Poem for today

It was one of those days
I wondered all morning, "How does anyone DO this?"
Where is the balance in THIS? I thought
Sleeping four nights out of the last seven
doesn't sound so bad
until you have a 9am with the CEO
and you're so tired it doesn't even occur to you to have some caffeine
which in retrospect might have changed the entire strategy of the corporate citizenship program
At least, for once, there wasn't baby vomit on me
But that was of limited comfort
drinking decaf out of habit
my tired eyes gazing into his tired eyes
as exhortations to "walk us through this one-pager"
were met with a quiet, tired silence
uniquely my own

I didn't want to snap at the big girl
but I did
and I didn't mean to be the only family member not to make the baby laugh
but I was
I was just trying and trying
to get the sick girl to school for the afternoon
and block out her screams for me from the playground
and do yoga
and brainstorm properly in my
brainstorming meetings
and I even had some good ideas
which was a surprise

to be honest

Two kids sap my creativity

in a way

I really didn't expect

but at least we were all sick on different nights

and at least the CEO has known me for seven years

and thank god for a husband who calls me adorable

and for after-dinner walks to hold the baby up to the forsythia

and take pictures of him dismantling a magnolia blossom

and kiss my daughter

and clean off some bonus baby vomit

before a glass of handcrafted artisan VT elderflower rum

in the evening.

together

I felt uneasy the whole time I was there, despite weeks of being excited to go. I couldn't figure it out; was it just that there were so many moving elements? But I'd taken both kids to a million crowded arenas before and never felt like this. Later, not knowing the whole story, I tried to describe my experience on the phone to my husband: "I just kept worrying that Peony was going to run away or get taken or something...I don't know, it was strange." This thought was so unlike me that I even wondered if I was pregnant, which according to the condom package I have a less than one percent chance of being. My point is that I felt remarkably and inexplicably uneasy. It was kind of like I was hearing something really odd but I couldn't quite make it out.

But I still enjoyed it. It was my first marathon, after all. I wanted to take them to the finish line: to see the triumph on those people's faces as they met their goals. That's what's so cool about the Boston Marathon - regular people run it (many of my neighbors have run it) and while I was watching it, I was thinking that it was something I needed to do, just to experience it. (I think that now more than ever.)  College-age kids ran up to hug their parents, standing excitedly right next to me. Dads with toddlers on their shoulders stood craning their necks, waiting to catch a glimpse of their wives running by, just to let out a little encouragement. Men ran dressed in pink from head to toe. People ran with green hair. With people's names scrawled on their chests and arms. "Lisa." "Steven." Running for someone. People pushed their adult, disabled children as they ran. One woman must have been in her late 70s and her bib number just read "JOAN." One girl running might have been 9 or 10. One man ran barefoot, and his long beard came down almost to his bare chest. And he was fast, way up near the front. "GO Guatemala!" I screamed to one man with the country's flag motif decorating his jersey. Why? I don't know. I just wanted him to win. I wanted them all to win. "Someday, maybe you'll run this," I told my four-year-old. "Maybe you'll run it with your brother." "Maybe, Mama," she said, smiling.

Being married to a biologist interferes with my belief in magic and in intuition, and sometimes that's a very, very good thing. But not always. Sometimes it is very real, and you don't know when, or why, but it's simply another level of listening, or more accurately being freed from listening to the track playing in your head so that you can, for once, absorb what's really out there. I don't think I'll ever forget this blog entry, for example, written by an Aurora shooting victim about a month before her death, reflecting on her experience narrowly avoiding gunshots in a Toronto mass shooting.

When I heard the news, really heard it, and saw someone write on Twitter, "It really happened and it's as bad as you fear," I cried. I hid my tears from my daughter and went to another room to listen to the radio. I looked at my eight-month-old son and wondered what was happening to all of us, and if we'd done something terrible by bringing them into this world. My husband, far away on another continent, was primarily grateful we weren't hurt. And I was glad too. If I hadn't been exhaustedly downtown 3 times a week at Shriner's burn unit to take care of the baby's hand, we would have been at the finish line instead of in the suburban sidelines, I'm sure of it. But despite all of this, we were hurt. All of us in Boston, all of us who dreamed of going to the finish line in every way possible, all of us who saw all the love that regular people have for each other and were now without legs, or burned terribly, or just desperately, desperately scared - we hurt. We hurt together and we hurt for people. And not knowing which of the 170 injured people were people you saw or cheered for makes it feel like it was all of them, running unknowingly, trustingly, toward death. Because that's kind of what a marathon is, in the end - a defeat of death, and a triumph of being alive, and not just alive, but alive together.

