Like Water

By Judith NewtonHer book, Tasting Home, is available for pre-order on Amazon.

“How do you peel a walnut?” my daughter asked as she looked, not too happily, at the mound of nuts on the kitchen table.  We’d spent three days in the kitchen laboring over the twelve dishes we’d planned for a large buffet, and chiles en nogada, or chiles in walnut sauce, were the final stage of our cooking marathon.  That very evening some forty faculty and students from all over campus would be arriving to celebrate our new multicultural graduate program, and if any dish could instill a sense of community it would be chiles en nogada.

Making simple recipes like tacos de crema, macaroni with serrano chiles, and refried beans had been easy and even pleasurable, but the chiles in walnut sauce were posing a challenge. I’d combined Frida Kahlo’s recipe with one I’d taken from the Internet, and the latter called on us to peel the walnuts before pulverizing them for the sauce. “Mom,” said Hannah, rubbing at one of the walnuts, “this brown stuff isn’t coming off.” “This is a window into the lives of generations of women,” I said, ineffectually scrubbing another walnut with my fingers. “Can you imagine how much time they spent working in kitchens?” “I love cooking with you like this,” Hannah had said when we first began. “I love it too,” I’d said. Our years of cooking together and of struggling through difficult recipes had created a strong sense of solidarity.

We decided not to peel the walnuts, since Frida’s recipe didn’t call for it, but we did roast the two dozen poblano chiles and then pulled off their skins. Then we chopped a picadillo out of shredded meat, fruits, nuts and cinnamon, and, cradling the chiles in our hands, began to stuff them with the sweet and savory mix. We were treating those chiles as if they’d just been born, but, despite our labor, they were developing some ugly splits. We decided not to flour them, coat them in egg mix, and then fry them in hot oil as Frida’s recipe required.

“It’s too risky,” I said, entertaining grim visions of the chiles bursting their sides and spilling their colorful innards into a smoky pool of oil. Did Frida fry her own chiles, I wondered. Then came the sauce---easy, sweet, and cool. Four cups of (unpeeled) walnuts pureed with cream cheese, Mexican crema, cinnamon, and a fragrant half cup of sherry. Finally, seeds from six pomegranates and sprigs of parsley to go on top.  Red, white, and green---the colors of the Mexican flag.

I had been thinking about a Mexican novel for the entire three days, Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate. I’d been imagining Hannah and me as Tita and Chenca, two characters who spend much of their lives in the kitchen. A takeoff on nineteenth-century Mexican romance, Like Water is a novel about love and also a novel about politics, the latter being represented by the Mexican Revolution and the ongoing struggle of Tita and her sister Gertrude against patriarchal culture.

Each chapter of the novel is organized around a recipe, and the process involved in making the chapter’s dish---the grinding, the toasting, the chopping, the boiling, the frying, the cracking of eggs–is so thoroughly woven throughout the pages that cooking, an often invisible form of labor, becomes as central to the story as romance and revolution. Cooking, indeed, becomes an emblem of the domestic work that makes romance and revolution possible. It is the force that keeps women and men alive not just physically, but emotionally, spiritually, and politically as well.

Cooking is like that, always there, and if it is as it should be, it not only nourishes our bodies but gives us the comfort of feeling loved, cared for, and secure. Eating what is cooked and served in a caring way evokes one of our first experiences of feeling at home in the world, the experience of being fed by another being. That is one reason that cooking and eating with others can heal the adult self, one reason that it can so easily make us feel connected to another person, a family, a culture, a political community.

Like Tita and Chenca, Hannah and I were laboring in the service of politics and love. The new graduate program was meant to be revolutionary---cross racial, multi-cultural, and oriented toward political activism not just inside, but outside the classroom as well. And I had done enough organizing by then to know how cooking for others, not just from duty, but with generosity and lightness of heart, can develop and sustain those ties of feeling that are, at bottom, what make political community possible.

In Like Water for Chocolate, food is given magical force.  Quail in Rose Petal Sauce invites Tita and Pedro to enter each other’s bodies both spiritually and sensuously as they sit at the dining table. It prompts Gertrude to run away with a revolutionary, sitting behind him, naked on his horse. The Chiles in Walnut Sauce provoke the guests at Tita and Pedro’s wedding to make passionate love. Magical realism like this suggests the power of emotion, of the unconscious, and of cooking as emotion work in the day-to-day activities of our lives.

Like life, the novel is full of mothers, those who nourish and those who do not. The bad mother, Elena, controls Tita, insists that Tita serve her until she dies, and forbids Tita to marry Pedro, the man she loves. Cruel, repressing, she is the mother who denies. Even after death, she reappears, forbidding Tita to be happy. Like a force of nature, she returns again and again, suggesting the lasting influence of how we are mothered.

But Tita finds good mothers to take Elena’s place---Chenca, the cook who tends to Tita in the kitchen, and Dr. John and his Indian mother, Morning Light, who feed Tita healing foods after Elena brutally entombs her daughter in the Dove Cot. Tita herself becomes a nurturing mother to Esperanza, her sister’s daughter. Like Tita I, too, had found alternative mothers---in Dick, my gay ex-husband, in my women friends, in colleagues I had come to love. But most of all I had found mothering in being motherly---to Hannah and to my political community. Cooking for, and eating with, others had all but eclipsed those days in my mother’s house---the shame, the lost identity, the spilled water on the floor. Like Chenca, I wanted to pass on, to Hannah and to others, the recipes, the utopian practices, the ways of being and of labor that make history more than a tale of struggle; that make it also a love story, a story of caring for others.

* * *

CHILES EN NOGADA (Adapted with permission of Marilyn Tausend from adaptation by StarChefs.com from Cocina de la Familia: More Than 200 Authentic Recipes from Mexican-American Home Kitchens by Marilyn Tausend with Miguel Ravago. Fireside, Simon & Schuster, Inc: New York, 1999.)

Marilyn Tausend kindly informs me that the secret to peeling the walnuts is to use fresh walnuts, right from the tree if possible. Meat: 2 lb beef brisket or 1 lb beef and 1 lb pork 1 small white onion cut into quarters 2 cloves garlic 1 T sea salt Picadillo: 4 T. safflower or canola oil 1/3 c. chopped white onion ½ tsp cinnamon ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper 1/8 tsp ground cloves 3 heaping T. raisins 2 T chopped walnuts 2 T. candied pineapple 1 fresh pear, peeled and chopped 1 apple, peeled and chopped 3 large, ripe tomatoes, roasted, peeled and chopped Kosher salt to taste Chiles: 6 fresh poblano chiles, roasted, peeled, and seeded with stem intact Walnut Sauce: 1 c. fresh walnuts 6 oz cream cheese (not fat free) at room temperature 1 ½ c Mexican Crema ½ tsp sea salt 1 T sugar 1/8 tsp cinnamon ¼ c. dry sherry Garnish: 1 T. chopped flat-leaf parsley ½ c. pomegranate seeds 1.      Cut meat into large chunks; remove excess fat. Place meat in large Dutch oven with onion, garlic and salt. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil.  Skim off foam if it collects on the surface. Lower heat and simmer for 45 minutes until the meat is just tender. 2.      Remove from heat and allow meat to cool in the broth. Then remove meat and finely shred it. 3.       Warm the oil in a heavy skillet and sauté the onion and garlic over medium heat until pale gold.  Stir in shredded meat and cook for 5 minutes. Add cinnamon, pepper, cloves.  Stir in raisins, 2 T walnuts, and candied pineapple.  Add chopped pear and apple and mix well. Add tomatoes and salt to taste.  Continue cooking over medium high heat until most of the moisture has evaporated.  Stir now and then.  Let cool, cover, and set aside.  The picadillo may be made one day ahead. 4.      Slit the chilies down the side just long enough to remove seeds and veins, keeping the stem end intact. Drain chilies on absorbent paper until completely dry. Set aside. Chiles may be made a day in advance 5.      At least 3 hours in advance, place 1 c walnuts in small pan of boiling water.  Remove from heat and let sit for 5 minutes. Drain the nuts and, when cool, rub off as much of the dark skin as possible.  Chop into small pieces. 6.      Place nuts, cream cheese, crema, and salt in a blender and puree thoroughly.  Stir in the sugar, cinnamon and sherry.  Chill for several hours. 7.      Preheat oven to 350 F.  When ready to serve reheat the meat filling and stuff the chilies. Place chilies, covered in warm oven.  After they are heated, place chilies on serving platter, cover with chilled walnut sauce and sprinkle with parsley and pomegranate seeds.

