Crawlspace

2012-01-24T19:11:00.005-05:00

July

"When are you due?" I'm already at the point that people can ask me that without worrying - even for an instant - that they might be mistaken. And then - and this is the part that makes me wince a little - when I say July, and not, say, March, they kind of have to process the information politely. Of course, I'm teaching the fitness class they happen to be taking, adding a whole other layer to that Q&A. I'm supposed to be worthy of being their fitness mentor, at least in the moment. And I am worthy - I mean, what could be more powerful than demonstrating military push-ups with a baby obviously growing inside of my body? But I'm at that point in my pregnancy in which I've started to drift out of the nothing-but-gratitude stage and into the 'slovenly' stage (technical term), and it shows. I've just bought a maternity workout top to try to appear more like the fitness professional that I am.

In other ways, though, my impending July deadline is galvanizing. I don't think I'd be taking a children's book illustration course without it, or prioritizing creativity, travel and organization right now, now, now. I'm not sure I'd be so forthright in my relationships, seek to make my opinion resonate at work, or be so explicit and urgent about teaching my daughter all that I can this instant. I probably wouldn't be thinking about taking her on a spring train trip to NYC. And, I probably wouldn't be eating quite so much ice cream. Babies have a way of making priorities very clear!

Above all, I think, every day, of the amazing opportunity I get to spend the summer enjoying our children and our home, the river and the flowers. We'll get to coast into the chaos amid beauty and warmth - what better way to experience it?

2011-12-28T14:41:00.001-05:00

What it is exactly that I want, or, The new graffiti

The yoga studio is filled with women who closely resemble one another - straight treated hair falling a few inches past shoulders, trim waists, Lulu Lemon clothing, and the right tattoos (which particularly mystifies me. Do they get them as adults? All together? Or do they do it young and then, aging, are drawn to one another like beacons?) The correct tattoo can be found inside of the wrist, or on the top of the foot, where one might notice the symbol for "Om." They talk together conspiratorially as I gather my things and quietly leave at the end of a great class.
On a recent night out with beloved nieghbors, we were joined by several local women I don't know well, and the conversation turned to malls - visits to area malls, and comparisons of different Targets. My family doesn't go to malls, just because they feel almost unbearably overwhelming and depressing. I don't know how anyone does it. Am I just too sensitive? But it's not just me - I convinced my husband to walk to a nearby BJ's once and we both left empty-handed and bereft at the sight of endless flourescents and obese children stuffed into shopping carts. At the table, I am left in familiar silence.
This is how I feel about my adopted hometown. I don't always fit in, and sometimes it is awkward. I love our home, and I honestly love our nieghbors. I love seeing my girl riding her bike (a street hand-me-down refurbished by Daddy) up and down the little hill at the top of our street, and joyfully communing with the kids that linger everywhere. But I have a hard time seeing a space for me as the full person I really am, inhabiting home in a complete sense. I think a shift in my perspective might change this, but I don't know where to shift to.
I do always feel like I fit in, however, on the river that runs alongside our house. Biking home in the dark with my daughter's wagon hitched to mine, knees bumping my growing belly, single light shining on the packed earth path flying under our wheels and nothing but the sound of dark water flowing fast beside us. I'm fully there. Or jogging in the middle of the afternoon, nodding greetings to Guatemalan men walking to and from work and school. In the night, encountering a coyote and wondering what to say to such a wild and beautiful animal standing feet away from me, looking at me with - what? What expression in those intelligent eyes? Picking up trash left by others. Doing yoga on a mossy bank as ducks float amiably by. Taking a walk by a romantic young couple kissing near a waterfall. Kids smoking pot, faintly suprised by me running around the bend. Watching turtles from the bridge overhead.

And now along the river there is some beautiful new graffiti. It looks like a chemical dreamland with wild shades and floating bubbles. Colors leaking from a pipe that I'd never noticed before, a runoff from the street into the river. It's exactly what I would paint if I had the courage and organization to do it. Who painted it? Could I be friends with this person? Whoever it is, I am inspired.
Tonight some old friends are coming to dinner, a person who meshed with me utterly perfectly in graduate school (another place, come to think of it, where I had trouble fitting in). A lot has happened in the six years since we've seen each other and I don't know if we'll connect so seamlessly again, especially since we both have children to bring a lively minute-by-minute interruptive quality to our conversation (it's just what they do!). But I honor her anyway, and our complicated, loving friendship.
Who does fit in? Graffiti painters? Turtles in an urban river? Shoppers in Target? Friends who have connected and fallen out and connected again and had hope for one another? Kids trying to keep up with each other on bikes?
My old record player playing in our basement is a gift from my husband, and my old music wafting upstairs makes me feel connected to this place. It's a shift, a flow into the river.

2011-11-27T21:04:00.002-05:00

Home State

A warm night tonight.
Purple streamers flickering under street lights
moths flickering around electric santas
she streamed down the street
checking out every last
inflatable snowman.
we walked arm in arm
harboring some secret future
buried in my being.
In preschool-talk everything is an adventure
"I'm a dolphin swimming to the next conversation!" she said, "swimming
to my home state."
We made poems in the car.
"A frog jumped over a house, and found a scary moose. But the moose turned out to be his mama! And there was a daddy moose too. The end."
"Let's make a poem about pants."
"Let's make a poem about legs."
"About faces."
"Make a poem about excavators."
"About dumptrucks."
But back to our walk.
The bike charges up a bumpy hill, our hands on her back only at the top.
I think of everything, inside and outside at the same time.
"My memories start when I became a sibling," says my friend, "as if the moment I stopped being this cherished 3-year-old and became someone's sister was when my life really began."
Our breath makes steam in the night air. Our colored holiday lights brighten the river darkness.
But it still flows through the woods like a silent dream.
"Mama," she says, "tell me a story."

2011-10-23T20:23:00.002-04:00

Gifts at Every Turn

A year ago I ran my first 5k. I wandered down to the elementary school on a gray morning in the middle day of one those horrendous 3-day potty-training nightmares, leaving my husband locked at home with diaper-less child (who had to be within 50 yards of the potty, since....she wasn't potty trained). Only having enbraced jogging a few months earlier, I'd never run a 5k before, or done any kind of competitive running, for that matter. It felt scary to do something new, great to be out of the house, and a little lonely to be there surrounded by families and not have my own with me. It also felt lovely to do anything other than wipe pee off the floor.

I won. That's the short version. The slightly longer one is that after a joyful 18 minutes of running, a bystander yelled to me that I was the "second woman". I felt as though I was in the middle of the pack, so this was a total shock. But it galvanized me, and I moved with the final third of the race instead of against it. In the end, I was the top woman in my age group (F30-39), the second in the whole race. It was awesome. I hung around for my medal, missed my husband and baby terribly, and floated home on air....before assuming round-the-clock pee cleanup. (Which was pointless, as I thought grimly today while changing her diaper.)

I ran in a Thanksgiving marathon with lots of professionals, and got a respectable 19th place out of 200 women in my age group, euphoric over hearing beautiful Pea yelling "GO MAMA!" from her daddy's shoulders. And then winter came and I didn't run much anymore. Over the year, I kept teaching my fitness classes, kept biking to work, worked out at the gym, but ran in 20-minute spurts on occasion to squeeze in some cardio along the riverside bikepath outside our house.

Today, I ran that same 5k again, on my husband's advice that I "defend my medal." This was after some sloth-like jogs over the past month, and after mulling over a colleague's offhand comment that with every year she ages, she adds a minute to her time. Half of me accepted it with worry, the other half sternly reminding that she was embracing a baseless belief that helped no one. (A classic "Don't believe everything you think" moment). This morning, I was anxious. I lay in the hammock in our backyard and imagined having to walk the race, wondered what it would feel like to watch someone else get "my" medal, and felt silly about caring about it at all. My body has been a hormonal battleground for six months, and I'm no longer sure what to expect of it. I thought of it lovingly.

But once we arrived on location on our bikes, my preschooler waving to neighbors from her seat behind me, I got that same thrilling rush: race time! I started at the front as is my way, waving and blowing kisses to my sweeties, and laughed to see all the men rush by me. Within a few minutes, I started passing people. My feet just pounding away, I thought of my husband's caution to stay steady and not expend all my energy right away. Strong women passed me, more than last year, and I worried as I tried to guess their ages. But I also cheered them on in my heart. I sent grateful smiles to the families waving us on at every corner. Mothers and children yelling encouragement from their windows, the town kids waving homemade signs that read "Go runners!" I was breathing heavily and longing for water.

This was a race for our school, and so it was heavy on children. I was silently proud of the two 8 year old boys pacing me the entire time, and silently annoyed by the teenage boys who would sprint until they were winded, then slow to a walk immediately in front of me (three times! But I did beat them).

At the final mile, I was feeling tired. My legs were moving mechanically. At the corner where a year before I'd been told I was "second woman, second woman," I instead just saw smiles. My heart fell a little - no medal? Just as I was focusing on pushing negative thoughts out of my mind, a family gathered around a tree yelled out to me that 99 (my number) was "one lucky number!" I waved to them and ran a little faster. And then a new thing happened.

A very strong woman, a good runner, ran up next to me. I felt instantly that she was in my age group and was my competitor. She wasn't breathing as heavily as I was and she was going fast. She ran on my immediate right side, within a few inches of my body. And then she got even closer. Maybe just an inch, until I could feel her body heat. She actually appeared to be almost pushing me to the side, despite having tons of space around us. I made a decision almost instantly to view this with gratitude. She was a gift from the universe. And I stayed with her.

I ran hard, and I kept her pace. We rounded a corner together onto the last street, with the finish line visible in the distance. I knew she'd beat me, but I knew I could hang on to her a little longer and use that energy, just like I tell the members of my fitness classes to do, to gain strength from the power of the women around them. And I did. It was wonderful. Eventually I let her go, watching her pace forward, and with my body telling me to walk, to stop resisting the urge to slow down, I let go of the chaos in my mouth and legs and heart and zeroed in on something incredibly calm: being in bed with my entire family that morning. Both our daughter and our cat had climbed into bed with us by 6:30 on a cold Sunday, and the image of snuggling with all of them gave me the calm I needed to finish the race, with my two sweeties at my side as soon as I flopped down, red-faced and out of breath, on the green grass.

24:19. My personal best. I got a medal for being at third place, but beating my time from last year - and knowing I'd be better if I trained - meant everything. Well, almost everything. Did I mention what I heard as I crossed the finish line with all those beautiful kids and parents?

"GO MAMA!"

2011-10-22T07:20:00.000-04:00

The Most Amazing Thing I've Learned in my 30s (so far)

I was lying facedown on my mat yesterday in hot yoga, as sweat dripped over my eyes and I tried to block out the grunting and panting of my impossibly taut classmates, the beefy men and bamboo-thin women so identical to one another that I began to wonder if I was in the presence of some sort of cult. The women were even similarly tattooed - on the inside of the wrist, which seemed unusual. Probably just a trend.

As I caught my breath (quietly - I am not a yoga grunter), I had a thought which I registered as "The most amazing thing I've learned in my 30s." That's a new category, which is probably good since I still have the second half of my 30s in front of me. I might have a few things left to learn.

So what was it? The Cosmic Waitress and manifestation? The fact that the single most important thing we can learn in school may be collaboration? The idea that you can dance until 4am in Miami in your 30s? Have sudden wonderful career moments with no notice at all? "If you can't breathe, back out?" "See the light, know the light, share the light, BE the light?"

No, the hot yoga relevatory moment was that, until I was in my 30s, I'd never understood when conception happens. I didn't know the truth about when the sperm and egg connected, started cell division and then...that most astonishing instant for a parent in love with their child beyond their wildest dreams: person-creation. When and how did she start to grow inside me? My whole life, I thought it happened during sex, just one lucky shot that lined conception right up there after orgasm in a single fantastic half hour. That made sense. Once I reached the age in which I was ready to have children, I learned that it was in fact a complicated math problem. It takes 12 hours for those little guys to get all the way up to a fallopian tube. It takes 72 hours for them to stop swimming and fall away. And the egg appears beautifully one day without a lot of notice, and then disintegrates 6-12 hours later (maybe 24). So the "moment" happens sometime 1-3 days after sex, and the full moon only shines once in that 28-day cycle. Just like the moon, we don't know how lucky we are when it appears.

How was it, I marveled, that I never understood this in my teens and 20s? Because what it means is that conception happens unseen in one regular moment - riding a bike outside in the fall rain; picking up your child from preschool; flossing your teeth while making eye contact with your cat in the mirror; an hour after falling into a deep sleep. How much can be contained in one moment?

2011-09-24T09:28:00.001-04:00

Space

Being a person at 35 with a full life is all about trying to listen to what kind of space you need for yourself. And then fighting for it. Opportunities for space are revealed in surprising ways. Sometimes it's just space from your own élan. I read last night that certain yogurts contain a bacteria that has a calming effect on the body, and in the last few years I've found myself incredibly bound to my mid-morning yogurt. I always assume it's the protein, but this must be part of it, too. Auditory: My sweet love likes to listen to NPR in the kitchen in the morning, and while I used to share his propensity for tuning it out or in at will, for many reasons, I can't right now. It's just noise that makes it hard to think or talk. So he turns it off.

I have a meeting, about my role and work, with the CEO next week, for which I can never be too prepared nor can I ever be adequately prepared. But yet I still think I'll take Monday off. It seems crazy. But almost inexplicably, so does going in that day. So I might as well spend it with my daughter.

I also left a full plate at work yesterday to participate in lunchtime yoga, with a sober understanding of the sacrifices inherent in that choice. When the teacher directed us to repeat moves that were not in line with the needs of my body, I started doing my own thing. She got more and more controlling, at one point asking everyone to face the exact same direction while lying down (totally unnecessary). I felt those around me comply, but by then I was waaay renegade. I was acutely aware of what I was giving up to be there, and no amount of pressure to conform was going to mean that I was going to walk out of that room without satisfying my needs.

Because needs change all the time, you really have to listen to your spirit to learn in that moment, what is needed. Hard when life requires planning, but required to be present in life.

2011-08-22T10:11:00.000-04:00

Wake

It was a lot of sand and dust. Underfoot. That's how I knew things were different. I wasn't that far from home, but we could just linger in the sand and dust, and walk down to the ocean to hold dead crabs and wet feathers. I felt so connected to my daughter. Staying in her schedule is such a gift, something I deeply envy in moms who don't work full-time. We explored together and drifted like sea foam together throughout our week. She slept in the afternoons with abandon, and after her little fingers loosened from mine into relaxation, I always took the time to look at her closed eyes and gorgeous face as if I were smelling a dark pink spilling rose, petals falling to the breeze.

We played. Played with her grandparents, played with toys and things we found, played with our toes. I can't count on two hands the number of times I ate those little toes. Took the time to tickle her. Took the time to notice how wound up I am a lot of the time. Found myself unwound.

I know it takes a lot of work and attention to stay with your daughter, to stay awake in her wake. Every day that I'm with her, I wonder if I can do it when she is 19, 26, 34, 49. I really, really, really hope I can. For now, she's 2. And August is closing, which is almost impossible to believe. So here are my vows to try to stay connected to her and to my being unwound, so being wound doesn't become a wound:

I vow to do a lot of yoga.
I vow to take at least a day off with just her every other month to just experience treasuring her.
I vow to do things with my time away from her that are meaningful and powerful.
I vow to honor her schedule whenever I have the chance.
I vow to breathe and drink water and teach her to do the same.
I vow to experience gratitude for my current place in her life: wildly loved.

She's given me so many kisses these past couple of weeks. I've been so glad to give her kisses back. What a pure delight.

2011-03-29T20:18:00.003-04:00

The Life Insurance Drama

Two years ago, I had a baby. Eighteen months ago, we bought a house. This last fall, I realized that if we suddenly lost my income, we would lose this lovely house, which would be a major bummer if, say, I'd died and my husband and little sweetie couldn't keep our home on the river with all our awesome neighbors and the bike path and all the foxes and birds and coyotes and geese drama and hawks eating rodents in the yard and...you get the idea. It was suddenly time to get life insurance. I wanted them to keep the house.

Fast forward to Dec 31. Chalk it up to New Year's resolutions -- I went ahead and made the call, dutifully stating my height and weight for the record. "Oh, ma'am," said the nice man on the phone, and I imagined his finger tracing the gridlines of the actuarial table. "If you just lost a FEW pounds, you'd save six dollars a month."

Would I try to lose a few pounds in order to go from $36/mo to $30/mo? For a 20-year lock? Yes, I would. I would. Now I had a new New Year's resolution. "I'll call you back," I said. "You don't want to schedule your medical exam right now?" he said. "Are you sure?" "Uh...I'm traveling," I stammered, uncharacteristically lying. I just didn't want to tell him about my sudden resolution. I was going to be a changed woman. After all, these tables were based on something, right? I didn't actually want to die...I wanted to be around to enjoy my baby and my husband and the house and the foxes and the hawks and so on and so forth.

Let's fast forward another month. It's January 31. For one long, cold month, I've eaten more shitake mushrooms, onions, and broccoli than I knew I could eat, and developed an expertise in low-fat protein. Yes, I've decided wine and hot chocolate are still in, but otherwise I've adopted brand-new eating habits. No snacking before bed. No eating, say, crackers mindlessly. I was GOOD. Not amazing, but much, much better.

I've also worked out. In addition to teaching my regular fitness classes, I've hit the gym every day, often eating just a salad for lunch. I feel good, if hungry and cranky, and I look great. My clothes fit really well. People even start to make comments. But when I get on the scale...and this is the moment of truth because, you know, that number is actually what it's about in this context - I have lost one and a half pounds.

For me, that is nothing. That is what I lose by taking a boxing class. It's just nothing. Nada. And I'm still a good five and a half pounds from my goal.

OK, let's fast forward another month. Now it's February 31. (There is no such date, but I need a dramatic statement - and this is it.) FEBRUARY 31. I am a fitness professional, people. I coach other people on achieving their goals. But my body is just not budging.

I have lengthed my workouts. I spend hours on the weekends, working out. I've learned the cable TV schedules so I can align my treadmill sessions with Sex and the City reruns. I have even predictably ground my way onto a plateau - one day, after running for 5 miles for 3 days in a row, I realize I'm not even that winded. I wonder if I should do 10 miles. I feel oddly disconnected from my body. But unfortunately my ankle is starting to hurt.

And my husband is starting to suggest that maybe all this is not worth 6 bucks a month. "Just skip one grande iced decaf mocha latte a month," he suggests, "and you've made back the 6 dollars."

Just as I'm reaching the conclusion that I need both a personal trainer and a physical therapist, as well as an orthotic fit-out, and once I've shelled out $100 for new sneakers, it hits me: give in. It's not happening. Let it go. I'm poised to take a really expensive, arduous route to this savings goal.

Was all the effort for nothing? It was. I mean, I can empathize a little more with people in my classes trying to acheive their goals, and I certainly get yo-yo dieting now: once I stopped restricting foods, I actually gained a little more weight than my initial number, and the process felt like my body acting of its own volition. The nutrients just flooded into me. Meanwhile, I took some time off from the gym to nurse my ankle back to health. Kind of an exhausting path to put yourself on...when the starting point, in retrospect, was pretty fit and healthy.

It was at this point---carb-loading, gym-avoiding, chocolate-eating, and totally resigned, that I scheduled my medical exam. Dmitri was a hematologist making a home visit, and also a rather attractive young man. This lifted my spirits a bit, especially since my husband and I had a long-running in-joke about the lovely young woman who came to do his home exam those many months ago (oh, Stacy - where are you now?). He took my blood pressure and fluid samples, and then whipped out his scale. We were having a nice rapport, which I saw as a way to simply stop thinking about all the work/failure that had gotten me to this moment in my life. I stepped on to the scale. It clearly gave one number, a number that was higher than I'd seen in years. I concentrated on calm non-reaction. He noted the number on his worksheet, although he subtracted a pound. OK. Then he measured me with a tape measure. Here he noted me a few inches higher than I might have guessed. But who am I to argue? I maintain a blissful delusion about how short I am. I'm usually shocked when there is undeniable evidence to pin me as really short. I feel tall and powerful.

Anyway, the other day I got an email. "Your life insurance has been approved," it read. "We will start charging you $25/mo starting on April 3." And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how little control one really has over one's own life. Or life insurance, as the case may be. $11 less than the original quote; how lucky am I, right?

2011-02-28T09:48:00.002-05:00

A little box on my desk on a Monday morning

It's been five years since I had my own business cards to hand out. Well, that's not exactly true. I had hundreds of them, five years ago. It's just that each one became outdated in about 8-12 months, and then did nothing for me during my subsequent periods of unemployment. We made jokes about wallpapering the bathroom with them, but never did. Finally, poised in front of the recycling bin, I thought I should save some for posterity, but single cards were pretty boring; it was the sight of outdated cards en masse that made them even vaguely compelling. I'd gotten laid off so many times that business cards began to seem very silly to me. Especially since most of my business cards were for positions in start-up nonprofits, or universities, so they weren't authentically representative of the field I was in, anyway - we weren't conducting business at all. What was I doing with all these piles of non-business business cards? They seemed to represent my twenties.

Finally, at age 29, I joined a business. And it's been working out so far. Five years in and I'm still here. I'm on my fourth boss, but I've had her for 3 of those 5 years. Most of my work has internal-facing, so I've been able to introduce myself directly to my colleagues, and then simply try to be memorable. Who needed a business card? Which was good, because though I was a rather stable situation, my job title and duties continued to evolve quickly. This suited me perfectly. I was finally in a business, but had no interest in tying myself to any one business card. "I don't have a business card, but let me take yours and send you an email," I'd say on occasion when working with an outsider. I didn't mind having to be the only one to say that. I am never bothered by being different; quite the opposite. (My life coach raises her eyebrows when I say things like this and says "Rebellious?" All I can say is, look, I'm trying not to be.)

After a lot of hard work, I obtained a new job in January - same business, same boss, but different responsibilities - many of them engaging people outside my company, which made my practice of relying on just "being memorable" a tad more difficult. Two months of shaking hands with people who are not my co-workers, accepting their business cards, and then explaining my new, exciting role in depth, and promising to contact them --- this got old without business cards, especially when I realized I wanted to spend my time in ways other than sending emails to all my business card contacts.

And here they are. I ordered the smallest amount available - 250. Even though I hope that they become outdated due to another promotion or even, eventually, another role change (since that most enables my thriving, curious, growing self), I also hope I get these cards out to people. Let them know where I am, what I'm doing, and how to reach me. I never want these cards to sit on the floor of my study - I want them on the desks of my contacts. And I want those contacts to be people I'm learning from - people who have something to teach me. Because I am finally in a position to pass on that teaching to many people- and that makes each one of these cards a little icon of empowerment. That's pretty cool.

