For the rest of us

So, here we are again.  The Holiday Season is upon us.  Depending upon who are you are, this either means a great deal or almost nothing at all.  Whatever your traditions or affiliations (cultural, religious or otherwise), there is no escaping the Holiday Industrial Complex in this country.  Every year I struggle with the very mixed emotions that accompany my identity as a secular, Jewish but nostalgic and kind of sappy person.  I yearn for rituals and moments in which to touch base with family, consider particular stories/lessons about humanity, make special foods.  This year, as the matriarch in a new family, I am confronted with decisions about how to integrate “Holiday” traditions into our lives, for our daughter’s sake. Although in 2012, we say “Holiday” in reference to things that might take place in December (to include Chanukah, Kwanzaa), what we really mean is Christmas.  All jokes referring to paranoid conservatives spouting off about the "War on Christmas" or the "War on Jesus" aside . . . the popularization of Chanukah and Kwanzaa have always been simply a response to Christmas (and a pretty woeful one, at that).  Let’s face facts: Christmas will never not be a really huge deal and one that takes the cake.  Christmas is so embedded in our culture, our calendar, our winter and so beloved, there is no extricating it.  Beyond the gifts, music, food and décor, Christmas is also a Holiday onto which everyone’s personal psychodrama is superimposed.  The way in which families gather or don’t, the traditions people had as children or didn’t . . . the powerful dynamics at play during this time of year call up some of the deepest feelings of joy or longing for many Americans.  Oh and also, reverent people consider it holy and significant.

I grew up in a home that was very culturally Jewish, but didn’t really give much credence to Holidays, per se.  We typically belonged to a Synagogue, but mostly only went on the High Holidays, which, incidentally do not include Chanukah.  For Jews, the major deals are Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur (New Year and Memorial Day-ish).  Tragically, our High Holidays don’t involve gifts.  And let's be honest---they aren't really all that fun.  Rosh Hashanah tries hard with apples and honey and talk of renewal, but is sort of a downer what with the stern warnings about being inscribed in the Book of Life.  Even the dressed up version of Chanukah has un-sing-able songs in minor keys and potato pancakes (?!).

Chanukah was a bit of an afterthought in my house and my parents often grumbled about how it is actually is a very minor Holiday, bastardized in this country to compete with Christmas.  As far as I know, we are the only culture in which Chanukah is celebrated with gifts.  The Americanized version of Chanukah can often look like a “Jewish Christmas,” with crass commercialism at the core.  Despite my profound yearnings as a child, my parents weren’t buying it or buying it, although some years they managed to go beyond the candle lighting and chocolate coins to bestow socks, pajamas or books.

While, as an adult, I can totally respect their philosophical stand on this front, as a child, I desperately wanted what I saw most other kids having---not just an embarrassment of gifts, but a whole season devoted to them.  I would spend time at friends' houses during December and watch as the tree was trimmed and all the rooms filled up with sparkling trinkets, bright parcels and the fragrance of cinnamon sticks.  The promise of this sacred time when everything got so cozy and everyone gathered together from far and wide (particularly salient for me, as my siblings were much older and lived all over the world) felt impossible to resist.

I also knew people growing up who were Jewish, but just threw in the towel and celebrated Christmas.  This was always sort of sad to me.  It spoke to two unfortunate realities---that Jews in this country feel so overwhelmed by the power of Christmas that they feel compelled to participate in another religion's Holiday and/or they feel their children can't tolerate December without the Bacchanalia.  Meanwhile, I totally get this.  I won't mince words, Christmas wins.  It is friggin’ awesome for kids.  And let’s not even consider families in which there is only one Jewish parent and they “celebrate both.”  I SAY AGAIN, CHRISTMAS WINS.

So how to make sense of it all now?  The fact is that my parents were consistently generous throughout the year with their love, their time and many of the material things we desired.  Just because I didn't score a payload at Christmas, doesn't mean I didn't have a wealth of toys and games.  I had way more than I needed, as so many of us did.  And despite my desire to be like the other kids, I never had to watch my parents grow anxious or irritable about shopping for a bounty of gifts or spending money they didn't have.  They also made it clear that it was highly inappropriate to develop a sense of entitlement about gifts, especially as a child.  These lessons were swallowed hard, but remain valuable.

I think this is what want for Isadora, ultimately.  I hope she feels loved beyond belief and that she lives with a sense of joy throughout the year.  I hope that she relishes how our family is different and feels confident and comfortable with who we are.  I hope we celebrate important milestones with good cheer and delicious foods in each season and take great pains to be together with extended family as often as possible.  I also plan to spoil her with frivolous gift items and possibly spend more money than is reasonable on things like a long sleeve t-shirt with a bulldog silkscreen.  And certainly most important, I intend to teach her about giving to others and being of service because we have so much relative to most.

(Images: Marco Ghitti via Flickr)

Lessons from Miami...

Dear Clara,

Sometimes we all need just a touch of sunshine, right? We got our fill last weekend in Miami.  Apart from quick runs through the airport, I haven’t been to Miami in several years and I was surprised at how much has changed.  Well, at least it has downtown.  When I was there last, for a long work event, there was hardly anything to do downtown, you had to go substantially further away.  But now the whole skyline is full of shiny glass buildings.  I’m sure they give their residents ocean views just as far as the eye can see.

I don’t know Miami that well, but I’ve always appreciated a visit.  There is just something about the atmosphere that seems fun; I think it has something to do with all that sunshine.  I’ve also learned the following during my brief visits:

• When in doubt go with color…:Hot pink, neon green, turquoise blue, light up purple…those all seem to be fair game in Miami, and I’ve always admired the city’s tendency to just go for it.  Once winter sets in here, we’re all black nearly all the time and those pops of bright are like little multi-colored sunshines all by themselves.
• …But temper it with white: Part of what makes those colors pop is that they’re still on a neutral background.  It’s just not black.  White is clean…and airy…and bright, and it makes me want to see all those colorful details more.
• What’s old can be new again: Miami has such history and just because something fell out of favor for a bit doesn’t mean it’s done in Miami.  You could look at South Beach---or even the downtown area.  I think there is a tremendous capacity to restore and make new areas and architecture that aren’t found so readily in other parts of the country.
• Lime goes with chicken soup: Once, when passing through Miami, I came back from a trip rather ill, and a good friend picked me up at the airport.  Her husband picked up chicken soup and in the Latin tradition, taught me to squeeze lime into it.  It has changed chicken noodle soup for me forever.
• Children belong: I think people don’t often realize that while Miami certainly has its fun for adults, children have a prominent place there too.  It’s such a wonderful feeling to feel welcome as a family.  Traveling with children is not always the easiest, so be sure to extend that same welcome to others who arrive with children, regardless of whether you expected them.
• Appreciate what’s around you, especially if it’s the beach:  I actually find the beach around Miami to be beautiful.  Maybe not right downtown, but in the area and I’m surprised when people who live right there, tell me that the beach isn’t that wonderful.  Or that it’s too cold.  I know that when you live right next to things, it’s tempting to take them for granted, but try to appreciate it.  For someone else, it might be the attraction of a lifetime.

