Social Distortion

I used to be a person who worked the room at a party, sprinkling laughter around as I moved from conversation to conversation.  People often commented that I relished being social, like talking to people was a vocation for me.  In fact, this is part of the reason I became a therapist — I seemed to have a knack for engaging with people, hearing their stories and reflecting their light.  If you had known me as a teenager or in my 20s, you would never have understood that this persona, this social bravado was something of a mask.  I have always battled with anxiety and a sense of failing to fit in.  I have carried a fear of others judging me harshly, of saying the wrong thing and of being mortified publicly.  I achieved social success in early life with a paradoxic solution and it came to me with relative ease.  Amazingly, people bought it.  I am noticing now in my later 30s, with mounting responsibilities and a collection of profound life events behind me, the person who really just wanted to be home under the covers, the person on unsure social footing has re-emerged.  And yet, when I fumble around for that outgoing mantle, the trusty suit of charm offensive, I can't seem to find it.  Or when I do, it keeps slipping off. When I was a kid, I was described as socially precocious.  I could hold my own at an adult dinner party, and was expected to perform in those situations, at times literally.  Once, a friend's parents actually hired me to sing a medley of show tunes (no joke at all) at their New Year's Eve party in front of 500 guests.  My memories of that evening are storms of emotion that include terror and elation.  Mind you, I was 7 years old, maybe even 6.  In retrospect, I don't have the first clue about how I pulled something like that off.  What reserve of preternatural confidence did I draw upon to make that happen?  The person I am now grapples with chatting up a familiar colleague at a professional networking event.  Who was that little girl and where did she run off to?

In adolescence, I don't have to describe the tempest of feelings, the cauldron of concerns that befell me.  This is implied in the word, "adolescence."  Incongruously, this was the period in which I honed my craft.  By about age 15, I could have taught a master class at the Actor's Studio.  My singular focus in that era was to entertain others and deflect attention from the awkwardness of the pariah I imagined myself to be.  In a hackneyed teen movie archetype, I was the class clown (oh sure, check the yearbook), the person in the corner of the room shouting "LOOK AT ME, I'M DANCING!"  I would do anything for a laugh and would risk any kind of consequences to help a friend.  I fought so fervently against the advancing insecurity that I presented as radically carefree.  My antics as court jester/supporting actress in a leading role once landed me in the Vice Principal's office where he told me without mincing words that my future hung in the balance.  That grim meeting followed an incident in which I was performing an ill-timed, but spot-on impression of our AP Economics teacher just as she walked back in the classroom.  I recall very little of Keynes, but I can still hear her exact words as she pointed to the door, "Sarah, this is my classroom, not yours.  Do not pass go on your way to the office."  Mercifully, that was followed two weeks later by an offer of admission from the college of my choice.

Although in college the social anxiety would keep better pace with me, I redoubled my efforts.  I immediately accrued a boyfriend (during orientation week, didn't even wait for the first day of classes!), surrounded myself with friends and became immersed in activities.  I was a consummate "joiner" in those days - sports teams, singing groups, volunteer organizations and the like - whereas now I can't even bring myself to participate in an essentially anonymous Mommy list serve.  In my sophomore year, exhausted from the chase, I finally succumbed to symptoms I could no longer fend off and landed in therapy.  The next decade or so would find me toggling between a brilliant capacity to shine in the spotlight and struggling to even answer the phone when a friend calls.

In my current life configuration, I have all the usual excuses for why my facility for being social has suffered.  Like everyone on planet earth, I am tired all the time, have way too much on my plate and am just trying to make it through the week.  I am also depleted from many consecutive years of major life changes, some tragedies and some losses.  But I have to ask myself, what is the alternative?  I had an "Aha!" moment last night when my husband wanted to discuss potential plans with friends later in the week.  I was prepared with every justification as to why I wouldn't be able to make it…the baby, chief among them.  My husband had a response to every barrier I constructed (including a babysitter) and capped it off with, "I would like to spend some time out with my wife."  It suddenly occurred to me for the first time that being wrapped up in my own head, folded in on myself has real impact on this person I love.  There was no getting around his matter-of-fact request and I felt a little ashamed that my self-indulgent fears would come at the expense of his social life.  I am not sure what about this interaction tipped the scales, but in an instant, I was confronted with how much I have regressed on this issue in the past few years.  Stopped in my tracks, I agreed to an evening out.  A small thing, to be sure, but an important shift.

I am on the hunt again for that brassy girl of my youth who enjoyed costuming and talent shows.  That girl bucked authority, won debate competitions and was the glue holding her group of friends together.  She left the house for a night out utterly prepared to experience something magical.  And I know I have opportunities to reignite that energy all these years later.  I can approach professional events, teaching floral classes, meeting with clients and vendors with a new zeal.  I can exude competence in that realm and pay special attention to building relationships through my business.  I can employ all the mental gymnastics required to tamp down nerves with friends and acquaintances, which these days mostly involves reminding myself that I am just not that powerful…nobody is noticing the things I think are vulnerabilities.  People are busy with their own lives and just want to connect.  Nobody can take a lifetime of negative self-talk and swirling doubt and transform herself into a reality TV diva.  But somewhere in there I have expertise in "acting as if," which has often lead to me to a steady state of being.  If you see me out on Thursday wearing a fabulous top and a broad grin, be sure to give a wave from across the room.

A well of goodness

As Ray Bradbury would have it (emphasis mine):

"From now on, I hope always to stay alert, to educate myself as best I can. But, lacking this, in the future, I will relaxedly turn back to my secret mind to see what it has observed when I thought I was sitting this one out. We never sit anything out. We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out."

One of the challenges of being a student again is that I am having difficulty carving out creative space. I am learning, I can feel my cup being filled. The tipping moments are challenging. My mind is still processing all the novelty that has been packed into it. So, in the meantime, here is some of the beauty that is filling my cup . . .

Seeing the world through its bookstores and cafes -- arguably my favorite way to wander.

Steve McCurry photographs the concept of home . . .

. . . and the Harvard Business Review discusses moving around without losing your roots.

The Soulshine Traveler explores disorientation, reverse culture shock, and shifting senses of home.

The lovely Legal Nomads has published her Food Traveler's Handbook. Salivating vicariously.

What do you regret not doing in your 20s? I love learning from Quora, and from other people's questions.

I wish I knew about this 5 years ago, and 10 years ago, and at every point in between: Helping Friends Grieve. So lucky to have recently met the woman behind it, who talks about grief, loss and vulnerability with a raw elegance that resonates deeply.

Harvard recently launched edX, an open-source platform that delivers free online courses. Let's learn together.

I want to experience this.

Passionate about mentorship and women's education? Join the Red Thread Foundation for Women. Talk to me about it.

Look for these films online or near you. Heart-breaking, awe-inspiring, moving, disorienting.

From my school pile, the stuff that makes the mind stretch and the heart race:

• Studying the psychological impact of field work in conflict areas on aid workers
• "Why do some combatants leave armed groups and demobilize while others fight on?"
• This one makes me cringe and shudder a little, but it's worth researching. The 2012 Human Security Report asks: Is there really a decline in combatant-perpetrated sexual violence?

Now listening to the Rachael Yamagata station on Pandora . . . and Beirut's Rip Tide album . . . and Cat Power, and Brandi Carlile. Always Brandi.

Thinking of Rumi . . .

"Let yourself be silently drawn

by the strange pull

of what you really love.

It will not lead you astray."

. . . and Neruda, courtesy of darling K, "your memory is made of light."

I am Measuring Life in Photographs . . .

. . . and still weaving Stories of Conflict and Love.

What is making you feel moved these days? Share in the comments!