2010-12-27T20:52:00.000-05:00

Top Ten Top Ten Lists

Top ten board books

Jamberry
Charlie Parker Played Bebop
Pajama Time
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
The Snowy Day
I Howl I Growl
Good Morning Farm
Baby Beluga
Is Your Mama a Llama?
Please, Baby, Please
Good night, Moon

Top ten baby items

Skip Hop Diaper Changer
Cat

Top ten places to take a toddler in greater Boston area

Wellesley Greenhouse
Harvard Museum of Natural History
Medley of playgrounds
Great Brook Farm
Outdoor summer Thursday concerts in Saltonstall Park
Drumlin Farm
Great Meadows
Pet stores

Top Ten Mama Escapes

US Weekly
O Magazine
Red wine
Keeping Up with the Kardashians
White wine
Movie dates with husband
Bubble baths + New Yorker
Petting cat
Buying designer clothes online for toddler at a discount
Ladies night with my neighbors (wassup Lo Wy!)

Top Ten Things I am Currently Neglecting

Teaching fitness classes at the Healthworks Foundation
Writing poetry
Mending my clothes
Writing children's books
Drawing
Play dates with husband
Most close adult relationships in my life
Learning to teach dance
Learning breakdancing
Learning music
Every day that I don't teach my baby something amazing and miraculous

Top Ten Places I Want to Travel - Now

Miami
Paris
India
Everywhere in Africa

Top Ten Fears

Not going to truly rock my new job
Letting daily work obscure the amazing job I have - helping my baby learn everything!
Not getting ahead financially
Losing a connection with my man
Mediocrity!

2010-12-10T09:31:00.005-05:00

Fifteen

It was only 15
degrees
but she was singing
with her headphones
and fuschia lipstick
strolling and singing in the fresh morning light
and smiling. Did I mention smiling? She had the biggest smile.
Gripping the steering wheel in my heated car
I was a freezing well
bracing for the clash in my deepest coldest caverns
echoes of ringing medieval weaponry
as I did battle with my patience
in the December frost.
Upstairs that morning
insisting that my 2-year-old wear pants
-arguing with toddler logic
is never a good idea-
I stumbled on my being, struggling to breathe, in the tight fisted deathgrip
of disappointment
for the promotion on hold,
the aloneness of soul,
the spiritual question of my impact and purpose
suddenly pressing
(not succeeding as either an artist or a corporate agent)
and then as I dragged our daily gear and attitudes, late, again,
out to the car for yet a fifth day in the workweek (how can it possibly be?)
I remembered that what you believe is what manifests
and I visualized an intersection without traffic and a carride without crying and screaming
and then I turned the corner into sunlight
and there she was
walking down the sidewalk singing
almost sashaying down the sidewalk
who knows where she was going?
Broad smile stretched across her face
feeling joy
radiating joy
and I remembered who I really was for a minute
as I breezed through an intersection without traffic
in a carride without crying.
I held the vision.
I keep holding the vision.
Thinking of what has made me laugh lately
and where I see my true self, who flowers on joy-despite-circumstances.
Cold Jamaicans shivering as they change the oil in my car
"I can't complain.....'cause when I do complain no one listens," he jokes to my innocuous greeting
My daughter waking up at school to a slow, instrumental version of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" -it's just funny
Is it a xylophone?
Out on a solo date in Waltham, I get a white russian in a bar
and take myself to a vintage clothing store
and I really take some time to wonder
about people who put goggles on mannequins
Is it just me? Do I keep running into them? Or is it a real phenomenon?
Half an hour to write this poem
in a short and frantic day
but I can't take frantic
and there's joy in poems
at least in poems
with cold, funny Jamaicans
and U2 instrumental
and singing singing women
in 15 degree weather
where ever you are, woman,
thank you

2010-09-08T20:50:00.001-04:00

Daily Poem 23-30/30

The Big Dipper.
I looked up and there it was
with a message on this Perfect Late Summer Night

I had been feeling pitifully sorry
for myself
for falling on the concrete
just when I was thinking I was so light on my feet
getting used to running in pitch darkness
looking into people's beautiful homes on a new street I'd never explored
with their period stained glass and ornate gardens
musing about where to put stained glass in my house someday
I was light
on my feet
but it was dark
and I wasn't light enough.

Soon I was bloody
and limping past the school fields, my knee throbbing.
Huge lights picking up a teenage lacrosse game. Couple of dads talking
in the perfect summer air
pause to check me out
well, check out my busted lip and mournful gaze.
I was late that day to pick up my baby
I hit a roadblock at work
and I didn't feel successful
I didn't even get to work out
I'm not even a writer anymore
no one reads my poems and I can't even get to 30.
I don't feel like an artist
or a humanitarian.
My little baby goes to daycare
and it makes me feel like a failure
even if she seems to love daycare
and thrive.
It still feels wrong.

I was just thinking about all these things
and how badly I felt for falling
when I saw the big Dipper
full of a message for me
and I stood up straighter
and felt my spine release

Said the Big Dipper:
I am full of blessings
Feel my blessings as they fall on your shoulders.
Feel your body as it breathes
Feel it as it bleeds. It's alive!
Your amazing daughter full of life
exquisite husband
buying snakes because
he knows what makes him happy.
A blessing.
What an honor to have the job you do
Cedar Cedar
blessings on you
blessings on you

2010-08-16T21:51:00.000-04:00

Daily Poem 22/30

One early morning
as I lay in my bed nursing
I heard the cat's meow
simply sounded friendly
until I heard the squeaking
and then I really woke up.
Our toddler and I peered
over the edge of the bed
yelled for Daddy
he caught the mouse gently
Baby and I freed it in the woods near work
just moments after
an inspector came to assess our house.

It was a big day.

I asked for a big promotion.

I'll get it if I do some big work.

In a meeting I told
the mouse story
"I mean, how often do those two things happen
in one morning?" I asked. "My husband told me to get
the mouse off the counter before
the inspector comes in."
Everyone laughed. Then they asked why the cat doesn't kill the mouse.
I explained that she was a sweet lap cat
who doesn't kill
"She just runs alongside the mouse," I said.

Later I picked up my toddler from school.

All the moms were talking about how much they hated their jobs,
how they were going nowhere
just wanted to stay home with the baby
(any excuse to stop, just stop trying---it IS hard)
I came home exhausted
toddler in arms
wondering if I can do it all
or if like my cat I just bat ideas around
I felt so tired I almost could not move

But there on the dining room floor lay a dead mouse.
We crouched over it
"This mouse is dead," I told her.
"Dead," said my baby. We looked at it whole,
the cat looking on proudly.

Later we buried it in the yard.

-About Thursday August 12, 2010

2010-08-09T20:59:00.007-04:00

Daily Poem 21/30

We've known each other for years
not that she knows my name, but I'm her client
for a certain intimate procedure
off the spa menu.
Today I rode my bike over in 20 minutes off from work
she paused someone's pedicure to take care of me
asked about my baby
I asked about her son
"Turns 18 tomorrow" she said.
I congratulated her on 18 years of motherhood
and she said it was full of surprises.
I probed.
"Last Friday," she said in Korean-accented English,
"I asked him what he goin' do, if he had any plans."
I knew she meant plans for his life; he'd been loafing around a lot.

"He say he did, but he didn't want to tell, we'd get too upset.
I say no, you can tell me. i want to hear."
She removed a wax strip and I winced.
"He say he goin' join the Marines."
"Oh, no!" I said, to which she nodded, and said, "I KNOW."

I asked if she was upset. "I not upset," she said,
"but it really cracked me. It really cracked me. I stay up
all Friday night crying
and Saturday
I feel happy,
I feel sad.
I not know what to think.

It really cracked me."

"He a man," she said."I can't do anything about it.
He has to make this decision. I tell him, if you sign the papers
and decide you don't want to go, you can't. A man will come to your house and take you to jail."

I tried to imagine my toddler telling me the same thing.
I felt a small crack.
I reminded her of the GI Bill.

"I know, that's what he say, 3 years and then he'll use the bill."

When can he sign up? I asked.

"Tomorrow," she said, "when
he turns
eighteen."

2010-08-09T20:59:00.006-04:00

Daily Poem 20/30

I asked my neighbor
How was your day? He looked up at the sky and answered.
Went to a car show.
Left early.
Wife had to take her mother out.
He didn't continue, but he missed her too much.
Kids grown and gone.
A few regrets on how they raised 'em.
"Just didn't talk to them--we just didn't know better,"
he once told me.
"You gotta say, 'this is grass. Grass is green.'
Now we know better."
Those two are glad
they've got each other.

2010-08-09T20:58:00.003-04:00

Daily Poem 19/30

date night
went downtown for spicy spicy hot
malaysian food
split cake in the park
othello rolling across the stage
sitting on bikes at night
we stared at our old home
gone one year
felt like we could walk right in
biked home
cicadas ringing over the dark river

2010-08-09T20:58:00.000-04:00

Daily Poem 18/30

drunk on bicycles
margaritas in the summer
laughing in the cemetary
like fifteen-year-olds.

2010-08-09T20:57:00.002-04:00

Daily Poem 17/30

bad cat
sneaks in from the forest
indoor cat
looks silly in the trees
looks tasty to a fisher
I scold her
she's just a snack
she gives me a wild look and slinks
inside

2010-08-04T21:20:00.000-04:00

Daily Poem 16/30

We finally merged accounts
after six years of marriage,
two homes co-owned
and one beautiful baby
our dual paychecks finally flow
into one place.
It is done.
Merging.
We've merged equally.
I have to wonder why it doesn't feel
bad at all
have we beaten the independent streak out of ourselves?
Are we just giving in
nine years together
come so far
from sheets taped to the fridge in that first apartment
listing monthly expenses
in his and hers columns
keeping us
equal
grounded
now it always feels a little confusing
out of reach
and we need that solid
knowledge
grasp
of where it all goes
so we're merging
and yet
I have so many
little secrets.

$1.77 for decaf
sometimes two in one morning
a silly indulgence
the $54 haircut
topped with tip and products
somehow came to $99
I bought a present for my boss's wedding
then I bought some cards
yikes
it's all right there on the statement
sorry sweetie
you get to know me a little better now
that you're merging
with me

2010-08-03T20:58:00.000-04:00

Daily Poem 15/30

Tiger eat popsicle!
What better sentence
to break the three-word record
than
Tiger eat popsicle!
Actually it was more of an offering:
Tiger eat popsicle?
And yet so celebratory--
everyone had popsicles, wouldn't Tiger like
to join the party?
Tiger didn't eat any popsicle,
and instead it ran in faint red rivers
down the most beautiful belly
in the world.

2010-08-02T20:43:00.000-04:00

Daily Poem 14/30

She touches
the tiny baby
tiny head
soft soft hair
she touches
the tiny baby
says "Baby Baby,"
she's soft and still.
She kneels by the basket
she sighs so sweet.
her coos and laughs
by the little baby
they can be heard
by the tiniest ears.

2010-08-01T21:18:00.004-04:00

Daily Poem 13/30

Guy twisting balloons at the twin's party
line of kids in front of him never gets shorter
a little girl asks for a rainbow
"I LOVE making rainbows!"
he exclaims
and soon she has a tricolor rainbow
emerging from a cloud.
Our baby,
while getting her diaper changed, says,
"Purple"
when I ask her what kind of animal she wants.
"Purple is good,"
but what, I ask, is purple?
A bunny? A dog? A turtle?
"Yeah," she says noncommitally.
When the big kids go inside for a pinata kill session,
the guy cheerfully gets to work on her purple turtle.
First he makes a face at the end of a long straight balloon.
Then he makes neat little rows for a shell, purple on top, blue on bottom.
Next, toddler loses interest and she and I go into the bouncy house.
Time passes.
My husband opens another beer.
But the guy keeps twisting.
Sometimes he has to deliberately pop balloons. Other times they just seem to pop.
I watch from inside the bouncy house,
the loose black netting obscuring the result in his ever-moving hands.
Kids come back from the pinata
with bags of candy.
They start lining up again in front the balloon twister.
He keeps twisting.
Finally, it's done. We emerge from the bouncy house to a celebratory purple turtle, triumphantly presented.
She shrieks with delight.
It's beautiful, but I wonder if people will know what it is.
"oh wow," says a woman,
as we carry our balloon animal home.
"a turtle!"

2010-07-31T14:26:00.004-04:00

Daily Poem 12/30

All four of us bundled into the hotel room
with all our things on a moving truck
finished a bottle of good scotch at 4pm
and took the baby to a nearby restaurant.
She munched on breadsticks
looking philosophical
charmed the waitstaff
"we're all talking about her in the back room,"
said one, after each had come by to visit and collect her smiles.
The baby Pearl didn't know she was between homes
in the best way
a river home awaiting her
under trees full of cicadas
leaving behind the condo we loved, a kitchen we'd built ourselves,
and the upstairs neighbors we'd come to dread
but first we had to close.
And take some time in the hotel pool.
at night the cat prowled the perimeter,
a dark shadow among shadows
as cats love to be.
In the year since that day,
we have painted
a lot
planned
big visions
pulled weeds and planted pumpkins
met neighbors
befriended neighbors
learned to parent together
from the day we shared a long hug in the kitchen
and the baby climbed the stairs alone
and fell, causing us to both install a gate and not hug too much
when she was awake
to the day we first cuddled in the loveseat side by side
and watched the most diverse set of birds stop by our new feeder
as she pointed and said "robin! sparrow! chickalee!"
A Thanksgiving spent here with loved ones
fresh local food
and abundant household projects
and a Christmas spent here
making cookies for every family on the street
For every frog call from our living room
and every stray toy underfoot
for every morning we took a shower in a house with no working shower
I thank the universe.
That first night when the moon was full and aquatic insects lined the screens,
it was with wonder I slept next to you
and still awake with awe in my gut
at that July 31
when we left what we knew
to come to where
we knew
we belonged.

2010-07-31T07:21:00.004-04:00

Daily Poem 11/30

In the shop with the birthday card that reads
"You're 80 - Now a Valuable Antique"
the woman behind the counter explains
"I'm just smart enough to work here"
when someone asks if she is the owner.
Indonesian picture frames,
a cutting board hewn from raw cherrywood,
cat clocks,
10:00pm closing time in Waltham.
Club beats pound from the cars outside.
But it's not all butterfly magnets and salad bowls in this town.
Next door, at the sunken lifestyle store with porn on the garden level,
women wait. For someone, or for anyone?
I remember years ago
walking downstairs with my then-boyfriend
exploring Waltham for the first time and quite certain
of finding the woman-centric, sex-positive porn
that I knew.
But no--this shop was different. Not even on the bottom step
was I before I grabbed his hand and turned to go back up.
He laughed and said he told me so.
Now my husband and I live minutes from Waltham
an exciting Friday night is mulching the front yard.
In the morning he wraps his arms and legs around me and gives me butterfly kisses on my cheek until I threaten him for waking me if it's before 6.
we look at the clock.
6 on the dot.
I like a man who lives on the edge.

2010-07-29T21:11:00.001-04:00

Daily Poem 10/30

"Touch!" she yells, pointing at the sky.
Sun set glints off air plane.
Darkening blue sky behind a sliding sliver of red and silver.
I lift her up
but she still can't reach
so she puts both hands over her blond head.
Two birds fly over
and she reaches for them.
They are far away.
She is reaching higher
as I hoist her
into the sky
Nothing left to do but kiss
her belly.

2010-07-28T20:37:00.000-04:00

Daily Poem 9/30

On Monday she is offered a dinner of fresh mozzarella, red peppers,
veggie sausage, and edamame.
Instead, she opts to eat twelve wasabi peas from my salad,
all spicy hot. She's always liked them.
She happily crunches away with her 15 toddler teeth.
Then she drinks all her milk.
In the end I add her dinner to the compost.
On Tuesday she eats one wasabi pea. Suddenly it is too hot.
It is the hottest spiciest thing in the world.
She needs milk immediately. She rubs her tongue to get rid of the spiciness.
She cries.
No more wasabi peas.
On Wednesday she is offered a dinner of hummus, yogurt, pretzels, and omelette.
Instead she eats
about a dozen
olives
from the back of the fridge and of course
she drinks
lots of milk.

2010-07-27T21:07:00.002-04:00

Daily Poem 8/30

For the luscious cake we thank you so much
frosting galore and that special touch
Hidden at first under baked phenom by Ann
a surprise no one saw coming, not even Dan.
In fact this nondescript plate was our unknown wish
as bite by delicious bite unveiled
a pufferfish!

2010-07-27T09:17:00.002-04:00

Daily Poem 7/30

My Poem! Oh no!

My Poem!

2010-07-25T21:10:00.002-04:00

Daily Poem 6/30

Today we found a new pond,
a new pathway,
through some new woods.
It was fun.
There were too many speedboats on the new pond,
and too much broken glass on the path,
but it was still fun.
It being new, we had to stop the backstory for a little while
and think about what was happening right that moment.
Yesterday we tried a new dessert.
Raspberry bread pudding.
It had familiar elements
Felt comforting and known
but still hard to understand what to expect
which is all we needed.
Relationships seem to end, or pause, when I sense
there's not a new conversation happening
when I can predict the outcome of every core idea.
This is not easy given all the domestic bliss. I'm not really that kind of goddess.
When daily life flirts with the mundane to the extent
that the cat meows outside our bedroom door
the instant she knows we are finished
I remember, yes, I need the new.
Not a new relationship--I'm not crazy--but a new circumstance within it.
Repeating myself has always been a weakness to anger.
I don't know why, but I can't stand it.
My highest praise is a quietly enthusiastic, "She pays attention!"
In toddler world, every day is new, and it's amazing.
And yet every day is painfully repeated in singsong routine.
It's a conundrum.

2010-07-24T20:53:00.002-04:00

Daily Poem 5/30

Short poem for saturday night

Oh full moon rising across baseball field in July
Full shimmer,
Full glow.
Full cloud wisps
Full seagull on final nighttime soar
full screech owl call in the distance
making a routine, but full, 8:45 good night
full cricket chorus
full baby asleep
arms wrapped around the teddy bear of my childhood
named Daughter because
that's what I wanted more than anything
full rise
full life
full day
full night

2010-07-23T20:34:00.003-04:00

Daily Poem 4/30

"You chose good dishes," murmurs the beautiful Persian woman,
handing me cartons of Persian food.
Currants, cherries, saffron, almonds, lentils mingle with rice
it is good
her shy smile is good
in this little shop
a mustachioed man cutting dough
and she is smiling as soon as I come in
A neighbor she's never met.
When I pick up Ben & Jerry's next door
the convenience store guy
wants to know what smells so good
wafting from my take-out bag
I chide him gently for never having tried the food on the other side of the wall
make him laugh
but then I've never tried the Persian food either
we all have a lot of learning to do
when I get home the neighbors are already there
I am always astonished at
how present they are
even when I just feel like fading into
toddler-speak
easier to pick up blocks than try to tell
the compelling story in my head
but then how beautiful
that right now
everything should be so easy
woman sliding cartons across the counter
checkout clerk shrugging when I ask him
when he closes shop: "9:30?" he asks, like we'll figure it out together
families and kids on the street
wandering in through the door.
I don't have to do much
but
choose good dishes.

2010-07-22T13:40:00.002-04:00

Daily Poem 3/30

You are the board
on which the game is played
instead of a piece boxed by rules
you define the framework
in which you live
which means you submit
willingly to a circumstance
which changes the way you think
of the word circumstance
you are the board
on which the game is played
you provide the space for which
things happen
none of this would happen without you
sure it would
but not exactly in this way
at this time
because you are the board

2010-07-21T20:27:00.002-04:00

Daily Poem 2/30

My friend Geneva and her new boyfriend D-Bo
short for Derek
which is the name she first gave me
made a list of all her friends
because she hadn't seen them in a while
and she missed them.
They actually made two lists
one titled "Corporate Friends"
and one titled "Ghetto Friends."
I asked her which list I was on.
"Well girl you ain't ghetto!!"
she replied
In the nighttime
I do a
solitary jog
listening to a temple of crickets
where once I might have called someone
now I hear only my own breath as the sun sets
deep into the corners of my
town
white town
once I would have corrected this imbalance
now I muscle through the strain of one foot

one foot
in front of the other

2010-07-20T10:50:00.002-04:00

Daily Poem 1/30

At night above the white pine
a single star
a steady light
waking in the dark heat I wonder: The north star?
In the morning it seems just like a dream.
But after many nights I begin to imagine
sailors following it through ages, rotating their maps to match the sky
slaves walking through fields and sleeping, hiding in daylight
at night, looking up
away from shoes almost worn off
For ages it burns
a steady light cast on water and dirt roads
on tall corn at night
on trees that seem less familiar over the course
of the journey.
The closest I've seen
to a universe of stars, that most familiar constant,
is my daughter's face when she first lay on my belly
From one life to another
she traveled
what I saw in her eyes
the stars seemed so familiar

2010-04-09T05:43:00.002-04:00

New Habits

I've been doing a lot of yoga in bathrooms lately. I went to New York and couldn't sleep, and chose the cramped space over the option of waking my bunkmates. 30 minutes of pigeon, warrior two, down dog and utthita trikonasana later, I was relaxed and fully present enough to sleep. Even though I couldn't go into full forward flexion from wide-legged stance because the tub was in the way, I discovered that the hard gleaming surface (no yoga mat required!) and total darkness (no distractions) actually aided my practice. Maybe that's why I've been doing it at home.

I didn't know I would become an everyday yoga kind of person. But I finally understand what all the fuss is about. On that trip to New York, the one where being away from my daughter had some kind of beyond-words heartbreak that simply led to tears over and over and over, I sought out healing workshops like Blackberry Yoga, taught by Benjamin Black (my idol Misty Tripoli's sidekick). His message was: yoga isn't for "perfect." Yoga is casual and free. Do a forward fold just before a business meeting. Side bend in the hallway. Do a twist while at a red light. Bring it into your life, your actual life.

Ever since January, I've been doing just that that. Matsaysana with my legs tucked under me, whatever that is, while on the floor with Peony climbing onto my chest, and down dog with a down cat flexing her claws on my yoga mat.

With the breath, it brings me into the flow; the flow of the night, of the day, of the sound of birds and freight trains out our window at 5:30am.

2010-03-05T12:18:00.002-05:00

Of the many blog posts I've been writing in my head this winter, the foremost topic is this one:
Self-consciousness.