All my love,

Mom

Gaia & Me

Two weeks have passed. My best friend suggested me to try to put my sorrow into words. I am still not sure this is a good idea---I opened this word document and the white page was staring at me with this blank and ominous look. CLOSE ME. GO BACK TO YOUR COUCH. Some time ago I wrote Elisabeth and Miya and said I couldn’t handle a new piece for my column. I lost a family member on November 10^th, my beloved yellow Labrador Gaia. After 11 years and 4 months together in this world, she is no longer with me. I have been feeling too empty to do anything but work. I still can’t think of much more. I go to the supermarket---that’s a big thing!---I go out for walks over the weekend, and every morning I drive to Milan to edit new pages of some book and discuss publishing options with my boss. I do my best at the office---I smile, break jokes, try to concentrate. And when I cross the exit doors in the evening, tears start to stream down my face. I am going home, yes, but my home is empty now. No hugs. No kisses on that big black nose. The immensity of this loss literally broke my heart. Elisabeth sent me two pieces written by Leigh Anna Thompson on The Equals Record some time ago. I could barely read Leigh Anna’s articles, so I did not finish the story of her loss of Max and Samus. It was too painful, too real and moving. But the few words I was able to read helped me to realize a very important thing---I AM NOT ALONE. There are many other people who consider animals our best companions and cry the most burning tears when our babies leave us.

Because Gaia was my happy baby. I still remember the first drive home in the car with her. I wanted to hold her in my arms, but my two-month-old yellow lab was already too playful to stay still. She spent her first night sleeping close to my bed. She was not alone, she had a new family, who was ready to give her all the love in this world.

I fell in love with her sooner than she fell in love with me. It’s not easy to share my feelings in a language that is not my native one, but my love was pure, wholehearted. She was the first very innocent being in my life. No words were needed, only positive things were shared. Long walks, relaxation, playing, hugs, vacations, afternoons on the couch, dinners with her staring at me and craving for food. And now all the gestures and habits, those little things that have made me happy for so long, are gone.

I was on vacation with my husband (Halloween weekend) in the south of Italy when my mom texted me. I HAVE SOMETHING IMPORTANT TO TELL YOU, CAN I CALL? I understood right away. Yes, mothers of dogs have the sixth sense, too. Mamma told me Gaia had a severe internal bleeding, and there was an 80% chance she wasn’t going to survive the night. Dany and I ran back to the hotel, picked our luggage. My wonderful husband drove all night, 9 hours straight, while I couldn’t stop crying. I felt panic. Pure and simple panic. Time was running, and there was an entire country to cross from South to North. 600 miles. I arrived at the animal clinic Sunday morning at 7 AM. I knew my Gaia was inside there, and I wanted to see her. The vet suggested me to give her a few more hours and see if she would recover. The emotion of seeing me could be dangerous. I was confused. Just a few hours before they said she was dying, and now she seemed to feel better? I was happy and worried sick at the same time. So I waited, my heart full of mixed feelings. Could she survive? Could she come back home, perhaps? And she did. My Gaia was so strong to recover in the space of a few hours. Someone heard my prayers. OK, she was weak, had to take medicines, and have a CAT scan. But in the meantime, she could come home with me and rest. On Monday, the CAT scan broke my dreams once again---the liver was in a terminal condition. Tumor? Leukemia? Still a few days and the results of the tests would come. But at the same time, given her state, few days seemed to be all we had left.

I am a copy editor. The good thing about my job is that I can work from home, too, if I need. And how could I even think of going to the office when my Gaia apparently had such a short time left? So I sat close to her in the living room for the following days, wondering for how long the situation would last, and hoping the answer was forever. It was a long week of tears and hope, days when I couldn’t eat or sleep. Gaia did not seem to feel pain, she was weak, and very sweet. She was all hugs and kisses. She must have thought I was going nuts, breaking into tears every now and then.

On Saturday morning, November 10^th, it was Gaia who told me that she couldn’t resist anymore. I knew it. I just felt that Friday night was the last night. So in the morning I looked into her eyes, and she was asking me to let her go. I knew what I had to do. I had discussed it with my family and we did not want her to suffer, so we called the vet. I don’t want to share her last hours. They were the worst of my life. I wanted to hold her little and innocent soul---if I couldn’t keep her body with us, her soul had to remain with me forever. I could not stand or talk. I wanted to live forever in those hours. I prayed to God. And then I prayed the Sun, and the Moon, asking them to stop. Why not? Please, please, please, I need more time. And I squeezed my eyes as if this could make my prayers sound more pure. I had recently read Mitch Albom’s “The Time Keeper”. So I asked to become Father Time, to have an hourglass in my hands and be able to stop the time. But it didn’t work.

So now I am alone. Gaia lives in my heart. She is still in the house somehow---my mother still worries to keep the food out of her reach. She tells me she expects to see Gaia sleeping on her couch, or stealing an apple in the kitchen. But no, she is gone.

11 years and 4 months. In this time I graduated, I got my masters degree, I went to America and taught Italian for 3 years (oh, 3 years flying back to Italy every chance I got to make up for the time we were losing), I got married, and I started a new career in publishing. Eleven years of big changes, with my best friend/sister/daughter/companion Gaia always in our big family house, filling it with her presence. Always here close to us. Man, all those moments I gave for granted. Is it possible to have no regrets at all? I don’t think so, but I’m sure my girl was happy. She was a human, in a family of humans. And she was the most cheerful and spontaneous and loyal in the big house.

Many friends, dogs’ parents like me, told me she must be in some other place now, happy and not feeling any pain. I believe this is true, and feel her presence in the backyard when I open the windows in the morning. I believe right now she is here in my living room, in that corner where she used to sit. She is looking at me with those big sweet hazelnut eyes. She smiles. This gives me solace, for a while. And then I suddenly break, I cry like a baby because I miss her so badly. I physically miss her, I miss the fact that every day she was teaching me something new and precious.

And I find myself wondering if my sorrow will ever take another shape, the shape of the Sun, or the Moon maybe? The Sun will shine, warming me with her memory every day. And the Moon will shine, too, watching over me while I sleep and dream---I dream of her with me in the old days, and I dream of the new days that will come, in some other place, space and time.

I love you, Gaia.

Thank you all for reading this.

Looking Forward: What I Need.

I ate Thanksgiving dinner this year perched on an ottoman, the kind that’s hollow on the inside and meant to be filled with throw blankets and extra cushion covers. This one, much to my glee, contained my roommate’s collection of high school CDs – The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Strokes, and, best of all, a blink-182 cassette tape---the glory of which was revealed after I toppled off the ottoman’s lopsided lid while attempting to pass a tray of bread across the table. I wasn’t the only one who occupied improvised seating. Five-foot-tall Linda, who I met my first day of college, balanced on a disproportionately tall barstool; Lily and Megan, who dressed up as rats with me this Halloween, shared a wooden bench. My roommate Natalie’s brother, Andrew, and his friend, Dave---who I’d met for the first time that day---found seats on folding chairs borrowed from my brother; and Charlie, one of my oldest family friends, sat on a restaurant-style leather chair that Natalie had lugged home from her mother’s apartment in Bensonhurst.

To accommodate our many guests, we placed an old desk---which normally holds turntables and a hodgepodge of vinyl records---at the end of our dining table (mismatched tablecloths covered the dings and scratches). A lack of proper silverware forced us to get creative, using spatulas as serving spoons, ladles as ice cream scoops. And the food. There were two stuffings. Six pies. Enough cranberry sauce to feed a football team. This is what happens, I learned, when a group of fourteen collaborates on dinner.

It was the first Thanksgiving I’ve ever hosted (or co-hosted, as it were), and the first I’ve spent away from family. With our ever-fluctuating guest list, disorganized menu, and relative lack of space, I wondered beforehand whether the night would end up feeling like a real Thanksgiving.

