Sleep and Intimacy

When I kiss my husband, it is with a question. Will it be tonight, dear? When I kiss my child, it is with an answer. He is wondering: do I love him? And I respond, with my arms and my mouth, Yes, always. His kisses are innocent. They contain no motives, no history. They simply are. Kissing is a game to him. It’s a call and answer. Mama! Mmmmmmmm

Yes? Oh! Mwah!

Mama, MAAMAAA!! Mmmmmm

Mwah, I love you.

Before having a child, my husband and I could spend hours kissing like deprived teenagers. We had the luxury of time. Now, sometimes we will kiss hello, and goodnight, but otherwise we are simply too busy for long embraces. This translates to our sleeping life as well. We have developed what we jokingly refer to as ‘the pillow wall’. It started when I was pregnant. I would writhe around, unable to get my large midsection comfortable without losing feeling in one of my hips. To combat this, I would snuggle an oversize body pillow. Sometimes, that pillow ended up between us, and by morning, we were peering over it wondering where the other had disappeared. The pillow wall remains, albeit smaller now.

The only time there was a cease fire was after our son was born. I rid the bed of extra sheets, too-fluffy down comforters, and erroneous pillows, especially body-sized ones. Everything was a hazard. According to the wisdom of my mother and the hospital nurses, co-sleeping was dangerous. I was putting my newborn infant at risk to potentially stifle him with all of that extra fabric. But I did it anyway. It was a natural response to his mewing at 4:00 a.m.: gather him in my arms, and put his cheek on my chest. We rocked each other to sleep. Some nights, it seemed to be the only thing that worked. Although, I often worried more than I slept. Worried he would roll off the bed, worried my husband would roll over onto him. But through it all, we snuggled and bonded. I would watch his tiny face for the smallest inclination of waking, and think, Never grow up.  But then take back the sentiment when it was hours later and he was still awake. It seemed those first few weeks he couldn’t breathe if he wasn’t attached to me in some way. Eventually we all found some equilibrium of sleep and wakefulness.

Recently, the other morning, he had a fever. Maybe two-year molars, or a bad dream, I wasn’t sure. He was up at six, very rare for him. I went to his room and found him disoriented, crying, a mess of tears and sweat. His blonde curls forming a little C on his forehead. I scooped him up and we lay on the couch and watched Dora until he calmed down.  He was the little spoon; his head was on my arm, warm to the touch. The dog was on my feet, her paws running in dreams. I closed my eyes to the wheezing of soft, sweet bursts of breath on my face. When I woke I had an odd nostalgia. Could it be I missed some part of those first few sleepless months? Missed the intimacy and the closeness that my now independent toddler rarely needed?

I let the dog out, set Charley up with some cereal and went to wake my husband. By then it was after nine, a more respectable hour. Our curtains were pulled in the master and it was dark and cool. I watched my husband sleeping, snoring, facing away from me and knew he didn’t need me. I will never be his whole world, but for my son, for even a short time, I was his everything. I was everything he had ever known, ever needed, ever wanted.

Looking Forward: Just a Matter of Time.

“We are the luckiest people in the world to live in Brooklyn,” a friend said to me the other day over coffee. “Brooklyn is the coolest place on the planet right now. When we’re older, we’ll be able to tell our kids, ‘We lived in Brooklyn when it was just becoming Brooklyn.’ Think about that.” I’ve thought about it, and it’s true. Brooklyn is a wonderful place to be young and creative. Everyone (well, maybe not everyone, but it seems that way) is an artist, a writer, a musician, a designer. The place bristles with energy. Imagination. New ideas.

It’s exhilarating, for sure. But sometimes it can be downright intimidating. Everyone seems so cool, confident, and creative, it’s easy to feel discouraged about my own burgeoning career as a writer. It’s easy to feel small.

Do I stand out? Is my work good enough? Is my writing terrible? Is it lame? Worse, is it boring? 

I’ve found myself sucked into this anxiety-ridden spiral on more occasions than I’d like to admit. And while I think a little self-doubt can be healthy, I’ve found that more often than not, dwelling on insecurity has been a waste of time. So when the questions feel crushing, I try to keep three things in mind:

I’m still learning. I forget this all the time. I’m young. I’m new to this (though I’ve always loved to write, I only decided to pursue writing professionally a year-and-a-half ago). Creatively, not everything I produce is going to be up to my standards. But that’s okay---it’s practice. (Ira Glass had it right when he said this.) 

Feeling small can be a good thing. Sometimes I read something that’s so incredibly, heartbreakingly good that I feel like I might as well abandon my career. What’s the point of going on, asks drama-queen me, when there are so many brilliant writers in the world? This is where slightly-more-rational me steps in: it’s wonderful that the world is full of amazing writers. It’s inspiring. It’s a push.

My time will come. It may not happen tomorrow; it may not happen for weeks, months, or years. But I know that someday, I’m bound to reach a place that feels more secure than this. I know my creative confidence will build with time. I know that as a writer, I’ll find my voice.

Of course, I’d love to get there sooner rather than later. But for now, I'm doing my best to be patient. I'm keeping calm and carrying on, if you will. "Someday" will come soon enough, I figure---it's only a matter of time.

Memories of Freedom

I am the product of small towns. As a fourth grader, in Vincennes, Indiana, I rode my bicycle to school every day. Vincennes is a flat town of under twenty thousand residents and I lived in a neighborhood that was a straightforward grid. I rode three blocks down Twelfth Street and two blocks over on Wabash Avenue. This was fully allowed by the school; it was a K-6 school and bike riding was permitted when students were in fourth grade or above. I loved it. At the time I had a Huffy “Desert Rose” bicycle, which featured a fuchsia color scheme that was all the rage in 1988. There were bike racks at the school and I would ride there in the morning, chain my bike to the rack using my neon orange combination lock, and at the end of the day retrieve it to ride home. I have no idea what, if any, doubts my parents had about allowing this. I do know that I remember the experience with remarkable, visceral fondness.

One day, while riding home, I was knocked off my bike by an older (probably sixth grade) boy on his bike. It was an isolated incident of totally random meanness. I told my parents about it, and, if memory serves, my father went to talk to his parents. While I remember this incident, the sort of thing many parents might fear happening, it is but a blip in the experience of being allowed to ride my bike to school.

I was reminded of this when I read an article in Bicycling Magazine about a controversy in Saratoga Springs, NY.  In spite of rising obesity rates, and environmental concerns, many schools prohibit students from riding bikes because of safety and liability concerns. The article reported that “one British study found that over the course of four generations, the distance that eight-year-old children in one family (the Thomases of Sheffield, England) were allowed to roam from home had shrunk from 6 miles (for great-grandfather George in 1926) to one mile (for grandfather Jack in 1950) to half a mile (for mother Vicky in 1979) to 300 yards (for son Ed in 2007).”

I read the article weeks ago and I keep returning to that statistic. Many of my fondest memories from my childhood involve “exploring” with friends, either on bikes or on foot. When my family moved to Bethany, West Virginia, in 1989, I found myself in a college town with no traffic lights, no gas station, virtually no traffic, and a coterie of fellow professors’ kids with whom to ramble around. Summer often involved four or five of us in the woods, finding crayfish in the creek, or playing an elaborate version of nighttime hide and seek we called “flashlight war.” I remember distinctly the day we decided to “ride our bikes to Pennsylvania,” and while it was only a three-mile ride, the thrill of crossing a state line all by ourselves has never left me.

How do I provide my son with these experiences? Is it possible in 2012, to give kids this sort of freedom? Are such idyllic experiences only feasible in small towns? As a parent, I feel like every decision we make about our son’s welfare is complicated and fraught. “Does the store have organic bananas today? Is he too heavy to use his jumper any more? The weather is cool and humid – does he need a sweatshirt?”  This isn’t even beginning to touch the big issues that cause rifts among even the best of friends like the never-ending debates over breastfeeding, co-sleeping, and so on.

I remember one day when I was probably about twelve years old. I went out into the woods that framed our yard in West Virginia. I was by myself. I probably was never more than a thousand yards or so from my house. I had no cell phone, no GPS. I went wandering, and I stumbled upon two trees that had grown towards each other creating an arch of sorts. I stood, mouth agape, astounded by the way these two trees framed an area of wildflowers just beyond. Romantically, and tapping into my inner Anne Shirley, I dubbed it “the gateway to beauty.” It was a remarkable sight, and I believed (and in a way still do believe) that I was the only person who had ever seen it.  I went back days later and couldn’t find it again, but the memory lingers ethereally and has for twenty years.