I don't mean, like, self-awareness. I mean, whatever it is that makes people embarrassed, shy, indirect or judgmental. My viewable-only-via-mental-telepathy posts in February generally centered around how being self-conscious is a destructive waste of time, how trying to make others self-conscious is lame, and how crucial it is to me as a parent that my daughter feels proud and strong in herself, and tries things no matter what others think. Having a child threw this value, previously part of my daily tapestry, into bas relief.

But now I have a new take on it. As an introvert who does a LOT of extroverted things in daily life, I need time and space to recharge in private, both alone and with my husband and baby. When I don't get it, I literally begin to fall apart. It doesn't take long. My work is affected, my emotional consistency is challenged, and I quickly become a less happy, reliable, friendly, functional person. The recent experience of having a houseguest for a full week has burned this knowledge into being. And it's because I feel...self-conscious. And I can't shake it. Conversations with my family, on the phone, time alone, time with my child: it's all fodder onto which others can project and insert their own expectations and needs, if they choose, and if they are staying with you. A 24/7 audience. For me, that's an easy and quick undoing.

I can't imagine living like this all the time, but people who spend a lot of time caring about what others think must dwell in this sort of distracted hell more often. Just now, as I was leaving the gym, a young woman began to throw me the sort of look that invited competition. She wanted to judge me. She tried. This happens a lot, every day. I'm not exactly sure what it is I do in return, but whatever it is, I am always able to almost immediately disengage with that kind of thinking. I think it's part of the gift of being genuinely happy as an outsider; I simply offer her compassion and self-pride, and it's over. Make judging not work. When I have restorative family time (and cardio workouts, and yoga, and healthy food, and satisfying work, and alone time) I can do this all the time in the most beautiful, peaceful and enjoyable way. I wish that for my daughter.

2010-01-01T13:13:00.002-05:00

Sitting within yourself: 2010

Yoga practice is entirely designed to bring you to asana—a Sanskrit word meaning to take a seat, and then to sit comfortably within yourself. As my yoga improves by the week, I have started thinking about what else in my life requires an investment of attention to be able to do the most familiar things really well: to take a seat. To make a meal. To teach a class. To share an idea. To make my husband feel honored. And the flip side: when do I prepare passionately, and then not carry out the reward of my preparation? To do an hour of yoga, sit for one full minute when I finally feel I could meditate for hours, but instead pick myself up and head out into my day?

The theme of 2009 has been the collapse of my discrete lives, the end of fragmentation. You can't be a mom with two jobs and a commitment to her own health and wellbeing and keep everything seperate—you just can't. It requires too much energy. For instance, I used to have a landline, a personal cell phone, and a work phone. Three phones. Then I dropped the home land line, and had a cell phone and a work cell phone, both of which I insisted on carrying because I wanted to be able to leave the work cell behind on weekends, to live apart from work. Two phones. This year I dropped the personal cell phone. Just one phone now. My personal calls, work calls, work emails, personal emails, all come to one place. And I am OK with it. It's simpler. I give up privacy, but I also give up fragmentation.

I used to be secretive about being a fitness instructor, in part because I wanted to have a private life apart from work. But having a child means that home life is a part of work life, and vice versa, or at least it has meant that in order for me to have a schedule that makes me happy. The child is at work with me, the work is with my child and me, and for this trade-off, I get to have my child in the middle of my workday. And because at work I was suddenly open, asking, tired, working, everyone knew I was fitness instructor. Now my personal yoga teacher comes to teach a class at my work; I manage the wellness program there, so I brought her in, and now my friend is sharing her gift with my colleagues. Still, the boundaries of me-work-me-work are always a question. Every week I wonder if going sleeveless is "too much" -- should I wear workout pants that aren't as tight? How much of me is too much to show?

But this morning, having gone for the first time to the gym inside my workplace, I realized I've given up the last frontier of seperation: my gym, where I could escape. I can't escape, really, I can't make escape work anymore. But I can make integration work. And I can make it work for me. Bringing in my yoga teacher, letting my colleagues into my life, is a way of saying, hey, this who I am. Stopping my workday to be with Peony lets me say to myself, hey, this is who I really am. And sometimes, while she's playing, I have to respond to an email on that aforementioned cell phone, or call into a meeting while nursing, it's a way of saying to Peony, this is who your mama is—and it is working. It works as long as I flow with it.

I believe the continuation of this in 2010 is to bring the integration to the next level. Rather than allowing aspects of my life to be seen and to shine light on one another, I need each aspect to actually power the other pieces. The sleeveless shirt at work; I literally embody something for my colleagues, and somehow that's got to be more than OK, it's got to be who I am. The baby on my hip informs and feeds the way I share an idea, because it's who I am. How to make my husband feel honored....that's a little harder. But that's who I am too, and it's important. And the way I teach is definitely lacking some magic. I give it hard work, but it needs magic, too. Somewhere, somewhere in the people I touch and who touch me, in the ideas I have and learn about, in the breath I make and in the seat I take, there is an energy and connection that I simply must learn to allow to feed the fitness classes I teach.

Happy New Year!

2009-10-31T17:31:00.002-04:00

Boo!

You know what's scary? An entire month without a blog post! Themes this month have been: feeling isolated, wanting to live better, feel better, eat better and be better; have more of an impact. Being sick for the last half of the month has probably inspired some of these feelings. I caught myself hoping I could buy a little inspiration, visiting a power yoga studio nearby for a heated workout and, afterwards, stopping next door for a raw vegan lunch (I got the Prana Burger; pretty tasty). The owner authors http://super-mom.com, which resonated with me a bit, and while I'm not ready to commit to the raw vegan lifestyle, it did get me thinking about how to expand my family's food horizon. Pretty much everything we eat gets processed through the stove, and relies heavily on dairy. I bought coconut and dates this morning to enliven our palates, and made tempeh reuben last night for the first time in a while. It was good. My formerly compartmentalized life is really, finally, wholly integrating: I'm leading my company's wellness program and the act of designing it has made me sit back and wonder what it really means to experience wellbeing.

In my role as leader, it has 1,000 different meanings, since we have 1,000 different employees. How much more personal and individual does it get than the body? But to me, wellness means that my body feels good. And ever since we moved, I've noticed that I'm seeking new ways to make that happen. I think it's simply next on the list; I have a wonderful husband, wonderful child, wonderful house, wonderful job, and have you met my cat? But now it's time to take it to the next level. When I vision myself in a few years, I am more powerful because I cook and eat well, and I am disciplined. I don't know what that means yet, though. I am not very Zen about it, more anxious, like, "do I have to give up red wine?" I'm definitely not giving up chocolate. But I want to get smarter about food so that my child can benefit from the final, ultimate line of my parenting philosophy: Respect her body completely.

2009-10-02T17:17:00.009-04:00

Hanging With Baby

I took the day off from work today with that above subject line named as the reason in my email reminder to my boss and my employee. They wished me a happy "Peony day" ...and now that I've had it, I think I should have many of these days. They are slow, sensory, fun, and silly.

We took the commuter rail downtown into Boston, bought pink beribboned boots for her at Puma, ate lunch and watched fountains and birds together, tried on the baby winter coat at Patagonia (so cute, but didn't buy; not quite warm enough), listened to hip hop at Bodega, had Starbucks chats over juice boxes, played and laughed out loud in a children's book store where we bought the book CAT, and this after she spent long time yelling what sounds a lot like "Hi Dog!" at the puppies in the pet store. (The book DOG is now on order for us.) On Newbury St., looking down at her sleeping in the carrier on my chest. Looking at art in a gallery---she gazed upwards at huge paintings of grapes. Later at Starbucks we tried grapes, but she spit them out dramatically. Also a no-go on kiwi, which she tried for the first time. Sometimes we think she just likes spitting things out, though.

The best part is just how easy it is to be sensory again---we stood on a bridge over the highway and cars and trucks zoomed under us and she kicked and yelled and we could have done it for a long time. I spent a good part of my adolescence doing that (minus the kicking and yelling, but with the pleasure and wonder--where are they going? Who are they? Woah, here comes a truck!) but I haven't done it in years. Just being in the moment: she's hitting the window of the train with both hands as highway cars and graffiti tunnels zoom by. She's peering over the top of the seat at the rider behind us and smiling a huge grin until he is simply forced to smile back; her two bottom teeth are an irrestible invitation to smile. We're sitting on some grass in front of Boston Public Library, eating fresh mozzarella and basil while pigeons fly within inches of our faces. We're watching in a pet store as a pug and a dachshund wrestle and bite with joy, and their frenzy captivates her and makes her flinch when their bodies get near. But she kicks kicks kicks when a standard poodle, loose in the store, gets near, and we have to get low enough for gentle petting, which she has mastered.

People always tell me that time flies with a kid, "blink and you'll miss it," "it's over before you know it," "It's just weekends and vacations and then they are eighteen," but people have been telling me this or variants of it my whole life. I remember my grandfather Hilbert musing that life after 25 just flies. I was so curious about it; I wondered about it for about 15 years, until I turned 25, and then I waited with baited breath to feel like life was just about over. I'm now 33 and I don't feel it yet.

As a parent, you become more acutely aware of time passing because your child grows in some new tangible way every moment, it seems, and it's hard to forget that at the same time, you're aging. But on the other hand, time can get as slow as molasses. Today the time between 12 and 3 was so long, I really couldn't believe it. Between 12 and 1, under the sun, eating lunch, laughing with stranger after stranger about my baby and something she did (sneeze, look at sunflowers, smile)--it was slow. And certain sights, smells, temperature, humidity, puts me in Costa Rica, Cobbs Hill, the 490 overpass, the Co-op, the Andes---like it happened yesterday afternoon. Then again, Peony and I passed Sonsie on our walk and I remembered each of the four distinct times I'd gone there, and I was shocked---each time seemed like from a different lifetime.

Time is malleable. Routine speeds up time. Take time to be in time.

2009-08-14T13:25:00.002-04:00

Dawn

It's 4am and my husband just brought her in from her room. I can see her open, dark eyes and feel the wet tears on her face in the hushed pale gray of our bedroom. From the crook of my arm, our baby reaches one hand up to touch my cheek. I touch her cheek back. We look at each other in the soft nighttime morning light for what feels like a long time. I can make out her long eyelashes and serious mouth, a pensive look. When I'd put her to bed the previous evening, she was exhausted but still cried for a few minutes. I hate it when she lies in her bed and cries. The cat and I assumed a position near the baby's door, at a back window, where we watched bats catch mosquitoes in our new backyard. The crying ended after a few minutes. But at 4 it started up again; an insistent yelling call that she needed us. I don't know how to fix her process of learning to sleep, but I never want her to seriously believe that I won't be there for her, at least for a long, long time.

2009-07-21T09:39:00.002-04:00

Fine Motors

Those little hands, reaching, stretching, fingers always working, exploring, pushing, pinching. My little climber nurses, face buried in the breast, eyes closed tight, but all the while she is reaching out, feeling for the book or newspaper I might be reading, and if her finger or toe touches it, even for a second, it stops there, to investigate, to crinkle it, to push it. She lifts her hand into the air and moves each finger around in space. Sometimes her eyes pop open and she throws gang signs my way. I throw a couple back at her. Arm extended, hand bent at the wrist, index finger, middle finger, and thumb straight, the other fingers folded.

While in the highchair eating, or more often, it seems, refusing to eat what she doesn't find tasty, she will gaze idly at her hand and touch index to thumb, then middle to thumb, then third finger to thumb. Her lips make a little oval as she concentrates. This morning, our treasure trove of finger puppets discovered while packing to move, she laughed and flapped her arms and pulled a duck, a coyote from Peru, and other new friends off of her daddy's hands and held each one, inspecting it very carefully. Our beauty is already cultivating an internal life, one where she mulls things over, watches things move, and often turns away from whatever is going on so that she can create space for herself to consider, focus, and learn.

2009-07-16T09:11:00.002-04:00

No Mas(h)

Our precocious little eater was downing a couple bowls of mushy cereal a day along with some fruits and vegetables we mashed with a fork. We were always pretty lax, something I realized when my 6-month-old stuffed a huge piece of barbequed red pepper in her mouth at a friend's house and we reacted not at all. Table food is good! But we still worked on getting typical baby food down her gullet twice a day, like good parents.

Then we took her to the pediatrician. "YOU only eat cereal once a day, right?" he asked in his critical way with one raised eyebrow. "Why does she have to eat it twice? And she should be eating lunch." All of a sudden the whole world opened up for Peony. She was eating off our plates, and a beautiful, unpredictable range of likes and dislikes opened up. Spicy spinach with garlic and hot sauce? Loves it. Give her more. Roasted potato? Pass it over here. Veggie sausage? Can you please feed it to her faster? You are taking too long. Favorite food? Oh, delicious mushroom quiche that Mama made....please let's have some more of that. Organic raspberries from the CSA box---who knew they could be this good? Just keep popping them in her mouth whole, please.

On the other hand, cereal mash starts to look worse every minute. The only thing that saves it is delicious banana. Lunch at school is good as long as she gets to have mac and cheese (organic, Annie's, yum). She likes bread, but not quinoa; lentils don't help; please stop trying to give her brussel sprouts; yes she will eat all your sweet potato, thanks! And it goes on. Now I have The Joy of Cooking open on my lap, trying to figure out how many different things I can jam into a quiche (collard greens; tomato; goat cheese) so my baby has something for lunch. Meanwhile, two little white scrapy teeth have surfaced. When she stands between your knees, one hand on each leg like some independent woman, tall and straight, you can see them just a little bit inside that huge, proud smile.

2009-07-09T08:31:00.003-04:00

The Education of My Daughter

There is something about looking down at that small round face, with its button nose right in the middle, and orange-slice shape of a smile, and glittering bright eager eyes that absorb everything and invite every stranger within a fifty-foot radius to come over and say hi, and big pink cheeks that need a torrent of kisses, that makes me think of the future in a much bigger and broader way than I ever have before. This past week, traipsing over Vermont's rocks and streams and ferns and ponds, sometimes in the rain, my handsome husband carrying the little bean of our lives, I was awash in thoughts of her future, and how I could best contribute. Starting with the button nose and thinking outward from there, I concluded, while feeding her breadcrumbs on a summit of Mt. Mansfield, with its immense eastward vista over the Green Mountains, and later, sitting on horseback and watching a spotted fawn run behind its mama, that there were six basic categories I wanted her to master by age 18 or 19.

1. Literature and Art

2. Mind and Body Are One Focus

3. Languages and Travel

4. Outdoor Adventurer

5. Mathematics

6. Music and Dance

If she could pursue all six of these simultaneously starting at age 5 or 6, I think she'd have a high capacity for self-knowledge, happiness, and the ability to tenaciously pursue her own dreams and ideas while learning from, listening to, teaching and collaborating with others.

Thinking about it more deeply, I realized that I have specific philosophies about how to approach each category, as well.

Literature and Art, for instance, are not things you can really master in breadth without extensive graduate education. But if you take the time to go really deep with a few artists and writers, you can learn to analyze, understand and relate to other people's expression, and make your own art, too. Maybe even teach it. So I thought that one writer or artist could be the focus each year.

From there, I expanded on the approach to my basic six categories, including an advanced flow from the initial idea that would probably not happen until she was in her teens.

1. Literature and Art
GOAL: To be able to analyze and relate to artists, and to create own art. Depth not breadth.
SAMPLE YEAR/LESSONS: Issa > Haiku and Impact > Japanese culture > Illustrate hiaku > Write haiku > Teach haiku
ADVANCED FLOW: Write, produce and star in own play

2. Mind and Body Are One Focus
GOAL: To build skills in the defensive arts, and nurture a discipline of focus
SAMPLE YEAR/LESSONS: Gun range + advanced archery = daily target practice
ADVANCED FLOW: Brazilian jujitsu

3. Languages and Travel
GOAL: Fluency in 2 languages by age 18, travel experience with language connection, deep understanding of what it's like to be somewhere with no language connection
SAMPLE YEAR/LESSONS: Travel to France & Polynesia; meet other Francophiles in Boston; watch French films
ADVANCED FLOW: Learn and teach variants of chosen languages

4. Outdoor Adventurer
GOAL: Building confident independence and applied knowledge of biology and geology
SAMPLE YEAR/LESSONS: Climb a mountain every week for a year; apply one different context to mountain per climb (such as plants, animals, rocks, supplies, trails and off trail, gear, speed, orienteering, etc.)
ADVANCED FLOW: Be able to teach, debate, and motivate for sustainability

5. Mathematics
GOAL: Develop mastery of complex math and how to apply it
SAMPLE YEAR/LESSONS: Model different economic indicators & results--trade stock over multiple years
ADVANCED FLOW: Answer this question: How can you apply math to succeed in business?

6. Music and Dance
GOAL: Know rhythm, know beat, in her bones, and be able to compose
SAMPLE YEAR/LESSONS: Learn keyboard
ADVANCED FLOW: She's #1 in a breakdancing competition

7. All the while: Unstructured Play Time

So, I sound like a public school parent from hell, right? There are a few things missing from this list (like basic history, for instance) that kind of jump out at me, that she will need to learn at school. And she'll live near a good public school, so, that's good. But to be able to apply her knowledge and make it work for her as an adult (and an adult in a time when certain kinds of information, like basic history, are very easy to obtain, and certain skills, like flexibility, analysis and the ability to motivate, are very valuable), I think she needs a complex education. The way that this framework is valuable is that everything else that she does, like say, soccer, is taking away from one of these categories. Maybe that's OK, but it's just something to recognize. I don't know how to make it work yet, but I have a little time. She just started to crawl last night.

2009-06-27T09:24:00.003-04:00

Babies

Oh, my gosh, the little mite is growing and growing! I continue to be actually obsessed with her. Watching Gran Torino last night it was almost impossible to stop thinking about Peony. She climbs now, which makes every encounter with her mean that you are now her personal monkey bars. It's fun, and silly. I love having a baby so much that I can't imagine not having a baby, and what's more, I can't imagine stopping at two of them. But would it be good for my job, my marriage, my finances and my body to have another one right now? Or to have more than two? Very questionable, I think. It's an odd place to be. My mom says that's when many women get a puppy.

As she grows it seems that she just gets better and better at expressing her love and delight. Her cheeks are huge and beautiful, she hugs and kisses, shes laughs and laughs, and her joy...well, let's just say it's contagious.

2009-06-15T18:34:00.003-04:00

Joy & Celebration

We went to Matt and Naomi's really sweet, really wonderful wedding last night. I felt so lucky to be there. The rabbi asked everyone to start by doing this great thing: taking a big breath in, closing their eyes, and exhaling until all the worries and stresses they brought in with them were simply gone. He said, "I want Matt and Naomi to be able to look in your eyes and see only joy and celebration reflected back at them." So, how was it that yours truly congratulated her friend the groom only to have him say, "Are you alright?" Yes, of course, I insisted, hoisting the baby to my other arm. "Are you sure?" he then asked. I can't lie, so instead I chanted back at him, "joy and celebration! Joy and celebration!" and proceeded to tell him how great his wedding was.

Of course I wasn't alright. I don't know why. I closed my eyes, I exhaled, and I still felt the same. I felt tension in my upper body. I felt tired from teaching two hours of fitness classes that morning. I felt worry that my husband wasn't madly attracted to me. I felt sadness that Peony wasn't feeling good and would surely get tired soon, or cry during the ceremony. I worried we couldn't leave before the dinner was served or Matt and Naomi would feel annoyed, and yet if we stayed Peony would feel very tired. I felt badly that I couldn't fit into my dresses the way I wanted to and had nothing to wear and then ended up wearing something that I couldn't easily breastfeed in and made me totally self-conscious.

Weddings used to be the most fun thing ever---drinking, dancing with Blue till all hours, the wearing of all the make-up. During the ceremony, the rabbi said, "In marriage, the first thing you have to do is take care of yourself." Blue looked at me with love and compassion. "I'm trying, I'm trying!" I whispered, hiding my toes so no one could see my lack of pedicure. "The second thing you do is take care of your spouse." Strike two. All I could do was look at the beautiful baby in my arms.

2009-06-09T09:30:00.004-04:00

Dance Party

One thing has seriously slipped since my return to work 8 weeks ago: music appreciation hour. I want my baby to participate without self-consciousness or hesitation in that most human, most physical, most connected of experiences: making, listening to and dancing to music.

Looking through my notes in her "First 1000 Days" book recently, I was struck by all the music she heard in her first month. I had to scribble names in the margins so the artists could all fit. But since starting back at work, I've brought her home, exhausted, and never even turned on the stereo. Mostly we've just tried to focus on getting her fed 100% breastmilk as long as possible--and sleeping through the night in her crib (getting there! Last night was the first night when eleven hours of sleep happened with ZERO crying...and a drowsy-but-awake-baby to start!).

As a very young person, she had an astonishing response to great music. She would stop fussing and listen completely to Don Cherry. Her face would transform as different sounds entered the atmosphere, and she would react with her whole body.

In the past two months, her interest level in music has not lessened. But what's she exposed to now? Me singing (good), her teacher singing in Arabic (good), or creepy commercial jingles (bad, bad, bad). Last night while she was nursing, the ice cream truck trailed slowly down our street, sending its transfixing slot machine sounds floating through our kitchen. She tore her little head off the breast to look in that direction and I had to coerce her back to the nipple. When we want to distract her for 30-60 seconds so we can eat or put something away, we push a button on what my husband calls the "nuclear" option: the electronic Baby Einstein music player I am ashamed to have bought her myself (thinking it could soothe her in her crib). This thing is evil: it takes beautiful classical pieces and converts them to dinky one-note lullabies, setting her up for a lifetime of commercial programming. And it effectively distracts my daughter.

Every weekend, I vow to get her both outside AND listening to live music, but usually only succeed in getting her outside. Now and then we get lucky---we catch a cello in the subway or a belly dancer in a restaurant (ODELLA!), but too often, I totally fail at this goal.

Well, now she can sleep through the night. And soon she'll be eating solid food. So the time has come to recommit to music. Real music, interesting music. Live or not. This morning I put on my favorite old track from Basement Bhangra (which made her look around at the speakers to try to figure out where it was coming from). Then she heard Suga Suga by Baby Bash (and I got to ask her, "Suga Suga, How you get so fly?"). Then Walking with a Ghost by Tegan and Sara (which made her bend her knees while standing and laugh). Then Radio Nowhere by Bruce. Then Moon Rocks by the Talking Heads (more laughing...that's my girl). Then...the piece de resistance...The Way I Are. We danced. And then something by Nas, which she found totally absorbing. And then it was time for her morning nap.