But, as you probably can guess, it did.

My dad mentioned to me today that he can’t think of a past Thanksgiving or Christmas or birthday that wasn’t anything other than wonderful. Getting in the spirit of celebration---with family and friends and food---always makes those days special.

All of these things were there last week, of course.

And there was more. A candlelit apartment in a city I love. Great music. New friends, and ones I know I’ll keep for the rest of my life. I’ve realized this year, more than ever, that they’ve become family to me.

After dinner, we pushed the tables aside and arranged our chairs in the living room. “Everyone say what they’re thankful for,” someone suggested. Most everyone named family and friends, but there were more inventive contributions, too: 24-hour bodegas, neighborhood juice bars, bike rides through Brooklyn. (For the record, blog friends, one of the things I named was you.)

But Warren, another college friend in attendance, kept it simple and said it best: “I’m thankful to have what I need.”

I am, too. And I'm thankful to know that what I need isn't complicated, isn't out-of-reach. It's here.

XIV. Picardie

With Clémence’s parents and sister, I drive a couple hours to the neighboring region of Picardie, where the extended family is having a large reunion. Some are French, some are German; either way, the beer and wine flow excessively. After a few glasses I find that my French does, too. Even Roger, usually so quiet, smiles at my chattiness.

The next day, moving slightly more slowly than usual, I lace up my shoes and announce that I am going for a run. Clémence and her family have gotten used to this, not even looking up in astonishment anymore when I come back into the house after a long workout. Indeed, I think the entire country neighborhood in Normandie has come to terms with my athletic eccentricity; familiar voices shout Bon courage! as I run by, the cries bouncing off the thatched roofs across the lane and following me down the road.

But today Pauline is worried about me being alone out on these different roads. She enlists the help of Guillaume, Clémence’s cousin, who is tall and bony-thin and doesn’t look like he has ever run in his life, at least no more than the distance to the tabac for more rolling papers. Even so, Pauline insists that he accompanies me.

Guillaume smokes one cigarette before we head out, another during my stretching break, and then two when we get back an hour later, his lungs heaving with the effort of inhaling the tobacco. I just stand there and watch, curious, and I feel my heart rate return to normal.

Lessons from Thanskgiving...

Dear Clara, We’ve finally arrived at just about my favorite holiday of the year.  And not just mine.  I think everyone feels this way to some degree.  I confess that I really didn’t appreciate Thanksgiving for what it is until I went off to college and realized what a gift it is to be able to come home and sit around a shared table to take stock of good things around us.  Thanksgiving is such a unique holiday in that it’s something celebrated by nearly every American, regardless of religion or geography or race or anything else.  Everyone does it their own way, but just about everyone does it.

For us, we're in a bit of an inbetween stage.  Sometimes Thanksgiving is at our house far away from home, and sometimes we still go home to celebrate.  But in the ones that I’ve kept watch over, here’s what I’ve learned always makes the holiday come together:

• Always have room for one more: Thanksgiving is all about the opportunity to come home and be around your closest family and friends.  But not everyone can travel, not everyone has someone nearby, not everyone’s plans worked out.  Always have room for at least one more person at your table; you’ll be grateful you extended the invitation I promise.
• Share with those unfamiliar with the holiday: Thanksgiving really provokes a bit of a fascination amongst those who are non-Americans.  As you travel the world, or meet travelers at home, share this holiday with those who otherwise wouldn’t get to experience it.
• Set your table the night before: You’ll thank yourself the next day.  Also, set your champagne in the refrigerator the night before as well.  There’s no start to the holiday meal without at least one decently cold champagne toast!
• Count up how many oven dishes you have: It’s amazing but nearly everyone I know, myself included, have found themselves in a position where everything just won’t fit in the oven.  Abroad, where ovens are tiny, this is even easier to overlook.  Do a double check of what needs to go into the oven and when it needs to be there, to make sure you can fit everything in.
• Make an effort to be grateful:   Regardless of anything that might happen on this holiday, it is first and foremost about gratitude and mindfulness.  Set some time aside, whether on your own, or as a shared experience around the table, to really think about your blessings and what you’re grateful for.  Even in tougher times, we are still given so much, and we should take this opportunity to acknowledge what we have and how we can share it best.

And remember that I will always be grateful for you.  All my love,

Mom

A Very Paleo Holiday

By Megan Flynn

A few days before Thanksgiving last year, my mother called to let me know that she had transformed her diet into one resembling that of a cave-woman. She had gone Paleo. No grains, no dairy, no sugar. And just in time for the holidays.

“So,” she said, “I’m still going to make mashed potatoes because I don’t want to push it on anyone this year, but do you really think I need to put butter and sour cream in them like I usually do?”

After trying to convince her that yes, she most certainly did need to put butter in the mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving, she tried to convince me that yes, this time next year she most certainly would be making a Paleo-friendly meal for all of us, and that we were going to like it.

I was still really looking forward to going home for Thanksgiving, because who doesn’t love Thanksgiving? The food, the football, the family; it’s all good. Throw in some cocktails and the fact that my parents live on Smith Mountain Lake, and there’s really nothing else I’d rather be doing that weekend. Even if it means eating sausage and kale for breakfast in the morning.

On the day before the holiday, my family went to a shooting range and I found myself in the kitchen with nothing to keep me company but a mound of apples and even more yams, just waiting to be peeled. I was going to attempt to make a flourless, sugarless pie for my mother and anyone else who was brave enough to try it. I first made a traditional pumpkin pie, full of flour and sugar, for those of us who weren't willing to sacrifice our traditional eats for something as silly as life-long health. When that pie was in the oven, I began my challenge. And then something amazing happened: I got excited.

My skepticism and the negativity that surrounded it began to clear as I peeled the fruit and pre-heated the oven. I smiled as I rolled out the homemade pie dough, and I caught myself singing along with the radio as I cleaned up the counters and waited for my mysterious creation to bake.

The pie was terrible.

But we had a good laugh about it and my mom, who refuses to give up, swears that it makes the most perfect brunch with a side of bacon and eggs. It’s those moments—when something doesn't work and you laugh about it with the people you love the most, when the best parts of a holiday weekend are the quiet moments spent together around a table with a glass of wine—those are the things that remind us what the holidays are about. After Thanksgiving comes Christmas, and I know that when I once again return to my parents’ home, there will be no cookies set out for Santa. There will probably be no cookies at all. But I’m discovering more and more that I don’t really care.

One thing I’ve learned over the past few years is that while traditions are important, the people with whom you share them are irreplaceable. And here I am, a whole year later; my own diet completely changed to resemble that of a cave-woman, and I eat sausage and kale for breakfast all the time, and that sugarless pie sounds like a perfect side dish for brunch, and I know that even though we may say that holidays are about the cookies, that’s not always exactly the truth.

So whether or not there is sugar in your coffee; even though you’re confused about the uses of coconut oil and the lack of flour in that crust, what really matters is that you've found your way home once again.