Is there space for that sort of moment in a world where kids aren’t left alone “outside” very often? Even though I was really very close to my house, I felt like I was on another planet. Would I still have felt that way with an iPhone in my pocket?

I want my son to have these experiences, but I realize that these memories were not hyper-orchestrated by my parents. They bought me a bike, they let me ride it, they trusted me to come home again, and they trusted the environment enough to let me go. I hope I will be able to do the same for my son, even though the culture has shifted.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

We love to hear what our friends are reading when they step away from the computer. Drop us a line and let us know what’s blowing your mind. Erin Boyle, Reading My Tea Leaves State of Wonder by Ann Patchett This week I finally dug into Ann Patchett's State of Wonder and somehow, miraculously, I've made the adult decision to tend to weekday obligations rather than holing up in my bed for the duration and gobbling each delicious morsel. It's the kind of book I don't mind dog-earing. Or rather, it's the kind of book I can't help dog-earing--there is so much I'd like to return to later. A taste of my favorite passage so far: "Had they not been so hopeful and guileless her birth would have been impossible. Marina reimagined her parents as a couple of practical cynics and suddenly the entire film of her life spooled backwards until at last the small heroine disappeared completely."

Kelly Beall, Design Crush The Wolf Gift by Anne Rice I've been a huge Anne Rice fan since college, and I always eagerly await her next book. Anne's explored so many genres throughout her career that I was thrilled when I heard she was going back to her roots with the supernatural. I think you get the idea behind the book from the title, and so far it has not disappointed. I'm about 75% finished with the book and only started Monday! A great summer read, for sure.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson Being not only a design blogger, but a graphic designer, Steve Jobs has played a massive role in my life through his creations at Apple. I was devastated when he passed away last year. This book is an all-revealing look at his life, not only the accomplishments and successes but also the mistakes and defeats. Biographies can tend to be slow-moving and dry, but I literally can't put this one down. A must for anyone who's life relies on the products he brought to life.

Shani Gilchrist, Camille Maurice Lately I find that the only way to plow through the books I want is to keep a few on my nightstand at a time. With work, kid,s and life it’s the best way to keep my reading momentum moving forward.

Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Megan Mayhew Bergman I connected with Megan via Twitter through another writer who was giving me advice about returning to school for my MFA (I haven’t applied yet, but it’s still in my mind). It turned out that we both attended the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts in the 1990s, and then I was delighted to find her piece, “Housewifely Arts” in the latest edition of Best American Short Stories, so I couldn’t wait to read her collection. Megan is a teacher and mother with an uncanny ability to understand the varied conditions life stages-- from loneliness to amusement with one’s own state of affairs. I’ve been taking my time reading this collection because I find myself needing to process the emotions of each main character.

Guide To South Carolina Vegetable Gardening by Walter Reeves & Felder Rushing I’m a South Carolinian with a decent sized yard and an irrigation system. Therefore I try to grow stuff. Last fall we had a storm with downdraft winds so strong that they left us trapped on our block with a pulsing and swollen creek on one side and fallen trees blocking street. The good news—the despised 100-foot pine behind our koi pond had to be removed as a result, leaving room for what will be a vegetable garden. The book is a great guide to when and how to plant various herbs, fruits and vegetables in our temperamental climate.

The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman I developed a huge girl crush on Elif Batuman when I read her New Yorker piece about traveling through eastern Turkey to observe a mysteriously intense orinthologist. A neighbor who is a friend from high school borrowed (stole) the book while housesitting for us a few months ago. I just got it back and am as smothered with the book’s fascination with Russian culture and literature as I am by the topics on their own. It is a fantastic testament to the timelessness of Russian storytelling and the lives of people who love books.

Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness: What It Means To Be Black Now by Touré The introduction to this book is captivatingly true. We live in an age where people deprive themselves of experiences because of their racial identity, yet we live in an age where we believe that the election of the first president of color is supposed to liberate us from such behavior. Both attitudes are extreme in their own way, and Touré provides an unflinching look at the most recent complexities of race and culture.

A Rant About Banks

By Miranda Ward, A Literal Girl So, banks. We all use them, right? I guess some people don’t. Some people probably don’t trust banks, and keep their cash in neat little stacks under the mattress (doesn’t that get uncomfortable?), but a lot of us use banks. They’re a necessary evil. And I’ve never met someone who was enthusiastically supportive of their bank. No one has ever said to me, “Yes! I LOVE my bank! They make things easy for me and they give me cake and whisky when I’ve been especially good at managing my money!” No one has ever even said to me, “Oh yeah, my bank, they’re pretty helpful, actually.”

People have often, however, indicated how terrible/horrible/painful/stressful the experience of using a bank is. They say things like, “Wow! It would be easier to saw my own left leg off with a butter knife than access my account online!” and, “Oh yeah! Last time I went into a bank, I waited seven weeks to talk to someone. It was really boring, but at least I finally got to see what I’d look like with a beard.”

My life is quadruply stressful, because I have a bank in the USA and a bank in the UK. Do you know how many things can go wrong when you have TWO banks to deal with? Especially two banks that can’t interact with each other, because there’s a magic force field halfway across the Atlantic which prevents transatlantic transactions?

Here are just a few of my favorite bank-related memories:

- That time I wanted to wire some of my own money from my bank account in the USA to my bank account in the UK. My UK bank was like, “Sure! We can do that, no problem! Just fork over a 50% fee, wait four weeks, and you’ll be on your way!” And my US bank was like, “Um, you want to send money WHERE? To ENGLAND? I think I’ve heard of it, didn’t we beat them in a war once?” And then, after a lot of hemming and hawing and looking up of obscure codes, they were like, “Ohhhh yeahhhh, THAT place. No problem. Just fork over a 50% fee, wait another four weeks, and you’ll be on your way!” Unfortunately there was no money left to send myself after I’d paid all the fees.

- That time I wanted to access my account online. In fact,every time I have ever wanted to access my account online. In order to do this, I need a pointless little keypad that I stick my card into to produce a code. Which means I obviously also need my card. But! That’s not enough! I ALSO need a special (very lengthy) code that’s written on a laminated piece of paper they once sent me in the post. These things allow me to successfully log in about 80% of the time. The remaining 20% of the time I get a little red error message that says, “Sorry! We’re unable to log you in because WE’RE IDIOTS you recently used the back button on your browser.” Yes, yes I did use the back button on my browser, once, in 2004. SORRY.

- That time my card got eaten up by the cash point outside my local Tesco. I asked an important-looking Tesco employee if he could help, but of course he couldn’t help, because the cash points attached to his store are nothing to do with him. He pointed out that a lot of people had lost their cards in those machines lately. “Maybe you should ring your bank!” he said. So I rang my bank. At first all they could say was, “Um, I dunno, we can’t really help you, have you talked to the store manager?” But finally they suggested I go into a branch the next day. As the next day was Sunday, I went in the following Monday, and was seen by a very friendly representative who could see that some unusual activity had been flagged up on my account, but who couldn’t understand what that unusual activity was, because the person who had flagged it up hadn’t put anything in the notes. Finally he looked through all my recent transactions and decided that it was probably because I had withdrawn some cash in Wales last weekend. He lifted the restriction on my account, and ordered me a new card, which arrived promptly three weeks later.

- That time my US bank cancelled my debit card. Luckily, I was in the US at the time, so I went into a branch and asked the lady at the counter, above which was hung a sign that said, “We’re here to help!”, if she could help me. “Oh no,” she said. “I couldn’t possibly help you. You’ll have to call that number, see, on the back of your card? They can help you.” So I called the number. I sat on hold for a day, maybe two, and presently I was put through to a chirpy woman who was able to identify the problem immediately. “You went abroad without telling us,” she admonished. I felt like a child who has been caught doing something he knows he shouldn’t do but can’t help doing, like eating ice cream before dinner. “But I live abroad!” I said. “You know this. You regularly send mail to my address in the UK.” “No,” said the chirpy lady. “We have no record of any address abroad.” “But you send mail to my address in the UK!” “No,” said the chirpy lady. “We have an address in California.”

So now, every time I move an inch, I feel like I should call both of my banks and assure them that IT’S OKAY! IT’S JUST ME! SHIFTING POSITION A LITTLE, BECAUSE MY FOOT HAS FALLEN ASLEEP!

