninety years before. He had not been ill, although we had noticed that he’d been having more minor health problems in the past year. My dad had arrived to pick him up for their weekly breakfast out and found him there.

My dad is the oldest of three children. I am his only child, and I knew he would appreciate having me there to support him in the preparations for the funeral, so I left Tuesday morning to go to Pennsylvania. I arrived at the farm that afternoon. One of my aunts was already there with her two daughters. We spent a lot of time that first day or so just wandering around and absorbing the new reality. Since my grandmother’s passing in 1994, my grandfather had lived alone, and he had accumulated mountains of paperwork related to his academic career and business pursuits. He had stored them where he had used them, so each table, desk, and chair served as a receptacle. Our visits since my grandmother’s death had mainly been meals out, so I had only been inside the house a few times over the past decade.

In fact, in recent years I had spent a lot more time in those old rooms in my dreams. My grandmother, known to me as Grammy Floy, has been gone for 14 years this month, but I still dream of her regularly. She was a tremendous influence and support to me as a child and teenager, and I still miss her very much. When she died, she had left no will of her own, and so abruptly not only my contact with her, but with the home she had kept so warm and welcoming was cut off. I had wished often for the chance to just sit in the house and reflect peacefully on my memories with her. In dreams we sat together and talked or she gave me little things to keep as mementos. Last month I dreamt that she had left a set of keepsakes on her bedroom windowsill just for me.

During that week my dad and his sisters did a very strange dance of siblings who have been apart for too long, failing to connect. Old roles were played, but they were based on a script written in youth, long overdue for scrapping. In the fog of mourning, they reverted to these roles rather than looking forward, rather than talking. As I mourned my grandmother anew, I watched the adults and wondered at the years that had brought them to this place, walking amongst their own siblings in their childhood home, without understanding. I visited the windowsill I had dreamt about three weeks before and found a stack of dusty bank calendar freebies. I cleaned and cleaned, creating oases of niceness in the middle of years-worth of dust.

Even as I craved to be there, communing with the house and my memories of my grandmother, reality was working against me. As it turns out, my grandfather, who had long disapproved of the choices my dad had made in life, had left his entire estate to my two aunts. One of my aunts had known this months or even years prior to his death, and she was not welcoming to me and my dad. She asked us to stay away, to come later, to come the next day. We were crushed, and then angry. My other aunt, grieving and loaded with the responsibilities of managing the estate, still found the compassion to reach out to me, and for that I am tremendously grateful. She gave me a tea set from which Grammy Floy and I had sipped sleepytime tea on many an evening. It’s worth a million dollars to me.

It’s a huge shock that my grandfather chose to leave my dad out of his will, but in the weeks since his death many connections have been made between my dad and our family, and between my aunt and me, that are worth much more than money. My dad may yet create a relationship with my aunt that will be a comfort to both of them, I have faith. A new year is coming, another year to strive to be to my children what my grandmother was to me, if I can: a spirit of kindness and nurturing. There’s no room for bitterness.

I Think Karma Got it Wrong This Time

2008-12-10T17:34:00.001-08:00

In the last month:

One trip to the ER for toddler who ate half a tooth pick.

One step-dipshit causing major trouble up home.

One great job majorly changed by this economy in the crapper.

One funeral.

One bewildered dad left out of the will.

One tired little boy with a drippy sinus infection.

Two spouses with looming work deadlines.

One ballooning butt.

One bleak holiday season.

Thank Goodness It’s Flippin’ Friday

2008-11-21T05:59:00.000-08:00

After this week I feel like one of those people who drag themselves through a marathon and have to actually crawl across the finish line. The whole family has a cold at some stage or another. Sean had to attend a conference in DC every day this week, which threw our whole work/school/sitter schedule into turmoil, and I had to scramble to cover the details. Due to this s-bag economy, my job has been completely redefined through at least June, and I am trying to wind down some projects, start new ones, and adjust to the idea that I am now a grant-writer, all at once, while my child care benefit has also been cut so I have to do more from home.

Most of the things that needed to get done, did. But yesterday I picked up one of Leo’s classmates for carpool, and her mom said something about it being picture day at school. Leo missed Monday and Tuesday last week because of this bug we have (he started it!) and somehow I never got the order form. I was able to fill it out when we got to school, so we won’t miss out on school pictures. But I had to be at work right away for a meeting, so there was nothing I could do about what he was wearing. For school pictures this year my son was wearing a red hoodie pullover with a large, black and white striped skull and crossbones on the front. Sigh.

Meanwhile, Sean has been dragging his sick self through the week getting up at 5 to drive to the District to go to a conference sponsored by oil companies. The meals, covered by the conference registration fees, which were covered by the government, were so extravagant it is utterly disgusting: filet mignon for lunch, seafood, etc. Hello?

