From San Francisco...

Dearest Clara,

It’s funny how quickly a week can go by---especially if you find yourself moving from one coast to another.  Last week was New York, but this week is San Francisco.  Luckily, my next flight will bring me home to you, and the one after that will take us on vacation together.  But before we get too excited about sunny summer days, let me share a little of what I’ve learned over my San Francisco visit:

• Always wear layers . . . Since we’ve returned to the US, I believe we’ve been to California three times, and we’ve ended up having to buy more clothes on two of those times.  This time I finally nailed my packing list!  The weather is not quite as toasty as the one hundred plus degrees I left on the East Coast, and it changes . . . a lot.  First it’s foggy, then its sunny, then its raining . . . then who knows.  And there can always be a chill in the air, especially a night.  Be prepared for all of these situations by wearing layers so that you can put on and takeoff as you need to always stay warm!
• Don’t underestimate the value of local products . . . I think you can give San Francisco a lot of credit for making Americans proud of American food products---and especially of American wine products: wines, cheeses, produce, fresh breads. This city and the areas around it have gotten so creative (see below) about pushing the envelope of what they put on the table and  they're proud of the fact that they can get it there themselves.  We take it for granted here on the East Coast, but I think this really started right here in San Francisco. It's easy to get caught up in imports, but sometimes, you can find it just as good at home.
• Choosing healthy is not weird . . . I love this about San Francisco, and about California generally.  I’m not a vegetarian but if I were, it wouldn’t be a problem here.  If you want a healthy option, you can always find it on the menu and no one seems to think less of you for choosing it.  It makes choosing healthy an easy shift and not a production.  Choose what you know is good for you proudly.
• Everyone could use a little more time outdoors . . . When people move from San Francisco to the East Coast, I know they are always going to miss the outdoors.  Even for people who don’t consider themselves “outdoorsy,” they often appear to be so to us.  Hiking in the hills, camping on the beach, windsurfing on the ocean . . . they may spend a lot of time in the city but people from San Francisco certainly know how to appreciate and protect the areas that surround it.
• Be creative . . . When I go to New York, I’m always impressed by the pace of life, but when I come to San Francisco, I’m amazed by the creativity.  For example, one cab driver was developing his own app to monitor parking rates, another friend developing a new form of digital photography.  If your heart is in invention, this is the place for you---and we could all use a little inventive spirit in our daily lives.  In San Francisco, just because things used to be a certain way, doesn’t mean they have to stay a certain way. Remember that in anything that you pursue.

Lots of love,

Mom

Generosity in Marriage

Have you seen this wonderful article in the NY Times Magazine about how little acts of generosity are found to be prevalent in very happy marriages?

This article has been a good little reminder for me.

You see, my husband is a very, very self-sufficient man.  He takes care of things.  He makes the best meals I've ever had in my life.  He helps me with a multitude of tasks, it seems.  He will drop anything to do a little act of service for me.  He will do laundry by hand in a sink in a hotel, if need be.  The man doesn't need a lot of support to get by.  And, he's a happy man.  He whistles and sings while he works.

But, his wifey here is dedicating a lot of time to a project she calls A Blog About Love.  I'm working on this project full-time, from home.  And it has been such a whole-hearted effort that the day goes by quickly.  Time evaporates.  I let a lot of the tasks of the day go undone.  And before I know it, we're asking each other what we should do for dinner.

This article has reminded me how important it is to actively make time in my day for little acts of kindness for my sweet spouse.  I'm a master at loving, speaking kindly, being affectionate, being patient, offering gratitude, and giving moral support.  But a surprise dinner?  Folded clean laundry?  Breakfast before work?  These things don't happen often.  But I'm trying to change that.

Yesterday I made bacon and eggs for breakfast.  This is a small feat, I know.  But that night when we said our husband and wife prayers together, he said, "I'm thankful for all the kind things my wife did for me today."  He noticed!  Oh, what a sweetheart.  Tonight I'm making tin foil dinners, because I know he likes the way I make them.  And I picked up a nice, ripe mango at the market as he loooves mangos and appreciates that I know how to cut them, which is not his favorite thing to do.

So, dear readers, maybe you're experts in doing little generous acts of kindness for your spouse?  Maybe you have an idea or two up your sleeve?  Do share!  Together we can all inspire each other to make our marriages/relationships a little sweeter.

A Dream and the Time

Editor's note: This is the second piece in an ongoing series about Mairead's quest to become a nurse in a resource poor area with an NGO. You can read her first post here. 

My mantra for 2012: I have no idea what I'm doing.

Seriously, I have no idea what the hell I'm doing. And it's funny that I have this opportunity to write about my utter up in the air state of being because people keep saying "You should write a book." Well, this isn't exactly a book, but here you go.

My husband (soon to be ex) and I moved to London in September 2011. We came because we were both enrolled in a course in tropical medicine for nursing that would give us the training to work in resource poor areas of the world, which was the ultimate goal for both of us---or so I thought. I'll back up a bit to approximately a year and a half before we arrived. At that point we had been married for about 2 years, together for 7 years, and both of us in our 30's. We were living in San Francisco and were in the beginning phases of thinking about buying a place---a two bedroom place where we could raise a child. Then I found this absolutely amazing program in London that taught you how to diagnose malaria under a microscope, deliver a baby in the field, manage war wounds, establish a refugee camp during a crisis, etc. How freaking awesome does all of that sound? In literally one nano second all thoughts and ambitions to have a child, buy a place, and settle down were erased from my mind.

I'd like to believe that I was going to have a smooth approach to asking my hubby if we could abandon the plans of baby and home ownership---you know, like let him walk in the door first. But that's not quite how it went. I don't know why, but I happened to meet him outside of our apartment building, and before I could stop myself, I blurted out about the course in tropical medicine and moving to London. And can you believe it, just like that he was on board with me!

Now I'll fast forward to the last 6 to 8 months. We split up. He went back to San Francisco 3 days after we finished our course. It turns out working abroad in impoverished areas for long amounts of time isn't his dream. It was mine and has been since I was 17. His was plan A: settling down and starting a family. Absolutely 100% a normal reasonable thing to want with your wife of 4 years when you're 36 years old. Unfortunately, I just couldn't do it. And to be fair that wasn't the foundation of our split. In my mind the relationship had been going in a downward spiral for at least a year and a half before we left because of core communication issues. We almost didn't get married because of these issues. But we loved each other and really wanted to make it work. We were in therapy on and off for five years and tried as best as we each knew how. We kicked that horse until it was dead and then we jumped on it in stillettos and kicked it some more.

But I digress. Back to how I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

I'm 33 and with a slow, steady, all of a sudden, I'm going through a separation in a new country without my close friends or family. I don't have a constant job, have no work satisfaction even when I do work, am essentially living on my savings which in London is suckypoo with an emphasis on the sucky and the poo, and for the first time in nearly 10 years, I have to live with roommates. I've gone from being the queen of my own domain to having a room in a house with an unemployed 23 year old who plays video games all day and another couple who are in their early to mid twenties. Who feels like hot shit?! Not me.

What I am hoping will happen is that by November I will have gotten a job abroad to work with an NGO in . . . to be honest I don't care where it is or what I'll be doing. As long as I'm working in a resource poor country with a little bit of famine, an obselete health care system, some malaria, raging HIV, or a civil war, I'd be a happy camper. You'd think organizations would be jumping at the chance to find people who are willing to work in these situations where they are risking their lives, sanity, and health! Apparently not. Apparently we're a dime a dozen.

I cannot get a job and it is definitely not for lack of trying. And to a certain extent, I have a hard time believing it's from lack of skills and qualifications. I've been a nurse for ten years. For three of those I was a travel nurse, which in the briefest of explanations means I can work in a variety of settings with minimal orientation. My specialty is oncology, which though is not like being in the ER or ICU, I deal with some sick, sick patients that need acute complex management. I've travelled extensively in developing countries and am no stranger to different cultures and being without creature comforts. I started a temporary clinic in a tsunami resettlement camp in Sri Lanka. I have a diploma in tropical medicine for nursing from a world renowned school. I have passion and determination like you wouldn't believe. What else do they want?

To answer my own question, they want you to have already run a health system in a developing country, have advanced language skills in French and/or Arabic, have extensive IT knowledge, and know how to drive a manual transmission. The positions I'm applying for are aimed at nurses right? It seems like they're looking for IT managers from French or Arabic countries that drive a manual. In all honesty, I can absolutely see the benefit of hiring someone with all those skills, but that is one tall order to fill.

But I will keep trying; I will not give up. As I see it, life is not worth living unless you have a goal, a dream, a passion. This is mine. How am I to go back to San Francisco and work with onocology patients who would give anything to have the time and capability to carry out their life's ambition? I could easily go back home in a moment's notice and be with my close support group, have a satisfying job, and make a good income, but I know, I just know, I would be so disappointed in myself for giving up. So I'm not done yet and I'm going to stick it out over here. I start a permanent job in the field of oncology next week that will take me through November. I hope by that point, the gods of fate will have started to like me again and something I apply for will pan out. If not, the next step is to go to the country I want to work in first and try to get hired locally. If I'm right on their doorstep, it may be harder to turn down my charms.

I'm lucky: I've got a dream and I have the time.