Republished with permission from Tasting Home

See You On the Other Side

The extreme nesting has started. Despite previously professing my dislike of babies, I am a woman possessed by the need to finger small hats and little booties. I open his drawers, where Charley and I have washed and folded everything, several times a day to imagine the small person that will fill these outfits. A second kid, especially of the same sex has a very distinct position to fill with those outfits. His clothes are a mixture of the memories of Charley as a baby, each one still strong in my mind, and a few new things I have purchased, mostly little neon socks and hats. (Where do all those baby socks disappear to?) I want him to look like Charley and be his own little guy all at the same time. I seem to be much more curious this time what he will look like and how big he will be. The first time around, all babies seemed about the same size to me. I thought it was a bit silly putting their weights on announcements, did it really matter? Now, as a second time mom, I know there is a HUGE difference between a 6 pound baby and a 9 pound one. (And what that means for your labor). I also know how different they can all look. It feels a bit like I’ll be crossing the great divide soon. Maybe I will be wiser, but probably just more tired looking. (Good thing I invested in new mascara). I’m hoping one day I will be wiser, that I will look at their sibling relationship and see insight into my own. I hope that I will learn things about Charley I didn’t even realize through his sibling. And I imagine ‘baby brother’ will continue to teach me things where Charley left off. It will be a dance. I already look at my friends with only one kid and think, ‘Huh, that looks easy’. And my friend who recently had her second daughter with a similar age difference seems completely overwhelmed. I will agree that an adjustment from none to one is the toughest to get through, but adding a second seems like adding to the juggling act. A special kind of chaos is apparent in those houses with several children. They are a little bit messier and a little bit louder. We will be one of those houses soon, and I will see you all on the other side.

Both Sides

One year, shortly before we were to leave for Christmas Eve mass, and hours before the entire family was to descend on our house to celebrate the holiday, the basement pipes exploded. My father---not the handiest, to be sure---valiantly tried to patch the pipes, while balancing precariously on a folding chair. My mom’s parting words, as we fled the scene and my dad was almost electrocuted by the water gushing through the overhead lights, were not thoughts of concern, but threats in regards to my father fixing things FAST---and most certainly before our guests arrived. It turned out that the busted pipes were the result of a backed-up garbage disposal and 100% my mom’s fault. I can’t remember the culprit on this particular occasion, but she was known to put literally everything but the kitchen sink down the disposal---and that was only because to do so would have been impossible. Everything else was fair game, including the carcass from the Thanksgiving turkey. The actual events that unfolded on this particular holiday were unusual, but the stress and anxiety that came with the busted pipes were par for the course. My mom had a habit of spending the majority of the day, before a holiday or other special event, in a state of panic. She rushed all of us through showers and outfit changes, erupting from time to time as her stress level rose throughout the day. But without fail, regardless of the outbursts and pacing and hours of unnecessary tension, a much different scene played out as we, a family of five, were seemingly ready to leave the house.  While my sisters and I sat waiting in the backseat of the family car, arguing over who had to sit in the middle, and my dad stood waiting at the front door, my mom’s coat in hand, she slowly---patiently, even---applied one last coat of nail polish. She wore acrylics at the time (it was the ‘80s---who didn’t?) and I remember them as long and bright. My dad then led the way to the car, opening and closing doors for her, to prevent any smudged nails. She never seemed even slightly ruffled by this last minute detour, while the rest of us huffed and puffed, now waiting on her. Punctuality was not her strong suit back then, except when it came to weddings and funerals, a golden rule she reminded us of repeatedly. My aunt captured this perfectly, noting that “Your mom is always speeding, yet always still late.”

Oh yes, and the speeding. My mom came close to losing her license more than once, due to her propensity for putting the “pedal to the metal," as she called it. There’s folklore in the family of one such incident, involving a swim lesson drop-off for my sisters. I was still a baby, too young for lessons, but along for the ride anyway. With three kids packed into the car, and most likely running late, I screamed for the entire ride. A mile from swim lessons, speeding through a notoriously monitored area, you might guess what happened next. A police officer pulled out from behind my mom, turning his lights on. With a screaming baby and two whining kids in the car, my mom made the only logical decision: she ignored the flashing lights behind her. For five minutes, she calmly led the police officer to her intended destination. Once there, she finally pulled over, delivering my sisters to their lesson on time and feigning innocence to any and all infractions of the law.

My mom wanted things done how she wanted them, when she wanted them. She was known to direct my dad about a given household task in one breath---power washing the back windows or painting the family room, for instance---and in the next, pull out the ladder to start the painting herself. We hosted a bridal shower together a few years ago, planning to cook much of the brunch food ourselves on the morning of the shower. I woke to the smell of eggs and ham and the sounds of a very busy kitchen downstairs. She just could not be bothered waiting for me---or anyone, for that matter. Once, while visiting my sister in Atlanta, she decided that the pictures in the bedroom were hung entirely too high. Rather than waiting to discuss this observation with my sister, she took care of it in her own way: by re-hanging each and every picture while Meg was in the shower. I wasn’t there, but I have no doubt that she also told my sister exactly what she thought of her decorating skills, or lack thereof.  Her now infamous statement, “I’m not going to say a word,” was always followed by the exact opposite, and I’m not proud of how often I cut our conversations short when she didn’t agree with me. What I wouldn't give to hear her opinion on anything right now, solicited or not.

The thing is, my mom wasn't perfect. She was impatient and opinionated, bossy and loud. She broke rules that she didn't find important. She lived by her truths, her own moral code. A note I received after my mom died has stuck with me, almost a year later. A friend's mom wrote that although she did not know her well, she got the sense that my mom was fun. And she was right. My mom was also loving, and kind, and generous, and open-hearted, and funny, and honest. She will forever be the mother, the matriarch, the friend, the hostess, the woman that I strive to be. And not in spite of her imperfections---but because of them. As time passes and my memories mellow, I need to remember it all: the good and the bad. Both sides.