Home for the Holidays

2008-11-16T07:24:00.000-08:00

Sean and I have been together for the last 14 years. With the exception of the first year or two, we’ve spent every Thanksgiving with his dad, stepmom and brother in Key West, and every Christmas with his family in New York. My family isn’t always together for the holidays, and Sean’s is. At first it just kind of worked out that way, and then it became a habit. But we agreed that when our kids were old enough to appreciate Christmas we would want them to be home for Christmas morning, and this is the year. We also decided not to go to Key West this year because the airfares for the four of us would have cost nearly $3000, and that’s just not an option for us in this economy.

So suddenly, we are finding ourselves preparing for the holidays at home, and I am ecstatic! We’ll be going to Sean’s Aunt Jane’s for Thanksgiving dinner, and my dad will be driving down here to spend Christmas eve and morning with us. We’ll do a nice brunch and then drive to New York.

In spite of the fact that I’m in my mid-thirties, and have a family and career, part of me still doesn’t feel truly grown up. But when I imagine my babies waking up on Christmas morning and tumbling down the stairs to open presents in our own little house, there’s something about that that makes me feel a little more mature, and accomplished, than I have before.

Bittersweet Victory

2008-11-05T06:22:00.000-08:00

Today is The Day, November 5th, 2008. Barack Hussein Obama is the President-Elect. I am so proud to have been even a tiny part of it. And it was such a strong victory…what a message to send to the world. America is a place of proud diversity, and strength, and integrity. That’s what this vote means to me.

Here’s the scene in my basement at 6:45 this morning: I’m on the trampoline, jumping for joy and watching CNN and the Today show. Watching Jesse Jackson with tears streaming down his face…watching footage of African-Americans across the country as the electoral vote count hit 270, them and me, awestruck. Leo and Zoe are milling around, playing with tinker-toys and trains.

Someone on TV (Matt Lauer?) said they were talking to an African American man who said, “Today I can finally look my son in the eye and say, ‘You can be anything.’” Well, it will be a bit longer until I can say that to my daughter, but a potential Sarah Palin presidency wouldn’t have been worth it. I can wait eight more years. And I am so excited to see what Michelle Obama will do as First Lady. I have a little woman-crush on her. What a strong, articulate, charismatic role model for our girls!

I told Sean yesterday that I must not be a very good liberal, because I actually hope that “my” party doesn’t take control of Congress. I’d like to see a little more balance in this country. I want everyone to feel they have to work together and represent the majority of Americans…not just their own views. Not just my views.

I can proudly say that even though I am very liberal, I have friends across the political spectrum, including people who worked harder for McCain than I did for Obama. Judging from some of the comments I’ve seen on Facebook in the last 24 hours, some of them are very disappointed right now. I can understand that; there were a lot of moral issues at stake in this election. For people who are concerned about abortion, in particular, a democratic presidency is frightening. I hope we can look past all of the rhetoric of the campaign season and have faith that this candidate truly seems like a reasonable, honorable person, dedicate to service to all Americans, not the far left or far right. I believe that all of us together, as a nation, can insist on a government that represents the people. But the people have to look out for each other, too…not just for themselves.

Now the hard work starts.

Boredom is Underrated

2008-11-03T05:59:00.000-08:00

The kids are watching a DVD of Wonder Pets. At the end of the last episode, Zoe was afraid I was going to turn off the TV, and she turned to me, put out her hand, and said, “hold it steady, mama.” I’m trying, baby girl, I’m trying.

This past couple of weeks have been…eventful. We’ll start on 10/17 with my brother-in-law’s wedding at UVA, which was fantastic. Then an Open House at work on 10/21, then a major fundraising awards breakfast on 10/28, followed by an office implosion as my coworkers processed the stress of planning and hosting the event.

Then came the last few days, when I have felt such a need to be doing something, anything, to help with this election. I worked at the campaign office on Thursday night, and went canvassing on Saturday, and am so glad I did. What a great experience. Tonight Barack Obama will be rallying not 30 minutes from here. I'm dying to go, but Sean leaves for Denver tomorrow, so I can’t decide. I’m going to be watching the election coverage alone tomorrow night, which stinks, but I am soooo excited. And hopeful. We could be living in a much better country in a few months.

We can all be proud of America’s heritage, and its rich, diverse culture, and its people. It will be nice to feel that way about its leadership and policies again.

Vegetarian Preschoolers

2008-10-16T22:04:00.000-07:00

I have been a vegetarian off and on over the years, and Sean and I fully expect one or both of our kids to refuse to eat meat when they find out what it really is. So it came as no surprise the other day when Zoe showed her first sign of vegetarianism, although she is a bit murky on some details. I was thinking of serving fish sticks, but made the mistake of asking the kids, "how do you feel about fish for lunch?" Zoe responded, "Mommy, fish are our friends, they're not food!" Where did she get that? A few minutes I asked if she'd like fish sticks instead, and she said, "Yay!"