Not open for business

I'm a 33 year old woman who has no interest in having children. If your first reaction to that statement was something along the lines of, "Oh, just wait, you'll change your mind," or "You never know until you try it, " I beg of you: please keep it to yourself. You're not alone in having that reaction, and I've heard it a thousand times. The thing is, I won't, and I do. And it can make dating awfully interesting.

See, I like children. Hell, there are some children I even love. A lot. Like, stand-in-front-of-an-oncoming-train a lot. And so men are occasionally confused by what they see as conflicting positions. I talk about my friends' kids with love, admiration and excitement (especially when it comes to buying them books), but I'm not at all interested in populating a nursery of my own.

Three years ago, this wasn't an issue. I'd never be asked about my desires for marriage or children on a first, second or even fifth date. But now? Hoo, boy. People want to know what's up with my reproductive system like it's going out of style. Which, I suppose, it is. I can't have more than a few thousand viable eggs left at this point.

Case in point? A couple of weeks ago, I went on a solidly good first date with a guy we'll call John. He talked a bit about having had lots of lackluster relationships in his 20s (he's now 34), and about wanting to change that pattern now. He also talked about how all his cousins are married with kids, and how he feels a bit behind. At first, I was taken aback by all this marriage/baby talk on a first date (a woman bringing this up would, no doubt, be labeled as crazy and desperate as opposed to adorably open and honest), but I found it kind of charming. (I didn't feel the need to bring up my own stance on the first date, but I appreciated the openness.) I talked a little about my friend Miya's daughter, whom I adore, and about how my pregnant cousin Abby was almost to her due date.

On the second date, though? The man was couldn't stop talking about how "far behind" he is and how his life to this point has been a waste---all because he's not married and doesn't have kids. He talked about it a little. And then some more. And, finally, he wrapped up by launching into a speech about how he sleeps so much better when he sleeps next to someone, and let's go to a comedy club (despite my having said, repeatedly and that very evening, that I do not enjoy comedy clubs).

Obviously, this guy is a textbook version of oblivious. I made up a 7:30 AM meeting to get away at the end of the date, then steadfastly stepped away when he tried to kiss me goodnight, and still he acted shocked and led on when I sent him a (very nice) thanks but no thanks email a couple of days later.

And yet, he is a great example of an important point: women are not the only ones with biological clocks. When it comes to feeling subject to the whims of nature and the rules of society, we women are not alone. After all, we can't possibly have been the only ones enforcing the norms all this time.

So, let's make a deal. The next time a woman tells you she doesn't want children, pay her the respect she deserves and take her at her word. And when a man tells you he wants kids, pay attention and assume it's not just a seduction tactic. After all, when you're 33, you don't have time to spend on people who want your babies.

(original photo by velkr0 on flickr)

Freedom from Food

This morning’s bowl of stale corn flakes made me very happy. Lunch was perfect, too: a limp lasagna noodle covered with a thick layer of oily cheese and a lone, soggy artichoke heart. I loved it all because I didn’t have to make it. I didn’t even have to wash the dishes. I haven’t had to think about preparing food for the last 24 hours, and it has been a pleasure unforeseen. My thoughts are usually so congested by obsessing over what to eat, how to eat it, where to buy ingredients, how much money to save or to spend. But waking up this morning and knowing I had no say in what to eat today? It was a gift. This week I find myself at an artists residency program. I say “find myself” because I was invited off the waitlist, whisked away from my normal life and into the resplendent Blue Ridge mountains. Here in the company of poets, painters, and musicians, there is no room for cooking. Literally. We are not allowed into the kitchen. But what lacks in culinary counter space is made up for in the form of a private writing studio with a big desk and view of a rocky, cow-dotted field. There is lots of time, space, and freedom from household chores. But the freedom I am enjoying most? The freedom from food.

It’s not that thinking about what to eat is a problem, not at all. It’s actually one of my favorite topics in conversation, especially with the many adventurous eaters I have for friends.  I love looking at beautiful food photography, too, and I enjoy reading cookbooks front to back for their stories as well as their recipes. The problem is that food and writing about food is the weak link in my chain of focus and concentration when I’m at task on a different creative project. I think it’s because cooking is such a outlet for expression that it does battle with my writing on a regular basis. A weekend afternoon, for example, will be laid out before me, ripe with potential for new words and ideas. Instead of writing, though, I find myself poking around in the grocery store pondering butternut squash soup with garlicky croutons. We have to eat: It’s the most justifiable and enjoyable distraction.

During this writing retreat, however, I’ve come to scrutinize my obsession with thinking about food. My first day here has felt like a week. During this long day so much has happened (when actually so much has not, but that’s a form of “happening” when it comes to the imagination, right?)  This food void and the sense of freedom that came with it reminds me of Barbra Ueland’s book If You Want to Write. I flip to the chapter titled “Why Women Who Do Too Much Housework Should Neglect it for Their Writing” and wonder how many more hours I could spend writing at home instead of planning meals and hunting down recipes?

This is not to say I don’t want to make dinner most weeknights, can tomatoes for a few days at the height of tomato season, or throw an all out dinner party on the occasional weekend. It’s more of a realization that my dinnertime daydreams need to be budgeted. The mental energy saved will be at the expense of fantasies about blueberry coffee cake, pumpkin bread pudding, and homemade pasta. But maybe those dishes might just benefit from this new thought-diet of mine: less time thinking, more time doing.

Same, too, for the writing.

Looking Forward: Traces.

I spent my last year of college living in the front room of a purple and yellow Victorian house not far from downtown Santa Cruz. Six of us lived upstairs, six or so more lived below. The house was old, rickety. It was terribly insulated (I remember laying in my bed one winter morning, almost in tears because I had to get out from under the covers). The bathtub didn’t drain properly and made strange, regurgitation sounds at random, often in the middle of the night. My bedroom had gray carpeting with bits of gum (not mine) stuck in its fibers. I loved that house.

“I’m in the big purple Victorian near the high school,” I’d tell people when asked where I lived.

The following winter, after graduation, I returned to Santa Cruz to visit a friend who’d stayed behind to complete a Master’s program. Of course, I made a point to drive past the purple and yellow house.

To my horror, it was army green.

I haven’t been back to Santa Cruz since.

---

There are places in my life---and by places, I mean actual locations---that hold so much emotional charge that I can barely stand to think about them. Missing them hurts too much.

Santa Cruz is the perfect example. And it’s not just the city itself that I miss. I miss the purple house. I miss the East Field overlooking the ocean, where I lay in the grass on one of my first nights at school, stargazing with a group of perfect strangers. I miss the classroom where I attended creative writing workshops. I miss a certain stretch of road along Westcliff Drive, where I stood on a rock one windy afternoon, watching otters in the surf with the first boy I ever loved.

Santa Cruz was mine then. But part of growing up is leaving things behind.

Santa Cruz doesn’t belong to me anymore, I thought as I drove away from the army green monstrosity that was my home. It’s moved on without me.

But while the houses we grew up in, the schools we attended, and the cities we lived in may no longer be ours simply by virtue of the fact that we’re no longer physically there, I think we leave traces of ourselves behind in places we love. And in that way, they’re never lost.

A piece of me is still in Santa Cruz, sitting on the stoop at the purple house, spying on otters, stargazing in the grass.

Thinking about all of this hurts, but it’s also a reminder to enjoy where I am---and what I’m doing---now.

Because I know one day I’ll miss this place in the same way, too.