The challenge is for me to branch out a little more in my knowledge of layered, complex and interesting music. It takes time, but what could be more worth it than my little dancer?

2009-05-25T20:26:00.011-04:00

What a Glorious Feeling

My little beauty is lunging for the food on our plates, putting crusty bread in her mouth, holding her own cup, acting hungry after breastmilk feedings, and in general displaying an unquestionable desire for solid food. Today I read that a baby is ready when she opens her mouth for a spoon, and extremely ready when she closes her mouth around the spoon. Curious, I handed Peony a spoon. She took it in her hand, brought it to her own mouth, and closed her lips around it. OK, OK, she's ready. I get it. But the research seems pretty consistent about waiting until she's six months old; starting earlier gives her a higher risk of diabetes, obesity, allergic reactions, and so on. And the American Association of Pediatricians recommends 100% breastmilk until age six months, so that's what we've been doing.

On her half-birthday, June 22nd, small sweetie will get the rice cereal for which she's been waiting so passionately. And maybe some bananas. It doesn't seem right that her first food be so bland. I might add a little cinnamon. And maybe some kosher salt. And can it be brown rice cereal?

We're finding the right highchair, bowl, and spoon in anticipation of this new chapter in our lives. Highchairs, there are many, and she road-tested the Svan pretty well...but BPA-free bowls seem to be hard to find and then, when found, lacking a little in reasonable functionality. No one needs overkill. I could maybe go for the ThinkBaby set but she doesn't need a bento box, you know?

In the meantime, she's been growing in leaps and bounds, and it's just beautiful to see. She's started sitting up by herself in the last week---amazing! The soles of both feet together in a perfect little yoga pose, and her arms up for a lovely balance. AND she sleeps through the night! Well, she did once, when I mumbled through my sleep to Blue that we should "give it a couple minutes" at midnight, and she cried herself back to sleep. Poor baby, but she did sleep until 5, so she probably wasn't that hungry. We bought Ferber's "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problem" five days ago and it has changed our lives. I think we're about a month and half late on this boat, but at least we're on it.

She also continues her interest in dancing by tearing herself away from nursing to watch George Sampson do his amazing Singin' in the Rain dance on Oprah. Since then we're been watching his dance, which won the final prize on Britain's Got Talent '08, every day on YouTube. You just can't discount those street dancers. He is awesome. I loved his dance so much that I bought the Gene Kelly remix by Mint Royale, and it's great, but listening to it, I realized that the energy in his dance doesn't come from the music...it comes from him. At almost 33 now, I am fascinated by watching certain magnetic personalities sparkle briefly and then age...it really happens, doesn't it? Those closest to you glow and beam and get more beautiful with time as they blossom and crackle with fire and energy and the nature of your intimate connection, but when someone is more at a distance from you, and you can see them shine, then age, then change, it's a stunning thing. That must have happened to me, too. I think I knew it when I was fourteen; I was at a special point that I will never return to again. Mortality: not for the faint of heart! Living long enough to truly grasp aging means an enhanced ability to recognize the power of the youthful peak. I think that's why his music is a perfect foil; there's something bittersweet about how young, strong and vital he is, because it doesn't last---but dance is a fantastic way to express that reality.

Anyway, I'm sure that's what Peony was thinking when she first started watching George. Either that or she just likes the Gene Kelly remix.

2009-05-09T08:57:00.005-04:00

Hometown

In a haze this week of excitement and hope: a beautiful house stands by the river in Newton, with a greenhouse and just the right yard, the bedrooms I always hoped to find at the top of staircase, a sunroom, wooded conservation land, the right street. No garage and no shower. Promptly decided we couldn't afford it, but then I couldn't sleep that night deciding in fact this is exactly what we should invest in and take risks for, so we put our own home on the market and got a full-price offer within 48 hours. Which led to another nearly sleepless night. But this time tentatively joyous. No signatures, but contracts in the hands of attorneys.

Anyway, there will be more time later to blog about a bat house, a river boat, a bike trail, a place where I can write my heart out and raise my children. Something else has been drifting up through the ether, though, through the blissful run of projects at work, my baby and her loving caretakers, trying to remember if we fed the cat, midnight nursings, and it's actually outside of all this. It's the Globe. Yeah, the precarious life of the Globe, close to death, revived for the moment, but having bled out all these years, and it makes me really sad. In college I read the Globe as much as I could, but when I moved to Boston I started reading the Times instead. It seemed more substantial. And it was, in fact, because the Times ~~ate~~ bought the Globe and made it a series of reprints and ads. But even though I stopped reading it, I didn't stop mourning it.

A community paper with smart writers (so, sigh, that excludes the Herald) is so valuable. In the wake of the Globe, who will keep the Meninos of our time honest? Who hunts down wrongdoing and makes it transparent? Where does transparency live at all, in fact? Bloggers? Fine, but which one relaces the Globe? Because I still get all my news from nytimes online and let me tell you, I never read about Boston.

2009-04-25T10:42:00.004-04:00

The Philosophy

I always knew I had a parenting philosophy, but it wasn't until we pulled Peony from one daycare center and placed her in another that I was able to put it into words. The new center asked for one, for one thing, which is a damn good sign. So here's what I wrote:

Provide gentle challenges--reward persistence and achievement and trying
new things--aim for more than just "safe and happy." Lots of love and hugging.
LOTS of outdoor time and natural stimulation. Minimize electronic stimuli,
plastics, commercial influence, as much as possible. Respect her body
completely.

I'm happy with that. We'll see how it stacks up when I have more than four months of experience as someone's mama, but so far, I think it's right. For me there is a big emphasis on respectfully moving out of your comfort zone, every day if possible. That's how I live now. And that's probably why I like being a fitness instructor: I get to do that for other people all the time. Probably not every child loves to live that way, but when Peony was three months old, she watched a train roar by ten feet away from us, giving her little body a huge jolt in my arms, and afraid I'd overdone it, I asked Blue to look at her expression. "She's smiling," he said, and I knew I had a child a lot like me: OK with getting out of her comfort zone because new things, sometimes, new things really pay off.

2009-04-18T08:43:00.003-04:00

Back to Work

As if I ever stopped working. Having a baby is 24-7 work, such a test of endurance and patience for a nursing mother that you can't even imagine it until you've experienced it. Going back to work is a little bit of a break from that, much easier and more comfortable, but none of that mattered on Monday, when I was a forgone wreck. My husband called me at 9:40, after we'd left our baby with strangers. "How is work?" he asked. "I don't know," I said. "Are you not inside the building yet?" No, in fact, I was sitting, nearly catatonic, inside my car, doing nothing, thinking nothing, trying not to cry. I could not believe that I was going to be away from her, and worse, that this was the beginning of being away from her all the time, and how insane it seemed.

Underneath my big-picture angst was another, more immediate problem: the care wasn't good. I could tell immediately. A new general manager was on the premises, and she was irritable and laden with attitude. She seemed not to know that Peony was starting that day. In fact, no one seemed to know, even though we'd just stopped by a couple weeks before. I wanted to tell someone, anyone, about her needs, like her blocked tear duct and her hemangioma, or the things that make her happy, like standing, but I couldn't communicate with any of her caregivers, who speak little to no English. I went in a few hours later, to nurse her on my lunchbreak, and she was crying her heart out. No one near her was going to comfort her; she was just sitting in a swing, alone. That was a heartbreaking moment, especially given how good it had felt to be at work: hugs from everyone, warm faces, a new desk by the window, real clothes that actually fit, blow-dried hair, makeup, and strategy, projects, and details to consider. I was just starting to feel excited when I found her crying: hey, this could work. And then seeing her: wait, this isn't working at all.

So now, as we seek alternate care, there's so much to consider. You stipulate to everyone that you don't want plastic toys and instead amass a nice collection of wood toys painted with organic dyes, and then she spends most of her time in day care with cheap plastic toys that she jams in her mouth. You research Exersaucers and decline to have one since they are proven to delay walking, but at the day care there are four of them, always filled with babies. You strip the lead paint from your windows, but she spends most of her time in a place about which you have no knowledge or control of the levels of lead paint. A family day care we considered has a TV time during the day, even though we try to limit the TV she sees. A nanny seems wonderful or dangerous, depending on how secure you are with letting your baby be molded by someone else. I want a 1:1 ratio, sure, but I want it with someone fabulous or no one at all.

Stressful.

I think before we actually met our baby, we just didn't know how to evaluate caregivers. We followed questions that other moms provided, but didn't know why we were asking questions like, "Do you hold the babies alot?" Now I know why. She's an alert, sentient being who we treasure more than words can describe. Not a little blob who sleeps all day, but a vivid and aware person.

A person just now waking up from her nap.

2009-04-03T13:53:00.003-04:00

Here We Go

"First train ride, or what?" asked the gruff conductor. Peony looked up at him from her front carrier, where she was attached to me as I slid into my seat. I nodded. He gave a sort-of smile and tipped his conductor hat. I gave her a squeeze and we rolled off through the misty woods to Concord. She loved the train---well, she loved looking at the people on the train and the metal grille under the window. Not so much out the window. I saw a deer as she fell asleep on my chest. In Concord, we disembarked and walked to a pond, then got lunch for Mommy, then bought a bonnet for the baby.

I am trying to pack in the outdoor adventures these days as we wind down sixteen weeks of maternity leave. Walks with other moms and trying out the stroller, walking alone with the baby strapped to my body, walking home from downtown, walking huge loops around the northern suburbs. We walked to Davis Square the other day and I bought her ruby colored sunglasses with rhinestones in the corners. We walked to my work, too, and had lunch with my boss, who Peony showered with smiles and love and hugs, and then walked to her daycare, where we toured the rooms yet again and saw the sleeping babies, crying babies, playing babies, and babies getting held. It was cramped, but there were lots of arms to hold babies, and that's all I cared about right then.

She likes other people...she likes me most of all, but she likes watching other people. She fussed until I held her facing outwards the other day on the bus, traveling home from the doctor's negative pregnancy test result and heating up in our coats in the early spring sunlight. It was hard for the bus passengers to ignore her: she looked at each one so openly and full of heart, her dark eyes wide and her little mouth open; the old woman, the tough guys with headphones, the teenage girl with the Jonas Brothers backpack and busy texting fingers. Each one had to look back, and maybe even smile. "She's taking it all in, huh?" say strangers everywhere to me, or commenting on her alertness. She is alert, and she has been for months; she is curious, and I rarely see her distracted from her curiousity. The other day I was looking at her in my husband's arms, stressed and consumed by the discomfort of her little growing body, and I said, "It's so hard being a baby, isn't it? You know, you won't always be a baby, and it's going to be a lot easier when you're a big girl. Your body just has to grow right now." Her whole body fell quiet and her eyes softened as she listened, and she looked at me like she had traveled through the whole universe to come join our family, and she knew she was in the right place, in the now instead of in all time. In yoga, Barrett asked to us to assume prayer position and imagine what we were most grateful for, and my body was flooded with love and power for Blue and Peony, my two beautiful beings, almost actually of my heart.

2009-03-17T12:22:00.003-04:00

Midwest

Being in the Midwest last weekend reminded me of all the conflicted feelings I have about that part of the country. On Sunday morning I slipped out of bed and left my husband and baby girl asleep, excited for a short adventure. It was warm for 7am and the sky was streaked with a light pink. Orange glowed in the West before the sunrise. The faint outline of the Sears Tower under the smog. Car keys in hand, I stood in the middle of the hotel parking lot, smelling the familiar chemical odor of Midwestern air. It makes breathing feel heavy somehow. "I'd be happy to drive you there if you want," said a front desk staff person when I asked about the nearest Starbucks. His tone was genuine and kind. I drove myself anyway. Speeding by a cop and then having to catch my breath imagining getting ticketed in my in-law's car; a McDonald's on every corner; deciding not to lock the car in front of Dominick's. Everyone in there was nice. The teenager staffing the in-store Starbucks apologized for the lack of muffins and we chatted. There is more space and time and warmth in the Midwest, but more abuse, too, more ugly development, more smog, more body fat. I pondered this as I drove back to the hotel. That part of the country is where my family comes from, and where my daughter's family comes from, too, although I have removed myself and been removed. At least, I keep trying to remove myself. The old conflicted feelings popped up, and not just for what lies outside. Memories in disbelief of the trailer court where my relatives lived, guns and children, general aimlessness and childish fights between adults. My husband's family is very different, and his aunts and uncles and grandparents accept my baby with a loyal, kept passion that is entirely tender and pleasurable. I am so glad for that. And yet visits there still posit me as an outsider to his parents, and for the first time, I actually felt in the way, like I was blocking the light of my daughter from falling entirely onto his parents. And perhaps I was blocking, since there's a darkness that falls in the other direction, and that is what the Midwest means.

2009-03-07T17:19:00.002-05:00

Homes

We drove out to Weston today to check out a single family house. There were a lot of twisty roads, beautiful snow-filled fields melting to reveal old cornstalks and horse jumps, and tall trees one month from first bud. Finally, the little blue house. On the market for 148 days. A BMW in the driveway: Realtor #1 was on the premises. We parked the Geo as a Mercedes SUV pulled up behind us. Ah, Realtor #2. We couldn't help but laugh, remembering our old house-hunting days and the glitz and glamour of realtors. Why? How? And apparently still lingering despite the times. A lady in suede boots hopped out and introduced herself to my husband as I pulled Peony out of her car seat. "Ooo, how old?" asked the realtor. "Eleven weeks on Monday," I said. "I can't believe there is a house in Weston that is this cheap!" she exclaimed. We went inside.

Standing around the family room, Realtor #1 said apologetically of the owner, "She really likes to decorate for the holidays. I guess right now it's St. Patrick's Day." The house was clearly loved, and every little nook and cranny had some beach detritus or shiny plastic shamrock on display. "This is sooo affordable...a great way to get into Weston," said Realtor #2. She fiddled with her diamond earring and tugged down her fur vest. We looked in the three little bedrooms, the neat and tiny kitchen, and the big living room. The ladies tottered down the basement steps in their subdued three-inch heels. We gaped at the huge oil tank and thousand year old furnace, a true relic. I'm not going to live here, I thought to myself, so I didn't look too closely or worry too much about the details.

But later I wondered, why not? There were people walking around the rural neighborhood in the warm air, but in our more urban neighborhood, we'd seen almost no one outside. There was a floor plan we could work with, a usable kitchen, decent floors and good yard space. Excellent schools and a nursery school on the corner. Good commutes to work and walkable public transportation. If I lived there, would I always be reminded of what I didn't have? Or would I just be happy?

Driving home, we mused about how nice it would be to not have upstairs nieghbors and to have a bedroom removed from a five-car driveway. How much we could do to make it ours.

And now I'm left wondering.

2009-02-17T09:09:00.006-05:00

Other Voices

When I nurse my baby, I hear my mother's voice telling me how, as a baby, I always had to make eye contact with her when nursing. How I never slept more than two hours for the first six months. How needy and demanding and sensitive I was. She loves me very dearly, but these things were always presented as facts about who I am, how different I am than my brother, and how much self-sacrifice it took to have me. Later in my childhood, I was alone a lot, and looking back as an adult I often quietly assumed that was excusable given how much of a pain I was, how much time I took, when I was a baby.

But now that I have my own baby, I can't even hold her in a way so as to make eye contact while breastfeeding. I can't figure out the logistics of how my mom must have held me. So, if she's demanding it, I don't even know. She goes through growth spurts of not sleeping more than two consecutive hours over many days, and that's tough, but sometimes she sleeps longer. Is she a better baby than I was? I found myself telling a friend yesterday that yes, she is a better baby. But I also already plan to be careful about constructing the narrative of her babyhood for her someday. I want to tell her about how loved she is, how many places she goes, and how awesome we think she is. Even when it's hard, I don't want to tell her how hard it is. I want it to be less about who she is innately, and more about what we experienced. As an adult I have often used the anecdotes of my baby-neediness to prove how demanding I can be, and now that I have my own baby, I think that's a shame. Those are the parts of me that were told to me, and they may or may not be all my own fault. What if I had a mom who really wanted to make eye contact with me and made sure that she could? What if the idea of self-sacrifice makes her feel good even when it makes me feel bad? Where do these things come from?

I'm not actually saying that I was an easy baby---I bet I wasn't. But pregnancy and infancy are experiences made up of so much more than what's actually happening in the moment. Recently I have heard my husband's mom's voice in his baby-nurturing voice, the voice he uses to soothe Peony. It made me wonder if my nurturing voice echoed my own mom, so I listened...and yep, it sure did. That's OK; that's how we learned the concept of nurturing! How incredibly lucky we both are to have been so carefully and lovingly cared for in our first years of life.

I also hear a lot of other voices from the moms around me, young and old, as I care for my little family. Here is advice I got from other moms that I have found holds true in baby-care. Not all of it was what I wanted to hear at the time, of course.

While on maternity leave, be sure to take a shower every day, just so you feel human.
Get outside every day with your infant, even if it's you running into Starbucks while your husband waits in the car.
The sleep deprivation is insane. Sleep whenever you can.
Pump breastmilk whenever you can---save up those ounces to give her a bottle and yourself a break now and then.
Unfortunately, make sure you have both Preparation H and stool softener when you come home from the hospital.
Wouldn't you rather be held than put down? Give her time to get used to the crib.
Forgive everything with your husband in the first couple months---you guys are just going to be tired and stressed.
Don't sit down to breastfeed without something to drink, even if it's tap water you grab while the baby is fussing.
The first couple months are rough. But it really does get better.

It doesn't paint a pretty picture. But it helps!

2009-02-13T09:12:00.003-05:00

It Takes Life to Love Life

As soon as I finished that last post I took advantage of a rare moment of quiet to look at some past entries, and found an old one with a good message.

http://cedargretchen.blogspot.com/2005/08/its-official-i-got-laid-off.html

This morning, Lucinda gets my priorities into focus.

2009-02-13T08:44:00.002-05:00

Circumstances

I knew my upstairs neighbor was expecting a visitor from his past. I could tell because he had placed a mannequin on his front porch, put his own bright orange jacket on it, and twisted strands of Christmas lights tightly around its neck until it looked both like a threat and a desperate cry for help. I paused on my way inside, looked up there, and wondered how we'll ever sell our condo. He feels like he's being strangled and tries to make it a statement about how quirky he is; I feel like I'm being strangled and try to look away, but can't no matter how hard I try.

For the millionth time this morning, after a night of bad dreams about scary neighbors, I asked my husband how we could move. Moving seriously limits us in the long term, considering our financial hopes and goals---and where we live now Is. Absolutely. Perfect. Except for one thing. The upstairs neighbors.

For a long time I have tried to quiet the sad mantra that wormed its way into my brain in childhood: Something always has to be wrong. This belief is crippling and unhealthy, and though many others believe it and repeat it, I've noticed that the people who don't believe it tend to be a lot happier. I want to be like those people.

Another trap of resignation: I also tell myself it could be worse. Sure, their dogs are too many, too loud, and far too aggressive. Yes, they care not for the common areas and leave poop in the backyard. Indeed, these people are home almost all the time and almost always loud---there are few moments when we don't know where they are in their condo or even what they are doing, if it involves talking or watching TV. Yes, they wake up the baby nearly every day. But couldn't it be worse? They go to sleep early, still feign caring about what we think. It could be worse. But still.

So we look at our options for the gazillionth time, but none of them feel good. What we want for right now is to stay here, grit our teeth through any hardships, and emerge in a couple years with a healthy nest egg. The problem is, I am tired of my teeth hurting.

2009-02-05T08:23:00.006-05:00

It's In Moments

Scene:
Bathroom, just after a wonderful warm evening bath. I am still in the tub, and my baby daughter is lying on her towel on the bathmat, being toweled dry and dressed in her pajamas by my husband. Now all dry and warm, she looks over at me and dazzles with a killer smile. And she coos, a kind of gurgle ending in a long vowel. I coo back, a clear high pitch. And she answers, in the same high pitch. I do it again, and she answers again, with gusto. Blue and I look at each other and laugh, and Peony and I repeat. And repeat. Each time she brings her voice up louder and louder. She arches her back to get the sound out, lifting her chin and taking a few seconds to really try to form the vocalization. It is so wonderful, so much more wonderful than I could have imagined parenting might be. I actually have the thought, "This might be one of the happiest nights of my life." Her beautiful voice experimenting with sound and communication, her eyes sparkling with pleasure, talking to her mama, right at the beginning of her life, moves us both to tears. Later, Blue mentions how much more special it was because we were both there, sharing it together. I think about being in his arms in a river in Costa Rica at the beginning of our relationship, and how we didn't know we had this experience in front of us. But I remember crying on the plane back home, telling him how I wanted a home and children with him. I love him so passionately, and this moment is part of our love affair. And yet, it's something else, too; something outside of us. A different person, learning what she can do. Those happy eyes, excited by her new strengths. Every day, a stronger girl.

2009-02-03T13:36:00.003-05:00

This Morning's Milestones

Baby: First day in gym day care! Mama: First boxing class p.p.! First workout on a rebounder since 3 months of pregnancy! O joy! Things went well for both of us. It feels so good to sweat and to move. I usually wish it was a more anonymous experience, since members and fellow staff alike all know me, but today it felt nice to have so much recognition, coaching, and encouragement. Teanna held the heavy bag for me as I pounded it for 2.5, then 5, minutes. "Am I doing it right?" It had been so long. "Yes!" she said. "Look at your endurance--better than my advanced class!" I balanced on the Rolo board; I got pushed and coached and pummeled by Joanna; I took VJ's advice on the Stepmill; I shined and sweated and felt excited and happy and strong. My baby cried a little, and got held a lot, but stuck it out for an hour in that day care, cared for by two women named Maria. When I left her there, she was looking into the face of one of the Marias, her eyes bright with stimulation and curiousity. "Enjoy your workout!" said the other Maria. And I relaxed.

That kind of positive energy further reinforced my conviction after a tumultuous weekend: it's time to only hang around people who are kind to me, inspire me, and make me feel good. On both days, by happenstance, I spent time with people who just don't seem to like me. It doesn't matter what I do or how many years pass. Usually I grin and bear it, but I can't right now. Feeling bad is too much of an imposition in these days of 24/7 responsibility for my little peony. I don't have room in my heart.