The 90/10 Ratio

I read a great article recently about parenting where they mentioned that it was 90% work and 10% meaningful fun. I suppose that’s one of the biggest surprises about parenting is how much work it truly is. I spend more hours of my day cleaning, cooking, doing the laundry and dishes, than I do interacting with Charley. He watches way too much TV since I’m exhausted and pregnant, and in those tiring afternoon hours when he’s not napping I think I’ve failed at it all. (Although he is learning quite a lot about trucks.) But then we have these small moments that are worth everything. The other evening after a tumultuous afternoon nap where he woke up crabby and I did too, we turned off the TV and went to the playroom. Before kids I wanted to be one of those cool stay at home moms that came up with fun crafts and cooked with her kids all the time. The reality is that I am so exhausted I occasionally let him help bake something, but usually I just make peanut butter and jelly. And crafts, forget it. The second I think about attempting one of those quaint glitter-covered paper pumpkins on Pinterest, all I can picture is the massive amount of clean-up that will be involved. But the other night I set it all aside, grabbed some craft paper and traced Charley’s hand to make little turkeys. I didn’t use glitter or glue, just crayons and paper, and the whole thing lasted about ten minutes before he was bored. But in those ten minutes when the Christmas music was playing and the windows were open with a cool breeze (we live in Florida, this is our best time) I was happy.

Even yesterday, I had this funny déjà vu moment of remembering my childhood. We were out on the porch, eating cut sandwiches of ham and cheese and pretzels in little snack baggies. Charley was in his bright red and yellow Fisher Price car, the same one my parents have photos of me in when I was a child, and I thought about being a little kid on the beach, eating sandwiches and Cheetos that my dad packed me for lunch. The moment was sad and happy at the same time. It was the realization that I was no longer in that place, but I was slowly finding that place for myself.

I often fall into the trap of feeling like I could be doing more. More of anything; more cooking, more teaching, more sex. That I could be less tired all the time, and try harder. It’s tough to feel like you are constantly not living up to your parenting expectations. But then I think back to all my favorite memories, and I’m sure those were the rare 10%. So perhaps that’s all they really remember anyway. I hope.

One Bad Mother

I have the video monitor on with the sound turned way up. I listen with one ear perked to her noisy, clogged breathing---such an adorable, pathetic, concerning sound emanating from our miniature person with a cold.  I glance periodically at the screen, whose camera looks like it is hunting for paranormal activity.  I flash on all the tasks that should consume the rest of my evening---the tasks left hanging from a never-ending work day.  It is 8:38 PM and I wonder how much steam I've got left before that heavy molasses feeling envelops my brain.  I am distracted momentarily by her flipping over, sighing a little and registering a tiny complaint.  My resolve begins to waver and now I'm considering the consequences of simply climbing into bed at this point with the monitor and a magazine.  Or better yet, scooping her up out of the crib and bringing her into bed with me.  In weeks like this one, there are days when I spend more time watching her on the monitor than I do holding her in my arms. Even a generation ago, I am not sure women allowed themselves the luxury to think about work-life balance in the way that we do now.  Today, as I was frantically rushing home to catch 20 minutes with the baby before bedtime, I thought about how lucky I am to even consider such a notion.  How fortunate that I have the education, training, and capacity to work outside the home in the first place, let alone be daunted by how to thrive in two environments.  My work is meaningful to me, it is in a chosen field, and I have a large measure of control over my schedule.  I am not limited to an exclusive childcare role nor am I forced to work a job that is dangerous, unsatisfying or menial.  When I zoom out on my scenario, I realize how refined and esoteric my dilemma might seem to some.  In fact, in an ideal world, more women would face this kind of dilemma---one in which they are choosing among many good options for childcare and have the privilege of participating an elevating career.

It would appear that whether or not women (and many men) have had the consciousness or the language to describe it, this struggle is ages old.  I try to recall how my own mother dealt with managing work and home life.  I don't ever remember noticing her being particularly tired, lacking the energy to make things happen at home or even seeming anxious about her responsibilities.  She consistently helped with homework, threw some hot meal on the table (albeit rarely cooked by her) and made it to all our games/performances.  Although she worked full-time, I always had access to her on the phone.  She arranged for school pickups and shuttling to activities with others if she was unable to coordinate her schedule.  We definitely reconvened each night as a family and this seemed to re-set the connectedness.  I do remember a general sense of wishing I could spend more time with my mother and vaguely complaining about this in moments.  But weekends were exclusively devoted to us and our needs and whatever else was happening during my parents' busy lives, it was clear we were the priority.  Of course she had help, as I do, with housework and childcare.  Oh and did I mention she had five kids?

When I ask my mother these days about what it was like for her raising a brood and working full time, she admits to feelings of guilt, mostly about not being enough or doing enough at home.  She was always highly competent and effective at work---in her mind, it was home that suffered.  Although it was not our experience that she dropped any particular ball, I have more insight now into how she must have lived with powerful ambivalence.  It is also worth noting that my parents literally never took a single vacation on their own or did any individualized, enriching, adult activities.  This is the one area where I picture doing things a little differently.  As much as I can't begin to process the demands on their time for all those years, I hope/plan to delineate more regular space for my marriage and more escape for myself.

Sometimes my mother says to me, "Oh, well, you know it was easier back then."  I have some sense that she is right about that but neither of us can put our finger on exactly why this is true.  I think for one, it required less money and less time at work to be a solidly middle class family and achieve financial flexibility.  I also think there was more neighborly and community support built in to people's lives.  Perhaps the expectations on adults and children were also more reasonable---not everybody was supposed to a "Super" anything?  The fact remains that we had soccer, art class, piano lessons et al and my parents were pulled in a zillion directions.  Still, I can't access a single episode of a legitimate melt down---the machinery always moved fairly seamlessly forward.

The guilt I feel about missing time with our baby casts long shadows and tugs at me throughout the day.  I genuinely imagine that she might develop a greater attachment to the baby sitter during weeks when their time together is more enduring.  When I come home and she instantly lurches forward from the babysitter's arms for me to hold her and proceeds to cling to me like a chimp for the remainder of the evening, it brings some secret satisfaction.  The selfish side of me is relieved when she demonstrates a touch of separation anxiety, howling when I leave the room.  I want her to be securely attached, but I also want to know she prefers me to anyone and won't forget that during the many hours I am away.

I am proud of my work and know it is critical to my identity to have a holistic sense of self.  I recognize it is good for my daughter to establish her independence and be cared for by many different loving adults.  I reaffirm that I want to be her primary and central model of a woman with a career.  This doesn't mean I don't cry at my desk mulling the fact that she might take her first steps today and I could miss it.  This is the fulsome experience of the modern woman/parent.

In my view, it is not so much about figuring out how to have it all as it is being happily immersed in what you are doing at any given moment.  I think anyone who presents as having each domain of life under control is hiding something or is teetering on the brink.  I respect and appreciate the women in my life who admit to questioning their many roles and evaluating their health and sanity with respect to each of them.

By 10:17 PM I had done nothing but write this piece and pump 5 ounces of breast milk before I packed it in for the night.  Then again, I guess that is something.

Photo of Sarah: Buck Ennis for Crain's New York Business.

Lessons from Cabaret...