The Secret Downside to Travel

When I was in high school, I watched The Real World: Paris.  It was the four thousand eight hundredth season, and was called the most boring by many critics, cited as evidence the franchise was failing.  To me, though, The Real World: Paris represented who I wanted to be.  Look at those cool, college-age kids (not to be confused with people actually in college) gallivanting under the Arc de Triomphe!  If I were in France, surely I would be flirting with beautiful, accented men at clubs.  I would be eating baguettes in sexy heels, or meeting friends in quaint cafes with spindly tables and tiny coffee cups. When, four years later, I found myself in Paris, I was staying at a hostel on the outskirts of town, unable to afford the outrageously expensive rooms in the busier areas.  My roommates were not seven strangers, picked to live in a house, but rather a family of cockroaches, a cold shower and an Irishman named Stephen who was always drunk (although on further contemplation, the latter holds true to the MTV series).  I wandered around the streets during the day, expecting to be hit by the wonder Paris had long promised in my imagination.  And to be sure, it was beautiful---the Sacré-Cœur Basilica glowed shining white on the hills of Montmarte, while the Notre Dame crouched in its gothic glory on its lonely island in the Seine.  By myself, though, seeing the sites felt single processed: I saw it, and I was done.  There was no one to digest the experience with, to complain about the upwards trek to the church on the hill, or to share a crepe with on the banks of the river.  Most importantly, I was no different in Paris than I was back in the United States:  the simple change of location didn’t render me suddenly high-heeled.  It didn’t make accented men want to flirt with me and it didn’t make me suddenly enjoy coffee, in tiny cups or otherwise.  It was the first time I realized a change of location wasn’t enough to warrant a change of self, and the first time that the reality of a place didn’t live up to my fantasy.

Yet, I kept doing it.  Social media took what The Real World began with and elevated it exponentially: even my failed Paris adventure was documented in a series of photos artfully designed to portray the image of the trip I had before I took it.  When I was readying myself for my move to London, I found myself picturing weekend jaunts to Berlin and Rome, likely with a jaunty hat and a perfectly structured leather tote bag, perhaps embossed with my initials.  I pictured Zack and I strolling hand in hand through manicured English gardens.  When, in my imagination, it started to rain, we would laughingly duck into a quaint pub to nurse hot toddies while the droplets pattered against the ancient paned glass.  I pictured myself surrounded by groups of English-accented creative types, who would have immediately taken me into their circle and invited me out to inspiring, interesting events all over the city.  Needless to say, I have an overactive imagination.

When I came to London, I was lonely. It felt lame to disclose it even to my family and friends, to admit that this European city I was lucky enough to move to felt closed to me.  Zack, busy with the program that we moved out here for, had less time for strolling than I expected, leaving me with large chunks of time to fill on my own.  With no job and no friends, I spent a lot of time by myself.  There are so many hours that can be filled by browsing career websites, by Facebooking and reading blogs that, after a while, all seem like they say the same thing.  I walked around by myself a lot, although the ever-present rain rendered that, even, more difficult than my pub-filled fantasies had allowed for (there are only so many times one can duck into a pub a day).

It’s gotten better: I’ve found writing groups out here, I’ve started building my own company, and slowly but surely, my circle of friends has expanded.  But it’s not perfect. It’s not, unlike my Facebook or Instagram might suggest, a series of charmingly strange foods (prawn cocktail chips anyone?), beautiful parks, and friend-filled nights out.  It’s these things, yes, but it’s also the moments that I don’t document, the trip to the grocery store in the pouring rain, the night when, alone in the house, I spend far too much time talking to my cat.  And that’s okay.  It’s not that my life isn’t the real world---it’s that the real world isn’t real.  The good, the bad, the rained on, the postcard worthy---that’s the real real world, and that alone makes it better than anything a fantasy of television or social media could offer.

Losing a Friend

I lost my closest friend this weekend. Lost might not be a great word for it, she didn’t suffer or pass away, she moved. I said goodbye to her for the last time in my driveway, our kids giving each other hugs. I kept the tears in until I was inside, and then I turned to my husband and just bawled. They were deep sobs, coming from a hormonal emotional place. I felt like I was five again. I don’t have many close friends, especially mom friends, and for two years we had watched our kids grow together. We shared first steps, first words, first tantrums. This, this is what it feels like to be a tribe, I thought, to feel like I had a little village to rely on. For a period of my life a year ago, she meant everything to me. My husband was working long hours, and I was still figuring out the whole staying at home mom thing. We would spend days at each other’s houses, where I never felt judged for letting my kid eat sugar or my house being a mess. So often, with the other older moms I felt lost, like I’ll be yelled at for doing something wrong. So many of them seemed completely sure of themselves while I was floundering.

It’s a funny thing about having kids so young, everyone I can relate to, all my friends from before, don’t have kids. I’m a little island in a sea of young women focused on careers and themselves. And to be honest, sometimes I am jealous. I would love to spend hours writing everyday or walking my favorite city, both things I loved to do before kids, but I can’t. Most days I can barely get a shower in. I read their blogs, all the interesting traveling they are doing, and can’t help but feel left out. I didn’t think I would miss much when I had my son at 22. I was done with partying and clubs, but instead I’m missing a whole decade of finding myself.

They tell me that it gets easier. This loss, this worrying I’ll never see my friend again. But instead, I look at photos of our kids together, her daughter and my son and wonder how much older they will look when we see each other again. I wonder what our next babies (due within a month of each other) will be like. I wonder how much will have changed, or not at all.

An Indefinite Season

[gallery link="file"] I've done a round-table introduction just about every week since I moved across the country. After my name, I say where I’m from. It’s the natural next step in these kinds of “tell us a bit about yourself” prompts.  I’m Sam and I’m from Portland.

In some ways, being able to claim this city makes me sound cooler than I really am — I mean, my bike has brakes. Still, there is some truth to what people think. I do like flannel and farmers markets, indie bands, good coffee and bad beer.  And the collective feelings of the city are mine too. There is a comforting familiarity in gray days, and a sadness when they go on for too long. There is sense of searching, for both purpose and simplicity.

Portland is a word that I took with me.  It has been a way to explain, without saying much, what I love and look for in life. But recently, for the first time since I left, I was asked to talk about who I am now. I fumbled for a few short sentences that in the end didn’t say much at all. How could I define myself in fifty words without the one word that mattered? I could only begin with advice from Hemingway: “Start with the first true simple declarative sentence.”

Fall is here. Everywhere the trees are metaphors for change. I feel like a spectator of this season, no different than the leaf-peepers idling up the shoulder on the interstate. I don’t know how far we are into this process or how it will end — whether it will come quickly or be wicked away, gust by gust.

I don’t know what it means yet to claim this place. I catch glimpses maybe — of the New England thing — in katydids and the peeling paint on the front stoop. But I can’t read the sky here. I’m constantly caught without a coat or sweating in my boot-socks.

At home, I knew when the roses bloomed a few weeks early.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the trees, and about the way we describe them. Trees are green. Trees have leaves. But in October, they defy their definition. They’re aflame with orange and red. Soon they will be bare. Each day they are less recognizable, less “tree” in the way we define it.

To describe myself, I’m left with words like “once was” and “not quite,” words that hint at incompleteness.  They mean that I’m losing, or gaining something – what exactly, I’m not sure yet.  Perhaps it is my sense of place; I’ve lost belonging and gained becoming.