The Story of a House

They knocked down the Miami house the other day. I was riding my bike, faster, faster, as small rain droplets were starting to fall. It was any other Wednesday, and when I glanced up, it was gone. Only the foundation remained, and a pile of rubble. The tacky turquoise shutters were gone, the pea gravel driveway was in disarray, but the rain made it so you couldn’t see my tears. I suppose I should explain. Six months ago, in a fit of rage against our current house, we called our realtor. We had been living in our house a little over a year at that point and we still weren’t happy. Renovations had slowed and become frustrating. Two rooms had no flooring, one bathroom was completely gutted, but my biggest complaint was that it was dark and gloomy. The main area is paneled in dark, raw wood---it’s original and unique and depressing. It’s also rare and expensive, so we aren’t rushing to rip it out or paint over it, like we had initially thought. It will be the middle of summer and we will leave the lights on in the living room to read. It’s just that dark. So, we called our realtor, who knows we are totally insane, and had a long discussion about putting the house on the market as is. We made an appointment to view our competition, three houses on the market in our price range in our neighborhood, to see how we would fare.

The house on Miami Avenue was the third house we saw that day. From the first moment we walked through the door, it felt like home. The radio was playing softly, and it smelled clean and comforting. It was a beautiful mid-century modern rancher with pitched white paneled ceilings. There was a tiny quaint kitchen with a back door in the corner. I said to my husband, “Something about that door feels so familiar to me” and he replied that he knew exactly what I meant. It hit me later, the house I grew up in had a door off the kitchen as well. It was home. The most amazing thing about the house was that half of it was glass. It was unbelievably bright and sunny. The house was an L-shape, and the inner L was all glass sliders out to the garden. Even the hallway was bright. We fell in love.

We must have spent two hours at least wandering the house and day-dreaming until our realtor snapped us out of it. “Well?” He wondered. And we debated, and thought about it all week; we even brought family members to see it. We came so close to putting in an offer with a contingency to sell our current place, but then sanity kicked in. Would our lives really change that much if we only moved three blocks? Did it even matter? It seemed like a lot of work. In the end, we walked away, and then biked past it every chance we got.

That house felt like it could have been another life for us. One in which I wanted more kids and was content to be a mom. Or it could have been the same struggle we have now, feeling like we don't love where we live, but wondering if it really matters at all. Does place define you? Does your house define you?

While we were debating buying it, we did a little research on the owner, and her family. We found the most incredible heart-wrenching story. About ten years ago, the family was having a graduation party for their son at the beach. It was windy and the waves were tall, the current sharp. Everyone was swimming and having a great time, until their young nephew started drowning. The father of the house ran in and saved him, but died in the process. I instantly flashed back to our time in the house. Above the upright piano there was a large framed photograph of a man, the same man in the newspaper article. It had been her husband. It was sad, but also comforting. We wondered what had happened to the nephew who lived.

I thought of this when I saw the wrecking ball. I wondered how many other stories the house held? Did she measure her children's heigh in the hallway? Did they put handprints in the concrete in the garage? I imagined all the family dinners held before the father passed away, and then the grieving that occurred. I’m sure dishes arrived constantly, and the rosary was fingered carefully everyday. All those stories were gone. It makes me wonder, what will become of our story?

YWRB: Genesis, Part 2

by Amy Turn Sharp Last month, Amanda and I went back to Athens, Ohio. A pilgrimage of sorts. We had not been back to the deep woods together for over a decade. We went to the Ohio University Literary Festival. We were going to meet Terrance Hayes (one of my favorite poets). As soon as we walked into the auditorium, we spotted our old professor. Mark Halliday. The poet. Another favorite of mine. He was the same. Interestingly eccentric,. Nervous, yet commanding. Weird socks. Fidgety.

*     *     *

I remember storming into his office one day with Amanda. I dragged her like a rag doll toward his big wooden desk.

I beat on his desk and told him about the Young Woman's Rebellion Bible. I was nearly reenacting scenes from Dead Poets Society with my passion. I almost jumped on his desk.  I told him how I freaked out when I heard Amanda tell me her ideas about this project we could work on together. I told him everything. I moved about the office like a dancer. I was so young. Amanda giggled and nodded her head. There was music from an old radio in the corner. I think it was Joan Armatrading. Or perhaps I made that up years later. It was a calm office made insane by us. We were often bringing high intensity to calm situations. It was our best practice. He smiled and encouraged us, but it looked like he was also afraid. And looking back, perhaps he was afraid it would not happen. It would loose steam and fall flat. It would make other work suffer. Or he was just amazed by us. I think I was amazed by us.

*     *     *

We listened to the magic Terrance Hayes read to us. It was amazing and his words purred at us and we all sat on the edge of our seats, poets scribbled in tiny notebooks. We all wished for language mastery. It was perfect. And when we left, I was kinda sad that I did not run up to Halliday and hug him tightly, tell him we are doing it again. That it just took us a long time. To become us. I had daydreams of us ditching our car and heading to our old tavern. But I knew things had changed. I knew there were new rebellions all over the place. I raised my hand and waved at him like a cool kid, and blew him a kiss. All the way home I thought about the fire in my belly that made me dance when I talked about writing. I knew it was back. I could feel my feet moving in the floorboards of Amanda's SUV.

We're curious: Has there been a time when you've amazed yourself?

The Surprising Joy of Inadequacy

When I began my first semester of college, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t know what I wanted to study, and I remember when it came time to register for classes I felt pretty lost. I knew I would be taking Latin; Bryn Mawr had a pretty weighty language requirement and I had taken four years of Latin in high school. I had to take a required freshman writing seminar that all new students took, but that left two class slots wide open. My high school education had been very traditional and middle of the road. I went to college not even knowing what anthropology was, for example. I took some great classes in high school, including AP offerings in both Latin and Economics, but overall, I would say that the program offered at my high school, while solid, was not dynamic.

I had gone to a state-run educational camp for two summers while in high school (three weeks at a local college, all expenses paid for everyone, a pretty amazing thing looking back) and one year I had done creative writing. So, that first semester, I enrolled in Introduction to Writing Poetry. I didn’t think I’d make it into the course as Creative Writing offerings were notorious for being popular and oversubscribed, with priority going to juniors and seniors. When I received my schedule, though, there it was.

I figured this would be pretty straightforward. I had written some poetry at camp, and it had been well enough received.  While in high school, I hadn’t really read any poetry at all, saving old standards like William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis,” which I remember enduring in AP English. Nonetheless, I figured I would be set.

I realized immediately that I was thoroughly mistaken. The other fourteen young women in the class were not there because they couldn’t think of anything else to register for. They were there because they loved poetry. They had written oodles of poems and read even more. Before class even started, they were swapping favorite poets, most of whom I didn’t know at all. It was frightening and intimidating. I am not entirely sure why I stayed in the course, but I think my main reason for staying was that it had been such a surprise to be enrolled, I didn’t want to give up this stroke of “luck.”

I struggled. I did all of the assignments and I did them carefully. I began to pick up the lingo and learn how to function in a workshop environment, and I do think I offered my classmates the occasional trenchant critique. That said, I did not write good poems. I couldn’t think of things to write about, let alone “wordsmith” as we were encouraged to do. The poem of mine that was best received in workshop was built thematically around a life experience that I had never even had, making me feel as though I was thumbing my nose at the confessional poets I had come to love like Sexton and Lowell.  I felt like a minor leaguer, a lost child, a flop. I ended up with a slightly above average grade, but there was no sense that I had done any work that semester to really remember.

In that class, though, I met some absolutely amazing women whose talent was evident and crackled around them like radio static. They ranged in age (Bryn Mawr has a program for students of “non-traditional” age), race, socioeconomic class, geographic background, and sexual orientation. In some ways, that class was a little microcosm of the community as a whole. The professor was kindly and warm, but not at all mincing. She didn’t patronize, but she wasn’t cruel.

I should have left that class demoralized. I didn’t distinguish myself at all, and it was one of many experiences at Bryn Mawr that left me feeling as though I didn’t measure up. So, what did I do? I enrolled in the follow-up course Advanced Poetry Writing the next semester. I was never going to be much of a poet, but I was not going to let the opportunity of spending more time in that challenging, electric environment pass me by. True, I didn’t break any new poetic ground in the next course.  I didn’t earn a fantastic grade. I sometimes felt silly and I sometimes felt stupid. Even in those moments, though, I felt supported and I felt inspired.

That sort of environment is rare and, I believe, a force of nature. It can’t really be created. A good teacher can facilitate the possibility of such camaraderie, but it takes many things coming together in a specific way for what I felt to happen (and, to be fair, I can’t say if everyone in the room felt the same way, although I suspect many did). The power of people (and in this case, women) creating art together (even if some of it is amateurish) should never be underestimated.

From Six 'til Seven

By Carey Swanson I've woken up twice to my alarm clock in the past almost-a-year . . . two times when my sleep was pierced by an abstract beeping sound that made me flash back to another time in my life. Considering the fact that I get up for my job as an assistant principal at 5:45 am on a good day, this is pretty amazing.  Other than those two days, the other 360 or so mornings, I've woken up to the squeaks and cries of my baby's internal alarm clock, calling out for food at the earliest early hour, the latest late hour, the time when most people are in the midst of sleeping.  Yes, she wakes up darn early!

This time period is a little bit of a blur most mornings---half-awake feedings and seeing if Zoe will let me fall back asleep before the beeping that tells me it is time to get out of bed rather than time to wake up. And from a little before six until close to seven, I have my first daily hour of parenting. In between pumping, eating the breakfast that my stay-at-home husband amazingly makes each morning, packing up my laptop, making sure I have the bottles and pump pieces I need for the day (I've messed this up 3 times in the 9 months I've been doing it, which I think is pretty ok), and getting dressed, I play with my child. I bring her into the bathroom while I'm doing my hair or washing my face and tell her what I'm doing: "I'm putting some concealer under my eyes; that makes me look less tired. Now I'm putting on deodorant, you probably won't need this till you're 12, but I'll be on the lookout to let you know if it is earlier than that because I don't want them to have to tell you at school, that is totally embarrassing even though I pretend real hard that it isn't."

