living full, living well

Happy Wednesday, friends. Hope you're living full and well.

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on memorial day

It's 10pm on Memorial Day. I should be drifting off in clean sheets, breeze dancing through the open window, but instead I can't sleep, a ball of anxiety settled into the base of my belly.

It's illogical, irrational, unreasonable, but I sit with a dreaded feeling that something bad is going to happen to my kids. I realize how dramatic it sounds, how silly and even sort of crazy it is, but undefined thoughts and worries swirl around and mash up into a nebulous ball of yuck, and here I sit.

It's the tornadoes ravaging towns and families, it's wars raging in Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq. I think of the mothers. I think of them all -- all who are touched -- but it's the mothers who spring to the forefront of my mind - the mothers trying to comfort through the storm, the bombs, the fear. The mothers whose lands are ravaged and war-torn, the mothers whose sons and daughters fly off to combat, the mothers of the innocent and the guilty, the mothers of the fallen and the fighting, the hungry and the hurting.

I feel too lucky. And my naivety has worn thin; I know we are not immune to pain or tragedy. I feel simultaneously lucky and guilty. Who am I to sleep soundly in my comfortable house when storms and bombs rip families and life apart?

I can't keep them safe. It's not in my hands. I think of them growing and gone, on their own and me giving it up, giving it up to God and fate and prayers for good choices. I remember my mother worrying when we were late for curfew as teenagers, when we didn't call and she worried to the point of feeling sick to her stomach that we were "dead in a ditch". And she did - she held those fears in the pit of her stomach and the back of her brain, and really, she probably still does. I rolled my eyes then but I get it now. I get it now.

Today I couldn't find Eli. We were visiting friends, and hoards of children and several adults were sprawled out and filtering in and out of their beautiful home, wandering the property, coming and going. I could hear his scream coming from far away, and I couldn't place it. I scanned the crowd and saw all of the other kids, saw my husband, and no Eli. He was alone, that much I knew, but I didn't know where he was. Was he stuck somewhere? Trapped somewhere he couldn't escape? Was he hurt? And then I couldn't hear him, and keeping the panic from my voice I made it clear that Eli was not with us but that I had heard him screaming and we needed to find him NOW. And we scattered and searched, and I called for him everywhere and heard nothing echo back, and then I ran down the stairs and I found him in the basement, trying to get out a door to where he thought the other kids had gone, and he was fine. Of course he was fine. But of course he might not have been, and it's that knowledge, that acceptance, that looking lack-of-control in the eye that does me in.

It's the releasing, the letting go of the illusion of control that is at once freeing and terrifying. And I have no closure here, no wrap up or lesson learned at the end of this, but I knew that I needed to write it out, to get it down, and put it out there because facing fear head on is the only way to take away its power.

I will go upstairs to my older two and kiss their cheeks and tuck their sheets and feel their chests rise and fall before I head back to bed, to my sleeping littlest and my husband, sprawled out in our king with the breeze dancing in through the open window. I will lie there and watch them and rest my hand on my baby's back and tuck my feet between my husbands knees and I will let go and I will sleep.

And to all the mothers who are hurting because your children have been hurt or are in harms way, my heart holds you tonight. And I think it probably always will.

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bloom on, sweet Eli

Not sure how it happened, but this little guy has BLOOMED.

Not sure why seeing my second son "graduate" from preschool was more emotional than my first, but man-o-live have I been a pile of mush. 

Congratulations, Buddy.

Bloom on.

:::

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[self] perceptions

Originally published last August, I was reminded of this post this morning and dug it back up to revisit. With new roles and transitions at work and home, and even the issues I face as I realize I'm no longer my pre-kid 22 year old self, I need to remind myself of these things. A quick read could lead you to think this is just about the physical stuff, but I'm really talking here about more than that -- about how we perceive others' perceptions of us. About who we are and who we've been and who we want to be, inside and out.

:::

I head down to the dark, musty basement in search of a bin. I was looking for two specific pairs of pants that I had stashed in the skinny bin -- the one full of clothes that fit when I wasn't gaining or losing pregnancy weight. I needed to dig out some pants for work, and I hit the jackpot. I had completely forgotten about this skirt, this shirt, until I went in there looking for the pants.