Do More With Less

By Ashely Hogge Do more with less. I try to live this mantra every day. Luckily, I prefer less. Less technology, less clutter, less shiny, less expensive. For me, I find more in the experience. The things that aren't quite things but rather untouchables. I'm attracted to places that offer and encourage outdoor activities like skiing, biking, and hiking. Even Portland Oregon, where I currently live, is close to both the mountains and the ocean. I have such peace of mind knowing I can escape the city at any moment. And quite often, I do. I keep it easy---a day hike in the Gorge with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, an apple, Goldfish (yes, I love kid food) and chocolate. With my camera in tow, I am most content on the trail. In this setting, hikers are stripped of those day to day annoyances. Signals are lost. Perspectives quickly shift. Most of the time, the literal and figurative weight will lift. Tension and anxiety will dissolve. It seems almost primal to be so out of touch and yet, you can do so much more. More thinking, listening, meditating. It's easy to let the mind wander. I become inspired by possibility and tend to dream up vacations, travel plans, or a simple meal for dinner.

It's outings like these that keep me grounded for weeks to follow. How do you maintain such a mind-set with the many distractions out there? I focus on quality not quantity. One hot cup of coffee, a good book recommended by a friend, a restaurant I've always wanted to try, or maybe it's as simple as a walk around the block. I can't help but quote Gus McRae, a character from one of my all time favorite movies, Lonesome Dove:

Lorie darling, life in San Francisco, you see, is still just life. If you want any one thing too badly, it's likely to turn out to be a disappointment. The only healthy way to live life is to like everyday things, like a good sip of whiskey in the evening, a soft bed, or a glass of buttermilk.

To piggy back along with what Gus said, life is still life no matter where you are. I believe that experiences, conversations and a genuine hello to a fellow hiker can make our days valuable. We can be happier with less and most definitely do more to better ourselves and those around us.

Lessons from Gone with the Wind...

Dear Clara, I just returned from a few days in Atlanta last week.  I don’t think there is ever any possibility of going to that city without thinking of green velvet drapes and feisty tempers.  Margaret Mitchell’s penned classic and Vivien Leigh’s spirited interpretation of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone with the Wind will remain always one and the same with that city for me.  It might be an old story by the time you’re my age, but it will still be a true classic.  Here is what I’ll always remember from it:

• You can lose everything: At almost any moment.  Scarlett definitely knows a thing or two about loss, but in any story that spans a generation, I’m always taken by how privilege at the start doesn’t necessarily mean so at the end, and vice versa. We’re born what we’re born with, and some of us got it a little luckier, but that doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed.  Anyone’s fortunes could change either by circumstance or by their own foolishness---be prepared to mitigate against both.
• Sometimes you have to create from what you have, not from what you want: Scarlett’s dress that she fashioned from her drapes is probably the best example in this story, but you’ll find that she does this over and over again.  Sometimes, if not most times, we won’t have as much as we want . . . as new as we want . . . as different as we want . . . at the time that we want it.  But people who are most resilient and most successful look at what they have, and make it fit what they need, not what they want.
• Life is under no obligation to give us what we expect: When I read Gone with the Wind, I think I must have dog eared at least twenty pages of quotes and words to remember, if not more.  I was a great collector of quotes back in the day, and I think this particular one captures how much we have to be careful about expectations since then we are often disappointed. The one I remember most though, were Rhett’s words about mending what’s broken:  “I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken---and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I live.”  That quote did, and still does, make me nearly cry because I happen believe the opposite.  I think there is room for mending, and room for forgiveness, and I don’t believe that there are things such as permanently broken---but I think Rhett is just expressing the way that many people truly feel.  And you’ll come across people who believe in that strongly sometimes, and you’ll have to know when to keep fixing, and when to let it go because they will never see past the mend.  It's always best not to break in the first place, but we make mistakes, and not everyone will forgive us.
• People always come back: There is something uncanny about the way characters unfold in Gone with the Wind, and it mirrors life very much this way.  Even though the protagonists go through all sorts of changes and life takes them on many paths, they always seem to run together at different points in life.  Always appreciate people as though you’ll never see them again, because chances are, you will.  When you do, you will be glad that you left on good terms to pick up from; when you don’t, you’ll be reassured that you left with your best foot forward.

All my love,

Mom

Stupid Charming Things

An olive wood salt cellar will not make you dinner. It can’t chop an onion or boil water, and even it if it could it certainly wouldn’t wash the dishes afterwards. I tell this to myself while pacing around a fancy kitchen goods store, salt cellar in hand, trying to talk myself out of buying yet another kitchen luxury item that is at odds with both my lifestyle and my budget.

My husband and I live in a dilapidated boathouse-turned-cabin that was built in the early 1800s. The kitchen isn’t really a kitchen at all. It’s a room with a freestanding Ikea cabinet, a mini fridge, a convection oven, and a hotplate. Last spring I placed a heavy cast iron Dutch oven on the hot plate, causing the heating element to collapse into the stainless steel base. I remedied this by propping up the feet of the busted-in side with two Christmas lima beans.  So, not only do I cook on a hotplate in a glorified boathouse, but the utility of said hot plate is dependent on lima beans. Not exactly the kind of kitchen where you’d expect to find a pricey,  imported-from-France wooden salt cellar, hm?

This sort of retail conflict happens more than I’d like to admit.  I have a soft spot for stupid charming things: Tiny glass salt and pepper shakers, cheese knives, vintage Fire King coffee mugs, pinch bowls, and pretty much any kitchen item colored sage, mint green, or celadon. I shouldn't be allowed within fifty feet of a flea market or estate sale. And I certainly shouldn't have been poking around in any fancy kitchen goods store, that's for sure.

Over time I've gathered that this addiction to stupid charming things is not uniquely my own.  When I worked at a high-end gift shop in Park Slope, for example, I saw firsthand the pull of lovely objects on others. Thanks, just browsing, an innocent shopper would say. Then, moments later, I’d be ringing them up for a ten dollar trinket. Sometimes it would be a bookmark, a set of overpriced sticky tabs, a travel candle. If it wasn't any of that, it was the tiny glass animals. We stocked a bowl of them---itty-bitty little glass "sculptures" no larger than a penny.  You need a tiny glass cat, right? An elephant? What about an alligator? I felt like a drug dealer as I encouraged customers to dig deeper into the bowl. There’s a unicorn in there some place. I’d say. Then they’d ooh and ah and toss bills across the counter in glee. The glass animals were cute, sure, but were they worth anything more than that initial dopamine bump linked to the act of buying? I'm fairly sure the answer is "no."

A new object might be liberating at first, I think, because it baits the mind and our perspective in that moment, leading us from a place of sameness to a place of newness and wonder. Take my example, where I imagined the possibilities of cooking in a kitchen so well-appointed that flaky sea salt is homed in a dainty and sculptural bowl which was created precisely for that purpose by an artisan in a far away land. A new life opened up to me, one where I didn't find mouse poops in the measuring cups or stinkbugs in the mixing bowls.

Which brings me to narrative. Which brings me to identity. Objects do have a role in the stories about ourselves that we tell ourselves. In that moment at the fancy kitchen store, I wanted to use that salt cellar to tell myself I had good taste, that I understood and appreciated fine objects. I also wanted to pretend that I had no hotplate, no lima bean, no rustic boathouse kitchen. Mouse poops in measuring cups and stink bugs in mixing bowls? No, no, not me---I own this precious vessel, this hand crafted gem, this beautiful, stupid, charming thing.

Here's where I want to say that I stopped desiring the salt cellar. I want to say that I made these realizations about the false connection between things and self worth and identity and I immediately overcame my materialistic instincts. But I didn't. As I put the salt cellar back on the shelf I also added it to a mental wish list of presents my husband could get me for Christmas this year.Then I sulked out the door with a vague and absurd feeling of pity for what I perceived to be a salt cellar-shaped hole in my heart.

Dreaming Brooklyn. Or not?