My experiential tips for brand new moms:
1. Hang around people who are good to you.
2. Find a new mom's group and go. If the people are good to you.
3. Work out, and make sure you sweat. But don't do it until it sounds good. Then do it every day.
4. Don't stress about those moms who do whatever you just can't right now. For me, reading literature while breastfeeding, not sleeping during the day, cooking delicious food, and sewing clothes for my baby are all out of my reach. It's not exactly OK with me, but my baby seems pretty happy, so something is working.
5. Lactation consultants all say different things, but sticking with one who works for you is really valuable.
6. Buy comfy, warm loungewear you find attractive! Nothing fits post-baby.
7. Remember this: "The first couple months are rough." But I hear it gets easier after that.
8. Keep a long view of things while savoring the moment. Your body will not always be like this: Comforting. You will get nights with your husband again: Comforting. But also, she won't ever be 6 weeks and 1 day again. She won't ever hear herself make that noise for the first time again. Be present. It's fleeting.

In short, it's hard to be comfortable when you have a newborn, both physically and emotionally, so make your life as comfortable as you can. But stay aware.

And someday, you'll have a night like Peony did last night: 5 hours and 15 minutes of straight sleep--a new record. A new milestone!

2009-01-22T15:04:00.005-05:00

Marking the Milestones

Breastfeeding in public by myself! (Well, and the baby.) Driving all the way to the gym! Taking a Mommy & Me class! Shoulder exercises! Eating a civilized lunch! So many new-mama milestones today. After lifting weights, though, I am newly tired. And yet determined to bundle Peony and take her for our walk. After all:

www.my-calorie-counter.com The webs free Diet Log

Sigh. I swore I'd never add one of these things, but maybe trying to move the butterfly closer to the right will motivate me. Or maybe just wanting to wear regular clothes again will motivate me. I wonder if it will automatically update? It might!

My sweetie was so good during Mommy & Me. She lay on her back and smiled at me!! Except for when she was crying. But even then I just popped her in the Bjorn and kept doing squats. I felt so lucky to have my girl with me. Which was nice, because last night was the first night I felt some nostalgia for the old times, the just-two-of-us times. Just a little. She was uncomfortable and couldn't be easily consoled, she was either nursing or fussing from 5pm to midnight (and is now refusing a bottle), and she wouldn't let me put her down all day, so by midnight I felt done. I started thinking about travel and movies and cuddling and all the things I loved so much with my husband, and how scary it is to read and hear about kids being a challenge to relationships, and how much I treasure my duck and don't want us to resent each other. And yet being married parents is a whole new challenge we have to rise to meet. It's only been a month, and we're doing pretty good, but I am jealous of the ease with which he leaves the house. (See prev. entry.) He makes it looks so....easy.

It's breastfeeding. It's so good for my girl, and so worth it, but so painful and messy and lengthy and consuming, and it keeps me tied to her unpredictable hunger pangs. Not what I expected. We're getting the hang of it and my mentors keep telling me "it gets so much easier," so I cling to those words. Already, though, it is 100 times easier than when we started, and I'm so proud she's 100% breastmilk. Hell, I'm web-ticker proud.

2009-01-15T16:51:00.002-05:00

The World Looks Inviting Again

"You!" I said to my husband. "Coming into the house and then prancing right back out! Using a car to go into the world! Having all those 'experiences'! Using that thing they call a 'door'!" He asked if I was just maybe going a little stir-crazy. It's 17 degrees outside, I have a baby strapped to my chest, I am still in my bathrobe at 5pm, and I haven't been outside since Tuesday. Not stir-crazy yet, but maybe the edge of it. Just stir.

I took our little pea blossom to Target on Monday. After that we were going to take a girl's trip to my new mother's group. But baby cried in Target. I thought it was understandable---Target kind of sucks sometimes. Bad lighting and shoppers with attitude. And they had no cute onesies that fit her. But she even cried in the warm car. I took her home and cuddled her, which makes her very happy. Not all babies are happy when they are held or cuddled or worn in a sling, so Peony's ability to be reassured makes me grateful. But still. It made me wonder just how I'm ever going to get out there. I don't need to go far--just far enough to forget about my annoying neighbor and feel like there's a reason to take a shower. We're talking Starbucks.

When it's warmer, and by that I mean at least 25 degrees, then the small one and I shall venture out into the world. Although I took her to Starbucks when she was two weeks old and a fellow mother loudly told me to "take her home and put her in an incubator." She also told me P. was hungry, which she was not. It stressed me out, but then again, the tadpole is going to invite all kinds of comments from the general populace, and I must take them with ease. I didn't learn to do that perfectly in pregnancy, but now that I am a bona fide mama, I think it's going to be necessary.

2008-12-18T11:42:00.003-05:00

Only 8 more centimeters and it's time to push

"I hope you don't mind if I say this, but you look ready to go," said my co-worker the other day. Her happy tone made it entirely different from the chattery chickens in the gym telling me I "look.....ready to pop." Thanks, ladies. Go cluck elsewhere and leave me alone to lift weights. This morning my neighbor asked me, but when exactly? Do they know when? No, they don't know. It's one of life's great mysteries. But it's true that I'm anxious for it to happen...not that it has to happen today, but just to know that I could hold my healthy baby by Christmas would make me seriously happy. My wise OB made more of a prediction than I would have expected, as I lay back on the table this table this morning. Two centimeters dialated and a week from my due date. "I don't know, but I would guess within the next 10-12 days." I looked at the calendar. By the 29th? That sounds great. "But I don't know," she repeated. I know, I know. And I didn't even ask her for a prediction.

With a full-term baby living inside of me, everyone looks like someone's kid. The Cape Teen in a terrible Herald headline? Someone's kid. That young woman in the wheelchair in the cafe? Someone's kid. The old vets talking trash about Bush? Someone's kids. It's strange. Someone's kid is going to come out of me, and whoever it is (though I feel like I already know), it's going to be my responsibility. My OB said, "It's like you have a very important meeting, but you have no idea when it's going to happen."

She also said, "You can't think your way into labor."

And, "All you have to do, for this to happen, is get out of the way."

This morning I woke up in the dark, reached through the covers, and held the hand of my sweetie. Soon it will be winter, with longer days, drives to Western MA in the snow, and life with our baby.

2008-12-03T08:50:00.002-05:00

The Narrowing and the Opening

During the last nine months, my world has been getting narrower in ways I didn't intend. I have NOT been working on my play with Geneva. I have NOT been learning FORZA from Sean. I have not been getting my certification to teach spinning. I have not been going out dancing with Kirsten. I have not been traveling out of the country with my husband. I have not been attending Misty Tripoli workshops. I have not been house-hunting. I have not been wearing boots and dresses.

On the face of it, none of these things needed to stop just because I'm pregnant. There's no reason on earth why I shouldn't be going to book readings with Toni. Or seeing bands with Blue. Or visiting New York to see the Catherine Opie retrospective at the Guggenheim. In fact, I've done more than I expected in some ways---this is the first week I'm not teaching fitness classes, for instance, and I am at full term as of tomorrow. Blue and I traveled all over New England and the mid-Atlantic states until I was seven months. We even rode our bikes together more than we did last summer, probably because I wasn't busy doing all those things listed in the first paragraph.

This is the point where someone pats me on the knee and says, "But you've been growing a BABY." I know, I know. I'm beyond happy and excited about it. I don't mean to imply that I feel deprived. Only that I have a very rich life, and by putting things on hold, by cutting down my focus to work and home only, I feel a little more insecure and clingy at work and home. And now I'm slowly cutting down my focus to home only. I am obsessing about work more than usual, thinking of details and personalities in the middle of the night. It would be nice to have some friends, art, or travel to obsess about instead, but my body just isn't into it right now. It's busy.

Also, I think I've been having contractions.

2008-11-21T11:13:00.003-05:00

Baby Dreams

I had a dream last night about the baby. The baby had decided to come out, just for a little bit. Labor was painless. We weren't sure of the sex since the baby was clothed (and sitting up) but we were surprised to think it was a boy. We fell in love with him right away. He was beautiful and liked to watch his dad carefully. I think he had on a corduroy jacket...he was adorable, with dark blue eyes and brown hair, and we took him out for a long walk in his stroller, along a shaded road under a canopy of spring green trees.

Before I could wake up, however, the dream baby decided he should go back in for a little bit to keep growing. Yesterday, while having a conversation with a work colleague, I felt very strong movements downward, which I thought might be the baby dropping, but no, not yet. I feel them now as I write, too. My OB asked if I was staying locally for the holiday next week; when I said yes, she said, "That's wise! Me too!" I'm excited.

We bought a stroller the other day. A real beauty, high-end design in a bright golden yellow, and it comes with a DVD that made me laugh almost all the way through. Four dads dance out into a modern dance version of an urban environment, each pushing a Bee. They kick it, pull it, and run crazily with it to demonstrate how versatile and durable it is. I had to watch it twice just for the pleasure of it. That said, I still don't quite have all the features mastered. There is a section where no one is dancing, and probably I should watch that demo again once or twice.

Of course, it could be a full seven weeks until the baby actually arrives. Or three weeks. Or five weeks. Or one week. No one really knows. But ever since the baby has been using his or her hands to tap out the time on my lower abdomen, I've been thinking s/he is getting bored in there.

2008-11-15T09:34:00.002-05:00

Misc. on a Rainy Warm Day

"I wish I could sleep in a state of suspension," I said to Blue the other morning, rubbing my aching hips. "Like I was weightless."

"You want to be in the womb," he pointed out: yep, once again, I've turned into my baby. I just want to lie on my back and watch mobiles and eat pureed squash.

Except I don't. I miss reading poetry. I want to walk for hours in a city. I want to go to New York on the bus and see art. I want to go to Miami and dance. I want to go to Budapest and drink cappucinos again and watch people walk down the sidewalk past the old buildings with the bullet holes.

Party Shuffle has brought up It Takes A Nation of Millions. I tell Blue I want to go to Harvard Square and
be inside and outside at the same time
I play Television Man
make apple pancakes and fakin' bacon for breakfast
woke up to the baby making a tip tap tip tap on my right side, along the side of my belly pushing into the bed. Little points, tip tap tip tap
I run my hand down baby's back, pressed against my belly button
Like a shooting star across my belly
A foot or a hand streaks across
An elegant sighting

Inside and outside at the same time

2008-11-05T09:33:00.005-05:00

He's In!!

Humina humina humina. Everything I voted for yesterday passed...decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana, banning dog racing, the awesome new president, all of it! I still can't believe it. I woke up from nightmares twice last night, both times in a sweat, breaking out of dreaming that McCain won. The second time I was hearing voices both from abroad and from the African-Americans here around me: "How rascist are Americans that they won't elect the obviously phenomenal choice?" "No, no, no!" I said, tossing and turning until I woke up, convinced that it was true even as my dream self tried to explain that Americans are better than that. Today I feel like I have a right to call myself an American again; I care so much about America, it's just that I hate some of the things we've been doing these past eight years. It was 4:30 am and I checked the Internet to see if my nightmares were real. No, no, not at all. It was just a night of bad dreams. With most states called, it was 338 to 158. I got teary with gratitude and tried to fall back asleep, to no avail. The baby began to stretch inside me, pushing out feet on one side, arms on the other.

Today I spent some quality time trying to print out the homepage of the NYTimes for my baby book. I can add "elected African-American president" in the list of fab things the baby has done in utero (camped on Cape Cod, glider ride, peach-picking). Now I'm tired, but perky from buying beauty products online, my new vice. Aaaah, it's a new day in America.

2008-10-27T14:11:00.003-04:00

I was a Disco Ball

...and Peaches was a raver. There was a wolf and a pirate, a 17-lb lobster baby and the lucky lobsterwoman who caught him, a Ghostbuster and a witch, and a rockin' punk trio. That's right, my baby shower happened this weekend. The end was bittersweet. I was tired, yes, but it was probably my only baby shower, and it happened, and ended. It almost didn't happen at all, first because I didn't think I wanted one, then second because my original hostess couldn't do it. In the end, my mom drove 400 miles each way, bringing her friend Janet, sumptuous homemade food, mini pumpkins and fabulous cake, and my cousin Mindy. They put on a great party attended by people from all areas of my life, which made for little jolts of contrast: there was my college roommate talking to my friend from the gym, there was my fellow fitness instructor walking in with the HR director from my work, there was my life coach meeting my mom, my friends, and taking it all in. Throughout it all, there was my baby, rolling and kicking in my belly under 440 pieces of mirrored glass glued to a Bella Band. One of my favorite moments of the afternoon was turning off the lights in the living room as Peaches lit me up with a flashlight. I became a working disco ball, scattering light through two rooms and across the beautiful faces of friends, babies and children.

That night I couldn't sleep. Even though I didn't have to do much of anything for my shower (a true blessing!), I still spent a few days working on the playlist, thinking through the invites, and getting excited and uncertain. Then all these people I loved came over and showered us with wonderful, wonderful gifts. When they left, the feelings washing over me had to unwrap themselves in layers. Many of the guests had tough circumstances, and with them present, I felt an edge of the power of their struggles. In pregnancy, I've been able to isolate myself, insulate myself, against the emotions of others, or at least I have tried to not be so ripe and raw in the face of it. I don't even listen to the radio so that I can avoid the emotion of others. Like taste and sound, it seems louder than usual, like someone turned up the volume. Emotion gets too visceral, too real and present, for me to comfortably handle. But with all of those dear faces in the room, even in my joyous state and truly enjoying their love, I couldn't ignore the stark life and death health scares of two people, unblinking despair of another, the anger and fear of fighting personally wrenching legal battles (two others), weight struggles and consuming, spirit-changing unhappiness. All these people came together to give me pure, sustained, generous love, in spite of the simple fact of life, life both as it happens to you and as you make it. I say 'in spite' and yet here I am about to bring someone out of the safety and security of my womb and into the human condition, which bears with it the truth of pain. It's not in spite, I guess, it's all part of it. I have a mantra which I thought of many times on Saturday: Breathe, Believe, Receive--It's All Happening. I love the action items in that mantra and also the closer: it's all happening.

I played Punk Rock Girl at my shower partly in honor of my spirit self. When I played it for Peaches recently, he listened to the lyrics and shook his head, trying to understand. "What is this song even about??" he asked. "It's ABOUT being fifteen and living in Rochester and trying to have fun in the winter!" I told him.

One Saturday I took a walk to Zipperhead...I met a girl there and she almost knocked me dead! Punk Rock Girl!
...
We went to the Philadelphia Pizza company
and ordered some hot tea,
and the waitress said, "Well no, we only have it ICED."
So we jumped up on the table and shouted ANARCHY
and someone played a Beach Boys song on the jukebox
and it was California Dreamin
and so we started screamin
on such a winter's daaaayyyyy!!!
...
We got in her car and away we started rollin
I asked how much you pay for this
she said nothin man it's stolen!
Punk rock girl
You look so wild
Punk rock girl
Let's have a child
We'll name her Minnie Pearl
Just you and me
Eat fudge banana swirl
Just you and me
We'll travel round the world
Just you and me
Punk rock girl

2008-10-23T10:14:00.006-04:00

The 5 s's are giving me a headache

31 weeks, and we're already knee-deep in baby. Baby dreams, baby names, baby books. Last night, we lay in bed, Peaches reading BabyWise and me reading Happiest Baby on the Block, and suddenly realized we were getting very different messages about baby care, but those messages had one thing in common: the advice was annoying. "There is nothing you can do about colic," he sighed, shaking his head. "Try to give the baby to a family member." "What?" I asked. "What about the 5 s's? Shhh, swaddle, side-lying...and two other things, I forget. The baby must feel like it is in a womb and be coddled at all times, just like the people of the !Kung tribe do with their babies. You should feed them 100 times a day." "NO!" he said vehemently. "You will spoil the baby! It says so in my book! Feed every three hours! We want parent-centered parenting, not child-centered parenting!" "MY book says that the baby CAN'T be spoiled!" "Well, MY book cites the Creator," said Peaches. "My book quotes the Bible," I said. Peaches and I are rarely swayed by the Creator or by the Bible, so at this point we had to both put our books down. "Each of our books could be distilled down to one sentence," said Peaches, "...and those sentences would be contradictory."

I think it's time we find a good pediatrician and get some advice. Baby land is getting swampy.

2008-10-02T07:52:00.006-04:00

The Goat Who Needed Me

We were standing outside of the goat pen of Ward's Berry Farm when we saw her. A goat in late pregnancy is in a special predicament; carrying multiple mini-goats inside, and they have hooves(!). We always feel for these ladies. This one in particular looked at us longingly, maybe demandingly?

She angled her bony goat head between the slats in the fence. We offered her food, thinking she must be very hungry. Without eating, she kept sticking her head out until we began petting her. Scratched behind her ears, under the chin, rubbed her hard, flat forehead. She loved it! She just wanted petting. She was so pregnant and just needed some love. Not food, people, love!

That goat is me.

I have an active baby inside of me and somehow that fact negates all my ability to handle neediness in others. I don't need neediness...I just need love. I guess that makes me needy. In the past couple weeks I've gotten overlooked, forgotten, stood up, and ignored. It's not personal, but yet I feel it with a little extra veracity. A little lost at work, a little lost in general. I want my friends back, and I want it in a new way.

I don't really want to hang out and talk about problems. Sure, maybe it's over a nice lunch, but still. I want to be with someone in a fun way, an interesting way. I think being married actually counteracts this impulse, since a lot of fun things are "reserved" for doing with my partner: movies, fairs, walks. It's not because of him, but it's because of the structure of our lives, and suddenly it seems kind of wrong. It seems like it sets me up to be sitting somewhere, in a chair, in the car, or driving and on the phone, listening to some wonderful person present yet another problem in her life. Not really fun! I got my own little problem, and it's that another person keeps taking all my food and sleep. Of course, this person is a mere three pounds, and I'm very excited to be sharing all my food and sleep with the baby, but damn it, it makes me needy.

Maybe this is why people join book clubs. If only I could read books on demand!!

2008-09-19T17:43:00.002-04:00

Lightning Round-up

In Baltimore for George's wedding last weekend, we milled around the harbor, eating pizza, taking pictures, imagining Jimmy sitting at a bar near the docks. We were staying at the Holiday Inn Express (for $65!! Go Priceline!!) near the stadium, and spent our free afternoon watching the aggressive window washers on our corner, drinking Natty Bo, and lying on the bed cooing like a baby. Well, one of us drank Natty Bo and the other of us lay on the bed like a baby. I notice that being pregnant brings out the baby in me...I never sleep through the night, I drink more milk than I have ever drank in my life, I prefer soft, easy foods like yogurt and bananas, and I need my clothes to be comfy. Also, I lie around a lot...as Peaches says, all I need to do is rest and grow, much like a baby. Sometimes I get cranky and I need to be cuddled.

Back to the wedding. It was very sweet, with loving vows and a really happy couple who practically beamed "We're totally gonna last" out their pores. They've renovated their house together, which is a pretty good test for lasting couplehood---if you can make it through that, you can make it through nearly anything. I had been apprehensive about seeing my other friends from college, but in the end it was just strange to see them, not bad. They seemed nice enough, but all my real conversation happened with people I didn't know that well in college. Meanwhile, the people who knew and loved me back then didn't even ask about my pregnancy, or much about my life beyond polite small talk. I wondered what this said about me...had I made the wrong friends back then? George, Ilana and others have lasted, and always seemed hardy, solid and close, but it seems like in addition to lucking out with them, I also have a knack for building friendships with people who fool around. I mean, nice people, but who don't ever really get too serious emotionally. They seemed a little freaked out by my pregnancy. Very understandable if we were 22, but at 32, not so much.

As I've gotten older I've seen that I definitely have a capacity for projecting qualities onto people--qualities that just simply aren't there. It's not a blind spot in all cases--reality is my friend--but it happens enough to make things complicated with certain people. I hate to squash that part of myself entirely, since I also get to enjoy a visionary angle on seeing people---seeing beauty in people when it's not easy, beauty that really is there.

Right now I see a beautiful cat begging me with her eyes to throw her Possum.

The next couple days were spent in downtown Boston, presenting a workshop at an annual conference for my company. What would it be like to present a 2.5-hour workshop three times in two days? Six months pregnant? I did run out of breath an awful lot, and once I was finished, I was relieved to not have to hold my energy on the surface. But as I have found in teaching while pregnant, once the mic is on, I'm present. The audience has me. This is a skill I've developed over the last year of frequent teaching, and it's great to know that even when sick, tired, and in spandex, I can come out of the immediacy of me and listen, talk, teach and learn.

Even in business clothes and talking about workplace culture, my feedback was excellent and my audience engaged. When they looked drowsy and vacant, it much like a group ex class that doesn't want you to sub: easy to read and a fun challenge to fix. I drifted near them and shared my energy until they lit up a little. I wish I could do it more. Once a week would be perfect.

So it was good. I got through it all and now to "rest and grow," get kicks and drink milk. Coo like a baby. It's nice, it turns out.

2008-08-12T08:36:00.004-04:00

My Pregnancy Lesson #112

Pregnancy is not all fun and games, full of pleasure and purpose. I don't think I knew that. I remember being twelve years old (already in my second year of an avid babysitting business that ran until I got a job in a toy store at age 16), looking in the mirror, admiring my charge, a red-haired baby named Lucas, and imagining he was mine. He looked beautiful, and I felt beautiful holding him. He looked nothing like me, but that didn't stop me from imagining myself as his mother; I felt the two of us together were happy, blessed, angelic. That was the same year I would stand in front of the mirror, turn to my side and press my shirt down at the hips and inhale and pretend I was pregnant. I LOVED the idea of having a baby at 12. I also loved it as 22, when I wrote my dad a letter about baby longing and he gently told me that now wasn't the right time...actually, he visited me in Boston and said, "But you CAN'T have a baby now!" When I first met my husband, at 25, I quickly told him I wanted children. He knew it within the first days of our affair. Everyone around me always knew it, in fact. How could you know me and not know how much I wanted to be a parent?

But we enjoyed each other so much that we waited 6.5 more years before we agreed we were ready for a baby. And ready feels right, gut-instinct right, and exciting, but I still feel sobered by giving up the aloneness we've had together. In fact, I feel more sobered in pregnancy than I ever thought I would. In my second trimester, the everything-is-great-right? trimester, I feel worn out by spending more than an hour with friends at a time. Hanging out usually ends with me simply running out of things to say, sometimes actually leaving to immediately go sleep. It's strange. I can teach 90 minutes of fitness to dozens of people, but give me a social hour or two and I am miserable. Work interactions are little different, but I still crave privacy and hidden spaces more than ever. It's turning me into a reclusive hermit who shies away from people like I shy away from the sun, another surprising aspect of the pregnant me. I crave shade, home, my husband, dark, the quiet. I feel like a mama bear who wants nothing more than for fall to come so she can hibernate.