Yesterday I was driving Leo and one of his friends to school, and they were talking about eating chicken. His little friend, also four years old, exclaimed with confidence, "I don't eat chicken. I don't like to eat any birds!" Skeptical, I asked her, "What do you eat?"

"Ummmm...Eggs."

Achingly Bittersweet

2008-10-13T03:22:00.000-07:00

When you have a two and a four-year-old in the house, things can get pretty wild, exhaustingly so. But there are also a lot of moments of incredible sweetness. Zoe’s repertoire of songs now include Happy Bupday, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Staw, Woe Woe Woe Ya Boat and many more (she hasn't sung Rehab in months :). One of my favorite things in the whole world is that she sings Twinkle Twinkle like this:

Twinkle twinkle little staw
How I wunduh what you aw
Bup Bup the wowld so high
Wike a diamond in the sky…

Sean pointed out that the first time I hear her sing "up above the world so high" with proper diction I’ll probably be so disappointed I’ll cry, which is true. It’s hard to describe, but if I could somehow put the way she looks and sounds when she sings that in a little box to keep forever, I’d pay a $1000 to do it. I’d have to put it on a credit card, probably, but it would be worth it. A video is not the same, because when she is thirteen and rolling her eyes at me it will be hard to really remember what these days were like.

Wherein I Overuse Italics

2008-10-02T11:12:00.000-07:00

If you were awakened last night around 4 a.m. by the smell of something burning, it was the smell of my pillow smoldering under my head. I had had one of my late-night allergic coughing fits, and made the mistake, once again, of visiting my Internet. I watched the footage of the ladies on The View discussing Sarah Palin's qualifications as a VP candidate (yes, I’m on that, again…it’s kind of important).

Elizabeth Hasselbeck is clearly not a stupid woman. She’s fairly articulate and knowledgeable (and cute!). Here’s what I don’t get. Why won’t more people admit that our rudimentary political system is just about teams? Sarah Palin is on Hasselbeck’s team, and shares Hasselbeck’s world view, and she supports Palin because Palin is the one the Republicans chose. Yet she made a valiant (but smashingly unsuccessful) attempt to support her assertion that Palin would be perfectly capable of carrying out the duties of President should she be called to do so. Actually, I’m surprised she wasn’t better prepared; she had to know it’d come up eventually.

OK everybody, I’ll start the ball rolling. I'll admit I almost always vote the party line, and probably always will. I am a liberal. On a scale of one to ten, I am probably at least an 8. I do really like Barack Obama because he appears to agree with me on most things. Do I wish he were a little older? Yes. Do I wish he had more foreign relations experience? Of course I do. But this election, like all of the ones before it only gives me two teams and two platforms to choose from. So even if Obama wasn’t intellectually talented and dedicated to serving the Americans who actually need it, I would probably still vote for him over someone who is just another soldier in the army of greed and corruption.

If I believed in Hell, I would say that its most deserving resident would be the philosopher who first introduced the concept of blind faith as a noble and right way of behaving. Who was it? Maybe Bill Maher talks about in his new movie…I hope so. Because I feel like the chunk of Americans who allow their lives, their true values, and their futures to be hijacked by a group of politicians who usually act in direct conflict with the common man’s best interests have been trained to do that by certain types of organized religion.

I’ve witnessed it first-hand being raised fundamentalist Christian. If something happens, and it doesn’t make sense, it’s because God has a plan that you are too ignorant to understand. Isn’t that convenient? So if you were raised in a culture that taught you that, how much of a stretch is it for you to think that your Party --the one guided by God’s own hand-- also has intentions too sophisticated for you to understand? All you have to do is vote, and they’ll take care of the rest.

Debate party at my house tonight! Bring your own "six-pack".

Cherry Wheat’s Guide to Etiquette and Refinement

2008-09-30T03:34:00.000-07:00

Lesson 119: School Trip

As mothers, we often find ourselves in social situations where we must mix gracefully with the mothers of our children’s friends. It is of the utmost importance to conduct ourselves with perfect charm and tact, appearing to be the sort of person about whom one might say, “I’d really like my child to associate with offspring of such a well-mannered and sophisticated lady.”

Perhaps you might find yourself chatting with someone who is wearing a unique and attractive piece of jewelry, maybe a necklace with an inscription of some kind. Indicate your appreciation and interest by asking about it: What does your necklace say? If she responds “T&CO”, demonstrate your unaffected charm by admitting, “I thought it said “TACO”. Do not pause to consider the obvious abbreviation, and further remark, “that’s probably some nice jewelry company I don’t know about, right?”

Facebook is Weird

2008-09-25T06:05:00.000-07:00

On my "People You May Know" menu in Facebook, there's a woman I'll call Trish. I do know Trish. She lived in my neighborhood when we lived in a trailer near the railroad tracks. I really only remember one thing about her. Someone had taught her to spit a fine stream with great speed and accuracy, and she used to do this at the backs of people's heads on the school bus.