Did that really happen? When I woke up this morning I couldn’t answer this question. Was I really in Brooklyn last night, strolling down 5^th Avenue? Did I really stop at Gorilla Coffee to grab an espresso and then went all the way down to the park on 5^th, set on a bench and read a book? No, that can’t be true. I don’t remember the book’s title and come on, reading is my job. It can’t be real that I read a book and forget the words and the title right after finishing up the last page. But yet, everything looked so real . . .

 * * *

Beacon’s Closet is open. There seem to be many women staring at the store’s window, and I think No, I’ll check it out another time, come on Alice, you can’t spend all of your income in vintage clothes! You don’t have enough space in your closet! And then, a small paper cup in my hands with a red gorilla painted on it, I make my way toward the cross between 5^th and Lincoln Place. Yes, my friend Joanne must be home from work by now. I should stop by and say Ciao! She loves practicing her Italian with me, and I like going over for a chat. But what time is it exactly? The sun light is weak, and a cold breeze is blowing down 5^th. It must be late afternoon. Jo isn’t answering her doorbell. She is probably still at work. Well, I’ll step by another time. Maybe I should go home now, I’m starting to get cold and I really don’t want to fall sick. I have to work tomorrow and I can’t skip a day. So I slowly walk towards President Street, and I’m still on the left sidewalk.

My paper cup is empty now, but I keep holding it as I don’t know what to do with my hands. Hands can’t be meaningless and dangle ridiculously at your side. So, while Left pretends to be busy holding an Italian blend, Right searches into the darkness of my bag. I never carry much on me, for I like to feel free from burdens. But here’s the biggest burden of all, a huge and heavy book that Right seems to be proud of digging out. What is it? What’s the title of this book? It must be some story I have to read for work, but I can’t really focus the letters and the image on the cover.

It isn’t dark yet, so it must not be so late. I realize I still have some time for myself. At the cross with President, I keep going. The Cat Clinic is open. I can swear I see this weird guy entering the door with a miniature poodle, dressed with a pink sweater that looks just alike the one its human friend is wearing. But as I look through the window, I see no sign of human or animal presence. The place is empty. In a few seconds I reach Connecticut Muffin and I feel weird---I could have bet this place was on 7^th Avenue, not on 5^th. But I do have a craving for muffins, and location disquisitions are not important right now. There is a long line inside, this means the muffins are tasty and delicious, just like I remember. I reach for the door, but it doesn’t open. Some customer might have locked it by mistake. I knock on the glass, and my cheecks are burning red as I don’t like to bother people and seem intrusive. But no one must have heard, because the door is still locked. So I knock again, this time harder, but still nobody turns or looks at me. These people actually don’t seem to realize I am out there, craving muffins! Annoyed and a little cross, I look around. And I am glad I finally see the park in front of me, the small park with an old stone house in it. It’s not Prospect Park, but it’s cozy, and it is the perfect place to start my Huge and Heavy Book.

I cross the street, paying attention to the streetlights even though the road is deserted, and I go sit on a bench under a tree covered in orange and red leaves. And while the leaves keep falling down on me, hitting random parts of the pages, I collect the words that suddenly take a shape and a solid form and I close them in a small wooden box that sits beside me on the bench. What am I going to do with these words when I’m finished? They are so many now. Can I sell them, perhaps? Can I glue them to other pages from other books, and maybe make a new story?

It is dark when I raise my head. The only thing that is luminous is my little wooden box. I try to open it, because I need light to find the way back to my house, but now the wooden box is locked, and my book is finished, and I forgot what story I was told. So I open Huge and Heavy Book another time, because I really can’t forget a story that I just finished.

And all I can see now is white and empty pages, and a story that needs to be re-written once again, maybe with the luminous words hidden my wooden box. Only, I have to find a way to give them a new sense.

From Alice in Wonderland.

'Hold your tongue!' said the Queen, turning purple.

'I won't!' said Alice.

Off with her head!' the Queen shouted at the top of her voice. Nobody moved.

'Who cares for you?' said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time.) 'You're nothing but a pack of cards!'

At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her: she gave a little scream, half of fright and half of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the trees upon her face.

'Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister; 'Why, what a long sleep you've had!'

'Oh, I've had such a curious dream!' said Alice, and she told her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, 'It was a curious dream, dear, certainly: but now run in to your tea; it's getting late.'

So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.

Looking Forward: A Story of Survival.

In kindergarten, I announced to my friends and family that I was “a woman of destiny” who spoke two languages: English and “cat.” (My teachers, at one point, had to separate me from my best friend for excluding others when speaking cat.) As my grade school education continued, my pastimes evolved. I taught myself to bake bread, filling our freezer with numberless misshapen loaves of rye. On weekends, I read the newspaper while eating radishes and raw onions. I wore mismatched socks. I wrote, illustrated, and performed a short story in which the starring character was a pair of underwear owned by an aging rock star named Steve. The underwear was a character of interest because it possessed the ability to sprout Greek gods from its elastic waistband.

In short, I was a quirky child. And proud of it. “I’m weird!” I proclaimed to my family one day in the car.

“‘Weird’ has such negative connotations,” my dad told me. “There are better words to use than that. You could say ‘unusual’ instead.”

“I’m strange!” I offered.

He paused. “How about ‘unique’?”

---

I don’t remember the exact moment when my feelings about being “unique” or “unusual” changed, but they did---as I suspect they do with many people---around the time I entered junior high.

I began wearing an inordinate amount of gray. I spent many, many hours wondering what it meant to be cool, or pretty, or smart. I suddenly became shy, to such a degree that I forgot what it was like to be anything else. (In other words, gone were the days of personifying magical undergarments.)

I assumed this was who I was. It was years---ten, at least---before I remembered that it wasn’t.

While cat language, raw onions, and mismatched socks are no longer fixtures in my life, a certain quirkiness---and a bottomless affection for all things weird---has remained. My favorite part about working in a creative field is that I’m allowed the freedom to play, to seek out adventure, to let my imagination run wild. It’s what I enjoyed most about life as a child, and it’s what I enjoy most about life as an adult.

As the saying goes, “the creative adult is the child who survived.”

There’s a picture of me somewhere, at age seven or eight, walking my pet rabbit (who I’d named after a long-deceased Hawaiian queen) on a purple leash. I’m wearing bright yellow bike shorts and a giant pink bow on top of my head, and I’m standing in full view of traffic on the lawn in front of my house.

I look ridiculous. But, also, completely at ease. And very happy.

That part of me---the rabbit walker, the storyteller, the fearless wearer of neon-colored athletic gear---still exists, at least in spirit. And I'm grateful that it does.

I'm all the braver, bolder, weirder---and happier---for it.

My Wise Voice

Two years ago, I made the difficult decision to take a medical withdrawal from college. It was a decision that was years in the making, and one that brought with it a sense of crisis about what I should be doing with my life. As I transitioned from full-time student to part-time student to, finally, full-time wife, homemaker, and caretaker of my fragile health, I fought a continual fight with guilt—the feeling that I wasn’t doing enough, that I was slacking off, that I ought to be accomplishing so much more. For all of my life, the thing I have wanted more than anything is to be a mother. The past few years have been ones of longing and impatient waiting, until I learned with awe and amazement this summer that I was pregnant. Now, a third of the way through my second trimester, I am preparing for yet another transition: From stay-at-home wife to stay-at-home mother.

I suppose I always thought, in those years of waiting and wanting, that if I finally did get pregnant, that voice of guilt would disappear. Pregnancy is a physical ordeal for any woman; for those of us who live with chronic disease and are also blessed to have the chance to create new life, it brings with it added challenges. I used to think that, if given that chance, I would finally be able to relax, to cherish myself a little, to allow my body all the rest and comfort it needed.