But if I’m honest, some of my aggression towards banks---maybe most of it---can be accounted for by the fact that banks are all about money, and money stresses me out, even at the best of times. Banks stand there, on high streets and in strip malls, like living monuments to mortgages, loans, debt, wealth, capitalism, materialism, social (im)mobility, long work weeks, the American dream, the credit crunch. They represent what we have but also what we don’t, what we can never, have. And they add unnecessary complication to an already complicated thing.

Maybe I’d be willing to live with a lumpy mattress after all.

Editorial Note: You should really pre-order Miranda's forthcoming book here. The New Original Little Fish Paper Club Handbook is "a book about Little Fish, but it's also a book about making it work, making your own way, and making stuff---music, comics, t-shirts, fishy paper squares, stickers, badges, vinyl, stop-motion animations, even books. It's about declaring your independence and rewriting the myths you live by. " Sounds amazing, right?

Home Sweet Home

For Mother’s Day I received Toni Morrison’s newest novel, Home.  As a huge Toni fan, I look forward to reading the text and enjoying the characters as I always do, but what struck me the most about her newest book is the simple title, Home.  In that short four lettered word, so many meanings and experiences come to my mind.  Home has come to mean many things to me over the years.  Literally, I can count up the dozens of addresses and phone numbers I’ve changed and re-changed, area codes and postal codes, boxes and bags.  You see, I’m a mover.  I’ve been a mover since I was young.  My parents come from migrant people, and I think there is something about my ancestors being from, as we say in Spanish, ni de aquí ni de allá (neither here nor there). My mother’s family hails from the Tex-Mex borderlands, and they are migrant farm workers who have settled in the Rio Grande Valley.  My dad’s biological mother, though he was adopted from a family in Richmond, was part of the great migration of African Americans to the Northeast in the 1940s, and she has called Hartford, Connecticut her home for many decades.  While my parents met, married, child reared, and divorced in Richmond, Virginia, my soul has always felt I was from some other place.

Home from a practical sense was in constant flux from my perspective.  I grew up knowing home existed with my mom, dad, sisters, and then with grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins (which is common for Latino families). There were several times in my childhood that I vividly recall moving in the middle of the night and making home with my grandparents or aunts for several months because of my parent’s troubled marriage.  One time we lived for three years in an apartment on the other side of town from my father, and then moved back to the house.  Each time we came and went leaving behind my faded childhood memories of Baxter Road.  I felt less and less connected to the notion of home and created new memories by the time I was coming of age on Hampstead Avenue in a low-income apartment community.  By the time I was ready to apply to colleges, I wanted to leave home because I felt no connection to home or to Richmond.  I was a repressed and depressed teen in lots of angst and sought refuge outside of my home.

College made me feel safe, and I found security in my dorm and new life in college.  But it was only temporary and often felt ashamed to tell anyone freshman year that going home meant going to a small 2 bedroom apartment that was shared by my mother and grandparents, an uncle and his friend, my 5 year old cousin, a noisy dog, and a parrot.  My sisters, mother, and I---four grown women---shared a 10 x 10 room, a full size mattress, pallets on the floor with blankets and towels as another bed, and clothes neatly folded and piled in boxes along the wall.  Our lives were all squeezed into one tiny room, waiting presumably for a home.  I remember feeling angry and thinking, this is what I am coming home to?  I selfishly did not want to come home anymore and found ways to stay on campus during breaks.  I now realize that I desperately needed space, but foolishly thought I needed to make college my home.

My mom finally made her dream come true in 2002 by becoming a homeowner, and a year later, I made another home as  I pursued graduate studies in New York City.  Ever moving, within my first three years in New York, I lived in 3 different boroughs and 5 different apartments, continually searching for home---Manhattan’s Upper West Side, Bedford Stuyvesant Brooklyn and the Kingsbridge section of the Bronx.  Each time, I created and re-created home.  Each time searching, looking and “constructing” home.  Each time my home experience came to an end, and I was on the move again.  New number, new address, new postal code . . .

In 2008, I came very close to having home when I bought the “house of my dreams” with my then husband in Virginia.  I had moved back to Richmond that year to help my family with my sister who was battling cancer.  We went big and bought the home I had dreamed about when I was kid: the 4 bedroom, 2.5 bath colonial style white house with black shudders, red door, garage, fenced backyard, and manicured lawn.  I just knew I had made it because I had a [big] home to call my own.  Finally no moving, no sharing, tons of space, privacy and it was all mine.

Months and years into the home, I noticed the house was always cold, and there was something very metaphysically empty about it.  Despite the freshly-painted neutral walls, newly-purchased gorgeous wood furniture, and fancy alarm system for protection, there was still this barenness.  It was the details though that should have clued me in. The little things were never done: the curtains were never hung, photos and art never made it to the walls, and the dining room sat empty night after night.  Something in my gut told me this was not home and that things would change.   I tried to ignore that quiet whisper because I had to make it work, right?  I had constructed this life and this home, right?  Soon it became painfully obvious that not only was this house built on a shaky foundation, but so was my marriage.  As the summer of 2010 came to a close, so did my home and my marriage.

Fast forward to 2012, I have downsized to a 2 bedroom,  1 bath apartment in a beautiful neighborhood in northern Manhattan bordering the Hudson River.  While I don’t have the oversized house, I have found my home.  I finally am at ease and at home not only in my home, but in myself.   The joy that I feel has no words.  Every inch of my home is literally and metaphysically warm---stacked with books, and brimming with my son’s art and toys.  It is imperfectly perfect, but I am finally home.

In the end, I now know that home is not a literal space to fix and construct, but a metaphysical and metaphorical space for loving, nurturing, and caring for myself and my loved ones in an honest and meaningful way.

Home is the jog up to the Cloisters on a crisp spring evening.

Home is the sand and rocks of the wild James River between my toes.

Home is the wind blowing my curls in my face when I ride down the highway.

Home is cradling my son in my bed at 2AM when he is scared of the monsters.

Home is the pungent smell of garlic and the sumptuous taste of a meal cooked at home.

Home is my life; home is my voice; and home is my truth.

Home is me.

Home sweet home is knowing that home is deep within me.  I am home wherever I am at.  I am home now and always.

From Bologna, Italy . . .

Dearest Clara,

Believe it or not, your mother was young once.  Well, I'd like to think that she's still young . . . but in returning from my 10th year reunion of graduate school in Bologna, I realize that the years are going much more quickly now, especially since your arrival.  If I had to pick the most care-free year of my life, apart from maybe my preschool years, it would be the year I spent here a decade ago.

Bologna is a gorgeous town---enough history to give it gravitas, enough decadence to make it fun. But our year had its dark moments as well.  Only a few weeks after we arrived, the twin towers fell in New York, which not only cemented us as a class, but redefined the subject matter  of international relations that we were in that very place to learn.  Ten years later, the bond of that experience is still holding us all together, mostly in a positive way. I enjoyed seeing my classmates so much---many things (and many people) hadn't changed a bit.  One day you'll see what a gift it is to be given a few moments back from a time you remember fondly.

Bologna is one of the great gastronomical capitals of Italy, and many of the products you probably take for granted like balsamic vinegar, parma ham, and parmesan cheese, come from places just around the corner.  Eating and life, like politics, are taken very seriously there, so unsurprisingly, I walked away with a lot of lessons that related to those very activities.

• The most charming places frequently aren't the most known - there is no better example than Bologna itself of this.  While Venice, Florence and Rome all have their merit, often you'll find them so packed with people that you can barely see what you came to see.  In Bologna, you'll find a handful of tourists at a maximum, but yet, the food, the art, and the architecture are some of the best.  And a short car ride will bring you to some of the most charming towns you'll even know from that region.  Take the time to find authentic pockets in your travels, they are world-class because the world doesn't yet know about them.

• Good products don't need to be complicated - when you have something good . . . really good . . . like fresh mozzarella, or fresh pasta that was made with quality ingredients and great care, you don't need to do much to it to keep it really tasty.  Sometimes, it's best to enjoy things for what they're meant to be.  Simple isn't always boring.

• Always own a beautiful pair of walking shoes appropriate for cobblestones - this is true for just about anywhere in Europe where you'll be on your feet (which is just about everywhere in Europe) but this seems to come up the most in Italy because there is such a core belief that even the functional has to be beautiful.  Good walking shoes don't mean ugly, utilitarian things that you just throw on your feet.  Comfort can be beautiful, but it takes a long time to find.