Can't wait to get in touch.

Slow Down, Please!

2008-09-24T06:32:00.000-07:00

Before Sean went to Key West for the bachelor party he told me that I had to choose a weekend in September to get kicked out of the house. I was going to go visit my cousin, Shelly, in West Virginia, but she suggested we meet at Deep Creek Lake in MD instead, which was a brilliant idea. We drove from our respective homes on Saturday morning and somehow both arrived at the campground office within 5 minutes of each other, ready to do some relaxing of unparalleled proportions.

We bunked in Shelly’s camper for the weekend, and it was glorious. Just us, a cooler full of beverages, and cash for shopping and restaurants. At night we built a campfire, and I felt like the high-maintenance grandmother in Sixteen Candles when the two grandmothers were making breakfast. “Voila, breakfast is served!” I’d put a couple of logs on the fire after Shelly had done all of the prep with the kindling and whatnot, and say, “Voila! We’ve built a nice little fire there.” I felt inept all weekend long. My cousin lives with her husband and two children in a one-bedroom cabin in West Virginia and farms organically. She made me realize once again how grossly dependant I am on all of my little conveniences, but that’s a story for another day.

Shelly’s mom and mine were sisters (her mom, my aunt, passed away in the late-nineties from metastasized ovarian cancer). We were raised practically as sisters, and have a unique appreciation for each-other’s history. We have always been very close. Shelly is a tremendously kind and understanding person. When we were kids, and I was about 9 and she was about 13, I busted her for smoking cigarettes. Get this: instead of being mad at me, she told me she knew I only did it because I care about her, which was true, but still. I’ve always been amazed by that.

This weekend we were gleefully crude, coarse, and foul. There was a triathlon going on in Deep Creek, and the running portion was happening right in our campground. The runners were running right past our campsite. On Sunday afternoon, I sipped hard cider as I sat on a camp chair with my feet up and just watched them run on by, muscles rippling. Now that’s the life, right there.

We also rode the mountain coaster at Wisp Ski Resort. You get your own toboggan-like car, and a pulley system pulls you to the top of the mountain. Then you ride down, and you can control your speed yourself. Pretty cool.

On Monday morning we went out for one last breakfast, hit another shop or two, packed up and headed home. I wound my way through the mountains back to northern VA, and blasted my eardrums to the White Stripes and the Cure until I was so wound up I could have kept driving a few more hours.

Then I got home. Here’s a re-cap of the three hours after I walked in the door: the sitter gave notice that she needs a job with more hours and will be leaving us as of Friday; my toiletry case with my very essential eyeglasses was nowhere to be found (but Sean found it yesterday); I was behind on work for a very busy week at the office, and Zoe was unusually crabby because she had not napped. Sigh. Mommy’s home!

Success...Sweet, Elusive Success

2008-09-19T05:49:00.001-07:00

As I have lamented here many times, the one thing I truly struggle with as a parent is my patience. I have always had a terrible temper, and there have been many times over the past four years when I have been very disappointed in myself. I have been working very hard on this, but at times I have felt like I might as well be trying to change the color of my eyes, or my shoe size, it seemed so hard to do better.

My therapist has been helping me to work on this, of course, and she gave me a newspaper article a few months ago that gave an overview of positive parenting techniques. We've been trying some different things, with varied success.

A few weeks ago I picked up the book, Positive Parenting, and got serious about reading it. I was surprised to find that the main ideas of the book were the ones that were referenced in my favorite parenting book, Breaking the Good Mom Myth.

Sean and I were both raised in the traditional "what I say goes" parenting style. No talking back, and spanking was a-ok. Even though we don't necessarily think that's the best way, it's surprising to see how much of that is ingrained in us. When one of our kids is “sassy”, it really “slams on our buttons” as Sean would say. That was absolutely not allowed in my house. I remember getting one of the half-dozen spankings I ever received for suggesting to my mom, “why don’t you do it for a change?” when she told me to clean up my stuff. I was about 5 or 6.

So this book is really helping me to redefine my parenting paradigms –yes, it always comes back to those paradiggums—to see my kids more as equals, and not underlings. Sean has been in Texas for the past couple of days, I have been having terrible ragweed allergies, work is crazy, I’m still adjusting to our fall schedule, and Leo and I have been having our usual power struggles. And yet, I have really kept my cool in the face of screeching tantrums, sister-hitting, and other “button slamming”.

And honestly, I am really, really proud of it.

In Observance

2008-09-11T10:18:00.000-07:00

I don't usually like to post things other people wrote, but I've had this great poem in my folder for years and just happened to stumble across it just now.

9/11 for Allen Ginsberg
By Andrei Codrescu

9/11, I can barely remember you, they've buried you in so much hype!