It is probably no surprise when I say that it hasn’t been that way. Sure, I’ve been a little more motivated to make sure that I’m taking the best possible care of myself, since taking care of myself now also translates into taking care of baby. Still, it has surprised me, at least, to find that the guilt is largely unchanged. Now, instead of berating myself inwardly for not getting the dishes done, I spend my hours on the couch worrying about all the cleaning and organizing that needs to happen before the baby gets here. When a day goes by in which the most I’ve accomplished is yet another trip to the doctor (because my pregnancy is high-risk, I have the privilege of seeing three!), I find myself returning to all the old patterns of self-castigation.

Several winters ago, while visiting with a pair of wonderful friends, one of them said something about the importance of “listening to your wise voice.” That phrase has stuck with me ever since, through the intervening years, always giving my memory a gentle prod whenever I need it most. The idea of “my wise voice” has become, to me, the opposite of that voice of guilt and castigation.

It is my wise voice that tells me when I am doing right, even if it seems counter-intuitive. It is my wise voice that quietly whispered to me that that medical withdrawal two years ago was exactly the right thing to do. It is my wise voice that cautions me when I am acting out of pride, or shame, or guilt, or nervousness. It is my wise voice that continually prompts me to live with generosity and kindness—even towards myself.

I’m learning—or perhaps I am being reminded—through this pregnancy that there will always be the opportunity for guilt, because there will always be something more that can be done, or accomplished, or checked off a to-do list.

But I am learning, too, that I always have the chance to listen to my wise voice.

The Scars of Motherhood

I can remember the act of cutting my hand, but not the pain in it. Labor felt much the same way if you are curious. I spent days after trying to recall what a contraction felt like, when the crowning happened. At first I could remember exactly the sharp searing abdominal pain of a contraction, but then, only hours later, it had all disappeared. I couldn’t remember any of it. The same thing happened when I cut my hand. I was barely out of the first trimester, still shaky from sickness, but at least standing upright most of the day. I was living at my parents' house. My dad was home painting bookshelves with my brother’s guitar teacher, Serge. Sometimes we gave him extra cash for odd jobs, and he happened to be there that day. I was still in that distracted, newly pregnant haze. I often found myself missing turns while driving, staring off into space, worried about the future. That day I was making macaroni and cheese for lunch. I took out the butter dish, which had a little knife next to it. Thinking nothing of it, I tried to pry the cold butter out of the dish with the knife, slicing sideways, and sliced right into my left hand.

At first, I felt nothing. Then as the blood started coming, I began to feel the pain. I yelled for Dad and Serge to come over, we put it under cold water, and the blood kept coming, red, red, red. We all piled in the car to go to urgent care while my father called my husband to meet us there. To Matt’s credit, he was pretty calm the whole time (a good trait to have in the labor and delivery room I later found out). Serge tried to distract me with stories of New York and Long Island, growing up there, being in a band. He had long scraggly gray hair and smelled always of cigarettes, but in that moment, scared and unsure, it was nice to listen to a good story.

The verdict was that I didn’t need stitches. It was jagged and long enough we thought I might. Instead, they bandaged it really good and basically put Neosporin on it. No painkillers since I was pregnant. It throbbed all day long. I showered for weeks with my left arm sticking up with a baggie on it. But it wasn’t the pain of the cut, instead it was the stigma of it. How would I ever be a good mother if I couldn’t make macaroni and cheese? I cried into my pillow, my kitchen competence momentarily shaken. How could I take care of someone else if I couldn't even take care of myself? I needed my husband's help to pull my jeans up, a two-handed job.

I thought of that incident over the weekend. I think of it often whenever I glance at my hand and see the J-shaped scar. I spent Saturday baking a cake. If you have never baked a cake, it is quite a bit more work than cookies or cupcakes, which is why I reserve them for special occasions. The last one I made was for Charley’s second birthday, six months ago. And this weekend, it was for my father’s birthday. Much has changed in three years and I am confident in my kitchen knife skills again. I won’t ever use a sharp French cheese knife for butter (I found out later). We have our own house with a large island for baking that I picked out. I had all of my baking supplies spread out, the house was quite and still, everyone napping while I baked. I had some trouble getting the middle of the cake to set, and kept sticking toothpicks into it to test. Just when I thought I was good, the middle sank in and I need to put it back in the oven! But my one cake pan was being used for the second layer, so I put the first layer on a cookie sheet and popped it back in. It took another ten minutes or so, and as I leaned in to check it again, I felt the hot slap of a burn from the cookie pan. I had leaned right into it. I rushed to the sink and ran cold water over it, cursing Florida that the water is always lukewarm. At first it looked like nothing, but as I continued to bake and wave it over the hot burners, it reared up bright red. One ugly darkened streak. The pain has left now, but the mark is still there, one of my many scars of motherhood.

On Compulsory Singing

My son is fifteen months old, and for the last six months has been attending a weekly music class. Initially, I wasn’t able to go with him and my wife because of a work-related conflict, but since the summer, all three of us have gone each week. It’s the sort of music class that is prevalent in the US these days---it’s for students aged five and under, and the music is cheery, non-denominational yet diverse, folky stuff. The teacher of our class is a woman a little bit older than I am who is preternaturally cheery and, frankly, charming. There are several rules at music class, however. One is that once class has started, there should be no talking, only singing. This feels incredibly odd when you need to communicate to your co-parent “where is his sippy cup?” or “do you have the tissues?” When banal sentiments are conveyed in song, it inherently makes the singer simultaneously seem and feel ludicrous. I try to pretend that I’m just a character in a new musical about thirty-something parents (penned by Sondheim, of course), and that talking would only jolt the imaginary audience watching my exploits out of the moment.

The second rule of import is that we aren’t allowed to help our children make any of the gestures or do any of the choreographed movements. That’s impeding on their own rate of learning and stifling their inherent creativity. I totally get this! It makes sense---have you ever seen a grown woman try to make a toddler mimic having hands full of bumblebees? It’s farcical. Nonetheless, the need to conform is strong, and I often remind myself not to “help” my son do the motions of songs. Even when I see other kids doing the motions just right, I try to chill out and be cool. It makes me feel like I am one step away from Toddlers and Tiaras.

I am very much not fond of singing in public. I save my singing for the car or when I am alone in the house (What’s my favorite song to belt alone? Thanks for asking, it’s “Stay” by Lisa Loeb and Nine Stories). I was in the chorus in middle school but quit in sixth grade. I went to church camp for years in the summer and never, ever was enthusiastic about all of the singing (trust me, if you have never been to church camp---I’m pretty sure it is 80% singing). At the school where I teach, there are occasional moments of compulsory group singing, and I just fade into myself.

But then I started going to music class. Parents and loved ones of the children are encouraged to sing. Given that this is a rare setting where I am a student and not the teacher in the room, I found myself to be an incredibly compliant student. You want me to sing? About being sad that there’s no more pie? No problem. I am going to when in Rome the heck out of this opportunity. I want my son to try new things! So, I sing. And I make motions. And I leap and sway and use rhythm instruments and sometimes even twirl a scarf. And, truth be told, I love it.

Celebrating the Everyday

A co-worker once told me about a trip she took with a girlfriend. I don’t remember where they went or when or even if there was a specific reason for the journey. What I remember about the story is that they didn’t have a camera (this was before the age of iphones).  As they stopped at noteworthy places or scenic views, they’d take a moment, pose, and say ‘Click! Took a Mental Picture!’ This story has stuck with me for several years, maybe because when I travel, I make it a point to put down the camera and soak in the place and moment as much as I can.  Of course then I pick up the camera again and take 150 pictures of really-cool-old-stuff (not even a slight exaggeration), but I make sure I see things outside of a viewfinder and imprint the memory to my brain and not just my SD card, I take a mental picture.