Image Credit: Time Out London

Dear Clara,

I’m in London again for work; it seems like the opportunity is coming up more often these days.  I was able to schedule in an evening in the theater, courtesy of my best friend, for one of my most favorite shows, Cabaret.  While many musicals often aim to stay above any kind of disheartening fray, Cabaret introduces both social and political commentary, without removing any of the fun---in fact, I would argue the fun is even taken to a whole new level.  I absolutely adore the music and pace of the show, and I’ll even admit that I might have spent a Halloween or two as Sally Bowles.  The thing though, is that the Cabaret comes to an end, tragic every time.  It's getting harder and harder to watch, since you know inevitably what happens not so long after the show ends.  A few things always stick with me:

• “In here, life is beautiful…”: Everyone should have a place, cabaret or otherwise, where life is at its best.  Whether it’s wine, song, dance or nature, quiet and tea, look for spaces that are the best representation of what’s good in this life for you.   Just remember that you can’t live exclusively in those places; the outside world will always come in and you need to be prepared.
• “And it just so happens I do paint my fingernails green, and I think it’s pretty”: All of the characters have their eccentricities, personalities and even character flaws, yet for a time they all manage to be a cohesive group.  It doesn’t last of course, but focus on differences in people as something interesting, something to be learned from, and something that compliments those things that make you yourself different.  It’s a quality not many people have.
• “I thought I should know something about the politics”: When Cliff arrives in Berlin, he immediately starts to read the literature of the day, much to the confusion of Sally, who is caught up in the moment.  Different travels and places offer us adventures, but we should also take the time to know something about the location, and what’s happening in current events and what that means for all groups that live there, not just the glimpses we are given when we’re visitors.  It might just change your perspective.
• “A pineapple? I am overwhelmed”: I think one of the most touching scenes in the entire show is when Frau Schneider is gifted a pineapple by her gentleman caller.  Not only is it a tremendously sweet display of romance amongst two people who thought they would remain alone, but it also captures how something rare can really touch you.  Lately, I notice that people always laugh during this scene.  No one seems to realize that at the time, pineapples weren’t that readily available, were extremely rare, were a symbol of the exotic and were incredibly expensive.   Now you could walk into nearly any supermarket, probably one that’s open 24 hours and buy a pineapple anytime you feel like it.  It’s good to appreciate where our fruits and food come from, and how long they traveled to get there, and what a gift it is truly to have such fresh items full of flavor and vitamins for ourselves at any time.
• “What good is sitting alone in your room?” Come here the music play . . . Make time for music and for enjoyment with others.  There is so much in life that can drag you down,  don’t waste your opportunities when times are better.

All my love,

Mom

A Responsibility to Love

Last week Roxanne wrote a post titled The Responsibility to Love. I encourage you to follow the link and read it if you haven’t already, Roxanne’s writing is always timely, poignant, and thoughtful.  You should also read her post, because I’m not going to recap her words here, only the title. For a week I’ve had those four words running through my head: A Responsibility To Love.  The sheer power of that phrase has reverberated deep in my soul and subconscious.  What does it mean? What does it mean for me? A Responsibility To Love.

Love is one of those words that fits multiple parts of speech.  It can be a thing, a metaphorical place, an emotion, an adverb, and of course, a verb.  To Love. I love many people; I love my best friends, my family, my husband.  I often have very strong feelings for my first cup of coffee in the morning too, but let’s forget about loving things for now.  Love can be stagnant; I will always love my parents. But as with anything, surely it’s better with a little effort. I love my parents much more because I know them as people and individuals; I know them because I talk with them often and communicate.  So I don’t just love them as my parents, but as individuals whom I know and respect.  But perhaps that is degrees of love, and not responsibility.

What does it mean to have a Responsibility To Love?  I think first, it means letting someone know that they are loved.  If you love someone, truly deeply love them, and you don’t express that, it’s a little like the tree falling in the forest.  Love isn’t something that is meant to be hidden or silenced; it should be shouted from the rooftops. If you love someone, I think you have a responsibility to let them know: initially, often, and frequently.

I also think with Love comes the responsibility of caring for someone.  Whether it is taking care of a spouse when they are ill, helping a friend through a breakup, or offering support whenever able, if you love someone you should be, to some extent, responsible for their wellbeing.  In a similar vein, I think it is important and necessary to care for the relationship.  I have a black thumb myself, but I’ll use the analogy anyway: just as a plant requires water and sunlight to bloom, a relationship requires care and contact to thrive and survive. (Luckily I am a much better friend than I am a gardener).

Finally, on a grander scale, I think A Responsibility To Love means that I have a responsibility to act with love.  Not only towards the select group of individuals that I love, but in everything I do.  Everyone loves Someone, and in the nature of 6 degrees, if you follow the connections long enough, eventually the someone that a stranger loves will come in contact with someone that I love.  Just as I want that person to be treated with kindness, I should treat the strangers I meet with the same. There is nothing wrong and everything right with spreading a little more love in the world.  From now on, I’m looking it as my responsibility; a responsibility to love.

Neither Old Nor Young

The other afternoon on vacation we wound up at a café in downtown Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. It was the day before the hurricane was set to strike and I really wanted some fresh air. I was in the middle of a country-type meltdown and warned my husband ‘I had to get out of the house that minute’. I recognized that familiar creeping sadness feeling that day. The skies were gray, no one wanted to leave the house but me, but every noise was grating on my nerves. The temperature was all wrong, the lighting too harsh, and so, we left. Lewisburg is one of my favorite little towns in Central PA. It’s a college town and something about being surrounded by other young people revives me. It was fun to sit in the café and watch all the young freshman and sophomores come in, some upper classmen and teachers as well. They were stressing out about classes, in that way that seems really cute and trivial now. There was a lot of “OMIGOD” and “NO WAY” and cursing and flirting; it was beautiful. I love to watch the young relationships. They seem so awkward, unsure whether to hold hands over breakfast. You can tell the ones that had sex the night before (or even that morning) were a bit chummier with each other, sitting on the same side of the table, whispering inside jokes, her hand on his thigh, his behind her back, tickling her long hair.

It was so refreshing after being surrounded by my in-laws all weekend. My husband is seven years older than I am, and he’s the younger sibling, so that makes most of his family a full decade ahead of me in life. I often feel out of place, in more than just pop culture references, although those happen too. Sometimes it leaves me with the feeling of “I shouldn’t be here”. That somehow there is this magical land of cool twenty-somethings (Brooklyn maybe?) that I should be with. My people. Instead, having kids so young and being married with a mortgage lumps me in with the elderly. I don’t fit in anywhere. Not with the old, and not with the young, but I recognize that they both have their advantages. I try to listen to my mother-in-law’s stories and marvel at how different things were for her, and I try to remember that I’m not doing so poorly. And I look at the college students, and while I envy their spontaneity, I don’t envy the drama and emotion. I remember those college heartbreaks, full of deep tears and jealousy and resentment. I rarely feel those types of emotions in that type of setting anymore. Instead I feel guilt and fear more often related to being a mother. Guilt that I am doing it all wrong, and fear that it will affect him forever.

Curating the internet

Recently, I came across a brief news article offering up a study as evidence of what I’ve already known for a while: Facebook is depressing. The Utah Valley University study showed that of the 425 students who were interviewed, those who spent more time on Facebook were more likely to feel that life was unfair and that others’ lives were better than their own. This probably has a lot to do with the fact that we tend to curate the best pieces of ourselves on the internet. We tend to share the sweetest, most photogenic aspects of our lives, polishing them up before sending them out into the world. You’re more likely to share a photo of your puppy in the brief, glowing moment when she’s sleeping than when she’s simultaneously tearing up your socks and pooping on the floor.

And if you’ve ever drowned your sorrows in your Facebook news feed while you’re in a funk, you’ll know what I mean. As soon as you’ve broken up with your boyfriend, everyone in your feed seems to be blissfully in love. Circumstances or biology are preventing you from procreating as you’d like to, and suddenly it seems as if everyone else in your feed is popping out babies by the dozen.

The problem with the feed—which is not very nourishing, by the way, but often rather draining—is that it’s missing a holistic view of other people’s lives. When you bond with your real-life friends, you share in their triumphs and their sorrows. Most of our hundreds of Facebook friends are actually acquaintances or strangers, and although it may seem that they are sharing aspects of their private lives online, these glimpses have been selected from among many others for public consumption.