9/11 I wept when you were first on television! I wept for New York, for the dead, for all of us, for myself, for the world!

9/11, I was sure that the world had changed forever because bad guys wanted America dead & hated us because we listen to rock 'n' roll and wear no mini-skirts on our naked faces!

9/11, I cheered when our warplanes ripped through the skies of Afghanistan scorching the caves where our enemies burrowed & I marveled at our precision-guided bombs trying to ignore their occasionally murderous imprecision!

9/11, I sat mesmerized in front of Fox News and CNN as the gargoyled faces of the Cold War began crawling out of the musty cellars of history and, eyes unaccustomed to light blinking, began to spout the doctrines of Total War!

9/11, I started to feel sorry for you when retired generals, admirals, spies, loonies and fakes brushed off their swords and rushed to your defense! So many double-chins! So many watering eyes! So many dentured grins and brush haircuts! So many double-bottom suitcases clutched in so many pimp-ringed hands! They even brought Ollie North from felonious disgrace to stand up for you with his Constitution-overthrowing boyish old looks!

9/11, I felt bad for you when the Lefties crowded you from the other side with their guilt-filled jaws of "I told you so," and their eternal excuses for the wretched exotics of the world whose suffering they experience in their marble-topped kitchens between arguments about what wine to serve with the wild rice! And I wept for you again when soured professors who missed the collapse of commie fascism in 1989 descended on you like rabid wolverines led by Noam Chomsky whose teethmarks are all over the zero ground of American academia!

9/11, you saved the paranoids from self-cannibalism!

9/11, you were a boon to advertisers and publicists and flag-manufacturers, and they sold you with cars and pizzas and they drained you of your raw primal power even as they pretended to grieve for you! Zero down payment until Doomsday!

9/11, you were a godsent to poetasters who were out of the gate lamenting and whining before your towers even gave out!

9/11, your dead and your heroes are covered by thick layers of ash & greed & the Republic owes you an apology

9/11, I close my eyes and recall you in all your gory glory & I still hate those who did this to us and to our greatest city

9/11, I can barely remember you & I'm sorry

Just Not This Woman

2008-09-09T16:34:00.000-07:00

On the off-chance that someone who doesn't know me one day reads this, let me just say, I am a feminist. Not in the "women are better than men" sense (although in some ways, they are) but in the "women are equal, just different" sense. I love being a woman in all of my complexity.

That being said, I chose to put my career mostly on hold to be home with my children these first few years. They are with a sitter twelve hours a week, and Sean flexes his schedule to be home on the early side, but the majority of the time they are with me. I made this decision--that I didn't want my kids in full-time child care--long before I ever gave birth, and we chose our current home and lifestyle based on what we would be able to (barely) afford on 1.5 incomes. That was what we wanted for our family.

I do believe children should be cared for by their parents as much as possible. I don't believe it has to be the mother, just a close family member. I know that not every couple has the choice to have a parent stay home. But a lot of people do. I know there are some people who just can't tolerate being at home, dwelling in kidland; they need to work. I get that, too. I genuinely treasure my time at the office. I really do.

What I don't get, is someone who would choose to breed repeatedly and birth a special needs baby when they know they aren't going to be there, when they plan to pursue not just a career, but the career. See where I am going with this?

Ring The Alarm

2008-09-04T05:55:00.000-07:00

I can recall the exact moment in the ’04 election when I knew Dubya was going to be re-elected. Esquire ran an article featuring vignettes on “regular folks” from across the county and their voting intentions. They were from both parties and in-between, but one profile stood out to me. One gentleman said he planned to vote for Bush because he couldn’t see changing administrations in the middle of a war. I knew there would be many, many people who would feel the same way.

I am not generally one of those people who see a conspiracy in everything, but when it comes to the Republican party of today there is nothing so far fetched that I can’t imagine them having some shady, off-the-books agenda. In fact, I had to check myself when Gustav hit during their convention because I found myself wondering if they had somehow had a hand in it! They are such masters at distilling their message down to a few sound bites, ideas, and images, and then drilling their truthiness home until “regular folks” are repeating them like they’re straight out of the Bible.

Just last night I was discussing Sarah Palin with a friend, and was reassuring her that the selection of Palin was a gamble McCain and his entourage were going to lose. After all, he’s 72, and she’s inexperienced and one step away from the Big Chair. She’s got a special needs baby and a pregnant teenager to handle. Come on, it’s impossible, right?

I have an under-cabinet radio in my kitchen that feeds me a steady dose of NPR from morning ‘til night. Today they have been playing the clips from Palin’s speech over and over as each program processes it and gives their take. So I’ve already heard her clear, confident, pleasant voice making the same convincing statements several times this morning. And each time, another little voice, this one in my head, has whispered, We are so screwed.

Can't Argue with That

2008-08-31T10:58:00.000-07:00

The other day Leo was narrating as he played with his trains, and it reminded me of a little boy I met when I was managing programs at a small community center a few years ago.