• Pumpkin, sage, and butter go together - This combination is a staple in this part of Italy.  And it always works.  Remember this when you're stuck for ideas during Thanksgiving season.

• Appreciate the art of the aperitivo - This is a beautiful tradition all over Italy, but in Bologna, they up the ante of the pre-dinner cocktail with their  little bites and morsels that go above and beyond (although truth be told, I find Venice does this pretty well too).  The whole notion of the aperitivo is to slow down and appreciate what's in front of you and to enjoy good company, even if sometimes it's just your own.  And if you're already in the business of all this enjoyment, remember that sometimes it's worth paying for the view.  Even if it means a little extra.

• When in doubt, choose prosecco - Whether it's an aperitivo or a cocktail hour or anything else, if you're in doubt on what to ask for, you can always count on local bubbly as a safe bet.  Nearly everyone will have it, it's light, it lends itself to slower savoring, and it's just the right balance between cost, a nod to your host country,  and worldliness.  You'll find that you will have your own favorite go-to's eventually, but I think every lady hesitates about what to order at some point.  Just keep that in your back pocket.

Our next reunion in Bologna will be five years from now---I know it will be here before I know it.  Seems like it would be the perfect time to have you join me--- I hope your kindergarten class will be able to spare you for the trip!

All my love,

Mom

The Fallacy of Gender Neutrality, or How I Womaned Up at My Local Bookstore

I'm standing stock-still in the children's picture book section of the Upper East Side Barnes & Noble, facing a decision rife with anxiety and laden with import. Will it be Madeline, or will it be Make Way For Ducklings? Let's back up.

My family has been procreating at an alarming rate recently, and I was there to choose two books (my traditional Yay, You're Pregnant! gift) for my cousin and his wife. Unlike the majority of my friends who've gone through this particular rite of passage of late, they aren't going to find out the sex of the baby ahead of time, and so I went to the store intending to purchase a couple of classic picture books.

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, one of the best books of all time, was sitting on a display table up front. One book down, one to go.

In The Night Kitchen is a favorite of mine, both since I loved it so much as a child, and since I plan to teach as many children as possible to make chocolate chip cookies from scratch in as horridly messy a fashion as possible. But they didn't have it in stock, and I was due at dinner---in Brooklyn---in two hours. I desperately scanned the shelves for Babar, but they only had a couple of the later books from the series, and I couldn't give this kid a sequel without the original. And then there's the Velveteen Rabbit, but the edition on offer was cheesy and unworthy of the tragedy held within. Plus, do I really want to be the one who makes the baby cry real tears for the first time? No. No, I do not.

They did have Make Way For Ducklings, which I understand is a seriously famous children's book, but I have no emotional connection to it whatsoever. And unfamiliarity doesn't seem right for the very first gift I'll ever bestow upon this new human being. But it was pretty, it was hardcover, and it wasn't spotted with drool or spitup, which, frankly, made it a rare find.

And then, I spotted it: yellow spine, Belemans' distinctive brush stroke font, and twelve little girls in two straight lines. Madeline.

But wait, I thought: what if this baby turns out to be a boy? And then I died a little inside. Because, honestly, it pisses me the hell off that the notion of gender neutral books even occurred to me. What makes a book gendered? When it features a female protagonist?

Well, yeah. In our culture, it does. I grew up reading books about boys and girls, romances and sci fi, Gone With The Wind and Star Trek novels (oh yes), but the vast majority of the books my brother read (with The True Adventures of Charlotte Doyle being a rare exception) were about boys and "boy" things.

And this is a pattern that continues into adulthood. Women gladly read books with male protagonists, but the reverse---especially if the book is written by a female novelist---is rare. Just last week, I was at my high school reunion. Dan Brown---who graduated 25 years before I did---gave a little talk, and one of the questions he got from the audience was whether he had any advice for a woman looking to write a mainstream (read: not romance) novel about a female protagonist. His response? That the success of his Robert Langdon novels with women prove that people will buy books featuring heroes of the opposite gender.

My high school prides itself on teaching critical thinking skills, but methinks they let Dan down that day. After all, male is the neutral gender in our culture. Large numbers of women buying books about men is nothing to write home about---the reverse, though---that would be remarkable.

All of this flashes through my mind in an instant, in the way that only righteous indignation can, and I spin on my heel, jog up to the cash register and pay---proudly---for Madeline and Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs before I lose my nerve. And I'm kind of hoping it's a boy, if only for the opportunity to buy him the Little House series when he's ready for chapter books.

Eating for Two

When I first found out that I was having a daughter, back in July of last year, I was awash with joy.  I had secretly hoped for a girl, although I certainly gave everyone the standard answer, “Of course, we don’t care about the sex, we just want a healthy baby!”  I mean, who doesn’t just want a healthy baby?  Obviously.  Naturally.  Oh wait, ME.  I WANTED A GIRL.  I wanted a healthy GIRL.  And a healthy girl is what we have so far. Like many parents, I am constantly assessing the things that are within my capacity to keep her that way---both physically and mentally.   As a woman and a clinician, I feel I have a distinct responsibility (somehow greater than my husband) for safeguarding our daughter’s mental health.

The recent Time Magazine cover of a young mother breastfeeding her 3-year-old child piqued my interest for perhaps different reasons than most.  Lately, I have been obsessing about the next developmental phase for our baby daughter---transitioning from exclusively breastfeeding to feeding her solids.  The fact is . . . I am daunted by the prospect of actual food entering into our relationship.

Breastfeeding has had its own set of challenges and possibly deserves a separate column.  But there has been some comfort in the ancient, simple ritual of my body producing the perfect meal and my daughter eating it happily.  To a large extent, I don’t have any say in the quality or quantity of my milk and breastfeeding takes on no emotional life, save the sweetly mutual opportunity to reconnect throughout the day.  Meanwhile, like so many women, my dynamic with food---the kind you select and prepare---has always been rather fraught.

Feeding a child seems like a truly basic function of parenting and clearly it is.  And yet it has me tied in knots.  Let’s set aside the fact that I don’t really cook, never really have, not even for myself and certainly not for my husband.  Dinner in our household is like parallel play at preschool---we each enter the kitchen and put together our own separate meals, side-by-side.  Sometimes we share a task: for example, together we will cut up vegetables that we will each use in separate salads.  My fortes are (not surprisingly) salad, pasta and translating the stunningly complicated and heavily accented descriptions of the sushi specials for my husband.  This is all very tragic and boring and I know this even as I write it. But there are larger issues at work here.  Ultimately, I will learn to cobble together meals to nourish a child and/or rely on a bevy of spectacular delivery options in the wonderland that is New York City.  My paramount concern is that I want to raise a daughter who is not neurotic about food and her body.

In an ideal world, I would like to feed my daughter without tainting her experience of eating with my own food ghosts.  I recognize the exquisitely delicate balance it requires to bring up a child - particularly a girl - with healthy attitudes toward food.  The experts caution that parents should maintain a neutral, positive approach to eating, offer a wide variety of nutritious options, not to label certain foods as “good” or “bad” and never use food as a reward or a punishment.  Of utmost importance, specifically in terms of the mother-daughter dyad…check your own fixations about food and your body at the door.  Children as young as two years old are watching their mothers (and popular culture at large) for cues about gender socialization and how to feel in their own skin.  This is a lot of pressure for a new mother who has battled weight issues and body acceptance, essentially always.

I grew up in a Southern California beach town in the 1980’s, which tells you two things right off the bat: I was immersed in a culture of excess and I was expected to be in a bathing suit on a daily basis.  My first bikini was at age 4 or 5 and it was an orange, terry cloth triangle top with bamboo ring connectors.  I was first told by a friend’s mother not to order lemonade because the sugar in it would make me fat in 3^rd grade.  As far as I knew, several of the mothers in my life ate nothing but Alba ’77 shakes for at least two decades.  In Junior High School, a friend taught me about a weight management technique: chewing food “just to get the taste” and then promptly spitting it out.  By High School, I was experimenting with eating nothing but air-popped popcorn and an apple for lunch.  Incidentally, high school lunch took place on the quad, where the Senior boys would sit holding up numbers written on notebook paper, “rating” girls as they walked past.   And so on.  Although it was a different time and place, I am keenly aware of the pitfalls awaiting my tender infant.