The Thing We Call God

Oh, these days. With the four year old buzzing around, drawing love notes for "Mamama" and Daddy and her little brother, penning hearts and curls and bananas and people in canoes nearing larger waves and snails, when it makes sense, and the baby sitting on the floor waving his arms up in the air and letting out beautiful shrieks, I am stunned by the love and chaos in our house and remind myself daily that this is it - this is literally what I've been waiting for my whole life. Sometimes, with all the drama and sleep deprivation, I catch myself looking forward to a time when the children are slightly more predictable, and stable, and my husband going away for a week doesn't leave me crazy vulnerable...and that's when I remind myself  that, well, that time will come, but I'll miss these days of passion beyond what I can even imagine. We have so many laughs and hugs and kisses in this wild life.

And there was wildness this week, some of it awful. I can barely absorb it all. Our little guy got a burn on his hand, on my watch, with my back turned, and he's going to be fine in a couple weeks, but for now his little hand hurts and in between the guilt and shame and cuddles and attention and doctor visits and enduring gratitude to the team at Shriner's burn clinics, I've been letting the world fly by me in a soft blur with Little Him wrapped tightly in my arms.

He also went to his first circus this week, with Trick Riders and a trapeze artist and a 42-foot ring with 6 horses and 6 ponies and 2 clowns that made my daughter very inspired. I've had this ongoing agenda to make her into a circus performer - not exactly sure why, but I dream of it like I dream of her career on the BMX bike circuit or in breakdancing circles - challenged, brave, creative, individual strength with team opportunity - and beyond everything it was the clowns that made her really excited. She becane a clown for the rest of the day. Meanwhile, the little guy sat on my knee and joyfully bounced his way through every step on the tightrope.

Before heading to the Big Top, I went to Spinning, where Jon talked at length about crit races and helmet cams and liability, and then at the end of class he asked where our power came from. I thought he might say something like "our legs" and instead he said he believed it came from a higher power. The best instructors, I remembered, all deeply believe in God. Why is that? It is true, I told my thoroughly atheist husband, that they encourage the spirit. On NPR I heard a man with a gravelly voice call in to say, "Everything they taught us in Catholic school was wrong. God is in a '68 Corvette, in the pyramids, in the best song you ever heard; the thing we call God is really just what people create to express how they feel about each other. And it's not all good. Some of it is bad."

The enotional layers pile up; at my weakest, nurses came out in droves to commune with my spirit and to honor the baby's, just like they do day in and day out, without getting jaded or minimizing theselves, for all those injured and scared and seeking nonjudgmental help within those walls. But it was my husband who encouraged my spirit as no one can.

All time

This is my second week of being part-time. I was laughing today, carrying the kids and gear across a parking lot, thinking of that term. What is part-time? What I have now is less time in the office, and less income, but more exposure to the chaos, daytime sleepiness and new discovery, funny joke-making and idle time, and of course, cuddles, of our two children. At ages 4 and 8 months, they are balanced neatly on different edges of the same spectrum: he's just starting to notice board books as something beyond a chew toy, and she's choosing a board book on firetrucks along with her Beverly Cleary chapter book as bedtime reading. "I wish I could read sentences," she said last night. "You will soon," I said at the time. This morning she said, "I wish I was a grown-up so I could reach the butter" and I grabbed her off her precarious perch on a rotating stool that she'd slid in front of the fridge and held her in a huge bear hug. "Do not say that! You are perfect just the way you are!! Enjoy being a kid!" I yelled amid the kisses and giggles. Then I put her back on her precarious perch. She got the butter. Then she kneaded it into her delicious homemade biscuit dough.

He, of course, is nowhere near doing all these things. His major problem in life is that he wants to play on his own, including sitting, scooting, pulling up and pre-crawling, but sometimes flips brilliantly into a prone position and can't sit up from there. Then he cries and kicks his little feet and needs to be kissed and rescued.

Life is no less hectic, exactly, than when we were both working five days and checking them in and out of daycare ten emotional times a week,  but it is much more pleasurable for me, and along the way little things do get done, like organizing, laundry, and best of all, real actual cooking. This means the weekends can involve other things, like breathing, or having fun.

Shifting the balance from 5 days at work and 2 days at home to 3 days at work and 4 days at home simply makes everything feel easier, calmer and more filled with joy. And more, sorry, but balanced.

That said, I notice a lot of anxiety popping up lately, and much of it is based on things that haven't happened, or that I can't see, or feel I can't impact. Some of it is about danger to children. The December murders in Newtown, and the ensuing apparent public decision not to ban assault weapons, has left me dismayed, questioning of every major public decision and political figure. How can reasonable people agree to "not push the issue" when it's a deadly thing that no one needs and sick people keep abusing? How can something like, say, pot, be illegal and assault weapons-with only one real use, to kill multiple people at once---be legal and easily procurable? Why would Bloomberg drop the issue from his anti-gun platform? I'm for all sensible measures, but let's call a spade a spade: Adam Lanza would not have been caught by a background check since he'd never been checked into a mental institution. And there were security guards at Columbine. That stuff is great---it's lovely, let's do it! But it's not the answer. We just need to make these weapons harder to procure......right? Like has been done in other countries? Successfully [Australia]!