Drinking Deep

I love fresh starts: springtime, birthdays, the turning of a new year. January always gives me a feeling of limitless possibility, as well as a craving for inward-turning, reflection, the chance to take stock of where I’ve been and where I want to go. I rang in the New Year this year with a grateful heart, filled to bursting with amazement at everything that has come into my life in the last twelve months: A new home, a true medical miracle, a tiny life kicking and growing inside me. This time last year, I could not have imagined the wealth of happinesses that 2012 would bring. Now, in retrospect, I am awed.

As the weeks of December ticked by, I found myself thinking about my hopes and dreams for the new year. I am a lover of goals and a maker of resolutions; I love having things to bring structure and order to my life, and ideals to strive for. Since high school, I’ve faithfully set resolutions and chosen themes to focus on for each new year, and many times I’ve seen my life change in profound ways as a result.

Still, as I pondered on 2013, I felt stumped. What could I resolve to do in a year that would bring so much change, so many unknowns? While this year is still young, my husband and I will be welcoming a newborn into our lives, adding a completely new element into our otherwise familiar existence. Could I really make resolutions when I had no idea what this year would bring?

Could I ask anything more of myself than simply to be there, living and breathing the new adventures that 2013 brings?

I just want this to be a year of drinking deep, I found myself thinking. I don’t want to miss a second; I don’t want to get to the end and regret the times I wasn’t present for the moments that counted.

And that, in the end, sums up my sole resolution for this new year:

Drink deep. 

Be there, wherever “there” may be.

Give myself a little grace when I inevitably fall short.

Let go of a few of those things on my to-do list.

Cherish these last weeks of pregnancy, and cherish the hectic newborn weeks to come afterward.

Let myself be filled with love for my new little daughter—this soul that stands on the cusp of this world—and let go of less important things.

I don’t know, here on the threshold of the coming year, what 2013 will bring. Like most years, I imagine it will carry its share of pain along with the joys, and I’m sure that keeping my temper and equilibrium after one too many nights spent soothing a newborn will be a challenge. There will probably be moments of exhaustion, of bleary-eyed apathy, of downright frustration.

But there will be so many moments of beauty, too.

And I don’t want to miss a single one.

Labor Pains

I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon among mothers, myself included. It seems that as soon as they have finished labor, they completely forget it. I ask my other mom friends for advice, and their eyes glaze over, they tilt their heads. ‘Hmmm, did I have an epidural? I can’t remember if my water broke.’ The same often goes for developmental stages. I look for sympathy among women my mother’s age and it seems they don’t recall the specific struggles of a toddler, or the pains of pregnancy. I can remember trying to recall my labor pains directly afterwards and them slipping from my memory like so much water in my hands. Speaking of water, the other evening I had quite a scare. I still have five more weeks until my due date, but I was convinced in the middle of the night that my water was leaking. It was the strangest feeling and I called my husband down from his office upstairs so that we could freak out together on the bathroom floor, frantically googling until I had scared myself enough not to sleep a wink. There’s so much emotion with childbirth. I didn’t have as many crying fits during this pregnancy, but that night I was laughing and sobbing all at the same time again. I don’t think it was leaking, nothing more came out and I had no contractions. The whole experience scared me enough that I went into extreme nesting mode. We spent the weekend at Ikea and I washed miniature baby clothes. It reminded me that there are many different ways to deliver a baby, no less valid than another. I had stupidly assumed, being a second time mother, that my labor would be the same. Charley came one day early, I had felt prepared and ready. But there’s no guarantee this one will come the same way. He could be early, he could be small, he could even be a C-section, and I have to be okay with that.

I had fallen into the trap of thinking everything would go just like with my first, both the good and the bad. That in many ways this kid would just be Charley 2.0, and I have to remind myself that might not be the case. Every kid is different, sometimes especially siblings. I used to look forward to the differences. ‘I can’t wait till I have a smaller baby that isn’t so active’, I would tout. Or ‘Maybe the next one will color with me?’ But instead, the closer I get to labor, the more fearful I become of things being different. It feels like the great unknown all over again, stumbling into the great void of parenthood. Just when you think you know something, you realize you have no idea.

Starting Over

By Rebecca D. Martin When we moved into our last house, the first piece of furniture we bought was a sofa, big, comfy, and at the top of our price range. We promised each other that, if we let ourselves buy it, we’d commit to filling it with friends. We would open our home. We would give the sofa back, in a way. Share it with others. My husband and I are introverts with big ideas and true intentions.

A year and a half later, we bought a used dining table, full of chipped-up charm. By then, our illusions had shrunk to a manageable reality, and we made no promises about numbers or chairs or dinner guests. The reality was that I had moved four times in five years. I was worn down by building new relationships in each new city. So for long, long stretches, both sofa and table held only the two---and then the three---of us, resting weary together after long weeks of working, mothering, and missing friends in other towns.

Did we fail? Did we fall clean over our good intentions of being hospitable? It probably depends on who you ask, but if you ask me, the question itself is the wrong one. Hospitality is, after all, about people. It isn’t about meeting a year-end friend quota. It isn’t about succeeding or failing. It’s about sharing life. And life can be downright messy, complex at the best of times, convoluted or worse at the most difficult. In this life, we put down roots where we can, but who knows which way they’ll grow? We intend to stretch out arms of wide welcome, but we end up reaching for help and support or comfort and calm, instead.

And now here we are again: another move, another home. The sofa settles comfortably into the new living room, and I pop out the dining table leaves to give them a good wipe-down. We think with hope about the people we will meet in this new city and what friends might fill these seats. Our intentions are true. But our expectations are open. We’ve learned that relationships will grow in their own way. Community will develop where it’s able, when it’s needed.

In the meantime, our job as a family is to put down roots and grow strong together. We sit down around the weathered dining table, join our tired grownup hands with soft, sweet, chubby ones, and offer thanks for what we have right at this moment. Just the three of us: it is a good place to start.

The Passing of Time

We lost my childhood golden retriever this week. He was almost fourteen years old, a very long and full life for that breed. I say lost, but my parents had to make the decision to put him to sleep. He had a large tumor and was in pain and very sick towards the end, not the dog we remembered and loved at all. Making the decision seemed far more difficult than just letting him go. I think we all hoped he would just pass in his sleep. Their house is quiet now. No nails scratching on the wood floors, no doggy gruffs and barks. But I think what we are mourning even more than Lucky himself is the passing of time. We are reminded in an instant how quickly 14 years can pass. He spent 5 years living near the beach in Indiana, 5 years in an apartment near a lake in Florida and 4 years at their house with the nice fenced in backyard. When you subdivide time like that, it makes it go by even more quickly.

It’s been almost 4 years now since I moved to Florida, and got married. And even though I have my own house with my own dog, I am crying over the good times. The years spent in Long Beach with Lucky, just five short ones, when I was a teenager and took him for walks everyday. I needed that dog, we all did. I am mourning the memories, and at the same time wondering, where are my memories of Florida? Is it because there are no seasons, no markers in the passage of time? So many of my great memories from growing up involve the seasons. Or perhaps it’s because I am only just starting my own family. Maybe all those memories were really about the four of us, my parents, brother and I, and of course, Lucky. In many ways his death ranks right up there with my grandfather’s in terms of importance.