Since embarking on an adult life of intensive self-exploration and cultivating health, I have come to terms with the fact that I may never shake the critical voice in my head entirely.  While I would like to achieve perfect liberty, it is not out of the question that I will be 95 years old and still pause, experiencing a lightning flash of self-loathing before reaching for a cookie.  But I will persist in swimming upstream against it.  And now I will do this for my daughter, as well as myself.

My plan, therefore, is first and foremost to buy some kind of steamer?  Or something?  I understand squash, gourds, yams and the like might be first on the menu for our tiny gourmand.  Oh, and avocado, too, which seems infinitely easier to “cook.”  Second, I will commit to meal times being low-key, joyful and inviting experiences, free of gravity and judgment.  Third, even though she is only a few months old, I will not allow her to see me frowning in the mirror, muttering about my soft bits or hear me talk about foods that I “should” or “shouldn’t” be eating.  This will be my auspicious start.

Hometown, Homesick Heroes: Albert Pujols

After several years playing in a Fantasy league, I’ve learned why baseball lends itself so well to metaphor. We may strike out at the bar or hit it out of the ballpark in the boardroom, but we can’t escape the game. These are my love letters to the sport. Dear Albert,

I sort of feel like being the best baseball player of the last decade entitles you to a Mr. before your name, but to me you’re just a Missouri boy who has found himself a little lost, too far from home and aching for the comfort of family and a hefty plate of barbecued burnt ends.  Or maybe I’m just projecting.

You and I both said goodbye to the Midwest last fall. You set out for one coast, I for the other.  You had a katrillion-dollar contract awaiting you with the Los Angeles Angels. I had a couple of months unemployment and a glossy-eyed dream for something bigger.

Are you happy Albert?  I sincerely hope so because you seem like the nicest guy. Of course, we like to do that in Missouri. We project kind and wholesome images on those we embrace as our hometown heroes¹.  For all I really know, you shish kabob puppies while using dollar bills as kindling.

I remember you from high school. Local sports fans started talking almost as soon as you arrived, 16 years old, barely speaking English, and already hitting 400 ft home runs. In our neighboring towns just outside Kansas City, MO, simply being a kid from another country would have been enough to make you stand out².

You took Ft. Osage High School to the state championship your first year there and probably would have done it your second too, if pitchers hadn’t just refused to throw the ball to you.

When you left Kansas City, you didn’t go far. Like thousands of Missouri kids also shooting for the stars, you didn’t even make it out of the state.  Only you ended up at 1^st base as a rookie standout for the St. Louis Cardinals, turned multi-year MVP and two-time World Series Champion.  Most of those others seem to have ended up tending bar in their college town or getting pregnant in the back of a Sonic parking lot.

While other high-profile sports figures would swoop in for their football or baseball season, reality-star girlfriends in tow, and party it up before returning to California or Miami or wherever they had rooted their McMansion—this was your home. You married a single mother, adopted her daughter, and proceeded to build a life, a family, a charitable foundation, even a restaurant in St. Louis.

And in return, you were loved. Not just idolized, but really loved. Kansas City and St. Louis have a long rivalry³ but fans on both sides of the state could agree that your story was pretty magical.

Real life movies never end when they should though. More often than not there is another chapter at best and an awkward postscript at worst.

You are one year older than me⁴. I’d like to think that head start is responsible for your paycheck of 12 million per year and my paycheck of…not 12 million.

Would I rather be you right now? The money would be nice, sure, but I don’t know. At 31, my career is only just beginning. I moved to New York eight months ago because I had an opportunity to work in film and things have been roller-coastering, but moving in a generally upward trajectory ever since.  I miss my friends and my family. I miss living someplace where being kind and neighborly is a central tenet of life. But in New York I’m doing things I spent my life dreaming about and I have no idea what’s coming next. I like that.

Your career definitely has several years left to it, but it’s hard to deny that your pinnacle is probably behind you. You left St. Louis in a blaze of glory, winning the 2011 World Series and then signing a giant $250 million contract to move to the Los Angeles Angels. Unfortunately, 2012 is a different year and a different story.

You’ve been on my fantasy team for two seasons now—my first choice each time. This year, though, things are looking rough. A slow start has turned into a painful first half. Not only are you not hitting home runs, you’re not hitting much else either. When you do, your new team doesn’t have the ability to get you home.

When do I give up on you?  At one point do you stop being THE Albert Pujols and just become another player who isn’t delivering the fantasy points I need?

Maybe let’s just pretend for a minute. It’s just you and me, back in those Missouri towns where the city just gives way to the country. We’re taking my dad’s old stick shift out to that field in Grain Valley. You know the one, it’s not far from either of our high schools and all the kids go there on clear, starry nights. You bring some snacks from the 7/11. I’ll bring the cherry limeades. You’ll still be the jock, practicing your English, and I’ll still be the nerd who’s obsessed with show tunes and pie. But we can talk baseball and barbecue and all the good things that come out of the state we love.

Always,

Anna

^1. We even tried that tactic with Rush Limbaugh, but some things are just beyond hope and optimism.

^2. The demographics of small towns in the Midwest have changed dramatically in the last 20 years, as immigrants have moved in, often stabilizing towns that were previously losing industry and population.  This has predictably generated both increased conflict and greater understanding. I am not qualified to really talk at length on the subject, but it would be interesting to learn more about how local sports and sports fans are impacted by, and are perhaps an impact on, this change.

^3. ahem, 1985.

^4. Because of your size and strength as a teenager, many folks believed your birth certificate was a fake and you are actually several years older. I think your accomplishments are extraordinary whatever your age.

Poor

Unbeknownst to me, I grew up poor. I had one doll and six colored pencils and, judging from class photos, an entirely rust wardrobe. “We were poor!” my mother explained, exasperated by that fact. Oh. Orangish-brown was cheaper?

I played Bakery all summer with fresh cow poop pies, scoured our gravel drive unsuccessfully for gold, and the only books in our house were on loan from the library. Someone paid my dad for a favor with a goat, and she became my very first and favorite pet and stayed that way until she was eaten by a wild duo of Dobermans from a neighboring farm and then my dad shot those Dobermans.

(This is the kind of thing that happens when you’re poor, you know. It’s quite a dangerous lifestyle.)

I remember all this at the oddest moments, raccoon sneaky memories scavenged only at my darkest. Sighing sadly as I step into my stuffed closet full of too many options in the same shade of black, and open our toy trunks full of far too much, already forgotten. Excess replaces exquisite so easily, I think, recalling line-drying our family of seven's clothes daily to save on electricity and extra clothing costs as I sit here with my windows open and air conditioner running. The daily clasp of my Rolex crushes me guilty when I think of my dad’s dress watch: a gold-esque Timex, rarely worn. His best wasn’t even my everyday. I don’t want that to be my truth.

I guess there comes a point in our lives when we realize that everything we own tells our story. There maybe sometimes comes yet another moment when you can’t look at all your stuff without feeling all of your yesterdays puddle and threaten to flood if you dare look down. I haven’t looked down in years.

We’re packing up our life again very soon, and I’m struggling with my story. I’ve too much stuff I don't need and too big a tale to tell and some very sad chapters that I don't want to remember and don't want to forget, and it’s gutting me to edit.

The other night, I took a blanket fresh from the dryer. It had been my sister’s, one of at least 20 gifted by our other sister, Jeanie, when she was dying. You would’ve cried if you saw how many of these blankets she bought, each one hand-picked because it was softer than the one before and this one a brighter red than them all. God, she just wanted to wrap up their yesterday and make it warm again, when life was good and simple and Lin used to ride no-handed down the hill in the sunshine and bite off chunks of green apple she’d swiped from the neighbor’s trees and hand them to her mid-bicycle ride so she wouldn’t break her capped front teeth. I swear, Jeanie would give up everything she had to get those moments back. But we all know that would be impossible.

Poverty, redefined.

It’s been six years without my sister Lin and longer than that with a broken-hearted Jeanie, and this blanket is torn beyond repair. And it smells, no matter how much fabric softener I use. And the red reminds me of unhappy. And so I announce to no one that there is just too much stuff in this stupid house and something has to go, and I walk out to the trash and throw away one of my most precious memories while I swallow sobs and look up at the stars, trying like crazy to keep that yesterday with all my others.

I’ve been sick about it ever since.

Write down everything you're wishing you had right now. Title it My Wish List. Now, cross out that title and write in its place Things I've Lost So Far. Same list, yes?