Surprisingly, as much as I strive to put down my beloved lenses while traveling, I’m becoming a total shutterbug at home.  The ease of having a camera on my cell phone means I can snap a shot at the grocery store or in my backyard. I can document a particularly awesome hair day or my current shade of nail polish.  My shoes are regularly photographed as one of my favorite subjects.  All show up on my instagram account. At first I thought it might be silly, I’m not a photo-journalist or an artist. I’m not taking pictures of Big-Important-Things; just snaps of my everyday life. But now I realize that’s the great thing.  These quick snaps are a celebration of the everyday.

Every day is fantastic.  Every day there is something beautiful or interesting to see.  Every day is a new journey and a new discovery. And that should be celebrated.  The collection of ice cream scoops that caught my eye thanks to the bright colors----the sunset over the cornfield---my current favorite pair of shoes---These things make up who I am. Like little happy puzzle pieces, these square snapshots build a bigger picture.

The great thing about instagram is my everyday isn’t the only one I get to experience.  I follow friends and relatives, and even a couple of folks I’ve never met in real life (like some of the wonderful contributors to Equals Record!).  I get to catch glimpses of other everydays without stepping outside of my own.  Roxanne’s views of Boston remind me that fall is on the way, I can’t wait to see the leaves change and snap some of my own autumnal photos. My cousin Andy’s photos almost always come with a thought provoking caption or interesting story and encourage me to think about the world outside of myself.

Equal parts inspiring and instigating, that’s what I love about the every day.[gallery link="file"]

For I have sinned

I am about the furthest thing from a Catholic imaginable, it's true.  But last night I was lying awake feeling guilty for a litany of failings and vices from the past weeks.  'How Catholic of me,' I mused.  And this is not to say that my own Jewish culture doesn't have a lot to offer in the guilt department.  As I flopped back and forth under the covers, I told myself to stop spinning about my various shortcomings and try to focus on all the ways I might have been effective or kind recently.  As so many of us writing here have acknowledged, it is not easy to take those night-time demons to the mat, especially when the hours are small.  Part of the struggle is feeling alone, trapped in your mind with what you imagine to be shameful thoughts and deeds. When I was finally awoken by the chattering of the baby in the early morning, it was something of a relief.  As I extracted her from the crib and set about to start the day, I decided I would engage in something of a "confessional" exercise.  Perhaps if I purged my consciousness of some of the low moments, I could make room for fresh experiences.  Forthwith, a detailing of seven mortal sins of late.  Here is hoping that cracking open my humanity can start to heal what ails me.  At least it might make you feel superior and then you can write about all the ways in which you experienced Pride :)

Wrath - I am typically fairly internal when it comes to anger, which, if you read any study on health is not ideal.  Apparently, people who externalize anger (at least express it, if not outright explode all over the place) tend to have lower levels of depression and can experience improved communication.  This article from the American Psychological Association (and there are a host just like it in the literature) describes some adaptive qualities of anger and how to use it to your benefit.  At my worst, I employ the tactic of stuffing down things that irritate me and then completely coming unglued over something relatively innocuous much later on down the road.  This is totally unproductive and moderately to profoundly confusing for loved ones.  I am working on addressing problems in the moment and being honest about my needs.  This is tricky and can feel risky to someone like myself who likes to avoid confrontation.  But ultimately, the confrontation always happens, just maybe displaced, which is no good for anyone.  Onward.  Upward.

Greed - I want more time, mostly.  Of course, I always desire too many cookies, clothes and earthly possessions, but hours in the day . . . what I wouldn't give.  The truth is that I could manage my time better.  There is certainly some whiling away the hours on Facebook/Instagram, spending late evenings watching Boardwalk Empire instead of answering emails, iChatting with a friend rather than ordering groceries.  The balance of stealing some time to which I feel entitled ("me" time) and organizing the day around prioritizing important tasks is the struggle of all good people, right?  And listen to my language: "stealing" some time . . . from what or whom?  Still and all, I want more time for work, more time with my family, more time to noodle on the internet.  There, I said it.

Sloth - Um, please see Greed.  And then sprinkle in all the moments where I sit in the chair at the studio or on the couch at the apartment thinking 'Sarah, stop flipping through the magazine and move on to the next thing.'  How about the time last week when I recalled I had read a study somewhere (I'm big on studies) indicating that dogs have fewer allergies when you bathe them less often, so . . . On the whole, I tend to push myself to make it all happen and there are times when I actually take great pleasure in physical labor and menial tasks.  There can be a wonderful meditative quality to folding, organizing, washing, etc.  But I realize I tell myself that things are just super busy now and fitting it all in will get easier over time.  This is, of course, an exercise in self-delusion.  Everything will just continue to get busier and the tasks and demands on time will simply compound.  Operation Pull it Together in full effect, then.

Pride - I post about 74,000 pictures of my daughter on Facebook every day with captions extolling her adorableness.  I talk about her accomplishments (at 9 months, these include things like almost, maybe, no definitely, actually probably not - but it really sounds like it! - uttering, "mmmmm…" when I feed her bites of something) ad nauseum.  When people ask me about her I always start with, "She is totally @#!&-ing awesome."  Sue me.  I am a new mother.  I got nothing for you here :)

Lust - There are days when I want power and I want it badly.  This is typically applicable in my business.  I want to be huge enough and famous enough that clients line up at my door, the phone rings off the hook and my inbox is brimming with messages where the inquiry goes something like this, "We really want to work with you, exclusively and specifically, and as such, we are writing you this check with a large sum.  Please deposit this check immediately and then show up on the day of our event with whatever florals and decor you feel are appropriate.  Thanks so much."  Until then, I suppose I will continue to work really hard to prove myself in the industry, hone my brand, secure the trust of clients and exceed expectations in the execution of events like my business depends on it.  Because it does.  The mogul situation is still out of reach, as it turns out.

Envy -I always think everyone else has it easier, is doing it better, knows something I don't and so on.  I believe this to be a fairly universal issue but it doesn't make it any less potent. I am particularly uncomfortable with this aspect of my personality, as my life is so relatively rosy.  As previously discussed, I have greater flexibility and more human and capital resources than most working people.  There is real suffering all around me in this big city and my concerns about finding the time to update my website or whether my daughter has enough of whatever thing-of-the-day should consume scant mental energy.  No excuses here.

Gluttony - The unending battle with cooking at home and eating "like a real family," wages on.  We over-indulge in take-out and restaurant meals where we are inevitably served too much of less healthful food.  This is a symptom of multiple larger issues in our house (see above struggles with time management, for example) and the remedies aren't coming easily.  I picture us coming together for dinner each night, discussing important matters of the day, laughing, sharing locally sourced food we have lovingly prepared, nourishing our bodies . . . then I scrape the sauce from the (recyclable?) plastic container from Dao Palate onto day-old rice, popping it into the microwave and feel awful.  Fill the refrigerator weekly, take a cooking class (or seven), continue to try and carve out the time.  How hard could it BE?!  HONESTLY.

Well, now I see why people are into this process of recounting wrongs and requesting absolution. It does feel somewhat cleansing.  The accountability piece is where things get dicier.  Maybe writing it down will catalyze forward motion.  And reading it over will help me be a little more gentle with myself as I strive to be a better . . . well . . . everything.  Wait, is that Greed or Pride or maybe Lust?  Sigh.