Of course, there are a number of ways to respond to a study like this: ignore it, cut back on Facebook usage, stop using Facebook altogether. My own experience of Facebook has been very conflicted. On the one hand, I find it to be so very useful as a directory and as a sort of social memory. I use it to look up contact information or to find a friend’s friend’s spouse’s name that I’ve forgotten. On the other hand, I arrive to look up a bit of information, and then find I’ve lost a couple of precious hours after having fallen down the rabbit hole of the news feed.

This problem certainly extends beyond Facebook to other social networking sites, Twitter, blogs, etc., and there have been many interesting responses to it across these platforms. Some have chosen to regularly prune their feeds by cutting back on people they follow. Others have taken a cue from Jess Lively’s “Things I’m afraid to tell you” post, sharing some of their own flaws and challenges as a balance to their otherwise optimistic and upbeat content.

For my own part, I’ve taken the “regular maintenance” approach to managing my feeds and overall internet experience. My Twitter bookmark is set to a list of people I actually know. I’ve trimmed my Facebook feed by taking some time to block updates from people I’ve lost touch with beyond Facebook. I’ve used Feedly to craft a reader of content that’s consistently thoughtful and inspiring. It makes sense that we curate our public personalities online, and in response, I’ve tried to curate my own window onto what I encounter when I first open up a browser. It takes time, but it feels like a method for encouraging healthy content consumption, without having to feel like I’m fasting or binging on internet “junk.”

So long, Vogue

By Rhea St. Julien After several years of an admittedly tumultuous relationship, I am breaking up with Vogue.  My subscription is up, and I am finally pulling the trigger and not renewing.  If this blog were a movie, I’d segue here into a montage of me + Vogue in better times, reading sandy articles on the beach, discovering Claire Dederer and Cheryl Strayed, ripping out amazingly curated spreads by Grace Coddington and Irving Penn to create collage art.

But our relationship has not all been Happy Days with scissors.  Like everyone else on the planet, I was appalled by Dara-Lynn Weiss’s article about shaming her child into losing weight.  I have grown increasingly tired of the pieces on Connecticut garden homes refurbished by gazillionaires, and the lack of diversity reflected on the pages.  However, I was willing to overlook all of this, because Vogue isn’t pretending to be anything else than it is.  The magazine is sold as the flight of fantasy of a particular Manhattan woman, and if I don’t like their point of view, I can just skip those articles or join the conversation surrounding them to shift the culture.  Somehow, what pushed me over the edge from giving them a pass to writing CANCEL on my invoice was a subtle message in an otherwise innocuous, seemingly empowering article.

I was drawn in by their profile of fascinating congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a woman who manages to balance motherhood, congressional leadership, and extracurriculars such as softball teams and fundraising for cancer awareness.  The tale of her own breast cancer battle was riveting, but then they slipped in this absolutely ridiculous paragraph:

“By 2011, the only lingering effect of her treatment was weight gain brought on by the drug tamoxifen.  Having ‘never gained an ounce in my life,’ she found herself 23 pounds heavier.  ‘Like every woman who goes through weight gain, you’re just not happy,’ she says.  ‘You’re not comfortable in your clothes, you’re mad when you walk in your closet, you hate going shopping.  I didn’t feel good about myself.’  After a press event in her district promoting a small business called the Fresh Diet, she decided to sign up.  Seven months later, she had lost the 23 pounds and dropped from a size 8 back to a size 2.”

First of all, I’m sorry, the only lingering effect of surviving cancer was weight gain?  What about the scars from surgery, the months lost to recovery, the strain on your family, the emotional damage from confronting mortality in such a raw way?  If you fight cancer and win, and you’re worried about your dress size, CANCER WINS.  You learned nothing from your brush with death, and I just can’t believe that a woman so intelligent and powerful really feels that way.  I suspect they took her comments about her body image struggles out of context in their attempt to trivialize and glamorize the congresswoman.

Also, what’s so terrible about being a size 8 (ahem, ahem)?  The fact that they even put the sizes in there shows that it was a nod to diet culture rather than a well-rounded portrait of a woman’s experience with cancer.  I realized I needed to stop giving money to a publication that was insulting me.

It really bothered me that this blatant body-shaming message was slipped in to a profile of a political leader, a piece that was well-written and interesting.  The subtlety of it was what shook me, left me thinking about the lasting effects of such a paragraph, like when, in the 90′s, they found all those messages about sex in Disney movies.

Recently, my review of Peggy Orenstein’s Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches From The Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture was published on the Equals Record, and in my piece, I say that I’m going to try to keep my daughter away from the princess craze as long as I can, and to expose her to different forms of what it means to be a woman than the overwhelmingly narrow cultural ideal.

Well, if I’m going to do that for my daughter, I need to stop “playing princess” myself, and reading Vogue is a way that I, monthly, escape to a world where women are saved from the effects of aging (The Wicked Witch of Wrinkles) by state-of-the-art surgeries and creams (Prince Botox), I dream of having a Fairy Godmother that will bring me a $3,450 biker jacket for the ball, and my confidence is boosted by how modern day royalty (celebs) are really down-to-earth, just like me.

It’s time to put down the princess wand.

I am searching for a new way to be feminine.  Am I a woman because I paint my lips red, wear a dress on the daily, shave my legs and flat iron my bangs?  Of course not.  These are the ways I am fashioning my body right now, and I have chosen other forms for it throughout my life---letting my prodigious body hair grow in college (my husband and I got together, actually, when my leg hair was so long I could French braid it), wearing the same pair of dusty Carhartts for months, forgoing make-up even in the face of period zits.

Right now, my look is very traditionally femme, but, my love for fashion will not die with my Vogue subscription, and I could see myself dressing like one of my icons, Patti Smith, or Georgia O’Keefe, my hair a wild mass of black and gray, my pants pegged and baggy, my white shirt crisp enough to cut a fingernail on.

There is so much power in womanhood---this is one of the major reasons I chose to have my baby as naturally as I could---I wanted to experience that feminine power running through my body in the most primal way possible, to let it change me in the process.  And it did.  But now, despite Operation Rad Bod, I feel crappy about that amazing body that brought me a baby, about two weeks out of every month (if you guessed that those are the week before and the week of my period, then ladies, you are correct).

Vogue is absolutely not going to help me with my quest for a learned experience of the deeper meaning of femininity, beyond waist size and wardrobe.  So, I’m taking this whole experiment to the next level, and trying to limit my own exposure to damaging cultural messages about women, especially since I’m going to limit my daughter’s.  I can’t be wresting the Bratz doll out of her hands while I’m filling my own with pictures of Kate Moss’s wedding.

Perhaps, I’ll spend all the time once consumed with Vogue reading things like this, an excerpt from Dear Sugar’s column entitled Tiny Revolutions:

“You don’t have to be young. You don’t have to be thin. You don’t have to be ‘hot’ in a way that some dumbfuckedly narrow mindset has construed that word. You don’t have to have taut flesh or a tight ass or an eternally upright set of tits.

You have to find a way to inhabit your body while enacting your deepest desires. You have to be brave enough to build the intimacy you deserve. You have to take off all of your clothes and say, I’m right here.

There are so many tiny revolutions in a life, a million ways we have to circle around ourselves to grow and change and be okay. And perhaps the body is our final frontier. It’s the one place we can’t leave. We’re there till it goes. Most women and some men spend their lives trying to alter it, hide it, prettify it, make it what it isn’t, or conceal it for what it is. But what if we didn’t do that?”