It’s not so bad to be poor, I think. You miss a hell of a lot less.

Images via here, here, and here.

I Thought I was a Good Lover

After 30 years, I thought I was a good lover.

I thought I was kind, loving, thoughtful, non-judgmental, accepting, patient, and knew how to put up with someone’s ups and downs over and over and over, without turning my back on them.  I gave so much of myself to my relationships.  I thought I was doing my part.

But during that marriage, I realized there was something really wrong with the way I loved.

It was subtle and beneath the surface.  But oh so crucial.

I was too often basing my self-worth, my well-being and my happiness on my partner.

In other words, if he did not feel loving for a day or a week or a month or a year, I felt a sting.  I took his behavior personally.  And over time, my own sense of peace & wellness began to hang by a thread.  I would begin to question every bit of goodness that I had in me as it seemed it wasn't good enough for him.  I would even try to become a woman that he might love.  I tried to be someone different than I was.  Essentially, I was relying on him to hand to me approval, happiness, worth.  I was waiting for him to love me, so I could feel whole again.  Do any of you love in this way?  I have noticed that it is so common . . . perhaps it is even the norm.

Discovering this about myself has been one of the biggest life changers for me.   Every single day I am thankful for that experience and that I became aware that there was such a better way to live and a better way to show love.  It’s completely different.  And it’s so beautiful to me that I even started a blog called A BLOG ABOUT LOVE.  :)

And so, today I’ll pass along three ways I love differently . . . these made all the difference to me in my life then, as my 1^st marriage was ending, and now, in my new, wonderful marriage:

-I take responsibility for my own self-worth and my own happiness.   I do not hand this over to anyone else to provide this for me, as it’s not their job.   So no matter how much I “love” someone, my self-worth and happiness is not dependent on them, their moods, or their behavior.  This lovingly relieves them of any pressure; it relieves them of the duty of being responsible for my happiness.  One really beautiful side effect?  I get to still have self worth and wellness and offer someone the best of myself, even if they are not having a good day.

-I have learned how to be at peace with my trials.  In fact, I embrace them.  I see them as a great opportunity to learn.  I view everything life throws at me, good and bad, as an opportunity to grow.  It’s really wonderful to learn how to do this.  And my motivation for doing this is love for my spouse and love for myself.  There’s nothing more wonderful than a partner who is full of positive energy and at peace with their lives, even in the face of a trial.

-I don’t view marriage as a place to get my needs fulfilled; I see it as a sacred place to carry out my own development as a person.   It’s a place to develop the attributes of love, kindness, hope, charity, etc.  These are the virtues I already want to develop in this lifetime.  And what a perfect place to develop them . . . in a marriage, with a man that I already want to love in the best way possible.

Over the years, have any of you learned some ways to love in a healthier way?  I’d love to hear.

(photo credit: Melanie Mauer) 

An Introduction

I’ve always been something of a city mouse and a country mouse. For me, the New York City skyline makes me catch my breath in just the same way that the rocky coast of Maine does. Whether I’m driving down a country road or cruising down the West Side Highway at sunset, my heart fills with pure and unadulterated glee. People like to draw stark lines between the city and the country. Where the city is fast-paced and full of energy, the country is calm and quiet. Where life in the city is described as complicated, country life is depicted as simple, serene. The reality, of course, is that the two ideals don’t have to exist so separately. To make sure that when I’m in one spot I’m not spending all of my spare time wishing I were someplace else, I’ve chosen to bring bits of my country life into my city life. You can see them in the photographs I take: my window box in Brooklyn, flower stands at farmer’s markets, herbal tea, brewed at home.

At first glance, this marriage of country and city appears to be mostly an aesthetic choice.  But I don’t eat farm fresh produce just because it’s beautiful to photograph and my choice to fill my home only with flowers from nearby farmers goes beyond my particular adoration of Black-eyed Susans. For me, these choices also take into account my impact on the planet. I’m not saying that country folk have all the world’s environmental questions sorted, but sometimes living in a big city can mean that the nuances of seasons and the environmental impact of our choices can feel distant. The truth is that whether we’re in the country or the city or in all the places in between, we’re living in an era of global climate change. In the face of these changes, it’s been important for me to reconsider my own lifestyle.

For the most part, the changes I’ve made have been small and gradual. I was never a Hummer-driving, Big Mac-eating lady to begin with. But carefully thinking about the impact of my lifestyle on the planet has become a part of my everyday life.  I may live in a big city, but I’m trying my darndest to make sure that I stay in touch with the country all around me. Rather than flee the grit of the city for a simpler life in the country, for now anyway, I’m committed to making a simple life in the city. It’s mostly a fallacy that life in the country is so simple, anyway. Just ask my sister, she’s a farmer.

It’s a tough thing, this writing about sustainabilty and lifestyle. For some folks, it will across as preachy: pushing an agenda that finishes by boosting the confidence of the author and trampling on the choices of readers. For others, it won't go far enough: buying cut flowers from a nearby farmer isn’t going save the planet. Always, the issues are complicated. What of the workers? What of the economics? How do you afford grass-fed meat, anyway? This column isn’t a place for me to tell you what to do,  it’s a space for me to chronicle what I’m doing. It’s a celebration of the city. It’s a celebration of the country. Mostly, it’s a celebration of the planet and a story about making my place in it. I hope you’ll indulge me. 

Learning to Garden

My tomatoes are growing. This is climactic because I have never been a gardener. As a child I avoided dirt, and the first time I planted a flower I was more distracted by the black under my nails than the task at hand. Back when I lived in a city it wasn’t even a choice. People didn’t ask me what herbs and vegetables I was planting for spring, and no one offered advice on pruning my hydrangeas. And I was ok with that. I was ok with not having a yard filled with green grass. I loved my little apartment like a home. And then two things happened. I left the city and I got pregnant, almost at the same time actually. And suddenly I was expected to grow things; to put time and effort into cultivating something. I had never put time or effort into anything but myself before that, and even then, some days there was minimal effort.

Immediately after giving birth to him, I tried to recall what it had actually felt like. I would close my eyes and rely on my sense memory. Was it really so painful I screamed for a C-section even when I had been so vehemently against one? The human brain is an amazing thing. I tried to remember the actual pains of contractions. Someone told me before I gave birth that it was like the worst period cramps you could ever imagine. But it was so much more painful even than that. It was a knife, cutting cleanly through my stomach, until I felt it within every inch of my body; the opposite of an orgasm. The knife came every ten minutes . . . every five minutes . . . two minutes . . . every thirty seconds. I was sick, violently ill and throwing up every few minutes. My fluids were extremely low; I was put on an IV, had an epidural, had Pitocin. It took a whole room of assistants and my midwife to bring this baby into the world. A whole room, like a whole village. And he came, and I loved, and didn’t sleep, and cultivated. Or tried to at least.

One of the most important things about gardening is remembering to water the plants. This should be an easy one, but if you are too busy or too selfish, it’s not. For a year of our marriage our grass was brown. Who knew this was a big deal? There was always some issue with the sprinkler system. One head was broken, then another. We gave up communicating about it; it became a stick in the wheels of our marriage. I would say the second most important thing about gardening is knowing when you’ve made a mistake and have to pull up the roots and start over.

We decided to leave Seattle in the fall. It was chilly and sprinkling rain. We didn’t own a car, but I was determined to live the city lifestyle I missed about Chicago. And so we piled the baby and most of his belongings into the stroller and began to trudge up Queen Anne hill. We walked, and sweated, even in the misty fall rain. No one tells you how tall those hills are, practically vertical. As we alternated pushing the stroller, we fought. We argued about who kept hitting the bump in the road and causing Charley to screech in alarm. We argued about why we couldn’t afford a car, and whose fault that was. We dissected every aspect of our life and our marriage on the way up that hill, and when we reached the top, we realized we didn’t like any of it. It was a long way down, and a long way back to Florida, 3, 206 miles to be exact. But we knew when to leave and start over.

I thought of that the first time I planted basil and it died. I had been too busy with everything else to water it, and the leaves were brown and curling. But, determined to be the gardener wife, I let it sit on the windowsill. Leaving it there didn’t mean it got any better. I pulled up its roots too.

Each spring I get a little better. Last year I planted lantana. I dug and I dug, they flourished, but only for a season, for I had bought the wrong variety. I looked around the yard and everything else was dead too. That was the beginning of the year of brown grass. But now, we are better. We don’t argue about the grass, or who chose to move to Seattle. We let it all go. And slowly our garden is growing, thriving. After such a struggle, I feel like Charley when I see the juicy red tomatoes sprouting---wonder and amazement. It wasn’t always that easy for me.