All of these feelings resemble what I think of as sad, really. Turning away people, thinking twice about a possible baby shower, skipping days at the beach to stay inside, disengaging a little from the outside world. But while pregnancy is definitely emotional for me, I think the whole continuum is not so much sad as just different---an entirely different kind of energy. Every day, my belly gets bigger and the baby seems to kick a little harder. Though my own mobility hits new limits, my baby finds fewer limits, gets to use those new muscles a little more effectively, learns to flip and kick in a new way. I can't even express how wonderful that feels. I can't wait to meet my kicker, my flipper, my dancer, the baby I love without knowing, know without meeting, want to bring into my life, want to help grow and blossom and, on his or her own, find the things that every day make life so gorgeous, so triumphant, so tortorous, so heartbound.

Pregnancy also gives me new respect for big perspective. I am struck by how judgmental people can be about parenting...and I have to laugh as I write that, because I judge parenting skills almost as a hobby. Parents, mentors, teachers and managers gain more respect--or disdain--from me than anyone else. I think guiding other people is just about the most important thing you can do; hell, I guess I think it's what life is about. But judging how others navigate pregnancy, labor and infanthood is different. And as people around me face up to the life and death of this phase of life, I am stunned by the open expression of superior morality of those around them. Listen, people, if someone isn't breastfeeding, it might be because their baby will die if it drinks breastmilk. And the mom may want nothing more than than to breastfeed, but oh well. She doesn't get to. My friend in this exact situation gets long, disapproving looks when she whips out her formula, and I think, wow, if only they knew. At least her child is alive, slightly more important than your lofty morals. Or, as I've learned from another dear friend, sometimes a mom has to wean early because she is getting radiation treatments for her cancer. Again, would you rather the baby has a full year of breastfeeding? Or has a mom when she turns two? I think perspectives get kicked out of whack and people forget what's actually important. And what's at stake: turns out, quite a lot is at stake. Everything.

That said, parenthood and pre-parenthood is emotional, and I have to admit that little things stay with me for way too long. I've been openly lectured many times in my 21 weeks of pregnancy: on what book I'm using, what birth plan I hope for, what hospital I use, whether I'll deliver early or late, whether I look too big or not, if my maternity leave plan is right for me or not, and just the other night, lectured on what I would or would not have energy for during my baby's infancy. And let me add that not all of these people have children, or jobs, so to lecture me on either kinda loses a little something. So, here's my take-away on that stuff: Dude, talk about your own experience. Never talk about my experience.

As I write this my cat stretches out next to me. She has lessons to impart during pregnancy, too: sleep as much as you can. Don't worry or feel bad if you feel like hiding under the bed, just hide. When you can have fun, have fun. Flaunt rules. Get snuggled as much possible. Figure out how to lie underneath the ceiling fan so that it blows your belly fur around, and then just lie there. Well, that last one is kind of hard to replicate, but I get the idea: Just relax and be you!

2008-07-29T20:42:00.004-04:00

Top Ten Favorite Things About Pregnancy So Far

10. Big pillows
9. Weleda Pregnancy Oil
8. Getting to eat as much fresh summer fruit as I can...oh, blackberries!
7. Discovering that Ann Taylor puts their maternity clothes with the career Petites (as opposed to Gap, which houses them messily with the kids section, or Target, which shelves maternity next to Plus size)
6. Peaches buying me special handcrafted artisan root beer so I don't feel left out of drinking
5. Nausea ending
4. Seeing ten baby toes on the ultrasound
3. Bringing out lots of sweet feelings in those around me, especially in my workaday life
2. Hearing the heartbeat
1. Getting to love Peaches even more, if possible.

2008-07-20T06:56:00.005-04:00

Sources

We watched The Business of Being Born last night and I found it peacefully entrancing, almost hypnotic. I braced for a gruesome medical diatribe because, well, that's mostly how US media depicts childbirth: gruesome and medical. But instead: Peaceful home birth after peaceful home birth. It reminded me of my mom's peaceful home birth when I was nine. The movie utterly reinforced my hope for a natural waterbirth when this baby is ready to come.

A featured midwife in the movie reminded me of both my lifecoach and my favorite mind/body fitness coach, Misty Tripoli, in her manner of speaking and working. It is without ego, present from the heart, without judgment, what I think of as true support. Listening, with an opinion, somehow making that opinion known while listening with the whole body. Never in conflict with you, yet easily correcting you. Never, ever preaching. But so present you have to listen. And remember.

I'm definitely not there. But I aspire to be. When I've asked Misty and my lifecoach how they accessed this part of themselves, they both attributed it to handing over control to the Source. God, I think. I don't know what to make of this, being a divine nonbeliever myself. I can justify it a little, in believing that they let go of their own fears and constructs and presented their true spirit self. But a spirit self is just there beautifully; it's not forceful and deeply communicative. Something about these particular people makes them forceful in the best way. Possibly something outside of my human experience.

I have had an eventful few weeks. I celebrated my birthday and second trimester with a few friends by dancing under the night sky at the edge of the Charles. In my head, I wrote a million blog entries about it and about turning 32. But I left soon after for a week in Vermont with Peaches, and forgot everything I was supposed to worry and think about. Bliss. Trees. A guest golden retriever. A new baby from Vietnam. My husband, a cabin, a bikeride, snakes and toads in the leaves, moose tracks, a climb up a mountain in a warm summer rain to a windy observation tower, a flight in a glider (2Gs! Weightlessness!!), horses in a field, stars at night, driving through small towns out for the fireworks. Every one was a blog entry in my head. But then I returned home and found my O.B. She's wonderful!! She's mine! We visited my parents and brother, waded in the creek at Taughannock State Park and Peaches drove me all the way home listening to the new and awesome sound system. The next day, I felt the baby move.

Ever since, I have felt even more protective of the small life force in my body. It's a mystery somewhere near my hips. I don't really know where it came from, and I can't wait to meet it. But I already feel like I know it, and things are really good. I don't know how to say that better; things are just really good.

This morning I woke up and lay in bed with cat, with husband, thinking in the quiet dark hot morning about everything I haven't written, and then I felt a kick and I had to smile.

2008-06-23T18:09:00.006-04:00

Kickin' It

Woah. To think I actually declined to go to the Breakdancing Competition with Tasha. I mean, I actually said, no, I'm too tired. Thank god she was contagiously enthusiastic and Peaches questioned me up and down about not going. It was jaw-dropping. We couldn't take our eyes off the dancers. You try looking away from someone spinning on their head. OK, and then imagine you DO tear your eyes away, and they land on someone else spinning on their head. And then you look in yet a third direction, and a six-year-old, using only his shoulders for momentum, is keeping perfect time with the music from the floor, where he is dancing on his back, then head, then knee, whatever, faster than you can blink.

I love Fort Point Channel, a desolate wasteland of urban Boston that reminds me dearly of my hometown. We drove down abandoned streets until we arrived at the beautiful Artists for Humanity space, a renovated warehouse, echoing with the beats of spinning DJs, vinyl synched and ready to roll. "Can they really be breakdancing 8 hours a day for two days in a row?" we giggled, as we drove there. Um, yep. They were tireless. And tirelessly positive, too. The energy in that place, and the ethos, was very special. Possibly the most racially diverse crowd I've mingled with in some time---I mean, incredibly diverse in every sense of the word---and decked out in playful, eccentric fashion, these very fit people clearly prioritized individuality, creativity, attitude and intelligence. And I don't mean to gush, gush, gush, but they also laughed at themselves, a lot. And they hugged each other, a lot. And they spoke up for women dancers. Everyone was encouraged. Everyone was encouraged. A baby in a big old diaper, who could barely walk, breakdanced adorably in front of Tasha and I, nearly killing both of us with adorableness. "How do you learn to do this?" we kept asking each other. The baby was just, well, doing it. Diapered bum up in the air...diapered bum down on the ground. To the beat.

However you learn to be so strong, to embrace musicality, to keep quick wit, encourage others, and to show off attitude while not taking yourself so seriously, that's definitely what I want to teach my kid. Artists for Humanity seemed to have room for team players and for individualists, both; they seemed to have room for all kinds of races and all genders and expressions. It was pretty incredible. Great, great music, too.

Now, if only I could breakdance!

2008-06-16T19:45:00.003-04:00

12 Weeks

Baby in the womb, looking relaxed, back downwards, snuggles down, hand comes up, little kick, heart beats. Agile & free in all that fluid, not weighed down like babies sometimes are. Turns to get comfy on one side and we ooh and aaah. We can see through our three-inch child. "Uh, I think I just saw the two hemispheres of the baby's brain," I say, pointing, and the tech murmurs in agreement. I make a mental note to take fish oil for neurological development. It all seems so real now.

And yet, for all the awed wondering about this person, this new family member just hanging out and waiting, blissfully unaware of being watched, me silently wondering if this is a familiar being I've known in some other lifetime, or someone totally new to me, and the whole soberness of what's happening, this is actually the most fun I can possibly imagine having. It is insane and romantic. I keep looking at Peaches and laughing out loud. We are completely amazed and holding hands and unwilling to look anywhere other than at the screen or, briefly, at each other. On the bike ride to the hospital I'd gotten somber thinking about about how long after the birth it would be before I could bike with him again, something I love to do. He's like a straight arrow on his bike, so focused, directed, narrow and fast, yellow bag fitted perfectly to his lean body. Something as simple as biking around the neighborhood with my great love will become so hard, it seems.

But we'll get babysitters. We'll bike to the movies. And as soon as I saw that person on the screen, somehow inside me, I knew I had been right the first time: it is time to bring the baby on board. It's someone who's been waiting to join our family and it's really happening. Not too long from now, we'll have someone who bikes with us.

Making photocopies of the screen images later, I see a face very clearly in the high-contrast. It's beautiful.

2008-05-23T08:12:00.004-04:00

Not Quite the Real Thing

Emily Gould has written an unfortunate piece in the NYTimes. Unfortunate because it's something like what a teenager would write; very self-obsessed and often wrong. Unfortunate because on top of that, it's about blogging. The pictures that accompany the story are almost embarrassing to look at; I winced to see pictures after picture of her lying on a bed, carefully displaying any tattoos the reader might accidentally miss.

I used to read Gould in Gawker, and I remember her pretty self-righteous post about her reasons for leaving Gawker. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt, both then and now, frankly, because she's a young woman who is writing, and I want to support that. I also want to make sure I'm not tearing her down as imaginary competition---not supporting her simply because it wasn't my name on the byline. But the Times piece is bad. Really, really bad. I couldn't read all of it yet, but the first half features her grasping at justification for blogging about her then-boyfriend even when he didn't want her to, "explaining" how she could write things about him that he specifically asked her not to. Uh, what?? Why on earth would you post something about your partner when he did not want you to?? I can't even envision a sound defense for that strategy. Those priorities are WACK.

Anyway, she goes on like that. And on.

The Times turned off the comments section at one point. It's back on now, which is interesting. In case you're wondering, the comments largely condemn the Times for providing Gould with a platform to write about herself, and for featuring such terrible pictures, and condemn Gould for bad writing and bad thinking, especially at a time when we need good writing and good thinking on so many things.

Why would they ever disable comments on this piece? I thought that was a mystery. Very un-bloggy and certainly un-Times, if you ask me.

In other news, I, too, did something kind of embarrassing this week. Peaches expressed a desire for cupcakes, and I thought, as a surprise for the sweetie, I shall bake him cupcakes! I picked the day, set aside the time, and tromped off to the store that afternoon for wrappers and butter. The thing is, in the baking aisle, right next to the cupcake wrappers, are boxes of mix. Cake mix.

And suddenly, being queasy and tired and not wanting to really bake, that cake mix looked really good. A great alternative to using tons of butter, too. So I did it. I made 24 cupcakes out of mix. And I made my own frosting, which was damn good. As a whole, fake cake, real frosting, the product is mixed. The texture is so spongy and strange. It's definitely inferior to real cake. But it did the job in a pinch. And the thing is, I haven't really mastered cupcakes on my own. My 1-2-3-4 Yellow Cake standby always burns a little on the edges in cupcake form. I thought I could try it with a Texas sheet cake recipe, but it seemed dicey.

I hope Emily Gould's next piece is like a really good cupcake--tasty at the beginning, but doesn't leave you feeling guilty and oversugared at the end. As it is, my fake cupcakes were better than her real article.

2008-04-30T13:00:00.002-04:00

Cliche-ville

All the cliches are true. When you first made an appearance on the scene, I wanted pickles. I felt embarrassingly mainstream, but I really wanted them. I thought it would last forever. I even found a special expensive homemade kind of pickle at Formaggio Kitchen. Now I'm over pickles and onto queasiness. I had orange sherbert and ginger snaps for breakfast this morning. Doesn't that sound like fun? It really IS fun, it's fun and novel and overwhelming and interesting and hopeful and strange and human. I was too queasy to sleep past 3am. And that was hours after your dad woke me up talking in his sleep, saying, "Is there anything I can get you?" "No sweetie!" I said, charmed that he would sleep-talk so considerately. Eventually I moved onto the couch with Hazelnut to watch PBS and stop worrying that I was going to throw up in our bedroom. Sorry, but that cliche turns out to be true, too.

I was describing the constant queasiness to Jessica over phone, and she said, "That sounds awful! How long has this been going on?" "All week!" I said indignantly, and then realized that it was only partway through Tuesday. Just like babies develop fast, surprisingly fast (or so I've heard), a pregnancy seems to change and develop fast, surprisingly fast, too. Tomorrow I'll be at six weeks, halfway through my first trimester. Six more weeks until the hormones surge slows, things get easier, and I can tell people. Six weeks...seems so long and not so long, all at the same time. I read that you are growing from the size of a nail head to a blueberry this week. Frankly, an orange seed with a heart the size of a poppyseed sounds bigger than that, but whatevs. Hope you can stick it out.

2008-04-29T15:44:00.002-04:00

Getting Cuter

I called Fran yesterday. Nervously. "I dropped off a little squirrel a few weeks ago....just wanted to see if...he's.....doing OK?" (read: Is he alive? Tell me now tell me now!)

"Oh I've been MEANING to call you! He's doing wonderfully!"

(Long exhale.)

"In fact, he's in a cage with four other little squirrels around his age and they have the best time. They are SO CUTE right now, let me tell you. I keep meaning to take a picture of the five of them to send to you, but they just won't sit still for a picture!"

I can imagine. I feel like he's a far cry from that cold little lump I held on a frigid Monday morning. That must just be like a bad dream for him now. Five baby squirrels in Groton! Every day must be a wild ride.

2008-04-26T20:40:00.006-04:00

So, We Hear You've Got a Tail

Your dad and I sat around on the porch this week in the hot weather, arguing about whether you were the size of a peppercorn OR if you were, instead, the size of an orange seed, with a heart the size of a poppyseed. Eventually, we had to catch ourselves and laugh. That night, I had a dream that I was telling my friend Kramer about you at a rooftop party in New York and he was very happy for all three of us. We don't know if you're going to stick around or not, so we're holding off on buying you the camo shoes and the baby pumas and all that. But if you stick it out to sit on the porch with us, we can at least promise you that your feet are going to look pretty rockin.

I told my personal trainer about you and he was especially thrilled to hear that you have a tail, which seems like a milestone to me and weirdly human. I think only five people know about you.

Today I taught a cardio class based on swordmanship to a class of one, a lawyer who had been stressed alot of her life and hadn't exercised since 1992. Holding wooden blades, we sliced and diced our imaginary opponents to a soundtrack of tribal music until she said she was so winded she was feeling dizzy. Then we did abs. Later Peaches and I pal-ed around Gore and Lyman Estates, realized that sheep really ARE boring herd animals, ("you really ARE sheep," I told them, as they bleated and clustered together) and then saw "Harold and Kumar Escape from Guatanamo Bay" at the Capitol in Arlington. Not a five-star like its predecessor, but we did laugh the whole way through. Especially at Harold looking very angsty in the Y2K? shirt. I wonder if you'll like that some day. I hope you're just befuddled by all the pot jokes, though. You'll probably be more befuddled by a reference to Y2K, which is awesome.

I've been protecting my bloodstream for you by using a fancy, expensive French soap. My old soap could apparently cause birth defects, which just seems creepy anyway. The new soap isn't even soap, since the French don't like soap. It's actually sage mousse. Seriously. It's lovely. I do still seem to be breaking out, though. Just a little.

Anyway, how's that tail treating you? Tomorrow it's all about BOSU class and muscle conditioning. My students don't know about you yet, but I do get winded more easily and I wonder if they notice. That's why it's nice to be the teacher: I can just walk around and hand out orders! Kinda like parenting, right? Ha, ha. JK. Hope it's all OK in there.

2008-04-07T20:32:00.013-04:00

Post #560: Baby Squirrel

Click on pics for closer view.

I woke up alone. Blue is in London, and I lay in bed aimlessly for 45 minutes, feeling alone. Then I remembered I wasn't. Before he left, a Sunday afternoon project cleaning the eaves had turned up an unexpected find. Soon I was out of bed and eating cereal. The upstairs neighbors, in their steady mode of casual, self-obsessed destruction, had let their big dog out once again to tear around our postage stamp backyard. I stood obstinately on the porch to eat my cereal and stare at the dog. I don't mind being inconvenient. The five year old child asked me questions while his mother hid in the dark stairwell in her pajamas.

"What is all this paper doing all over the yard?"

"It's from a baby squirrel nest," I told him. "We took the nest apart before realizing he was in there."

"Is the baby squirrel OK?"

"I don't know. We are hoping that his mom will find him where we left him overnight."

"Where did you leave him?"

"On top of the garage."

"What are you eating?"

"What do you think?"

"Cereal."

Silence. The mom's voice, echoing from the dark stairwell, piped up with a charming story about the nest of baby squirrels that lived on her Manhattan terrace until the big dog at my feet "unfortunately discovered it."

"Yup, that's what I'm worried about right now," I said.

"Oh!" She dragged the dog inside by the collar. I finished my cereal.

I waited two hours while the sun rose and squirrels ran around on top of the fence. Hoping.

At 9:40 I climbed up that fence to the garage. Alarm, alarm, alarm. The little squirrel that had been squealing with such vigor yesterday was under the bedding, badly shriveled, cold, and silent. He was completely limp, but not stiff. That was good.

Inside, cupping the phone with my shoulder, running hot water for the hot water bottle as I held his little body, fleas walked across his perfect little head. I'd called a goddess in Groton named Fran (978-448-2812). "I'll take him, but I don't know if you want to drive all the way to Groton." "I do. I'm coming right now," I said. "Listen," she said, "before you do anything else, I want you to get him warm. He'll get fed today...but you have GOT to get that baby WARM. If he's not warm, his metabolism will be too slow to eat anyway."

"He's so cold," I said. His chest felt deeply cold; his head; his belly; all the places you'd want a baby to be warm; all those places were cold. Why did we leave him out all night? How stupid could I have been?

"Are his eyes open?" she asked.

"No."

"Does he have fur?"

"Yes."

"You can get him warm. Just don't put his skin right on the water bottle. Put a T-shirt or something in between him and the heat. He has fragile skin, even with the fur."

My cat looked at me resentfully from her spot on the floor as I stroked his head and lay him on the cloth-covered hot water bottle. In a few minutes, I could actually see him breathing. It was hard to believe. I microwaved towels to get them warm and tucked them around him, flipping him side, to side, to back, to front, for maximum heating. Soon he was stretching and cooing and gurgling like a human baby. I picked him up. He fit right into the palm of my hand. He grabbed his big bottom feet in his perfectly formed little hands. He began to suck on his toe. "Fran?" I said into the phone. "I'm coming right now. He's hungry."

On the drive out on 2 the sun was out and the heat was on full blast. I held him the whole way. I put him in my left hand to better switch gears with my right. Figured my knee could handle the steering. We listened to classical music. In the rotary by Concord State Prison he stretched all four legs out wide, flipped over and gripped my thumb. He yawned and tried to suck on my ring. He was a distracting passenger, but I didn't mind the company. He was cute, for one thing, and alive, for another, which was a plus.

We crossed into the Groton town line. "This is your new home," I said. "Looks like a pretty good place for a squirrel. Look at the trees." He flipped his long tail around in a circle. It was a big, beautiful house. A lovely woman met me at the door. Fran smiled and ushered me into a basement office where a little bin filled with blankets waited under a light and atop a heating pad.

I put him into the blankets and introduced myself. She looked the small man over, both sides, top and bottom.

"Oh, he's badly dehydrated. But he'll be OK. He's about three weeks old," she said. She gave me a form to fill out. At the bottom, it had a space for a donation. I took out my wallet and put all the cash I had on the table. "You don't have to, you know," she said, and I did know. But I wanted to. We destroyed his home, separated him from his mom and then nearly killed him. And I was grateful. I barely had time to drive him to Groton, let alone care for him. She looked at the amount. $46.00. She laughed. "Just so you know, that is exactly the amount it takes to raise a baby squirrel from infancy to release stage at thirteen weeks."

"$46.00?"

"That's right."

"Well, that's perfect," I said, "it's all I have."

"He could be with cagemates as soon as tonight." "Other squirrels?" I asked gleefully. Fran nodded. Just two hours ago I was pretty sure he was going to die, but now he already had friends.

She's been rehabbing animals for 15 years. She's the only person the animals see, which helps them keep a healthy respect about people, cats, and dogs. Over time they migrate to a big outdoor cage, where she eventually keeps the cage door open, and lets them come and go as they please. Eventually they don't need her to feed them anymore, and they just take off.

"It's rewarding, yes...release day is wonderful. Unless, that is, you release a bird after months of tending to its injuries, and almost immediately see it get caught and eaten by hawk. That happens. It's Nature."

"There just aren' t enough rehabbers. We work hard to recruit them, but a lot of people try it and just can't keep doing it. The ones who succeed at it are the ones who come to us and just won't let us go until we've taught them everything we know."

"It can be tough, because you see the worst of people. A man called me last night at 11pm with a small mammal he'd found and brought inside---and told me to come get it. If you won't come get it, he said, I'm going to throw it outside in the cold. 'I wish you wouldn't do that,' I said. 'At least put it in a box with a warm blanket.' No, I won't, that man said."

Fran and I shook our heads. Some people.

"But you see great sides of people, too. So many people do try to help animals. It's good they call me. There is a lot to know---it's why I go to conferences all the time! I often see animals fed with cow's milk...bread soaked with cow's milk!"

"Hey, that's just what I was going to feed him!" I said.