I think we are all grieving and scared. Scared that in many ways this is just the start of deaths to come. We are all aging in a way that is much more noticeable now. And in the middle of it all is Charley, so young and oblivious, wondering, “Are you otay mama?”

Let go of time.

It’s official---we have a legitimate walker in our house.  Our 1-year-old is suddenly, out-of-thin-air toddling around like the tiniest Charlie Chaplin.  She has that hilarious stance: butt jutted out, feet duck-splayed and little arms curled up by her sides.  Sometimes she flaps them just for good measure, as if flying might be next on her list.  Her forward motion is augmented with a side-to-side wobble that threatens to send her scooting to the floor in either direction. I so desperately want to fashion a miniature bowler, cane and moustache and perpetrate it on her.  Occasionally, she revs up the engines a little too high, which can result in face-planting that ranges from controlled to . . . less so. Watching this process, I can feel the anxiety welling to the surface.  I have visions of gluing packing peanuts all over her entire person.  After all, I didn’t spend ten months eating algae-based DHA and another twelve torturing my breasts (THEY USED TO BE AMAZING.  AMAZING.) so that she could crack open her fragile melon with one ambitious step over the dog.  Incidentally, she has negotiated some kind of détente with the Ruby thus far, which seems to involve using her for a taxi, a way station, a pillow, a jungle gym---you name it---in exchange for the dog gaining unfettered access to her head, hands and feet for incessant licking.  It is, all at once, achingly adorable and also disgusting.  But here we are one year into her life and she has six teeth, can eat an entire avocado in one sitting, has finely honed comedic timing and ambulates.

I have spent a good portion of the past three years worrying.  I worried I wouldn’t get pregnant.  I worried she wouldn’t be healthy.  I worried she wouldn’t develop appropriately.  I worried she wasn’t getting enough milk.  I worried I was working too much or too little or some combination of both.  These days I worry she is growing at lightning speed and I am not appropriately savoring every moment.  Having said all that, I would like to take this opportunity, at the start of a new year, this second year of my daughter’s life to stop worrying so much.

Today I was driving through Brooklyn, rushing from working in one location to another.  As is typical, I was contemplating about 1400 tasks and projects while simultaneously replaying Isadora, elated, walking across our living room in my mind.  In this particular scene, she scurried toward the front door, plopped down on her tush and hastily gave herself an enthusiastic round of applause.  This memory prompted an audible laugh.  But my next thought carried the sheen of sadness, “It’s all going by so quickly.”  At that moment, the light turned green, and I noticed the side of the building next to me as I passed.  In large, block letters, someone had stenciled onto the brick, “LET GO OF TIME.”

In 2013, I intend to release my tight clutch on each moment with my daughter while not wasting any more of them at sea with concerns.  This is what parents do.  I am not terribly unique in this.  We claw after the days that slip away and busy ourselves with anxiety over things we can’t control.  But perhaps if I keep reminding myself to loosen the grip now, at the beginning of all her beginnings, I can open up space for even more delighting.

Lessons from a North Dakota Winter...

Dear Clara,

Remember your trip to North Dakota this summer? With long summer days, green grass and your discovery of dandelions? The wintertime paints a different picture---in the place of the green and gold fields is a blanket of thick, quiet white.  There is something about the air when you step outside---when the temperature is so low, I like to think that the air can’t be anything but completely pure and clean.  I love that kind of winter in its own right, but like everything else, it is only when you spend some time away that you really appreciate the peculiarities of a place like this.  Over many winters growing up in North Dakota, this is what I've learned:

• Don’t leave the house without a hat, scarf and gloves: You might think you are just heading out to the car but you never know.  The car will break down, there might be a storm, you might get locked out . . . Always, always, always have winter layers with you.  Remember, it is always much more important to be warm in conditions of that kind, than fashionable.
• Brake slowly, allow time and give yourself space: Nothing good ever comes of being in a rush in the winter time.  Things will always somehow not go the way that you planned.  Don’t rush when you’re driving so that you don’t put yourself or others in dangerous situations.  If you start slipping, brake slowly---no knee jerk reactions.
• Don’t spin your wheels, you’ll only end up deeper:  If you get stuck in the snow while driving, don’t keep trying to accelerate your way out of the problem.  Stop, figure things out, move wheels around, take a deep breath, get traction from other materials . . . Catch yourself while you can still do something about it.
• Take care of your hands: Your hands are one of the first things to betray your age.  You won’t appreciate this when you’re younger, when you think that young skin will last forever.  But a harsh, dry winter won’t be kind to that skin.  Use lotion regularly, wear gloves, keep your nails short so that they do not break.  You hands will always make an impression on others.
• Never take the last flight out:  The chances are high that you won’t be going anywhere.
• Accept that sometimes the weather will be stronger than you: When the snowstorm comes, or the wind chill sets in, or the gusts of wind blow snow up your door, realize that there are some elements of nature you just won’t beat.  And that’s okay.  Know your own limitations.  Be prepared to change plans, to enjoy the quiet, and admire the elements from the inside looking out.  Sometimes those changes that we can’t control end up being their own gift.

All my love,

Mom

On Flying

Over the holidays we took a short trip up to Pennsylvania to visit my husband’s family. We decided against moving after all and it would be our last trip for awhile with the baby coming in just 7 (!) short weeks. It was a quick weekend trip, but the timing was perfect to see some snow, only Charley’s second time seeing it. He was thrilled; watching it float down through the air was just as magical as I remember. I was glad that at the last minute Charley and I decided to accompany Matt on the trip. Originally I was going to stay home, I’m just getting too big and am exhausted all the time. But seeing his face in the snow made it all worth it. He and Matt spent all day Saturday before New Year’s sledding and building a snow fort as close to six inches blanketed central P.A. I sat by the big picture window in my sister-in-law’s house and watched them from afar, it was almost as much fun. Charley is getting so big, and everyday I have to let him go a little bit more. I read Catherine Newman’s “Bringing up Birdy” on the flight and it was the perfect companion to the trip. In the memoir she is expecting her second just as her son is about to turn three, almost my exact situation. She writes first about the pregnancy and then towards the end about juggling two kids. I was taking notes for that part! After February feels like this scary unknown, but one that I’ve maybe navigated before. Much like driving a well-traveled road through the snowfall. You know the road is there and you know where you are going, but the journey is still frightening.

We had a layover with our flight both ways, and since we booked so last minute (the morning of) our seats were all over the place. The first leg of the trip I managed to sit across the aisle from Matt and Charley. I could kind of lean over and see Charley, but mostly Matt entertained him. The second leg the plane was very small and we switched so that I could sit with Charley on one side and Matt was across the aisle squished next to a larger gentleman. It felt comforting to be near my baby again. I’ve noticed I’m a more nervous flier now as a mom. I grip the seat tightly and for the first time in my life, I watch my son instead of the runway during takeoff and landing. I want to make sure he’s okay, and he always is.