Looking Forward: No Place Like Home (Wherever That Is)

“Where are you headed?” the cabbie asked. “Going on vacation?” He’d just picked me up at my apartment with instructions to deliver me to JFK.  This was just over two weeks ago, a sunny Friday afternoon. “I’m going to L.A.,” I told him, “Home.”

In college, “home” was where my family lived. My dorm rooms, apartments, and communal digs were temporary; my tenure in the sleepy, beach-centric college town I loved had an expiration date. When I graduated, I continued the transient life, making stops in Cambodia, New Zealand, Japan---and finally New York City.

I’ve lived here now for three years, and frequently get asked how long I plan on staying---can I see myself settling here permanently? Or will I move back “home” in a few years?

As with most big questions in my life right now, I don’t have answers. However, I do often tell people that New York feels like “The One"; that I love its noisiness and smelliness, its history and cultural mishmash. I live here and work here. Most of my friends are here. For all intents and purposes, my life is here. And yet, it still feels a bit funny to refer to New York as home. In fact, it's a strange concept for me to think of home as anywhere other than where my parents are.

Is home defined by family, I wonder? Parents? Friends? Or is it where you work? Play? Lay your head at night? I'm not sure. I have a feeling the answer’s different for everybody.

On my recent trip to L.A., I spent ten relaxing days padding around the house, chatting with my parents, sitting around the dinner table eating meals I grew up eating. This definitely felt like home. It felt familiar. It felt safe. And while I don’t feel the same attachment to the city of Los Angeles as I do to New York, most of my family lives in L.A. And that means a lot.

In some ways, my heart aches to set down roots somewhere, to feel like I have a home of my own. In other ways, I know I have the rest of my life to feel settled. As a fellow blogger said to me over brunch recently, “You have plenty of time ahead of you to sit at home in the suburbs on a Saturday night.”

Early last week, I boarded a red-eye flight back to New York that touched down a few minutes after 5 the next morning. The sun was just rising; I’d barely slept. As I climbed into the backseat of a waiting taxi, I could only think of one thing: bed. I closed my eyes.

“This it?” the cab driver asked, squinting up at my red brick building. Twenty minutes had passed. We’d arrived. I answered “yes”, thanked him, and paid the fare.

“Have a nice day,” he said, handing me my suitcase. “And welcome home.”

I Know a Lot of Mothers

I know a lot of mothers. I have a mother. I am a mother. I have watched my sister and many friends become mothers. I work with mothers. As a pediatric nurse practitioner, I have worked with teen mothers in New York City’s foster care system. I have worked with mothers on the Upper East Side. I have worked with Noe Valley moms in San Francisco. I have worked with mothers in as many family constructs as are imaginable. I can’t avoid mothers! The privilege to meet and talk with hundreds of mothers has afforded me an intimate glimpse into 21st century motherhood, and I see the emotional stress it creates. I was asked recently by a mother if she had done irreparable damage to her son. Her son was having significant constipation despite her best and plentiful efforts, and its root cause certainly wasn’t her fault. In my experience constipation is rarely a permanent state, so even though it was not solved at that moment, it didn’t mean it couldn’t change tomorrow. Yet, while it was happening, she felt like she had really done harm, and she blamed herself for not being able to find the one key solution to solving her son’s distress. Her sentiments are ones I hear a lot: a fear that our mothering attempts aren’t good enough and potentially so egregious that they’re permanently damaging.

Like so many other aspects of our modern lives there is a message of fear being driven into the minds of our new mothers. Despite the dramatic accomplishments of 21st century women---earning the majority of higher education degrees in this country, becoming household breadwinners, and having the ultimate freedom to dress as we like, say what we feel and choose our marital partners---I still see a lot of women who were clearly confident and successful in their lives before having children subsequently become crippled by the multitude of decisions required for motherhood. Where does this fear come from?

I suspect some of this fear to trust our instincts begins during pregnancy when the process of labor looms ahead, making many women become anxious about the pain of childbirth. It’s why 84% of first-time mothers choose to have an epidural, many before even experiencing the first twinges of contractions. Or maybe it’s when women are selecting items for their baby registry, and they begin to feel materially unprepared to care for their new infant being inundated with the marketing of “essential” baby gear and products. They’re told they can’t just bring a baby home without places ready to put the baby, soothe the baby, carry the baby, bathe the baby, feed the baby, stroll the baby. The message that the baby-gear marketing gives to new mothers is that they are unequipped. Or perhaps it’s that the experience of motherhood has become overly intellectualized to the point that we can’t trust our instincts. We read competing books theorizing about how to parent (be a tiger mom or a Zen momma), how to feed, how to sleep train, how to create the perfect high achiever, all while not landing them in therapy. Or perhaps it’s that we really do live in a toxic world and even have a toxic womb and the number of chemicals, pollutants, and pesticides in our food, water and environment make raising children a terrifying endeavor.

Despite the fears and new stresses that becoming a mother puts on women, the majority of women I encounter face the challenges and do their best to navigate their way through the bumpy and unpredictable path of motherhood. I think we women, good at being task-driven and achievement-oriented, quickly realize the gravity of our new role that first time we hold our new baby in our arms. Unlike our iphones, this new tiny being didn’t come with a manual. Instead, we must decipher the needs and adapt to the powerful rhythms of our new baby that is distinct from any other.

It is true that being a mother may be the most important job we have in this life, but even if we feel insecure, we can still find personal joys in its challenges. We need not get bogged down with piling guilt on ourselves or comparing ourselves to how other mothers express motherhood. Just as we quickly learn that our baby is unique, we too, must get comfortable with creating our own style of motherhood. I love to encourage families to create their own family culture--expressed through the spices they use to cook to the way they spend their Saturday mornings. Creating family customs and routines that are personal help to build confidence and make motherhood fun.

I work fulltime so I find that the time I have with my daughter, Eloise, is really just book-ended during the week. Mornings are always rushed for us as I focus to get her ready so that my husband can take her to daycare. I try to make the rushed process fun--we might read a book while getting dressed or we make up silly songs while mixing her oatmeal “mommy stirs the water, Ella stirs the milk.” In the evenings we’re less rushed, but we still need to get a lot done in a short time. Still I try to make more time for play and cuddles. I discovered when Eloise was six months old that I could make her giggle and since then I try to do one thing every day to hear that adorable, pure laughter. Our latest game involves us pretending to chew bubblegum then popping each other’s imaginary bubbles that ends in hysteria. We get our cuddles in during the bedtime routine--three books with daddy and me and two songs just the two of us. I know I can’t be present for Eloise all day/every day, but in the time I do have with her, I try to be mindful to keep those sacred two hours each evening Eloise-focused. And of course each day that is a challenge as she’s two and meltdowns are plentiful!

The parenting decisions we make will certainly impact our children, but which ones and to what degree is unknown. The decisions that matter most are the simple ones that don't require monetary means or social status. In the long term it really doesn't matter if you have the fanciest stroller, read the latest how-to-train your baby book, or bought the current new fangled baby gear. What matters most are not things that need to be acquired but things we already possess. In our harried 21st Century lives, time with our children may be limited, but in the time we do have it's so important to do our best to be truly present, find ways to be playful, nurture with physical touch, and encourage their curiosity. Take heart in knowing that most of what our kids take away from our mothering is out of our command. Our children will grow and develop into themselves in spite of us. We are certainly going to make mistakes, ones that we can’t even anticipate yet, but why not have fun doing it? Let's roll up our sleeves, dig in and get our hands messy, and just do our best!

Emily Novak Waight is a pediatric nurse practitioner in San Francisco. She has worked with families in New York and San Francisco across a range of cultures and backgrounds. She lives with her husband and daughter, and loves to run, hike, and enjoy sunny days on her deck with her family. 

Artifacts

An exploration of the idea of artifacts by Emily Johnston Anderson [gallery link="file"]

On Culling Tweets and Curating My Own Universe

My online world is composed of sub-worlds—primarily the universes of Twitter, Facebook, WordPress, Instagram, and Tumblr. Twitter is my favorite of these worlds, and the most carefully and heavily curated of all of them. For the past few years, I've followed less than 100 accounts, and my Following list is ever-changing, week to week—a flow of information, ideas, and chatter that mirrors my interests. Indeed, I could be less rigid about it all, follow more handles, and use Twitter lists to filter my feed. But I don't want to. And that's the wonderful but also odd and fascinating thing about Twitter, or really anything else on my Internet: I am the creator of this world.