I've found myself consumed by thoughts like this, and mental images of violent school-site invasions that involve my children, and I think it allows fertile ground for other fear-based reactions. My daughter's stomach has hurt for a few weeks, which is odd. My thoughts swirl around the scariest diagnoses. And because I do believe that we create some majority of our reality (let's say ~70%) through our thoughts and expectations, this approach only leads me away from my basic and most fundamental expressions of myself in life.

Breathe, Believe, Receive: It's all happening. That used to be my mantra, and it worked beautifully.

But after thirty-six years trusting our government and occasional billionaire leaders to eventually do the right thing, and seven years supporting a corporation that used my round peg as an advantage to enhance its square-hole environment, I feel adrift. All I know is that I love my children with a nearly unbelievable intensity, and revel in being madly in love with my husband, and wish every day that I was living my fullest creative life a little bit more.

I remember how I felt when I was working at a gym in a women's shelter in Dorechester - the friends I made there, and the skills I attained, led me to a new, fuller version of myself - one that was supremely alive and full of ideas, at home and at work. I look out into my life now and I seek that same sense of being wowed by my own life and the people in it, except that this time I have a beautiful baby on my hip and a lively, brave preschooler holding my hand.

Something must be wrong with me. My Monday morning includes an hour with the CEO in which a small group of us will talk about major strategic initiatives at our fast-growing company. When I first joined this company, in my twenties, that's what I said I wanted. And I got it right away. But now everything has changed. On Sunday night, and to be honest, Sunday morning, a pit of dread starts to form in my stomach. I don't want to leave my baby. It's not even that I don't want to go to work - I don't mind it, exactly. But I have this overpowering desire to stay with him, to keep him in my arms, even as he wants to wiggle free.

Break

Everyone has a breaking point, for every issue, and I met my mine on Friday with regard to assault weapons. No private citizen needs a semiautomatic weapon. All weekend, I carried the feeling of heaviness into my every parental interaction. My children's faces carried the faces of all those children dead, and scarred, and scared, in Connecticut. As I raced through their rooms this morning, gathering up things for school, I trembled with the feeling of those parents who now have empty rooms where their children once slept.

The funerals start, the parent's quotes are odd: "we've got to move on" says one - I wonder, was he paid by the NRA? But then I remember the first stage of grief.

I think of the pseudo-enlightened executive who said to me last week, "You know that Buddhist saying? Life is suffering?" in response to me. The Republicans with whom I work, and the destructive impact of their limited views.

I think of the Mayan calendar closing.

Leaving my beauties this morning, nothing felt quite right. I struggled to speak without crying to their teachers, and hope for the best. I sat down and started to sign things and sign up for things.
http://www.stophandgunviolence.org/
http://signon.org/sign/mothers-against-assault
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/immediately-address-issue-gun-control-through-introduction-legislation-congress/2tgcXzQC?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl

As night fell on Friday, I was skimming through Connecticut on a train to New York, holding my baby. I didn't know what had happened there, but we cut through a bus yard with just a few parked school buses and I felt a great sadness. I think often of that quiet scene: the sunset, the stillness, the emptying of what had been full.

Artist

Dave and Todd were two poets we knew.
Dave snapped at me once for whispering to a friend during a reading he was giving.
I was fourteen and I didn't know his poem was about
a family he knew that died when rolls of steel bounced off a truck
one afternoon on a Canadian highway. "No, I don't think it's funny," I said in answer to his question.
Todd came to our high school writing class once and doubted aloud whether we were old enough to hear a more "mature" poem of his
so we all listened intently.
I remember two lines: "Now it's my turn to wear the vest/ feel of leather on my back."
That was me in high school. Literar-ily, not literally.
Sex and death came to us in verse
and I think I concluded that I would grow up to be
Dave and Todd or
Dave or
Todd.
Now I am 36, biking around a Boston suburb with my precocious, gorgeous preschool daughter
she smells bread baking
on Thanksgiving day
so we follow our noses down an alley, standing high on our pedals
voluminous joy from the face of a young man, more of them in there by the ovens, loading the trucks
all of Middle Eastern descent
"Your bread smells AMAZING. Can I buy a loaf?" I ask
He laughs. "What kind?" and the variety of the bread in the alley on the carts seems infinite
Sweet Challah, I say and he bags a hot braid as I reach for my wallet.
"Next time you buy," he says, "today is gift."
It's dangling from my handlebars
as she asks, "But did you buy that, Mama? Did he not want you to pay for it?"
"It was a gift, my darling," I call as we coast around a parking lot, doing figure eights around the lampposts and shaking our heads in gratitude. "Can you believe that?"
"Set an example for Pearl," say those around me
and I cradle the new baby
his eyes, unending loving eyes
love like warm floured loaves of stacked bread
gazing up at me with that handsome smile
and I think
"Go to work, make an impact," but my impact is here with my son and my daughter, but I'm not making the impact
I want to make
at work
at 36
like Dave and Todd made
when they left their words ringing in my ears
at 14
The thing is, I want to be free, too.
I want to be free to float across empty parking spaces
and I don't know how to do that
and be an artist