The first time I ever saw Jason*, he was three years old, but so small he looked more like two. He was riding a very tiny two-wheeled bike, quite expertly. As I marveled at his ability, he stopped his bike and got off. His tiny pants were too long for him, and he was not wearing a belt. Their looseness required him to repeatedly sit down on the curb, and hike one pant leg up, then the other. Then he would attempt to get back on the bike and get it started before the pant legs would have a chance to migrate downward again. Several times he stopped to readjust his trousers with great determination before he finally got started and rode away.

“Jason, tell me a story,” I requested one day as we sat on the front stoop of the community center. We spent time together in this way quite often; me, enjoying some fresh air and the opportunity to spend time outdoors with the kids, and him making the most of his play time, away from his mother’s attention. I often asked him for a story, because he never failed to deliver a laugh, and he seemed pleased with this response. Each time he would stand up in front of me before he began. That day the story was about two squirrels, and although I did my best to help with the details, I was never quite on his creative wavelength. “Two squirrels? What are their names?”
“Little Squirrel,” he told me matter-of-factly. “Little Squirrel and Big Squirrel?” I suggested. “No!” he exclaimed indignantly, and then added, “Little Squirrel and Little Squirrel!” For several minutes he continued the story without pausing. I couldn’t understand much of what he said, except for the occasional word or two, but his earnest, yet animated way of telling the story kept me entertained. Finally, with great emphasis, he told the last and most important line of the story, which came out crystal-clear: “…AND THEN HIS BLOOD AND GUTS FELL OUT!”

Jason’s friendliness and enthusiasm stood in sharp contrast to his mother’s disapproval of my presence. Since I replaced a beloved social worker the year before, she had been all too eager to point out my mistakes, and unfavorably judge the decisions I make for the community center. I had been informed by another worker in the community that Jason’s mother had a disability which limited her to about age 16 developmentally. We had made progress, little by little, but I suspected the change was due more to her improving social skills than any change in her satisfaction with my performance. I tried to remain enthusiastic, and her son’s beaming face when I arrived each day told me I must be doing something right.

Jason often greeted me as I got out of my car and then accompanied me to the door of the community center. On one particular day, he greeted me with an unusually concerned expression on his tiny face. Before I could close my car door, he informed me, “My mom says you’re a B-S-K.”
I had no idea what he’s talking about, but his face told me it was not good. “What’s a B-S-K?” I ask. “It’s a bad word,” he responded, head lowered. I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I suspected he was misspelling another bad word that starts with “B”. I know better than to ask leading questions of a child, even when I’m just satisfying my own curiosity, so I simply asked, “what happened?” Justin took this as a perfectly reasonable and clear question, and described the scene in which the conversation took place. “I was sleeping on the couch, and I said…mumble mumble… and she said you’re a B-S-K.” Ah. So that explains it. I gave up.

Part of my job was to plan programs at the community center, and then train volunteers to run them. When children in the community turned four years old, they became eligible to attend programs on their own for the first time. When Jason turned four, he thought that this was a huge step toward adulthood for him. When I saw him the day before his new program was set to start, he exclaimed, “My mom said I can go to Kids’ Club by myself tomorrow!” “That’s right!” I said. His smiling face turned serious. “Does my brother get to come?” “Yes, he does,” I replied. This had not occurred to him and he is clearly not happy about it. His older brother, who was bullied by their mother, frequently bullied Jason in turn. “Oh.” He muttered.
“But…you don’t have to play with him. You can play with someone else.” His grin returned and with that the problem was solved.

We settled down on our stoop to play a game of pick-up-sticks. A little girl named Jessica* joined us, whose own mother had described her as a “Nosey Nancy.” At age 8 she was an avid aficionado of neighborhood news, and was deft at pointing out the mistakes of others—a skill she had inherited from her parents. Jason was small for his age, and often had to endure a bit of minor bullying from Jessica. Although the pick-up-sticks were his, Jessica tried to make up and impose upon us her own rules to the game. With some refereeing on my part, we played a round, with the understanding that we would give Jason a little leeway since the game belonged to him and he was younger.

While we played I made small talk. I had often noticed some small scars under Jason’s nose. Since I have a similar scar, I asked him how he got his. He shrugged. I pointed at mine, and I told them how I got my scar when I was Jessica’s age, because I wasn’t being careful while I was riding my bicycle. I turned to Jason, and said, “See, we’re twins!” He looked at me and sat up straight, smiling broadly. Then he turned to Jessica and smugly said, “You don’t have one!”

*name changed

Don't Know What it is But I Like It

2008-08-29T10:07:00.000-07:00

I just heard the news about the Republican VP pick on my way into the office. I can confidently say I have never experienced such a strong combination of pride, fear, excitement, and pure disgust all at once. All I know is it made me cry and now I am at work with nobody to talk to about it.