 (image via)

How To Live Out Of A Suitcase

I have always resisted "How-To" musings. Their prescriptive confidence tends to oversimplify life and obliterate its intricacies. Everything would feel manageable, if only you'd buy into Steps-1-through-5. Everything comes in neatly ordered bullets or numbered lists, always in increments of 5. The first time I read a "7 tips to a healthier closet" in a magazine, I nearly fell over at the violation of the increments of 5 bit. I used to love the structured life: the healthy closet, the happy living room, the robust plants. The magazine how-to's always paired adjectives and nouns in unusual ways that made me think that "if only I could follow the steps, I, too, could have a giggling patio or a witty sink or a resplendent relationship." Somewhere along the way, I met a wonderful man who refused to think in tight increments or in standardized measures. He sets his alarm clock to 7.03 AM or 8.57 or 9.14 because "life does not need to unfold on the dot." There are few subjects for which I'd change my feelings on How-To's. When Kim said "I'd like to commission a post on practical matters about living out of a suitcase," I knew this would be the How-To corner of the internet I could call my own. This is less a "pack pashminas-they are so versatile!" guide (though do! they are!), and more a reflection on how to navigate the emotional turmoil inherent in transitions.

Know your anchors. The are few life transitions that require one to live with one T-shirt, two pairs of underwear, and some jeans. If you are embarking on one of them, there is something grand enough ahead that makes the stinkiness worth it. Nobody ever uttered "I am so moved by the world right now but gee do I wish I had all my life's belongings with me!" If you are embarking on a different kind of transition, make peace with that which you cannot let go. It may feel silly to lug a stuffed panda bear across what used to be the Uganda-Sudan border, but if it is the connoter of memories, it gets a passport to travel. Some are attached to their cooking spices, others to their stationery. Figure out what will become part of your gratuitous weight and let it come along. Minimalism for minimalism's sake is a powerful way to glide through life---but it becomes more powerful if you figure out how to violate its tenets to make them more resonant and viable.

Put down (some) roots. For a book lover, keeping books on the shelf is one of the pleasures of a semi-permanent life. Nobody ever left in the middle of the night with tomes of the complete works of Joan Didion in her one carry-on bag (though if that happens, World, let me be the first one.) Walking past used bookstores with the knowledge that "we do not have room for books" or that we must resist everything that will weigh us down creates weight in itself. So, buy the books if you need to. Find a way to receive mail temporarily if seeing your name on an envelope brings you glee. You will find a way to pass the books on to someone who will love them, and to forward the mail, and to move all of yourself and your memories. Put down (some) roots in the meantime; transitions need not be mere parentheses in the narrative of life.

Method to madness. Google Reader is as embedded in my morning routine as coffee is in other people's. It does not matter if I am waking up in Boston or Jerusalem, if I have to go to work in an hour or class in thirty minutes. Browsing the morning headlines and reading my favorite blogs helps me feel connected to the world as it was before transition. It may feel small sometimes, or downright trivial, or such a hassle to hold on to routine and ritual when the rest of life is spinning around you. But it is those very routines that make it all slow down. If you are a runner, find a way to go for a run early on in your transition to a new environment. Do you write in the morning? Then, write, even among the boxes. Write your heart out. Do not let your camera gather dust in a box if its shutter clicking will make you feel more mindfully present. And, in the same breath, make room for the new routines that emerge out of a new life.

Carry the lightness with you. I used to think I excelled in transition, if that is the sort of experience one can master, until I set foot in my new apartment in Boston on September 1st. After three years of work in conflict and post-conflict areas worldwide, the possibility of staying in one (secure) (exceedingly comfortable) place for two years was intoxicating. I turned into a Nesting Monster. In the build-up to this move, I had lived out of the same suitcase for months on end, but the second that suitcase entered our new apartment, everything had to be unpacked. Immediately. And the furniture had to be built. And the boxes had to be recycled. Immediately. It was as though I had become allergic to transition overnight. Elijah humored me and assembled the dresser and the desk and the shelves in one afternoon.

Last night I asked him if he feels that our space is cluttered. Let me be clear: it is not. But, compared to our couch-free Jerusalem living room, the furniture feels imposingly permanent. Compared to the luggage I had in Guatemala, the knit sweaters feel bulky, even if Boston requires them.

As someone who failed at this, allow me to urge you to keep the lightness as long as possible. The transition will be over one day, and suddenly you will own 13 different pieces of Tupperware. Ask yourself where that came from, ask yourself if you need it. The fact that you have space to fill and time to do so does not mean that the roots of stuff will be the roots you thought you were craving. So hang the beautiful string lights you had been wishing to have in your space ever since you dreamed up permanence. And if it all starts to feel heavy and much, remember the time all of life fit in one suitcase and try to bring some of it back to that beautifully lit space you now call home.

A Pumpkin for Your Thoughts

Last week I baked a small orange pumpkin stuffed with breadcrumbs, cheese, herbs, and bacon. I cut a jagged hole in the top of the pumpkin and scraped loose the stringy flesh, which I then gathered up in my hands and lifted out onto the counter. As I clawed at the slimy insides I felt clumsy and childish. The pulp slipped through my fingers again and again, and suddenly I was visited by images of my childhood. I thought of my favorite Halloween costume and the similar clumsy feeling it stirred up in me: A bright green caterpillar costume with a series of stuffed arms, each strung to the next with fishing line so they moved all as one. I remember lagging behind while trick-or-treating with my sister, stumbling across lawns and tripping into bushes. Nostalgia and fall are like those connected caterpillar arms to me. If I’m feeling nostalgic, I think of fall. If I think of fall, I feel nostalgic. Lift one arm and up go the rest. But that's problematic sometimes, because when I think of the words “Fall" and "pumpkin” my mind calls up generic images like those from commercials. I don’t want my feeling of fall to be summed up by the little drawings of leaves on the chalkboard at Starbucks. I want the real deal. I want my fall back, not a fallback.

What I’m longing for, I think, is to have a keen awareness of the present moment.  I also want to be specific about the past, and I want to observe how my impression of a memory shifts over time. When I was preparing the pumpkin, for example, I realized I could glide along the surface of a general fall feeling. But the alternative was that I could focus on the more particular aspects of the feeling and encourage it to become animated by my imagination, and in doing so allow it to occupy my consciousness for a while. I had to think really hard to let my frustration melt away and into those scenes from childhood. For the first time I felt like cooking was a meditative practice, a medium for a wandering mind.

But maybe it isn't about a wandering mind after all? Maybe it's about a mind being led down a carefully marked path, a path marked by a menu and a task. That pumpkin dinner showed me I could time travel but stay grounded in the moment, too. I was stunned by the fact that I could experience a complete break from the present moment while still operating within it. That split between the past and present, I think, was possible because of the constant thread of physical feeling---that lack of coordination and efficiency which reminded me of the time when I so horribly navigated sidewalks, curbs, and front porch steps in that caterpillar costume. (It was like running in a sleeping bag, really.) A whole string of very specific memories came rushing back to me after that, to the point where I clearly could hear my dad’s voice saying “I’m testing it to make sure it isn’t poisonous” while eating my hard-won candy. I laughed and flailed my many arms in protest. The memories were more honest and clear when I saw them through the lens of my pumpkin and my hands, rather than through the soft focus of my typical "general fall feeling."

I realized that my love of food and my interest in the way memories work don’t have to be colored by nostalgia to be interesting. I found a lot of pleasure in thinking about these memories without yearning for them to return. I felt grounded by my gourd, yet I was still sensing a very specific and vivid memory of a distant fall that I hadn’t thought of in years. That simple rustic dinner became a strange experience in thinking about thoughts. That’s what I like about the play between the seasons, food, and memories:  Our perception of each can expand or condense our awareness and our focus on the moment. My dinner, the pumpkin, the Fall---invitations to think back, but also to think on.