On the way home I ended up several rows behind Matt and Charley and it was nerve-wracking. I wanted to see my little guy and know what he was doing. I had to trust that he was ok with daddy. The very last leg of the trip Matt gave me his first class ticket (he had been bumped before we booked our tickets) and they sat some twenty rows back in coach. At first I was a wreck! It was fun to be in first class, but I kept thinking how much Charley would like the mini water bottle they gave me and the cookies and blanket. I worried about him and it struck me, this is what being a mom of two will be. I have to let go of my firstborn just a little bit and focus on the baby. I have to trust that I’ve taught him well in three years and let dad take over a bit. It was hard, and as soon as the plane landed and people were departing, my eyes scanned the crowd for them. And there was Matt with a sound asleep Charley in his little yellow striped leggings thrown over his shoulder. He told me that he had slept the whole flight.

Lessons from a Birthday...

Dear Clara, Birthday season has come upon us! In our little family of three, there is yours, then mine, then the holidays, then your father’s, and then the new year, all in a row.  And our extended family is pretty close to our timeframe too–I guess we were all fated to be together.  But the rapid succession of all our celebrations made me think of what I’d always like you to keep in mind on your own birthdays in years to come:

• Wear something new: Even if it’s a little thing . . . there’s something about bringing something new out of the package, cutting the tags and having that new, shiny, or crisp feeling.  It just adds the right start to the day, and going forward you’ll always associate that item with the day you celebrated another year.
• Call you parents: I never really thought of this growing up, but your birthday is actually more emotional for a parent than for the person celebrating.  It is the day, after all, that their life changed forever when you came into their world.  Don’t forget the fact that they are celebrating in their own way too.
• Don’t forget to celebrate in your own way: When you’re younger, celebrations come easily.  There are parties, there are friends, and there are always much-ado’s about birthdays.  But as you get older, and work schedules set in, and bills need to get paid, and hundreds of other things crowd our mind, not the least of which is our uncertainty about being yet another year older, it’s easy to say that we don’t want to celebrate.  That’s bogus.  You don’t always need a big party, but do something to mark the occasion---you will be more likely to embrace the year ahead and the gifts it brings.
• Don’t be upset if people forget your birthday: It happens.  Some people are excellent about remembering birthdays, but some people slip, despite all of their best intentions.  If someone calls late, don’t hold it against them.  Accept their good wishes for you, that’s what counts.  Someday it might be you that forgets . . . despite all of your best intentions.
• But remember how nice it feels when people do remember: Try to be the person that remembers.  Take notes of important days, keep a calendar, set up reminders.  You might not always get it right but if you try, it’s much easier.  Think of how special it makes you feel when someone goes out of their way to call or write a card or do a surprise for your birthday, and try to be the person that does that for other people.  They will remember you for it, even if they don’t always thank you.

I wish you only the happiest of birthdays over many long years, and remember that I will be with you, in some way, for all of them.

All my love,

Mom

34

My mom didn’t call me on my birthday each year at the exact time of day I was born, and tell me the story of my birth. She didn’t sing the Happy Birthday song to me over the phone, and she certainly did not send me to elementary school with little love notes tucked into my lunch bag on my birthday. She used to say that my father was a baby about his birthday, by which she meant that he liked for all of us to make a bit of a fuss over him each year. For her own birthdays, she told us not to bother, to save our money, that she didn’t need anything, and that she would cook her own dinner. We never listened, of course. For her 70^th, she was particularly adamant, but we planned a fancy private dinner anyway.  We ended up celebrating in the hospital, as she lay next to us in a coma. We joked --- because what else was there to do at such a time --- that she would go to any length not to celebrate her birthday. But, then, she baked the most amazing birthday cakes when we were little. There was Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, a guitar, baby blocks –-- all homemade and elaborately decorated by hand. Most recently, she broke out her cake decorating tools for my nephew's first birthday, creating the perfect Elmo cake for him. Generous gifts turned into generous checks as we grew up and preferred to pick out our own things. I celebrated my 21^st birthday in London, during my semester abroad. On my mom’s urging, I took my five roommates out to dinner, courtesy of my parents. I remember shrimp and sake, wine and great friends. The only low point of the evening was the bill, reflecting an exchange rate grossly in favor of the pound, and the fact that Benihana in London was a bit fancier than its American counterpart.

I celebrated my 34^th birthday a few weeks ago, the first without my mom.  It was a quiet day spent working from home, with frequent interruptions from friends and family via phone, text, and of course, social media. In the quiet spaces between each birthday message, I thought of my mom. Part of me waited for her phone call all day, because how could it be possible that my mom, the person who gave me life, who more than anyone else should celebrate my birthday, would never do so again? A silly thought, perhaps, after ten months of grieving and learning to live without her, but the knowledge that she couldn’t find a way to wish me a happy birthday made her death so much more real.

I have a Polaroid picture, taken shortly after my birth, of me and my parents. They look so young –-- only a few years older than I am now –--- and as I look at it, I realize I have so many more questions for my mom. At three and four years younger than my sisters, and arriving as my parents neared 37, my sisters have teased me forever that I was a mistake. My mom always reversed the negative, telling me that I was a pleasant surprise. Always petite, she gained 50 pounds while pregnant with me, and used to say that she never lost it. In short, she joked that I ruined her. But I also know that I was an easy baby, happy and content to sit in my high chair, while the older kids ran in circles around me. I know that as the baby of the family, and perhaps because of my striking resemblance to my mom –-- both physical and in temperament --– I got away with more than my sisters sometimes did. But there is so much more I want to ask, especially now as my husband and I navigate the start of our own family. I want to know about her own losses, and whether she worried about having kids later in life. I want to know if she compared herself to her peers, most of whom started their own families years before my parents did, as I find myself doing at times. I want to know what my birth was like, and how she felt having a new baby while trying to celebrate Christmas for my older sisters. And, of course, I want to know how she managed to raise three kids under the age of four, without losing her mind.

I sat with my mother-in-law this past week, fascinated as she told stories about the adoption process they undertook, in bringing my sister-in-law home from Korea, close to 30 years ago. The birth story she told is so different than many, as Kendra didn’t arrive until close to her first birthday, but the gist of the story was the same. Regardless of age, of skin color, of biology, Susan knew immediately that Kendra was hers. And that was it.

We’re connected to our mothers –-- whether by nature or by nurture –-- in the most intimate of ways. As babies, we're soothed by their touch, their smell, their voice. As adults, that connection runs even deeper, and I daresay, the loss even more overwhelming. It's a daily work, this loss, continuing to humble me with each passing month. As I enter a new year, in more ways than one, I thank you again for traveling this road with me. Here's to light and love in 2013.

Lessons from a New Year...