Zoe is all laughs and smiles in the morning; she sits in her little chair at the table while I eat and pump, and offers us toys. She wanders around the living room, in her new little drunken old man waddle, while I check the weather, check my work phone, and call for substitutes if needed. And when it comes time for me to put on my jacket, she suddenly clings to me. And when I place her in her dad's arms and grab my bags to go . . . she cries. Sometimes she just sniffles; sometimes she wails. I can't bring myself to sneak out while she's distracted, so usually I make it worse: going back for kisses, finally making it out the door only to realize I've forgotten my phone, and disrupting her all over again.

* * *

Barring any parent events or late night meetings, I am almost always home from work on the dot of six o'clock. Whether I'm rushing out to the train at 5:30 or hanging on for a ride, six o'clock is pretty much guaranteed to be the switch from being responsible for the needs of 20 teachers and 300 children to being responsible for the needs of one lovely little baby.

I love making the switch. I walk in the door to the best greeting in the world—my husband usually yelling, "Mommy's home" while Z freezes from wherever she is and laughs, and these days, waves. (She's grown into this---it used to be immediate tears and demands for nursing; this is much improved.) And then, for the next hour, I'm a parent again. I put away the day's bottles and my things, hug Zoe for as long as she'll let me (usually just one hug), and feed her dinner while my husband makes ours. Or I play with her in the living room and hear about the boring stuff that only I want to know: What time were her naps today? How much did she eat and when? Where did you guys go today? I like to hear the mundane details, to picture the trips to the playground or the farmers market or the park and to know if the afternoon nap went early or late as I calculate how many extra minutes of play time that buys me.

Sometime close to 7 she gets sleepy, even though she has started to fight it and attempts to hide it from us. I’ve done my homework and read my sleep books. While I don’t have a real stance, I've made a camp somewhere in between the eight different approaches to sleep. I know that keeping her up any later is selfish—my baby does better when she goes to sleep early. Plus, we have the always-the-same-time, dark and early baby alarm to think of the next morning. And so right around seven, we start getting ready for bedtime. We change into pajamas, read a story, and cuddle if she'll let me. By between 7:30 and 8, she is asleep and I'm on the couch leaning over my laptop, or on a good day, watching bad tv.

I don't mean to imply that I'm not a parent in the 22 hours other than those between six and seven (and on the whole weekend and every vacation!). And I know that the mommy guilt I feel about squeezing a day into such short blocks of time is just for me---not a reflection of my daughter’s needs. I’m a working mother, which is something I believe in, and in doing this I am the bread winner for my family, which makes me proud. I know kids are in day care and with nannies and with stay at home parents, and I truly believe all of these are completely valid options. Zoe is with her dad all day and incredibly well cared for, which means I have no reservations about how she spends her time. In a world full of gender norms and high expectations for what it means to be a mother, however, what I can't seem to escape are my reservations about how I spend mine.

But, for now at least, from six 'til seven is my baby's time.

(image by alexkerhead on flickr.)

What Are You Reading (Offline, That Is)?

Today we're lucky enough to present the Anne Sage edition of our "What Are You Reading?" column. Anne writes the wildly popular blog, The City Sage, launched Rue Magazine (which she just recently left to pursue her other interests), and is an all-around Nice Person. Here, she tells us what she's reading, and pulls in two of her friends to join in the conversation. * * *

Anne Sage, The City Sage Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail  by Cheryl Strayed Author Cheryl Strayed recounts her mother's death from cancer, her own subsequent tumble into despair, drug abuse, and divorce, and her soul-restoring three-month solo hike through some of the country's most foreboding terrain. The fluid, forthright prose flies by, but the emotional strain of the narrative forced me to read this book in bite-sized pieces. Strayed's fear, her pain, her joy, it's all so very palpable, and like a verbal sorceress she summoned forth the same feelings within me. Wild is at once an individual story and a universal one. The latter is meant to plumb the depths and scale the heights of the human experience, the former is encapsulated when Strayed writes, "Of all the things that convinced me that I should not be afraid while on this journey . . . the death of my mother was the thing that made me believe the most deeply in my safety: nothing bad could happen to me. The worst thing already had."

East of Eden  by John Steinbeck This is the second time I'm reading this book. The first was in high school, when I simply enjoyed it as a near-mythic tale of love and tragedy. Now, as an adult living through difficult economic and personal times, and having driven thousands of miles around my home state of California where this book takes place and where my family is from, my appreciation for it is exponentially greater. It's one to digest slowly, to mull over, to serve as a reminder that though place and time may change, our basic needs do not. Earth, air, water: when our river dries up, so do we. East of Eden also dovetails beautifully with Wild in its exploration of personal relationships and the pressures that we place upon ourselves. Steinbeck was onto something when he wrote, “Now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.”

Lacy Young, Health Coach and Creator of The Campaign for Confidence The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón The ultimate story-within-a-story, The Shadow of the Wind follows a young boy through his teen years as he investigates the mysterious back-story of a novel he finds in a lost cemetery of books. Set against the backdrop of mid-20th century Barcelona, this book is hauntingly beautiful. The writing is unparalleled, the setting idyllic, and the story is so intriguing you can't help but fall in love as you watch it all unfold. This is one of those books to which I wish I could forget the ending so I could experience the joy of reading it again!

Excuses Begone! by Dr. Wayne Dyer Reading this book is like coming home, only to the home I wish I was raised in. Excuses Be Gone is an easy-to-swallow dose of reminders on how to live in harmony with life. Dr. Dyer has a way of explaining mind-shifting concepts that leave me happily accepting them as truth. Of course the universe is abundant, of course life is way more fun if I let go of all my ridiculous rules for myself!

Kate Childs, Book Publicist, Random House Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn Everyone kept recommending this novel to me—coworkers, authors, even the Random House building where a poster of the book jacket is plastered on the lobby window—so I finally started reading it, and now I know what all the fuss is about. If you’re looking for a book that will make you take detours on the subway and contemplate canceling social engagements to keep reading, pick up Gone Girl. It’s a sharp psychological thriller about a missing wife, a potentially guilty husband, and the secrets they keep.

The Twelve by Justin Cronin One of the benefits of being a book publicist is getting early access to upcoming books, and The Twelve manuscript is by far the biggest prize of all in-house right now. On paper, I’m not the type of reader who would be drawn to The Passage, the first book in this trilogy, but I absolutely couldn’t stop reading this epic novel. The characters, the post-apocalyptic world, the Virals—every part of it was captivating.The Twelve cleverly picks up where The Passage left off, and it won’t disappoint fans when it’s released in October.

We love to hear what our friends are reading when they step away from the computer. Drop us a line and let us know what’s blowing your mind.

From New York, New York

Dearest Clara,

This week has been so much hustle and bustle . . . but I guess hustle and bustle is what you get when you’re in New York.  That city just never stops---and that’s a good thing.  Every time I head up, I always end up being exposed to something new.  You just can’t avoid it in New York.  That sense of always experiencing something new there makes it hard to pick out single lessons, since I feel like they’re different from every trip there.  But maybe, that’s what New York is all about.

• Try something new every time you go: You could probably live an entire lifetime in New York City and not repeat a meal, a hotel, a theater . . . there are not many places like that in the world.  Take advantage to do or eat or try something you would never do at home---that’s what you came to New York for!
• Look for a few favorites: New York is always changing but there are a few things that will always be there for you:  a dark corner bar, a bench in Central Park, a Sabrett’s hot dog cart, the holiday displays on Fifth Avenue . . . Find a few things that you love in New York and try to incorporate them into your trips---sometimes, you’ll just need that little bit of the familiar.
• Pack your thicker skin: This city gets a bad reputation sometimes.  Here, things move fast, and here, things can move on without you.  Sometimes, nothing can crush you like this city---you’ll probably cry at some point.  I did.  It’s okay---it happens to everyone.  New York can definitely be tough---but stick it out.  New York is also full of sunshine and second chances.
• Always look up: there are some great surprises on those skyscrapers: art deco details, people going on about their daily lives in full glass windows, billboards as far as the eye can see---this city can do amazing things with heights.
• Marvel at the little logistics: I can never stop being fascinated by how this city works.  How do they manage to provide water . . . and heat . . . and trash pick up . . . and emergency services . . . and dry cleaning . . . and some of the best food delivery in the world . . . you name it---I am always amazed by how well everything works in New York---there are so many cities that are smaller or less populated or more spacious and don’t run with nearly the efficiency of New York.  And as always, whether it’s the subway driver or police officer, appreciate those that make this city somewhere we can go and enjoy the gifts that all of its other citizens bring.

One day you’ll “be a part of it” too.  I can’t wait to hear what you think.

All my love,

Mom

Max

(Editor's note: This is part two of Leigh Anna's exploration of losing her dogs. Part One, Samus, can be found here.) 2011 stunk. It has taken me many months to even get to the place where I can write about this without completely losing it. Some of you already know how my little family was rocked this past year when little Samus, my sweet boxer dog, passed away suddenly. Little did we know that just 7 months and two days later, we’d be saying goodbye to our other sweet baby, my dear boy Max. From the beginning, I was absolutely in love with that boy. We drove 4 hours in the pouring rain one night to Memphis to pick him up. He was so fat, with so many wrinkles. I was so excited . . . and a little discouraged when I tried to get him to sit in my lap on the way home and he just moved to the other side of backseat. We had a dog that didn’t like to cuddle, or so it seemed.

Max quickly became a mama’s boy. Contrary to my observation on that ride home, he loved to cuddle . . . and boy was he lazy. Samus wanted to play all the time and all Max wanted to do was lay on the couch. The only issue we ever had with him was potty training. He was HORRIBLE! He would leave a trail through the house . . . he didn’t know how to stand still while peeing! I would get soooo mad! I finally resorted to buying toddler undies for him and that was the only thing that finally worked. He was so cute in those undies.