So long, Vogue.  It has been fun.  But it has not been real.

Republished with the author's permission from Thirty Threadbare Mercies, Photo:  Some rights reserved by JeepersMedia

Lessons from a voting booth...

Dear Clara,

As we emerge from this last election, I think we’re all breathing a collective sigh of relief to the end of campaign season and campaign advertising.   But the election season, for all that could be improved, is still something I welcome as a sign of our democracy and ability to participate in the political process.   I rarely talk about politics publicly, but based on my experience, I can tell you this:

• Go VOTE:  Voting is a right but also a privilege and a duty.  We often take this for granted, but believe me when I say that lots of people don't have this luxury.  If you had been born in a slightly different time or a slightly different place, you would understand.  The right to vote for whom you want without risk that your vote would be disclosed, manipulated, distorted, or thrown away is not something everyone has.  The right to vote for whom you want without fear of retribution on your safety, employment, family, friends or your own life is not something everyone has.  We might feel like it doesn't matter, but it does.  Every vote counts, and don’t let anyone convince you otherwise.
• Even if the candidates aren't perfect, you still need to vote: Assuming that you always have the good fortune to vote in free elections, you still need to go and vote no matter how much you don’t care for the candidates.  It’s still a choice, and if you really disagree with both, register your protest with a write-in, but don’t expect sitting at home to register as legitimate opposition.  Don’t ever be complacent in a democracy.
• It’s okay to keep your vote to yourself: It’s also okay to be public about it. That’s up to you.  But don’t feel like you ever have to disclose your vote or justify it---you voted based on what you decided and it’s up to you how much you want to tell others.  People can be quick to judge or quick to assume any number of things based on voting, parties, or any other political indication so be cautious.  Personally, I find those immediate delineations so limiting since a person can think any number of ways on any number of issues.  In a free election with democratic parties, people are entitled to their vote and opinion.  Remember to give the same respect to the political opinions of others that you would hope to have for yourself.
• You can’t build your own success on the back of someone else’s misery:  Someone gave me this advice in the context of a relationship decision that I had to make,  but I’ve used this same advice to guide me through many big decisions, and think of this frequently when making decisions around politics.  I wouldn’t ever tell you which way to vote, but I will tell you that reflecting on this will help guide you towards the right decisions.  They won’t always be easy and they won’t always be obvious, but you’ll get to the right answer.  Remember, if you want to build prosperity and freedom and a life full of good things we aspire to, you can’t build that simply by taking those things away from someone else.
• Weigh your trade-offs: It won’t be possible for all voters to have all things.  It doesn’t work that way.  And you’ll more than likely have to make some trade-offs and some compromises---as you should.  In the end, a healthy political arena is a collaborative one.  When looking at your candidate or party, weigh the alternatives and look for the person who will make the best compromises on your behalf without losing sight of key fundamentals that are core to you.   You want someone who will represent you as you most of the time, while working towards a key set of principles all of the time.

It will be a few years still, but I look forward to seeing you at the polls.

All my love,

Mom

Reaching for Sweet Things

“So there is a girl sleeping in the front room,” I hear my grandmother whisper to my grandfather. “Did you know that?” I listen through a cracked door. She has just said goodnight to me very warmly, despite the fact that I am mostly a stranger to her these days. The room I am staying in is a blank walled cube with a vaulted ceiling and three big windows. In the mornings I wake when the sun comes in, when it is quiet and bright. The shape of the space reminds me of a hamster carrying crate, the cardboard kind you’d get at a pet store. Four straight walls, a milk carton style top. The ever present sense of fascination and fear I feel while staying in this room makes me feel a strange kinship with those small furry creatures. Bewildered. Alert. In this house I feel wonder at all the new things I see, and also a heart pounding anxiety in facing the unknown.

My grandparents both have Alzheimer's Disease. My grandmother is further along than my grandfather. I have recently been recruited to spend weekends with them so their regular home health aide can take time off. Their regular caregiver is a beautiful woman who moves through their home with grace and kindness, who tiptoes through the land mines of potential conflict as though it were her sixth sense. Instead of correcting, she redirects. Instead of asking "don't you remember?" she slips into their world and accepts their state of being. This is only my second weekend, and so far I have stepped on plenty of land mines. I have, for example, identified myself as their granddaughter, to which they say, defensively: Of course you are, we know that!  Now I've learned to say it less directly, more casually. And I usually add: Well, you have so many, it's hard to keep track of us all. A concession which they gladly take.

Food is also land mine. What to eat, when to eat, where to eat. Too many questions and decisions, too much room for confusion. Long menus with complicated descriptions are overwhelming, and so it helps to pose two options. Would you like the chicken, or the pasta? Because one of those is what you usually get. These are key words and phrasing. You usually do this, so does that sound good? The answer is always: Yes, I will do what I usually do.

Last Saturday morning we had breakfast at home. I made french toast---my favorite childhood breakfast---then arranged pieces of cut up fruit into little bowls and set them at the table next to two small plastic boxes of pills. The next morning I made "sunny side up" eggs, also an old favorite. Each morning I feel like I'm entering into a new world where there are new social codes, new conventions, new people. Our one moor, the one common thing we have to keep us from drifting apart, is food. As volatile as it can be, it is also our touchstone.

As we are finishing breakfast, we talk of lunch. Then we talk of which day this is, we talk of the weather, we talk of the newspaper (which one of us will read out loud, sometimes going into imagined stories of the people in the photos on the front page.) But it always comes back to food. Well, we just had breakfast, so what is for lunch? Breakfast then lunch then dinner -- a sequence of time based actions that is retained. I think talking of food is also comforting because it is a ritual, a measurement of time. Our day is held up by meals. When do you want to have dinner? My grandmother asks. We could eat at five, would that be ok? I will say, repeating this answer to a series of questions new to her, but the same to me.

When I was little I remember standing on my tiptoes in my grandmother’s kitchen and reaching my hand into the wooden bread box on the counter top. I must have been very small, because I clearly remember the discomfort, as I reached, of my armpit digging into the edge of the counter. But it was worth it. If I were lucky, I'd come out grasping a handful of Starbursts.  I would separate the pinks from the rest and squirrel away my cache in my pocket, saving those cherished pale beauties for last. I would sometimes mould many flavors in to one pastel blob, rolling and kneading the hardened corn syrup into a sticky ball, which I would later nibble, pretending it was a special kind of apple.

That breadbox is on their counter still, but I’ve not been able to open it since being here. It’s as if opening that box and finding no Starbursts would mean something. That my grandparents, as I had known them in my youth, are lost forever? That my happiness is no longer so easily accessed, that my inner life is now more bland? That we've lost the time of tiptoes and reaching? Yes, maybe all of the above.

Still, I stay with them in their kitchen and make them the breakfasts of my childhood, pretending that those french toasts and sunny side up eggs can link our two worlds and the past to the present. Maybe next weekend I will buy some Starbursts to hide in the old breadbox. I entertain the idea of catching glimpses of pink wax wrappers beneath loaves of brown bread.  I know that a gesture like that won't make my grandparents feel any less lost or confused. It won't make me less worried for them. It won't bind my shattered heart, which breaks, each day, into smaller and smaller pieces as I brush my grandmother's hair, hold her hand, fold her clothes, paint her nails. But I will do it anyway. I will do what I usually do. I will gesture, reach, and imagine. Just like I will say to my grandmother, for the fifth or sixth time in a row, We could eat at five, would that be ok? 