"That would have actually been pretty bad," she said. "He's going to get a specialized formula for baby squirrels---it costs $10 a pound." I knew I got him to the right place. I silently congratulated myself as I walked out. In the driveway, I met a radiant older gentleman in muddy galoshes. He had light emanating from him. "This is Jack, my chief collector."

"Let me guess," he said. "You brought in an elephant." As if to confirm that I liked him.

"You got it!"

Driving home, I thought about how my coach says that things either resonate with you, or they don't, and you should move toward the things that do. Rehabbing wildlife resonates with me. In another time, another life inside of this one, the one where we live in Vermont or Western MA, I can see us listed as rehabbers, deftly dealing with people, getting them out of the way, and getting more little ones over that hurdle of Breathing When Horribly Cold. I only wish we'd brought Goz to a professional. At the time, the phone calls I made were answered by people who said that geese don't get rehabbed...but Fran would have known what to do.

I did a U-turn on 119 after I passed a place called Johnson's Dairy. It was noon and the clam roll was calling to me. "Whole-belly clams?" asked the teenager behind the counter. "I think so," I said, and sat down at a log table kitty corner to a lovely old woman who was finishing her fries. I was the youngest customer by a good forty years. Groton is not a hip neighborhood, but the clams rolls are good. I looked at the pile of fried whole clams dwarfing a white hot dug bun, and eyed the accompanying mayonnaise in a tube. I looked at the sweet old lady. "Looks good!" she said. "Sure is a lot!" I told her. We laughed. Somehow I managed to finish it.

2008-03-30T07:45:00.004-04:00

Baby Bald Eagle Flying Over Rt. 2 and Fresh Eggs Sold at the Side of the Road

We thought we'd spend the last Saturday in March out in Western Mass. There was short debate about not going--the area's still snowy, and the trip means a couple hours in the car--but we agreed: "It just feels good" to be out there. And it does. It feels really good. By 11am we were seated in the cafe of the Bookmill, in the sun where Peaches could admire my blue mascara, watching a baby laugh at dominos and awaiting our grilled brie and pear sandwiches. I'd already found two Robert B. Parker novels, a vegetarian cookbook, a workout book for stuntwomen, and a design book by Chip Kidd. I'd also read several chapters on a book for hip witches and decided a.) witches are the same as any spiritual seekers b.) aspiring to magic is good and c.) not to buy it. I reminisced to Peaches about the days spent in the same cafe, thirteen years ago, when my dear friend Chris worked there, in the old Ecstatic Yod location, selling records, and I would go just to get off campus and work without interruption, and to spend the drive there and back in his quiet company. I could feel both of our presences. I am always relieved that I feel so easily connected to life there.

A visit to terrarium wonderland Black Jungle was followed by a slow drive down the Main Street of Turner's Falls. We wanted to buy my dad a present for his birthday next weekend. "Maybe in the antique store?" "My dad likes old things." "But he's not a thing guy." "Nah, he doesn't really need any of this stuff." "How about that bookstore?" "My dad likes books. And movies. Old things. Mild cheeses. Milk chocolate. Humor." But nothing stood out, not even the cool air plants at Black Jungle or the old tractor seats in the dusty antique store.

We turned and drove down the back street of town, along the abandoned mill buildings. The handsome brick buildings stood close to one another, maybe once continuous, even, but now entire sections of building had crumbled. The remaining windows were smashed out and the long, wide flexible pipes that were so carefully installed, floor to floor, to help ventilate the building now sagged garishly, popping ends out in our direction, like a lewd invitation. Behind them the old floors were evident, the places where floors and ceilings had been. Through the open windows you could see big open floors, through the smashed windows on the other side, over Connecticut River canyon, right across to the trees on the other side.

Taking a sharp right turn, the worn bridge revealed just how fast and narrow the river is right at that spot, and the abandoned buildings stood essentially in the water, crumbling brick and smokestack dramatically vulnerable-looking in a spring rush of melted snow. Of course, we realized, that's why they were there: to generate power, once, for the town, and beyond, back when the forests were gone and the air was thick with pollutants and people in the area were gainfully employed. Now everything was overgrown, like a Mayan ruin in the jungle.

Over fried clam rolls and fries and apple pie, we looked at land prices in Wendell.

2008-03-24T08:16:00.002-04:00

Feeling Easter

I made Ouefs a la Niege last night. A classic French dessert, as I told my husband, not an Easter dish. But it was perfect for Easter, not just because it looked like fluffy white "eggs" floating on top of sweet custard and dusted with cocoa powder, but also because it was a mix of irresistible textures and flavors: salty froth of egg shapes, grated dark chocolate, milky sweet custard, rich dry cocoa. For me, Easter is a masterpiece of sensual experiences. Luscious, ripe, juicy mango sliding down your throat; perfect sweet cheese croissant, flaky and yeasty and filled with sticky rich cheese; fine chocolate at two out of three meals. And it wasn't just the food; I kept burying my nose in the pink hyacinths Blue set up on my desk as a surprise. We took a walk in Mt. Auburn Cemetery and held hands as we listened to bird song: bluejays, redwing blackbirds, chickadees, and a lone warbler. Oh, he wasn't technically a warbler, but then I don't really care about bird names: he was a warbler in his heart. He was a career warbler. He looked like a fat striped sparrow on the outside, but on the inside he was a stage crooner.

He'd tentatively start with a shaky little note, and then stop if some other bird in the park started singing. Li'l Warbler didn't like to get cut off. Then he'd start up again and sing a really sweet, melodious little song, unlike one either of us had ever heard before. That was the thing about Li'l Warbler...he was original. It was a good start to spring, that wavery, but sure-fire little voice. I liked his pluck.

2008-03-16T20:09:00.004-04:00

Tulum, Mexico

The walls are made of sticks, and people and housecats pass by in the night in soft forms stepping on the sand. My eyes watch them from bed: stick, edge of dark shoulder, stick, back of head, depart. Happy Gecko singing on the wall behind our heads. Ocean sounds all night. Salt water never really washes out of my hair. Shower water was salt. Ocean water was salt. Sunburned skin hurt on sheets. Rolling under D., mosquito netting over his head, candles flickering across the thatches of palm leaves over our head. Kissing him moistly in the morning. Walking down to easy water and lying in the sand. Reading, reading. Sun moves; edge of the water comes closer and falls away. Naked Europeans play in the big waves. We play in the big waves. We took a long walk one day across a mile of rocky coast. The sun was so hot, hotter than the hottest August day in Boston.

Squinting into the camera, iguanas and ruins, ruins topped with iguanas, tourists and tourists, tourists and strollers. Overhead, an osprey moves on the wind. Hiding in the shade from the hot sun. Taxi back to sticks and salty showers.

Quiet bay in the biosphere: wink at a little brown fish through my snorkel. Blue on his edges. He ventures out from under his rock to get a better look. A sweet face. Swim with a school of bay fish. Startle a sting ray. Ask D. to hold me so I can recover from my startle. He holds me as he stands in sea water up to his shoulders, somewhere a sting ray swimming safely away. "Phew!" thinks the ray. We put our masks back on. Tiny bumblebees swim up to us, the size of my fingertip, striped with yellow. The look at each other. They must be too small to see us. We hold hands and stop kicking to move, instead fluttering our flippers as they flutter their fins. Back in the car to soak the seats, we find a soft beach not far away. Crackers and peanut butter and D. pulls down a coconut to break open. We drink the coconut milk. Lie in the shade of the palm and read, read. Easy.

Another day we drive through villages and dry and rocky jungle. Long straight road. Cenotes! Fish and deep, deep caves. Cool water. Far below us, a flashlight has fallen from someone's hand. A snorkeler takes a deep breath and plunges many feet into the deep dark cavern. A small light from the bottom gets bigger and brighter as the snorkler kicks back up, holding it in his hand. I lift my head up to take a gasp and a bat swoops by and circles a nearby stalactite.

At more ruins: Coba. These have more trees, more shade, I'm more at peace with the sun. But a tall pyramid nearly undoes me; I try to climb and vertigo wins. All the heavyset sunbaked Ohioans climb confidently up while I return to a tree shade in tears. My husband makes it to the top and looks out at the jungle. He's a winner.

I redeem myself a little from this failure by orchid-hunting for him and finding instead uncovered ruins, and partially covered ruins down underused paths where Mayan feet once walked. We climb smaller pyramids, some covered in jungle trees, and photograph a few orchids. I kiss him. We clamber down and buy ourselves quesadillas and guacamole. The corn tortilla has just been made and is perfect.

Our last night in town, we get strong salty margaritas. "The ice is fine," says a grumpy solo American, and that's all it takes; soon we're drunk. It's Tulum; the stars are stunning; the rope lies across the road in one of many surprise speedbumps; the mangoes are 15 cents each and melt like butter, juice dripping down your feet to be sampled later by blinking, shy ghostcrabs. On my plate, fish wrapped in palm leaf; singing along with Mariachi; walking along a little road in my sundress at night. Pelicans in formation. Holding my husband's hand underwater. Catching the waves in my throat again and again until I had to rest. That was Tulum.

2008-01-04T10:36:00.000-05:00

Timing

I've gotta say, the transition to '08 has been a little bumpy for me so far. And I'm to blame. Mostly missteps on my part, coupled with poor timing. One of my very first acts of the new year was the purchase of a new domain name....with a glaring typo in it. The day before, rushing up to my car sitting in a spot five minutes past the meter's expiration...it had a ticket. The first day back at work was uneventful, but gloomy. Peaches kept asking me about the dark cloud that had settled around me. The next morning I overslept by two hours, unheard of for me. Today, subbing a fitness class downtown as a favor to a friend, I was thrilled to find a parking meter at 6am near the gym. I brought a pocket full of quarters and sunk most of them into the meter before reading the fine print: payment only necessary between 9:30am and 4pm! Woohoo! A FREE parking spot.

If there's any defense, I had not slept well, and it was dark and 6 degrees when I parked. Can we say I wasn't functioning at full capacity? My classes went well, and I took my time showering and leaving. After all, I had until 9:30 with FREE parking! I was feeling so bold and good that I even stopped by a rival gym to investigate auditioning for the sub list. They sell fitness clothing, and while I try to be careful with spending money while out teaching classes, I had to buy a piece once the salesman offered 20% off. OK, $35, a little more than I'd been paid to teach that morning. But, I'd avoided a parking garage, so I didn't have to pay for parking, right? Right?

Can you see where this is going?

Once I rounded the corner to the little alley where I'd parked, my heart sunk. This wasn't a dark, cold alley anymore. It was a sunny traffic corridor. And where was my car. It was nowhere. A sign: Tow Zone, 7am-9:30am. My heart sunk even lower.

A conversation with a cop at a construction site, fighting back tears making phone calls to confirm the city had towed it, a construction worker helping me find a cab and commiserating: "It's infuriating, ain't it?" I nodded. "And wait until you see what it costs. $150 and then they put a ticket on top of that." I thanked them and took an $11 cab ride to a tow lot somewhere near 93. I didn't know how to do anything, even wait in line. No one was there. I started pacing. A man on a nearby bench smiled kindly at me. "They'll see you, miss. They'll come out and help you." My car had just been taken. And it was my own, dumb fault! "That'll be $96, miss," said the woman behind the counter when she finally appeared. When I walked out to the lot, my car was sitting there, a $75 ticket tucked unhelpfully under the wiper.

For 1 hour of teaching downtown this morning, I paid $182. (I also got paid...but I already spent that money on a sportsbra.) This after paying $700 to have a new clutch put in the car just last week.

But, I feel guilt, dwelling on these mopey little detours when I have such a good life. New Year's night, holding my husband's hand at midnight in a huge crowd of people, I watched the lights dance on the side of the Boston Public Library and breathed in the cool night air and felt love and kindness coming from all sides. Even as we slipped out of the crowd post-countdown, some kids tried to fight each other, and I felt lucky for love, home, health, and self-management skills. Laughing after a night of wandering through drunk and happy crowds at Boston Common, pizza and Sidecars at Sonsie's, dessert and Champagne at Maggiano's, and whodunit improv theater at the Charles Street Playhouse (where I fell asleep on his shoulder and awakened to a roomful of people laughing as the cast member pointed me out as "another homicide"), we returned to find our car surrounded by cops and ambulances. Turned out that there had been a car accident within feet of our car, which was unscathed. We looked at each other somberly and climbed in to drive away. "Lucky," I thought.

2007-12-05T07:52:00.001-05:00

Till the Swelling Goes Down

I got a sting yesterday. Not the kind I know how to remove, either. But it's already getting a little better on its own. I asked my boss for a promotion and was turned down...which would have been disappointing, but OK, if it weren't for his vehemence and emphasis. He also blamed me for things I didn't do, which shocked me. When I tried to explain, rebut, intervene, he denied me that privilege. All my careful work for this meeting, planning, practicing, and of course, conferring with so many others, felt washed away. And I left feeling clueless and shocked. But, truthfully, why should I be shocked? It's happened before with him, the blaming of things I didn't do. The biggest hurdle is not really the shock of thinking that I was in better regard for advancement than I apparently am, but the struggle to not take it personally. It's professional, "it's business," and despite everyone around me telling me so, I don't quite get why business has to be so mean. And unfair. It is, I know it is, but it makes me want to retreat back to the nonprofits or educational settings from whence I came. Even in a solid, do-good-for-profit organization, the desire for money, the fear of thinking someone is trying to get more money from you, and the culminating climate of uncertainty and hunger for power leave an icky feeling in my belly. Like I said, it was the untruths and the spirit of response that put the barbs on this stinger. The worst part was that it colored everything else around me for a few hours. Suddenly I couldn't trust that people were good; what if in fact they were awful at heart? But, so many people responded with love that I was reminded how that couldn't be right. In an unrelated move, I'll have a new boss as of next week! My feelings of general ambivalence about this change have been replaced by gratitude.

This morning I woke up at 5am to the cat playing the Talking Heads. I actually woke up earlier than that, worrying about this situation--talk about taking it personally! But hearing the Talking Heads, then my husband's footsteps as he raced out of bed and to the living room computer, then the abrupt stopping of music and her annoyed meow as she got carried back to our bed, made me laugh out loud. 30 minutes later I was outside, taking some time to enjoy the moon in the black sky before heading to the gym to teach a fitness class. I told my class I was going to push them out of their comfort zone, and they responded with beautiful push-ups, spirited sprints, and high jumps. When I drove home again, the sun was rising. Fog lifted on the window. Still 19 degrees, but the day felt new.

2007-10-27T21:00:00.000-04:00

The Horn

I usually don't like to use the car horn. It's rude. And no one wants to hear it. Doesn't matter, though, 'cause I'm some amalgam of let's-go-right-now and Type A, which is torture for my long-suffering polite Midwestern husband; I must constantly resist the urge or--more likely--wince from guilt the instant my fingers tap the horn. Yet tap they do. But, you know, maybe it's not all bad. Lately I've been thinking about how useful the car horn can be.

Like at work, for instance. OK, not literally. But as much as I feel guilt about deploying the horn, sometimes it can make someone else prioritize moving ahead. Back to the literal. Tonight I was in a line of cars; the car in front of me was just sitting behind a cab poised to make a left. I tapped the horn once to let the car know that I did not want to sit there. The car then drove around the cab. Traffic flowed again.

On a project recently, I was urging an outside vendor to move faster on a task. "Well, I don't know if I can get it done this week..." he said. I gazed at him, letting the silence do the honking. I don't mind being the bad cop with this particular vendor; then one of my colleagues, the good cop, chimed in, "Well, we can probably get by without it." He's the best colleague you could want, and I think there's a lot of value in a good cop. But I wanted him to let me lean on the horn a little. In the end, he did, and it seems to be working. I just want this guy to drive around the cab.

2007-10-04T07:19:00.000-04:00

This Week I Learned

So, I really like to talk into a mic for an hour. I already knew this from teaching fitness, but it turns out I like it even when the people I'm addressing aren't in perpetual motion. I like it when I have something to say. I like walking to the middle of the room, up and down the aisles, holding their attention. Stopping until they listen. Listening until they respond. Using the energy of the room to move us all forward. My audience's feedback forms from the 3-day conference that most warmed my heart said things like, "Inspiring....almost a motivational speaker." Who knew? Who knew I wanted to be a motivational speaker? But I do. I'll add this to the list of things I want. I've been building a list of things I want to do. Write a book, present more often, advocate for the good culture at my workplace.

I've also been learning a lot about authority. I have a life coach (I really do! Amazing, amazing job perk) who gives a talk on authority called, "How Your Inner Teenager is Alive and Well in the Workplace." I've been paying a lot of attention that inner teenager lately. My life coach wants to know how people learned to relate to authority, and to what extent that defines us now: as teenagers, did we try to please authority figures? Did we rebel openly? Did we appear to obey but were secretly rebellious, or appeared rebellious but were secretly obedient? Anyone who knows me know what category I fall into. But just as interesting is the category other people fall into. People I admire, people I work with, and people I love. If you listen hard enough, or maybe, stop listening and just be receptive, you can learn who that teenager is.

Last weekend my inner teenager, and the inner teenager of my husband, kicked around Western Mass for a day. Fell asleep in a park, ate sugary foods, drank PBR, visited my old college and gawked at all the actual teenagers, who live so fiestily and work to define themselves so ardently. We went up to the library and pulled my Div III off the shelves. "Hyperreality Bites: The Lost Point of Reference in America." The library featured racks of zines. The posters and magazines and "artifacts" of the culture there were so energizing and sweet and passionate at the same time. Everything seemed to be about being as honest as possible. And bucking authority, of course.

2007-09-27T13:00:00.000-04:00

Hot Air

I'm sick. I'm sick and it's balmy. Everyone at work says the two things are related. I stand there, unable to breathe through my nose, and my co-workers have all the reasons. "Is it allergies?" asks my COO. "It's the weather," says our IT director. I don't know. I lay in bed yesterday, laptop and cat held close, listening to kids play outside. Something about this change of seasons, or maybe being sick in breezy warm air, is very evocative for me. Memories trickle in that have been hidden for a long time. I'm in high school, walking up to Cobbs Hill after school, lighting a cigarette. Watching "I Love Lucy" in the summer on the 14-inch black and white set. Now I'm in college, sitting in someone's kitchen, pulling food out of the CSA box. Working with my advisor. Biking into Amherst. In the car with my boyfriend. Now it's springtime. I'm a kid, and I'm petting my dog. I walk down the street where I grew up.

I think there are special times of the year when time disappears. Or I disappear into time.

I have to pull myself out of dreamland, though. I'm giving big presentations every day for the next five business days, and teaching class both days this weekend, so being "off" isn't an option.

2007-09-25T16:59:00.000-04:00

I think Frank O'Hara was a 7 too

MY HEART

I'm not going to cry all the time
nor shall I laugh all the time,
I don't prefer one "strain" to another.
I'd have the immediacy of a bad movie,
not just a sleeper, but also the big,
overproduced first-run kind. I want to be
at least as alive as the vulgar. And if
some aficionado of my mess says "That's
not like Frank!", all to the good! I
don't wear brown and grey suits all the time,
do I? No. I wear workshirts to the opera,
often. I want my feet to be bare,
I want my face to be shaven, and my heart---
you can't plan on the heart, but
the better part of it, my poetry, is open.

2007-09-21T08:16:00.000-04:00

Things That Don't Happen That Often

In the 'Year's Best Debut,' according to the Wall Street Journal, my company went public yesterday. The day was filled with everything they say it is: elation, disappointment, pride, angst, envy, speculation. I wanted to be open to every feeling and experience imaginable, and I woke up excited, ready to pay attention and be present. I feel proud of my company, and so curious and fortunate to learn from the people running it, now all multi-multi-millionaires who are, nonetheless, about my age. But as we stood around with drinks at the end of the day, and families arrived, I found myself greeting first one toddler, then another, looking into her eyes and wondering what it would be like to have a dad who was now so incredibly wealthy.

In the end, the day was mostly streaked with a feeling of being left out. I felt left out of the fancy Manhattan soirees the night before, the clubby parties and legendary stories and elbow-rubbing of the upper league, and I also felt left out of the camaraderie of the vast working body of the company, to whom I used to belong and who brushed by me as I took a seat alone in the company meeting. I felt left out of the people who got so many more options given to them, and I even felt left out of the people who knew to buy enough options when they had the chance; I didn't even manage to do that. I felt left out at the very end of the night, when my closest friend there, and former boss, said goodbye to me to go out to dinner with the high ranking, closed-shoulder crowd of women leaders. They respect me, but they don't exactly include me. That's when I called my husband to come pick me up, and felt vast relief as I climbed into the car.

I feel left out on regular days too, but I also feel lucky most of the time. It's hard to remember how lucky you are when wealth and status markers are so strikingly all around you. That memory of luck started to come back as I hung out with my husband last night. I told him about the highlights. My boss, the CEO, got a standing ovation when he said he didn't want to run the company by the split-screen "BID/SELL" command. He told all 580 of us that at one point in the trading someone told him he was worth $xx million and he put his hands over his ears and said, "Fuck! Don't tell me that!" He said that our worth was right there, in what we do everyday. He gave us a talk on Life with the Man that made me laugh and laugh. He opened with a clip from the School of Rock, with Jack Black teaching a classroom of kids about The Man, telling kids they need to watch out for The Man. "Why do we choose to live with The Man?" our leader asked us.

There were a few reasons, including the incredible boost of social validity that The Man's approval gives you. Credibility seemed to bring the greatest value. "It makes us stronger to be so accountable to the public, and that's really good," he said. He also praised the ability to make Wall Street think about the fractured health care system. "They don't usually care about claims," he said, "but today they were all thinking about how to make sure doctors get paid." As a company, we can spread the mission of doing well (financially, professionally) by doing good (socially, morally). "It's nice if you do good things," he told us, "but it's much nicer if you can get other people to do them too." I thought about my own life and wondered if I was spreading enough motivation to do good. I can probably do a better job.

The mechanics of going public felt bittersweet, too, in the sense that for the founders it was cloaked in a numbing process. The bankers do it all the time, and they've built a well-oiled machine to antiseptically handle the process, even for your 10-year old company, for whom you have slaved and argued and lost many a precious thing. But the well-oiled machine abruptly stopped churning as soon as our stock started trading. "We had been so well taken care of up to that point," one executive told me over beer, "getting anything you needed right that minute. But then once our stock was live, everything fell apart. No one cared about us anymore. We couldn't even leave, the limos were 30 minutes late."