On Twitter, I talk to friends, and also strangers who have become friends, as well as strangers who remain strangers—avatars kept at a distance because, well, that's how the Internet works. I use Twitter less as a social space and more as a network built on ideas, but there's a stream within Twitter, my Favorites, that I use in a specific way. While liking on Facebook, Instagram, and WordPress; favoriting on YouTube and Flickr; and clicking the ♥ on Tumblr are generally actions for someone else, favoriting tweets is a different process. I compile and save juicy, intriguing mental bits primarily from people I don't know, and personas whose identities are a mystery:

https://twitter.com/#!/TheBosha/status/176337455639830529

https://twitter.com/#!/DamienFahey/status/202211279191023616

https://twitter.com/#!/dreamersawake/status/201502841272143872

We all have different reasons for favoriting a tweet. It may be practical (saving a link to an article to read later), or swift and silent acknowledgement: you have nothing left to say to someone, but still want to nod.

For me, favoriting tweets is less about someone else and more about me. I don't view this list of favorites as a stagnant archive or Twitter backwater, but rather an active, evolving place that reveals my headspace. While some tweets I favorite are clear, complete thoughts, I notice most favorited tweets are fragmented and ambiguous, and I wonder if the people who write these tweets ponder why I favorited them, especially inside jokes and ones not meant to be understood. But that's the beauty of it: I sift through these mental bits, interpreting and appropriating them as I please. Plucking from this mind and that one, creating meaning and context, compiling a public list that only makes sense to me.

But as I peruse these favorited tweets, I notice many are negative, even contemptuous. And I wonder: Am I really the mean-spirited, pessimistic person reflected in these tweets? Where are the tweets about rainbows and unicorns, about love and hope, about the good in this world?

I *am* drawn to positive tweets, too:

https://twitter.com/#!/MosesHawk/status/191723185606107137

https://twitter.com/#!/forces2/status/202993566367227904

But a fair amount of my favorites are cynical or arrogant in tone, and ultimately depressing: bursts of bleakness, reminders of how harsh this world is. I'm not quite sure what this says about me, or the universe I have created by enmeshing the ideas, hopes, and flaws of others. Curating these tweets into one stream also feels like I'm molding a single being—each click of my mouse a divine action, a step further in shaping an übermind.

And this is why I have grown to love Twitter. In the beginning I ★ed  tweets, simply because I liked them, but the process has evolved into something personal, meaningful, and telling of something bigger—how I see the world, how I want it to be, what I accept about myself. I identify with a stranger's struggle, I accept his or her flaws, and in turn I embrace my own.

In a way, my favorited tweets reveal my own ups and downs and struggle to be a" better" person, whatever that may be: a list that somehow captures all of my successes and imperfections—a record of fleeting moments of empathy, of what it means to be human in a big, impersonal world.

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

We love to hear what our friends are reading when they step away from the computer. Drop us a line and let us know what’s blowing your mind. Robyn Virball, Jackalope Brewery I'm a person who always has to be reading something. I cannot go to sleep without reading for about 20 minutes first. This constant need for material sometimes means I pick some really terrible books, but luckily I've had a string of good ones lately.

The Journal of Popular Culture---People Magazine This publication has to top the list; I read it every week. Now before you start putting your judgey pants on, People is very different then US Weekly (not that there's anything wrong with US Weekly). They're pretty reliable with their celebrity gossip and they have inspiring stories like about people who teach homeless children to play soccer and dogs that save their owners from being hit by on-coming trains. Other magazines that are must reads, Martha Stewart Living and Garden and Gun (seriously, go buy one, it's one of the most beautiful magazines you've seen, and there aren't really any guns).

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach I bought this book in the airport in London a few weeks ago, I picked it because Jonathan Franzen had a quote on the front saying that is was amazing.  It follows a mid-western kid who's a baseball phenom as he goes to college, along with five other central characters whose lives he directly impacts.  All the characters so far are interesting and well rounded.  As far as I can tell, Franzen hasn't led me astray.

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me by Mindy Kaling Do yourself a favor and read this book.  Kalin's memoir---following her from growing up in Cambridge to Dartmouth to Off Broadway to The Office---is hilarious and left me thinking we should be best friends. It was another airport purchase for me and I ended up being that awkward person on the plane that was laughing out loud for the entire flight.  Mindy is smart, witty, and honest and I promise that you will not regret reading this, unless you hate fun and laughter.

All The Presidents Men by Robert Penn Warren I read this in high school and loved it and now my book club just picked it so I'm reading it again.   It follows a southern politician in the 1930s, watching as he goes from an idealistic politician to a dirty one.  It's just an impressive, really fantastic book, and reading it during an election season is particularly enlightening... and depressing.

What I want to read next---Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead Full disclosure, my friend wrote this.  It comes out on June 12th and I while I haven't read it yet, I highly recommend that you buy it.  It's a social satire set on an island similar to Nantucket, where a family is preparing for the daughter's wedding.  Richard Russo calls it "by turns hilarious and deeply moving". Now you know what you're reading June 12th!

Zoe Rooney, Web Developer Like most people I know, I don't have a lot of time for reading actual books, but I have a couple I'm particularly excited about lined up right now.

Distance, Issue 01 I jumped on this journal series when I first heard about it via their Kickstarter project - it's a series of long, for-serious essays about design. It's text-heavy and theoretical and amazing.

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self by Danielle Evans My mom just bought this for me from my Amazon wish list, which I thought was a fascinating choice on her part. It's a collection of short stories told in the first person that explore the experiences of young non-white people, which I can totally identify with. I'm pretty sure my mom didn't pick it because of the cover, but that is pretty awesome as well.

Heaven to Betsy by Maud Hart Lovelace Sometimes when I just need a mental break I like to reread books from my childhood, and the Betsy Tacy series is one of my absolute favorites. This particular book in the series introduces the archetypically dreamy character of Tony Markham and also makes me feel like I should probably throw a fudge party one of these days.

Javascript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford And because I'm at heart a humongous nerd, I've started reading Javascript: The Good Parts to try and expand my knowledge of that particular programming language.

Jora Vess, Domestic Reflections Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne I recently re-read Simplicity Parenting, which is becoming my go-to parenting book (I have read so many over the past 7 years it is somewhat embarrassing).  I love the less is more approach with most things in life, but it can by challenging for me when it comes to parenting.  This book helps keep me on track.

Bloom by Kelle Hampton I also just pored through Bloom in about a night and a half.  I have always felt so uplifted and inspired by Kelle's blog after I read her (now famous) birth story of her daughter Nella a couple of years ago.  Her book really delivered . . . lots of raw emotion and insight into how she sees the world.  Highly recommend (stock up on tissues and plan to not see your family for awhile since you won't be able to put it down).

This Life Is in Your Hands by Melissa Coleman I am about halfway through This Life Is in Your Hands.  I read an excerpt of it awhile back and knew I had to read the book.  It is a memoir by a woman whose family bought a piece of rural property in Maine in the 1970s and went "off the grid" (which is almost an understatement).  It reminds me very much of the upbringing my parents gave me (at least in my first few years).  It is also a great read for anyone interested in homesteading or rural farm life.

Fall/Winter 2012: Northern Vietnam & Mekong River in Laos

Editor's note: Morgan Carper is a New York based fashion designer whose globe-trotting ways inspire her collections. She'll be writing here about her travels and inspiration.  For my fall/winter 2012 collection I traveled from the mountains in Northern Vietnam to the Mekong River in Laos to learn about traditional weaving and dyeing techniques practiced by the Hmong people. The Hmong people are an ancient tribal group that originated from China, and their villages are traditionally found high in the mountains. The name means “A Free People.” My motivation was a desire to have a better understanding of ancient textiles techniques and their process. After spending days alongside local weavers and artisans, I became captivated by their mastery. These learned practices found their way into the collection through my custom prints inspired by the region’s traditional tapestries, indigo resist batik printing, and woven ikats. The fabrics have such an integral role in the development of each collection that they end up telling the story. My goal is to invoke the key elements of a place, transporting the wearer to that location, but giving them their own experience.

INSPIRATION

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 COLLECTION

See more of Morgan's work here.