Dear Clara, One year rolls out, and a new one rolls in . . . I love the fresh feeling of possibility that the New Year brings, the crispness of winter, and the sense that there is a blank canvas of achievements just waiting for us.  Here is always what I think about for the year ahead:

• Reflect on the year past: I think it’s only fair that before you leave the old year with abandon, that you reflect on everything you accomplished.  And be generous.  We so often focus on what we didn’t get to on our lists that we forget what we were able to do.  Sit down with your calendar and think about all the good things that came your way, and you’ll have a new appreciation of what you’ve been given and what you were able to do with it, even in the tough years.
• Buy a new calendar: Nothing says possibility to me like the crisp, white, blank pages of a new calendar (except for maybe the crisp, white, blank pages of a new notebook!) This is where your plans will take place.  And this will be your record for looking back on everything that you will still accomplish in your new year.  Find a calendar that organizes you, but also inspires you.  They’re out there.
• List out your resolutions: I see more and more that people make fun of New Year’s resolutions, they say we should be doing these things all the time.  That’s probably true, but in all reality, this is a time of year where we have a bit of time to slowdown to think about the direction that we’d like to go in, whether it be personally or professionally.  Writing things down makes them more real.  Keep the list short, but mix a few tangible things with a few dreams, and I guarantee you’ll get to both faster.
• Do something for your wealth: Think about where you are financially and where you want to be eventually.  Are you moving in the right direction? Do you need to save a little more? Do you need to invest in your education a little more? Think about what makes you feel more secure and plan a few steps on that path.
• Do something for your health:  Remember that your health is a gift, but it can easily go away when we don’t take care of it.  Maybe it’s eating a bit smarter, maybe it’s moving a bit more, but think about one think that you can focus on to take care of your body in the way that it deserves.
• And do something for your happiness:  Try to think of what you don’t make time for but that you know would make you truly happy.  For me, these tend to be creative things.  I don’t have what most people would consider a creative job during the day, although for me it’s still rewarding.  But I look for other opportunities to get the creativity that I crave, and because it doesn’t become part of my work, I do it just for me and it makes me happy.  Look for just those one or two things that you know you should make time for, because it would help you find happiness in the other things that you do all day.
• Think hard about the changes that others would like to see in you: For the most part, our resolutions are about ourselves, for ourselves.  But I also try to think of a quality that I know others would like to see more of in me.  Patience comes to mind often . . . so does mindfulness regarding things like phone calls and correspondence.  These simply aren't always my strong suit.  Your job isn’t to turn yourself into the perfect picture of what everyone else would like to see in you.  But chances are, we all have a few things that could use a bit of improvement on, and that little bit of improvement could translate into a whole lot of happiness to those that matter most to us.  This isn’t a time to be defensive, it’s a time to be reflective.

In this new year, and in all of your new and many years ahead, may I be the first to wish you all the health, happiness, success, mindfulness and joy in the world.

All my love,

Mom

Lessons from a Christmas Holiday...

Dear Clara, So many people think that once December 25^th passes, that the Christmas holiday has come and gone.  But remember that Christmas is not just a holiday, but a season.  It’s both a time for us to celebrate spiritually but it’s also a time to celebrate on a very human scale, when our families and friends take first place, and our work and worldly obligations move to second.

• Prepare yourself for the holiday season:  There is a reason why in many calendars there is an Advent season, in the sense of a time of preparation.  From the outside world, you’ll be tempted to leap right into things, but trust me, it becomes overwhelming.  Pace yourself, make lists, consider what you can get done, and carve of pockets of time for yourself so that you don’t lose the spirit of the season while barreling forward towards the holidays and the end of the year.  It’s an investment worth making.
• Write on your holiday cards: There are a panoply of technology options that make sending cards easier.  And they’re wonderful, and many have their place.  Take advantage of the things that make sense---addressing envelopes, for example.  But keep in mind that while technology can replace process, it can’t replace you.  It’s better for your cards to come a little later, and have your own personal writing on them that shows people that you took the time for them.  It’s only once a year.
• Make every effort to be at home: Remember, this is the time of year when those closest to us come first.  It won’t always be possible---sometimes practical things like money and geography get in our way.  But if you can make it happen, be in your home any way that you can for the holidays.  Eventually you’ll have your own home, and your own family, and you’ll have to figure out what works best for all of you.  But deep down, you’ll always know where exactly you should be.
• Set an extra place at the table: It’s our Polish tradition to say that there will always be room for one more, especially on the holidays, and many visitors feel that you could knock on nearly any door on Christmas Eve in Poland and have a meal waiting for you.  It’s pretty much true.  If you have an extra place (or two) at your table, an extra guest is a welcome addition and not anything else.  You never know when you just might need to reach out to someone else and welcome them to your table.
• Be on the lookout those sad and the struggling: We should always be on the lookout, I know, but pay extra attention during the holidays.  Different people struggle with different things around this time of year and they’re not always willing to talk about it openly.  Maybe they lost a loved one, maybe they had a falling out in their own family, maybe they are too far away from home, maybe they’re struggling to keep up with all the financial demands of the holidays . . . Watch for people, even those close to you, that might need a bit of additional love and care during this time of year.
• Make room for your soul: I guess this relates a bit to the very first part, but again, it’s easy to get caught up in all of the activities and trappings that come along with the holidays, even if we do them because of our good intentions.  But regardless of what you believe in, just remember that the winter holidays carry a sense of spirit with them; don’t let that spirit pass you by.  Prepare a little room in your heart.

Wishing you all my love this Christmas and holiday season,

Mom

Since You Brought It Up: Good, Grief

By Rhea St. Julien In the first five minutes of the 1965 classic A Charlie Brown Christmas, the main character pronounces himself "depressed", "let down" by Christmas, and lonely.  He dislikes the tradition of card giving, because it reminds him that no one likes him when he doesn't receive any.  He rails at the over-commercialization of Christmas, and despairs that no one seems to take it, and him, seriously.

Watching it with my toddler on Hulu, I realized that if it were made today, A Charlie Brown Christmas would be deemed too glum for mass consumption.  Characters on TV today have bizarrely huge smiles even in the worst of situations---Diego's grin at having to find the lost maned wolf reassures kids that "Sure, the mom lost her pup, but don't worry!  Everything is okay!  Al rescate!"  The expressions of the Peanuts gang look more like they have chili-induced indigestion, over things as small as decorations, unhelpful advice, and ill-thought-out letters to Santa.

I love that the Charlie Brown special depicts the big emotions of kids at this time of the year, because children are totally overwhelmed by all the bustle, no matter how tinseled it may be.  They act up, get scared more easily, need to be held during nap times and have melt downs in the middle of Target.  They are hopped up on sugar (when did Advent calendars start having chocolates for each day?!) stay up late for parties, and the stress of their parents is passed down to them.  It's a never-ending cycle, as parents get more stressed by their kids' behavior, and disappointed when special holiday-themed outings turn disastrous.  "I'm just trying to give you a good Christmas!" I saw a mom say thru gritted teeth, outside a store where other families were bopping around to carols, enjoying the discounts at the annual holiday party, happy it wasn't their kid that had filled their fists with cookies and ran out onto the street.

I felt her pain.  Just last week I took our toddler to a showing of The Velveteen Rabbit, a dance performance for children based on the Margery Williams book.  She had never been to anything like that, and though she overall enjoyed the experience, I did not.  She sat on my lap and asked questions throughout the entire show, at times scared, at other times just trying to make sense of what she was viewing.  All the kids in the audience were talking, laughing, and shouting, but mine seemed to be the very loudest.

The grandmother in front of us concurred with my estimation.  She turned around every five seconds, sneering, sighing, and shushing us.  I tried to explain to her that it was a children's performance and kids are allowed to make noise, but she proclaimed I had "ruined it for her" and I bowed out of the discussion before I got really angry.  What that lady thought she was getting when she bought a ticket to the 11am matinee is beyond me, but her shaming of my daughter while I was working really hard to parent her through the performance was horrible.  I left feeling defeated.  I had tried to do something special with my daughter for the holiday season, and had only managed to totally overwhelm her, myself, and the people sitting near us.