 In 2007, Chris and I decided to quit our jobs, move to Atlanta, and go back to school. The day we moved, we noticed Max wasn’t feeling too good. Within two days, he stopped eating and we knew something had to be wrong. We took him to the vet, where they started running tests on him. We left the vet without a diagnosis but they were pretty sure he had Lymphoma. The test would take two weeks to find out for sure.

My boy got so sick. He didn’t eat for those two weeks and lost 10 lbs. We came so close to losing him . . . the test finally came back and it was a huge blow. He not only had lymphoma in his chest, but it was stage 4, B cell, the worst kind. They advised us that most dogs with that kind of cancer only last another year at best, with chemo. But we couldn’t lose our baby without trying to help; he was only 5 years old. We started chemotherapy immediately and after 6 months of treatment, he was in full remission. Max was a trooper . . . my miracle dog. We got lucky and the lymphoma never came back.

 When we lost Samus, our world was turned upside down. We all grieved so hard for the loss, Max included. He slept by the front door; he’d wake me up laying on my chest at 3 am just staring at me; he’d drag us up and down the alleys and streets looking for her; he would stop in his tracks when he heard another dog that sounded like her. It made us so sad to see him having such a hard time with losing her.  That’s one reason we decided to get Rilke, 6 weeks after we lost our girl. Max needed a buddy as much as we did. He was so good with her . . . she was such a playful puppy . . . but he never got mad at her. I think seeing the two of them together, I really started to notice how much Max had aged.

This past Thanksgiving came and went quietly. That Saturday, we woke up to a beautiful morning. The temperature was supposed to be in the 60′s and we knew that it wouldn’t last much longer. We decided to take the dogs out to Fire Island, a beautiful state park beach that allows dogs in the winter months. It was Rilke’s first time to the beach and we were all excited as we packed up in the car and headed out. It was absolutely gorgeous outside and we were just so happy to be together. This photo was from that day . . . I had no idea it would be one of the last photos I would take of my sweet boy:

We had hiked about 2 miles from our car, down the beach, when our world came crashing in on us. Max had been so happy, running, sniffing, playing . . . when all of a sudden, he fell over and started having a major grand mal seizure. Right there where the water hits the sand, on the most beautiful beach, my dog was dying and I felt so helpless. People came running from everywhere, and Chris and two other men started giving him CPR. After what seemed like an eternity, he started breathing again. Someone called the rangers for us and they came and picked us up in a SUV to take us back to our car. Max was awake but out of it for sure. We took him to the nearest pet hospital, only to have them tell us things like cancer, brain tumor, epilepsy, infection . . . our wonderful trip to the beach had gone so bad so quickly.

We did a few tests to check his bloodwork and rule out an infection. They said the only way we would know if he had brain cancer would be to do an MRI, which would cost thousands. We hoped for the best, got a prescription for anti-seizure meds and went on our way. We felt so lost, and I was just a ball of nerves. That night we cuddled him and loved on him and he seemed ok, just tired. The next morning, we went for a walk, ate breakfast, and he had his smoothie and two treats. His head seemed to be bothering him, he kept scratching and rubbing it. He laid down in the sun, on the bed, probably his favorite place in the world, and went to sleep. About 30 minutes later, he woke up, had another seizure, and passed quietly in Chris’s arms.

That weekend was horrible. But . . . looking back, both of us had seen it in his eyes. He lost a part of himself, a spark, when Samus passed away and he never got it back. Even though losing Samus was heartbreaking, it made me appreciate Max so much more those last few months. I am thankful that he didn’t seem to suffer much; I am thankful that we were with him, that he spent his last full day on the beach, and that he didn’t die in a hospital. I am also thankful that I did not have to make the decision with either of my dogs. God knew that would be a decision I just could not have made.

 I loved Samus dearly, but Max . . . that boy was MY boy. I loved the way he woo-wooed when he was excited, the way he demanded a treat around lunchtime every day, the way he nibbled on a toy, the way he said “I love my mama,” and the way he made me massage him every night. He was spoiled all right, but he was one of the best relationships that I have ever experienced and if I could do it all over again, I would in a heartbeat. I’ve had dogs my entire life but there was just something special about my relationship with Max. I would have done just about anything for that dog. Looking back at these photos, I feel like I was at my happiest when he was by my side . . . or in my lap.

After losing both of our “kids” that we have had for the past 9.5 years, Chris and I just felt lost. Our whole family dynamic changed. Now Rilke was the only dog, and we had only spent a few months with her. She still doesn’t know the kind of things our other two had learned through the years---it’s like starting completely over. But I am so thankful we got her when we did or else our house would be way too quiet. We have since added little Bronson to our family. It’s not the same around here . . . but I hope one day we’ll have the connection with the new ones like we had with Samus and Max.

Once again, in 2011 I was reminded that I need to appreciate the time I am given. I am so thankful that I got to experience Max’s amazing personality and be loved by him. Time goes by in a flash . . . 9.5 years of my life was gone in 7 months and 2 days. I am trying to remember that and really live my life in a way where I have no regrets and really love on my friends and family as much as I can. In the end, that’s really all that matters. I miss you dearly Max . . . I still think about you every day. I hope you and Samus are running and playing on a beach up in heaven somewhere. One of these days, when I close my eyes for the last time . . . I really hope you two come and tackle me with kisses. Call me crazy, I don’t care.

Samus

Sharing my life with an animal is one of the greatest joys I could imagine. There is nothing better than coming home after a long hard day and being met at the door by my dogs, wagging their tails and giving me kisses. . . it instantly erases all my stress, at least for a little while. My husband, Chris, and I don't have kids, not yet anyway, so I treat my dogs like they are my kids. People say things change when you have actual children, but I hope it doesn't. I love knowing that I am giving my dogs the best life possible and that they are loved and appreciated every day.

Nothing could prepare me for the loss I would feel when my first two dogs, Samus and Max, passed away. When we lost Samus, Chris and I spent the next three days in bed, crying our eyes out. Seven months later, Max passed away too. Our home had changed forever. Looking back, we realized just how much Samus and Max had affected our lives. They taught us about patience, unconditional love, and what's really important in life.

What follows are my thoughts on the passing of sweet Samus. I will be sharing Max's story tomorrow.

I’ve tried to write this piece about 5 times now. Every time I see that title, I just tear up and have to walk away. Chris and I lost our baby girl two weeks ago. It was sudden, unexpected, and heartbreaking. We don’t know for sure, but we think she had cardiomyopathy, a condition of the heart, where it just gives out without warning. We knew she wasn’t feeling good, took her to the vet, and her heart rate was at 300 beats per minute. They tried to fix it but nothing worked and after a few hours at the vet, she basically had a heart attack. Chris and I had to hold her the last few minutes while she was passing . . . it was just heartbreaking; there is no other way to describe it. It tore us both to pieces, having to watch something you love so much, go away forever.

Samus came into our lives when she was 6 weeks old. Chris and I had a terrible fight about what kind of dog we were going to get. My heart was set on a boston terrier . . . I even went out and bought a book about them! Chris finally dropped the bomb on me that it was his turn, I had chosen our first pets (cats, they were insane!) and he wanted a boxer. I was SOOOOO mad! That all changed the day he picked me up from work with a newspaper in his hand. He had the ad circled and was determined that it was the day for us to add to our family. I agreed and we drove straight to the breeder’s house. Inside, Samus’s grandmother climbed up on the couch beside us and we knew these had to be the sweetest puppies ever. A few minutes later, all hell broke loose as the puppy gate was removed and we were tackled by 10-12 little baby boxers. Chris picked out our little girl and we named her Samus. I fell so deeply in love with her within that first hour, I just never expected it. I’ve had animals my whole life but this was our first puppy, and she was perfect.

Well, she was perfect in every way but one . . . she was CRAZY!! Chris and I could barely keep up with her the next few months; she had more energy than both of us combined. We decided that she needed a buddy to keep her company while we were at work, so 4 months later, we got Max. They became best friends immediately, and stayed that way for the last nine years. The only flaw in our plan was that Max was the laziest dog ever and spent more time on the couch with us than playing with her!

Chris and I knew that we would lose them one day . . . but it didn’t stop us from loving them dearly. I am so thankful for the fact that we loved her so much, and because of that, I have few regrets. She was spoiled rotten. Every Christmas and birthday, I would go to goodwill and stock up with bags of stuffed animals. We would give them to her all at once and and watch her roll around on the floor in bliss. Max couldn't care less about the toys; they were all for her. Her favorite had to have been the frisbee.

Losing her was one of the hardest things I have ever gone through. For me, it rated on the same level as losing my brother 12 years ago. I knew it would be difficult, but I don’t think I was quite prepared for the amount of grief I would feel. I realized through all of this just how much you can learn about life from a dog. She taught me about joy, love, and losing. Losing her made me look at life through a different lens and I am trying to hold on to that and not go back to the way I was before. I was able to look back at things that had happened the last week, month, year, and see that things happened for a reason and everything worked out like it was supposed to, even though it wasn’t what I wanted. Even looking back at when we got her, I didn’t want a boxer, but God put one in my life anyway. Looking back, she was exactly what I wanted and what I needed in my life, I just didn’t know it. I am so glad that somehow I was chosen to be her mama.

Losing her also reminded me of the fact that no one is promised another day, not you, not me . . . not anyone. I learned that I need to accept things the way they are and concentrate on the joy in my life, not the bad things. And I learned that I need to appreciate my friends and family a little bit more every day because it might be the last chance I get to tell them how I feel. We never thought that on Easter Sunday, when we spent the afternoon in our favorite park, lying in the sun, that 24 hours later, she would be gone forever. I loved her so much, and I still do, and I am so sad she is gone.