Ringing the opening bell on Wall St. was discordant, too. Telling us about it, my boss said, "I felt really numb, actually. It was like acting. They don't even have a real bell anymore, you have to click a mouse standing in this cold digital room, and they applaud you like a child, and I'm thinking, I'm supposed to feel good about you fake-applauding me? But the thing is, I remember when they did it on September 11." And then he suddenly cried. Shocking both us and himself, I think. But he took a minute, looking across a sea of compassionate faces, and shook his head and wiped his eyes, and told us to stay and drink champagne (and beer, and wine, and scotch, as it turned out...oh, and a gin and tonic), and promised he wouldn't weep. We clapped and clapped.

2007-09-19T09:33:00.001-04:00

Classtime

Last night I scored some antibiotics after a lot of phone tag with my doctor's assistants, and spent the next hour exhaustedly trying to prep myself to teach my rebounding class. This entails an hour of yelling into a headset while bouncing on a trampoline. Not the easiest activity in the world, especially not while sick. "Maybe it will be a small class," I thought. But I got there, and a long line of women snaked around the gym, all waiting to take my class.

I got in line with them and we flooded into the studio together. Within a minute, every rebounder was set up and they were standing on their mats, completely ready to go. I started to set up while talking to them, thinking, can I take a break in the middle of class? I wasn't even sure how it would feel to jump up and down once, let alone about 4,000 times. (Literally.) But we got started. And halfway through class, the psychic energy of the room filled me, and I stopped noticing my symptoms. I taught one of my best classes ever, demanding lots of engagement from them and getting fantastic feedback at the end. I know from their expressions and enthusiasm and thank yous that I had a positive emotional impact on some of their evenings. And at the least, they definitely got a great workout.

It makes me think of the concept of "Flow" --

The mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what
he or she is doing, characterized by a feeling of energized focus, full
involvement, and success in the process of the activity.

Some of my best classes have happened while sick, hungover, or wiped out from teaching too much. Somehow teaching fitness is an experience that lets me be effective..while also losing myself in the moment.

To achieve a flow state, a balance must be struck between the challenge
of the task and the skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too
difficult, flow cannot occur.

I'd like to bring this feeling to more parts of my life.

2007-09-19T08:57:00.000-04:00

The Crankiest Blog in the World

10:15 pm. Lying in bed. The barking of dogs from upstairs has ceased. The nagging worries of the day have subsided. The HBO sitcom that is my worklife has begun to turn off. My husband is quietly reading. All is calm. Eyes begin to close. And then: a sound. A really loud sound. We lie there and just listen for a minute. Maybe it will go away.

It does not. In fact, it becomes the opening chords to "Chestnuts roasting on a open fire." "Is that a trumpet next door?" I ask. And it is.

Jack Frost nipping at your nose...

10:30 pm. The trumpet next door is going loud and strong. I ring the doorbell in my pajamas and coat. It's kind of nice to hear Christmas carols, except that it's SEPTEMBER. Also, I'd like to sleep. Door is answered by guy on phone. "Hi!" We smile. He's so friendly. "Any chance that's your roommate playing the trumpet?" I ask cheerfully. He listens. Unbelievably, he hadn't noticed. "I actually have no idea," he says. "Well...Can you tell him ixnay on the trumpet until tomorrow?" I try to be charming. He smiles back and nods.

10:35 pm. In bed. I hear the carol begin to wrap up. Finally, it stops. No more trumpet. Lights out.

2007-09-11T08:56:00.000-04:00

The Ugly Side

Last weekend we got to hang at this lavish wedding. Silk-wrapped chairs, lobster bisque, 6 hours of open bar, that kind of thing. All that beauty couldn't hide (or did it expose?) rumors about the relationship we were there to celebrate, though. Apparently the bride felt threatened by the bachelor party and said as much to her fiance, and not pleasantly. My husband and I reserved judgment. Relationships are tricky; sometimes things get said that are just ideas meant to live in the moment; and weddings can bring out the most scared feelings in people. We figure you can't ever really know what works for two people.

But the weekend was buffered on either end by seeing the ugly sides of acquaintances of mine. A distant co-worker lashed out at me for reasons that remain mysterious, and suggested unnamed others felt badly, too. This technique has worked exquisitely on me for more than two decades now. In fact, it always haunts me a little, making me worry that I am unknowingly offending people I really care about. But then that rarely turns out to be true. I'm left wondering why my goat is so easy to get.

As soon as I returned home from the wedding, a new neighbor harshly disputed an assertion of mine and I saw her ugly side. I also got the sense I might see a lot more ugly where that came from if I tried to be too close or too honest. Be cool, I told myself. But because it had to do with my home life, it made things seem "off" and I wished home felt seamless and whole and safe again.

It's unseating, I think, the effect of the irrational anger of others--when it happens a few times, things everywhere look less stable. I guess because it's a surprise, and occurs where there's not obvious intimacy. But why should I be surprised? Doesn't everyone have an ugly side? I'm not sure. Maybe one we reserve for those we're about to marry.

Of course, I have plenty of my own opinions, which I never consider ugly, although I do get that I'm a tad cranky sometimes. You want an example? Just scroll down. I wrote that last post, and later asked my husband, a great adviser, if I should take it down. "Just post that your husband says you were being a little too cranky when you wrote about parenting," he said. Thank god for the people in my life who gently corral the cranky, the messy, and sometimes, the ugly.

2007-08-06T07:51:00.000-04:00

Kids

I had a funny experience yesterday. I was at a kid's birthday party, holding the kid in question, and a woman---a very nice woman, I should add---kept telling me how GOOD I was with the baby. She was juggling her nine-month-old twins at the time. I didn't know what to say. Of course I was good with the baby. What did she expect?

And that was the moment when I realized that probably not everyone there was quietly judging the parenting skills of of every attendee present. We were one of the few without kids, and I worked to hide my irritation at babytalk (hey, some babytalk is great...constant flow, not so great) and silent editorials on what everyone could be doing better. It really does amaze me, for instance, how people put kids front and center in every conversation, not to mention life decision, and yet ignore what the kid seems to want to do in that moment. Like be alone, for instance.

She pushed the point. "Have you spent time with him?" she asked. I nodded, and handed Riley a couple more Cheerios, which he gleefully mashed into his mouth. "I can tell," she continued, beaming and taking it upon herself to bolster my confidence. I wanted to tell her, believe me, lady, you don't need to worry about my confidence. Plus, I thought silently, I'm 31. Shouldn't I know by this point how to be good with a baby? But again, not everyone spends down time assessing how crappy most people are with their kids.

And I think it's getting worse. Not them, I mean--me; I will probably always feel superior to people who are parenting thoughtlessly. But not being a parent is starting to feel worse and worse. I have too many wrinkles and gray hairs not to be raising a child by now, and it sends me into a slight panic. True, most of my friends with children are years older than me, and my husband reminds me that we have time, but that silently loud voice of judgment in my head is starting to turn its pretty eyes on me. "If you're so good," it asks, "prove it!" I could; maybe I should? Is now the time? I can't tell. I don't know how to know.

2007-03-28T17:21:00.001-04:00

Wig Therapy

So maybe I feel like Britney Spears. Right before her breakdown. OK, fine. But I still really, really dig this wig I've got on. It's a short black bob. My other new one is long, blondish brown, from the Black is Beautiful collection. It is awesome.

Trying to break out of a bad and sluggish mood, I went downtown today to check out Bodega, raved about in the Times last Sunday for its "high-end streetwear," and yeah, it was cool. Lots of $112 sweatshirts with carefully choreographed graffiti. Cute baseball hats. I seriously looked at a $40 girly T-shirt emblazoned with knives and guns and hypodermic needles. They were so artfully arranged. But it was all just so serious.

I skipped next door to Dorothy's Boutique, which I just discovered yesterday. A handmade sign in the window advertises $8 sunglasses next to the catchy slogan "Don't let the sun catch you crying." I read that and I thought, "I'm buying my sunglasses HERE." A cute gay boy helped me find the perfect ones. I noticed the back wall had an awful lot of wigs. Then I ran out to save the car from the meter police.

Today I set aside more time, connected with yet another salesperson (I really think she and I could be good friends---is that just the sign of an amazing saleswoman?) and got opinions from everyone in the store. I tried on everything and gawked at the sparkly fake eyelashes and fake rubber breasts. I'm going to go back next month and look at the shoes and the body glitter. I can't help it. It's so fun there. I couldn't stop smiling the whole way home. And I am of course in a wig right now.

So what's up with me? I don't know. I don't think it's a Britney-like breakdown. I bought a book last week called "What You Wear Can Change Your Life," and it had a dramatic effect on our closets, which are now completely overhauled and rearranged, and my wardrobe. On Sunday I packed up 3 garbage bags for Goodwill and spent $100 at the Container Store, getting organized. This weekend a friend is going shopping with me in an effort to teach me all she knows about buying the right clothing for your body.

And it's not just the book. I took on new responsibilities at my job, and in addition, I'm getting hired as a fitness instructor tomorrow at my gym; in my opinion, the best--and most demanding---health club in town. So things are changing a little. I'm changing a little. Every day is a little different.

But today will always be the day I went downtown and bought all the wigs.

2006-12-30T20:40:00.000-05:00

But it makes me think I'm winning.

We came through the holidays and out the other side. And I'm pleased to say that it wasn't too bad. I saw a lot of good people and learned a few new ways to cook vegetables. I read Jesus Land, which was only OK, but it felt good to read a whole book. I spent a lot of time with Blue, and during some of it we even got to relax together. I like traveling with him.

I am practicing for my big team-teaching adventure one week from Monday at my gym. I had a demo last week. I was tired and scared, and it only went OK, but she said I was definitely ready. I spent the afternoon bouncing in the gym. The front desk staff greeted me with, "There she is!! Miss Bouncy!" I am even Taking it From The Top, I am a real instructor.

2006-11-07T08:45:00.000-05:00

Experiences to Fall in Love With

Did I tell you I went to Miami? Miami, with the fantastic architecture and the warm water and the beautiful people and the Cuban food? Did I mention that I found what I think might be my true home city? I got into the water at midnight on our last night there, five hours before we had to wake up and leave for the airport. The moon was full, the air was warm, the shell sand of South Beach still held the heat of the day, a drunk nearby warned us not to take his picture, and all was right with the world.

I thought of Miami this morning as I bundled up to go to the polls. My fashion sense changed slightly after Miami, and I now often put on things that I'm not sure I should wear to work. It turns out I really like clothing that's just slightly inappropriate. This morning it was a camouflage headband. "What do you think, baby?" I asked my husband over cereal. "I don't know," he said doubtfully, "but you sure look pretty!" I'll probably wear it.

It's cold here. That's OK. It's November. It's actually pretty nice for November in the Northeast. As we walked back from the polls (pollworkers here always feel the need to pass some lengthy eyebrow-conveyed judgment on my name, no matter how long and impatient the line is behind me), we discovered that we'd unwittingly cancelled out most of each other's votes on the ballot initiatives. Nice. I think maybe ballot initiatives don't work.

I had another perfect experience right after visiting Miami. I taught a fitness class to fifteen at-risk 12-year-old girls. They were all on trampolines. Small, personal-size ones. You should have seen their faces. It was just a one-time shot, which is too bad, because I fell in love with the experience. I was very nervous beforehand, practicing late the night before and not sleeping very well. But then they filed in and I saw their tough, curious, cute little faces. It kind of killed me. And that was it; I was the teacher, I was in charge, I knew what we were going to do. I felt, as my mom put it later, that I had found my calling. I faced them as we slowly bounced on the mats. They smiled; I smiled. Even later, halfway through class, when half of them were tired and sitting down, I was thrilled to have the other half following my every move. And everything came together during the last 20 minutes of that hour. I noticed girls hip-hop dancing during a break. We all got back on the rebounders together. "Give me a move," I said. They did. "Dude, give me one more move." They did. I made it into a combination, and we practiced that combination for a full five minutes. It was awesome. Then we did it again. They created the entire end of the class themselves, and they did it with energy and passion.

Having hit my stride at the end of class, I sometimes think I would now do everything differently if I could have that hour back again. But I couldn't have known, at the start, how free and confident they'd become on the equipment. Adults aren't like that; they're scared, and even when that fear wears off, it's replaced by expectation. An expectation that the leader will fill in the gaps, somehow. I'm like that, too. But kids aren't. Just like they have a highly developed sense of balance, they also have a highly developed sense of freedom. It's pretty cool.

I'm so in love with that experience that I don't want to put time in between me and it. I actually just looked at the calendar and was relieved to see that fewer than 14 days have passed since I taught those girls. Everything else in my life is very rich; it's not as if this experience highlights some kind of drought. But it was precious, and stumbling on precious things like that, especially when they involve overcoming fear, is a mortality trigger. I don't want time to pass, anymore; I don't want the wrinkles or the gray hair I'm developing; I don't want things to move forward, and away from all the good moments I'm having. I'm grown-up, right now. I'm alive, right now. This is it, and worse, that was it.

Heady thoughts for a cold Tuesday morning.

So, that's what I fell in love with, and now I want to move to Miami and become a fitness instructor. The truth is that I'll remain a computer-based person in the Northeast instead, because everything I know and love is here. But maybe the better, more fun part of me could stay there somehow, and not age. Stay wild, I tell that self; stay true, don't get afraid, keep finding your balance on flexible surfaces.
Wear whatever you want.

2006-10-19T08:57:00.000-04:00

Oil Change

All I wanted was a cheap oil change. I guess you get what you pay for. I pull into the lot under a banner draped over the front office: "Ladies Day: Wednesday Oil Changes 11.99." It's Thursday. Damn. But still half the price of Jiffy Lube.

Two guys: one behind the counter says, smiling, smooth, mullet, "Can I have your first name, please?" Guy leaning on the counter says, "Tell him your phone number and I'll try to remember it." Me: Ha ha. Tense smile. Smiley: "Last name? Address? Phone number?" I'm cringing. I recite the numbers. Guy on the counter: "I'm a clown. I'm always like this." Me: "OK." Smile, kind of. Trying to ignore him. Not easy.

I leave them with my keys and my only car. I leave but then I remember another question. I come back in. I know counter guy's got a comment. What does he do, just hang out in Monroe Muffler all day waiting for women to walk in? "Uh OH!!! She's BACK!! We're in TROUBLE!!!!" My least favorite thing for men to say. Do they really all think I'm their mother? "If it's all the same to you, can I pick it up at 5?" I can. I will. I might pay the $16 no-harrassment surcharge next time. I imagine saying, "Pretend I'm a 50 year old white man. Just imagine that for a second." And then I worry I'm overeacting.

2006-10-13T16:21:00.000-04:00

Define 'sanity.'

My friend tells me that she grew up in a "very sane" family. I keep wondering what makes a family sane. And what family is sane? Can you learn how to be more sane than you already are? My scientist husband suggests saying "rational" instead of sane; "it's more precise," he explains. I think of my cultural models of sanity. The character of Agent Cooper, for instance, on Twin Peaks. He was such a highly evolved person that he dealt with other people on multiple dimensions. I could never keep a straight face and describe him as rational, but I believe in my heart that he was. It's just that he was so rational, so remarkably, profoundly rational, that he seemed insane. Rational means understanding cause and effect, and Cooper could perceive cause in places most of us cannot. Or maybe it's me who seems insane for thinking he's so not.

I've come to believe that being sane is about understanding, and being able to cope with, people. Very simple. How truthfully do we relate to others? Except it's not simple at all. That knowledge of others is based on a core of understanding yourself. Which you never really master, right? Because you change and you have an unconscious. And you have desire, and longing, and parents. Which brings us back to the sane family.

At work, I hire based on self-awareness. "She had the right experience," I told my team, "but she didn't seem to possess much self-knowledge." A principle of my workplace culture is that you can learn self-awareness, but you have to start with the desire to go down that road. We have personality tests, life coaches, career coaches. We confront our own inadequacies, and we love it. It's a little addictive, and maybe that's why nearly everyone at work is crazy about their jobs. (Yes, cultish, I know.) I always say it's because we can BE ourselves; I suppose it sounds like we're trying to change ourselves. But it feels very open. There's recognition of who and how people are, not willful ignorance of it.

It's like one big, sane family.

At the very least, I think, learn clarity in communication: you need the language to describe how you feel, even if you can't possibly understand what makes you that way. And the next step is reminding yourself that there's more than how you feel. So much more. And that's it! You've arrived at rational.

So can there be sane families? I feel like, yes. But everyone has to be there: self-awareness, wanting to learn, curious about others, tight grip on the bigger perspective.

Did Cooper have a tight grip? Tightest I know, I think.

2006-08-16T08:35:00.000-04:00

Stepping Up My Game

Pitifully wide gaps in between blogging, but that's what I get for ruminating on things that aren't really bloggable. I still write the entries in my head, and then I try to imagine some future (or current) employer reading my words and I stop before I reach the keyboard. This is one of my favorite, and most energetic, summers on record. "One of those rare times when it's amazing on all fronts," I told my neighbor this morning. Some of the growth is painful, but that's OK. I think it's worth it to feel so alive, grateful for every little thing.

Grateful, but not, of course, without angst. One distinct theme this summer has been how startlingly depressing it can appear to have children in an urban environment. People are working, the kids are being looked after all day by bored grandmothers, or worse, frustrated mothers, parents come home and cram in time with the kids, or have more time with the kids but badly miss their lives and friends, and it just doesn't look fun. I wish it looked more appealing, or do-able, but it looks scary. There are so many ways that children can become part of our culture, but in an urban environment, they are really marginalized. People don't bring their kids to work enough, I think, don't know how to teach them restaurant manners so they feel they can go out, hesitate to bring them on public transportation and hesitate to have a squadron of teenagers to provide babysitting on Saturday nights. It doesn't seem great for anyone; kids, parents and culture included. Instead, children draw their parents out of the life stream they were in, and everyone gets more isolated.

That's this summer: I vacillate from existential crisis about death, sex and rebirth back to the nitty gritty of childcare. And in between, we visit nearby ponds and Blue picks up frogs bigger than I've ever seen and water snakes travel around our ankles and we watch the king birds, the hawks, the orange monarch butterflies; plan our garden for next spring.

2006-07-27T20:41:00.000-04:00

Things That Make Me Teary on the Way Home

Let me set the stage. Downtown Boston, skyline, mostly pink in sunset against a hazy blue summer sky. 4:45pm; maybe "sunset" is too premature. Pretend it's sunset anyway. In my car, in the parking lot, looking at the city, I'm sweating. The windows are down but the A/C is out, and the slow chug in traffic to Roxbury/Dorchester heats up the box until it's an oven on wheels. I've got my notebook (sample entry: march in place, touch step, add knee---circled---elbow to knee---here 'elbow' is circled---and on the next line, arm change REACH. Then repeat that knee on the right for 8.) and my CD case with the requisite hair clip knawing on the strap.

It's just a moment, but I'm gathering something here besides my belongings. I guess it's wits, or guts, or some other vague term that refers to the pressing down of fear when it ebbs up. Just a few hours ago I still hadn't figured out exactly how to teach tonight, and I was messing up, practicing in my living room, right up until the end. The overhead fan, sweat rolling down my back, chest, arms, countless glasses of water, the cat as an audience, spread out on the couch with one eye peering at me from underneath a hot paw. I yelled at her: "We're going to change the arms! Watch me and join in when you're ready! REACH! REACH! Nice! You look beautiful!" My hips aching.

Sometimes I still think, I'm a writer, I don't teach boxing or stretch or aerobics. But I haven't been writing much lately. And I've been teaching a lot of aerobics.

All I wanted was 15 perfect minutes of cardio. Not jumping jacks or push-ups, like I usually make them do, or shadow boxing, or me, walking around the room, coaching. Like I said to a mentor recently, "I want to be confident about choreography. Because everything else is just coaching." Just 15 minutes of choreographed cardio that they can master and feel proud about and count down in strong voices. 15 minutes is a long time when you're standing in front of a group of tough, vibrant women who are all waiting to do exactly what you do and exactly what you tell them. It's a lot of moves to think up. But I had the moves. And I was still scared. Too scared. I had to beat this fear.

I got my wish about an hour later. OK, it wasn't perfect, but it made the whole day worth it. My partner was late, as it turned out, and when she showed up with her three kids in tow to see me leading class, her face flooded with relief. After class, she said, "You're shining."

And I was. I had to start class myself, a first. It doesn't sound like much, but to decide the point that a chatting collective is going to become a small but meaningful powerhouse of energy and will, led by you, takes a deep breath (and in my case, 20-year-old Sam at the front desk telling me, "You're going to be OK").

The day was a ragtag collaboration. I'd purposely cleared my own plate of the work required by my day job, and they were tolerant. I tuned out the noises from my second job (a side, online job). But in the morning, I couldn't get the beat right, or my moves weren't right, or something. My heart fell. I fled my hot living room for my own gym, where a yoga teacher taught me how to use the stereo, my instructor friend Lisa invited me to co-teach spinning with her, and I saw Sam, she of the front desk, working out. I begged for her help as she hit the elliptical. "You've got to come and tell me what I'm doing wrong."

I put in my hip-hop CD (a loan from another adored instructor) and played it for Sam and Lisa. We could all hear the beat. "OK, now look at me," I said. I had no time to be modest, discreet, embarrassed. The clock was ticking. I did a step-touch ("I'm on the beat, right? "yeah," the girls chorused), then brought my knee into it. They both started to smile. "Now I'm offbeat, right?" "It's the music." They'd diagnosed weeks of awkward cardio. My music had a slow beat, and I kept trying to speed it up with my moves alone, which, incredibly enough, doesn't work.

When I left the gym, Step CDs 1 and 2 in hand ("Just take them," said Lisa, "they've been here forever"), I felt much better.

And it wasn't perfect. I fell offbeat and lost my students right at the very first repeating knee. But I pulled them back onto beat. Later, we marched in place. I looked into their faces through the wall of mirrors in front of us. There were only three of them, but that's to be expected. Our members are homeless, or living on low incomes as single parents, or they are at-risk teens struggling for their sanity, and anyway, there's a small but sacred number of those women who come to me, in a small gym in a tough neighborhood, hoping to recharge their day through body awareness and physical power.

I looked at their faces. "I'm sorry I fell off beat," I said. "I've got another chance to make it right." They smiled, blushed. My heart thumped as I yelled out the next round of instructions and we banked a sharp left toward that same transition. "Here we go," I said. "Ladies, stay with me." And they did. "Now help me count!" I yelled. And they yelled it out, a small chorus, but strong, loud, clear when I faltered. "8!" they yelled out. "7!" "Let me hear you!" "6!" "You look beautiful!" "5!" "Don't think about your day! "4!" "Think about your body!" "3!" "Pull that knee!" "2!" "Last set!" "1!" "Switch!"