I Have an Active Attention Style

2008-08-27T06:06:00.000-07:00

Just home from the weekend in Lancaster for the anniversary party. It went so well. My aunt and uncle hosted, and my grandparents live in an in-law apartment in the lower level of their house. We were setting up for two hours on the patio on the opposite side of the house, but since they don’t have the sharpest hearing they were none the wiser. When most of the guests had arrived we all walked across the lawn and around the back to their door. My aunt Joanne knocked while the rest of us hung back. My grandmother opened the door, saw us all, and flipped out. If you’ve ever seen America’s Funniest Home Videos where somebody tells an oldster she’s going to be a grandmother for the first time and she goes crazy loca, it was just like that. She had to lean on those of us who were standing nearby until she could calm down.

It didn’t take long for my grandparents to get into party mode. By the time we cut the cake, they were hamming it up so much it was my grandfather who reminded us to get our cameras ready. We all had a great time, and the 5 great-grandchildren were running wild with cake-enhanced abandon. It was so good to see everyone together and happy.

Best of all, everyone made it through without any drama, which surprises me. That I was expecting it and it didn’t happen makes me wonder whether I tend to exaggerate the behavior of a certain family member. She did make a puzzling comment to someone, but overall she was on good behavior.

Now that the trip is behind me with all of its planning and potential for drama, I am looking forward: Sean leaves for Key West on Friday, and I will have four days to do projects and organize stuff unfettered by his pesky good judgment. The bonus I received at work has been calling to me: Cell phone! Frame your photographs! Exercise bike! I’ve spent it mentally three times over. Sean just got a bonus yesterday, too, for that kick-ass conference he put on. Basically, we rock. I have so much awesomeness going on at work right now it’s embarrassing. Friday I got a call from the Deputy County Executive’s office that they want to meet with me. And in September I’m meeting with people from CrisisLink to talk about my idea, the Mom-to-Mom hotline. It’s like the suicide hotline, but for moms who are struggling to cope. Moms on the verge of losing their S*** could call and talk to another mom to get support and resources. Wonder where that inspiration came from?

I also printed out my stories and address lists so I can work on rewrites and submit them to publishers again.

Leo goes back to school September 8th, four afternoons a week. Zoe’s playgroup, which I’m organizing, starts the week after.

Forgive me. This is a very productive and mentally busy time of the month for me. Maybe I should try Adderall?

My Sash is a Lovely Aubergine

2008-08-21T11:10:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of little things that are achieved in parenthood that go unrecognized. I was thinking there should be a system of rewards for the various tests of patience, stamina, and stomach strength that come our way on a regular basis. I’d call it MomScouts, and we’d get a sash, and merit badges for each item. I googled MomScouts, because nobody has an original idea anymore, and sure enough, some other mom blogged about the same concept—on Blogspot—in 2006 (randomtalentedfruitgenerator). But her idea wasn’t quite the same (more about parental achievement, and who cares about that?), so below are the badges I have earned so far for my sash. Feel free to add your own ideas in comments.

Most of the names I’ve chosen seem to sound like Olympic events or military drills. I wonder why?

1) Unspeakable Twosies: Potty training mishaps involving the number two.
2) Emergency Room Triathlon: Involves events that require the trip to the ER, the actual ER visit itself, and the follow-up care.
3) Public Tantrum Endurance: Meets and stoically conquers the two-headed tantrum beast…the tantrum, and the dreaded onlookers.
4) No Nap Nelson: the child who resists sleeping
5) Grandma’s Wall of Sugar: Climbed successfully with minor collateral damage
6) The Inevitable Night-time Barfies: ‘Nuf said.
7) Debating a Toddler with Grace and Maturity: Includes bonus star appliqué for each 100 “why” questions answered thoughtfully.
8) Mealtime Relay: Stove, fridge, table, counter, stove, counter, freezer, stove, pantry, stove, table, cabinet, stove, fridge, counter… Repeat indefinitely.
9) Achievements in Floor-to-Tummy Ratio: Badge received when amount of food on floor after a meal exceeds the amount eaten by children.
10)A-Dora-ble Characters Marathon: They’re supposed to be cute but they’re just irritating why is that what did we do to deserve this?
11)Dunking and Spelunking: Involves items dipped into substances that shouldn’t be, or dropped into areas they shouldn’t (dolls’ arms in unemptied potties, toys in heat vents, etc.).

Forty Good Years

2008-08-20T06:18:00.000-07:00

Today is my grandparents’ 60th anniversary. We are planning a semi-surprise party for them for this Saturday. I was thinking of calling them and asking if their anniversary is today, like I wasn’t sure, but maybe I won’t. I don’t want to tip them off. When asked recently how long they had been married, my grandfather, true to form, replied, “Forty good years.” Har har.