I’ll end with this, an excerpt from a poem by Danna Faulds that I am trying to take to heart:

“Do not let the day slip through your fingers, but live it fully now, this breath, this moment, catapulting you into full awareness. Time is precious, minutes disappearing like water into sand, unless you choose to pay attention. Since you do not know the number of your days, treat each as if it is your last. Be that compassionate with yourself, that open and loving to others, that determined to give what is yours to give and to let in the energy and wonder of this world. Experience everything, writing, relating, eating, doing all the little necessary tasks of life as if for the first time…pushing nothing aside as unimportant. You have received these same reminders many times before, this time, take them into your soul. For if you choose to live this way, you will be rich beyond measure, grateful beyond words, and the day of your death will arrive with no regrets.”

I miss you Samus.

Looking Forward: So Little Time

I can remember a time in my life when boredom was a bad thing. In fact, I can very clearly remember referring to my dog-eared copy of a book called "101 Things To Do When You're Bored," a pre-summer vacation gift from my third grade teacher. Draw a sidewalk town with chalk, it suggested. Build a go-cart. Host a pet party with your pals. (I actually went through with that last one, much to the dismay of my parents.) Boredom occurred fairly frequently in my life as an eight year old,  but like they say, it encouraged great outbursts of creativity. I spent my free time drawing, writing stories, playing "avocado tree tag," a game invented by the children who lived across the street. I climbed trees. Played in the dirt. Jumped rope. Did all the things you're supposed to do when you're a kid. It occurred to me recently that nowadays, it's a rarity and a luxury to be bored. My freelance schedule is such that I seldom have a moment when there's not something I could be doing. Last Friday night, when a group of my friends came over for dinner and a movie at my apartment, I typed away on my laptop through the entirety of "Saturday Night Fever." In the morning, I woke up early for a work call. After dinner in the city that night, I came home to write an article due the following day.

To be clear, I'm all too aware that I should not be complaining about having work to do. I am incredibly lucky to be busy. Two years ago, when I hadn't yet fully committed to pursuing a freelance career, I would have given anything to have work. But being in charge of my own schedule is a huge responsibility, and managing my time effectively is something I'm still getting the hang of. A night owl by nature, my ideal schedule would involve working between the hours of 8 PM and 3 AM; during the day, I'd run personal errands. However, if I'm ever going to see my friends---most of whom work in offices---writing at night won't make sense. Juggling work, play, and alone time, it turns out, is a quite a feat.

Sometimes I wonder whether things might be easier if I had a 9-5. I'm sure that in some ways, it would be. But that's just not the path I'm on at the moment. So while I often wish I had more free time---time to go out at night, watch a movie without having to work through it, go to dinner without having to rush home afterward (you know, things you're supposed to do when you're twenty-something)---I'm content to assume that one day in the not-too-distant future, I will. This period of my life---exhausting as it sometimes is---is just paying my dues. And that's something you're supposed to do when you're a twenty-something, too.

Subway Rider

When I moved back to New York last summer, I had just finished graduate school and had taken a job before I had even gotten my diploma. The job was on a farm. The farm was not in the city. And so. I had to figure out how to get there. Going by train was terribly beautiful. To get to where the farm is, the hulking MetroNorth hurtles along the Hudson River and on foggy days and blue-sky days alike, the ride is exquisite. Getting to soak in all of the early morning beauty came at a price, though. After spending an afternoon with a calculator, I realized it made better financial sense to drive. My fiance already owned a car that he’d allow me to usurp and since we’d just moved to Brooklyn wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, parking on the street and commuting fifty-minutes twice a day seemed totally doable. The ride was never that short. On one particularly unfortunate June night, it took me 3.5 hours to reach lower Manhattan.  By that point I was already late for dinner and so I parked my car on Varick Street and, still dressed in farm gear, ran the remaining four blocks to the restaurant where I was meeting friends. In this city, sometimes feet are faster than wheels. Eventually I started carpooling with friends and the drudgery of the commute became more tolerable. There was company and friends to share the burden---both psychic and financial---of the cost we'd all been paying separately at the gas pump. The honeymoon didn't last long. The novelty of the farm and the carpool soon wore off and although the reasons for deciding to go freelance were many, excising the drive from my daily schedule continues to be one of the most liberating things I've done in a long while.

Now that I’m mostly a city-girl, the subway is my typical mode of transport.  If the distance is short enough I still prefer a good walk to going underground, and when I’m feeling brave, I strap on my helmet and bicycle my way around,  but always, a trip on the subway gives me refreshing taste of freedom. I know that for some people, the opposite is true. For these folks, the subway and its close quarters and erratic schedule feels decidedly less free than simply hopping in a car and going where your heart desires. But the truth is, this isn’t the country. There aren't dusty roads with endless open miles. When I ride the subway I feel free because I don't need to fill a tank with gas and I can take comfort knowing that even though considerable amounts of fossil fuels are gulped to keep those trains running, they’re transporting more than five million other riders each day, too. When we talk about making an impact on the environment, most of us know it's our big-time habits that need to change. This doesn't mean I'm ready to start guzzling coffee from plastic cups just because it's not really the little things that matter, but it does mean that making a decision to limit my use of a car feels important. It’s a big thing.

A Summer Indulgence

By Marni Zarr Beginning with summer trips to the library, books have always been a best friend and a place of discovery---stacks of them brought home, the heat simmering and enhancing their musty familiar smell. Since childhood I connected this as summer’s signature scent. Even now as an adult, entering a library triggers memories of my dad taking my sister and me downtown to check out as many books as our library tote could carry. Sometimes it was so overweight we ended up dragging it down the sun scorched sidewalk until dad would pick it up, on his face a knowing smile of “I told you so.”

Only 5 miles from our house, the city library seemed hours away. Childhood memories are like that, everything stretched out like silly putty: rooms enlarged as if viewing them through a magnifying glass, situations enhanced to the millionth. I still remember the day I turned six. The required afternoon nap seemed to stretch into my next year of life.  A special occasion, nap time was spent in a royal way on my parent’s king-sized bed, the clock on their dresser ticking sluggishly while my heart pounded in double time, the excitement almost unbearable.

I felt that same excitement when entrenched in a good story. Once I'd devoured all of the “Little House on the Prairie” books---the series unwrapped itself in annual birthday gifts from my grandparents---mystery became my favorite genre. I ate up Nancy Drew in a day like a delicious dessert that demands to be finished. I remember lying on my bed, ceiling fan spinning above me, the flouncy bo-peepish butter yellow bedspread below me, my shag haircut propped up on a stack of pillows, and a big flip of dark brown curl in the back, my mind eating up the words.

One blistery day when my sister and I were elementary age, one of our favorite babysitters gave us a box of hand me downs, including a long wig, thick with blonde hair, that became the prop du jour. She and I fought over who would wear and who would style. Earlobes still unpierced, paper clips became hippie hoops or gypsy rings. With celebrities like Cher to emulate, we rocked and flicked that thick bushy blonde like no one’s business. With scarves tied around our heads and waist and 45’s and 78’s on the blue and white cased record player in my sister’s room, we danced the day away using our imaginations, at times sneaking our mom’s high heeled shoes and flashy accessories to switch it up to strutting runway star on the 70’s avocado green carpeting. I remember wearing the wig in a ponytail and paper clip earrings to Thrifty for an ice cream cone. I didn’t notice one hand-forged circle had fallen off until I got back in my dad’s truck and saw it lying on the floor. Unbeknownst to me, that one missing detail had transformed me from strutting model to swaggering pirate. I’m glad my parents were okay with things like that.

But there were many things they were not okay with. Books were a way to escape the rigidness that I felt kept me isolated and separate from the rest of my peers. My first glimpse of sex was found on a tubular spinning wire book rack dressed in paperbacks in my junior high school library. The covers were faded and edges slightly tattered, worn by groping teen-age fingers trying to find the juicy tidbits before the bell rang. I remember one book titled “Sunshine” or maybe that was the name of the main character; either way it was a welcome discovery.  She was a teenager and so was he and they made a baby.  While reading the innocent outwardly descriptive words I could feel the warm rays reaching deep down to the base of my belly---the feeling like tiny stars dancing inside me. I instinctively knew my parents wouldn't approve, which made the words taste that much better.

Original photo of the Biblioteca Pública de Pelotas in Brasil by Eugenio Hansen

What Are You Reading (Offline, that is)?

We love to hear what our friends are reading when they step away from the computer. Drop us a line and let us know what’s blowing your mind. Amanda Page, Bold Types I’m moving, and just recently put all my books in boxes.  From my bedside table, I removed a short stack that I’d pulled to give me comfort through a fairly stressful time.

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli On a whim, I asked the Twitterverse to send me reading recommendations.  I think I asked for “fiction that would change my game” or something like that.  One person responded, and this is what they suggested. I couldn’t shake this one for days.  There’s a sequel that I can’t bring myself to read because this one made such an impression.  It changed my game.  It broke my heart.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote Holly Golightly is an old friend.  This is the book I wish I’d written.  I found it in a used bookstore just a month or two before I left for graduate school.  I’d seen the film and wasn’t crazy about it, but something about the small, pale turquoise paperback with the bright yellow stars spoke to me.  I read it in just a couple of hours.  And then I read it again.  I read it sometimes to remind myself of the type of book I aspire to write.