When I peeled back the blue lid from the rubbermaid and dug my hands in, rooting through the jumble of clothes, a familiar scent wafted up. Is this what I smell like? I know we all have our own personal scents that we just can't smell ourselves, and I always wondered what mine smelled like -- wondered if I would like it or be embarrassed that all these years I'd been walking around smelling like that?

When I opened the bin, it was familiar. The smell I smell when opening drawers that have been closed a while, or bins like these, stashed away until my body hit pause on its morphology. And I was Ok with it. I didn't like it, but I didn't hate it. I didn't wish for a sweeter aroma, or one more earthy or woody or floral. It just was what it was, and I was Ok with that.

I used to cringe when I heard my voice recorded. I really sound like that? What an awful voice. How do people listen to me? But when I heard it last on my voice recorder, playing back an interview for a story I was working on, I realized I was fine with it. I didn't love it. It isn't sweet like a singer's high soprano, or sexy like a raspy radio girl. But it was my voice, and I was fine with it.

It reminds me of a chapter in one of Pema Chodron's books, on making friends with ourselves. On how if we were to play back a video of ourselves we would cringe all the way through, seeing and hearing all that we do and say, observing ourselves the way others experience us, seeing all that we're blissfully unaware of in action.

I remember in about fifth grade our class went to Discovery World, an interactive science museum for kids. There were mirrors in one installation. They probably distorted reflections in different ways, I don't remember. But there was one mirror with a sign that said, "See yourself the way others see you."

I didn't want to look.

I don't know what mystic power I thought that mirror had, what unsightly image full of physical flaws and character faults it would shine back at me. But it turns out it just showed us what we looked like to other people. Rather than reflecting a mirror image, when I raised my right hand, so did my reflection.

It was nothing scary. It was just me. But man, I didn't want to look. It's hard to swallow how others perceive us -- how they take us in in ways unaware to us.

I have a favorite pair of jeans. I love how they feel after an hour's worth of post-washing wear. They're snug with stretch, dark blue, and as comfy a pair of jeans can be. I'd wear them every day if I could.

But I'm not really sure how they look. I don't have a full-length mirror in the house, and I find that when I do catch my full reflection out and about, I'm always unpleasantly startled. That's what I look like?

Apparently, I feel better than I look.

It's ridiculous, really. This overly-critical voice in our heads that we reserve only for ourselves. We'd never be so hard on somebody else. So I finally realized, I just need to stop looking -- stop looking at myself through the distorted hall of mirrors where I perceive the way others perceive me, and instead go with how I feel, with what fits, whether it's old and familiar or brand new.

I'm coming to accept myself with more kindness. All of me -- I am who I am, and the so-called negative can't be stripped away from the positive or I wouldn't be me.

There was something comforting about rifling through those bins. The familiar smell and feel of bits of me and who I've been. I paw through, in a search for one thing but discovering more, perfect fits all but forgotten. I dig out a few and I carry them with me. I try them on, slip into a few more layers I had forgotten all about, and find they fit just right.

I'm surprised by how it easy it is, how natural it feels, how comfortable a fit is the familiar when I see it without judgment, and just let it be what it is.

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turn the dial

The other day I wrote on facebook:

Thank you, Ke$ha, for taking my mind off the heavy things of life. 

(Dudes, sometimes you just have to turn the radio dial.)

I am politically aware and engaged in politics at the local, state and national levels. I read the news, I discuss with friends and family, I listen to progressive talk radio every morning.

But sometimes I can't hold the weight of the world before I'm fully caffeinated and so I turn the dial on my drive to work from the latest antics of our state or federal representatives and the havoc they're wreaking to the hip hop/jams station, which our beloved nanny programmed into our presets. (One of the longest lasting unintentional gifts I've received.) 

Usually a distraction and even an energizer, sometimes there's a gem that pops up in rotation that hits that perfect mix of what I would be listening to if I left it to the politicos and what I'm needing in the release of music. 

And it's not even the first time Will.i.am made me cry.

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weekend

The day started with John heading out to paddle and fish with a buddy, the big boys munching dry cereal in front of cartoons while the baby and I slept in until 8:30 (!!). 

Eli and Axel never made it fully out of their pajamas, and I sipped my coffee all day long. 