Last summer over breakfast I took a pen and paper and asked my grandfather all about his military history. As a person in my thirties, it’s fascinating to think about the history our grandparents have; between us Sean and have five living grandparents, between 81 and 92 years old.

My maternal grandparents married in 1948. They had three children, one of whom passed away ten years ago. That was my Aunt Debbie, the mother of my cousin Shelly, who is more like a sister to me than a cousin. My grandmother had been a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse before she married. Years later she worked with my grandfather in the family businesses doing photo retouching and bookkeeping. My grandfather was a photographer and later a painter by trade. Portraits he painted still hang in the halls of Franklin & Marshall college, Sean’s alma mater.

My grandparents are both singers, and my grandfather has been in in several musicals over the years. In their retirement, they wrote musical productions for their church, and they kept active playing tennis. My grandfather played and beat younger men with his wicked slice and carefully weighted racket.

I spent a lot of time with my grandparents as a teenager. My grandfather taught me how to play tennis, how to paint, how to use power tools and fix things, and how to use critical thinking to solve a problem.

The work my grandparents put into me over the years had a tremendous influence. In spite of their generation of origin, they instilled in me a confidence in my abilities unlimited by gender. I was raised to wield a hammer, a weedwhacker, a paintbrush and a vacuum cleaner with equal authority. They are creative, amazing people. I’m grateful to have learned so much from them.

Dara Torres Has Nothing on Me

2008-08-19T05:08:00.000-07:00

This morning I got up at 6:00 and subjected myself to 40 minutes of Denise Austin. Don't let her fool you: she's all blond and perky and corny, but she's really a sadistic hard-ass. The TV shows she has are pretty mild, but the DVD's offer varying levels of intensity, and it's a serious workout. I feel pretty good. I have always had the best success with exercise when I've been able to do it first thing in the morning. The whole rest of the day I'm like, yeah, that's right: I worked out pretty hard this morning while you were asleep. I rock.

What Was I Saying?

2008-08-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

There comes a time when things have got to change. Sometimes life changes for you: you move to a new town, have a child, lose a loved one. Sometimes day by day things get more and more complicated until suddenly you realize you’ve got some work to do.

About a month ago my therapist diagnosed me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, from witnessing domestic violence as a child. It is the cause of the anxiety I experience in various situations, especially interpersonal conflict.

I have always been tightly wound and have had a tendency to turn inward under pressure. I’ve gotten better in some ways thanks to necessity, therapy, and Lexapro, but I still get overwhelmed when things get crazy. And for the last few years, our responsibility level has been ratcheting up, click by click. Sean and I both work (me part-time), we have a toddler and a preschooler, Leo’s in a school that takes extra participation from me, we have a house and two cars to maintain with the typical 1.5 incomes family budget, and, well, my family is my family. Our babysitter is out of town for two weeks, and I’m planning my grandparents’ 60th anniversary party.

Over the last month I have been gaining weight, fast. I think it’s the birth control I’ve been using lately. Whatever the cause, I’m totally freaking out about it. I am notorious for my appetite (my boss calls me “Piggy”…isn’t she sweet?), so the thought of trying to eat like a normal person, or less, is pretty scary. I do get some exercise, but never as much as I want or need. You can’t just go out for a run when you have little ones at home. Everything has to be scheduled. Miss your chance to exercise today, and that might be it for the rest of the week.

This morning at 7 I got myself set up with my Denise Austin Personal Trainer exercise video, and Leo immediately staged a revolt. There were several points to his argument against Mommy exercising: (1) Denise Austin is not kids’ TV, (2) the area in front of the TV is prime real estate for toy car driving so I was in his way, and (3) he had gotten up too early, as usual, and was just generally pissed off at the world.

So things didn’t go well. I found myself having to argue with a kid in order to get the privilege of doing a workout I don’t feel like doing, the first of what may be many workouts just to keep from getting any fatter. I had one of what I refer to as my Mommy Dearest reactions, a blow-up, mega-overreaction, which had its usual effect of causing my son, who is mini-me, to dig in and refuse to budge.

After I blow my top, interesting things happen. It is emotionally exhausting, disappointing myself in this way. I have learned to avoid sinking into a depressed funk, which is really just self-indulgence. But I do deeply reflect on the dissociation that happens during a Mommy Dearest moment. Who is this woman, in some ways so capable, and in others completely lacking?

The last time I got to this point, the “shuffle everything around ‘til it falls into place” stage, was after I went on Lexapro last Fall. I ended up trying to start a business for which I had no time. That was such a disappointing embarrassment that I have been hesitant to start anything new since. But I know I just have to swallow that up and follow my passion, even if it has nowhere to go.

So tomorrow I’ll get up even earlier to do my DVD, and I’ll take care of everybody, and I’ll camp out on my computer, and I’ll do my best to be nice, and I’ll make time to write and do something creative. And I’ll try to remember how lucky I am to be me.