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro I saw the movie first.  Then, when asked to teach a novel in a freshman course, this immediately came to mind.  There are just so many layers!  I find the narration so interesting.  Plus, I’m fascinated by the author’s choice to use that particular character as the one who tells the story.  It was on my table because I recently met a man on a plane, a professor, and we talked about this book.  He didn’t like it.  I didn’t understand how anyone couldn’t like it.  When I got home, I pulled it from my shelf and started sifting through it slowly.  It still grips me.  Haunts me.  Maybe some people don’t like to be haunted.

Marni Zarr, Dream Day Musings Daily . . . Journey to the Heart by Melody Beattie Daily mediations that keep me moving forward and provide encouragement when I'm feeling stuck. Reading this book has taught me that pauses are as necessary to the journey as movement. I jot dated notes in the margins when something really speaks to the way I'm feeling at that time. It's interesting to read what I penciled in two years ago and compare it to now. I can see how my thoughts about the events in my life are gradually changing. I'm on my third read through after receiving this book from a dear friend three years ago this past May for my birthday. I love that it's showing its well loved wear with tattered edges and turned down corners.

Midway through . . . The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay My mom loaned this to me after she finished reading it for her book club. It's a story about a boy's journey through some humorous---while at the same time harsh---moments, beginning in the late 1930's growing up in South Africa. I love that the book begins in a young child's voice that brings me to both laughter and tears in it's innocence. A robust tale of how he is influenced through the lessons and words from the adults he meets through his multifarious experiences growing up. He has a quiet, sweet maturity about him that attracts their wisdom and protection. Even if only together for a day, they leave him with potent advice that stays with him for a lifetime. I am enjoying the colorful characters in the story as well as the historical material about life in South Africa as the story unfolds.

Recommended . . . The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman Each of the characters separate lives is intertwined into a cleverly layered story of their overlapping experiences and relationships while working for an English language newspaper in Rome. I loved how the author weaves the emotions and actions of one into all. A great read for the beach. Each chapter is a short story in itself.

Savala Nolan, Detroit Shimmy Cleopatra  by Stacy Schiff A writer taking on Cleopatra is like an actor taking on Jack Kennedy: what can she do that feels real when her audience is drunk on mythology?  I went into this book with neutral expectations, thinking a gifted scholar and an impossible subject would yield a decent book.  But it blew me away.  Schiff’s writing is lean, elegant, and sumptuous, like a ballet.  It ferries you across a familiar story in fresh and vivid vignettes, loaded with juicy tidbits about life in that ancient era, from statecraft to bloodlines to royal feasts to poisons. She acknowledges how much we can’t know about Cleopatra, yet her speculations ring true (maybe because she herself is woman).  And, of course, there’s plenty of lust and love, with Caesar and Mark Antony keeping wind in the sails.

The Good Soldiers  by David Finkel I read a lot about war and military history, and this is one of my favorite books in that genre.  A journalist follows soldiers on a fifteen month tour of Iraq during “the surge.”  The story is bracing, and detailed: the soda soldiers drank, the music playing, the fruit trees in yards of houses they searched, the deaths, the stomach aches, the letters to and from home. Finkel tells it with heart and a mirror’s clarity.  He has a genius for creating intimacy.  In fact, he disappears; you don’t feel you’re reading a reporter’s chronicle.  You feel you’re in your living room with the soldiers, and they are telling you what happened, and you understand.

Gun, with Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem This is a mystery, both futuristic and noir.  It’s years from now on the California coast, and though the cities and ocean are the same, life is not.  Questions are forbidden,  everyone’s hooked on mega-pharmaceuticals, and animals are “evolved,” living, working, and making very-new-school families with people.  There’s murder, sex, and drugs.  Lethem’s protagonist is an acerbic and sly detective.  He’s defunct in some ways, but he’s got a big aching heart and an appetite for life that the future doesn’t abide.  This book is brilliant because its beautifully written and feels unnervingly prescient:  Lethem’s bizarre world is so real, and our real world is so bizarre, that his future seems, at times, only a few status updates away.

Blonde  by Joyce Carol Oates Arthur Schlesinger, Special Assistant in the Kennedy White House, described meeting Marilyn Monroe:  When he said something that pleased her, it created “a warm and spontaneous burst of affection---but then she receded into her own glittering mist.”  Glittering mist!  I love that image; she does seem to’ve been profoundly inviting and yet totally obscured, as if the dress in which she sang the President “Happy Birthday” dissolved and lingered around her body.  Oates’s novel---a sort of imagined Monroe autobiography---captures the glittering mist perfectly.  The sparkle-covered-cotton-candy element of Monroe endures.  You can’t take your eye off the page, just like you can’t take your eyes off her.  But the mist is there, too.  Monroe remains, as she must, in your peripheral vision, even as you read her story in her own (imagined) voice.  It’s a magical read.

Love I Came Looking For

By H. Savala NolanPhotograph by Leigh Anna Thompson

I expected to come back to New York and look beautiful.  Show off tan legs late at night in a white dress and red heels.  I expected to cook dinner at his house, get tipsy with red wine, and make out on his couch.  I expected to feel like I felt at the beginning, when I got my first look at the city.  Riding a train from Rhode Island that August evening, I looked up from my book, and there was Manhattan, silver stilettos of skyline, regal in thick orange sunlight.  It was fascinating, an intricate Cubist brooch on the breast of the earth.  It sent out shock waves---this metropolis squeezed into place by the corseting rivers, and I felt as if my body had just been plugged into a sun.  That first weekend, I stayed with a friend on Park and 91st, and I'll never forget: tiny-aisled, overflowing grocery stores with moms and pops at the register, my first taste of the ubiquitous ginger-carrot salad dressing, Bow Bridge, Tasty Dlite frozen yogurt, the eerie insulation of Upper East Side apartments, the motionless heat of subway stations, doormen, Prince Street, the Astor Place cube and Around the Clock french toast, Midtown magazine workers with tap-tap heels, the clip and cadence of New Yorkers conversing, the swirling backseat universe of taxi cabs at drunken three AMs.  I knew I had to live in New York, and for seven years, I did.

At the end of those seven years, I graduated from college and flew home to California.  I thought it would be a six week visit, and I'd return for my new job as a public school teacher.  But I didn't want the job.  I wasn't ready.  So I stayed in California, and offered my coordinator in New York a cursory explanation about changed life circumstances.  That November, unable to stand being gone from my beloved city, I bought a last-minute ticket and flew east for a weekend.

I expected not to spend any money.  Fifteen dollars a day, I told myself.  Have will power!  Think what Soho is actually like before you decide to shop. Eat Zone bars for breakfast and pizza for lunch.  Don't buy foreign magazines and dream of a chic life just because, in this city, it seems plausible.  Don't get wine or bottled water.  Embrace  lowbrow: drink coffee from street kiosks with Parthenon cups. Take the subway.  Take the bus. Take the shuttle to the airport.  Don't buy cigarettes---they're cheaper in California and you barely smoke anyway.  Ignore your chipped nail polish.  Don't get your hair blown out.  Don't buy a week of Bikram classes because you're worried about getting fat.  Go hungry.  Let your feet ache. Remember your rent, gym membership, cell phone, health insurance, medications, credit cards, student loans, car insurance, the price of gasoline, groceries, and the fact that you took off work to pull off this trip.

Make the most of this weekend!  See everyone.  Everyone. This is a pleasure trip, but you are here on business---the business of finding a way back.  See the friend who you haven't seen since she returned from London, see the one you had the fight with, see the guy who owes you a favor, your roommates from Italy, your old boss, your old professor and get a signed copy of his new book.  Network.  Remind them that you exist even if you crossed the river.  Swing by the old office and chat up the editors, get to the Guggenheim, email that moron at MTV and invite her out for coffee.  Pay.  Insist.  Congratulate her on the engagement, the apartment. Tell her she looks wonderful.  How shiny her hair is.  Let her be the heyday Carrie Bradshaw we all wanted to be.

That weekend, I expected a definite answer from myself because I was confused: I gave up New York, a real job, and my friends to do what---drink overpriced Whole Foods vegetable juice and sunbathe to skin cancer?  Live with my mom? Surf Craigslist?

I have a new job now that I don't mind---a small creative business, decent pay.  But, as I told a friend that weekend over amber pints in the Village, I don't want to become a brick in the wall, and my boss can probably sense that I have one foot out the door.  My former New York Life is stuck in my mind like a song.  Even in the green, clean, serenity of my Bay Area enclave, I observe all things California with disdain and keep Manhattan in my mind's eye. Sometimes I intentionally say, "Are you waiting on line?" to remind myself that I haven't gotten used to being away.  When people wave clipboards at me and ask for my signature, I tell them, "I don't live here," and I mean it.  I haven't registered to vote, I haven't made any friends.  And when I'm on the freeway, I pretend I'm driving out of town for a beach house weekend, Atlantic ocean and hydrangea bushes, brown nannies and white babies, naked feet in loafers and fresh cinnamon donuts in East Hampton---only this time, I'm not sitting in the backseat of a Yukon, charged with three kids and counting the minutes until the paycheck.

But where am I actually going?  What city? What life?  I am clueless.  I see signs but can't read them.  I expected the long Manhattan weekend to make it clear—I belong here—to make me fall in love, like I did every night I rode home in a taxi, watching the city lights beyond the window glass, or looking at Chagall and chandeliers past the champagney Lincoln Center fountain.  Like I did those first, verdant, Central Park days of spring, or after exchanging some unexpected kindness with a stranger who was also a New Yorker.   After a New Yorker Smile, where one city dweller makes quick eye contact with another and they take turns exchanging eyes-looking-away smiles.  But I don't feel in love; I feel lost.  Starved, restless, unheard—and I don't know if place will fix that.  I'm an artist, I get to create something from nothing---but so what?