This evening we all hung out in the front yard and I marveled at how completely Axel can hold his own with these guys. 

Bye-bye, Baby. 

I'm thinking it's a good thing John's the one home full-time now... I honestly don't know if I could keep up.

always swingin'...

always running....

hug/wrestle/hug/wrestle

(notice the fist)

omg his face.

cheeks and lashes

that smile....

that grin....

the thumb...

A full-time job has taken working for the weekend to a whole new level. 

I am relishing these lazy, boy-crazed days.

Happy weekend, friends. I hope you're out there doing what you love with your people.

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time-lapse

I snuggle in bed next to him and he knows I'm too tired to tell a story tonight so for once, for once, he lets me off the hook from the usual magic metal pipes hiding under chimney bricks that lead alternately to underground lairs or to Mars. I curl into a parenthesis around his comma and I am bursting from my heart, out my eyes, through my arms -- none of me can contain the simultaneous blend of joyful-love and inexplicable longing. Longing for the impossibility of letting them grow while holding them here, longing for them to always feel this safe and this happy, longing for them to always love me as much, as fiercely, as fully, as uncomplicated-ly as they do right now. It's a drink that puckers my lips but leaves the sweetest aftertaste, this conflicting concoction of sheer joy and crushing weight.

I tell him a couple minutes more and he says count to 200 and I tell him I'm too tired to count out-loud and he says I will. And he does, this the first time I hear him soldier on past one hundred and I remember my father telling me how he remembers the moment in which he realized that he could always add just one more number and keep counting on and on as high as forever, and I think of my four-year-old and wonder if he'll remember these quiet nights in the dark, the swell of pride, the welling up of confidence, the delight of discovery as he counts in his perfectly articulated one-hun-dred-and-twen-ty-two, one-hun-dred-and-twen-ty-three, one-hun-dred-and-twen-ty-four....


My oldest son doesn't sing, he claims he can't sing, and three nights ago he laid in the dark and let melody spill out from his soul. They are learning Woody Guthrie in music class, and this seven year old boy was smitten with the redwood forests and the Gulf Stream waters. We blended voices and sang verse after verse back to chorus again in the dark and I told him it makes me so happy to hear you sing, and he said I really like the song and I like the way the guy's voice sounds when he sings it, the guy who wrote the song and I smile in the dark remembering that I played the guy's music for him as a toddler at naps and bedtime and I wonder if somewhere in his subconscious he remembers this, and I ask him why he wouldn't sing before and he says that this is the first time I like the way my voice sounds. I like how it sounds when I sing this song. And he tells me how another seven year old complains when the class sings that they are off-key but my boy tells me as sure as he's ever been about anything that it doesn't matter if you know the tune, it only matters that you're singing loud and having fun. We talk about how music touches our hearts, he tells me how it makes him feel good to sing, how the music is like a good kind of poison and when I tell my husband, he says like a drug? and I know that what they've said about music all of these years is true and I feel the swelling and the tightening, grateful for teachers and music that touch the hearts and souls of little boys.

My littlest calls to me in the depths of my sleep and I go to him, lifting him up and close, tucking him in beside me and he whispers roll over and I do, as I have done since he was the teeniest of babes, but this time without nursing him first, and my back is to his tiny body, his little fingers twirling my hair until his fist is at my scalp and thumb in mouth he mumbles I love you, Mama and together we drift, weightless.

They bloom before my own two eyes, in all their time-lapse brilliance.

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story

It's 9:00pm. I just read through my piece for Listen To Your Mother in front of the mirror, and then again for my patient husband. I finally picked out something to wear for the show that won't make me either disappear into the dark background of the stage or create the illusion that I am naked behind the podium. I'm think I'm good to go.

I'm really excited for the show -- to share my piece and its message, to listen to my fellow cast mates, to listen to the audience, three or even four generations of (mostly) women, as they laugh and cry and sigh with the recognition of seeing themselves in the stories that pour out from the microphone.

I'm excited for the show because it is so important, so valuable, for mothers -- for women -- to share our stories with each other. For us to reflect light into the shadows, the hidden or forgotten parts of each other's lives, for us to start seeing our commonalities and our uniqueness, for us to stop judging and start remembering that every person out there carries a story with her everywhere she goes. For us to realize that we each have a story to tell. One worth telling. Worth hearing.