Yes, she will say, that will be fine.

On making (and breaking) tradition

As a brand new family unit, my husband and I now face the strange and interesting task of managing tradition—embracing some of the traditions that have been passed down to us from our families and communities, casting others aside, and creating new ones. I’ve always been interested in tradition. I’ve loved learning about ritual practices and mythologies and uncovering the origins of our often deeply-held beliefs about why we do things the way we do them.

But engagement and wedding planning were a bit like being tossed into the deep end on the tradition front. I can’t count the number of times I received advice in the past several months—often from perfect strangers—that began with the loaded word “traditionally.” Let’s try out a few basic examples to get the “tradition” juices flowing.

“Traditionally, a bride wears a white dress.”

“Traditionally, a bride is escorted down the aisle by her father.”

“Traditionally, Americans eat turkey for Thanksgiving dinner.”

Why do brides “traditionally” wear white dresses? In which cultures is this true? Who started this trend? What if a bride hates white? What if a bride does not have a father? What if there is no bride, but rather two grooms? What if an American is also a vegetarian?

Ouf. As (I hope) you can see, even the simplest statements about tradition require a bit of unpacking and may be more useful in statistical reports than as practical advice for individuals.

This is not to say that all traditions are bad or wrong. Traditions can offer guidelines for interpersonal conduct that help us connect with and show respect for others. Traditions can help us make meaning of important life cycle events. But many traditions also have the frustrating characteristic of seeming natural and obvious to insiders, while appearing completely foreign and unnatural to outsiders. Many traditions do not account for difference.

So as we continue in the process of “tradition management” together, I hope that we will be able to practice a bit of what we’ve learned thus far—that tradition is best handled with equal parts critical thinking and creativity, research and respect, humor and sensitivity.

Lessons from a workshop...

Dear Clara,

Since we’ve been back in the US this past year, I have tried to remain mindful to use the time we have here for things that we wouldn’t be able to do abroad.  Part of that time has been allocated to friends and family, taking advantage of their proximity.  Part of the time has been dedicated to seeing the great United States – you’re still too young to remember your adventures here but I’ve taken lots of pictures and amassed all kinds of stories.  But part of the time I’ve stashed away for myself to get out of my shell and learn some of the things that inspire me, but that I haven’t been brave enough to learn more about in previous years.   And so, this past year has become the “year of the workshop”.

One of the things I’ve made peace with – at least for now – is that sometimes our professional lives can be rewarding in their own way.  We like well enough what we do, we have good colleagues, and it helps us to put our portion of dinner on the table.  It gives us a lifestyle, and it gives us worth in our day.  But what it might not give us is something more passionate.  And what our passions and interests give us, might not exactly fill those other qualities that our jobs provide.  So I’ve used this workshop time to help round out those creative interests that aren’t necessarily related to my professional life, but they are to my inspired life.  I’m nervous at these workshops, which are mainly related to photography or the creative aspects of my blog.  Before each one, I contemplate dropping out, and after each one, I’m always so glad I stuck it out, usually at your father’s insistence.  So after all of these workshops this year, here are a few of the lessons I’ve learned:

• The first step is signing up: This is the most intimidating part – signing up and sending the money.  Choose wisely, after all, resources will be limited by either time, money or both, but choose bravely.  One of my managers told me once that any job should make you sweat outside your comfort zone just a little bit, and I’ve applied the same principle to choosing learning outside of the job.  Push yourself a bit and you’ll be surprised how much you can learn.
• Be flexible: Chances are, the workshop won’t run exactly the way you expect it too.  Maybe it’s in a location you’re not used to, maybe they’re flexible on timing…just come with an open mind.  The whole point of doing something different is to do something different, right?
• Attend all the events: Sometimes workshops have a dinner, or a get together, or some other event associated with it.  If you’re going to know a new group of people for just a short amount of time, get the most you can out of it.  Do the events and don’t be shy.  Introduce yourself and get out there.
• Give yourself time to absorb: The great thing about workshops is that they usually fill you with lots of new and grand and big ideas.  Make sure to give yourself a little clean time after the workshop to let it all sink in.  You’re going to want to go in 34 directions all at once – don’t compromise the value of everything you learned by overloading social commitments or other things that start the minute the workshop is over.  Give yourself space to absorb the learning and plot out exactly what you’re going to do with it.  A few notes to yourself now will pay out great dividends later.
• Translate into your own voice: Sometimes when we see something by someone we admire at a workshop, we’re tempted to go home and recreate the exact same thing.  Re-creation is great for practice.  But the workshop’s intent was to teach you a series of tools so that you can create what you want out of it.   It’s still going to be up to you to apply them in your own voice and vision.  Don’t hesitate to stretch what you’ve learned into the direction that you need it to go to work for you.

All my love,

Mom

X. Normandie

Pauline is a nurse at the hospital in Bernay. Because of the proximity to the Channel and, therefore, England, it’s not uncommon for British patients to come in from time to time. Pauline doesn’t speak any English, and so she has asked for me to help her make a list of important questions that she must be able to say in a routine exam. It’s fairly easy for me, though sometimes I lack the proper medical jargon.

She repeats after me. “’Ave you ‘ad a poo?”

I struggle to keep a straight face and nod encouragingly. The translation doesn't sound quite right, but it's the best I can do.

Lessons from Paris...

Dear Clara,

Paris.  Sometimes I’m tempted not to even say more than that---after all, what can you say about such a city?  If you haven’t been, you have to go to understand.  And if you’ve been, there’s not much need to explain.  But that being said, there might just be a few things I wish I had known sooner:

• Paris is for lovers: Really.  It’s an entirely different city when you have someone’s hand to hold as you dart in and out metro stops, walk across gardens and take in endless boulevards.  While I would never say that happiness depends on another person, the fact of the matter is that Paris changes entirely when you experience it with someone.  You don’t have to love that person forever, just the time that you’re in Paris.
• Paris will disappoint your heart a little bit each time: Maybe it’s because of the above.  Paris can be so full of inspiration and ideas that we’re bound to be let down sometimes, maybe by a person or maybe by the city.  Be prepared for some tough moments.  When things aren’t going your way, resilience and determination are going to become good, comforting friends.
• Wear a scarf: Even in the summer . . . It’s the quickest way to add a bit of chic, a bit of color, and a bit of warmth.  You simply can never have too many scarves in Paris.
• Learn how to drink coffee without milk: It’s likely that when you spend time in Paris, you’ll be a student.  So it’s also likely that if you’re a student, you won’t have much money.  Coffee without milk is your answer to enjoying any café in the city you want for a song.  Just skip the cigarettes, please (though they will be tempting).
• Appreciate the form before you challenge it: Sometimes I want to say “process” for this one, but it’s not quit about that.  Parisians will be quick to inform you that there is a “way” of doing things: of philosophy, of art, of eating your meal, of picking a wine . . . and you can be made to feel very small when you get it wrong, or when you want to do things in a different way.  Try to learn all these forms as best you can, see why they’re there, and why people attach to them.  Then break the mold---you can do that as an outsider.  But always know your starting point and why you’re deviating from it, and you’ll also gain some respect for your choice.

I read once that when the actress Gwyneth Paltrow was in Paris with her father for the first time, at age 12,  she asked why he had brought her.  And he replied that he wanted her to see Paris for the first time with a man that would love her forever, no matter what.  I found that to be such a touching sentiment.  I’ll have to speak to your father about taking you to Paris.

All my love,

Mom