I do know that I'm waiting, actively waiting for an arrival, a renaissance---I'm not sure what to call it.  But I'm ready. Sometimes I could scream I'm so anxious for it to get here.  I'm underground in a tunnel, alone on a platform, and it will come to me, barreling forward, a train with no passengers, its headlights at first just a flicker through the dark, its weight a shudder on the tracks that sends the rats fleeing.  Then its sound will rush up and deafen me---all my blessed futures collide---and its wind will blow, tossing up the dormant riches that have been gathering dust on the floor of me.  I'll jump off the platform and grab hold of the metal snake as it bullets forward.  My old skin will open.  I'll have something to make, and I will make it.  That is the love I came looking for.

Thank You, Kindly

“Beautiful . . . enthralled . . . raving . . . wonderful . . . stunning . . . brilliant . . . gorgeous.” Last week I opened my email early Monday morning and found not one, but TWO lovely notes from a satisfied bride.  Just that Saturday, we had done her wedding florals and she apparently wrote the first “thank you” the very next day.  Then, after becoming concerned that the initial note may have gone to my junk mail, she wrote yet another, similarly warm letter.  She wanted to make absolutely sure I had been properly thanked.  This happens much less frequently than you might think.  I proudly pictured her making certain to fire off these emails before jetting to her post-wedding brunch.  In my elaborate fantasy, her new husband was calling out, “Janie, let’s get going, we are going to be late!” and she replied with, “Just give me one more minute, I simply MUST let Sarah know how fabulous she is!”

I found myself turning this bride’s sweet words over and over in my mind and it energized my work for the remainder of the week.  ‘This is why I do this,’ I thought.  I tried to access that sense of fulfillment during several decidedly lower moments during the work-week and even in one instance of standing over the changing table, with a fresh bathrobe suddenly soaked in poop.  Ironically, her wedding was only a small, intimate affair, for which we did just a few precious arrangements and yet it was one of the more immediate and glowing responses we have received to date.  The power of her generosity and this kind of communiqué cannot be underestimated.

Growing up, my parents were not terribly formal about much of anything and bucked societal convention in ways that were often spectacular, at times mortifying.  But, when I received a gift from a friend or relative, my mother would place a note card, envelope, and ink pen (she abhors a ball point) in front of me on the dining room table with the expectation that I write a personal “thank you.”  Just before my Grandmother passed, we were organizing some of her papers and found a prime example from my “thank you” canon.  I must have been about six years old and I was demonstrating my gratitude for a Chanukah gift.  In quaky script, I had seemingly offered a stream of consciousness communication that included the sentence, “OK, I have to go now, my stomach hurts.”  So, clearly, I hadn’t yet understood the precise etiquette involved in such a letter but I promise there was a solid “thank you” earlier on the page.  I imagined my Grandmother having a chuckle at my wording but perhaps being filled with the same tender feelings I experienced upon receiving this bride’s emails.

Throughout my adult life, I have endeavored to acknowledge the people around me with verbal and/or written “thank yous” whenever possible.  I have done this for gifts and deeds, alike.  Even though we operate almost exclusively in an internet age, I have traditionally resisted writing electronic thank yous and have instead opted for a carefully chosen, hand-written card.  I labored over my wedding thank you notes to the extent that they were sent out in (somewhat belated) spotty waves.  It always feels important that I write something personal and capture my genuine response to each treasured item.  Although many people find writing thank yous daunting, I generally relish the meditative process.

I am ashamed to admit that for the first time in my life, I dropped the ball on thank yous when our baby was born.  The bounty bestowed on us from friends and family has been truly overwhelming and continuous.  For a while there, even massively pregnant, I managed to stay on track with diligently recording each gift and responding in kind.  I wrote notes and letters and made phone calls.  This went beyond my being compulsive (although there was certainly some of that), this was me authentically intending to return the kindness and make our appreciation evident.  Toward the end, things went a little haywire with finishing my wedding season, entering into the Holidays, and preparing for a new life and I failed to record some things that came in the mail.  The slippage escalated and compounded when I lost one of my master spreadsheets matching names and gifts.  Ultimately, I gave up altogether and became convinced that slighted friends and family all over the country were preparing to weed us out of their lives.  At one point, I recalled that a close friend who recently had TWINS had been prompt with her thank yous and I sank even lower.  No excuse, Sarah.  No excuse.  If anyone still waiting on a thank you is reading this piece . . . thank you?

Perhaps the most significant thank yous, in my view, are the daily acknowledgements in relationships.  I try assiduously to thank my husband for something, anything at least once a day.  If he says something kind, puts away the clean dishes, walks the dog, anticipates my food craving . . . I make an effort to tell him I feel lucky to be with him.  He invariably says something like “I live here, too,” or “You don’t have to thank me for that.”  Sometimes he uses it as an opportunity for bombast and mild teasing, “WHAT KIND OF HUSBAND WOULD I BE IF I DIDN’T . . .”  But, I know it gives him a boost and lends value to the small tasks that frankly make up the majority of a life together.

My sister once told me that the secret to a happy marriage is “choosing someone you can eat dinner with every single night for the rest of your life.”  At the time, I thought that was absurdly unromantic.  Now I understand that it speaks to not only compatibility, but a capacity to do the mundane together and be grateful to be slogging through with the person sitting across from you.  I want my husband to hear about that gratitude as much as I am able to proffer it.

My recent experience with this gracious bride reminds me to be voluminous with praise and recognition.  There are countless people who do not just do enormously nice things for me all the time, but provide a series of tiny kindnesses that get me through the week.  The ripple effect of a hand wave when someone lets you into her lane on the FDR to a beautifully crafted missive on letterpress for a huge favor from a friend is undeniable.  This is hokey, fine.  But, a well-timed and well-executed demonstration of gratitude is totally free and can shore up even the most jaded among us.  I don’t always recycle appropriately (I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW A MILK CARTON IS A PLASTIC) but I can take a brief moment to thank the guy for toasting my bagel to perfection.

Rebellious Eating: Today’s food movements seen through childhood memory

By Shani Gilchrist I always smell a horse when I eat a peach. I close my eyes while chewing and am suddenly enveloped in warm, humid air, the musty mammalian fumes from the hot animal’s coat and the greenness that wafted up from the black dirt. My best summer days were spent on my family’s horse farm in the country.  I would sit atop my favorite horse and meander through the grounds, often reaching just above my head to snag a peach when we would pass beneath a tree.

When I was a teenager we had to sell the farm, as it was a large operation and too far from the hospital where my father took call on nights and weekends.  There were no major highways that led from the tiny stoplight-less town where we lived to the hospital in the tiny city where he worked. There were too many nights of pulling through the gates to find that he had to immediately wind the car 35 minutes back to admitting. Then, after finally getting back home at two or three in the morning he would have to get up, check in with the trainer and the grooms, then drive back to his office next to the hospital once again. Something had to give, and since no one of sane mind raises horses for profit, the farm had to be sacrificed.

At a certain time in South Carolina, where an average of 60,000 tons of peaches are grown every year, it is impossible to avoid the smells and lures of the juicy peach. During that time I am often transported back to the sloping grass that was home to most of our fruit trees. By the end of the summer I’ve been known to throw my children into the car and start heading out to the country, toward the direction of the old farm. The only cure for the melancholy that the flavors evoke is a trip to my old stomping grounds and a stop in front of the now dilapidated barn to dream of what the land could be if it were mine. I probably look ridiculous sitting in my big SUV in the driveway of a property whose current owners, I am told, are likely to come out with hunting rifles if they were to see me. Thankfully no one can see the silly look of nostalgia on my face, as if every time we sat around the kitchen table there was a full farm meal, complete with fruits from our orchards and milk that I had gotten from an imaginary goat that lived outside my bedroom window.  The truth is that our dinners often consisted of frozen lasagna, spaghetti with sauce that was doctored from a jar, or barbeque from up the road. There were many evenings when I scowled ungratefully at the food on my plate and wished for “real food.”

Right now there are tomatoes fattening on hairy green stems in terra cotta pots in my backyard. They are out there for two reasons. One is that I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t kill them before we embark on planting a larger vegetable garden. The other reason is that one day, as my 5-year-old son scrambled his unruly limbs into his booster seat at school pickup, he declared that he wanted to grow tomatoes. This was one of those moments where my child’s words almost caused my forehead to violently meet the top of my steering wheel. My oldest child—the skinny kid with the infectious smile and cherubic curls—does not eat anything. And by anything, I mean he does not eat any food that one would consider for true sustenance.  Somehow we have kept him alive on a diet of strawberries, pepperoni pizza, pancakes, and a variety of cheeses. Needless to say, I was overjoyed to hear his sudden declaration that he wanted to grow vegetables of any kind.

The other day we picked our first tomatoes of the season. They were beautiful. And they are still sitting on the kitchen windowsill. My son recoils in incredulous horror every time I suggest that he taste one of “his” tomatoes that he diligently waters each afternoon. I had harbored visions of him being enthralled by the plants that he had nurtured into food for the table. It would be another step toward achieving the sustainable household that I’ve been trying to build. We will grow our own food. We recycle. I make my own counter sprays. We use cloth napkins. Then, a thought occurred to me as his top lip curled as I waved the sweet cherry tomatoes at him this afternoon.

 What if he spends the next thirteen years pushing back?

A friend of mine recently told me about her own childhood growing up on a farm. She was surrounded by everything she needed to feed and clothe herself, but all she wanted to do was go to Pizza Hut. The food on her table actually did come from her cows, goats, chickens and orchards, but it was the last thing that she wanted to eat. I listened to her story and thought about how much the teenage version of myself despised my days of drinking Diet Pepsi and eating whatever artificially-sweetened version of spaghetti sauce my mother had thrown together for dinner at the last minute. Now here I am, wanting every bit of food that sits on my table to be local, organic and at least seventy-five percent homemade.