I think that if we were all more open, more honest about what we carry around in our heart's pockets that there would be far less judgment, less envy, less hurt, less worry. If we shared our vulnerabilities and our humanness, our unpolished, imperfect selves; then we could all stop trying to measure ourselves against the false ideal that is really just a conglomerate of the best parts of every woman.

The most gratifying part of writing publicly is the notes or whispers that tell me, I feel that way too but never had the words to describe it, or thank you for articulating something that I hadn't even realized I was feeling, or I feel so much better knowing I'm not the only one.


This phenomenon is not unique to me. If you start sharing your stories, you will understand and be understood. You will relieve and feel relief. You will feel less alone and help someone else realize that she is not alone. You will give and receive so much more than you ever expected.

Sharing stories is an act of empathy, of joy, of validation and compassion.

That's why I'm so excited for the Listen To Your Mother Show. I cannot wait.

Me and my mama, who I always listen to.

:::

A couple of things - two friends of mine wrote honest and beautiful posts about motherhood on their blogs that I want to share with you. While I am in a different place in my life, working full-time for over a year now and so not feeling like I need or want a break from my kids or the never-ending work that comes with being the full-time at-home parent, I do understand and appreciate (and remember) what they're writing about, and I think it's so important that other mothers (especially those who stay home full-time caring for really little kids) have the chance to read such honest portrayals of the feelings and ambivalence that often comes with that phase of life.

Tracey on Some Mother's Day Ambivalence

and Jo at This One's For the Mom's Who Fake It 'til They Make It

Also - if you feel compelled to write down one of your stories about motherhood -- being a mother, having a mother, losing a mother, longing to be a mother, anything -- share it on your blog or even write it as a note on facebook and link it up to the virtual Listen To Your Mother Show. Mothers and other women from around the world are sharing and reading each other's stories, and we'd love for you to be part of it, or at the least, check it out. 

Happy Mother's Day, friends. Now go listen. Go tell your story.

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Listen to Your Mother

I can't believe that I haven't mentioned it here yet, but I am thrilled to be part of the cast for LISTEN TO YOUR MOTHER:MADISON this weekend -- Sunday -- MOTHER'S DAY -- May 8 at 3:00pm at The Barrymore. Billed as 'readings by local writers on motherhood', the show is so much more than the feel-good mushiness of a greeting card. Creator, director and producer Ann Imig explains it beautifully on the Listen to Your Mother Show blog, and I share a few of her words here below:

LTYM, like motherhood, is about process over product. It is not about polish, but rather about that unfinished, unvarnished, authentic beauty that happens when you make room for something bigger by letting go. The spirit of LTYM exists all around us—in that one friend you tell how you really are today, in an experienced mom leveling with a new mom about how NO ONE really knows the answers, in that moment when you understand for the first time why your Mom was tense so much of the time, because now you are too. The task of the LTYM shows is to provide the space where we can live that energy, that commonality, and those moments together out loud.

As bloggers we’re inundated with stories of honesty and vulnerability. This dialogue does not take place with such prevalence--and out in the open for all to see--in our real parenting lives. Many people who will come to see an LTYM show or watch the videos online do not have people in their life who will offer up their truth as a gift for anyone willing to listen.

Like life and motherhood, LTYM’s light is in the cracks—at this jagged edge--that vulnerable space we don’t plan for, and maybe even try to erase in pursuit of perfection. We’ve all done our work. Now let’s go give this gift, and leave that package split wide open, rough edges exposed, bow untied--ribbon unfurled, splayed and split--fragments weaving from the stage, up and down the aisles, to every person and out the doors and into our cities.

Our communities need it, and so do we.

Happy Mother's Day, Mamas.
If you're local, I hope to see you there. 


(click here for ticket info)

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the world is watching

"Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that." - Martin Luther King, Jr.


I understand the range of emotion. But I am uneasy by some of what I have seen and heard. Patriotism skates close to the edge of something scary. And there are questions, hard questions. About justice and revenge, wars still waging, accountability.

I had lunch today with four colleagues in our office break room. One from Denmark, another from Spain, a Canadian woman, and another American.

The world is watching.

I am uneasy with what are giving them to see.

...

"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy." - Anonymous

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