This week, at a winter-themed Story/Song/Dance time I was leading at my friend's store, I took homemade paper snowflakes out of my bag and let them drift down onto the children while I sang "Let It Snow", the closest those California kids would get to a snowstorm.  My daughter stood right in the middle and screamed, "Mama, I'm done!  Mama, no singing!"  I just sighed and asked my friend to take her for a walk so I could continue being all magical for the tots who were actually enjoying it.

Are we really so different from my easily-overwhelmed little one? I think not.  Everyone I know seems to be already over the holiday season, and we have at least two weeks more of it.  As adults, we dull our feelings with cocktails and present-buying, but they are still there.  That's why tonight, instead of heading out onto the wreath-lined streets to hit up a friend's pop up art show, I'm going to stay in with a book and a journal.  I'm going to write about how I miss my sister and my mother, who I am not seeing this year, and my father, whom I will never be able to spend another Christmas with on this earth again.  I'm going to take some deep breaths, and make some Charlie Brown faces.  I'm going to feel that good grief he keeps talking about, and create some space and patience for my daughter's feelings, as well.

***

We believe we can find more joy in the holidays by squashing the little voice that tells us bright spirits and good cheer are only possible when we’re perfect.  The magic of this time of year comes from connecting with loved ones near and far, reminding ourselves of all we have to be thankful for, and . . . covering everything in twinkling white lights. 

We’re embracing our present lives—foibles and all—so we can spend more time drinking egg nog and less time worrying we’re not good enough. Imperfect is the new black; wear it with pride.

Want to lighten your load? Read the post that kicked off the series, Ashely Schneider's Down, Not Out. Add your story to the “Since You Brought It Up” series by submitting it here. 

Facetime vs Real Face to Face

When I lived in the US, I would call my mom and dad while I was walking around New York.  “Okay,” I would say, when either answered the phone.  “I have roughly four and a half minutes to catch up before going underground on the subway.”  This was our main form of communication: in those four and a half minutes, we talked (quickly) about the highlight reel of our lives to the background music of ambulances wailing, cashiers expectantly demanding money from me, and various homeless people proffering marriage proposals (needless to say, I lived in a great neighborhood).  Peppering these primary conversations were the little moments when, despite Google and Facebook iPad apps and the myriad ways we can acquire information in the modern world, I just wanted parental input.  “How long can you keep leftovers in the fridge?” I’d ask my dad, staring at spaghetti that seemed to have self-generated a green and fuzzy pesto like topping (self-generating sauces: the food of the future!).  “What day is the cheapest to buy flights again?” I’d ask my mom, squinting at my computer screen.  While Bing may have had a more accurate answer, my mom’s was the most trusted one. Since moving to London, my parental conversations have moved to the land of Skype, a world where calls are announced by a strange symphony of beeps and dials; where faces pixelate in and out of the picture; where half the time spent talking to my parents, complete Skype neophytes, is spent saying, “Click the video button.  The one with the camera.  If you can’t see yourself, I can’t see you. Hold the camera higher – higher – dear Lord, please don’t show me your chest again.”

Several things have happened in the switch to Skype; the most perhaps obvious of which is that parents, surprise surprise, love seeing their children’s faces.  All conversations open and close with, “You’re looking so healthy!” and “What shirt are you wearing?” and “How did you cheeks get so pink?” and other variations of: keep on keepin’ on, my DNA-totin’ progeny.

Below the rosy skin and the same shirt I’m always wearing (come on, Mom!) there’s a different, more fundamental shift in the nature of the conversations.  We talk less often, certainly, but when we do, the conversation has an unprecedented level of focus.  You choose a time and date and make a plan, rather than a slapdash time filler.  You are, quite literally, staring into each other’s eyes (save for the moments when – and you know who are – you’re looking deeply into the eyes of yourself).  You’re freed from distraction, less the person on the other end catch a glimpse of what you’re doing and squawk, their annoyance transcending thousands of miles, “Are you doing something else?”

It makes for some of the most focused conversations I’ve ever had.  Conversations that quickly blow past the day-to-day trivialities that fill a quickie check in; conversations that move into the realm of history (personal and otherwise), of the world, of what you really mean when you tell this story or that one.  The truth is, after all, written all over your face.

On the flip side, the absence of those gap filling phone calls has had another effect entirely: once afraid, in any moment, to walk by myself, to wait for a bus by myself, to simply be, I am now forced to confront my boredom and live with the worlds both around me and coursing through my own mind.  At home, without my trusty text message parental net, I figure out on my own whether my leftovers will kill me, or if it’s reasonable to spend half my life savings on a flight to New York (hint: it’s not).  I get to spend more real time with both myself and my parents.

While it should be noted that it’s not real real time, as I’m gearing up for the holiday season (I’m writing this article eight hours into a plane ride, somewhere over the Great Lakes) I feel more connected to my parents than ever, despite being further, physically, than I’ve ever been.  And, as much as I’ve enjoyed the Picasso-esque, pixelated versions of their faces, I’m excited to see their real ones.

Making Sense of the World

As mothers, and as human beings, we are heartbroken by the tragic events that took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday. Words seem insignificant in the wake of such pain and yet words connect us and help us make sense of the world. Shannon wrote about her experience of finding her way through the sadness and anger as a mother. We hope others will contribute their perspectives---whether on dealing with the events personally, talking to their children about them, or grappling with topics of political and social significance.

We believe we understand each other better as human beings when we're exposed to different viewpoints and we take the time to consider them from a place of mutual respect. In the rush to say something, to make sense of tragedy, and to find our power following a situation that made us all feel helpless, it's all too easy to channel our anger into grand pronouncements that further alienate us from each other. Together, we can be thoughtful and purposeful about finding ways to make this world safer and kinder. Let's treat each other gently while we do that---we're united in our fragility; it's what makes this lifetime so special.

To help, you can make a donation to the Sandy Hook School Support Fund, which is providing support services to the families and community. If you're looking for guidance on how to speak with your children, check out Save the Children's 10 Tips to Help Your Child Cope With a Crisis and the National Mental Health and Education Center's tips for Talking to Children about Violence (both contain suggestions that can also be applied to ourselves as adults).

A Life Without My Mother

Eliza Deacon is a photographer living in northern Tanzania, and is also our latest contributor. Here, she writes beautifully about living the majority of her life without  her mother. Living, loving, traveling---it seems she is never really without her mother, something I can relate to in my own way. Thank you, Eliza, for sharing this beautiful and honest glimpse through yours and your mother's eyes.

By Eliza Deacon

When I reached the age of 33, it was something of a milestone: my mother had now not been present for more of my life than she had ever been in it. She died when I was 16, had been ill from when I was 13.  At 13 I remember her sitting down with my twin sister and I. I can remember the room we were in and where we were sitting, I even remember how I was sitting, legs tucked up beneath me in a brown armchair. She told us that she had this thing called cancer and that she was going to be away in hospital but that we shouldn’t worry. With the innocence, and ignorance, of a 13-year-old I remember thinking ‘wow, I wonder what that word means, but I can’t wait to tell my friends at school’.