My food memories don’t usually include the way I longed for dishes that didn’t taste like a garlicky Christmas elf had made it. My mother gave us the gift of insisting that we all sit around the table together each night to talk over our day, but “master chef” was far from being on her resume. My food memories are instead made up of the days that I felt self-important because I was eating a peach right off of a tree, with no packets of SweetN’Low anywhere near me. It was real, but most importantly it was different from the way my parents presented food to their children.

Is our current and beloved farm-to-table movement a similar reaction? It certainly has its perks… no one can really fight the sustainability argument… but now that the movement is heading down the path towards mainstream I have to wonder if our generation, like so many before us, isn’t sticking it to our parents for the quick-and-easy food approach of the 1970s and 1980s that is now being blamed for everything from obesity to cancer. Are our teenagers going to look at us like we are the ultimate dorks for spending so much time on things that could have been thrown into the microwave in another version? Most likely, yes. And their children will be horrified by their parents’ food hastiness.

Our most distinct memories are tied to our senses no matter what the quality of the thing we are experiencing. What remains poignant is that which is outside the realm of the everyday, and as humans, we naturally seek out experiences--large or small--that take us outside of our comfort zones. Everyone wants what they can’t have, and we don’t even notice this when it comes to food anymore because it comes in the form of righteous “movements”.  The farm-to-table movement is out to save the American small-farming industry and reintroduce the population to foods that don’t have as much potential to cause harm to our bodies. These are causes that are important and need to be championed. But the viral spread of such a movement has more to do with acting on our childhood statements of “When I have my own family, I’m going to do things differently,” as we stomped out of our dining rooms in our untied shoes. Our childhood rebellions will always stay with us, which is why at some point every summer I end up standing in front of a fading barn, looking at it as if it is the Taj Mahal, thinking of horses and tasting peaches.

[Original peaches photo by CaptPiper on Flickr]

Urban Foraging

I wish I could say that I forage with wild abandon all over Brooklyn. I wish I scouted mulberry trees and returned as they began to fruit, that I rooted around for burdock in city parks and dug up sidewalk purslane and dandelion greens. Truth is, I’m something of a serial rule-abider and foraging in the city makes me nervous. In the country, there’s more of a sense of communal ownership. At the very least, you can usually find a field and wooded path where nobody’s there to watch as you fill a basket or two. Growing up, my mom would pick my sisters and I up from soccer practice and pull our lumbering minivan off the side of road to pull down a bramble of bittersweet for the front door. She’d spot a cluster of black-eyed susans during a walk by the beach, and we’d have a vase full of them at home. Once, she enlisted me and all three of my sisters to dig up an entire forest floor of daffodils in order to save them from their impending death by backhoe. You’d think that all of this wanton disregard for personal property would have instilled in me a similar streak. In some measure at least, it seems to have done the opposite. I get nervous about breaking rules. In the city, the side of road usually means someone’s yard. Trees have fences around them, for goodness sake. Foraging in city parks is frowned upon by park officials and last week when the juneberries were at their peak in Brooklyn Bridge Park, all I could muster was to pop a few ripe ones into my mouth. When I saw a young couple filling containers to take home, I felt a pang of jealousy, but found no more courageous reserves to harvest a pie's worth myself.

Besides my mild case of  rule-abiding, there’s also the pollution factor. I worry thinking about the kinds of things city plants are supping on. If the filmy dust on my window sill is any indication, there’s a lot of stuff floating around in the air around here, and not all of it can be good. Brooklyn Bridge Park is managed organically, but the same can’t be said for the 1700 parks managed by the City Parks Department. [gallery link="file" exclude="2086"]

Sometimes though, even a scaredy cat needs to face her fears. This weekend, I enlisted the help of my fiancé James to do some old fashioned foraging. If you live in New York, you might know that it’s linden flower season. Take a stroll down many of the city’s sidewalks and you’ll stumble upon the intoxicatingly floral scent of just-blossomed linden. It’s heady stuff. Dried, linden leaves and flowers make one of my favorite tisanes. It reminds me of lazy evenings spent in the south of France. After dinner and cheese and a glass or three of wine, we’d sip linden flower tea and ease even more gracefully into the evening. James and I plucked a whole bagful of the new spring leaves---flowers still attached---and I strung them up to dry in our apartment. Another batch is steeping, destined for syrup.

There’s yet to be a Brooklyn-berry pie baked at our house, but I think I just got a step closer. What about you? Any courageous foragers out there?

Why I Didn't Breastfeed

When I found out I was pregnant, I had just turned twenty-two. I had moved down to Florida after graduating college in Chicago and started dating my now husband. We hit it off right away and went on this amazing two-week long vacation down the East Coast. We spent hours in the car talking, finding out every facet of the other’s life---all of our wants and dreams, hopes and fears. After the trip, we were pretty sure we would get married. After six weeks, SIX weeks. That was before I even knew I was pregnant. At our wedding, my husband’s friend James gave a toast. He talked about how just a year earlier, when five of the engineers, including he and my husband, were cramped in a too-small office under lots of stress, they played “Would you ever”? The question was: Would you ever marry someone after only six weeks? The oldest employee (who had been married already for over twenty years) said he would, and he did. He and his wife were married after only a few weeks. Every other person said, No way, that’s crazy! And then the question came around to my husband. “Yes, when you know, you know.”

And then, a few weeks later, amidst throwing up daily several times a day and watching bad television, unemployed lying on the couch, reality hit me: OH SHIT, I AM HAVING A BABY. I didn’t know how to escape, didn’t know if I wanted to escape. If there’s something my generation is defined by, it’s this attitude of feeling lost without a purpose. Before getting pregnant, I was just floating along. I’d quit my job and moved in with my parents. I was considering graduate schools, and thinking about moving to the west coast. I thought in some naïve way, that this baby would give me a purpose. I would wake up everyday thrilled to take care of this little human being, pack lunches, and dry tears. I would have a job, and it would be mother.

Except you are pregnant for nine (practically ten months) and during that time I didn’t have a job. I was depressed and spent most days in bed looking at blogs online and shopping. My body turned on me. After weeks of throwing up and being sicker than I had ever been, the weight just started to pile on. 5, 10, 15 pounds, all the way up to 50 plus pounds as the due date neared. The truth is I stopped looking at the scale towards the end. The first time the nurse weighed me above 150, clunk . . . clunk went that second weight, I started to cry. Never in my life had I had the two clunks. Boom, boom went my old life. By the time Charley came, I had gone from a size 4 to a size 14.

Even though I only threw up in the first trimester, the entire pregnancy I felt sick. I had heartburn, my body hurt all over, and I couldn’t sleep. The only things I wanted to eat were sugar and carbs (hence the weight gain). I couldn’t even look at a vegetable without feeling something rise in the back of my throat. I was miserable and I wanted my body back. I wanted to have sex with my husband, without this giant belly. I wanted the old me back. The labor took hours and hours; I had an epidural and then Pitocin, then the epidural wore off and the Pitocin increased. It was terrible. But even still, immediately after giving birth, shivering under warmed blankets and tea from the missing heat in my body, I felt better than I had the whole pregnancy. It was amazing how quickly it took for me to stop feeling sick. As soon as he came out, the apple juice tasted fantastic, the air felt cooler, I was comfortable; I could have run a marathon. Then they handed me this squirming tiny alien, his eyes closed, and I tried to breastfeed. And PAIN, PAIN, PAIN, he was tearing apart my nipples! Just as I had started to feel better and like myself, he’d attached to me like a clamp. The nurses didn’t know why he wouldn’t latch properly. They kept trying to reassure me it shouldn’t hurt and I’m telling them, through my tears, it does, it really does. And just like that I gave up.

Psychologically I couldn’t do it. Truthfully, I’m uncomfortable around breastfeeding. I admit it. I’m a woman, and a mother, and breastfeeding makes me embarrassed. Am I just a product of our society’s fascination with breasts as being purely sexual and disgusted with breasts for their biological purpose? I want to feel that it’s natural and amazing, I read blogs where women profess their love for breastfeeding---“I’ll be doing it till he’s five, or in college, it’s so easy!”---and I think, good for them, that sounds wonderful, and then they whip out that boob in front of me, in my living room, and I have to turn my eyes.

Maybe it’s my age. I talked to a breastfeeding friend recently who mentioned how her mother-in-law was a huge breastfeeding advocate, but didn’t breastfeed her first child. My ears perked up. I want to be a breastfeeding advocate, I’m intelligent and educated. I read the studies about how it’s better for everyone: better for the mother, healthier for the child. I hear stories of how women lost ALL of their weight within weeks; it just came right off! (Mine didn’t, still hasn’t, hello permanent size 10). And I wanted to do it, wanted to try it, I really did, but I just . . . couldn’t. My friend said her mother-in-law had her first baby at age twenty-two and didn’t want to breastfeed. She felt like it was her body and she didn’t want to share. She wanted her breasts to remain sexual, not utilitarian. A light bulb went off---that’s me! That’s exactly the psychology of it. After watching my body morph into something it never was, and being so sick and depressed for so long, I wanted my body back. I wanted to own it, be in charge of the weight and my breasts. I wanted to just be me, not just mom.

We are a naked family, and sometimes I’ll take a bath with my son, just for fun; it keeps him entertained. Lately when he sees me naked, he is fascinated with my breasts---wants to touch them, pour water on them---and I think dammit, he’s a male, how did it start so early? Because he wasn’t breastfeed, will he just be obsessed with them as he gets older? Or did it really not matter? And when he reached for my breast, just like he did when he was only a few hours old, a pain shot through me, and I thought, don’t touch me.