I didn’t think then of how I would cope without a mother, I was too young. But how did I negotiate my way through the rest of my adolescence, my tricky teens, my 20s, 30s and into my 40s?  I did of course, admittedly with what seemed like more than my fair share of crash and burn disasters, but it’s a loss I’ve always felt. You get over it, you learn to live with it, but it’s always with you isn’t it. Your mother, any parent really, isn’t meant to die when you are 16 and your mother especially not.

Aren’t mothers meant to guide you, be something of a blueprint to show and teach you how to be the woman you’re going to become: a girlfriend, wife, lover, friend, mother, adult . . . all those things that we intrinsically are, but somehow also need to be shown. And whilst you do find your own way, you rather stumble through the complexities when oh lord, how on earth do you know who you are meant to be when you really have no real idea where to start!

My mother was the most amazing woman I will ever know. She was born and grew up a barefoot “jungle child” in India, she rode horses as a cowboy on the Colorado plains, she became a top model in the swinging London 60s scene, and she was a Bond girl in the original Casino Royale (the one without Daniel Craig!). I know now what I didn’t see then, that she often had a far-off look; she gave up many of her dreams when she---not unhappily, I hasten to add---met my father and settled down. But I don’t think she ever stopped yearning for distant horizons.

As soon as I could, I started to travel with an ignorance is bliss attitude, a sort of ‘I want to do this because I want to know how it feels’ attitude. I discovered it very quickly, in war zones and far-flung places. I wanted to be able to look back and say what an incredible time it all was. And yes it was, I was very lucky. I think my life, whilst not the same as hers, was set on a pre-charted course to somehow follow hers, but yet on a different parallel. Exploring, finding new horizons, new adventures, and in the process learning more about myself and the person I would become. Knowing the synergy of our lives makes me very happy. It’s also the knowledge that she would love my African life, this wild and wonderful continent I’ve lived on for the past 18 years.

At times I have felt her gentle presence and steadying hand in my life. How I waited patiently and, at times, not so patiently to find this beautiful man who now shares my life; my coffee farmer, my life-partner who walks his own parallel path in his quiet way and whose feet stand squarely next to mine. I rather think  that she had something to do with that.

I don’t have children and am unlikely to now. It could be an overwhelming thought, if I let it, to know that I won’t share that mother-daughter bond that I experienced so briefly. But I don’t dwell, I figure that things have turned out the way they were meant and I don’t wish to live with regrets. Life sends you on strange tangents and I can’t imagine any other than this one; one that I know she will always be very much a part of.

Mom, Interrupted

Dear Sibyl,

I have a friend that can sometimes be lovely and sometimes very self-centered.  We know each other through a playgroup.  What turns some people off is that after one person shares something (story, anecdote, etc), she immediately whips it back to her and her life.  A few of us have brought up how we often don't feel included in the conversation, but we don't have the courage, or words to bring this up to her.  Any advice?

Sincerely, Interrupted

Dear Interrupted,

It is ironic that your narcissistic friend is part of your playgroup, as she somehow managed to get through toddlerhood without learning how to share, or play the game of catch.  I hate that this bully has taken over your playgroup.  You've got to do what mamas do with bullies on the playground: confront them, directly, kindly, firmly, and if they can't mind the rules of the game, don't play with them anymore.

Teaching adults how to communicate is really irritating.  However, it sounds like you have some love for this woman, and it is that love that you need to tap into to give her the business.  Listen, right now, no one is enjoying playgroup, with her being the equivalent of a Hungry Hungry Hippo, gobbling up all the conversation balls as fast as she can.  If you turn her off by telling her how much her behavior is bothering everyone, you may upset one person but save the experience of all the others. So, I would suggest speaking to her, even though narcissists detest being confronted.  Don't beat around the bush, just tell her straight out, "Honey, sometimes you make everything about you.  And it's a major turn-off.  You've got to learn about reflective listening.  Let's try it now.  What are you hearing me say?"  Then have her say back to you the gist of what you're telling her.

It is not our job to save our friends from themselves.  I know it is daunting to confront her, but isn't it worse that everyone secretly hates her?  In protecting her from that truth, you are denying her the chance to have real relationships with all of you.

When I was a child, there was so much that was out of my control.  I grew up in a home of a recovering alcoholic with a recovering co-dependent by his side.  I understood almost nothing about their communication, but I knew it was filled with both acrimony and love, which was terrifying and confusing for me to behold.  I learned to accept my circumstances and the reality that I had no say in how things went down.

Unfortunately, I did this unconsciously, so it led me to go completely off the rails in the areas that I did have control over, like the drugs I put into my body and the people I allowed to touch it.

Then I grew up, and it wasn’t until I was about 28 and living with a housemate who the rest of the house despised that I realized, “Holy shit.  I have control over my own life.  I can just ask this bitch to leave!”  So, we did.  We sat her down, and told her it wasn’t working out.  We didn’t make it “a teaching moment”, we didn’t tell her we hated when she would eat her bagel really loudly and pretend that none of us existed, her passive aggressive notes or her creepy boyfriend with oracular issues.  It was a huge sigh of relief to realize I could shape my own experiences, and take care of myself in this way.

All of this is to say, if your friend can’t learn to play well with others, aka take time actually listening rather than just waiting for her turn to talk, let her know you want to be her friend on a one-on-one basis, rather than in a group.  Schedule her for short chunks of time, when you have the energy to listen to a monologue.  It’s your life.  Don’t look back.

Love, Sibyl

Do you have a quandary that you'd like Sibyl to help you with? Submit it here!

Asking for It, with Sibyl: An Introduction

Who is Sibyl?  Sibyl is the witchy woman you meet at a party and figure you'll avoid because she looks bizarre, but somehow end up sitting near all night, telling her about your roommate troubles and your theories about your family secrets.  Sibyl is the older sister you always thought you'd have, who'd sit you down and help you do your hair in just the way that suits you, and sticks up for you on the playground when everyone else is calling you "Brace Face."  Sibyl is the friend who shows up just to be with you, not talk, when you're facing the deepest grief of your life---when your partner has run off with a lover, when your baby is dead in your hands, when you're scandalized and have been pushed out of a job you love.  Sibyl is your queertacular friend who takes you by the hand and pulls you to the dance floor, spinning until you both dissolve into fits of laughter, forgetting your fears.  Sibyl is a ruined woman. Sibyl is married with children. Sibyl was on the Honor Roll, then cut class to go out to the soccer field to take a tab of acid and stare at the sky.  Sibyl may spend most of her time with her head in books about the nature of the soul, but she totally cares that Duchess Catherine is pregnant.

Who should write in to Sibyl?   Sibyl is for the ladies.  Sibyl is for the ladies who used to be dudes.  Sibyl is for the ladies who want to be dudes, who are dudes within.  Sibyl is for the ladies who love ladies, Sibyl is for the hopelessly straight.  Sibyl is for the wallflowers, who think no one is ever going to listen or care.  Sibyl is for the Mamas and the Papas.  Sibyl is for those of you putting a brave face on being alone.

What should you ask Sibyl? Whatever is twisting in your gut, those issues that make it hard to breathe, that you know are mysteriously killing you, even though they should not be a big deal.  They are are a big deal.  You are a big deal.  Ask away.